FOOTNOTES
[1] Platte is French for low or flat. Long says it derives its name from the fact of being broad and shallow.
[2] The Missouri. So says Charlevoix. Marquette calls it Pekitanoui, on his map. It was not unfrequently called the Great River of the Osages.
[3] Yellowstone is English for Roche Jaune, the old French name. Black Hills were Côte Noire.
[4] The Columbia. Vancouver had ascended it (1792), one hundred miles from the sea.
[5] Captain Meriwether Lewis, afterwards governor of Louisiana, committed suicide in a fit of depression.
[6] Captain William Clarke kept a journal of the expedition. Brother of General George Rogers Clarke. Lewis also kept a diary.
THEY CROSS THE CONTINENT.
On the 13th of June, while scouting in advance of his party, Captain Lewis saw, in the distance, a thin cloudlike mist rising up out of the plain. To him it was like the guiding column which led the Israelites in the desert. Not doubting that it was the Great Fall, which the Mandans had told him about, and of which he was in search, Captain Lewis hastened toward it. He soon heard it roar distinctly, and in a few hours more stood on the brink of the cataract itself. The Indians had told him truly. Not even the eagle's nest was wanting to make their description complete.