Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-06-14

the Snake river OF .ldanO imam Win
any other river of Importance in
the United States; and yet it is
our seventh largest river-more
than 1000 miles long 1t is one
of the most wonderful and impress
sive waterways in the world.
The few who have tried to follow
its winding course through wild
and forbidding extents OF lava
plateaus, do not wonder that so
little is known of it, for no rail
roads traverse the iifeless desert
that borders it, and no boats Tor
hundreds of miles at stretch,
dare ply it's waters. 1t is navigable
for only 100 miles from its junction
with the Columbia to the Idaho
boundary, and in several isolated
sections of the interior, 49,, For the
greater part of its course it flows
through. old and magnificent can
yons of it's own making through
desolate and awful wastes, the re-
suit of vomiting craters and OF con-
-vulsions of the earth.
1t dashes and roars, in whirlpools
and rapids, through forests Of
mighty pines, between snow-capped
peaks, beside extinguished craters,
through gloomy chasms, amid an
understandable chaos of weird and
fantastic masses of molten rock,
crags, peaks and precipices, through
naked deserts; and, again, broad
and tranquil, it ripples through
smiling meadows, and green, fertile
valleys, past prosperous towns and
thriving communities, and is lost
again in the deep and solemn can
yons.
1t rises in the Rocky mountains,
on the southern slope of the Great
Divide, and flows southeast, and
then west, in a great serpentine
curve through southern Idaho. In
the western part of the state 1t
bends sharply northward, and for
$50 miles forms the boundary line
between Idaho, Oregon, and Wash
ington, and finally empties into the
Columbia, 20 miles below the Ore
gon boundary.
At first it is a mere mountain tor
rent made up of melted snow from
the Teton range. Then for many
miles it flows majestically through
a silent wilderness of primeval for
ests, mirroring an endless chain oi
rugged peaks. Then great and
awful change begins to take place.
The deep woods grow less and less
dense, the mountains decline into
endless rolling hills and deep ra'
vines. AT every turn The country
grows flatter and more featurelcss,
until great plain stretches out in
definitely, the gloomy baroness o.
which is emphasized by the few
pyramid-like cones which stano
there, solitary reminders of a deae
and terrible period. 1t is the grea
Snake river desert. After an OBJ
servers first shock and his feeling:
of isolation have passed, the bound
less plain loses its monotony. The
expanse seems to awaken and throl
with. life, the silent sentinels o.
the desert tell a tale of long ago
when mysterious forces were a
play. For this is the field of thu
most gigantic volcanic actions tina
ever occurred in America.
Curious evidences of the terrifi
movements that once took plac,
are apparent at ''Cinder Buttes,
so miles west of Blackfoot, in man,
well preserved volcanoes of compar
atively recent date. The plains ar
strewn with vast numbers of Gin
ders, bombs, and other volcani
relics.
For $50 miles after passing tn
Blaclfoot river, which joins tn
Snake river from the southeast, nc
a stream reaches it from the north
Many streams rise in the Salmo
river mountains of central Idaho
all tending toward the Snake rive
canyon, but all, sooner or later ar
swallowed up in chasms, or az
evaporated by the intense heat an
dryness of the desert. The 'Bi
LOST and the Little Lost" riN
ers, both of some magnitude, whic
rise in the mountains and flo
in a southerly direction into tt
great desert, vanish there. BIZ
after travelling many miles beneat
the lava beds of the desert, II
pent-up waters break from the
bondage into a series of remarkab
cataract springs farther down II
river. For 20 miles they gush +;
intervals from the canyon wall
ever-flowing streams.
The greatest and most beautifi