Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean: Vol. 1, Pt. 2

TOPOGRAPHY OF ROUTE FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE COLUMBIA.
approaching some magnificent city of the dead, where the labor and genius of forgotten nations
had left behind them a multitude of monuments of art and skill.
"On drescending from the heights, however, and inspecting e in detail its deep intricaate recesses,
the realities of the scene soon dissipate the illusions of the distance. The castellated forms which
fancy had conjured up have vanished, and around one on every side is bleak and barren desolation. Then, too, if the exploration is made in midsummer, the scorching rays of the sun, pouring down in the hundred defiles that conduct the wayfarer through this pathless waste, are
reflected back from the white or ash-colored walls that rise around, unmitigated by a breath of
air or the shelter of a solitary shrub.
"The drooping spirits of the scorched geologist are not, however, permitted to flag. The
fossil treasures of the way well repay its dullness and fatigue."
The scientific explorer finds inexhaustible sources of interesting speculation, even in the midst
of these desolate wastes. But the curiosity of the mere tourist is soon sated in such arid and
gloomy wilds; he hastens to find again some grassy oasis and umbrageous shade, and remembers
the Mauvaises Terres as a very skeleton of nature, or the wreck of an embryonic world.
The character of the Missouri, and its facilities for navigation, will be fully developed, from the
States to the Falls, by the surveys of Lieutenants Donelson and Grover.
The streams flowing into the Missouri between Fort Union and Milk river are Little Muddy
river, a small stream with clay banks and clay and pebbly bottom, with underbrush in a few
places; it has a few branches heading in marshes, and mostly dry in sumnmer. Next, Big Muddy,
or Martha's river, a large sluggish stream in a soft clay bed, which keeps the water always
discolored and thick; it flows in a deeper valley than the others, and is everywhere difficult to
cross; it has no timber or underbrush except near the Missouri, and flows from side to side of its
narrow valley, making a series of regular and similar figures. Next, Poplar river, a rapid stream
over a sandy and pebbly bottom; it is pretty well fringed with poplar and cotton-wood, and
has a similar regularly sinuous course. Next, Porcupine river, in a sandy bed, and not much
water-scattered trees and underbrush near the Missouri. There are other smaller water-courses,
dry in summer.
All these streams head in the small lakes and marshes of the plateau, flowing nearly in right
angles to the Missouri. They have no great length of course, or anything calling for particular
notice, except that the deep valleys which they have scooped through the plateau oppose serious
obstructions to a direct line of travel, and make it necessary, or at least advisable, to keep along
the Missouri bottom.
Milk river joins the Missouri one hundred and five miles due west of Fort Union. Its direction
up stream is northwest for fifty-five miles, where it is joined by a considerable branch from the
north, which, like the main river, is fringed with cotton-wood; thence generally due west, for one
hundred and twenty-five miles; and again northwest, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty
niles, to its sources in the great prairies. It will be remembered that the distances stated would
probably be trebled by the sinuosities of the river, and are even less than the straightest lines
that could be drawn through the interval; the object being to present only a general view of the
most important features. Milk river-so named from the extraordinary whiteness of its water,
which is thick with chalky solution and fine sand-may be considered a miniature of the Missouri, resembling it in most particulars, and differing only in magnitude and one other point,
namely, that through more than its upper half the river-bed is apparently dry, the water percolating through the quicksands, which are of considerable depth, and occasionally forming deep
pools where water can always be procured. The running stream is seen again in the little
branches from the Three Buttes, and probably in other sources. A branch is supposed to head in
a considerable salt lake, called Pakokee, between the Three Buttes and Cypress mountain; but
this is not satisfactorily established. At the last turning point mentioned, it is joined by a small
fork, coming from the southwest about thirty miles, and heading in coulees within thirty miles (in
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