been killed yesterday, captain Lewis
proceeded to examine the rapids above. From the falls he directed his
course southwest up the river: after passing one continued rapid, and
three small cascades, each three or four feet high, he reached at the
distance of five miles a second fall. The river is about four hundred
yards wide, and for the distance of three hundred throws itself over to
the depth of nineteen feet, and so irregularly that he gave it the name
of the Crooked falls. From the southern shore it extends obliquely
upwards about one hundred and fifty yards, and then forms an acute angle
downwards nearly to the commencement of four small islands close to the
northern side. From the perpendicular pitch to these islands, a distance
of more than one hundred yards, the water glides down a sloping rock
with a velocity almost equal to that of its fall. Above this fall the
river bends suddenly to the northward: while viewing this place captain
Lewis heard a loud roar above him, and crossing the point of a hill for
a few hundred yards, he saw one of the most beautiful objects in nature:
the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which
without a single niche and with an edge as straight and regular as if
formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other
for at least a quarter of a mile. Over this it precipitates itself in an
even uninterrupted sheet to the perpendicular depth of fifty feet,
whence dashing against the rocky bottom it rushes rapidly down, leaving
behind it a spray of the purest foam across the river. The scene which
it presented was indeed singularly beautiful, since without any of the
wild irregular sublimity of the lower falls, it combined all the regular
elegances which the fancy of a painter would select to form a beautiful
waterfall. The eye had scarcely been regaled with this charming
prospect, when at the distance of half a mile captain Lewis observed
another of a similar kind: to this he immediately hastened, and found a
cascade stretching across the whole river for a quarter of a mile with a
descent of fourteen feet, though the perpendicular pitch was only six
feet. This too in any other neighborhood would have been an object of
great magnificence, but after what he had just seen it became of
secondary interest; his curiosity being however awakened, he determined
to go on even should night overtake him to the head of the falls. He
therefore pursued the southwes