Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1887-1890, 1888-01-11
MORE PUBLICITY.
THE CENTURY MAGAZINE ILLUS
TRATEs THE UPPER MISSOURI.
Description OF the Falls of the Missouri
by IL. v. SmaIIey---He Predicts
Many Busy Industries
=- Here.

In the Century Magazine for January
colonel E. V. Smalley describes a visit to
the upper Missouri. Accompanied by a
picture of the lower falls is the following
description of the cataracts:
Placid as a Minnesota lake in summer,
the Missouri glides along between banks
shaded by cottonwoods. Its waters are
ruffied only by focks of wild ducks and
geese. There are no indicrtions that it is
about to plunge over a series OF cataracts
and rapids. and make an aggregate fail
of 500 feet in a distance of about twelve
miles. So hemmed in by steep banks are
the cataracts that their roar is muffled,
and is scarcely heard until n is close
upon them. The first leap succeeding a
long rapids is twenty-six feet in perpen-
dicular descent. This is called the Black
Eagle Falls, and was so named by Lewis
and Clarke from the circumstance of Al
eagle having her nest on an island below
the fall. Viewed from the high banks
above, this cataract is not very impress
sive. 1t has too much the look of a great
mill dam. The eye soon wanders from
the fall to the stately landscape spread
out to the north and west-to the billowy
brown plains, the black masses of the
Belt mountains and the white pinnacles
Of the Rockies far up toward the Cana.
dian line. The appearance of the Black
Eagle falls suggests its future use
Some day it will drive saws,
spindles and mill-stones. About
four miles below, is a nameless fall of
fourteen feet-nameless no doubt, because
hardly noticeable from its proximity to
the beautiful Rainbow fall "a sheerdescent
of forty-seven feet. The water is nearly
equally distributed over the whole
breadth of this superb fall, and its curve
Of white and light green tinted with rain
bow hues, is wonderfully symmetrical.
On1y.in one place is it broken a little by
an indentation in the ledge which gives
to the plunging flood a deeper hue of
green. Otherwise the fall might be criti-
cised as 'sfaultlessly faultless." The best
view is from the bottom of the gorge.
On the south bank Of the river there is a
break-neck path that leads down to the
foot of the cataract. Here the spray
clouds and rainbows, and the lovely
aqua-marine tints of the water show to
best advantage.
Below the Rainbox falls is the crooked
or Horseshoe falls, which has a perpen-
dicular descent of nineteen feet. This
fall, the Rainbow and the smaller falls
above can be seen at once from a project
bluff. Not far off is an enormous spring,
shaped like an open fan with an outer
radius of three hundred feet, which dis
charges into the river over a series of
wide, low terraces an enormous quantity
of pure cold water. This tremendous
%outpouring seems to be rather the mouth
of a hidden river han a simple spring.
Various m were suggested by the
visiting party, for it had hitherto borne
no other name than the "big spring"
Finally all agreed to christen it the
Giants Fountain.
Eight miles below the Rainbow are the
Great Falls. Perhaps a third of the rivers
volume plunges down a precipiee eighty
seven feet high, the rest descending over
broken shelves of rock in a multitude of
cascades. After Niagara this fall must
rank as the greatest cataract on the Amer
lean continent. We could only see the
entire breadth of the fall from a single
point on the extreme verge of a crag
jutting over the canon. There was no
way of getting down into the gorge to
the waters edge, which is about four
hundred feet below the general level of
the country. The deep crease in which
the river runs is entirely lost to view a
quarter of a mile away. It's lips. seem to
close up and appear like the many modu-
lations in the grassy plain, so that a trav-
eler riding across country might come
almost to the sheer verge of the canon
before he would suspect that he was ap-
preaching n of the greatest rivers in
the world.
We returned to the new town (of Great
Falls) to spend the night, and late in the
morning we were joined by the party in
the boats.