The Muddy Missouri rises in the Rocky Mountains.  It is really formed by the junction of three rivers—­the Jefferson, the Gallatin and the Madison.  By a strange incongruity, the headwaters of the Missouri are within a mile of those of the Columbia, although the two rivers run in opposite directions, the Columbia entering the Pacific Ocean and the Missouri finding an inlet to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi.  At a distance of 441 miles from the extreme point of the navigation of the head branches of the Missouri, are what are denominated as the “Gates of the Rocky Mountains,” which present an exceedingly grand and picturesque appearance.  For a distance of about six miles the rocks rise perpendicularly from the margin of the river to the height of 1,200 feet.  The river itself is compressed to the breadth of 150 yards, and for the first three miles there is but one spot, and that only of a few yards, on which a man can stand between the water and the perpendicular ascent of the mountain.

At a distance of 110 miles below this point, and 551 miles from the source, are the “Great Falls,” nearly 2,600 miles from the egress of the Missouri into the Mississippi River.  At this place the river descends by a succession of rapids, and falls a distance of 351 feet in sixteen and one-half miles.  The lower and greater fall has a perpendicular pitch of 98 feet, the second of 19, the third of 47 and the fourth of 26 feet.  Between and below these falls there are continuous rapids of from 3 to 18 feet descent.  The falls, next to those of Niagara, are the grandest on the continent.

Below the “Great Falls” there is no substantial obstruction to navigation, except that during the midsummer and fall months, after the July rise, there is frequently insufficient water for steamboating.  This results from the fact that, although the Missouri River drains a large area of country and receives many tributaries, some of which are navigable for many hundreds of miles, it passes for a great portion of its course through a dry and open country, where the process of evaporation is very rapid.  The channel is rendered intricate by the great number of islands and sandbars, and in many cases it is made exceptionally hazardous by reason of countless snags.

Volumes have been written concerning the adventures of pioneers and gold hunters, who went up the Missouri in advance of railroads and even civilization, in order to trade with the Indians or to search for yellow metal in the great hills in the unexplored country, where so much in the way of easily acquired wealth is looked for.  Some of the wealthiest men in the West to-day have a vivid recollection of the dangers they encountered on the voyage up this river, and of the enemies they had to either meet or avoid.  Sometimes hostile Indians would attack a boat amid-stream from both sides of the river, and when an attempt was made to bring gold or costly merchandise down the river, daring attacks were often made by white robbers, whose ferocity and murderous designs were quite as conspicuous as those of the aboriginal tribes.  Many a murder was committed, and the seeds were sown for countless mysteries and unexplained disappearances.