of their falls are heard at some distance, and the eye is charmed by their descent from height after height, and their succession of cascades, from which they escape to the plain, covered with foam, and, as it were, exhausted by the struggles of the way. These mountain torrents will some day be the sites of mills of every description. Coal exists in many portions of the country, lead is found in abundance, and I venture to say that more precious minerals repose in the bosom of the mountains, and will one day be brought to light there.
The Indians have devoted themselves to agriculture for some years past. They cultivate little fields of maize, barley, oats and potatoes, all of which ripen. It is rare that the frost injures the crops before the season of harvest. Their small fields cannot be extended, owing to the want of instruments of agriculture. They are compelled to turn the earth with instruments of the most primitive construction, such as Adam may have used in his day. The pointed stick made of a very hard wood is what they have used from ages immemorial to dig up the camas, the bitter-root, the wappatoo (sagittafolia), the caious, or biscuit-root, and other vegetables of the same description. These Indians are very industrious. They are rarely unemployed. Their time is fully occupied in making bows and arrows, lines and hooks, or in hunting and fishing, or seeking roots or wild fruits for their numerous families. They extend their hunt often to the great plains of the Blackfeet and the Crows, to the east of the Rocky Mountains, on the upper waters of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan. Deprived as they are of agricultural instruments and fire-arms, they are always in want, and they may be said to keep a perpetual Lent.
The missionaries furnished them with a few plows and spades. Last year I forwarded to them, by the steamer of the Missouri Fur Company at St. Louis, some necessary agricultural implements, such as plows, etc..; but the boat was burned v,ith all her cargo above the Yellowstone river.' 2 The Chippewa, May, 1861, near the mouth of Poplar river.