d to
unload and dry it. The wind abated at five o'clock in the evening, when
he again proceeded eight miles and encamped. The next morning,

Sunday, July 14, he joined us about noon. On leaving the Whitebear camp
he passed at a short distance a little creek or run coming in on the
left. This had been already examined and called Flattery run; it
contains back water only, with very extensive low grounds, which rising
into large plains reach the mountains on the east; then passed a willow
island on the left within one mile and a half, and reached two miles
further a cliff of rocks in a bend on the same side. In the course of
another mile and a half he passed two islands covered with cottonwood,
box-alder, sweet-willow, and the usual undergrowth, like that of the
Whitebear islands. At thirteen and three quarter miles he came to the
mouth of a small creek on the left; within the following nine miles he
passed three timbered islands, and after making twenty-three and a
quarter miles from the lower camp, arrived at the point of woodland on
the north where the canoes were constructed.

The day was fair and warm; the men worked very industriously, and were
enabled by the evening to lanch the boats, which now want only seats and
oars to be complete. One of them is twenty-five, the other thirty-three
feet in length and three feet wide. Captain Lewis walked out between
three and four miles over the rocky bluffs to a high situation, two
miles from the river, a little below Fort Mountain creek. The country
which he saw was in most parts level, but occasionally became varied by
gentle rises and descents, but with no timber except along the water.
From this position, the point at which the Missouri enters the first
chain of the Rocky mountains bore south 28 degrees west about
twenty-five miles, according to our estimate.

The northern extremity of that chain north 73 degrees west at the
distance of eighty miles.

To the same extremity of the second chain north 65 degrees west one
hundred and fifty miles.

To the most remote point of a third and continued chain of these
mountains north 50 degrees west about two hundred miles.

The direction of the first chain was from south 20 degrees east to north
20 degrees west; of the second, from south 45 degrees east to north 45
degrees west; but the eye could not reach their southern extremities,
which most probably may be traced to Mexico. In a course south 75
degrees west, and at the dis