hwest wind, arose
above the plain like a column of smoke, and vanished in an instant.
Toward this point he directed his steps; the noise increased as he
approached, and soon became too tremendous to be mistaken for anything
but the Great Falls of the Missouri. Having travelled seven miles after
first hearing the sound, he reached the falls about twelve o'clock. The
hills as he approached were difficult of access and two hundred feet
high. Down these he hurried with impatience; and, seating himself on
some rocks under the centre of the falls, enjoyed the sublime spectacle
of this stupendous object, which since the creation had been lavishing
its magnificence upon the desert, unknown to civilization.

"The river immediately at this cascade is three hundred yards wide, and
is pressed in by a perpendicular cliff on the left, which rises to about
one hundred feet and extends up the stream for a mile; on the right the
bluff is also perpendicular for three hundred yards above the falls. For
ninety or one hundred yards from the left cliff, the water falls in
one smooth, even sheet, over a precipice of at least eighty feet.
The remaining part of the river precipitates itself with a more rapid
current, but being received as it falls by the irregular and somewhat
projecting rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white
foam, two hundred yards in length and eighty in perpendicular elevation.
This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying up in
columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which are then oppressed by larger
masses of the white foam, on all of which the sun impresses the
brightest colors of the rainbow. Below the fall the water beats with
fury against a ledge of rocks, which extends across the river at one
hundred and fifty yards from the precipice. From the perpendicular cliff
on the north to the distance of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks
are only a few feet above the water; and, when the river is high, the
stream finds a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher
parts of the ledge, which rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly
within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. Between them and
the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with
great swiftness. A few small cedars grow near this ridge of rocks, which
serves as a barrier to defend a small plain of about three acres, shaded
with cottonwood; at the lower extremity of which is a gro