The Journals
of Lewis and Clark: Dates June 15, 1805 - June 18, 1805
The following
excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis
and Clark. Dates: June 15, 1805 - June 18, 1805
June 15, 1805
Saturday, 15. The morning being warm and fair we set out
at the usual hour, but proceeded with great difficulty in
consequence of the increased rapidity of the current. The
channel is constantly obstructed by rocks and dangerous
rapids. During the whole progress the men are in the water
hauling the canoes, and walking on sharp rocks and round
stones which cut their feet or cause them to fall. The rattlesnakes
too are so numerous that the men are constantly on their
guard against being bitten by them; yet they bear the fatigues
with the most undiminished cheerfulness. We hear the roar
of the falls very distinctly this morning. At three and
three quarter miles we came to a rock in a bend to the south,
resembling a tower. At six and three quarter miles we reached
a large creek on the south, which after one of our men we
called Shield's creek. It is rapid in its course, about
thirty yards wide, and on sending a person five miles up
it proved to have a fall of fifteen feet, and some timber
on its low ground. Above this river the bluffs of the Missouri
are of red earth mixed with strata's of black stone; below
it we passed some white clay in the banks which mixes with
water in every respect like flour. At three and three quarter
miles we reached a point on the north opposite an island
and a bluff; and one mile and a quarter further, after passing
some red bluffs, came to on the north side, having made
twelve miles. Here we found a rapid so difficult that we
did not think proper to attempt the passage this evening,
and therefore sent to Captain Lewis to apprise him of our
arrival. We saw a number of geese, ducks, crows, and blackbirds
to-day, the two former with their young. The river rose
a little this evening, but the timber is still so scarce
that we could not procure enough for our use during the
night.
June 16, 1805
Sunday, June 16. Some rain fell last night, and this
morning the weather was cloudy and the wind high from the
southwest. We passed the rapid by doubly manning the pirogue
and canoes, and halted at the distance of a mile and a quarter
to examine the rapids above, which we found to be a continued
succession of cascades as far as the view extended, which
was about two miles. About a mile above where we halted
was a large creek falling in on the south, opposite to which
is a large sulphur spring falling over the rocks on the
north: Captain Lewis arrived at two from the falls about
five miles above us, and after consulting upon the subject
of the portage, we crossed the river and formed a camp on
the north, having come three quarters of a mile to-day.
From our own observation we had deemed the south side to
be the most favorable for a portage, but two men sent out
for the purpose of examining it, reported that the creek
and the ravines intersected the plain so deeply that it
was impossible to cross it. Captain Clarke therefore resolved
to examine more minutely what was the best route: the four
canoes were unloaded at the camp and then sent across the
river, where by means of strong cords they were hauled over
the first rapid, whence they may be easily drawn into the
creek. Finding too, that the portage would be at all events
too long to enable us to carry the boats on our shoulders,
six men were set to work to make wheels for carriages to
transport them. Since leaving Maria's river the wife of
Charbonneau, our interpreter, has been dangerously ill,
but she now found great relief from the mineral water of
the sulphur spring. It is situated about two hundred yards
from the Missouri, into which it empties over a precipice
of rock about twenty-five feet high. The water is perfectly
transparent, strongly impregnated with sulphur, and we suspect
iron also, as the color of the hills and bluffs in the neighborhood
indicates the presence of that metal. In short the water
to all appearance is precisely similar to that of Bowyer's
sulphur spring in Virginia.
June 17, 1805
Monday 17. Captain Clarke set out with five men to
explore the country; the rest were employed in hunting,
making wheels and in drawing the five canoes and all the
baggage up the creek, which we now called Portage creek:
from this creek there is a gradual ascent to the top of
the high plain, while the bluffs of the creek lower down
and of the Missouri, both above and below its entrance,
were so steep as to have rendered it almost impracticable
to drag them up from the Missouri. We found great difficulty
and some danger in even ascending the creek thus far, in
consequence of the rapids and rocks of the channel of the
creek, which just above where we brought the canoes has
a fall of five feet, and high and sleep bluffs beyond it:
we were very fortunate in finding just below Portage creek
a cottonwood tree about twenty-two inches in diameter, and
large enough to make the carriage wheels; it was perhaps
the only one of the same size within twenty miles; and the
cottonwood, which we are obliged to employ in the other
parts of the work, is extremely soft and brittle. The mast
of the white pirogue which we mean to leave behind, supplied
us with two axletrees. There are vast quantities of buffalo
feeding in the plains or watering in the river, which is
also strewed with the floating carcasses and limbs of these
animals. They go in large herds to water about the falls,
and as all the passages to the river near that place are
narrow and steep, the foremost are pressed into the river
by the impatience of those behind. In this way we have seen
ten or a dozen disappear over the falls in a few minutes.
They afford excellent food for the wolves, bears, and birds
of prey; and this circumstance may account for the reluctance
of the bears to yield their dominion over the neighborhood.
June 18, 1805
Tuesday 18. The pirogue was drawn up a little below
our camp and secured in a thick copse of willow bushes.
We now began to form a cache or place of deposit and to
dry our goods and other articles which required inspection.
The wagons too are completed. Our hunters brought us ten
deer, and we shot two out of a herd of buffalo that came
to water at the sulphur spring. There is a species of gooseberry
growing abundantly among the rocks on the sides of the cliffs:
it is now ripe, of a pale red color, about the size of the
common gooseberry, and like it is an ovate pericarp of soft
pulp enveloping a number of small whitish colored seeds,
and consisting of a yellowish slimy mucilaginous substance,
with a sweet taste; the surface of the berry is covered
with a glutinous adhesive matter, and its fruit though ripe
retains its withered corolla. The shrub itself seldom rises
more than two feet high, is much branched, and has no thorns.
The leaves resemble those of the common gooseberry except
in being smaller, and the berry is supported by separate
peduncles or footstalks half an inch long. There are also
immense quantities of grasshoppers of a brown color in the
plains, and they no doubt contribute to the lowness of the
grass, which is not generally more than three inches high,
though it is soft, narrow-leafed and affords a fine pasture
for the buffalo.
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