Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/130

 appeared totally devoid of any peculiar organic developement. I regret that our travelling arrangements prevented me from bringing them across the mountains; for, without ocular proof, I fear the faculty could not be brought to believe that the human head was capable of being moulded to a shape so unlike the great mass of mankind. This however is dangerous ground; and I shall not pursue the subject farther, lest I might provoke the gall of the believers in the theory of craniology, among whom, I am aware, may be reckoned some of the most eminent men in the literary world.

We also visited Fort Clatsop, the place where Captains Lewis and Clarke spent the winter of 1805-6; an accurate description of which is given in the journal of those enterprising travellers. The logs of the house were still standing, and marked with the names of several of their party.

The most striking peculiarity of the immense forests which we observed in the course of these excursions was the total absence of the "wood notes wild" of the feathered tribe; and, except in the vicinity of a village, their deep and impervious gloom resembles the silence and solitude of death.