Lewis: May 31, 1805

Friday May 31st 1805. This morning we proceeded at an early hour with the
two perogues leaving the canoes and crews to bring on the meat of the two
buffaloe that were killed last evening and which had not been brought in
as it was late and a little off the river. soon after we got under way it
began to rain and continued untill meridian when it ceased but still
remained cloudy through the ballance of the day. The obstructions of rocky
points and riffles still continue as yesterday; at those places the men
are compelled to be in the water even to their armpits, and the water is
yet very could, and so frequent are those point that they are one fourth
of their time in the water, added to this the banks and bluffs along which
they are obliged to pass are so slippery and the mud so tenacious that
they are unable to wear their mockersons, and in that situation draging
the heavy burthen of a canoe and walking ocasionally for several hundred
yards over the sharp fragments of rocks which tumble from the clifts and
garnish the borders of the river; in short their labour is incredibly
painfull and great, yet those faithfull fellows bear it without a murmur.
The toe rope of the white perogue, the only one indeed of hemp, and that
on which we most depended, gave way today at a bad point, the perogue
swung and but slightly touched a rock, yet was very near overseting; I
fear her evil gennii will play so many pranks with her that she will go to
the bottomm some of those days.Capt. C. walked on shore this
morning but found it so excessively bad that he shortly returned. at 12
OCk. we came too for refreshment and gave the men a dram which they
received with much cheerfullness, and well deserved.

The hills and river Clifts which we passed today exhibit a most romantic
appearance. The bluffs of the river rise to the hight of from 2 to 300
feet and in most places nearly perpendicular; they are formed of
remarkable white sandstone which is sufficiently soft to give way readily
to the impression of water; two or thre thin horizontal stratas of white
free-stone, on which the rains or water make no impression, lie imbeded in
these clifts of soft stone near the upper part of them; the earth on the
top of these Clifts is a dark rich loam, which forming a graduly ascending
plain extends back from 1/2 a mile to a mile where the hills commence and
rise abruptly to a hight of about 300 feet more. The water in the course
of time in decending from those hills and plains on either side of the
river has trickled down the soft sand clifts and woarn it into a thousand
grotesque figures, which with the help of a little immagination and an
oblique view at a distance, are made to represent eligant ranges of lofty
freestone buildings, having their parapets well stocked with statuary;
collumns of various sculpture both grooved and plain, are also seen
supporting long galleries in front of those buildings; in other places on
a much nearer approach and with the help of less immagination we see the
remains or ruins of eligant buildings; some collumns standing and almost
entire with their pedestals and capitals; others retaining their pedestals
but deprived by time or accident of their capitals, some lying prostrate
an broken othes in the form of vast pyramids of connic structure bearing a
sereis of other pyramids on their tops becoming less as they ascend and
finally terminating in a sharp point. nitches and alcoves of various forms
and sizes are seen at different hights as we pass. a number of the small
martin which build their nests with clay in a globular form attatched to
the wall within those nitches, and which were seen hovering about the tops
of the collumns did not the less remind us of some of those large stone
buildings in the U States. the thin stratas of hard freestone intermixed
with the soft sandstone seems to have aided the water in forming this
curious scenery. As we passed on it seemed as if those seens of visionary
inchantment would never have and end; for here it is too that nature
presents to the view of the traveler vast ranges of walls of tolerable
workmanship, so perfect indeed are those walls that I should have thought
that nature had attempted here to rival the human art of masonry had I not
recollected that she had first began her work. These walls rise to the
hight in many places of 100 feet, are perpendicular, with two regular
faces and are from one to 12 feet thick, each wall retains the same
thickness at top which it possesses at bottom. The stone of which these
walls are formed is black, dence and dureable, and appears to be composed
of a large portion of earth intermixed or cemented with a small quantity
of sand and a considerable portion of talk or quarts. these stones are
almost invariably regular parallelepipeds, of unequal sizes in the walls,
but equal in their horizontal ranges, at least as to debth. these are laid
regularly in ranges on each other like bricks, each breaking or covering
the interstice of the two on which it rests. thus the purpendicular
interstices are broken, and the horizontal ones extend entire throughout
the whole extent of the walls. These stones seem to bear some proportion
to the thickness of the walls in which they are employed, being larger in
the thicker walls; the greatest length of the parallelepiped appears to
form the thickness of the thiner walls, while two or more are employed to
form that of the thicker walls. These walls pass the river in several
places, rising from the water’s edge much above the sandstone bluffs,
which they seem to penetrate; thence continuing their course on a streight
line on either side of the river through the gradually ascending plains,
over which they tower to the hight of from ten to seventy feet until) they
reach the hills, which they finally enter and conceal themselves. these
walls sometimes run parallel to each other, with several ranges near each
other, and at other times interscecting each other at right angles, having
the appearance of the walls of ancient houses or gardens. I walked on
shore this evening and examined these walls minutely and preserved a
specimine of the stone. I found the face of many of the river hills formed
of Clifts of very excellent free stone of a light yellowish brown colour;
on these clifts I met with a species of pine which I had never seen, it
differs from the pitchpine in the particular of it’s leaf and cone, the
first being vastly shorter, and the latter considerably longer and more
pointed. I saw near those bluffs the most beautiful) fox that I ever
beheld, the colours appeared to me to be a fine orrange yellow, white and
black, I endevoured to kill this anamal but it discovered me at a
considerable distance, and finding that I could get no nearer, I fired on
him as he ran, and missed him; he concealed himself under the rocks of the
clift; it appeared to me to be about the size of the common red fox of the
Atlantic states, or reather smaller than the large fox common to this
country; convinced I am that it is a distinct species. The appearance of
coal continues but in small quantities, but little appearance of birnt
hills or pumice stones the mineral salts have in some measure abated and
no quarts. we saw a great number of the Bighorn some mule deer and a few
buffaloe and Elk, no antelopes or common deer. Drewyer who was with me and
myself killed two bighorned anamals; the sides of the Clifts where these
anamals resort much to lodg, have the peculiar smell of the sheepfolds.
the party killed in addition to our hunt 2 buffaloe and an Elk. the river
today has been from 150 to 250 yds. wide but little timber today on the
river.