Table lands at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
In endeavoring to explore these Alpine heights, and the sources of the Red and Arkansaw rivers, Captain Pike and his party were bewildered amidst snows, and torrents, and precipices. The cold was so intense, that several of the party had their limbs frostbitten, and were obliged to be abandoned to their fate, by Pike and his surviving companions. In a lateral ridge, separating the valley of the Arkansaw from that of the Platte river, in north latitude forty-one degrees, is a remarkable peak, called the Great White Mountain; so remarkable, indeed, as to be known to all the savage tribes for hundreds of miles round, and spoken of in terms of admiration by the Spaniards of New Mexico, and which formed the boundary of their knowledge to the north-west. The altitude of this peak was taken on the base of a mile by Pike, and found to be ten thousand five hundred and eighty-one feet above the level of the meadow at its foot; and the height of this latter was estimated at eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; in all, eighteen thousand five hundred and eighty-one feet of absolute elevation; being six thousand feet higher than the peak of Teneriffe, by Humboldt’s measurement; or two thousand eight hundred and ninety-one feet short of that of Chimborazo, admitting the elevation of this last to be twenty-one thousand four hundred and seventy-two feet. Captain Pike and his companions never lost sight of this tremendous peak, unless in a valley, for the space of ten weeks, wandering amongst the mountains. What is the elevation at the sources of the Missouri can only be matter of mere conjecture. The level of the river, where they left their canoes, could not be less than six thousand feet above the sea; but how high the mountains rose above this point the narrative does not inform us, and hardly gives us any data to decide. The central chain, as usual, is marked in the map as highest, and covered with snow during the whole year. The latitude is between forty-five and forty-seven degrees; and between these parallels, in Europe, the lower limit of perpetual congelation is fixed at from nine to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; and it can hardly be supposed that the summits of this snowy range were less than eight thousand five hundred or nine thousand feet high, making a reasonable allowance for the greater coldness of the American continent. Captain Clarke allows this central range to be sixty miles across, and that the shortest road across the different ranges is at least one hundred and forty miles, besides two hundred miles more, before we can reach a navigable river. In their first passage across these tremendous mountains, the American party suffered every thing which hunger, cold, and fatigue, could impose, during three weeks. They were compelled to melt the snow for their portable soup; many of their horses (which they used for conveying their baggage, or for riding,) were foundered by falls from precipices; the men became feeble through excessive toil, and sickly from want of food, as there are no wild animals in these inhospitable regions; and, but for an occasional meal of horse flesh, the whole party must have perished. In returning home from the mouth of the Columbia, their state was little better. Having again come in sight of the mountains, in the middle of May, they attempted to pass them but in vain, on account of the snow, which lay from six to ten feet deep, and were obliged to return, and rest in the plains to the twenty-fourth of June. These mountains are, therefore, a far more formidable barrier to the Pacific, than the Alleghanies to the back country, and can be passed with great difficulty only for three months in the year, namely, from the latter end of June to the latter end of September.
We are indebted to the Missouri Advocate for the following account of General Ashley’s discoveries in this quarter. He considers it quite possible to form a route across this formidable barrier to the Pacific Ocean. The route proposed, after leaving St. Louis, and passing generally on the north side of the Missouri river, strikes the river Platte, a short distance above its junction with the Missouri; then pursues the waters of the Platte to their sources, and, in continuation, crosses the head-waters of what General Ashley believes to be the Rio Colorado of the west, and strikes, for the first time, a ridge or single connecting chain of mountains, running from north to south. This however presents no difficulty, as a wide gap is found apparently prepared for the purpose of a passage. After passing this gap, the route proposed falls directly on a river, called by George Ashley the Buenaventura, and runs from that river to the Pacific Ocean. The face of the country, in general, is a continuation of high, rugged, and barren mountains; the summits of which are either timbered with pine, quaking-asp, or cedar; or, in fact, almost entirely destitute of vegetation. Other parts are hilly and undulating; and the valleys and table-lands (except on the borders of water-courses, which are more or less timbered with cotton-wood and willows,) are destitute of wood; but this indispensable article is substituted by an herb, called by the hunters wild sage, which grows from one to five feet high, and is found in great abundance in most parts of the country. The sterility of the country generally is almost incredible. That part of it, however, bounded by the three ranges of mountains, and watered by the sources of the supposed Buenaventura, is less sterile; yet the proportion of arable land, even within those limits, is comparatively small; and no district of the country visited by General Ashley, or of which he obtained satisfactory information, offers inducements to civilized people, sufficient to justify an expectation of permanent settlement. The river visited by General Ashley, and which he believes to be the Rio Colorado of the west, is, at about fifty miles from its most northern source, eighty yards wide. At this point, General Ashley embarked and descended the river, which gradually increased in width to one hundred and eighty yards. In passing through the mountains, the channel is contracted to fifty or sixty yards, and so much obstructed by rocks as to make its descent extremely dangerous, and its ascent impracticable. After descending this river about four hundred miles, General Ashley shaped his course northwardly, and fell upon what he supposed to be the sources of the Buenaventura; he represents those branches as bold streams, from twenty to fifty yards wide, forming a junction a few miles below where he crossed them, and then emptying into a lake (called Grand Lake,) represented by the Indians as being forty or fifty miles wide, and sixty or seventy miles long. This information is strengthened by that of the white hunters, who have explored parts of the lake. The Indians represent, that at the extreme west end of this lake, a large river flows out, and runs in a westward direction. General Ashley, when on those waters, at first thought it probable they were the sources of the Multnomah: but the account given by the Indians, supported by the opinion of some men belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, confirms him in the belief, that they are the head-waters of the river represented as the Buenaventura. To the north and north-west from the Grand Lake, the country is represented as abounding in salt. The Indians west of the mountains are remarkably well disposed towards the citizens of the United States; the Eutaws and Flatheads are particularly so, and express a great wish that the Americans should visit them frequently.
A large number of lateral ranges project to the south-east, east, and north-east of the main range. Where the Missouri enters the plains, is the most eastern projection; and from where the Jaune leaves the snowy range, there is a lateral range, running more than two hundred miles south-east, which is intersected by the Bighorn river. As these mountains have not yet been explored by the eye of geological science, it is impossible to say any thing respecting their component parts; but, from every thing that we can learn from Pike and Clarke, they seem to be chiefly granitic. No volcanoes have yet been discovered amongst them; but strange unusual noises were heard from the mountains, by the American party, when stationed above the falls of the Missouri. These sounds seemed to come from the north-west. ‘Since our arrival at the falls,’ says the narrative, ‘we have repeatedly heard a strange noise coming from the mountains, a little to the north of west. It is heard at different periods of the day and night: sometimes when the air is perfectly still and unclouded, and consists of one stroke only, or of five or six discharges in quick succession. It is loud, and resembles precisely the sound of a six pounder at the distance of three miles. The Indians had before mentioned this noise like thunder, but we had paid no attention to it. The watermen also of the party say, that the Pawnees and Ricaras give the same account of a similar noise made in the Black Mountains, to the westward of them.’ Again, near the same place, it is afterwards said: ‘They heard, about sunset, two discharges of the tremendous mountain artillery.’ Not a word more occurs upon the subject; but we know that similar explosions take place among the mountains near the head of the Washita, and among the mountains of Namhi, near the sources of the Red river.
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