The river is about four hundred yards wide, and for the distance of three hundred throws itself over 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 upwards about one hundred and fifty yards, and then forms an acute angle downwards 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 for 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 spray 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 elegances 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.  He therefore pursued the southwest course of the river, which was one constant succession of rapids and small cascades, at every one of which the bluffs grew lower, or the bed of the river became more on a level with the plains.  At the distance of two and a half miles he arrived at another cataract of twenty-six feet.  The river is here six hundred yards wide, but the descent is not immediately perpendicular, though the river falls generally with a regular and smooth sheet; for about one third of the descent a rock protrudes to a small distance, receives the water in its passage and gives it a curve.  On the south side is a beautiful plain a few feet above the level of the falls; on the north the country is more broken, and there is a hill not far from the river.  Just below the falls is a little island in the middle of the river well covered with timber.  Here on a