which extends far above the junction of the two forks. Its channel is wide but very shallow. It waters an immense region and serves as its sewer."
The Platte has its several sources in the Black Hills, the Wind River Mountains and other ranges north and south. It flows through a great valley whose tributaries connect with those leading into Colorado, the valley of Great Salt Lake and to the Rocky Mountains. From its valley one may pass by connecting routes to Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon and the Territories of Washington, Idaho and Montana. The valley of the Platte has become the Golden Gate, or the great highway which leads to the gold mines of those several countries.
The White river flows out of the Black Hills and drains the Bad Lands of Dakota of which I have given a description in a former letter.
L'Eau qui Court, or the Niobrara, owes its name to its rapid current. It also rises in the Black Hills and finds its ultimate source in an elevated peak called Rawhide Butte, toward the plains of Fort Laramie. It flows through a sterile, sandy region called the Sand Hills.
James river, Dakota, and the Big Sioux rise in groups of lakes on the high prairies, in the region of Devils' Lake, latitude 48° north."
The most remarkable butte along that portion of the Missouri now under consideration is Blackbird Hill, named
15 This is true only of the James river. The Big Sioux rises much farther south, near the sources of Minnesota river and Red River of the North.