extend fifty miles to every point of the compass. The lake is a beautiful sheet of clear water, embedded amid lofty and high mountain bluffs, and shaded with a variety of pines, firs and cedars; in its whole circumference, to my knowl
edge, there is no arable land. The low bottoms in several of its many bays are subject to frequent and long inundations in the spring. The lake is about thirty miles in extent from south to north, its width throughout is from one to two or three miles. It receives its waters principally from two beautiful rivers, the St. Joseph and the Coeur d'Alene, running parallel from east to west; each is from sixty to eighty yards broad, with a depth of from twenty to thirty
feet. After the spring freshet their currents are smooth and even, and are hardly perceptible for about thirty miles from their mouths, and until they penetrate into the high mountain region which separates their waters from those of Clark's Fork and of the St. Mary's or Bitter Root river; their respective valleys are from one to three miles broad, and are much subject to inundations in the spring; the narrow strips of land which border the two rivers are of the richest mould.
The deep snows in winter, the ice and water, keep these valleys literally blocked up during several months (last winter it continued for about five months). Small lakes, from one to three miles in circumference, are numerous in the two valleys. Camas, and other nutritious roots and berries abound in them. Beautiful forests of pine, etc., are found all along. The mountains bordering the two valleys are generally of an oval shape, and well wooded; a few only are snow-topped during the greatest portion of the year. All the rivers and rivulets in the Coeur d'Alene country abound
wonderfully in mountain trout and other fish. The forests are well stocked with deer, with black and brown bears, and with-a variety of fur-bearing animals. The long winters and deep snows must retard the settlement of this country.
Clark's Fork, at its crossing below the great Kalispel lake, is about forty miles distant from Spokan Prairie. Clark's