On Thursday, July 25, Captain Clark, who was in the lead, as usual, arrived at the famous Three Forks of the Missouri. The stream flowing in a generally northeastern direction was the true, or principal Missouri, and was named the Jefferson. The middle branch was named the Madison, in honor of James Madison, then Secretary of State, and the fork next to the eastward received the name of Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury; and by these titles the streams are known to this day. The explorers had now passed down to their furthest southern limit, their trail being to the eastward of the modern cities of Helena and Butte, and separated only by a narrow divide (then unknown to them) from the sources of some of the streams that fall into the Pacific Ocean. Under the date of July 27, the journal says:-- “We are now very anxious to see the Snake Indians. After advancing for several hundred miles into this wild and mountainous country, we may soon expect that the game will abandon us. With no information of the route, we may be unable to find a passage across the mountains when we reach the head of the river--at least, such a pass as will lead us to the Columbia. Even are we so fortunate as to find a branch of that river, the timber which we have hitherto seen in these mountains does not promise us any fit to make canoes, so that our chief dependence is on meeting some tribe from whom we may procure horses. Our consolation is that this southwest branch can scarcely head with any other river than the Columbia; and that if any nation of Indians can live in the mountains we are able to endure as much as they can, and have even better means of procuring subsistence.” Chapter XII -- At the Sources of the Missouri