The journal says:
"It is one hundred and ten yards wide, and contains more water than
streams of that size usually do in this country; its current is by no
means rapid, and there is every appearance of its being susceptible of
navigation by canoes for a considerable distance. Its bed is chiefly
formed of coarse sand and gravel, with an occasional mixture of black
mud; the banks are abrupt and nearly twelve feet high, so that they are
secure from being overflowed; the water is of a greenish-yellow cast,
and much more transparent than that of the Missouri, which itself,
though clearer than below, still retains its whitish hue and a portion
of its sediment. Opposite the point of junction the current of the
Missouri is gentle, and two hundred and twenty-two yards in width;
the bed is principally of mud, the little sand remaining being wholly
confined to the points, and the water is still too deep to use the
setting-pole.
"If this be, as we suppose, the Musselshell, our Indian information is
that it rises in the first chain of the Rocky mountains not far from the
sources of the Yellowstone, whence in its course to this place it waters
a high broken country, well timbered, particularly on its borders, and
interspersed with handsome fertile plains and meadows. We have reason,
however, to believe, from their giving a similar account of the timber
where we now are, that the timber of which they speak is similar to that
which we have seen for a few days past, which consists of nothing more
than a few straggling small pines and dwarf cedars on the summits of the
hills, nine-tenths of the ground being totally destitute of wood, and
covered with short grass, aromatic herbs, and an immense quantity
of prickly-pear; though the party who explored it for eight miles
represented the low grounds on the river to be well supplied with
cottonwood of a tolerable size, and of an excellent soil.
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