itself over a small pitch
of five feet, forms a beautiful cascade of twenty-six feet five inches;
this does not however fall immediately perpendicular, being stopped by a
part of the rock which projects at about one third of the distance.
After descending this fall, and passing the cottonwood island on which
the eagle has fixed its nest, the river goes on for five hundred and
thirty-two poles over rapids and little falls, the estimated descent of
which is thirteen feet six inches till it is joined by a large fountain
boiling up underneath the rocks near the edge of the river, into which
it falls with a cascade of eight feet. It is of the most perfect
clearness and rather of a bluish cast; and even after falling into the
Missouri it preserves its colour for half a mile. From this fountain the
river descends with increased rapidity for the distance of two hundred
and fourteen poles, during which the estimated descent is five feet from
this for a distance of one hundred and thirty-five poles, the river
descends fourteen feet seven inches including a perpendicular fall of
six feet seven inches. The river has now become pressed into a space of
four hundred and seventy-three yards, and here forms a grand cataract by
falling over a plain rock the whole distance across the river to the
depth of forty-seven feet eight inches: after recovering itself the
Missouri then proceeds with an estimated descent of three feet, till at
the distance of one hundred and two poles it again is precipitated down
the Crooked falls of nineteen feet perpendicular; below this at the
mouth of a deep ravine is a fall of five feet, after which for the
distance of nine hundred and seventy poles the descent is much more
gradual, not being more than ten feet, and then succeeds a handsome
level plain for the space of one hundred and seventy-eight poles with a
computed descent of three feet, making a bend towards the north. Thence
it descends during four hundred and eight poles, about eighteen feet and
a half, when it makes a perpendicular fall of two feet, which is ninety
poles beyond the great cataract, in approaching which it descends
thirteen feet within two hundred yards, and gathering strength from its
confined channel, which is only two hundred and eighty yards wide,
rushes over the fall to the depth of eighty-seven feet and three
quarters of an inch. After raging among the rocks and losing itself in
foam, it is compressed immediately into a bed of nin