Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/81

Rh to travel up the South side, until we saw that it would be impossible for us to find a ford; when we stopped at a large Cotton Wood grove, eighty-five miles above the Forks. Having determined to construct boats for this purpose, we procured in the first place, a sufficient number of green Buffalo hides, and having sewed two of them together for each boat, we stretched them over the wagon beds as tight as we could, with the flesh side out, and then turned them up in the sun to dry; and when they became thoroughly dry, we covered them with tallow and ashes, in order to render them more impervious to the water. The boats being completed, we proceeded to cross the goods of the company. Each boat was manned by six men. Some waded or swam along side, while others pulled by a long rope which was attached forward. The River here was about a mile wide. In this way the goods were ferried over, and the empty wagons were drawn across by the teams a short distance below, where the River was wider and shallower. The crossing was effected in six days, and without any serious accident. We passed here the fourth day of July. The country, as we advanced West, became more and more barren, until here it was little else than a desert: and between this point and where we first saw the Platte River, it receives no tributaries from the South.

Having crossed the South Fork, we turned across the higher dividing lands, and traveled one day North West twenty miles, to the North Fork, without water. After traveling up the North Fork sixty-five miles, through a country still increasing in sterility, we came to what is called the Chimney. It is situated on the South side of the North Fork, three miles from the River. It is a conical hill, one hundred and fifty feet high; from the top of which, a peculiar irregular shaft rises to the same height—making the whole about three hundred feet. The base of the hill is elevated above the water in the River, about