, 1868-07-24
The NOrth Missouri River.

/
ed buttes, and rugged bluffs, alternately
clasping the turbid waters of the Missouri,
which cannot fail to impress the most unim,
aglnatiVe traveller. The millions of acres Of
virgin soil, stretching away thousands Of
miles beyond the limit of human vision.
turned BY no plough, nntrodden-save by
wild men, or beasts-engender q more vivid
realization Of the mighty resources Of the
Republic and its Wondrous future, than All
the books that have been written, or stats,
tics that have been compiled. From the Big
Sioux river for hundreds of miles the scenery
is nearly the same. Cottonwood groves with
a luxuriant underground fringe the stream /;
and its banks are alternately high or low,
where the waters have eaten out the sides of
lofty bluffs, or cut their way through the
alluvial soil of prairie and meadow. Where,
at intervals, the timbered lands cease, and
the hard, dry soil gives the eye full sweep,
the landscape is composed of series of round
hills, disappearing at last, blue and hazy in
the distance. The rare, pure air here ex>
tends the limit of human vision; and he
whose judgment is most accute will scarcely
fail to be deceived in regard to The hight and
distance of these elevations from one another.
Should he ascend the frowning bluff above
him, he will see just beyond another hill the
counterpart OF the one he is on, save that it
is in appearance little higher. Clambering
that, another just beyond presents the same
peculiarities. So that it is very easy for the
novice to go astray, owing to the absence of
trees and crags, which be might use for fixed
landmarks. For mile after mile, perhaps
these endless hills, all conical, barren and
covered with a fine alkaline earth, will fol.
low the river, their sides furrowed and gul,
lied BY torrents, and worn by the dash of
tho stream, and then yield all at once to
broad prairie, green with the grass of spring,
or blackened by fire. Farther north the hills
become butes, obloDg, conical, pointed and
fantastic, as if shaped BY some gigantic hand
in hours of sport with nature. They rise
like watch-towers over their less delicately
fashioned neighbors, and provoke astonish-
ment at their symmetry, and wonder at their
number. These bills and butes are not with.
out their attendant ravines, washed and rent
by torrents which, perhaps, centuries ago.
when rain was more plentiful than now. Grst
poured down their bed. The rapid streams
which feed the Missouri, dashinp in from
the interior OF Nebraska, the Rl.oR UHl. e
Wyoming, the snowy mountains Of Montana,
and the wide expause of British America,
have also worn their channel between bill
and hill-have tossed the rocks aside before
them, and rush over sand and pebbles to
mingle their clear water with the muddy
stream. One Of these rivers deserves at least
passing notice. 1t takes its nane-Capnop
Ball-from the curious boulders, perfectly
spherical to the eye, which, as if shot into
the bluff near its mouth, lie half exposed to
view. Many of them are scattered upon the
shore, single, double and triple, apparently
growing from one another like polypi from
the parent animal Here is a fertile field for
the researches of the geOlogist and savan.
Varied and picturesque as the landscape
Is below the Yellowstone, the most startling
and majestic handiwork of nature is shown
in the last few hundred miles below Fort
Benton. Ragged and desolate bluffs-moun-
tains, perhaps-covered with magnificent
petrifcations and fossils, frown down upou
the river and compress it into such narrow
channel, that it seems like silver thread
winding at their feet. Heaved up in some
grand ccnvulsion Of nature, tipped and seam.
ed by red scori@, and showing other marks
of volcanic origin, barren, rugged and NOM
strous, they seem fit portals to a region of
eternal fire and devastation, and the traveller
looks with awe about him for the internal
motto
All hope, abandon ye, who enter here"
But these scared and ugly piles of earth,
ashes and stono, are 6ttingly here, for after
the contemplation of their desolation, the
traveller passes with exquisite pleasure to the
beauty which ia soon exposed to his view.
Here are
temples, piles and palaces, stupendous;"
carved out of the solid rock, as if BY some
enchanter's hand. Mimic cathedrals. adoru-
ed with dome, spire, column, entablature, and
architectrave, leaning towers, lone pinacles
and pagodas, ruined castles, battlements par
apets and buttresses, gloomy walls and shat
tered monuments, and a thousand fantastic
shapes are mingled in rich profusion. The
glories of the Fata Morgana, of Italian story,
find their realization amid the wilds of Mon
tana. When the moon peeps through tine
clouds, and these massive wonders carved out
OF the pale, gray stone, delight the eye in
all their glory of light and shade, the observ-
er will say, In full accord with the poet
IF thou wouldst view fair Melrose Alright,
90 visit it by the pale moonlight
For the gay beams Of hghtsome day
Glld, but TO hout the ruins gray.
When the broken arches are black In night,
And each shafted oriel glmmers white;
When the cold lights uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately
Seem framed Of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die.
Then go-but go alone the while
Then view Saint Dsvid's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene 80 sad and fair"
From the natural wonders the journey to
Benton is short, and this completed, and the
anoW-oapped mountains glistening in the
distance, the tourist will disembark, feeling
sorry that he has let so many years 60 by
without knowledge of the beauties aud
novelties Of the North Missouri-AontdnG
Herald,