One of Lewis’s men was sent back to inform Captain Clark of this momentous discovery, which finally settled all doubt as to which was the true Missouri.  The famous Great Falls of the river had been finally reached.  Captain Lewis next went on to examine the rapids above the falls.  The journal says:—­

“After passing one continued rapid and three cascades, each three or four feet high, he reached, at the distance of five miles, a second fall.  The river is here about four hundred yards wide, and for the distance of three hundred rushes down to the depth of nineteen feet, and so irregularly that he gave it the name of the Crooked Falls.  From the southern shore it extends obliquely upward about one hundred and fifty yards, and then forms an acute angle downward nearly to the commencement of four small islands close to the northern side.  From the perpendicular pitch to these islands, a distance of more than one hundred yards, the water glides down a sloping rock with a velocity almost equal to that of its fall:  above this fall the river bends suddenly to the northward.  While viewing this place, Captain Lewis heard a loud roar above him, and, crossing the point of a hill a few hundred yards, he saw one of the most beautiful objects in nature:  the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which, without a single niche, and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least a quarter of a mile.  Over this it precipitates itself in an even, uninterrupted sheet, to the perpendicular depth of fifty feet, whence, dashing against the rocky bottom, it rushes rapidly down, leaving behind it a sheet of the purest foam across the river.  The scene which it presented was indeed singularly beautiful; since, without any of the wild, irregular sublimity of the lower falls, it combined all the regular elegancies which the fancy of a painter would select to form a beautiful waterfall.  The eye had scarcely been regaled with this charming prospect, when at the distance of half a mile Captain Lewis observed another of a similar kind.  To this he immediately hastened, and found a cascade stretching across the whole river for a quarter of a mile, with a descent of fourteen feet, though the perpendicular pitch was only six feet.  This, too, in any other neighborhood, would have been an object of great magnificence; but after what he had just seen, it became of secondary interest.  His curiosity being, however, awakened, he determined to go on, even should night overtake him, to the head of the falls.