Colorado which, after winding its course through a gloomy and rocky desert, invigorates the most beautiful part of California.
The Missouri, properly so called, is formed by three considerable forks that unite their waters at the entrance of one of the passes of the Rocky Mountains. The north [west] fork is called the Jefferson, the south [east], the Gallatin, and the one between them the Madison. Each one of these is subdivided into several small arms that flow from the mountains and almost mingle their sources with those of the upper forks of the Columbia on the western side. I have drunk of both, distant only about fifty yards from each other ; for the same field of snow supplies both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
After the junction of the forks, the Missouri for a considerable distance becomes an impetuous and foaming torrent. Below this its bed is more spacious and its course more tranquil. Steep rocks of a black hue jut and rise above its current to a height of nearly 1,ooo feet. The mountains along whose base it runs are shaded by pines, cedars, fir and turpentine trees. Some of these mountains present a solitary aspect and wear a look of unspeakable grandeur. The river, for the space of seventeen miles, is seen raging and foaming, rolling from cataract to cataract with a roaring noise that is repeated by echoes from all the neighboring cliffs. The first of these cataracts measures ninety-eight feet in height; the second, nineteen; the third, forty-seven, and the fourth, twenty-six.2 Below the falls,
2 The series of cataracts and rapids here referred to commence at the city of Great Falls and continue about twenty miles; but the larger falls, of which there are four, Rainbow, Black Eagle, the Great Falls, and another, are included within a distance of ten miles. The total fall is upward of goo feet. The lower, or Great Fall, is about eighty-four feet high, and may be properly called the Niagara of the West. The magnificent water power afforded by these cataracts is being extensively used for industrial purposes.