CHAPTER VIII.

THE MISSOURI RIVER.

[Sidenote: DEPARTED GLORY.]

We have now followed the career of Captain La Barge through the various experiences of youth and early manhood until he is finally settled in the business of his subsequent life--the navigation of the Missouri River. It is therefore a proper time to consider the nature of that business, its features of peculiar interest, and its relation to the growth of the western country. This is the more important because it is a phase in the development of that country which has permanently passed away, and in the general mind is already buried in oblivion. Yet for fully a hundred years the history of the Missouri River was the history of the country through which it flowed. Its importance no one to-day can comprehend. Now the railroad has made accessible almost every section of the country. Then there were no railroads to speak of west of the Mississippi, nor, for that matter, any other roads worthy of mention. The river was the great, and almost the only, highway of travel and commerce. Everything was done with reference to it. Commercial posts and military garrisons were established; expeditions were undertaken, and all business operations were carried on with careful reference to this mighty stream, which descended from the distant mountains to the very heart of the continent and thence to the sea, whence the road was open to every quarter of the globe. But now its influence upon the growth of the western country has ceased to exist. The mighty river, which was once alive with steamboats and other craft, from the Great Falls to its mouth, cannot boast a single regular packet. In the most absolute sense its glory has departed, and not a trace is left to remind the modern observer of its former greatness. In the following descriptions, therefore, we hope to be serving the true purpose of history, in gathering together for preservation some interesting features of a type of our frontier life which has long since run its appointed course.

Of all the rivers on the globe the longest is the Missouri-Mississippi. On the summit of the Rocky Mountains, above the upper Red Rock Lake, some forty miles west of the Yellowstone National Park, and directly on the boundary between the States of Montana and Idaho, Jefferson Fork of the Missouri, finds its source. From this point, by a continuous water course to the Gulf of Mexico, the distance is 4221 miles. The river is formed by the confluence of three fine mountain streams which unite at a point about fifty miles south of Helena, Mont. They were named by their discoverers, Lewis and Clark, the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers, in honor of the national administration which set on foot the expedition of these explorers. Two of these streams rise in the Yellowstone National Park, and the other, as we have seen, a little distance to the westward.

[Sidenote: THE YELLOWSTONE.]

Of the many tributaries of the Missouri the most important is the Yellowstone, which rivals in size the main stream and joins it nearly eight hundred miles below the Three Forks. Like the Missouri it finds its source in and around that now famous region, where Nature has lavished without stint her most marvelous handiwork, and which the government of the United States has set apart for the common enjoyment of the people. Both the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers, in the upper portions of their course, flow over immense cascades and rapids which have become well known among the cataracts of the globe. The Great Falls of the Missouri are located near the modern city of the same name. They comprise several cataracts and rapids, the highest perpendicular distance being 87 feet, and the total fall over 500 feet. The falls of the Yellowstone are within the National Park, the highest perpendicular distance being 310 feet, and the total descent from Yellowstone Lake to below the first cañon near Livingston, Mont., being about 3200 feet.

[Sidenote: ALLUVIAL CHARACTER.]

Upon emerging from the foothills of the mountains, both streams begin to assume that peculiar character which distinguishes them throughout the rest of their course to the sea. They flow through alluvial bottoms, built up of the detritus from the highlands and mountains, until the present bed of the river is in most places fifty to a hundred feet above the original bed in the solid rock. The usual characteristics of an alluvial river are here found in their highest development--a muddy current, freshly formed islands, sandbars innumerable, an unstable channel, and a shifting bed which is never in the same place for two years in succession.

Among the most striking phenomena of a river like the Missouri is the constant change that is going on in the location of its channel. This seems to be in some places a periodical matter. The forces of the river get to working on particular lines and push their devastations for many years in one general direction. Being finally arrested by some insurmountable obstacle, or turned, it may be, by trifling causes, they work in another direction, and invade lands which have enjoyed long immunity, and upon which the cottonwood, walnut, and cedar have attained mature growth.

[Sidenote: A WINDING WATERWAY.]

The river, in its unrestrained rambles from bluff to bluff, performs some curious freaks. It develops the most remarkable bends, varying in length from one to thirty miles, with distances across the necks but a small fraction of those around. In time these narrow necks are cut in two, and the river abandons its old course, which soon fills up near the extremities of the bends and leaves crescent-shaped lakes in the middle. This process is a never-ending one, and the channel distances along the river are in a state of never-ending change. There is one bend in the upper river, known from the earliest times as the Great Bend, which was not formed in the way just described. The course of the river here is comparatively permanent, and is evidently the same as that of the original stream bed. The distance around is nearly thirty miles, while that across is only a mile and a half. It was a regular custom with travelers, when the Indians were not too dangerous, to leave the boats at the beginning of this bend and walk across, going on board on the other side.

The existence of so many bends increased the length of the channel, but this drawback was more than offset by the reduction of the slope which made the current less strong and enabled steamboats to overcome it with greater ease. The river is like a great spiral stairway leading from the ocean to the mountains. A steamboat at Fort Benton is 2565 feet--two and one-half times the height of the Eiffel tower in Paris--above the level of the sea; yet so gentle is the slope nearly all the way that, in placid weather, the water surface resembles that of a lake. This wonderful evening-up of the slope of the river by the extreme sinuosity of its course is a fact not only interesting as a natural phenomenon, but of the utmost importance in the behavior and use of the stream.

Not only does the general course of the river have these larger windings, but in periods of low water they are multiplied many fold. When a large proportion of the river bed between its banks becomes exposed, as it does in the low-water season, the stream flows back and forth across this bed until its length is largely increased over that at high water. Here again is to be seen the wisdom of nature’s methods. In periods of high water, when it is important to move the floods rapidly down the valley, the river straightens out, shortens its length, increases its slope, and accelerates its velocity of flow.

[Sidenote: ANNUAL TONNAGE.]

Of the immense carrying power and potential energy of this stream it is difficult to form an adequate conception. It yearly carries into the Mississippi 550,000,000 tons of earth, which has been brought an average distance of not less than 500 miles. The work thus represented is equivalent to 275,000,000,000 mile-tons, or tons carried one mile. The railroads of the United States carried in the year 1901 141,000,000,000 mile-tons of freight.

[Sidenote: BEDS OF THE OLD RIVER.]

That such an exercise of power should leave its impress deep upon the country through which the river flows is not to be wondered at. Every year thousands of acres of rich bottom lands are destroyed. Forests, meadows, cultivated fields, farmhouses, and villages fall before its tremendous onslaught, and the changes that have been wrought in the topography of the valley during the past one hundred years almost defy belief.[11] To one familiar with its history, the many crescent-shaped lakes and curvilinear benches show where the river once flowed and where it may flow again. In recent years the government has seriously undertaken to set metes and bounds to the migratory habits of the stream; but it has found a most refractory subject to deal with. Even with the expenditure of vast sums of money in the construction of the most powerful dikes and improved bank protection known to engineering, it can never feel certain that its prisoner will not break its bonds at any moment and escape.

[Sidenote: SNAGS AND SAWYERS.]

As with most of our Western streams the principal arboreal growths along the banks of the Missouri are the willow and cottonwood. The willow matures very rapidly, and well-grown forests are constantly met with in places where the river flowed but two or three years before. The cottonwood requires more time to mature, but this is afforded by those longer cycles of change in which the river passes back and forth across the bottoms. On many of the islands along the central portion of the river there were formerly extensive growths of cedar. The walnut and other trees abound to a less extent. Every year great numbers of trees that line the river bank are undermined and fall into the stream. They are borne along by the current until they become anchored in the bottom, where they remain with one end sticking up and pointing downstream, sometimes above and sometimes below the surface. These trunks or branches have always been the most formidable dangers to navigation of the river. They are called snags or sawyers, though sometimes, from the ripple or break in the surface of the water, “breaks.” It is, in fact, only by the appearance of these breaks that a submerged snag can be discovered by the pilot; and fortunately, in a rapid current, like that of the Missouri, a snag will cause such a break if it is near enough to the surface to touch the bottom of a boat. These snags were the terror of the pilot, as well they might be. The record of steamboat wrecks on the Missouri, and it is an appalling one, shows that about seventy per cent. were due to this cause.

[Sidenote: THE MISSOURI IN WINTER.]

A large portion of the river is in a latitude where it freezes over every winter. During the ice period it is indeed effectually enchained. The banks are safe for a season, and the water itself becomes comparatively clear. But as soon as the breezes of spring soften the ice the river resumes its customary wanderings, with renewed vigor after its long rest. By way of celebration of its release from its icy prison it frequently gives exhibitions of power that far surpass all its other manifestations. When the ice “breaks” and begins to “run,” it is liable to strand like a steamboat on the shallow bars. Other ice following, and finding the way obstructed, piles up on that before it. Gradually, sometimes, and sometimes rapidly, the accumulation spreads, cutting off the channel of the river, until, as often happens, it forms a veritable dam across the entire stream. These ice “gorges” develop a power that nothing can withstand, and the amount of property destroyed by them in the history of the river has been very great. There is almost nothing that can be done to break them. Dynamite explosions are resorted to, but the ice piles up so rapidly and in such vast quantities that the most powerful blast seems harmless. In the face of this appalling danger man is forced to stand a helpless spectator until the river itself accumulates sufficient force to burst through the dam. It has more than once happened that, before the dam has given way, the river has cut an entirely new channel.

[Sidenote: ICE GORGES.]

The moving of the ice, even when not accompanied by serious blockades, is always an impressive sight. Usually the warm weather loosens it from the shore before it begins to move, and even disintegrates it, so that it is unsafe to cross upon. The softer it becomes before it begins to run the less danger is there of its gorging. After the movement begins it continues for several days, until the vast quantities of ice stored in the river above have floated by, or melted away. During the height of the movement the crushing of innumerable ice cakes upon each other produces a continuous roar which can be heard for a long distance from the river.

To the lonely dwellers of the valley in the early times the annual “break-up” of the ice was the most welcome event of the year, for it was the knell of the long and tedious winter, and the certain harbinger of approaching spring.

[Sidenote: ANNUAL FLOODS.]

The river has two regular floods every year, one usually in April and the other in June. The first flood is short, sharp, and often very destructive. The second flood is of longer duration and carries an immensely greater quantity of water, but does less damage than the first. The April flood is due to the spring freshets along the immediate valley as the snow melts off and the first rains come. The June rise comes primarily from the melting snows in the mountains. The great and exceptional floods, however, are not due to these regular causes, but to periods of long and excessive precipitation in the lower portions of the valley.

The slope of the river in the lower half of its course is less than a foot to the mile, and the velocity of its current varies from two to ten miles per hour, depending upon the stage of the water.

[Sidenote: BEAUTY OF THE RIVER.]

From an æsthetic point of view, the Missouri River has an unenviable reputation. People who never see it except in crossing railroad bridges, from which they look down into a mass of muddy, eddying water, are liable to compare it unfavorably with other important streams. But to him who is fortunate enough to travel upon it, and study it in all its phases, it is not only an attractive stream, but one of great scenic beauty. As seen in its more placid periods, near morning or evening, when the slanting rays of the sun show the water mainly by reflection, robbing it of its muddy tinge, and replacing it by a crimson hue or silver glimmer that stretches away toward the horizon, cut off again and again by the bends of the river, but ever and anon reappearing until lost in the distance, there are few scenes in nature that appeal more strongly to the eye of the artist.

Again, in its less peaceful moods, when the persistent prairie winds blow day after day without ceasing, there is a peculiar attractiveness about the weird scene. In all directions, as far as the eye can reach, the air is filled with clouds of sand, drifting along the naked bars, and changing their forms almost as rapidly as does the water those in the bed of the river. The willows and cottonwoods bend complainingly before the blast. The river is lashed into foam, and often becomes so tempestuous that rowboats cannot live in it, while larger craft, making a virtue of necessity, lie moored to the shore until the wind has abated its fury.

[Sidenote: PRAIRIE STORMS.]

Perhaps the most frightful scenes on the river are the violent summer storms of thunder, hail, and rain, with the characteristic tornado tendencies so common in the central prairies. When these black storms gather, and the incessant lightning seems to bind the clouds to the earth, and the rolling and agitated vapors disclose the terrible play of the winds, the river man discreetly makes for shore, and loses no time in gaining the shelter of some friendly bank. The fury of these storms as they break into the valley, pouring down wind and rain with terrific violence, until the river yields up clouds of spray like the vortex of Niagara, forms one of the wildest and most sublime manifestations of the forces of nature. It cannot be truly enjoyed by an eyewitness, because of the element of danger which is present, but the impression produced upon one who is fortunate enough to pass safely through it remains ineffaceable in the memory. These storms generally come from the southwest, and it was a well-recognized rule on the river in boating days to tie up for the night on the southwest, or right shore of the river, so as to be under cover of a bank if a storm should come before day. Accidents from these storms were numerous. Boats were often torn from their moorings and driven upon the bars, where they were as good as lost. Smokestacks, hurricane deck, and pilot-house were frequently carried away and windows destroyed by the hail.

[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER.]

The condition of the weather had an influence upon the business of navigating the river which was of the highest importance, yet would never occur to one unless his attention were directed to it. The excessively uneven and broken condition of the bed of the river, filled as it was with ever-shifting sand-drifts or bars, sometimes called reefs by the river men, produced an appearance upon the surface of the water which was almost the only guide in tracing out the sinuous channel. The experienced pilot could tell from this appearance, not only where snags and other hidden obstructions were, but the outlines of submerged sandbars, and the position of the deepest water. Anything, like wind or rain or a slanting sun, which disturbed this normal appearance, disturbed the serenity of the pilot’s mind. Wind was less troublesome than rain, for it ruffled the deep water more than the shallow, and thus left some indication of the locality of each. Rain, on the other hand, reduced everything to a common appearance. The sun, when below forty-five degrees from the horizon, was exceedingly troublesome on account of the reflection from the water whenever the boat was sailing toward it.

Captain La Barge records a curious fact in regard to the appearance of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as seen by night. He found the Missouri much easier to “read,” and always experienced a feeling of relief when he left the main stream and entered its great tributary. The Mississippi seemed black in the night, and this appearance aggravated the darkness. The Missouri, on the other hand, had a distinct whitish tinge, and it seemed, as he entered the stream, as if a faint light had been struck up along its surface.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERY OF THE MISSOURI.]

Such are some of the more striking physical characteristics of this very remarkable stream. It is not surprising that, in the early times, when it first came to be known, it produced a profound impression on the minds of explorers and drew from them expressions of wonder and awe. Marquette and Joliet, who discovered the river in 1673, were floating down the Mississippi in a comparatively clear current, when they came to a point where a mighty volume of water poured itself into the Mississippi from the west shore, carrying trees, stumps, and drift of all descriptions. It filled them with amazement, as it has every person since who has stood at the confluence of these two mighty streams, particularly when the Missouri is bringing down the great floods of spring.

We do not know when the Missouri was first entered by white men, but probably about the year 1700. The French had made sufficient progress along its course in the early years of the eighteenth century to alarm the Spaniards, who, in the year 1720, sent an expedition to destroy the Missouri Indians, the allies of the French. This expedition was itself destroyed by the Missouris, but the event caused the French to build a post some two hundred miles up the river on an island opposite the village of the Missouris. This was Fort Orleans, and was, so far as we know, the first structure erected by white men along the course of the stream.

[Sidenote: NAME OF THE RIVER.]

The name of the river comes from the tribe of Indians just mentioned, who once dwelt at its mouth, but were driven from this position by the Illinois Indians. The word means “dwelling near the mouth of the river,” and has no reference to the muddy quality of the water.

The fact that the Missouri River is longer than the entire Mississippi, and more than twice as long as that portion of the latter stream above the mouth of the Missouri, has led to the frequent observation that the name which applies to the lower course of the Mississippi should apply also to the tributary. But this would evidently not be a fitting nomenclature. The Mississippi is the trunk stream, receiving the drainage from the Alleghenies on the east and the Rockies on the west. It divides the continent into approximately symmetrical portions. This division has entered into the very life of our national development, and is so natural and convenient that the stream itself from north to south is appropriately known by a single name. The Missouri is the great tributary from the mountains on the west, as the Ohio is from the mountains on the east. The characteristics of the Missouri are so peculiarly its own that a separate name is more befitting than one divided between itself and another and very different stream.

[Sidenote: EARLY EXPLORATION.]

During the eighteenth century the French gradually extended their knowledge of the river. It is not likely that the voyageurs had ascended as far as to the Mandan villages, a short distance above the modern capital of North Dakota, when, in 1738–43, De la Verendrye crossed over from the north and struck the river at that point. But it is quite certain that at the time of the founding of St. Louis, 1764, the river was well known for a thousand miles above its mouth. From that time knowledge of it increased more rapidly, and when Lewis and Clark went up the river in 1804, they found that white men had preceded them almost to the mouth of the Yellowstone.