"The Columbia River at Fort Colville is about three hundred and fifty yards wide just above the Sometknu, or Kettle Falls. These consist of two pitches, one of fifteen feet and another below it of ten, and the river is narrowed to two hundred...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Lake Jessie
"The water of Lake Jessie is considerably saline in its character," "and the theory for the saline qualities is found in the fact that it is never washed out, and retains the salt deposits and incrustations." Plate XI.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Stevens, Isaac Ingalls, 1818-1862.; Fort Benton (Mont.)
Governor Stevens receives a dispatch "from Lieutenant Grover to the effect that Lieutenant Grover met Lieutenant Saxton near the dividing ridge, and that they were returning together to Fort Benton," as the route could not be traversed by...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Lightning Lake (Mont.)
"Lightning Lake is a very beautiful sheet of water, so called from the fact that during Captain Pope's expedition, while encamped here, one of those storms so fearfully violent in this country occurred, during which one of his party was...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Marias River (Mont.)
Marias River "flows in a channel two or three hundred feet below the prairie level, and is tolerable well wooded. The water was at that time one hundred and fifty feet wide and two to four feet deep, slightly milky, with a swift current and...
Drawing depicts Milk River with Bears Paw Mountain in the distance. Bears Paw, "a broad and rugged mountain upheaval, stretches from Milk River to the Missouri." Plate XXII.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Milk River (Mont.)
"The valley of the Milk River is wide and open, with a very heavy growth of cottonwood as far as the eye can reach, which is also to be found along the adjacent shores of the Missouri River." Plate XVIII.
"Minnehaha, or the Laughing Water, called also Brown's Falls. It is situated west of the Mississippi, and distant about three miles from Fort Snelling. Ten miles above the falls the stream flows from Lake Calhoun, and it passes through a level...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Mount Baker (Wash.); Cascade Range
"Mount Baker is one of the loftiest and most conspicuous peaks of the northern Cascade range; it is nearly as high as Mount Rainier, and, like that mountain, its snow-covered pyramid has the form of a sugar-loaf." Plate LXX.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Mount Rainier (Wash.)
"Mount Rainier is one of the highest and most prominent peaks of the Cascade range." "The mountain was first discovered by Vancouver in the beginning of May of 1792, from Port Townsend. He named it in honor of his friend, Rear...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Mouse River (N. Dakota)
"Near Mouse River there are salt marshes" "and in some places deposits of salt a quarter of an inch thick." Mouse River valley "resembles that of the Sheyenne (Cheyenne). High ridges divide the plateau bordering the stream...
Drawing depicts the meeting of the expedition party with "a band of about fifty Nez Perce Indians going to hunt. They have from 250 to 300 horses, most of them splendid animals, in fine condition, and with perfectly sound backs. Women and...
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Fort Walla Walla (Wash.)
Fort Walla Walla was first built along the Columbia River by the Northwest Company to act as a trading center. A second fort was built by the Hudson Bay Company prior to 1831 and served as a frontier post protecting their interests. This was...
"The Peluse (Palouse) River flows over three steppes, each of which is estimated to have an ascent of a thousand feet. The falls descend from the middle of the lower of these steppes." "The fall of the water, which is about thirty...
Lieutenant Grover's camp on the shores of Pike Lake. Governor Stevens considered this to be "the real starting point of the expedition and named the camp, "Camp Marcy", in honor of the Secretary of State." Plate VI.
Expeditions & surveys; Railroad surveys; Puget Sound; Mount Rainier; Whidbey Island (Wash.)
"Puget Sound forms a most variegated compound of narrow inlets and sounds, interlinked among each other by passages and channels, and connected with Admiralty Inlet" only by the Narrows, a contracted passage near Point Defiance which...