5
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
general trend of the river is to the southeast. About
noon we passed a very singular formation on the right; the strata of limestone
turned up edgewise formed a hill several hundred feet in height, on the
face of which the softer portions of the strata having been washed away
caused the more solid limestones to stand out from the hillside in two
immense walls, the crests of which were covered with stunted pine trees.
Near these a dark stratum of coal was visible, also a red stratum, reported
to be cinnabar, which we did not, however, examine. From this point to
the mouth of Gardiner's River, a distance of twelve miles, the valley was
full of original drift. The boulders were of Quincy granite, and, wherever
found, were worn off smooth as if by the action of water. The ground rose
rapidly as we proceeded, passing from a dead level alkali plain to a succession
of plateaus, covered
slightly with a sterile soil, through which the
limestones cropped out constantly. In many places deep ravines were worn
down in the strata by the waters from the melting snows; numerous springs
were seen far up on the mountain sides, but their waters sank among the
arid foot-hills without reaching the river. This desert region, inclosed
by mountains covered with verdure, and on the banks of a large stream,
is one of the anomalies common in the West, where the presence of limestones
or sandstones, in horizontal strata especially, almost always means want
of water, and consequent desolation. We camped at the mouth of Gardiner's
river, a large stream coming in through a deep and gloomy cañon
from the south. This was our first poor camping place, grass being very
scarce, and the slopes of the range covered entirely with sage brush. From
this camp was seen the smoke of fires on the mountains in front, while
Indian signs became more numerous and distinct. Many prospect holes of
miners were passed during the day, and several abandoned camps of the previous
year. The river at this point shrinks to half its usual size, lost among
the boulders of the drift, immense masses of which choke up the stream
in many places, forming alternate pools and rapids, which afforded great
delight to the fishermen of our party. Some of the huge masses of granite
into the bed of the stream are hollowed out by the action of the water
into many singular forms. We here found numerous specimens of petrified
wood, but no traces of fossils, except in the solid limestone of the higher
ledges. Two or three miles above, and on the opposite side of the Yellowstone
from this point, is the mouth of Bear Gulch, an almost inaccessible mining
district, not being worked at
present, but said to yield well during the season
of operations. Distance 18 miles.
Morning -- Barometer, 24,80; thermometer, 49°;
elevation, 5,215 feet. Noon -- Barometer, 23.10; thermometer, 72; elevation,
7,331 feet.
Fifth day -- August 26. -- We left camp
at 11 o'clock a.m., and crossed Gardiner's River, which at this point is
a mountain torrent about twenty yards wide and three feet in depth. We
kept the Yellowstone to our left, and finding the cañon impassable
passed over several high spurs coming down from the mountains, over which
the way was much obstructed by falling timber, and reached, at an elevation
of 7,331 feet, an immense rolling plateau extending as far as the eye could
reach. This elevated scope of country is about thirty miles in extent,
with a general declivity to the northward. Its surface is an undulated
prairie dotted with groves of pine and aspen. Numerous lakes are scattered
throughout its whole extent, and great numbers of springs, which flow down
the slopes and are lost in the volume of the Yellowstone. The river breaks
through this plateau in a winding and impassable cañon of trachyte
lava over 2,000 feet in depth; the middle cañon of the Yellowstone,
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