[VII-3] See note¹², p. 7, and add: I suspect that Noir is not the F. adj. which means "black," but a perversion of the noun Noix, Noyau, or Noyer, meaning "nut" or "walnut." Beck's Gazetteer, 1823, gives the name as Noyer cr.

[VII-4] An opinion of Mr. Ewing occupies note¹⁸, p. 15. A hitherto unpublished letter of General William Clark, Indian Agent for Louisiana, to the Secretary at War, is in part as follows:

"Saint Louis 22nd. June 1807.

"Sir

"... William Ewing's Account for provisions, hired men and Squars [squaws] appears to be unatherized by any person in this Country. M^r. G. Chouteau informs me that he never empowered him under any authority which he possessed to incur such expences to the U : States as [are] charged in his account.—And further says that he has always given such provisions and other articles to M^r. Ewing as he thought the Public Service required, for which he either paid himself or included in the account of Rations settled with the Contractor.—The public clammer [clamor] at this place is very much against M^r. Ewing; many unfavourable relation has been made of his conduct, such as purchaseing the Indians Guns for whisky and selling them again to the Indians for a high price.—Selling his corn to the Traders for trinkets for his Squar, hireing men on the behalf of the United States and sending them to work for his private benefit, makeing an incorrect report to me, &^c. &^c. I am induced to believe from the report of M^r. Bolvar [Nicholas Boilvin] and others who are willing to sweare that M^r. W^m. Ewing has behaved incorrectly and his example is degrading to the institution, and calculate to give the Indians an unfavourable impression of the public Agents in this Country. The Conduct of public Agents in this distant quarter, I fear will never be under sufficent check until there is a person to whome all are obliged to account resideing in this Country, with full power and descretion to inspect their actions &^c. &^c.

"A copy of Mr. Ewings report is inclosed in which he states the situation of his establishment and his prospects &^c....

"Your most Obedent "Humble Servent,
[Signed] "W^m. Clark. I. A. L."

[VII-5] Being letter to General Wilkinson, from that place at that date, which formed Doc. No. 2, p. 2, of the App. to Pt. 1 of the orig. ed. See Art. 2, p. 223. The lead mines are of course identifiable with the location of Dubuque; but the precise situation of Julien Dubuque's house, where Pike stopped both ways, was Catfish cr., about 2 m. below. Mr. Dubuque died Mar. 24th, 1810, aged 45½ years, and was buried on the eminence close by, which became known as Dubuque's bluff, and still bears this name. The peculiar character of his claim to the property occasioned much litigation, which was carried up to the Supreme Court of the U. S., and there decided in favor of the settlers, in or about 1853.

[VII-6] This description makes in the orig. ed. a 3-page footnote, which I reset in the main text, as no confusion will come from this obvious digression, the reader returning to Prairie du Chien in due course. It was furnished to Pike by (Robert) Dickson, whose name appears at the end. In spite of the mangling of the geographical names, and one or two sentences that seem to have got awry, it is a very telling piece of work—perhaps the most concise and correct statement extant in 1810 of what is one of the most memorable routes in the annals of American exploration. It was by this famous Fox-Wisconsin traverse from the Great Lakes to the Miss. r. that the latter was itself discovered to Europeans. For it is practically if not identically the route of Joliet and Marquette, 1673. Under the Canadian governorship of Comte Louis de Buade de Frontenac, who succeeded De Courcelle Apr. 9th, 1672, the Quebec trader Joliet, the priest Marquette, and five other Frenchmen, who were at Michilimackinac in Dec., 1672, passed thence by Green bay of Lake Michigan, Fox r., Lake Winnebago and Wis. r., to Miss. r. at Prairie du Chien, reached June 15th or 17th, 1673, and named Rivière Colbert after the French king's minister. Our esteemed antetemporary Jonathan Carver paddled that way too, and so did others too numerous to mention, among them the macronymous G. W. Featherstonhaugh, F. R. S., etc., whose canoe voyage up the Minnay Sotor, etc., made in 1835, furnished data for very readable and realistic gossip, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1847, I. p. 151 seq. The clearest view of the Fox-Wisconsin traverse I have seen is on the map accompanying Bvt. Maj. C. R. Suter's Rep., being Doc. E of Bvt. Maj.-Gen. G. K. Warren's Prelim. Rep. Surv. Miss. River above Rock Island rapids, this being Ex. Doc. No. 58, Ho. Reps., 39th Congress, 2d Sess., 8vo, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1867, pp. 1-116. Accurate engineering operations always reduce the mileages guessed at by tired travelers or idle tourists, but Dickson's estimates come remarkably near Suter's measurements, some of which are: Lower Fox r., 37½ m.; traverse on Lake Winnebago, 15½ m.; Upper Fox r., 104 m.; canal at portage, 2⅓ m.; Wisconsin r., 112 m.; total, Green Bay to Prairie du Chien, 271⅓ m.

I may here summarize as curtly as I can the main points of the probable fact that the Upper Mississippi was reached by practically this route, by Menard and Guerin, before its long-alleged and generally accepted discovery by Joliet and Marquette, as above noted. In 1659 Fond du Lac was approached by two traders, Groseilliers and Radisson; the former was Medard Chouart, the latter Pierre d'Esprit. Groseilliers, Grozayyay, Desgrozeliers, etc., was b. near Meaux in France; traded on Lake Huron in 1646; in 1647, married Veuve Étienne of Quebec, daughter of Abraham Martin; in Aug., 1653, married Marguerite Hayet Radisson, sister of Radisson. Radisson was b. St. Malo, France; came to Canada 1651, married Elizabeth Herault 1656; was at Three Rivers in Canada in 1658, and arranged to go with Groseilliers to Lake Superior. The two built the first trading-post on Lake Superior, at Chaquamegon bay (old Chagouamikon, etc.). Groseilliers was back at Montreal Aug. 21st, 1660; he returned to Lake Superior and was at Keweenaw bay Oct. 15th, 1660. Some of the traders of his party wintered here 1660-61; with them was the Jesuit Menard, the first missionary on the lake. Menard and one Jean Guerin left the lake June 13th, 1661, for the region of the Ottawa lakes in Wisconsin. Perrot says that Menard and Guerin followed the Outaouas to the Lake of the Illinoets (Lake Michigan), and to the River Louisiane (i. e., the Mississippi), to a point above the River Noire (Black r.), where they were deserted by their Huron Indians. One day in August, 1661, they were ascending a rapid in their canoe, which Menard left to lighten it; he lost his way, and perished; Guerin survived. Menard's breviary and cassock, it is said, were later found among the Sioux. Justin Winsor's Narr. and Crit. Hist. Amer. IV. p. 206, gives a sketch map on which a place is marked as that where Menard was lost. This seems to be toward the sources of Chippewa r. If Perrot's relation be true, and not misunderstood, Menard and Guerin reached the Mississippi via the Wisconsin from Green bay, ascended it to the Black or the Chippewa, and left it that way in the summer of 1661, 12 years before Joliet and Marquette came to the Mississippi.

[VII-7] Dickson's use of the term "La Baye" requires qualification to prevent misreading him. 1. The old Baye des Puans or Puants, Stinkers' bay, so called from the malodorous fish-eating Winnebagos who lived thereabouts, became from its verdure la Baie Verte, our Green bay, i. e., the whole water of that great N. W. arm of Lake Michigan, into the head of which Lower Fox r. empties. The last 7 m. of this river makes a sort of estuary from the foot of the last rapids, or head of natural river navigation, to the waters of Green bay; and this whole estuarian course was La Baye or La Baie of various early writers. 2. The earliest French footing on the estuary was the Jesuit mission at the foot of the rapids called Rapides des Pères (Priests' rapids), whence the modern name De Pere or Depere for the town now at or near the spot, on the E. bank of the river. The earliest French fort there was called Fort La Baye or La Baie; and this is the implication of the term as the name of a spot or place on the estuary also called "La Baye" or "La Baie." 3. When settlement was made under English occupation it crept down the estuary on the E. side to near the bay, and "La Baye," i. e., La Baie Verte, furnished the local habitation as well as the name of our Green Bay (town), a mile or two above the mouth of the estuary. 4. Under our régime, La Baie of the American Fur Company period was at a place called Shantytown, say halfway between the old French La Baye (present town of Depere) and the less old English La Baie (present county town of Green Bay, Brown Co., Wis.). 5. There were other settlements along the estuary, on the same side too. Thus, writing of 1835, Featherstonhaugh speaks of the new American settlement of Navarino, "a short distance" from Shantytown; he describes the latter as "a small bourgade," and locates Navarino opp. Fort Howard, i. e., where Green Bay now is. 6. On the left bank, nearly opp. present Green Bay, but rather nearer Green bay, was the site of our Fort Howard, which flourished say 60 years ago, and bequeathed the name to the town of Howard or Fort Howard, now opposite Green Bay. On the left bank higher up, opp. Depere, is a town called Nicollet, no doubt a belated bud of promise, as no such place appears on maps of 25 years ago. 7. None of the foregoing localities or establishments on Fox r. must be confounded with the recent outgrowth called Bay Settlement, which is out on the S. E. shore of Green bay, toward Point Sable.

[VII-8] Kakalin and Konimee of the above text, also Cockien of p. 295, are three forms of one word which has other curious shapes. Featherstonhaugh I. p. 162, speaks of rapids "called in the Menominie tongue Kawkawnin, literally 'can't get up,'" and says that the voyageurs make it Cocolo. Suter's text has Kankarma; his map, Kankana. Present usage favors Kaukauna; so G. L. O. maps, railroad folders, etc. With the qualifying terms Petit and Grand, or Little and Great, etc., the word denotes different places and things on the river; i. e., certain lower and upper rapids themselves, together with certain settlements at or near each of these obstructions to navigation. Petit Kakalin, Petite chute, Little Konimee, Little shoot, Little rapids, designated the lower rapids; and the town 6 m. above Depere received the name of Little Rapids or Little Kaukauna. Some miles above this place is now Wrightstown, on the right or E. bank of Fox r. Between Little Kaukauna and Wrightstown are obstructions in the river which are or were called Rapides Croches, from their crookedness. All the foregoing are in present Brown Co. Passing to Outagamie Co., we find what Dickson called the fall of Grand Konimee, and others knew as Grand Kakalin, Grand chute, etc. This is now simply styled Kaukauna falls, without any qualifying term; and the town there is Kaukauna Falls. Above Kaukauna falls and town, say 2 or 3 m., are rapids called Little chute (duplicating a different application of the name), and within a mile of them are others known as Cedar rapids. In this vicinity is also the town of Little Chute, 7 or 7½ m. below Appleton, seat of Outagamie Co. From Appleton we pass into Winnebago Co., and it is only 6 or 8 m. to where Dickson says "the river opens into a small lake," i. e., Lake Winnebago discharges into Lower Fox r. This outlet is by two channels, N. and S., separated by Doty or Doty's isl.; here are the Puant, or, as now known, Winnebago rapids; here was the first Puant or Winnebago village; here are now the cities of Menasha on the N. channel, and Neenah on the S. channel. The rapids are strongest in the latter.

[VII-9] Formerly Lac des Puans or des Puants, Stinkers' l., etc. This is the large body of water in Winnebago, Calumet, and Fond Du Lac cos., 35 m. long, 9 to 14 m. wide, and 12 to 25 feet deep, thus being an extensive overflow of Fox r., which enters at Oshkosh, Winnebago Co., about the middle of the W. side of the lake, and leaves by Neenah and Menasha, at the N. W. corner. The distance between these points, which was the usual canoe traverse, is 15½ m. There is a small island in this distance, known by the name of Garlic, which Featherstonhaugh calls Hotwater, from a droll incident he describes, I. p. 174. The Puant village which Dickson mentions as being at the upper end of the lake was at or near present Fond Du Lac, the county seat, and one of well known places in Wisconsin. Dickson's midway "Fols Avoine" village was the Menomonee settlement on the E. side of the lake, in Calumet Co. (Stockbridge and Brotherton Res.). Lake Winnebago conveniently divides Fox r. into the Upper Fox, which runs into it, and the Lower Fox, which runs out of it into Green bay; it also acts as a sort of reservoir or regulator to prevent freshets in the Lower Fox. The western shore is now skirted with railroads all the way from Menasha to Fond du Lac, and various towns are strung along this distance. Just before Fox r. falls in, it suffers dilatation into what was and is still called Lac Butte des Morts, the head of which is about 7 m. from Oshkosh; town of the same cheerful name there now. In this vicinity Loup or Wolf r. falls into the Upper Fox, after passing through an expansion known by some such perversions of the Chippewa name as Pawmaygun, Pauwaicun, Poygan, etc.

[VII-10] This is easier to locate than to tell the name of. It is that dilatation of Upper Fox r. which lies mainly in Green Lake Co., and for some little distance separates this from Marquette Co. The lake is 14½ m. long, but very narrow. Rush l. would be the English translation of the Indian name, a few of the variants of which are Apachquay, Apuckaway, Apukwa, Puckaway, Packaway, Pokeway, Puckway, Pacaua, etc. Before this notable lake was reached, the canoes passed the mouth of Wolf r., as above said; of Waukan r., discharging from a certain Rush l. in Winnebago Co., in the vicinity of places called Omri, Delhi, and Eureka; a couple of small streams at and near Berlin, Green Lake Co.; Puckegan cr., the discharge of Green l., which falls in at Fiddler's (qu. Fidler's?) Bend, on the S.; near this White r., on the N.; present site of Princeton, Green Lake Co., 12¼ m. above Fiddler's Bend; and lastly Mechan or Mecan r., whence it is only 6 m. to Lake Puckaway. The town of Marquette, Green Lake Co., is on the lake near its foot; and 7 m. above its head is Montello, seat of Marquette Co. A stream absurdly called Grand r. falls in on the S. between Lake Puckaway and Montello. From Montello to Packwaukee is 8 m.; this is on Bœuf, Beef, or Buffalo l., a dilatation of the river like Lake Puckaway, but not so wide. There was an old French fort or factory here, whose name is given as Ganville (qu. Bienville?). The "forks" of Fox r. of which Dickson speaks is the confluence of Necha r.; but there seems to be some copyist's mistake about the situation of his Lac Vaseux "ten leagues above the forks"; for there is no 28½ m. of the river left. Lac Vaseux of the text, otherwise known as Muddy, Rice, and Manomin, immediately succeeds Buffalo l., being below (north of) Moundville and Roslin or Port Hope. It seems to be reckoned a part of Lake Buffalo, for the distance hence to the Wisconsin r. is given as only about 14 m. The canal which Dickson recommends was long since cut, with a length of 2⅓ m. to Portage, seat of Columbia Co. From this place along the Wisconsin r. to the Mississippi, given by Dickson and repeated by Long as 60 leagues = 165 m., is 112 m. I have not the clew to the exact location of Dickson's Détour du Pin or Pine Bend; but I imagine it was about the situation of Lone Rock, Richland Co., above the mouth of Pine r., and below the place that Mr. Whitney named Helena, when he had his curious shot-tower there some 60 years ago.

[VII-11] The Montreal or Kawasidjiwong r. is a small stream which separates Wisconsin from Michigan for some little distance, and falls into Lake Superior at Oronto bay, E. of Point Clinton. The connection with Sauteur or Chippewa r., of which Pike speaks, was made by portages from the main E. fork of the Chippewa—that is, from Manidowish, Flambeau, or Torch r. But we should note here that there was more than one recognized route by way of the Chippewa from the Mississippi to Lake Superior, and in Carver's case, for example, confusion has arisen in consequence. Thus, some say that Carver left the Mississippi by way of Chippewa r. This is true; but he did not reach Lake Superior by way of Flambeau r. and Montreal r. Observing this, some say he reached Lake Superior by way of the St. Croix and the river he calls Goddard's. This is true; but he did not leave the Mississippi by St. Croix r. In June, 1767, Carver came from Prairie du Chien up the Miss. r. to the Chippewa; he went up this for the Ottawaw lakes, as he calls the present Lac Court Oreilles and some lesser ones close by; visited the Chippewa town whence the river took its name, he says, "near the heads of this river;... In July I left this town, and having crossed a number of small lakes and carrying places that intervened, came to a head branch of the river St. Croix. This branch I descended to a fork, and then ascended another to its source. On both these rivers I discovered several mines of virgin copper, which was as pure as that found in any other country. Here I came to a small brook," which by confluence of others soon "increased to a most rapid river, which we descended till it entered into Lake Superior.... This river I named ... Goddard's River," Trav., ed. 1796, pp. 66, 67. A small river west of Goddard's Carver named Strawberry r., "from the great number of strawberries of a good size and flavor that grew on its banks."

[VII-12] Pike was sadly misinformed on this point. No place on the river is better known than St. Croix falls, above Osceola Mills, Polk Co., Wis., and Franconia, Chisago Co., Minn., where the descent is quoted at 5 feet in 300 yards. Higher up, the river has many rapids—toward its head so many that Nicollet's map legends "Succession of Rapids"; Schoolcraft's marks about a dozen; Lieut. Allen, when abandoned by Mr. Schoolcraft, encountered "almost interminable rapids"; La Salle cited Du Luth for "forty leagues of rapids," in his letter from Fort Frontenac, Aug. 22d, 1682; and Hennepin called the St. Croix "a river full of rapids." They are most numerous and most nearly continuous above Yellow and Namakagon rivers, two of the principal branches of the Upper St. Croix, both of which drain from the region about the Ottawa lakes and others in Sawyer and Washburn cos., Wis. Pike's Burnt r. is supposed to be the same as Carver's Goddard r.; it is also called Burnt Wood r., from the F. Bois Brûlé, and the latter name is still in use. Burnt r. is called by Nicollet Wissakude and by others Misacoda—a name no doubt the same as Nimissakouat, Nemitsakouat, Nissipikouet, etc., de l'ancien régime; on Franquelin's map, 1688, it stands Neouoasicoton. This last is a specially notable case, as Franquelin marks "Fort St. Croix" and "Portage" near the head of his river at a certain "Lac de la Providence" in which he heads his "R. de la Magdelaine"; for these are the Upper St. Croix l. and the St. Croix r. (This post was probably established by Du Luth before 1684 or 1685; he had been in Paris in 1683; at Montreal, Quebec, etc., 1682 and 1681; and in June, 1680, made the Bois Brûlé-St. Croix trip from Lake Superior to the Mississippi.) Franquelin's early map, 1683-84, is said to be the first to delineate the Bois Brûlé-St. Croix route: this shows R. de la Magdelaine connecting by Lac de la Providence with R. Neouaisicoton, but no Fort St. Croix is there marked. This river is said well enough to head in this lake; but more precisely, its sources are in the feeders of this lake. One of these, which is situated on a pine ridge a couple of miles off, offers the always interesting, though not very rare case of a sheet of water running two ways; for this small Source l., as it is called, discharges one way into the St. Croix stream, hence into the Gulf of Mexico, and the other way into Burnt r., which takes water to Lake Superior and finally to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Burnt is navigable, though much obstructed with shoals, rapids, and falls; it runs in the main northward, near the E. border of Douglas Co. (named for Stephen A. Douglas), and falls into the Kichi Gummi, Sea of the North, West Sea, Grand Lac (Champlain's Voy., 1632, map), Lac de Condé, Lac de Tracy, Lac Supérieur, Lacus Superior (De Creux, 1664, map), Lake Algona, etc. There were Chippewa villages along nearly the whole line of both the rivers at various points, including one on an island in the Upper St. Croix l. Islands and peninsulas in lakes were always favorite sites, for in such cases these Indians enjoyed some additional immunity from the Sioux in what we may style their "moated granges." On the St. Croix r., low down, was the Chippewa-Sioux boundary line, marked for some years by cedar trees which stood there a few miles below St. Croix falls: see note¹⁷, p. 101.

[VII-13] Keating, I. 1824, p. 287, cites Long's MS. 1817, fol. 12, that Major Long's "boat crossed it, from a dead start, in 16 strokes." Referring to note⁶⁹, p. 70, for some historical remarks on St. Pierre's r., I wish to add here that this remarkable stream was at one period the main course of the Mississippi. The evidence of the rocks supports the opinion that the Falls of St. Anthony were once opposite the position of Fort Snelling. The Mississippi above the mouth of St. Pierre's differs in various particulars from the character it acquires below that point, and was once tributary to a then greater stream. This case does not seem to have attracted the attention to which it became entitled after its forcible presentation by General Warren. It is not so well marked as the obvious case of the Missouri vs. the Mississippi, in which there is no question which is the main and which the subsidiary stream; but it is similar. In other words, what the Mississippi is to the Missouri above St. Louis, that the Mississippi has been to the Minnesota above Fort Snelling.

[VII-14] The "rough draft" herein mentioned was published in the orig. ed. as a plate of page size, and is reproduced in facsimile for the present ed.

[VII-15] Pike's phrase "Le Mille Lac" brings up an orthographic case unique in some respects. No Minnesota lake is better known than this one; but what shall we call it? Shall we say Mille Lac, and then call the county in which it is partly situated Mille Lacs, as the G. L. O. map of 1887 does? Is the single body of water Le Mille Lac, as Pike says, or Les Mille Lacs? Is this one lake of a thousand, or a thousand lakes in one? Nobody seems to know; hence a crop of phrases, e. g., Mille Lac, Mille Lacs, Milles Lac, Milles Lacs; also, Mille Lac Lake, Lake Mille Lac, Lake Mille Lacs, Mille Lacs Lake; item, Mil Lac, Mill Lake, and other vagaries too many and too trivial to cite, all of which the student of Minnesota geography will discover sooner or later. The phrase being French, we naturally turn to see what a pure French scholar who was also a great geographer has to say on the subject. Speaking of the Sioux having their principal hunting-camps on Leech l. and on "Minsi-sagaigon-ing, or Mille Lacs," Nicollet explains in a note, Rep. 1843, p. 66: "This name is derived from minsi, all sorts, or everywhere, etc.; sagaigon, lake; and ing, which is a termination used to indicate a place; so the meaning of the word is 'place where there are all sorts of lakes,' which the French have rendered into Mille Lacs." Whence it appears that Mille Lacs is short for some such phrase as le pays aux mille lacs, l'entourage des mille lacs, the country full of lakes, the environment of a thousand lakes, etc. Now it so happens geographically that this one lake among the thousand is vastly larger than any of the rest, perhaps than all the rest put together; it is par excellence le lac des mille lacs, the one among a thousand; furthermore, that it was a Sioux rendezvous, which became known as Mille Lacs by a sort of unconscious figure of speech on the part of those who very likely never heard of the rhetorical trope synecdoche, but called a part by the name of the whole, to suit themselves. I imagine, therefore, that the seeming solecism of a plural phrase for a singular thing is logically correct; that Nicollet was right in writing Mille Lacs; that Lac Mille Lacs would be grammatically defensible, though inelegant; and that we could say in English Lake Mille Lacs, or Lake Thousand-lakes, with equal propriety, though we should avoid such forms as Lake Mille Lac, or Mille Lac lake. In fine, the phrase Mille Lacs has ceased to concern any question of grammatical number, and become a mere name of two words. As for the pleonasm or tautology of such phrases as Lac Mille Lacs, or Lake Mille Lacs, etc., this need not disturb us as long as we continue to talk of "Mississippi river," for example, as that means "Misi River river." There are several earlier names of this remarkable body of water. The memoir of Le Sieur Daniel Greysolon Du Luth on the discovery of the country of the Nadouecioux, addressed in 1685 to Monseigneur Le Marquis de Seignelay, as translated from the original in the archives of the Ministry of the Marine, has this passage, as given, e. g., in Shea's Hennep., 1880, p. 375: "On the 2nd of July, 1679, I had the honor to plant his Majesty's arms in the great village of the Nadouecioux, called Izatys, where never had a Frenchman been, no more than at the Songaskitons and Huetbatons," etc. De or Du Luth, Lhut, Lhu, Lut, Lud, whatever the trader's name was, had come from Montreal (Sept. 1st, 1678) with six or eight men to this part of Canada and was in the vicinity of Sault Ste. Marie on Apr. 5th, 1679, under the patronage of Comte Louis de Buade de Frontenac, who had succeeded De Courcelle as governor of Canada Apr. 9th, 1672; consequently he named the lake Lac de Buade or Lac Buade; this was its original denomination in French, and such name appears on many old maps, e. g., Hennepin's, 1683, Franquelin's, 1688, De L'Isle's, 1703, etc., some of which also mark a place by the name of Kathio, supposed to be the site of a large Sioux village, on the W. side of L. de Buade, near the base of the peninsula later known as Cormorant Point. Du Luth's Izatys were Gens des Mille Lacs, i. e., Sioux who lived about Lake Mille Lacs in the country of that "number of small lakes called the Thousand Lakes," as Carver phrases it; they were the Issati or Islati, Issaqui, Issanti, Issanati, Issanoti, Issayati, etc., meaning those who lived in lodges on sharp stones, i. e., Knife Indians, at one of the Mille Lacs called Lake Isan or Knife l. However loosely Du Luth's term Izatys may have come to be used, it designated and most properly designates the genuine original Gens du Lac, or People of Lake Thousand-lakes, our modern Mdewakontonwans. Du Luth's Houetbatons are supposed to be our Wakpatons, Warpetonwans, or Waqpatonwans; his Songaskitons, our Sisitonwans, Seseetwawns or Sissetons, i. e., lake-dwellers (sisi, marsh or lake, tonwan, people); these two tribes are located on old maps eastward of Lake Mille Lacs. In 1689, date of Pierre Lesueur's and Nicholas Perrot's visit to Sioux dominions, we hear that N. E. of the Mississippi lived the Menchokatonx or Mendesuacantons, i. e., the same Sioux as Du Luth's Izatys of Lac Buade. According to E. D. Neill, Macalester Coll. Cont. No. 10, in 1697 Aubert de la Chesnaye said that "at the lake of the Issaqui, also called Lake Buade, are villages of the Sioux called Issaqui; and beyond this lake are the Oetbatons; further off are the Anitons who are also Cioux." Neill also cites a certain doc., dated Quebec, 1710, which states that "the three bands with which we are acquainted are the Tintons, the Songasquitons, and the Ouadebaetons." Two of these are obviously the same as two of Du Luth's; the third (Tintons) are the same as the Izatys, or rather a band of Indians who came under this more general denomination. This connection is established in Hennepin, whose Tintonbas, Tintonhas, or Thinthonhas were Sioux who lived on the St. Francis (or Rum r., the main discharge of Lake Buade) near the Issantis, and were the Indians who captured his companions and himself. This dig at the roots of primitive Sioux ethnology is merely to bring up the next name of Lac Buade; for, from such intimate connection as this body of water had with certain Sioux, it immediately became known as Lac des Issatis, and soon as Lac des Sioux, or Sioux l.; moreover, St. Francis or Rum r., which runs out of the lake, became Sioux r.; e. g., Franquelin's map, 1688, marks "R. des François ou des Sioux." De L'Isle's map, 1703, letters the lake "Mississacaigan ou L. Buade," and the issuant river "R. de Mendeouacanion." The first of these two Indian names is the one which Nicollet adopts for the lake in the form Minsi Sagaigoning; the other is the same word as Mdewakantonwan. Nicollet's remark on this subject, like all his pregnant writing, requires attention here, especially as it raises a geographical besides a nomenclatural point, Rep. 1843, p. 67: "We still find some confusion on the maps as regards the name of Minsi-sagaigon-ing. Some have laid it down as Mille Lacs; others as Spirit lake; and on others, again, it appears as two lakes, with (separately) both names. The ambiguity arises from the fact that the same lake has been named by two nations. The one which I have adopted is from the Chippeways; that by which it is known to the Sioux is Mini-wakan—meaning literally, water spirit; but, in this case, intended to signify ardent spirits. The river that issues from this lake has been named Rum river by the traders; which appellation the Chippeways have translated into Ishkode-wabo, or ardent spirits; and the Sioux into Mdote-mini-wakan, or outlet of the ardent spirits." That is a dismal aboriginal pun which mixes up nature-spirits with the artificial product, turns the lake into a bottle, and the river into its neck; it is bad enough to have been perpetrated "next morning," and it is too bad that the debauches to which the traders allured the Indians should have been perpetuated in geographical nomenclature. Spirit l. is the name under which Long, for example, maps Lake Mille Lacs, and the Gens du Lac he calls People of Spirit Lake; and Schoolcraft, Narr. Journ. of 1820, pub. 1821, p. 214, has Great Spirit lake and Missisawgaiegon—the latter name also applied to its discharge (Rum r.). Spirit is not now a name of Lake Mille Lacs; the one for which Nicollet conserved the name Mini-wakan, and which hence became known as Spirit l. and Devil's l., is the large body of water in N. Dakota, tributary to the Red River of the North; Spirit l. of modern Minnesota geography is a little one of the collection in Aitkin Co., between Lower Red Cedar l. and Mille Lacs l. The latter is the second largest lacustrine body of water in the State. It is situated across the intercounty line between Aitkin and Mille Lacs, about half in one and half in the other of these two counties. Its figure is more regular than usual, being squarish, with three corners rounded off and the S. E. one drawn out a little; there is also some constriction about the middle, where points facing each other run out from the E. and W. shore respectively; the shore line is said to be about 100 miles in all. The lake is readily accessible, being only some 12 m. S. of Aitkin, and is a favorite resort for outings. One of the 14 present Ojibwa reservations is on its S. shore.

[VII-16] There is an error here, as what Hennepin called the St. François in 1680 is Rum r. of Carver, 1766, and authors generally; while St. Francis r. of Carver, which he thought was Hennepin's St. François, is Pike's Leaf r., now known as Elk r. See note⁷, p. 95, where this case is fully discussed.

[VII-17] Pike maps four on the W., above his Clear = Platte r., and below his Pine cr. = Swan r.: see note¹⁹, p. 103.

[VII-18] The name of this branch of St. Pierre's r. in Minnesota duplicates that of a large branch of the Mississippi in Wisconsin. The Minnesota tributary is Miawakong r. of Long's map, 1823, and Manya Wakan r. of Nicollet's, 1843.

[VII-19] Lac à la Queue de Loutre of the F., whence the E. name. This is the largest body of water into which the Red River of the North expands in Minnesota, and may be called a principal source of that river, as Pike says, though it compares with the true source very much as Leech l. or Winnibigoshish l. does with that of the Mississippi. It is situated about the center of Otter Tail Co., some 60-70 m. S. W. of Leech l.; Pike's map tucks it up snug under Leech l. The Leech-Otter Tail traverse, or route by which one passed from Mississippian waters to those of Red r., as beyond indicated by Pike, is given in detail by Schoolcraft upon information of traders who were familiar with this chain of lakes. Using the nomenclature of his Narrative, etc., 1834, p. 105, it may be stated as follows: From Leech l. through lakes called Warpool, Little Long, of the Mountain and of the Island, to the Crow Wing series, or Longwater, Little Vermillion, Birch, and Plé. Lake Plé was the one where the route forked—one way leading on down the Crow Wing series, the other turning off to the Otter Tail series. The latter consisted in, first, a portage of four pauses to Island l.; portage of one pause into a small lake which led into another, and this into Lagard l.; half a pause to a small lake; pause and a half to another; four pauses into Migiskun Aiaub or Fishline l.; a pause into Pine l.; five pauses into a small river which runs into Scalp l. The latter has an outlet which expands into three successive and about equidistant lakes, and is then received into Lac Terrehaute, or Height of Land l. The outlet of this last expands into a lake, and again into water called Two Lakes from its form; whence the discharge is into Otter Tail l. It is not easy to pick this exact route up from a modern map; but I may add that it runs in Hubbard, Becker, and Otter Tail cos.; that some of the lakes on or near this series are known as Height of Land, Little Pine, Pine, and Rush (these being on the course of Otter Tail r., and therefore on the Red River water-shed); and that some places on or near the route are called Park Rapids, Osage, Linnell, Shell Lake, Jarvis, Erie, McHugh, Frazer City, Lace, Perham, and St. Lawrence. The N. P. R. R. from Moorhead to Brainerd crosses the route in two or three places, one of these being between Pine and Rush lakes.

[VII-20] Pinenet or pinenett is Pike's version of épinette of the French voyageurs, name of the tree we commonly call tamarac or hackmetack, and which the botanists know as black larch, Larix americana. It is so abundant and characteristic in some places that the wet grounds in which it grows are usually called tamarac swamps. The sap pine of the same sentence has been already noted as the balsam-fir, Abies balsamea: see note⁴⁴, p. 132. There is a Lac Sapin, called in English Balsam-fir lake. The supposed occurrence of hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, in this locality is open to question.

[VII-21] "R. le Crosse" of Pike's map, the discharge of the lake now universally known as Ball Club: see the account of it in note⁵⁶, p. 150.

[VII-22] The lake which Pike calls Winipie is the large body of water in British America, through which the combined streams of the Assiniboine and Red River of the North find their way into Hudson's bay, and which we know as Lake Winnipeg; but this does not further concern us now. Pike's Lake Winipeque is what we now call Lake Winnibigoshish, on the course of the Mississippi. The French forms of the latter name, such as Ouinipique, etc., whence our Winipeque, Winipec, Winipeck, etc., are diminutizing terms, as if to say Little Lake Winipeg. There can be no occasion for confounding the two lakes, notwithstanding the similarity and sometimes the identity of their names.

Lake Winnibigoshish is that very large dilatation of the Mississippi which lies next below Cass l.: see note⁸, p. 159, for the distance between the two, and details of that section of the river which connects them. The variants of its name are moderately numerous: Winipeque, as above, but Winipec on Pike's map; Wenepec, Lewis and Clark's map, 1814; Little Winnepeck, Long; Winnipec, Beltrami, Schoolcraft; Winnepeg and Big Winnipeg, Allen; Winibigoshish, Nicollet, Owen—this last the only name now used, generally with doubled n, and with some variants, like Winnepegoosis, etc. This is the second largest body of water in the whole Itascan basin, exceeded only by Leech l., and much exceeding Cass l.; its area is probably not far from that of Lake Pepin, but the shape is very different. The figure is squarish, with the N. W. and S. W. corners rounded off, and the N. E. corner extended into a well-marked bay; the main diameters are about 11 m. from N. to S., and 7½ from E. to W.; the area thus indicated is little encroached upon by projecting points, so that the shore line is shorter than usual in proportion to the extent of waters; the collateral feeders of the lake are comparatively few and unimportant. The lake lies partly in no fewer than eight townships (each 6 × 6 m. sq.); but it only slightly encroaches on five of these, occupying nearly all of T. 146, R. 28, 5th M., the greater part of T. 145, R. 28, and about half of T. 146, R. 27: actual area thus equivalent to rather more than two townships, or over 72 sq. m. The construction of the government dam at the outlet has decidedly altered the shore line, and modified other natural features; the overflow due to this obstruction has inundated the original shore contour in the low places, formed some backwater expansions, and drowned countless trees. Many of these stand stark and black where they grew, far out from the present shore line, which itself is piled with drift-wood in most places. Snags also abound all along the wooded shores, and the water is so shallow that some beds of bulrushes rise above the surface a mile or more from land. The scene is desolate and forbidding. Add to this a danger of navigation to an unusual degree for the frail birch-bark canoes which alone are used on Winnibigoshish. The lake is too large to be safely crossed in such boats at any time. Even the Indians habitually sneak to the shore through the snags and rushes; for the water is very shallow, easily churned up to quite a sea. Sudden squalls and shifting currents are always to be expected, and one runs considerable risk in venturing where land cannot be made in a few minutes, if necessary. It would be nothing, of course, to a well-built keel-boat with sail and oars; but a birch-bark is quite another craft. I have seen Winnibigoshish as smooth as glass, and then in a few minutes been glad to put ashore, to escape a choice between swamping or capsizing, amid whitecaps and combers at least four feet from crest to hollow, breaking on a lee shore full of snags and piled with driftwood. Good landing places are not to be found all along; most of the shore is low, and much of it consists of floating-bog, in which a man may sink as easily, and less cleanly, than in quicksand, if he sets an incautious foot. The water is so impure as to be scarcely fit for drinking; the lake is a sort of cesspool for all the sewerage of the basin whose waters pass through it. Winnibigoshish, in short, is dreary, dirty, deceitful, and dangerous.

The Mississippi enters this reservoir in the S. W. part, at a point in the S. W. ¼ of Sect. 36, T. 146, R. 29, 5th M., where it sweeps around a firm bank, steep enough to be cut in some places, and on which some Indians live; quite a little delta extends far out into the lake, overgrown with bulrushes to such an extent as to hide the opening. But it is not difficult to thread any one of several ways through these to the high bank just said, which is the land-mark; a more conspicuous one, from a distance, is a piece of high woodland whose point is due S. ½ m. from the inlet. Hence southward is the nearest approach of Leech l.; a traverse offers by means of Portage l. (Nicollet's Lake Duponceau), though the carrying-place is somewhat over 2 m. long.

Passing northward, to our left as we start from the Mississippian inlet to go around the shore, the first prominent feature is Raven's point, distant from the inlet 4 m. The maps all represent this as much longer and sharper than it looked to my eye; probably much of the point that was once land is now under water, owing to the dam. It is the site of a squalid village of Chippewas, who have been civilized into the whole assortment of our own vices. A considerable stream falls in here, which I suppose is Kaminaigokag r. of Nicollet and Owen, though it is nameless on more modern maps. Its mouth is in Sect. 18, T. 146, R. 29, close to the N. border of Sect. 19; near by is a lake about a mile in diameter, probably due to overflowage. Rounding Raven's point and proceeding N. 4 m. further, we come to a little bay into which flows a considerable stream from the W. This is Third r., often marked "III. R." The reason for this name will presently appear. Schoolcraft in Narr. Journey of 1820, pub. 1821, p. 246, calls it "Thornberry river, or La rivière des Epinettes," but F. épinette does not mean "thornberry": see note²⁰, p. 319. The mouth of Third r. falls in the N. W. ¼ of Sect. 33, T. 147, R. 28. Coasting now E. along the N. shore, we round the prominence which defines Third River bay, and which I call Windy pt. from my experience there—it had no name that I could discover. It consists of a floating-bog for some distance back, and in this morass, further eastward, a small creek empties in Sect. 35 of the T. and R. last said; this may be called Bog cr., if no earlier name can be found; it is not one of the regularly enumerated streams. A mile and a half eastward of Bog cr., nearly or exactly on the line between Sect. 36 of the same township and Sect. 31 of T. 147, R. 27, is the mouth of Pigeon r. No other name is heard on the spot; but this is Second r. or "II. R." of the geographers. Schoolcraft, l. c., called it Round Lake r., and Round l. is present name of its principal source. There is a good landing here on a bit of beach under a firm, bluffy bank, the site of the most decent and well-to-do Chippewa village about the lake. Three and a half miles E. S. E. of Pigeon r. is the wide, irregular opening of Cut Foot Sioux r., otherwise First r., or "I. R.," which discharges from a system of lakes, the nearest one of which is marked Cut Toe l. by Owen, and Keeskeesedatpun l. on the Jewett map of 1890. This is the river called Turtle Portage r. by Schoolcraft, l. c. Several houses stand on and under the high land on the E. or left bank, a fraction of a mile back of the opening, among them the trading-house of one Fairbanks, where the usual robberies are perpetrated under another name, but without further pretense of any sort. Four miles from the mouth of the Cut Foot Sioux, in a direction about S. S. E., is the outlet of the Mississippi, at the bottom of a large bay, offset from the rest of the lake by prominent points of land. The separation of this bay from the main body of waters is scarcely less well-marked than that of Pike bay from the rest of Cass l. I propose to call it Dam bay. The points of land which delimit its opening into Lake Winnibigoshish are: A long linguiform extension from the S., occupying all the ground not overflowed of Sects. 15 and 16, T. 146, R. 27, which may be designated Tongue pt.; and opposite this, on the N., a much less extensive prominence, which may become known as Rush pt., in Sect. 10 of the T. and R. last said. Paddling 1½ m. from Cut Foot Sioux r., we go through the strait between Tongue and Rush pts., and are then in Dam bay, a roundish body of water about 2½ m. in diameter. At the S. end of this is the short thoroughfare (outlet of the Mississippi), less than a mile long, which leads into Little Lake Winnibigoshish, and has been dammed at its lower end, in the S. W. ¼ of Sect. 25, necessitating, of course, a portage of a few yards in canoeing. The dam in part consists of a solid embankment, stretching from the S.; the rest is the wooden construction for raising and lowering a series of gates by which the flow of water can be regulated. This work looks sadly in need of repair, and is said to be none too secure. At the N. end of the dam is a high wooded hill, a fine spring of water, and some vacant buildings; on the other side is a narrow pond over a mile long, called Rice l.

Immediately below the dam, the Mississippi dilates into Little Lake Winnibigoshish (once Rush l.), of irregularly oval figure, 2¾ m. long by scarcely over 1 m. in greatest breadth, its longest diameter about N. W. to S. E. At a point near the S. E. is the portage, or carrying place, over to Ball Club l., whose head is there distant about a mile: see note⁵⁶, p. 150. The outlet of the Mississippi is on the S., in the N. W. ¼ Sect. 6, T. 145, R. 26. Thence the river flows scarcely W. of S. for 3 m. direct, but I judge fully 6½ by its extremely tortuous channel, to a place in Sect. 24, T. 145, R. 27, where some rapids occur; these, however, are easily shot. The further course of the river is S. E., 8 m. direct, but more than twice as far by the bends, to the confluence of Leech Lake r., or Pike's "Forks of the Mississippi": see back, note last cited, p. 151. This whole section of the Mississippi, from Little Lake Winnibigoshish to the mouth of Leech Lake r., is easy canoeing down, with plenty of smooth, swift water, even at low stages, and good places to camp all along on the wooded points against which the channel continually abuts as it bends from side to side of the low bottom-land, mostly overgrown with reeds (Phragmites communis) and bulrushes (Scirpus lacustris), but toward Leech Lake r. becoming meadowy and thus fit for haying. Besides the main bends, or regular channel, there are a great many minor sluices or cut-offs, practicable for canoeists; and one is borne quickly along by the current, without minding much whether one is in the channel or not. This way down, though circuitous and several times as far as the route by Ball Club l., which lies off to the left as you descend, is decidedly preferable; but going up river I should advise one to take the route through Ball Club, and portage over to Little Lake Winnibigoshish.

[VII-23] William Morrison is the first of white men known to have been at Lake Itasca. He wintered at Lac la Folle, 1803-4, visited Lake Itasca in 1804, and again in 1811 or 1812. Mr. Morrison was b. Canada, 1783, d. there Aug. 9th, 1866. He kept a journal, which was lost, of his movements before 1824. He described "Elk" l. to his daughter, Mrs. Georgiana Demaray, and various other persons; he considered and declared himself the first of white men at the source, though his claim does not appear to have become a matter of authentic, citable publication till 1856: see Final Rep. Minn. Geol. Surv., I. p. 26. The document on which his claim mainly rests is the extant original of a letter addressed by William to his brother Allan, dated Berthier, Jan. 16th, 1856. This is published verbatim in Brower's Report, Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., VII. 1893, pp. 122-124. Brower says (l. c. p. 120) that the "Morrison letter," as originally published in Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., I. 1856, pp. 103, 104, or 2d ed., 1872, pp. 417-419, is "a composite production." The article there covering the William Morrison letter is entitled "Who Discovered Itasca Lake?" and includes a letter from Allan Morrison to General Alexander Ramsay (now ex-Secretary of War and President of the Society), dated Crow Wing, Benton County, M. T., Feb. 17th, 1856. Charles Hallock, Esq., formerly of New York, the well-known author of the Sportsman's Gazetteer and many other works, founder of the Forest and Stream weekly in New York, and of the town of Hallock, now the seat of Kittson Co., Minn., published a version of the "Morrison letter," said to be a "correct copy," in his article The Red River Trail, Harper's Mag. XIX. No. cix, June, 1859, p. 37, which aroused the jealous recalcitration of Mr. Schoolcraft, whose reclamation was made in a letter to George H. Moore, Esq., Librarian of the New York Historical Society, dated Washington, Aug. 12th, 1859, and published in the N. Y. Evening Post, Aug. 23d, 1859, p. 1, column 4. I have not inspected Morrison's autograph letter; but I have compared the three printed versions here in mention—the one of 1856 or 1872, Hallock's of 1859, and Brower's of 1893. They are all to the same effect, and evidently from one source; but the textual discrepancies of all three are so great that they can scarcely be called "copies." Brower speaks of "several letters written by Mr. Morrison on this subject," and states that the one he prints, of Jan. 16th, 1856, "is given in full, and just as written and signed." From this imprint I extract the following clauses: "I left the old Grand Portage, July, 1802, ... in 1803-4, I went and wintered at Lac La Folle.... Lac La Biche is near to Lac La Folle. Lac La Biche is the source of the Great River Mississippi, which I visited in 1804, and if the late Gen. Pike did not lay it down as such when he came to Leech lake it is because he did not happen to meet me.... I visited in 1804, Elk lake, and again in 1811-12," etc. Nothing appears to invalidate this letter; for Mr. Schoolcraft's contemptuous contention of 1859 belittled Mr. Morrison and Mr. Hallock without disproving or even disputing Mr. Morrison's claim. The gravamen of Mr. Schoolcraft's charge is contained in the statement "that he [Morrison], or his friends in Minnesota, should have deferred forty-seven years to make this important announcement, is remarkable." It may have been "remarkable"; but it is not inexplicable. Mr. Henry D. Harrower, in the Educational Reporter Extra, Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor and Co., New York and Chicago, pub. Oct., 1886, 8vo, p. 17, has some discerning and judicious remarks on this score: "The statements of the brothers Morrison have generally been received without question by scientists and geographers in Minnesota; and in his letter Allan Morrison expresses surprise that anyone should be ignorant of the title of his brother to the discovery of Itasca prior to Schoolcraft. It is a curious fact, however, that Allan Morrison acted as guide for Charles Lanman for a number of weeks in 1846, during which time they visited Itasca Lake; and that Lanman, in his published account of the trip, nowhere mentions Wm. Morrison, or intimates that he was ever at the source of the Mississippi, but definitely ascribes the discovery to Schoolcraft in 1832. See Lanman's 'Adventures in the Wilderness,' vol. i, pages 48, 75, etc. I venture the opinion that Morrison first identified his Elk Lake of 1804 with Schoolcraft's Itasca when he read Schoolcraft's 'Summary Narrative' (1855); and that it is safe to say that if Morrison discovered Lake Itasca, Schoolcraft discovered Morrison." This may be considered to raise the question, What constitutes discovery? But that does not affect the main issue. Mr. Morrison's declaration that he visited Lake Itasca in 1804 and again in 1811-12 thus far rests uncontested. If the case is ever re-opened, it will probably be upon newly discovered documentary evidence of priority of discovery by some Frenchman. When Pike was at Leech l. he just missed, by some months and scarcely more miles, the glory of the most important discovery he could possibly have made in the course of this or his other expedition.

In May, 1820, Lewis Cass, then governor of Michigan, left Detroit with 38 men, among whom was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Proceeding by Michilimackinac he struck the Miss. r. at Sandy l., and entered it July 17th. The narrative recites that he went to Peckagama falls, thence 55 m. to the Forks, 45 to Lake Winnipec, and about 50 m. more to the large lake then first called Cassina and afterward Cass l. by Schoolcraft. This was entered July 21st; but the party went no further. It was then represented to them that the source of the river was in a lake called La Beesh, i. e., La Biche, erroneously supposed to be 60 miles N. W.; upon which the river was computed to be 3,038 m. long, at an altitude of 1,330 feet: for the particulars of this voyage, see Schoolcraft's Narrative Journal, etc., pub. E. and E. Hosford, Albany, N. Y., 1821, 1 vol. 8vo, pp. i-xvi, 17-419, 4 unpaged pages of index, map, plates; it is full of errors. The Cradled Hercules, as Nicollet later called it, slept on this till Schoolcraft returned in 1832 to awaken the infant, with Lieut. Allen, Rev. Mr. Boutwell, Dr. Houghton, and Mr. Johnston, under the leadership of Chief Ozawindib.

Giacomo Constantino Beltrami was b. Bergamo, Italy, 1779; au mieux, Mme. La Comtesse de Campagnoni née Passeri, at Florence, 1812; exiled, 1821; Fort St. Anthony (Snelling), May 10th, 1823; and when Long's expedition came in July of that year, he accompanied it up the Minn. r. and down the Red River of the North to Pembina, where he took offense and his congé simultaneously, between Aug. 5th-9th. The differences between the American soldier and the expatriated Italian were great and various. Major Long ejected Signor Beltrami on the spot, and on paper dismissed him not less curtly and contemptuously, making this harsh judgment a personal matter over initials S. H. L. in Keating, I., p. 314: "An Italian whom we met at Fort St. Anthony attached himself to the expedition and accompanied us to Pembina. He has recently published a book entitled, 'La Découverte des Sources du Mississippi,' &c., which we notice merely on account of the fictions and misrepresentations it contains." Mr. Schoolcraft makes a point of snubbing Sig. Beltrami: see posteà. The amiable M. le Professeur Nicollet alone has a kindly word for his co-laborer in Mississippian exploration: "He descended Turtle river, which empties into Lake Cass;—that had been the terminus of the expedition of 1820, under the command of General Cass, and in honor of whom it is so named. Now, as the sources of Turtle river are more distant from the mouth of the Mississippi than this [Itasca] lake, Mr. Beltrami thought himself authorized to publish that he had discovered the sources of the Mississippi. Hence, perhaps, may be explained why, as late as Mr. Schoolcraft's expedition of 1832, the sources of the river were laid down as N. W. of Lake Cass. I may be mistaken, but it strikes me that American critics have been too disdainful of Mr. Beltrami's book, which found many readers on both continents, whilst it propagated some painful errors," Rep. 1843, p. 59. Hon. J. V. Brower, the latest and altogether the best monographer, stigmatizes Sig. Beltrami as "a hero-worshipper with but one hero, and that himself," Miss. R., etc., 1893, p. 136. With me the question is not one of Beltrami's character, temperament, imagination, sex-relations, etc., but simply, What did he do about the Mississippian origines? Brower gives a clear, connected, and fair answer, ibid., pp. 137-141, in part from an article by Mr. A. J. Hill of St. Paul. Beltrami bravely made his way alone to Red l., which he left Aug. 26th, 1823; was guided Aug. 28th to the vicinity of Turtle l.; found a spot whence he thought water flowed four ways, N., S., E., W., to three oceans, and which was a part of the divide between Mississippian and Hudsonian waters; named Lake Julia, tributary to Turtle l., as a "Julian source" of the Mississippi, which it was; declared it to be the true source, as he defined the "source" of a river, by position relative to position of the mouth; declared and certainly believed he had discovered this source, in which he was mistaken, as it was already known; named other lakes for other friends; and was informed by his guide of Lake Itasca, which he located on his map with approx. accuracy by the name of Doe l., translating Lac La Biche of the F., though it appears in his text as Bitch l. by mistake. For Beltrami distinctly speaks, II. p. 434, of Lake Itasca: "which the Indians call Moscosaguaiguen, or Bitch lake, which receives no tributary stream, and seems to draw its waters from the bosom of the earth. It is here in my opinion that we shall fix the western sources of the Mississippi," as Schoolcraft and Allen did, nine years afterward. Beltrami proceeded to Cass l., and thence to Fort St. Anthony, where he arrived after great hardships in a state of extreme destitution; went to New Orleans, and there published his first book, 1824. In all this I see no necessary occasion for disdain or derision; the man did the best he could—"angels could do no more." He showed courage, fortitude, endurance, perseverance, ambition, and enthusiasm—all admirable qualities. He wrote an extravagant book, to be sure; but it displays less egotism and more fidelity to the facts, as he understood them, than Hennepin's, for example, and has a higher moral quality than the average Jesuit Relation. He shot high, but not with a longer bow than many a traveler before and since himself. One test of his good faith is the perfect ease with which we can find the facts in his book and separate them from the figments of his overwrought imagination. Heredity and environment conspired to lead him into grave errors of judgment and some misstatements of fact; but which one of us who write books can stone his glass house with impunity? Beltrami's Julian source will run in the books as long as the water runs from that source, alongside the Plantagenian and Itascan sources. Beltrami's map locates Doe=Itasca l. with greater accuracy than any earlier map does. The "pointed similarity" it has been said to bear to Pike's—and I fear as a suggestion of plagiarism—does not extend to the Itascan source, for there is not a trace of this on Pike's published map. Beltrami went from New Orleans to Mexico, traversed that country, reached London about 1827, published his Pilgrimage, etc., 2 vols., and d. at Filotrano, Feb., 1855, in his 76th year. He fills the niche in Mississippian geographical history between Cass, 1820, and Schoolcraft and Allen, 1832; meanwhile, Itasca State Park lies mainly in Beltrami Co., Minn., which includes both the Julian and Itascan sources. There was nothing the matter with Beltrami but woman on the brain; he had a queen bee in his bonnet—that is all. Much that has been taken for puerile conceit is the virile badinage of a man of the world, of wit, and of penetration. I have read his Pilgrimage with interested attention; it is clear to me that Beltrami was no mere flâneur—by no means such a trifler as some of his passages might excuse one for supposing him to be. He was a well-read and well-traveled man; his obiter dicta on various things, as religion, politics, society, and other broad themes, are generally acute. He was a brave man; I imagine Major Long had a time of it with Sioux, and Signor Beltrami too; it seems to have been a case of scalping-knife and stiletto. As I have already cited the military mailed hand, let us see the fine Italian hand: "Major Long did not cut a very noble figure in the affair; I foresaw all the disgusts and vexations I should have to experience," II. p. 303; "met a band of Sioux. The major thought he read hostile intentions in their faces; he even thought they had threatened him;—of course everybody else thought so too—like Casti's courtiers; ... it was incumbent on me, therefore, to be very much alarmed, too; ... I rather think the fright they threw the major into was in revenge for his giving them nothing but boring speeches. If they meant it so they had every reason to be satisfied," II. pp. 336-37; "Colonel Snelling's son, who shewed the most friendly concern and apprehensions for me. He also left the major at the same time, not without violent altercation, ... with considerable regret I parted from Dr. Say, one of the naturalists attached to the expedition, the only one who deserved the designation [this was a tickler for Prof. Keating's fifth rib]," II. 370; "they [Colonel Snelling, Major Taliaferro, and others] were indignant against Major Long for acting towards me in the miserable manner that he did. With respect to myself, I feel towards him a sort of gratitude for having by his disgusting manners only strengthened my determination to leave him," II. p. 483. Beltrami was evidently able to keep his own scalp, and his book is vastly diverting, except in the boggy places, where he mires us down with his gynæcosophy. It is entitled: A Pilgrimage in Europe and America, leading to the Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi River, etc., 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1828, pp. i-lxxvi, 1-472, and 1-545, map and plates. It is dedicated "To the Fair Sex. Oh Woman!" The text is in epistolary form, ostensibly addressed to the countess, and consists of 22 letters, 1821-23; matter of Julian sources, II. p. 409 seq., and map.

In 1830, Cass was directed by the War Department to request Schoolcraft, who was then an agent of the Office of Indian affairs of the W. D., to proceed into the Chippewa country to endeavor to put an end to the hostilities between the Chippewas and the Sioux. The wars which neither Pike, nor Clark, nor anybody else had succeeded in stopping permanently in those quarters were thus indirectly the cause, and directly the occasion, of the rediscovery of the source of the Miss. r. Schoolcraft left St. Mary's, at the foot of Lake Superior, late in June, 1831, with 27 persons, exclusive of guides and Indian portagers. But the atrocious massacre of Menomonees by the Sacs and Foxes at Prairie du Chien, and other circumstances, diverted this expedition from the sources of the river, and Schoolcraft returned to the Sault Ste. Marie. The plan was resumed early in 1832, when another party was made up of some 30 persons, on the basis of an attempt to effect permanent peace between the two principal tribes. Schoolcraft left the Sault June 7th, 1832. This place was and is on a large lake which S. calls Igomi, Chigomi, and Gitchigomi, and others Kitchi Gummi—though we prefer Lake Superior to the Chippewa vernacular. On July 3d, he reached Mr. Aitkin's trading-house on the discharge of Sandy l., a distance of about 150 m. by the usual St. Louis and Savanna rivers route. Cass l. was entered on the 10th; this was the point of departure for new exploration, as it was that where the Cass expedition had ended July 21st, 1820. Cass l. was then determined to be 2,978 instead of 3,038 m. from the Gulf of Mexico by the course of the river. The Indian guide, Ozawindib, began to make history and immortalize his name at this point. He took the party up the Miss. r. to Lac Traverse or Pamitchi Gumaug, that is, to Lake Bemidji, and thence by the chain of lakes Schoolcraft called Irving, Marquette, La Salle, and Plantagenet, up the course of the "South" (better called East) fork of the Miss. r. to the Naiwa r. and Usawa l., thus discovering the linked chain which later became known as the "Plantagenian source": see note⁸, p. 162. Ozawindib then portaged the party over to the lake which Morrison had discovered in 1804. Camp was pitched on the island which by common consent bears Schoolcraft's name, July 13th, 1832. The party consisted of 16 persons, including Ozawindib, Mr. Schoolcraft, Lieut. James Allen, U. S. A., Dr. Douglass Houghton, Rev. Wm. T. Boutwell, and Mr. George Johnston. The name "Itasca" was a whim of Schoolcraft's, which would mislead anyone who should search Indian languages for its etymology, especially as Mr. S. himself affects obscurantism by saying: "Having previously got an inkling of some of their mythological and necromantic notions of the origin and mutations of the country, which permitted the use of a female name for it, I denominated it Itasca." This is a dark hint of mystic and very likely phallic superstitions; but the facts in the case are given in Brower's Report, p. 148, from personal interview with the Rev. Boutwell himself, who said in substance that once when he and Mr. S. were in the same canoe in 1832, the latter suddenly turned and asked him what was the Greek and Latin definition of the headwaters or true source of a river. Mr. B. could not on the spur of the moment rally any Greek, but mustered Latin enough to give Mr. S. his choice of Verum Caput (true head) or Veritas, Caput (truth, head); by combining which latter two words, beheading one and bobtailing the other, Mr. S. made (Ver)ITASCA(put), and said, "Itasca shall be the name." He was quite equal to such juggling with words; e. g., his Lake Shiba is named by a word which consists of the initial letters of schoolcraft, houghton, iohnston (for johnston), boutwell, and allen. It is lucky Mr. Boutwell did not think of the Greek for "head waters," or Itasca might have been named Lake Hydrocephalus. Mr. Schoolcraft perpetuated the etymological myth by perpetrating some stanzas, two lines of which are: "As if in Indian myths a truth there could be read, And these were tears indeed, by fair Itasca shed." None of the party appears to have noticed the smaller lake south of Itasca, though it was only 333 yards from the head of the W. arm, which was not explored; and in fact the visit of so much historical moment was in itself but momentary. The main point ascertained was the location of Itasca to the S. W. of Cass l., where Beltrami had already represented it to be, instead of the N. W. where Schoolcraft had supposed it was. The many little lakes and streams in the Itasca basin, and all nice topographic features, were left to be discovered by Nicollet and his successors. Their Chippewa guide took them back by way of the main, west, or Itascan course of the river to Cass l., whence they went to Leech l., thence by the chain of lakes to Crow Wing r., and so on to the Mississippi again. It is certainly not my desire to disparage Mr. Schoolcraft; but one who could be taken to the source of the Mississippi and leave it the same day, seeing nothing but what was shown him, and giving only a glance at that, was not the person who should have snubbed Beltrami as he did when he wrote that "a Mr. Beltrami, returning from the settlement of Pembina by the usual route of the traders from Red Lake to Turtle Lake, published at New Orleans, a small 12mo volume under the title of 'La découverte des sources du Mississippi, et de la Riviere [sic] Sanglante,' a work which has since been expanded into two heavy 8vo volumes by the London press" (Narrative, etc., heavy 8vo, New York, 1834, p. 73). That sort of a sneer at a prior explorer in the same region comes with particularly bad grace from a gentleman who was expert in expanding his own stock of information to the most voluminous proportions, and whose cacoëthes scribendi, by dint of incessant scratching, finally developed a case of pruritus senilis, marked by an acute mania for renaming things he had named years before: see his Summary Narrative, etc., Philada., Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1855. Mr. Schoolcraft never forgave Sig. Beltrami for telling where Lake Itasca would be found; had he done so, he would have been untrue to the supreme selfishness, inordinate vanity, vehement prejudices, and conscientious narrow-mindedness with which his all-wise and all-powerful Calvinistic Creator had been graciously pleased to endow him. Another account of Schoolcraft's expedition of 1832 occupies pp. 125-132 of Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., I. 2d ed. 1872; Mr. Boutwell's narrative of the same is found ibid., pp. 153-176.

James Allen's name is not so well known in this connection as it should be. That is to say, the public seldom connects his name with the discovery of Lake Itasca. But if Mr. Schoolcraft was the actual head of the expedition of 1832, and became its best known historian, Lieutenant Allen was a large and shapely portion of the body of that enterprise, decidedly the better observer, geographer, and cartographer; item, the commander of the military escort, which might have been necessary for safety and success; item, the author of an able, interesting, and important report upon the subject, which he made to the military authorities. He was detailed for this duty by order of A. Macomb, Major-General, commanding the army, dated Hdqrs. of the Army, Washn., May 9th, 1832, and proceeded to Fort Brady, Mich., with a detachment consisting of Corporal Wibru, and Privates Briscoe, Beemis, Burke, Copp, Dutton, Ingram, Lentz, Riley, and Wade, of the 5th Infantry. He was gone June 6th-Aug. 26th, 1832. His movements were the same as Mr. Schoolcraft's, except where the latter left him in the lurch on the St. Croix; his operations more extensive and more intelligently directed to explore and report upon the country. He named Schoolcraft isl. and various other things; Allen's bay was named for him by Mr. Schoolcraft, and Allen's l. by Mr. Brower. Allen was an Ohio man, appointed from Madison, Jefferson Co., Ind., cadet at West Point, July 1st, 1825; 2d lieut. 5th Infantry, July 1st, 1829; 2d lieut. 1st Dragoons, Mar. 4th, 1833; 1st lieut. May 31st, 1835; capt., June 30th, 1837; on detached service, engineering duty, Chicago, 1837-38; d. suddenly at Fort Leavenworth, Kas., Aug. 22d or 23d, 1846, as lieutenant-colonel of a Mormon battalion of volunteer infantry he had raised to re-enforce our Army of the West, "beloved while living, and regretted after death, by all who knew him," Hughes, Doniphan's Exped., 1847, p. 53. His valuable Mississippi report, completed at Fort Dearborn (Chicago), Nov. 25th, 1833, was transmitted to Congr. by Hon. Lewis Cass, Sec. of War, Apr. 11th, 1834, and published in Amer. State Papers, Class V. Milit. Affairs, V. Ex. Doc. No. 579, 1st Session, 23d Congr., folio, pp. 312-344, and map.

The illustrious name of Jean Nicolas Nicollet is first in time on the roll of those who have applied modern methods of exact and exacting science to the geography of the West. Nicollet is most highly appreciated by those who are themselves most worthy of appreciation and most competent critics. Thus, Gen. G. K. Warren pronounces Nicollet's map "one of the greatest contributions ever made to American geography." It will stand forever as the sound basis of knowledge on the subject. Notices of Nicollet's life and work are found in: Trans. Assoc. Amer. Geol. and Nat., 1840-42, Boston, 1843, pp. 32-34; Amer. Journ. Sci., 1st ser., XLVII. p. 139, sketch by Prof. H. D. Rogers; Minn. Hist. Coll., I. (of 1850-56), 2d ed. 1872, pp. 183-195, memoir by Gen. H. H. Sibley; VI. 1891, pp. 242-245, being reminiscences in the autobiography of Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro; and VII. 1893, pp. 155-165, notice by J. V. Brower with portrait; Ann. Rep. Smiths. Inst., 1870, p. 194; Frémont's Memoirs, I. pp. 30-72, passim; notice in Educational Reporter Extra, Oct., 1886, by H. D. Harrower; and especially N. H. Winchell, Amer. Geol., VIII. Dec., 1891, pp. 343-352, with portrait and best biography. N. was b. at Cluses in Savoy, 1790; d. Baltimore, Md., Sept. 11th, 1843. He was a watchmaker's apprentice till æt. 18; was a natural musician; studied languages and mathematics, and in 1818 published an article which became noted in the annals of insurance for its calculations on probable duration of human life; he wrote others of similar character; 1819 to 1828, he published various mathematical and astronomical treatises; was decorated in 1825 with the Cross of the Legion of Honor; at one time held a professorship in the Royal College of Louis Le Grand; was also an inspector of naval schools; he was in high esteem, and made money. But the fickle goddess of fortune ceased to smile; he made business ventures which failed, and cost him all his worldly goods and all his fair-weather friends; in 1832 he was a poor refugee in the United States. But his amiable character, his accomplishments, his great talents, and greater genius were more conspicuous in adversity than they had been in prosperity. He made friends everywhere, among them some in high stations, able to estimate his abilities and glad to use his services. Under the auspices of the War Department, and with the personal attentions of such men as Pierre Chouteau, Jr., Gen. Sibley, and Maj. Taliaferro, he was enabled to make, 1833-39, those several explorations and surveys which resulted in his Map and Report—a work which would have done credit to anyone under any circumstances, but one which only a Nicollet could have accomplished under the actual conditions. In 1840 and 1841 he was on office duty in Washington, reducing his field-work and preparing his map, which latter was drawn under his direction by Lieuts. J. C. Frémont and E. P. Scammon. This was completed probably in 1840, as it had been submitted to Congress and ordered to be printed, Feb. 16th, 1841. But the hardships he had endured in the field had undermined his frail physique; the further drafts upon his balance of vitality were overdrawn; and the fatal blow was given by Arago, who defeated his election to the French Academy. "Pas même un Academicien," this great soul never wore the crown of his life. His work was published under the editorship of Gen. J. J. Abert, to whom science is indebted in many ways—perhaps in no one of these more than in the recognition of the merits of the gentle Savoyard, and consequently the steps he took to facilitate and complete Nicollet's labors. The publication forms Doc. No. 237, 26th Congr., 2d Session, entitled: Report intended to illustrate a Map of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi River, made by I. [sic] N. Nicollet, etc., 1 vol, 8vo, Washington, Blair and Rives, 1843, pp. 1-170, map, 30¾ × 37 inches; also pub. as Ex. Doc. No. 52, Ho. Reps., 2d Sess., 28th Congr. The report is officially addressed to Colonel Abert; the original journals and other MSS. were to be deposited in the Bureau of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, Sept. 13th, 1843. I have examined the original map, from which the published one was engraved, not without some variant lettering here and there; it is now in bad condition, very brittle, and would soon go to pieces if often unrolled without great care in handling it. I think it should be renovated, without delay, and put in the best possible condition for permanent preservation.