the perpendicular cliff on the north, to the distance of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks rise only a few feet above the water, and when the river is high the stream finds a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher parts of the ledge which then rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side.  Between them and the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with great swiftness.  A few small cedars grow near this ridge of rocks which serves as a barrier to defend a small plain of about three acres shaded with cottonwood, at the lower extremity of which is a grove of the same tree, where are several Indian cabins of sticks; below the point of them the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the surface of the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards.  At the distance of three hundred yards from the same ridge is a second abutment of solid perpendicular rock about sixty feet high, projecting at right angles from the small plain on the north for one hundred and thirty-four yards into the river.  After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads itself to its usual distance of three hundred yards, though with more than its ordinary rapidity.

The hunters who had been sent out now returned loaded with buffaloe meat, and captain Lewis encamped for the night under a tree near the falls.  The men were again despatched to hunt for food against the arrival of the party, and captain Lewis walked down the river to discover if possible some place where the canoes might be safely drawn on shore, in order to be transported beyond the falls.  He returned however without discovering any such spot, the river for three miles below being one continued succession of rapids and cascades, overhung with perpendicular bluffs from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high; in short, it seems to have worn itself a channel through the solid rock.  In the afternoon they caught in the falls some of both kinds of the white fish, and half a dozen trout from sixteen to twenty-three inches long, precisely resembling in form and the position of its fins the mountain or speckled trout of the United States, except that the specks of the former are of a deep black, while those of the latter are of a red or gold colour:  they have long sharp teeth on the palate and tongue, and generally a small speck of red on each side behind the front ventral fins; the flesh is of a pale yellowish red, or when in good order of a rose-coloured red.

Friday 14.  This morning one of the men was sent to captain Clarke with an account of the discovery of the falls, and after employing the rest in preserving the meat which had been killed yesterday, captain Lewis proceeded to examine the rapids above.  From the falls he directed his course southwest up the river:  after passing one continued rapid, and three small cascades, each three or four feet high, he reached at the distance of five miles a second fall.