part of Bingham county. Middle Butte
(400 ft. above the plain, also in Bingham county) is an upraised block
of stratified basalt. The Snake river (which receives all the drainage
of Idaho except small amounts taken by the Spokane, the Pend Oreille
and the Kootenai in the N., all emptying directly into the Columbia,
and by some minor streams of the S.E. that empty into Great Salt Lake,
Utah) rises in Yellowstone National Park a few miles from the heads of
the Madison fork of the Missouri, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico,
and the Green fork of the Colorado, which flows to the Gulf of
California. It flows S.W. and then W. for about 800 m. in a tremendous
cañon across southern Idaho; turns N. and runs for 200 m. as the
boundary between Idaho and Oregon (and for a short distance between
Idaho and Washington); turns again at Lewiston (where it ceases to be
the boundary, and where the Clearwater empties into it) to the W. into
a deep narrow valley, and joins the Columbia in S.E. Washington.
Practically all the valley of the Snake from Idaho Falls in S.E. Idaho
(Bingham county) to the mouth is of cañon character, with walls from a
few hundred to 6000 ft. in height (about 650 m. in Idaho). The finest
parts are among the most magnificent in the west; among its falls are
the American (Oneida and Blaine counties), and the Shoshone and the
Salmon (Lincoln county). At the Shoshone Falls the river makes a
sudden plunge of nearly 200 ft., and the Falls have been compared with
the Niagara and Zambezi; a short distance back of the main fall is a
cataract of 125 ft., the Bridal Veil. Between Henry's Fork and Malade
(or Big Wood) river, a distance of 200 m., the river apparently has no
northern tributaries; but several streams, as the Camas, Medicine
Lodge and Birch creeks, and Big and Little Lost rivers, which fail to
penetrate the plain of the Snake after reaching its border, are
believed to join it through subterranean channels. The more important
affluents are the North Fork in the E., the Raft, Salmon Falls and the
Bruneau in the S., the Owyhee and the Payette in the S.W., and the
Salmon and Clearwater in the W. The scenery on some of these
tributaries is almost as beautiful as that of the Snake, though
lacking the grandeur of its greater scale. In 1904 electricity,
generated by water-power from the rivers, notably the Snake, began to
be utilized in mining operations. Scattered among the mountains are
numerous (glacial) lakes. In the N. are: Coeur d'Alene Lake, in
Kootenai county, about 30 m. long and from 2 to 4 m. wide, drained by
the Spokane river; Priest Lake, in Bonner county, 20 m. long and about
10 m. wide; and mostly in Bonner, but partly in Kootenai county, a
widening of Clark Fork, Lake Pend Oreille, 60 m. long and from 3 to 15
m. wide, which is spanned by a trestle of the Northern Pacific 8400
ft. long. Bear Lake, in the extreme S.E., lies partly in Utah. Mineral
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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