situation for the establishment of a future Reduction or Mission, and I have already marked out a site for the construction of a church. About twenty miles lower, we passed the Flat-Head or Clark's river, which contributes largely to the Columbia. These two beautiful rivers derive a great portion of their waters from the same chain of the Rocky Mountains, from which a great number of the {218} forks of the south branch of the Sascatshawin and of the Missouri are supplied. For a distance of about thirty miles from their junction with the Columbia, are they obstructed by insurmountable falls and rapids. Among the many lakes connected with the Flat-Head river, three are very conspicuous, and measure from thirty to forty miles in length, and from four to six in width. The Flat-Head lake receives a broad and beautiful stream, extending upwards of a hundred miles in a north-western direction, through a most delightful valley, and is supplied by considerable torrents, coming from a great cluster of mountains, connected immediately with the main chain, in which a great number of lakes lie imbedded. Clark's fork passed through Lake Kalispel.[159] Lake Roothaan is situated in the Pend-d'oreille and Flat-Bow mountains, and discharges itself by the Black-gown river into the Clark, twenty miles below Kalispel Lake.[160] The St. Mary's,
- [Footnote: the natives could tell what tribes have lately passed. Doubtless from this custom
the lakes have received their name. They are wide spreads of the river, beautifully located, amid high cliffs and peaks. Upper Arrow Lake is about thirty-three miles long and three broad; the Lower is more tortuous, and slightly longer and narrower. The distance between them is more nearly sixteen than six miles.—Ed.]
