A Book of the United States. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
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.
In our present state of ignorance respecting these mountains, it is impossible to give a solution of this phenomenon, though it may proceed from some distant volcano, which, like Stromboli, may be in a state of constant activity, but more irregularly. It is well known that the sounds of volcanoes are heard at very great distances, as at Guatimala, where the sound of the volcano of Cotopaxi was distinctly heard, though more than two hundred and twenty miles distant. Some indications of volcanoes had been seen by the American party, when ascending the river, about sixty miles below the mouth of the Little Missouri, where they passed several very high bluffs on the south side, one of which had been lately a burning volcano, as the pumice stones lay very thick around it, and emitted a strong sulphureous smell. Similar appearances are mentioned by Mackenzie, as taking place among the Rocky Mountains on their eastern side, in north latitude fifty-six and one hundred and twenty degrees west longitude. ‘Mr. Mackay,’ says he, ‘informed me, that in passing over the mountains, he observed several chasms in the earth that emitted heat and smoke, which diffused a strong sulphureous stench.’ From all these circumstances combined, it is natural to infer that the sound proceeds from some very distant and unknown volcano.
On the west side of the Mississippi, and about midway between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, lies a broad range of mountains, called the Ozarks, six or seven hundred miles in length, about one hundred broad, and having an elevation varying from one to two thousand feet above the sea. This range of low mountains, which is penetrated by two branches of the Mississippi, the Arkansas and Red river, was nearly altogether unknown till within these few years. It is parallel with the range of the Alleghanies, making an angle of about forty degrees with the great range of the Andes. As far as the Ozarks have yet been explored, the granites and older primitive rocks are found at the lowest part, being surmounted by those of more recent formation. The reverse of this is observed in the Rocky Mountains. A similar range of broken and hilly country commences on the Ouisconsin river and extends north to Lake Superior. It is called the Wisconsin or Ouisconsin Hills.
GENERAL REMARKS ON MOUNTAINS.
Mountains are supposed by naturalists to have different origins, and to date their commencement from various periods. Those which form a chain, and are covered