CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

Charlevoix informs us that the discovery of the Mississippi River is due to father Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, who manifested the most unwearied enterprise in exploring the north-western regions of New France; and after laying the foundation of Michilimackinac, proceeded, in company with Sieur Joliet, up the Fox River of Green Bay, and, crossing the portage into the Wisconsin, first entered the Mississippi in 1673.

Robert de la Salle, to whom the merit of this discovery is generally attributed, embarked at Rochelle, on his first voyage of discovery, July 14, 1678; reached Quebec in September following, and, proceeding up the St. Lawrence, laid the foundation of Fort Niagara, in the country of the Iroquois, late in the fall of that year. In the following year, he passes up the Niagara River; estimates the height of the falls at six hundred feet; and proceeding through Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, reaches Michilimackinac in August. He then visits the Sault de St. Marie, and returning to Michilimackinac, continues his voyage to the south, with a view of striking the Mississippi River; passes into the lake of the Illinois; touches at Green Bay; and enters the River St. Joseph's, of Lake Michigan, where he builds a fort, in the country of the Miamies.

In December of the same year, he crosses the portage between the St. Joseph's and the Illinois; descends the latter to the lake, and builds a fort in the midst of the tribes of the Illinois, which he calls Crevecœur. Here he makes a stand; sends persons out to explore the Mississippi, traffics with the Indians, among all of whom he finds abundance of Indian corn; and returns to Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, in 1680. He revisits Fort Crevecœur late in the autumn of the following year, and finally descends the Illinois, to its junction with the Mississippi, and thence to the embouchure of the latter in the Gulf of Mexico, where he arrives on the 7th of April, 1683, and calculates the latitude between 23° and 24° north.

The Spaniards had previously sought in vain for the mouth of this stream, and bestowed upon it, in anticipation, the name of Del Rio Ascondido. La Salle now returns to Quebec, by way of the Lakes, and from thence to France, where he is well received by the king, who grants him an outfit of four ships, and two hundred men, to enable him to continue his discoveries, and found a colony in the newly discovered territories. He leaves Rochelle in July, 1684, reaches the Bay of St. Louis, which is fifty leagues south of the Mississippi, in the Gulf of Mexico, in February following, where he builds a fort, founds a settlement, and is finally assassinated by one of his own party. The exertions of this enterprising individual, and the account which was published of his discoveries by the Chevalier Tonti, who had accompanied him in all his perilous expeditions, had a greater effect, in the French capital, in producing a correct estimate of the extent, productions, and importance of the Canadas, than all that had been done by preceding tourists; and this may be considered as the true era, when the eyes of politicians and divines, merchants and speculators, were first strongly turned towards the boundless forests, the sublime rivers and lakes, the populous Indian tribes, and the profitable commerce of New France.

Father Louis Hennepin was a missionary of the Franciscan order of Catholics, who accompanied La Salle on his first voyage from France; and after the building of Fort Crevecœur, on the Illinois, was dispatched in company with three French voyageurs to explore the Mississippi River.

They departed from Fort Crevecœur on the 29th of February, 1680, and dropping down the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi, followed the latter an indeterminate distance towards the Gulf, not believed to be great, where they left some memorial of their visit, and immediately commenced their return. When they had proceeded up the Mississippi a hundred and fifty leagues above the confluence of the Illinois, they were taken prisoners by some Indian tribes, and carried towards its sources nineteen days' journey into the territories of the Naudowessies and Issati, where they were detained in captivity three or four months, and then suffered to return. The account which Hennepin published of his travels and discoveries, served to throw some new light upon the topography, and the Indian tribes of the Canadas; and modern geography is indebted to him for the names which he bestowed upon the Falls of St. Anthony and the River St. Francis.

In 1703, the Baron La Hontan, an unfrocked monk, published, in London, his voyages to North America, the result of a residence of six years in the Canadas. La Hontan served as an officer in the French army, and first went out to Quebec in 1683. During the succeeding four years he was chiefly stationed at Chambly, Fort Frontenac, Niagara, St. Joseph, at the foot of Lake Huron, and the Sault de St. Marie.

He arrives at Michilimackinac in 1688, and there first hears of the assassination of La Salle. In 1689 he visits Green Bay, and passes through the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers into the Mississippi. So far, his work appears to be the result of actual observation, and is entitled to respect; but what he relates of Long River appears wholly incredible, and can only be regarded as some flight of the imagination, intended to gratify the public taste for travels, during an age when it had been highly excited by the extravagant accounts which had been published respecting the wealth, population, and advantages of Peru, Mexico, the English and Dutch colonies, New France, the Illinois, and various other parts of the New World.

To convey some idea of this part of the Baron's work, it will be sufficient to observe that after travelling ten days above the mouth of the Wisconsin, he arrives at the mouth of a large stream, which he calls Long River, and which he ascends eighty-four days successively, during which he meets with numerous tribes of savages, as the Eskoros, Essenapes, Pinnokas, Mozemleeks, &c. He is attended a part of the way by five or six hundred, as an escort; sees at one time two thousand savages upon the shore; and states the population of the Essenapes at 20,000 souls; but this tribe is still inferior to the Mozemleeks in numbers, in arts, and in every other prerequisite for a great people. "The Mozemleek nation," he observes, "is numerous and puissant. The four slaves of that country informed me that, at the distance of 150 leagues from the place where I then was, their principal river empties itself into a salt lake of three hundred leagues in circumference, the mouth of which is about two leagues broad; that the lower part of that river is adorned with six noble cities, surrounded with stone, cemented with fat earth; that the houses of these cities have no roofs, but are open above like a platform; that, besides the above-mentioned cities, there are an hundred towns, great and small, round that sort of sea; that the people of that country make stuffs, copper axes, and several other manufactures, &c."

In 1721, P. De Charlevoix, the historian of New France, was commissioned by the French Government to make a tour of observation through the Canadas, and in addition to his topographical and historical account of New France, published a journal of his voyage through the Lakes. He was one of the most learned divines of his age, and although strongly tinctured with the doctrines of fatality, and disposed to view everything relative to the Indian tribes with the over-zealous eye of a Catholic missionary, yet his works bear the impress of a strong and well-cultivated mind, and abound in philosophical reflections, enlarged views, and accurate deductions; and, notwithstanding the lapse of a century, he must still be regarded as the most polished and illustrious traveller of the region. He first landed at Quebec in the spring of 1721, and immediately proceeded up the St. Lawrence to Fort Frontenac and Niagara, where he corrects the error into which those who preceded him had fallen, with respect to the height of the cataract. He proceeds through Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, descends the Illinois and Mississippi to New Orleans, then recently settled, and embarks for France. The period of his visit was that, when the Mississippi Scheme was in the height of experiment, and excited the liveliest interest in the French metropolis; people were then engaged, in Louisiana, in exploring every part of the country, under the delusive hope of finding rich mines of gold and silver; and the remarks he makes upon the probability of a failure, were shortly justified by the event.

In 1760, Alexander Henry, Esq. visited the upper lakes, in the character of a trader, and devoted sixteen years to travelling over different parts of the north-western region of the Canadas and the United States. The result of his observations upon the topography, Indian tribes, and natural history of the country, was first published in 1809, and, as a volume of travels and adventures, is a valuable acquisition to our means of information. This work abounds in just and sensible reflections upon scenes, situations, and objects of the most interesting kind, and is written in a style of the most charming perspicuity and simplicity. He was the first English traveller of the region.

The date of Carver's travels over those regions is 1766. Carver, whose travels have been treated with too indiscriminate censure, was descended from an ancient and respectable English family in Connecticut, and had served as a captain in the provincial army, which was disbanded after the treaty of peace of Versailles, of 1763, and united to great personal courage a persevering and observing mind. By his bravery and admirable conduct among the powerful tribes of Sioux and Chippewas, he obtained a high standing among them; and, after being constituted a chief by the former, received from them a large grant of land, which was not, however, ratified by the British government. The fate of this enterprising traveller cannot but excite regret. After having escaped the massacre of Fort William Henry, on the banks of Lake George, in 1757, and the perils of a long journey through the American wilderness, he was spared to endure miseries in the heart of the British metropolis, which he had never encountered in the huts of the American savages, and perished of want in the city of London, the seat of literature and opulence!

Between the years 1769 and 1772, Samuel Hearne performed a journey from Prince of Wales's Fort, in Hudson's Bay, to the Coppermine River of the Arctic Ocean. McKenkie's voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans were performed in 1789 and 1793. Pike ascended the Mississippi in 1805 and 1806.

Such is a brief outline of the progress of discovery in the north-western regions of the United States, by which our sources of information have been from time to time augmented, and additional light cast upon the interesting history of our Indian tribes—their numbers and condition, and other particulars connected with the regions they inhabit. Still, it cannot be denied that, amidst much sound and useful information, there has been mingled no inconsiderable proportion that is deceptive, hypothetical, or false; and, upon the whole, that the progress of information has not kept pace with the increased importance which that section of the Union has latterly assumed—with the great improvements of society—and with the spirit and the enterprise of the times. A new era has dawned in the moral history of our country, and, no longer satisfied with mere geographical outlines and boundaries, its physical productions, its antiquities, and the numerous other traits which it presents for scientific research, already attract the attention of a great proportion of the reading community; and it is eagerly inquired of various sections of it—whose trade, whose agriculture, and whose population have been long known—what are its indigenous plants, its zoology, its geology, its mineralogy, &c. Of no part of it, however, has the paucity of information upon these, and upon other and more familiar subjects, been so great, as of the extreme north-western regions of the Union, of the great chain of lakes, and of the sources of the Mississippi River, which have continued to be the subject of dispute between geographical writers.

Impressed with the importance of these facts, Governor Cass, of Michigan, projected, in the fall of 1819, an expedition for exploring the regions in question, and presented a memorial to the Secretary of War upon the subject, in which he proposed leaving Detroit the ensuing spring, in Indian canoes, as being best adapted to the navigation of the shallow waters of the upper country, and to the numerous portages which it is necessary to make from stream to stream.

The specific objects of this journey were to obtain a more correct knowledge of the names, numbers, customs, history, condition, mode of subsistence, and dispositions of the Indian tribes; to survey the topography of the country, and collect the materials for an accurate map; to locate the site and purchase the ground for a garrison at the foot of Lake Superior; to investigate the subject of the north-western copper mines, lead mines, and gypsum quarries, and to purchase from the Indian tribes such tracts as might be necessary to secure to the United States the ultimate advantages to be derived from them. To accomplish these objects, it was proposed to attach to the expedition a topographical engineer, an astronomer, a physician, and a mineralogist and geologist, and some other scientific observers.

Mr. Calhoun not only approved of the proposed plan, but determined to enable the governor to carry it into complete effect, by ordering an escort of soldiers, and enjoining it upon the commandants of the frontier garrisons, to furnish every aid that the exigencies of the party might require, either in men, boats, or supplies.

It is only necessary to add, that I was honored with the appointment of mineralogist and geologist to the expedition, in which capacity I kept the following journal. In presenting it to the public, it will not be deemed improper if I acknowledge the obligations which I have incurred in transcribing it, by availing myself of a free access to the valuable library of His Excellency De Witt Clinton, and of the taste and skill of Mr. Henry Inman, in drawing a number of the views which embellish the work.

HENRY B. SCHOOLCRAFT.

Albany, May 14, 1821.

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PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTS.

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PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTS.

I.

Detroit, November 18, 1819.

Sir: The country upon the southern shore of Lake Superior, and upon the water communication between that Lake and the Mississippi, has been but little explored, and its natural features are imperfectly known. We have no correct topographical delineation of it, and the little information we possess relating to it has been derived from the reports of the Indian traders.

It has occurred to me that a tour through that country, with a view to examine the productions of its animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, to explore its facilities for water communication, to delineate its natural objects, and to ascertain its present and future probable value, would not be uninteresting in itself, nor useless to the Government. Such an expedition would not be wholly unimportant in the public opinion, and would well accord with that zeal for inquiries of this nature which has recently marked the administration of the War Department.

But, however interesting such a tour might be in itself, or however important in its result, either in a political or geographical point of view, I should not have ventured to suggest the subject, nor to solicit your permission to carry it into effect, were it not, in other respects, intimately connected with the discharge of my official duties.

Mr. Woodbridge, the delegate from this Territory, at my request, takes charge of this letter, and he is so intimately acquainted with the subject, and every way so competent to enter into any explanations you may require, that I shall not be compelled to go as much into detail as, under other circumstances, might be necessary.

The route which I propose to take, is from here to Michilimackinac, and from thence, by the Straits of St. Mary's, to the river which contains the body of copper ore (specimens of which have been transmitted to the Government), and to the extremity of Lake Superior.

From that point, up the river which forms the water communication between that lake and the Mississippi, to the latter river, and, by the way of Prairie du Chien and Green Bay, to Lake Michigan.

The political objects which require attention upon this route are:—

1. A personal examination of the different Indian tribes who occupy the country; of their moral and social condition; of their feelings towards the United States; of their numerical strength; and of the various objects connected with them, of which humanity and sound policy require that the Government should possess an intimate knowledge. We are very little acquainted with these Indians, and I indulge the expectation that such a visit would be productive of beneficial effects.

The extract from the letter of Colonel Leavenworth, herewith inclosed, and the speech of the Winnebago Indians, transmitted to the War Department by Mr. Graham, from Rock Island, February 24, 1819, will show how much we have yet to learn respecting these tribes, which are comparatively near to us.

2. Another important object is, to procure the extinction of Indian titles to the land in the vicinity of the Straits of St. Mary's, Prairie du Chien, Green Bay, and upon the communication between the two latter places.

I will not trouble you with any observations respecting the necessity of procuring these cessions. They are the prominent points of the country—the avenues of communication by which alone it can be approached.

Two of them—Prairie du Chien and Green Bay—are occupied by a considerable population, and the Straits of St. Mary's by a few families. The undefined nature of their rights and duties, and the uncertain tenure by which they hold their lands, render it important that some step should be taken by the Government to relieve them. I think, too, that a cession of territory, with a view to immediate sale and settlement, would be highly important in the event of any difficulties with the Indians.

My experience at Indian treaties convinces me that reasonable cessions, upon proper terms, may at any time be procured. At the treaty recently concluded at Saginaw, the Indians were willing to cede the country in the vicinity of Michilimackinac, but I did not feel authorized to treat with them for it.

Upon this subject, I transmit extracts from the letters of Mr. Boyd and Colonel Bowyer, by which it will be seen that these gentlemen anticipate no difficulty in procuring these cessions.

3. Another important object is the examination of the body of copper in the vicinity of Lake Superior. As early as the year 1800, Mr. Tracy, then a senator from Connecticut, was dispatched to make a similar examination. He, however, proceeded no farther than Michilimackinac. Since then, several attempts have been made, which have proved abortive. The specimens of virgin copper which have been sent to the seat of Government have been procured by the Indians, or by the half-breeds, from a large mass, represented to weigh many tons, which has fallen from the brow of a hill.

I anticipate no difficulty in reaching the spot, and it may be highly important to the Government to divide this mass, and to transport it to the seaboard for naval purposes.

It is also important to examine the neighboring country, which is said to be rich in its mineral productions.

I should propose that the land in the vicinity of this river be purchased of the Indians. It could doubtless be done upon reasonable terms, and the United States could then cause a complete examination of it to be made.

Such a cession is not unimportant in another point of view. Some persons have already begun to indulge in speculations upon this subject. The place is remote, and the means of communicating with it are few. By timely presents to the Indians, illegal possessions might be gained, and much injury might be done, much time might elapse, and much difficulty be experienced, before such trespassers could be removed.

4. To ascertain the views of the Indians in the vicinity of Chicago, respecting the removal of the Six Nations to that district of country, an extract from the letter of Mr. Kenzie, sub-agent at Chicago, upon this subject, will show the situation in which this business stands.

5. To explain to the Indians the views of the Government respecting their intercourse with the British authorities at Malden, and distinctly to announce to them that their visits must be discontinued.

It is probable that the annunciation of the new system which you have directed to be pursued upon this subject, and the explanations connected with it, can be made with more effect by me than by ordinary messengers.

6. To ascertain the state of the British fur trade within that part of our jurisdiction. Our information upon this subject is very limited, while its importance requires that it should be fully known.

In addition to these objects, I think it very important to carry the flag of the United States into those remote regions, where it has never been borne by any person in a public station.

The means by which I propose to accomplish this tour are simple and economical. All that will be required is an ordinary birch canoe, and permission to employ a competent number of Canadian boatmen. The whole expense will be confined within narrow limits, and no appropriation will be necessary to defray it. I only request permission to assign to this object a small part of the sum apportioned for Indian expenditures at this place, say from 1,000 to 1,500 dollars.

If, however, the Government should think that a small display of force might be proper, an additional canoe, to be manned with active soldiers, and commanded by an intelligent officer, would not increase the expense, and would give greater effect to any representations which might be made to the Indians.

An intelligent officer of engineers, to make a correct chart for the information of the Government, would add to the value of the expedition.

I am not competent to speculate upon the natural history of the country through which we may pass. Should this object be deemed important, I request that some person acquainted with zoology, botany, and mineralogy may be sent to join me.

It is almost useless to add that I do not expect any compensation for my own services, except the ordinary allowance for negotiating Indian treaties, should you think proper to direct any to be held, and intrust the charge of them to me.

I request that you will communicate to me, as early as convenient, your determination upon this subject, as it will be necessary to prepare a canoe during the winter, to be ready to enter upon the tour as soon as the navigation of the Lakes is open, should you think proper to approve the plan.

Very respectfully, &c.
LEWIS CASS.

Hon. John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War.

II.

Department of War, January 14, 1820.

Sir: I have received your letters of the 18th and 21st November last. The exploring tour you propose has the sanction of the Government, provided the expenditure can be made out of the sum allotted your superintendency for Indian affairs, adding thereto one thousand dollars for that special purpose.

The objects of this expedition are comprised under the five heads stated in your letter of the 18th of November, and which you will consider—with the exception of that part which relates to holding Indian treaties, upon which you will be fully instructed hereafter—as forming part of the instructions which may be given you by this Department.

Should your reconnoissance extend to the western extremity of Lake Superior, you will ascertain the practicability of a communication between the Bad, or Burntwood River, which empties into the Lake, and the Copper, or St. Croix, which empties into the Mississippi, and the facility they present for a communication with our posts on the St. Peter's.

The Montreal rivers will also claim your attention, with a view of establishing, through them, a communication between Green Bay and the west end of Lake Superior.

To aid you in the accomplishment of these important objects, some officers of Topographical Engineers will be ordered to join you. Perhaps Major Long, now here, will be directed to take that route to join the expedition which he commands up the Missouri. In that event, a person acquainted with zoology and botany will be selected to accompany him. Feeling, as I do, great interest in obtaining a correct topographical, geographical, and military survey of our country, every encouragement, consistent with the means in my power, will be given by the Department. To this end, General Macomb will be ordered to afford you every facility you may require.

I have, &c.,
J. C. CALHOUN.

His Excellency, Lewis Cass, Detroit, M. T.

III.

Department of War, February 25, 1820.

Sir: Mr. Schoolcraft, a gentleman of science and observation, and particularly skilled in mineralogy, has applied to me to be permitted to accompany you on your exploring tour upon Lake Superior. I have directed him to report to you, for that duty, under the belief that he will be highly useful to you, as well as serviceable to the Government and the promotion of science.

You will furnish him with the necessary supplies and accommodation while employed, and every facility necessary to enable him to obtain a knowledge of the mineralogy of the country as far as practicable.

I have, &c.,
J. C. CALHOUN.

His Excellency, Lewis Cass, Detroit.

IV.

Detroit, March 10, 1820.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th ult., inclosing a copy of a letter from Giles Sanford & Co.

Their statement with respect to the discovery of plaster of Paris upon one or more of the islands in the vicinity of Michilimackinac, to which the Indian title has not been extinguished, is correct. Specimens of this plaster have been brought here, and it is reported, by competent judges, to be of the best and purest kind. The quantity is stated to be inexhaustible, and, as vessels generally return empty, or nearly so, from the upper lakes, it could be transported to any part of Lake Erie at a trifling expense.

I have great doubts, however, whether it would be proper for the Government to grant any permission to remove this plaster until the Indian title to the land is extinguished. The power of granting permission for that purpose is not given in the "act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers," and appears, in fact, to be inconsistent with its general spirit and objects. To authorize these gentlemen to negotiate with the Indians for such a permission, is contrary to the settled policy which has always been pursued by the United States. I know of no case in which individuals have been or should be permitted to hold any councils with the Indians, except to procure the extinction of their title to lands, claimed under grants from one of the States. The application here must be to the tribe, because in all their land there is a community of interest, which cannot be severed or conveyed by the acts of individuals.

But, independent of precedent, there are strong objections to this course in principle. If private persons are authorized to open such negotiations for any object, the Government will find it very difficult to procure from the Indians any cession of land upon reasonable terms.

Were these islands the property of the United States, I think it would be very proper to permit the plaster upon them to be removed by every person making application for that purpose. The supply being inexhaustible, the agricultural interest would be greatly promoted by such a measure, and the dependence upon a foreign country for this important article would be removed.

I therefore take the liberty of recommending that a cession of these islands be procured by the United States from the Indians. I presume that this may be done without the payment of any annuity to them, and without any expense, except, perhaps, a few trifling presents. The plaster would then be at the disposal of Government, and its free distribution, under such regulations as might be adopted to prevent disputes between the adventurers, or a monopoly by any of them, would be equally proper and beneficial.

Very respectfully, sir,
I have the honor to be
Your most obedient servant,
LEWIS CASS.

Hon. John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War.

V.

Extract of a letter from the Secretary of War to Governor Lewis Cass, dated

April 5, 1820.

Sir: I have received your letters of the 10th, 11th, and 17th ultimo. In relation to procuring cessions of land from the Indians, the Government has decided that it would be inexpedient to obtain any farther extinguishment of Indian title, except at the Sault de St. Marie, where it is the wish of the Department, that an inconsiderable cession, not exceeding ten miles square (unless strong reasons for a greater cession should present themselves from an actual inspection of the country), should be acquired upon the most reasonable terms, so as to comprehend the proposed military position there.

Herewith you will receive a plate of the country about the Sault de St. Marie, on which is indicated the military site intended to be occupied for defence. You will also procure the cession of the islands containing plaster, provided these islands are clearly within the boundary of the United States, and can be obtained without any considerable expense.

A commission, authorizing you to hold these treaties, will be forwarded to you in a few days.

As it is desirable to know by what title the people at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien hold their lands, and whether or not the Indian titles to those lands were extinguished by the French, at any period subsequent to their possession of the country (which is the impression of this Department), you will communicate such information as you possess, or may obtain, during your tour, on this subject.

In addition to Mr. Schoolcraft, Captain Douglass, of the engineer corps, has been ordered to join you, and Mr. Whitney (in whose behalf application has been made for that purpose) may accompany you, if you can accommodate him. Should he accompany you, he will be allowed the same compensation made to Mr. Schoolcraft, who will be allowed one dollar and fifty cents a day for the time actually employed.

VI.

Northern Division.
Adjutant-General's Office, 10th February, 1819.

(DIVISION ORDER.)

Major-General Macomb, commandant of the 5th military department, will, without delay, concentrate at Detroit the 5th regiment of Infantry, excepting the recruits otherwise directed by the general order herewith transmitted. As soon as the navigation of the Lakes will admit, he will cause the regiment to be transported to Fort Howard; from thence, by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, to Prairie du Chien, and, after detaching a sufficient number of companies to garrison Forts Crawford and Armstrong, the remainder will proceed to the mouth of the River St. Peter's, where they will establish a post, at which the head-quarters of the regiment will be located. The regiment, previous to its departure, will receive the necessary supplies of clothing, provisions, arms, and ammunition. Immediate application will be made to Brigadier-General Jesup, Quartermaster-General, for funds necessary to execute the movements required by this order.

By order of Major-General Brown.

(Signed) JOHN E. WOOL,
Inspector-General.

VII.

Assistant Adjutant-General's Office.
Detroit, April 13, 1819.

(Department Order.)

The season having now arrived when the lakes may be navigated with safety, a detachment of the 5th regiment, to consist of Major Marston's and Captain Fowle's companies, under the command of Major Muhlenburg, will proceed to Green Bay. Surgeon's mate R. M. Byrne, of the 5th regiment, will accompany the detachment. The assistant deputy quartermaster-general will furnish the necessary transport, and will send by the same opportunity two hundred barrels of provisions, which he will draw from the contractor at this post. The provisions must be examined and inspected, and properly put up for transportation. Colonel Leavenworth will, without delay, prepare his regiment to move to the posts on the Mississippi, agreeably to the Division order of the 10th of February. The assistant deputy quartermaster-general will furnish the necessary transportation, to be ready by the first of May next. The Colonel will make requisition for such stores, ammunition, tools, and implements as may be required, and he be able to take with him on the expedition. Particular instructions will be given to the Colonel, explaining the objects of his expedition.

Mr. Melvin Dorr is appointed Inspector of Provisions, and he will inspect all provisions intended for the use of the army, before they are received and issued. Lieutenant Brooks, of the 3d regiment will forward, by the first detachment, such recruits as he has for the companies of the 3d regiment at Mackinac.

By order of MAJOR-GENERAL MACOMB.
(Signed) CHESTER ROOT, A. D. company, and Actg. Assist. Adjt.-General.

NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION.

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NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION.

CHAPTER I.

Departure—Considerations on visiting the northern summits early in the season—Cross the Highlands of the Hudson—Incidents of the journey from Albany to Buffalo—Visit Niagara Falls—Their grandeur the effect of magnitude—Embark on board the steamer Walk-in-the-Water—Passage up Lake Erie—Reach Detroit.

The determination to penetrate to the source of the Mississippi, during the summer months, made an early departure important. I had, while at Potosi, in Missouri, during the prior month of February, written to Hon. J. B. Thomas, U. S. S., Washington, to endeavor to secure an appointment to explore the mineralogy and natural features of the upper Mississippi River; and as soon as I had published my treatise on the mines and minerals of Missouri, I proceeded to Washington, and submitted to the proper officers of the Government, my account of the mineralogical wealth of the western domains, with a plan for the management of the public mines. Mr. Calhoun decidedly favored these views; but, foreseeing the necessity of congressional action on the subject, and the necessary delays of departmental references, said to me, that he had just received a memoir from Governor Cass, of Michigan, proposing an expedition to the source of the Mississippi, to leave Detroit early in the spring, and offered me the position of mineralogist and geologist on that service. This agreeing, as it did, with my prior views of exploring the public domains, I gladly accepted, and immediately returned to the city of New York to prepare for the journey.

The year 1820 had commenced with severe weather, the Hudson being frozen hard, as high as West Point, on the 1st of January; and there was a fall of snow between the 10th and 11th of February, which laid four feet deep in the streets of New York. March opened with mildness, and every appearance denoted an early spring, which led me to hasten my movement north. I left New York on the 5th of March, in the citizens' post-coach, on sleighs, for Albany, taking the route through Westchester, and over the Highlands of Putnam and Dutchess; sleeping at Fishkill and Kinderhook, the first and second nights, and reaching Albany on the morning of the 7th, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles. This distance we made in forty hours actual travelling, averaging four miles per hour, incidental stops included, which is about the rate of travelling by the trekschuits of Holland,[ [6] and by sledges over the frozen grounds of Russia.[ [7] In crossing the Highlands, some one, in the change of the stage-sleighs, pilfered a small box of choice minerals which I set store by; the thief thinking, probably, from the weight and looks of the box, which had been a banker's, that it was still filled with coin. We crossed the Hudson from Greenbush, in a boat drawn through a channel cut in the ice. Snow still laid in the streets of Albany, and a cold north wind presaged a change of temperature. Next day there was a hail-storm from the northwest, with rain and sleet, and on the morning of the 9th, the hail lay six inches deep in the streets. In the evening, proceeded by stage to the city of Schenectady, a distance of sixteen miles, across the arenaceous tract of the Pine Plains, by a turnpike, which forms the shorter line of a triangle, made by the junction of the Mohawk with the Hudson River. This tract is bounded southerly by the blue summits of the Helderberg, a prominent spur of the Catskill Mountain. At Schenectady, we experienced a night of severe cold, and the next day, at an early hour, I took a seat in the stage-sleigh for Utica, which we reached at seven in the evening. The distance is ninety-six miles, which we passed in seventeen hours, going an average rate of five miles per hour. The road lies up the valley of the Mohawk, a name which recalls the history of one of the most celebrated members of the Iroquois, a confederacy of bold and indomitable tribes, who, at an early day, either pushed their conquests or carried the terror of their arms from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi.

The winter was still unbroken, and the weather had assumed so unpropitious an aspect, since leaving New York, that there was no probability of the navigation of the lakes being open so as to embark at Buffalo before May. I proceeded seventeen miles west to my father's residence, in the village of Vernon, to await the development of milder weather. On the 10th of April, I resumed my journey, taking the western stage, which had left Utica at two o'clock in the morning. We lodged the first night at Skeneateles, at the foot of the beautiful and sylvan lake of the same name, and reached Geneva the next day, at one o'clock in the afternoon. The roads were now dry and dusty; indeed, the last traces of snow had been seen in sheltered positions, in passing through Oneida County, and every appearance in the Ontario country indicated a season ten days more advanced than the valley of the Mohawk. The field poplar put forth leaves on the 18th, and apricots were in bloom on the 22d.

At Geneva I remained until the 28th of April, when I again took my seat in the mail-stage, passing, in the course of the day, the lower margin of Canandaigua Lake, and through the attractive and tastefully laid-out village of the same name, and, after continuing the route through a most fertile country, with a constantly expanding vegetation, reached Avon, on the banks of the Genesee River. Here we slept. The next morning (the 29th), we crossed this noble stream, and, after a long and fatiguing day's staging, reached Buffalo in the evening. I was now at an estimated distance of two hundred and ten miles west of Utica, and three hundred and twenty-two from Albany. We had found the peach and apple-tree in blossom, and the vegetation generally in an advanced state, until reaching within eight or ten miles of Lake Erie, where the force of the winds, and the bodies of floating ice, evidently had the effect to retard vegetation. No vessel had yet ventured from the harbor, and although the steamer Walk-in-the-Water was advertised for the 1st of May, it was determined to delay her sailing until the 6th. This gave me time to visit Niagara[ [8] Falls, and some other places of historical interest in the neighborhood. This object I executed immediately, taking a horse and buggy, and keeping down the American shore. The distance is twenty-two miles, in which the Tonewanda River is crossed by a bridge. The day was clear and warm, with a light breeze blowing down the river. I stopped several times to listen for the sound of the Falls, but at the distance of fifteen, ten, eight, and even five miles, could not distinguish any; the course of the wind being, indeed, adverse to the transmission of sound, in that direction, until reaching within some two or three miles. There is nothing in the character of the country, in the approach from Buffalo, to apprise the visitor of the difference in its level and geological stratification, and thus prepare the mind to expect a cataract. It is different, I afterwards learned, in the approach from Lewiston, in which quite a mountain must first be ascended, when views are often had of the most striking parts of the gulf, which has been excavated by the passage of the Niagara River. It was not easy for me to erect standards of comparison for the eye to estimate heights. The ear is at first stunned by the incessant roar, and the eye bewildered by the general view. I spent two days at the place, and thus became familiarized with individual traits of the landscape. I found the abyss at the foot of the Falls to be the best spot for accomplishing that object. By far the greatest disproportion in the Falls exists between the height and great width of the falling sheet. The water is most thick and massy at the Horseshoe Fall, which gives one the most striking and vivid idea of creative power. In fitting positions in the gulf, with good incidences of light, the Falls look like a mighty torrent pouring down from the clouds. At the time of my visit, the wind drove immense fields of ice out of Lake Erie, with floating trees and other driftwood, but I never saw any vestiges of these below the Falls. In front of the column of water falling on the American side, there stood an enormous pyramid of snow, or congealed spray.

What has been said by Goldsmith, and repeated by others, respecting the destructive influence of the Rapids above to ducks and water-fowl is imaginary—at least, as to the American sheet. So far from it, I saw the wild ducks swim down the Rapid, as if in pursuit of some article of food, and then rise and fly out at the brink, and repeat the descent, as if delighted with the gift of wings, which enabled them to sport over such frightful precipices without danger. I found among the debris in the abyss, pieces of hornstone, and crystals of calcareous spar, radiated quartz, sulphuret of zinc, and sulphate of lime. Its geology is best explained by observing that the river, in falling over the precipice of the Niagara ridge into the basin of Lake Ontario, leaps over horizontal strata of limestone, slate, and red sandstone. In this respect, nothing can be more simple and plain. It is magnitude alone that makes the cataract sublime.

On returning to Buffalo, I found the lake rapidly discharging its ice, which had been recently broken up by a storm of wind; and, while awaiting the motion of the steamer, I was joined by Captain D. B. Douglass, Professor of Engineering at West Point, who had been appointed topographer and astronomer of the expedition. We embarked on the 6th of May, at nine o'clock in the morning, in the steamer Walk-in-the-Water, an elegant and conveniently-planned vessel, with a low-pressure Fulton engine. This boat had been put upon the lake two years before, when it made a trip to Michilimackinac, and was, indeed, the initial boat in the history of steam navigation on the Lakes. We embarked at Black Rock, and it was necessary to use a tow-line, drawn by oxen on the shore, to enable the boat to ascend the Rapids. This Captain Rodgers, a gentlemanly man, facetiously termed his hornbreeze. The oxen were dismissed a short distance before reaching the mouth of Buffalo Creek, where we reached the level of Lake Erie, five hundred and sixty feet above the tide-waters of the Hudson River.[ [9] We were favored with clear weather, and, a part of the time, with a fair wind. The boat touched at Erie, at the mouth of Grand River, at Cleveland, and at Portland, in Sandusky Bay, on coming out of which we passed Cunningham Island, and the Put-in-Bay Islands, from a harbor in which Perry issued to achieve his memorable naval victory on the 10th of September, 1813. Passing through another group of islands, called the Three Sisters, we entered the mouth of the Detroit River late on the afternoon of the 8th, just as the light became dim and shadowy. The scale of these waters is magnificent. We had a glimpse of the town and fort of Malden, or Amherstburg, and of Boisblanc, and Gross Isle, which were the last objects distinctly seen in our ascent. The boat pushed on her way, under the guidance of good pilots, although the night was dark, and we reached our destination, and came to, at the city of Detroit, at twelve o'clock P. M., thus completing the passage in sixty-two hours.

The next morning, an official from the Executive of the Michigan Territory came on board with inquiries respecting Captain Douglass and myself, and we soon found ourselves in a circle where we were received with marked respect and attention. It was pleasing to behold that this respect arose, in a great degree, from the high interest which was manifested, in all classes, for the objects of the expedition, and the influence which its exploratory labors were expected to have on the development of the resources and prosperity of the country at large.

General Cass, who was to lead the expedition, received us cordially, and let us know that we were in season, as some days would still elapse before the preparations could be completed, and that the canoes in which we were to travel had not yet reached Detroit. We were also cordially welcomed by General Macomb, commanding the military district, Major John Biddle, commanding officer of the fort, and by the citizens generally. I was now, by the computations, about seven hundred and fifty miles from my starting-point at New York. We took up our lodgings at the old stone house occupied by Major Whipple, which, from its prominent position on the banks of the river, had sustained a random cannonade during the late war. We were here introduced to Dr. Alexander Wolcot, who filled the post of physician to the expedition, and to Lieutenant Eneas Mackey, United States artillery, commanding the escort, Major Robert A. Forsyth, private secretary of the Executive, and commissary of the expedition, and superintendent of embarkation; and to James D. Doty and Charles C. Trowbridge, Esqs., who occupied, respectively, the situations of official secretary and assistant topographer.

Detroit, the point to which I have now been conducted, is eligibly situated on the south bank of the straits of the same name, and enjoys the advantage of a regular plan and spacious streets, which have been introduced since the burning of the old French town in 1805, not a building of which, within the walls, was saved. Its main street, Jefferson Avenue, is elevated about forty feet above the river. The town consists of about two hundred and fifty houses of all descriptions, public and private, and has a population of fourteen hundred and fifty,[ [10] exclusive of the garrison.

To the historian it is a point of great interest. It was the site of an Indian village called Teuchsagondie in 1620, the date of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Quebec was founded in 1608; Albany in 1614. But no regular settlement or occupancy took place here, till the close of the seventeenth century. In June, 1687, the French took formal possession of the straits by erecting the arms of France. On the 24th of July, 1701, M. Cadillac established the first military post. Charlevoix, who landed here in 1721, found it the site of Fort Pontchartrain.

In 1763 the garrison, being then under British colors, sustained a notable siege from the confederate Indians under Pontiac. It remained under English rule till the close of the American Revolution, and was not finally surrendered to the United States until 1790, the year following Wayne's treaty at Greenville. Surrendered by Hull in 1812, it was reoccupied by General Harrison in October, 1813. It received a city charter 24th October, 1815. Indeed, the prominent civil and military events of which Detroit has been the theatre, confer on it a just celebrity, and it is gratifying to behold that to these events it adds the charm of a beautiful local site and fertile surrounding country. A cursory view of the map of the United States, will indicate its importance as a central military and commercial position. Situated on the great chain of lakes, connecting with the waters of the Ohio, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Hudson, and Red River of the North, and communicating with the Atlantic at so many points, and with a harbor free of entrance at all times, its business capacities and means of expansion are very great. And when the natural channels of communication of the great lake chain shall be improved, it will afford a choice of markets between the most distant points of the Atlantic seaboard. It is thus destined to be to the regions of the northwest, what St. Louis is rapidly becoming to the southwest, the seat of its commerce, the repository of its wealth, and the grand focus of its moral, political, and physical energies.[ [11]

CHAPTER II.

Preparations for the expedition—Constitution of the party—Mode of travel in canoes—Embarkation, and incidents of the journey across the Lake, and up the River St. Clair—Head winds encountered on Lake Huron—Point aux barques—Cross Saganaw Bay—Delays in ascending the Huron coast—Its geology and natural history—Reach Michilimackinac.

From the moment of our arrival at Detroit, we devoted ourselves, with intensity, to the preparation necessary for entering the wilderness. We were to travel, from this point, by a new mode of conveyance, namely, the Indian bark canoe, called a chimaun, a vehicle not less novel than curious. Constructed of large and thick sheets of the rind of the betula papyracea, or northern birch, which are cut in garment-like folds, and sewed together with the thin fibrous roots of the spruce, on a thin framework of cedar ribs, and having gunwales, with a sheathing of the same material, interposed between the bark and ribs. The seams are carefully gummed with the pitch of the pine. The largest of these canoes are thirty-six feet in length, and seven feet wide in the centre, tapering to a point each way. They carry a mast and sail, and are steered and propelled with light cedar paddles. They are at once light, so as to be readily carried over the portages, and so strong as to bear very considerable burdens. Those intended for us, were ordered from the Chippewas of Lake Huron, near Saganaw Bay. It was necessary to have mosquito-bars, portfolios, knapsacks, and various contrivances, and to make baggage of every sort assume the least possible bulk and space. The public armorer had orders to furnish me suitable hammers and other minerological apparatus for preparing and packing specimens. The expedition was quite an event in a remote town, and everybody seemed to take an interest in the preparation. A fortnight passed away in these preparations, and in awaiting the arrival of the canoes, respecting which there was some delay. It was the 24th of May before we were ready to embark. Besides the gentlemen mentioned as constituting the travelling party, ten Canadian voyageurs were taken to manage the canoes, ten United States soldiers to serve as an escort, and ten Ottowa, Chippewa, and Shawnee Indians to act as hunters, under the directions of James Riley, an Anglo-American, and Joseph Parks, a Shawnee captive (at present, head chief of the Shawnee nation), as interpreters. This canoe contained a chief called Kewaygooshkum, a sedate and respectable man, who, a year afterwards, played an important part at the treaty of Chicago.

The grand point of departure and leave-taking, was at Grose Point, at the foot of Lake St. Clair, a spot nine miles distant. For this point, horses and carriages, with the numerous friends of Gov. Cass, pushed forward at an early hour; and there was as much enthusiasm manifested, by all classes, as if a new world was about to be discovered. I had a strong wish to witness the mode of canoe travelling, and, declining an opportunity to join the cavalcade by land, took my seat beside Major Forsyth in the Governor's canoe. The Canadians immediately struck up one of their animating canoe songs, the military escort at the same moment displayed its flag and left the shore, and the auxiliary Indians, fired with the animation of the scene, handled their paddles briskly, and shot their canoe rapidly by us. A boat-race was the consequence. The Indians at first kept their advantage, but the firmer and more enduring nerves of the Canadians soon began to tell on our speed, and as we finally passed them, the Indians gracefully yielded the contest. We were two hours in going to Grose Point, with the wind slightly ahead.

The banks of the River Detroit present continuous settlements, in which the appearance of large old orchards and windmills, among farm-houses and smooth cultivated fields, reminds the visitor that the country has been long settled. And he will not be long in observing, by the peculiarity of architecture, dress, manners, and language, that the basis of the population is French. We found our land party had preceded us, and as the winds were adverse, we encamped in linen tents along the open shore. The next day the wind increased, blowing quite a gale down the Lake. I busied myself by making some meteorological and geological observations. The shores of Lake St. Clair are formed of a fertile alluvium, resting on drift. There are some heavy boulders of primitive rock resting on this, which denote a vast field of former drift action around the shores of these lakes.

The wind abated about eleven o'clock on the morning of the 26th, when the men commenced loading the canoes. It was twelve before we embarked. The mode of their embarkation is peculiar. The canoes, when laden, are hauled out in deep water; the men then catch up the sitters on their backs, and deposit them in their respective seats; when this was done, they struck up one of their animated songs, and we glided over the smooth surface of the lake with rapidity, holding our course parallel with its shores, generally, until reaching a prominent point of land near Huron River.[ [12]

From Point Huron we crossed the lake, to reach the central mouth of the St. Clair River, thereby saving a tedious circuit; by the time we had half accomplished the transit, we encountered a head wind, which put the strength of the men severely to the test, and retarded our reaching the mouth of the river till dark. The River St. Clair has several mouths, which branch off above through a broad delta, creating large islands. These channels discharge a vast amount of argillaceous drift and mud, which has so far filled up the lake itself, that there is anchorage, I believe, in every part of it; and the principal ship channel is scooped, by the force of the current, out of a very compact blue clay—the geological residuum of ancient formations of clay-slates in the upper country.

The shores are often but a few inches above, and often a few inches belowthe surface, where they give origin to a growth of reeds, flags, and other aquatic plants, which remind the traveller of similar productions at the Balize of the Mississippi. In this nilotic region, myriads of water-fowls find a favorite resort. To us, however, these jets of alluvial formation, bearing high grass and rushes were as so many friendly arms stretched out to shelter us from the wind; but they were found to be so low and wet, that we were compelled to urge our way through them, in search of a dry encampment, till within two hours of midnight. This brought us to the upper end of Lawson's Island, where we arrived, wet, weary, and cold. We had advanced about twenty-five miles, having been ten hours, in a cramped posture, in our canoes. This initial day's journey was calculated to take away the poetry of travel from the amateurs of our party, and to let us all know, that there were toils in our way that required to be conquered.

We slept little this night, and waited for daylight and sunrise, as if the blessed luminary would have an animating effect upon our actual condition. We again embarked at seven o'clock in the morning. We now stowed away things with more handiness than at the first embarkation, and we began, ourselves, to feel a little more at home in this species of voyaging.

We had three canoes in our little squadron provided with masts and sails, and a small United States pennant to each, so that the brigade, when in motion, and led, as it usually was, by the chanting canoemen, had a formidable and animated appearance.

The River St. Clair is a broad and noble stream, and impressed us as justifying the highest encomiums bestowed on it by Charlevoix, La Hontan, and other early French travellers. We ascended it thirty miles, which brought us to Fort Gratiot, at the foot of the rapid which marks the outlet of Lake Huron. In this distance, we passed, at separate places, nine vessels at anchor, being detained by head winds, and encountered several Chippewa and Ottowa canoes, each of which were generally occupied by a single family, with their females, blankets, guns, fishing apparatus, and dogs. They evinced the most friendly disposition.

In landing at Oak Point,[ [13] I observed a green snake (coluber æstivus) in the act of swallowing a frog, which he had succeeded in taking down, except the extremity of its hind legs. A blow was sufficient to relieve the frog, which still had sufficient animation to hop towards the river. The snake I made to pay the forfeit of his life.

At Fort Gratiot, we were received by Major Cummins, U. S. A., who occupied the post with sixty men. The expedition was received with a salute, which is due to the Governor of a Territory. Two soldiers who were sickly, were here returned, and five able-bodied men received to supply their places, thus increasing the aggregate of the party to forty persons.[ [14]

The banks of the River St. Clair are wholly alluvial or diluvial. There is not a particle of rock in place. One idea presses itself prominently to notice, in reflecting on the formation of the country. It is the vast quantum of clay, mixed drift, and boulders, which have evidently been propelled, by ancient forces, down these straits, and afterwards arranged themselves according to affinities, or gravitation. At the precipitous banks between the inlet of Black River and Fort Gratiot, this action has been so clearly within the erratic block period of De la Buck, that it has imbedded prostrate forest-trees, and even freshwater shells, beneath the heavy stratum of sand, resting immediately upon the fundamental clay beds, upon which the city of Detroit, and indeed the alluvions of the entire straits rest.[ [15] We again encountered at this place, blocks of the primitive or crystalline boulders, which were first seen at Grosse Point. There are some traces of iron sand along the shore of this river, the only mineral body, indeed, which has thus rewarded my examinations.

We left our encampment, at Fort Gratiot, at eight o'clock next morning. A strong and deep rapid is immediately encountered, up which, however, vessels having a good wind find no difficulty in making their way. On surmounting this, we found ourselves on the level of Lake Huron. The lake here bursts upon the view in one of those magnificent landscapes which are peculiar to this region. Nature has everywhere operated on the grandest scale. Wide ocean expanses and long lines of shore spread before the eye, which gazes admiringly on the broad and often brilliant horizon, and then turns, for something to rest on, along the shore. Long ridges of gravel, sand, and boulders, meet it here. Beyond and above this storm-battered beach, are fringes of woods, or banks of clay. The monotony of travelling by unvaried scenes is relieved by an occasional song of the boatmen, or an occasional landing—by changes of forest-trees—of the wind, or flights of the gull, duck, plover, and other birds; but the traveller, is apt, before evening comes, to fancy himself very much in the position of a piece of merchandise which is transported from place to place. Glad were we when night approached, and the order to encamp was heard. It was estimated we had advanced thirty-five miles.

On passing along the Huron coast about fifteen miles, a bank of dark clay is encountered, which has an elevation of thirty or forty feet, and extends six or eight miles. We soon after came to the White Rock—an enormous detached mass, or boulder of transition,[ [16] or semi-crystalline limestone. It is a noted landmark for voyageurs and travellers, and an equally celebrated place of offerings by the Indians. I requested to be landed on it, and detached some specimens. Geologically, it is a member of the erratic block group, and we must look for its parent bed at a more westerly point. There is no formation of limestone, in this quarter, to which it can be referred. It bears marks of attrition, which shows that it has been rubbed against other hard bodies; and if transported down the lake on ice, it is necessary to consider these marks as pre-existing at the era of its removal.

On embarking in the morning, the wind was slightly ahead, which continued during the forenoon, changing in the after-part of the day, so that we were able to hoist sail. About four o'clock the weather became cloudy and hazy, the wind increasing, at the same time attended with thunder and lightning. A storm was rapidly gathering, and the lake became so much agitated that we immediately effected a landing, which was not done without some difficulty, on a shallow and dangerous shore, thickly strewn with boulders. We pitched our tents on a small peninsula, or narrow neck of land, covered with beautiful forest-trees, which was nearly separated from the main shore. Shortly after our arrival a vessel hove in sight, and anchored on the same dangerous lee shore. We were in momently expectation of her being driven from her moorings, but were happily relieved, the next morning, to observe that she had rode out the storm.

The lake was still too rough on the following day, and the wind too high, to permit our embarking. We made an excursion inland. The country proved low, undulatory, and swampy. The forest consisted of hemlock, birch, ash, oak, and maple, with several species of mosses, which gave it a cold, bleak character. The margin of the forest was skirted with the bulrush, briza canadensis, and other aquatic plants. The whole day passed, a night, and another day, with nothing but the loud sounding lake roar in our ears. A heavy bed of the erratic block formation commences at this point, and continues to Point aux Barques, the eastern cape of Saganaw Bay.

In one of these displaced masses—a boulder of mica slate, I discovered well-defined crystals of staurotide. This formed my second mineralogical acquisition.[ [17] There were, also, some striking water-worn masses of granitical and hornblende porphyry.

It was the 1st of June before we could leave the spot where we had been confined. We embarked at six o'clock, the lake being sufficiently pacific, though not yet settled. But after proceeding about a league, it again became agitated, and drove us ashore, where we lay without encamping. Kewaygushkum was requested to send some of his young men in quest of game. The soldiers and engagees also formed fishing parties, at a contiguous river; but about three o'clock in the afternoon all the parties returned completely unsuccessful. There was neither fish nor game to be had. At the same time the agitation of the lake ceased, the wind springing up from an opposite quarter, which enabled us to hoist sail. This put every one in a pleasant humor, and we proceeded along the coast till evening, and encamped on a small sandy bay, which puts into the land, immediately beyond the promontory of Point aux Barques—an estimated distance of twenty-five miles from our starting-point in the morning.

At the distance of a league before reaching this point, the first stratum of rock, in situ, presents itself. It is a gray friable sandstone, elevated from ten to twenty feet above the water, but attaining a greater height in the approach to this noted cape. This stratum of sandstone rock, which is of a perishable character, is exposed to receive the shock of the waves of Lake Huron for several hundred miles from the north and west. It exhibits the force and fury of the lake action by the numerous cavities which have been worn into it, at the water's edge, and by the sub-bays which have, in some localities, been formed in the line of dark opposing cliffs. It was in one of these sub-bays that we encamped, on a smooth sandy beach, which appears to have been a favorite encamping ground of the natives. But although we had met several canoes of Chippewas, on the route between Fort Gratiot and this point, none were found at the place of our encampment. Such of them as we approached, on the lake, were invariably in want of food, and received it with evident marks of gratification.

On going inland, back from our encampment, we found a succession of arid ridges of sand, which had been evidently produced by the prostrated sandstone of the coast, which, after comminution by the waves, had been carried to this position by the winds. These ancient dunes and ridges were covered sparsely with pitch pines and aspen, and having their surfaces covered with the uva ursi, pyrola, and smaller shrub-growth common to arenaceous soils.

On the day following, we ascended along the eastern shores of Saganaw Bay, a distance of eighteen miles, which brought us to Point aux Chenes. At this place the guides pointed to a group of islands about midway of the bay, for which we steered. The calmness of the weather favored the traverse. We reached and landed on the largest of the group, called Shawangunk, by the Indians, probably from its southernmost position. I found it to consist of a dark, compact limestone, imbedding masses of chalcedony and calcareous spar. I also picked up a detached mass of argillaceous oxide of iron, and some fragments of striped hornstone. Anxious to improve the favorable time for effecting the passage, we pushed on for the opposite western shore, which was safely reached. We then steered down the bay, skirting a low sandy shore some twenty miles or more, till entering the open lake, and reaching the River aux Sables. On entering this river, and after having pitched our camp, we were visited by a band of Chippewa Indians, with friendly salutations. It appeared that the arrival of the expedition had been anticipated by them, they having themselves constructed and furnished the canoes for it, and being well acquainted with the official position, at Detroit, of the leader of our party. The principal Chief, the Black Eagle, addressed a speech to Governor Cass, in which he appropriately recognized these relations, welcomed him to his village, and recommended the condition of his people to his notice. The calumet was then smoked in the usual style of Indian ceremony, the pipe-bearer beginning with persons of first rank, and handing it in the supposed order of grade, to the lowest member of the official family. The ceremony was ended by shaking of hands. All this was done with the ease and dignity of an oriental sheikh. We had anticipated savages, and savage manners, and armed ourselves to the teeth, pushing a point with an army official at Detroit, until we were each provided with a short rifle. But this first formal council with the sons of the forest, began to open our eyes to the true character of the Indian manners and diplomacy, in their intercourse with government officials.

The chiefs, after their departure, sent to our encampment a present of fresh sturgeon, a species which is caught abundantly in the aux Sables at this time, for which returns were made of such articles as were most acceptable to them. Being out of the Bay, we employed the following day making advances along the Huron coast, an estimated distance of forty-eight miles. In this distance, we passed Thunder Bay. Encamped on a low, calcareous shore, bearing cedar and spruce, which the Indians call Sho-she-ko-naw-be-ko-king, or Flat Rock Point. A few miles after leaving River aux Sables, the Highlands of Sables present themselves at a short distance back from the shore. This ridge, which is a landmark for mariners, runs from southeast to northwest, and is visible as far as Thunder Bay. The limestone, which is dark and of an earthy fracture, is very much broken up on the shore, and contains various species of organic remains. On crossing the Bay, we landed on an island covered with debris, where we observed one of those imitative, water-worn, primitive boulders, resembling altars, which are frequently set up by the Indians as the places of depositing some offering, or out of mere respect for some local god.

At six o'clock the next morning we were again in our canoes, assiduously moving along the Huron coast; but, after proceeding about a league, a storm of wind and rain suddenly arose, driving us from the lake. A few hours served to restore its calmness, but we had not gone over a couple of leagues when we were again compelled by the rising wind to take to the shore, where we were detained the rest of the day, listening to the capricious murmurs of the lake. This position was directly opposite Middle Island, a noted anchorage about six miles distant. All night the waves of the lake were heard. The morning broke without change. Lake Huron still evinced an angry aspect, threatening to renew the struggle of yesterday. It was concluded to send the canoes forward, relieved of our weight, and proceed ourselves on foot along the beach. Walking on this became difficult on those parts of it where the fossiliferous and shelly limestone had been broken up and heaped in small fragments. Among these, we recognized specimens of the cornu-ammonis, and the maderpore, with some other species. The cedars and brushy growth generally stood so thick, and grew so closely to this line of debris, that it was impracticable to take the woods. The toil, however, rewarded us with some specimens of the organic forms imbedded in the rock, while it enabled the topographers to secure the data for a very perfect map of the coast. At ten o'clock in the morning we reached the east cape of Presque Isle Bay, where the canoes came to take us across to the peninsula of that name. After completing this, the men landed the canoes and baggage on the peninsula side, and carried them across the narrow sandy neck of land; but, on reaching the open lake beyond it, the wind was found too strongly adverse to permit embarkation. The Canadians have the not inappropriate term of degrade for this species of detention; we were here foiled, indeed, in our high hopes of pushing ahead, and compelled to wait on the naked sands for many weary hours. While thus detained, the Indians brought in a brown rabbit,[ [18] a species of lake tortoise, and some pigeons, being their only fruits of success in hunting, except a single grouse, or partridge, which had crowned their efforts since leaving Detroit. It must be borne in mind, however, that there has been very little opportunity for hunting, that we have had abundant supplies, and that our mode of travelling is such as to alarm all game within sound of our track. They have, indeed, brought reports at several points of seeing the footprints of the deer and black bear, but they have not had the leisure to pursue them.

At five o'clock, the wind abated so much as to permit embarkation, and our canoemen hastened forward with the intention of travelling all night, but at eleven o'clock it freshened to such a degree, and at the same time became so intensely dark, that we were compelled to land and encamp. Neither the topography, mineralogy, or any branch of the physical geography of a country can be ascertained without minute examination; and this constitutes, indeed, the object of the investigations, which have been, thus far, so toilsomely pursued against adverse winds since the commencement of the expedition; but they have disclosed facts which reveal the true structure and physical history of this bleak, ungenial coast; this hope serves, every day, to give new impetus to the voyage.

Another day along the Huron coast. It was now the 6th of June. The voyageurs began now to manifest great anxiety to reach Michilimackinac, and had their canoes in the water at a very early hour. We all participated in this feeling, and saw with pleasure the long lines of sandy shores, strewed with boulders and pebbles, that were swiftly passed. We had traced about forty miles of the coast when we reached the foot of Bois Blanc Island, and pushed over the intervening arm of the lake to get its south or lee shore. This was a labor of hazard, as the wind was directly ahead, and drove the waves into the canoes. When accomplished, we had the shelter of this island for twelve miles, till reaching its southwest part. We then passed, due north, between it and Isle Ronde, which brought the wind again ahead. But the men had not kept this course long, when Michilimackinac, with its picturesque and imposing features, burst upon our view. Nothing can present a more refreshing and inspiring landscape. From that moment the voyageurs appeared to disregard the wind. Striking into the water with bolder paddles, and opening one of their animating boat-songs, all thought of past toils was forgotten, and, urged forward with a new impetus, we entered the handsome little crescent-shaped harbor at four o'clock. The expedition was received with a salute from the fort, in command of Capt. B. K. Pierce, U. S. A.,[ [19] in compliment to the Governor of the Territory, and we landed amid the congratulations of the citizens, who pressed forward to welcome us.

Thus terminated the first part of our journey, after a tedious voyage of fourteen days, in which we had encountered a series of almost continued head-winds and foul weather. The distance by ship is usually estimated at three hundred miles; by following the indentations of the coast, and entering Saganaw Bay, we found it three hundred and sixty.[ [20] We found the Huron coast, to the line of which our observations were limited, bearing, in its vegetation, indubitable marks of its exposure to the northern winds. As a section of the lake geology, it is simple and instructive, exhibiting strata of sandstone and non-crystalline and fossiliferous limestone in horizontal positions, without the slightest disturbance in their dip or inclinations. Its mineralogy is scanty, being nearly confined, so far as observed, to some common silicious minerals, and traces of argillaceous and magnetic oxides of iron. The erratic block-stratum or drift, is remarkable, and prepares the mind for the still heavier accumulations of this kind which are perceived to be spread over the northern latitudes.[ [21]

CHAPTER III.

Description of Michilimackinac—Prominent scenery—Geology—Arched Rock—Sugarloaf Rock—History—Statistics—Mineralogy—Skull Cave—Manners—Its fish, agriculture, moral wants—Ingenious manufactures of the Indians—Fur trade—Etymology of the word—Antique bones disclosed in the interior of the island.

Nothing can exceed the beauty of this island. It is a mass of calcareous rock, rising from the bed of Lake Huron, and reaching an elevation of more than three hundred feet above the water. The waters around are purity itself. Some of its cliffs shoot up perpendicularly, and tower in pinnacles like ruinous Gothic steeples. It is cavernous in some places; and in these caverns, the ancient Indians, like those of India, have placed their dead. Portions of the beach are level, and adapted to landing from boats and canoes. The harbor, at its south end, is a little gem. Vessels anchor in it, and find good holding. The little old-fashioned French town nestles around it in a very primitive style. The fort frowns above it, like another Alhambra, its white walls gleaming in the sun. The whole area of the island is one labyrinth of curious little glens and valleys. Old green fields appear, in some spots, which have been formerly cultivated by the Indians. In some of these there are circles of gathered-up stones, as if the Druids themselves had dwelt here. The soil, though rough, is fertile, being the comminuted materials of broken-down limestones. The island was formerly covered with a dense growth of rock-maples, oaks, ironwood, and other hard-wood species, and there are still parts of this ancient forest left, but all the southern limits of it exhibit a young growth. There are walks and winding paths among its little hills, and precipices of the most romantic character. And whenever the visitor gets on eminences overlooking the lake, he is transported with sublime views of a most illimitable and magnificent water prospect. If the poetic muses are ever to have a new Parnassus in America, they should inevitably fix on Michilimackinac. Hygeia, too, should place her temple here, for it has one of the purest, driest, clearest, and most healthful atmospheres.

We remained encamped upon this lovely island six days, while awaiting the arrival of supplies and provisions for the journey, or their being prepared for transportation by hand over the northern portages. Meats, bread, Indian corn, and flour, had to be put in kegs, or stout linen bags.

The traders and old citizens said so much about the difficulties and toils of these northern portages that we did not know but what we, ourselves, were to be put in bags; but we escaped that process. This delay gave us the opportunity of more closely examining the island. It is about three and a half miles long, two in its greatest width, and nine in circumference. The site of Fort Holmes, the apex, is three hundred and twelve feet above the lake. The eastern margin consists of precipitous cliffs, which, in many places, overhang the water, and furnish a picturesque rocky-fringe, as it were, to the elevated plain. The whole rock formation is calcareous. It exhibits the effects of a powerful diluvial action at early periods, as well as the continued influence of elemental action, still at work. Large portions of the cliffs have been precipitated upon the beach, where the process of degradation has been carried on by the waves. A most striking instance of such precipitations is to be witnessed at the eastern cliff, called Robinson's Folly, which fell, by its own gravitation, within the period of tradition. The formation, at this point, formerly overhung the beach, commanding a fine view of the lake and islands in all directions, in consequence of which it was occupied with a summer-house, by the officers of the British garrison, after the abandonment of the old peninsular fort, about 1780.

The mineralogical features of the island are not without interest. I examined the large fragments of debris, which are still prominent, and which exhibit comparatively fresh fractures. The rock contains a portion of sparry matter, which is arranged in reticulæ, filled with white carbonate of lime, in such a state of loose disintegration that the weather soon converts it to the condition of agaric mineral. These reticulæ are commonly in the slate of calcspar, crystallized in minute crystals. The stratum on which this loose formation rests is compact and firm, and agrees in structure with the encrinal limestone of Drummond Island and the Manitouline chain. But the vesicular stratum, which may be one hundred and ten or twenty feet thick, has been deposited in such a condition that it has not had, in some localities, firmness enough permanently to sustain itself. The consequence is, that the table-land has caved in, and exhibits singular depressions, or grass-covered, cup-shaped cavities, which have no visible outlet for the rain-water that falls in them, unless it percolates through the shelly strata. Portions of it, subject to this structure, have been pressed off during changing seasons, by frosts, and carried away by rains, creating that castellated appearance of pinnacles, which gives so much peculiarity to the rocky outlines of the island.

The ARCHED ROCK is an isolated mass of self-sustaining rock, on the eastern facade of cliffs; it offers one of those coincidences of geological degradation in which the firmer texture of the silicious and calcareous portions of it have, thus far, resisted decomposition. Its explanation, is, however, simple: The apex of this geological monument is on a level, or nearly so, with the Fort Holmes summit. While the diluvial action, of which the whole island gives striking proofs, carried away the rest of the reticulated or magnesian limestone, this singular point, having a firmer texture, resisted its power, and remains to tell the visitor who gazes at it, that waters have once held dominion over the highest part of the island.

Before dismissing the subject of the geological phenomena of this island, it may be observed that it is covered with the erratic block or drift stratum. Primitive or crystalline pebbles and boulders are found, but not plentifully, on the surface. They are observed, however, on the highest summit, and upon the lower plain; one of the best localities of these boulders, exists on the depressed ground, leading north, in the approach to Dousman's Farm, where there is a remarkable accumulation of blocks of granite and hornblende drift boulders. The principal drift of the island consists of smooth, small, calcareous pebbles, and, at deeper positions, angular fragments of limestone. Sandstone boulders are not rare. Over the plain leading from the fort north by way of the Skull Rock, are spread extensive beds of finely comminuted calcareous gravel, the particles of which often not exceeding the size of a buck-shot, which makes one of the most solid and compact natural macadamized roads of which it is possible to conceive. Carriage wheels on it run as smoothly, but far more solid, than they could over a plank floor. This formation appears to be the diluvial residuum or ultimate wash, which arranged itself agreeably to the laws of its own gravitation, on the recession of the watery element, to which its comminution is clearly due. It would be worth transportation, in boxes, for gravelling ornamental garden-walks. The soil of the island is highly charged with the calcareous element, and, however barren in appearance, is favorable to vegetation. Potatoes have been known to be raised in pure beds of small limestone pebbles, where the seed potatoes had been merely covered in a slight way, to shield them from the sun, until they had taken root.

The historical reminiscences connected with this island are of an interesting character. It appears from concurrent testimony, that the old town on the peninsula was settled about 1671,[ [22] which was seven years before the building of Fort Niagara. In that year, Father Marquette, a French missionary, prevailed on a party of Hurons to locate themselves at that spot, and it was therefore the first point of settlement made northwest of Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario. It was probably first garrisoned by La Salle, in 1678, and continued to be the seat of the fur trade, and in many respects, the metropolis of the extreme northwest, during the whole period of French domination in the Canadas. After the fall of Quebec, in 1759, it passed by treaty to the British government, but much against the wishes of the Indian tribes, who retained a strong partiality for their early friends, the French. Pontiac arose at this time, to dispute the English authority in the northwest, and with confederates projected a series of bold attacks upon the forts extending from the Ohio to this post. Most of these were successful, but he was defeated at Detroit, where he commanded in person, after a series of extraordinary movements. While he was pressing the siege of the garrison, he enjoined neutrality upon the French inhabitants, who were nevertheless called on to furnish cattle and corn for the subsistence of his warriors. It is remarked on good authority that, for these supplies, he issued evidences of debt. When General Bradstreet marched to the relief of the fort, with an army of three thousand men, the spirit and laconic temper of the warrior were at the same time evinced. He sent a deputation of chiefs to meet the herald of the British general, at Maumee, with the laconic and symbolic message: "I stand in the path."

The execution of the plan of attack on Old Fort Mackinac appears to have been intrusted to Minnawanna, a Chippewa chief, who, in addition to his own people, was aided by the Sacs. The Ottowas afterwards expressed displeasure in not having been admitted to a participation in the attack. The plan was ingeniously laid. The king's birthday, the 4th of June (1763), having arrived, the Chippewas and Sacs turned out to play, for a high wager, at ball. Many of the garrison, and the commanding officer himself, came out to witness the sport; and there was such a feeling of security that the gates of the fort were left open. To put the troops more off their guard, the ball had been thrown over the picket, and when once there, it was natural that it should be followed by the opposite parties, heated with the contest and eager for victory. But this artifice was the accomplishment of the plan. The war-whoop was immediately sounded, and an indiscriminate slaughter commenced. A few moments of intense anxiety ensued. They were passed by the officers eagerly listening for the roll of the drum. But they were passed in disappointment. There was no call of this kind to concentrate resistance. Panic and slaughter raged in their most fearful forms. None were spared who were deemed friendly to the English interest but such as were effectually secreted. Some of the soldiers who escaped the first onset, were incarcerated in a room, where they were sacrificed to glut the vengeance of a chief, who did not arrive till the principal work of slaughter had been accomplished.

This event sealed the fate of the old fort and the town on the peninsula. The British afterwards took possession of the island, which had served to give name to the peninsular fort. The town was gradually removed, by pulling down the buildings, and transporting the timber to the island, till there was not a building or fixture left; and the site is now as silent and deserted as if it had never been the scene of an active resident population.

The Island of Michilimackinac appears to have been occupied first as a military position by the British, about 1780, say some seven years after the massacre of the garrison of the old peninsular fort of the same name.

Wherever Michilimackinac is mentioned in the missionary letters or history of this period, it is the ancient fort, on the apex of the Michigan peninsula, that is alluded to.

The present town is pleasantly situated around a little bay that affords good clay anchorage and a protection from west and north winds. It has a very antique and foreign look, and most of the inhabitants are, indeed, of the Canadian type of the French. The French language is chiefly spoken. It consists of about one hundred and fifty houses and some four hundred and fifty permanent inhabitants.

It is the seat of justice for the most northerly county of Michigan. According to the observation of Lieut. Evelith, the island lies in north latitude 45° 54´, which is only twenty-three minutes north of Montreal, as stated by Prof. Silliman.[ [23] It is in west longitude 7° 10´ from Washington.

Col. Croghan's attempt to take the island, during the late war, was most unfortunate. He failed from a double spirit of dissension in his own forces, being at odds with the commanding officer of the fleet, and at sword's points with his second in command, Major Holmes. After entering the St. Mary's, and taking and burning the old post of St. Joseph's, where nobody resisted, instead of sailing direct to Mackinac, a marauding expedition was sent up this river to St. Mary's, and when the fleet and troops finally reached Mackinac, instead of landing at the town, under the panic of the inhabitants, it sailed about for several days. In the mean time the island filled with Indians from the surrounding shores.

Fort "Mackina" is eligibly situated on a cliff overlooking the town and harbor, and is garrisoned by a company of artillery. The ruin of Fort Holmes, formerly Fort George, occupies the apex of the island, and has been dismantled since the British evacuated it in 1815.[ [24]

It happened that the British authorities on the island of St. Joseph, got intelligence of the declaration of war, in 1812, through Canada, before the American commander at Mackinac heard of it. Mustering their forces with such volunteers, militia, and Indians as could be hastily got together, they proceeded in boats to the back of the island, where they secretly landed at night with some artillery, and by daylight the next morning got the latter in place on the summit of Fort Holmes, which completely commanded the lower fort, when they sent a summons of surrender, which Captain Hanks, the American commanding officer, had no option but to obey.

Colonel Croghan, the hero of Sandusky, attempted to regain possession of it, in 1814, with a competent force, and after several demonstrations of his fleet about the island, by which time was lost and panic in the enemy allayed, he landed on the northern part of it, which is depressed, and his army marched through thick woods, most favorable for the operations of the Indians, to the open grounds of Dousman's Farm, where the army was met by Colonel McDouall, who was eligibly posted on an eminence with but few regular troops, but a heavy force of Indian auxiliaries and the village militia. Major Holmes, who gallantly led the attack, swinging his sword, was killed at a critical moment, and the troops retreated before Colonel Croghan could reach the field with a reinforcement. Thus ended this affair.

My attention was directed to the plaster stated to exist on the St. Martin Islands. These islands compose a small group lying about nine or ten miles north-northeast of Michilimackinac. Captain Knapp, of the revenue service, had been requested to take me to the spot with the revenue cutter under his command. I was accompanied by Captain Douglass, of the expedition, and by Lieutenant John Pierce, U. S. A., stationed at the fort.

The gypsum exists in a moist soil, not greatly elevated, during certain winds above the lake. Pits had been dug by persons visiting the locality for commercial purposes. It occurs in granular lumps of a gray color, as also in foliated and fibrous masses, white, gray, chestnut color, or sometimes red. No difficulty was encountered in procuring as many specimens as were required. This group of islands is noticeable, also, for the large boulder masses of hornblende and granite rock, which are found imbedded in, or lying on the surface, along with fragments of breccia, quartz, &c. This drift is more abundant, on all the islands I have seen, as we approach the north shores of Lake Huron. Having completed the examination of these islands, we returned to the harbor after an agreeable excursion.

To observe the structure and character of the Island of Michilimackinac, I determined to walk entirely around it, following the beach at the foot of the cliffs. This, although a difficult task, from brush and debris, became a practicable one, except on the north and northwest borders, where there was, for limited spaces, no margin of debris, at which points it became necessary to wade in the water at the base of low precipitous rocks. In addition to the reticulated masses of limestone covered with calcspar from the fallen cliffs, the search disclosed small tabular pieces of minutely crystallized quartz and angular masses of a kind of striped hornstone, gray and lead colored, which had been liberated from similar positions in the cliffs. On passing the west margin of the island, I observed a bed of a species of light-blue clay, which is stated to part with its coloring matter in baking it, becoming white.

While the British possessed the island, they attempted to procure water by digging two wells at the site of Fort George (now Holmes), but were induced to relinquish the work without success, at the depth of about one hundred feet. Among the fragments of rock thrown out, are impressions of bivalve and univalve shells, with an impression resembling the head of a trilobite. These are generally in the condition of chalcedony, covered with very minute crystals of quartz. I also discovered a drift specimen of brown oxide of iron, on the north quarter. This sketch embraces all that is important in its mineralogical character.

This island appears to have been occupied by the Indians, from an early period. Human bones have been discovered at more than one point, in the cavernous structure of the island; but no place has been so much celebrated for disclosures of this kind, as the Skull Cave. This cave has a prominent entrance, shaded by a few trees, and appears to have been once devoted to the offices of a charnel-house by the Indians. It is not mentioned at all, however, by writers, till 1763, in the month of June of which year the fort of old Mackinac on the peninsula, was treacherously taken by the Sac and Chippewa Indians. An extensive and threatening confederation of the western Indians had then been matured, and a large body of armed warriors was then encamped around the walls of Detroit, under the leadership of Pontiac, who held the garrison in close siege day and night. The surrender of Canada to Great Britain, which had followed the victory of General Wolfe at Quebec, was distasteful to these Indians, and they attempted the mad project of driving back beyond the Alleghanies the English race; making a simultaneous assault upon all the military posts west of that great line of demarcation, and preaching and dealing out vengeance to all who had English blood in their veins. Alexander Henry, a native of Albany,[ [25] was one of those enterprising men who had pushed his fortunes West, with an adventure of merchandise, on the first exchange of posts, and he was singled out for destruction, as soon as the fort was taken. He had taken refuge in the house of a Frenchman named Longlade, where he was concealed in a garret by a Pawnee slave, and where he hid himself under a heap of birch-bark buckets, such as are employed in the Indian country, in the spring season, in carrying the sap of the sugar-maple. But this temporary reprieve from the Indian knife seemed only the prelude to a series of hairbreadth escapes, which impressed him as the direct interposition of Providence. At length, when the scenes of blood and intoxication began to abate a little, an old Indian friend of his, called Wawetum, who had once pledged his friendship, but who had been absent during the massacre, sought him out, and having reclaimed him by presents, in a formal council, took him into his canoe and conducted the spared witness of these atrocities three leagues across the waters of Lake Huron in safety to this island.

To this place they were accompanied by the actors in this tragedy to the number of three hundred and fifty fighting men,[ [26] and he would now, under the protection of Wawetum, have been safe from immediate peril, but that in a few days a prize of two canoes of merchandise in the hands of English traders was made, amongst which was a large quantity of liquor. Hereupon, Wawetum, foreseeing another carousal, and always fearful of his friend, requested him to go up with him to the mountain part of the island. Having ascended it, he led him to this cave, and recommended him to abide here in concealment until the debauch was over, when he promised to visit him.

Breaking some branches at its mouth for a bed, he then sought its recesses, and spreading his blanket around, laid down and slept till morning. Daylight revealed to him the fact that he had been reposing on dry human bones, and that the cave had anciently been devoted by the Indians as a sepulchre. On announcing this fact to his deliverer, two days afterward, when he came to seek him, Wawetum expressed his ignorance of it, and a party of the Indians, who came to examine it in consequence of the announcement, also concurred in declaring that they had no tradition on the subject. They conjectured that the bones were either due to the period when the sea covered the earth—which is a common belief with them—or to the period of the Huron occupancy of this island, after that tribe were defeated by the Iroquois, in the St. Lawrence valley.

So much for tradition.

This island has been long known as a prominent point in the fur trade. But of this I am not prepared to speak. It was selected by Mr. J. J. Astor, in 1816, as the central point of outfit for his clerks and agents in this region; and the warehouses erected for their accommodation constitute prominent features in its modern architecture. The capital annually invested in this business is understood to be about three hundred thousand dollars. This trade was deemed an object of the highest consequence from the first settlement of Canada, but it was not till 1766, agreeably to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, that it commenced from Michilimackinac.[ [27] The number of furred animals taken in a single year, the same author states to be one hundred and eighty-two thousand two hundred; of which number, the astonishing proportion of one hundred and six thousand were beavers.[ [28] Estimating each skin at but one pound, and the foreign market price at four dollars per pound, which are both much below the average at this era, this item of beaver alone would exceed by more than one-third the whole capital employed, taking the data before mentioned, and leave the seventy-six thousand smaller furred animals to be put on the profit side. No wonder that acts of perfidy arose between rivals, such as the shooting of Mr. Waden at his own dinner-table, where he was entertaining an opponent or copartner in the trade; or the foul assassination of Owen Keveny on the Rainy Lakes.[ [29] Indeed, the fur trade has for a long period been more productive, if we are to rely on statements, than the richest silver mines of Mexico or Peru.

Society at Michilimackinac consists of so many diverse elements, which impart their hue to it, that it is not easy for a passing traveller to form any just estimate of it. The Indian, with his plumes, and gay and easy costume, always imparts an oriental air to it. To this, the Canadian, gay, thoughtless, ever bent on the present, and caring nothing for to-morrow, adds another phase. The trader, or interior clerk, who takes his outfit of goods to the Indians, and spends eleven months of the year in toil, and want, and petty traffic, appears to dissipate his means with a sailor-like improvidence in a few weeks, and then returns to his forest wanderings; and boiled corn, pork, and wild rice again supply his wants. There is in these periodical resorts to the central quarters of the Fur Company, much to remind one of the old feudal manners, in which there is proud hospitality and a show of lordliness on the one side, and gay obsequiousness and cringing dependence on the other, at least till the annual bargains for the trade are closed.

We were informed that there is neither school, preaching, a physician (other than at the garrison), nor an attorney, in the place. There are, however, courts of law, a post-office, and a jail, and one or more justices of the peace.

There is a fish market every morning, where may be had the trout—two species—and the white fish, the former of which are caught with hooks in deep water, and the latter in gill nets. Occasionally, other species appear, but the trout and white fish, which is highly esteemed, are staples, and may be relied on in the shore market daily; whole canoe-loads of them are brought in.

The name of this island is said to signify a great turtle, to which it has a fancied resemblance, when viewed from a distance. Mikenok , and not Mackenok, is, however, the name for a tortoise. The term, as pronounced by the Indians, is Michinemockinokong, signifying place of the Great Michinamockinocks, or rock-spirits. Of this word, Mich is from Michau (adjective-animate), great. The term mackinok, in the Algonquin mythology, denotes in the singular, a species of spirits, called turtle spirits, or large fairies, who are thought to frequent its mysterious cliffs and glens. The plural of this word, which is an animate plural, is ong, which is the ordinary form of all nouns ending in the vowel o. When the French came to write this, they cast away the Indian local in ong, changed the sound of n to l, and gave the force mack and nack, to mök and nök. The vowel e, after the first syllable, is merely a connective in the Indian, and which is represented in the French orthography in this word by i. The ordinary interpretation of great turtle is, therefore, not widely amiss; but in its true meaning, the term enters more deeply into the Indian mythology than is conjectured. The island was deemed, in a peculiar sense, the residence of spirits during all its earlier ages. Its cliffs, and dense and dark groves of maples, beech, and ironwood, cast fearful shadows; and it was landed on by them in fearfulness, and regarded far and near as the Sacred Island. Its apex is, indeed, the true Indian Olympus of the tribes, whose superstitions and mythology peopled it by gods, or monitos.

Since our arrival here, there has been a great number of Indians of the Chippewa and Ottowa tribes encamped near the town. The beach of the lake has been constantly lined with Indian wigwams and bark canoes. These tribes are generally well dressed in their own costume, which is light and artistic, and exhibit physiognomies with more regularity of features and mildness of expression than it is common to find among them. This is probably attributable to a greater intermixture of blood in this vicinity. They resort to the island, at this season, for the purpose of exchanging their furs, maple-sugar, mats, and small manufactures. Among the latter are various articles of ornament, made by the females, from the fine white deer skin, or yellow birch bark, embroidered with colored porcupine quills. The floor mats, made from rushes, are generally more or less figured. Mockasins, miniature sugarboxes, called mo-cocks, shot-pouches, and a kind of pin and needleholders, or housewives, are elaborately beaded. But nothing exceeds in value the largest merchantable mockocks of sugar, which are brought in for sale. They receive for this article six cents per pound, in merchandise, and the amount made in a season, by a single family, is sometimes fifteen hundred pounds. The Ottowas of L'Arbre Croche are estimated at one thousand souls, which, divided by five, would give two hundred families; and by admitting each family to manufacture but two hundred pounds per annum, would give a total of forty thousand pounds; and there are probably as many Chippewas within the basins of Lakes Huron and Michigan. This item alone shows the importance of the Indian trade, distinct from the question of furs.

During the time we remained on this island, the atmosphere denoted a mean temperature of 55° Fahrenheit. The changes are often sudden and great. The island is subject to be enveloped in fogs, which frequently rise rapidly. These fogs are sometimes so dense, as to obscure completely objects at but a short distance. I visited Round Island one day with Lieut. Mackay,[ [30] and we were both engaged in taking views of the fort and town of Michilimackinac,[ [31] when one of these dense fogs came on, and spread itself with such rapidity, that we were compelled to relinquish our designs unfinished, and it was not without difficulty that we could make our way across the narrow channel, and return to the island. This fact enabled me to realize what the old travellers of the region have affirmed on this topic.

We were received during our visit here in the most hospitable manner, as well as with official courtesy, by Capt. B. K. Pierce, the commanding officer, Major Puthuff, the Indian agent, and by the active and intelligent agents of Mr. John Jacob Astor, the great fiscal head of the Fur Trade in this quarter.

CHAPTER IV.

Proceed down the north shore of Lake Huron to the entrance of the Straits of St. Mary's—Character of the shores, and incidents—Ascend the river to Sault de Ste. Marie—Hostilities encountered there—Intrepidity of General Cass.

Having spent six days on the island, rambling about it, and making ourselves as well acquainted with its features and inhabitants as possible, we felt quite recruited and cheered up, after the tedious delays along the southern shores of Lake Huron. And we all felt the better prepared for plunging deeper into the northwestern forest. Before venturing into the stronghold of the Chippewas, whose territories extend around Lake Superior, it was deemed prudent to take along an additional military force as far as Sault de Ste. Marie. But five or six years had then passed since this large tribe had been arrayed in hostilities against the United States (in the war of 1814), and they were yet smarting under the wounds and losses which they had received at Brownstown and the River Thames, where they had lost some prominent men. Generals Brown and Macomb,[ [32] when making a reconnoissance, with their respective staffs, a couple of years before, had been fired on in visiting Gros Cape, at the foot of Lake Superior, and although no one was killed on that occasion, the circumstance was sufficient to indicate their feeling.

This additional force was placed under the command of Lieutenant John S. Pierce, U. S. A., a brother of the commanding officer,[ [33] and of Franklin Pierce, President of the United States. It consisted of twenty-two men, with a twelve-oared barge. The whole expedition, now numbering sixty-four persons, embarked at ten o'clock on the 15th, with a fair wind, for our first destination, at Detour, being the west cape of the Straits of St. Mary's. The distance is estimated at forty miles, along a very intricate, masked shore of islands, called Chenos. The breeze carried us at the rate of five miles per hour. The first traverse is an arm of the Lake, three leagues across, over which we passed swimmingly. This traverse is broken near its eastern terminus by Goose Island, the Nekuhmenis (literally Brant Island) of the Chippewas—a noted place of encampment for traders. We did not, however, touch at it. A couple of miles beyond this brought us to Outard Point, where the men rested a few moments on their oars and paddles. This point forms the commencement of those intricate channels which constitute the Chenos group. Our steersman gave them, however, a wide berth, and did not approach near the shore till it began to be time to look out for the mouth of the St. Mary's. After passing Point St. Vitel, a distance of about thirty miles, the guides led into a sandy bay, under the impression that we had reached the west cape of the St. Mary's; but in this we were deceived. While landing here a few moments, in a deep bay, the animal called Kaug by the Chippewas (a porcupine), was discovered and killed by one of the men, called Baptiste, by a blow from a hatchet. Buffon gives two engravings of this animal, as found in Canada, under separate names; but it is apprehended that he has been misled by the same animal seen in its summer and winter dress. To the Indian, this animal is valuable for its quills, which are dyed of bright colors, to ornament their dresses, moccasons, shot-pouches, and other choice fabrics of deer skin, or birch bark. This animal has four claws on the fore paw, and five on the hinder ones. It has small ears hid in the hair, and a bushy tail, with coarse black and white hair. The specimen killed would weigh eight pounds.

Soon after coming out from this indentation of the lake, we came in sight of Point Detour, on turning which, from E. to N., we found no longer use for sails. Mackenzie places this point in north latitude 45° 54´.

The geology of this coast appears manifest. Secondary compact limestone appears in place, in low situations, on the reef of Outard Island and Point, and in the approach to Point Detour. A ridge of calcareous highlands appears on the mainland east of Michilimackinac, stretching off towards Sault de Ste. Marie, in a northeast direction. This ridge appears to belong to a low mountain chain, of which the Island of Michilimackinac may be deemed as one of the geological links. Just before turning, we passed a very heavy angular block of limestone, much covered with moss, which could not have been far removed, in the drift era, from its parent bed. The largest angle of this stone, which I have since examined, must be eight or ten feet. This block is of the ortho-cerite stratum of Drummond Island. The shores are heavily charged with various members of the boulder drift, with a fringe beyond them of spruce and firs, giving one the idea of a cold, exposed, and most unfavorable coast. Turning the Point of Detour, we ascended the strait a few miles, and encamped on its west shore, off Frying-pan Island, at a point directly opposite the British post of Drummond Island, which we could not perceive, but the direction of which was clearly denoted by the sound of the evening bugles.

The entrance into this strait forms a magnificent scene of waters and islands, of which a map conveys but a faint conception. The straits here appeared to be illimitable, we seemed to be in a world of waters. It is stated to be thirty miles across to Point Thessalon. The large group of the Manatouline Islands, stretching transversely through Lake Huron, terminates with the isle Drummond—a name bestowed in compliment to the bold leader, Col. Drummond, who led the night storming party, and was blown up on the bastion of Fort Erie, in 1813. This station was first occupied on the withdrawal of the British troops from Mackinac, in 1815. This day's trip gave us a favorable idea of canoe travelling. It also gave us an exalted idea of the gigantic system of these lake waters, and their connecting straits. We had never done gazing at the prospect before us, after turning the Detour, and did not retire from our camp fires early. The next morning we embarked at five o'clock, a light dreamy mist hanging over the waters. When this cleared away, we descried the ruined chimneys and buildings of St. Joseph, the abandoned British post burned by Col. Croghan, in 1814.[ [34] The day turned out a fine one, and we proceeded up the straits with pleasurable feelings, excited by the noble and novel views of scenery continually before us. Keeping the west side of a high limestone island called Isle a la Crosse, we then entered a sheet of water called Lac Vaseau, or Muddy Lake. We had proceeded northwardly perhaps twenty miles, when we encountered another of those large islands for which these straits are remarkable, called Nebeesh,[ [35] or Sailor's Encampment Island. Our guides held up on its western side, which soon brought us to the first rapids, and the commencement of St. Mary's River. A formation of sandstone is here observed in the bed of the stream. The waters are swift and shallow, and the men encountered quite a struggle in the ascent, and so much injured one of our canoes that it became necessary to unlade and mend it. In the mean time, the atmosphere put on a threatening aspect, with heavy peals of thunder, but no rain followed till we again re-embarked and proceeded five or six miles, when a shower fell. It did not, however, compel us to land, and by six o'clock in the afternoon, the sky again became clear. We had now ascended the strait and river so far, that it became certain we could reach our destination before night, and the men worked with the greater alacrity. At eight o'clock we had surmounted the second rapid, called the Little Rapid, Nebeetung of the Indians, where we encountered a swift current. We were now within two miles of our destination. The whole river is here embodied before the eye, and is a mile or three-fourths of a mile wide, and the two separate villages on the British and American shores began to reveal themselves to view, with the cataract of the Sault de Ste. Marie in the distance; and a beautiful forest of elms, oaks, and maples on either hand. We ascended with our flags flying, our little squadron being spread out in order, and the Canadian boatmen raising one of their enlivening songs. Long before reaching the place, a large throng of Indians had collected on the beach, who, as we put in towards the shore, fired a salute, and stood ready to greet us with their customary bosho.[ [36] We landed in front of the old Nolan house,[ [37] the ancient headquarters of the Northwest Company; and immediately formed our encampment on the wide green, extending along the river. Daylight in this latitude is protracted, and although we had ascended a computed distance of forty-five miles, and had had the mishap to break a canoe in the Nebeesh, there was abundant light to fix our encampment properly. Lieut. Pierce encamped his men on our extreme right. Leaving an interval, Lieut. Mackay's escort came next, and our tents formed the northern line of his encampment, nearest to the Indians. The latter occupied a high plateau, in plain view, several hundred yards west, with an intervening gulley, and a plain, well-beat footpath. We had, in case of difficulty, thirty-four muskets, Pierce's command included, in addition to which, each of the savans, or Governor's mess, were armed with a short rifle. Our line may have looked offensively demonstrative to the Chippewas, who regarded it, from their ancient eminence, with unfriendly feelings. These particulars are given from the perilous position we were brought into next day.

Meantime, we passed a quiet night in our tents, where the deep sound of the Falls fell on the wakeful ear, interspersed with the distant monotonous thump of the Indian täwäegon. It required but little observation, in the morning, to explore the village of St. Mary's. It consisted of some fifteen or twenty buildings of all sorts, occupied by descendants of the original French settlers, all of whom drew their living from the fur trade. The principal buildings and outhouses were those of Mr. John Johnston, and the group formerly occupied by the Northwest Company. Most of the French habitations stood in the midst of picketed lots. There were about forty or fifty lodges, or two hundred Chippewas, fifty or sixty of whom were warriors. But, although this place was originally occupied as a missionary centre, by the Roman Catholic missionaries of New France, about the middle of the seventeenth century, no trace of the ancient church could be seen, unless it was in an old consecrated graveyard, which has continued to be used for interments. Mr. Johnston, the principal inhabitant, is a native of the County of Antrim, Ireland, where his connections are persons of rank. He is a polite, intelligent, and well-bred man, from a manifestly refined circle; who, soon after the close of the American Revolution, settled here, and married the daughter of a distinguished Indian chief.[ [38] Although now absent on a visit to Europe, his family received us with marked urbanity and hospitality, and invited the gentlemen composing the travelling family of Governor Cass to take all our meals with them. Everything at this mansion was done with ceremonious attention to the highest rules of English social life; Miss Jane, the eldest daughter, who had received her education in Ireland, presiding.

The Sault (from the Latin Saltus, through the French) or Falls of St. Mary, is the head of navigation for vessels on the lakes, and has been, from early days, a thoroughfare for the Indian trade. It is equally renowned for its white fish, which are taken in the rapids with a scoop-net. The abundance and excellence of these fish has been the praise of all travellers from the earliest date, and it constitutes a ready means of subsistence for the Indians who congregate here.

The place was chiefly memorable in our tour, however, as the seat of the Chippewa power. To adjust the relations of the tribe with the United States, a council was convened with the chiefs on the day following our arrival. This council was assembled at the Governor's marquée, which was graced by the national ensign, and prepared for the interview with the usual presents. The chiefs, clothed in their best habiliments, and arrayed in feathers and British medals, seated themselves, with their usual dignity, in great order, and the business was opened with the usual ceremony of smoking the peace pipe. When this had been finished, and the interpreter[ [39] taken his position, he was directed to explain the views of the Government, in visiting the country, to remind them that their ancestors had formerly conceded the occupancy of the place to the French, to whose national rights and prerogatives the Americans had succeeded, and, by a few direct and well-timed historical and practical remarks, to secure their assent to its reoccupancy. The utmost attention was bestowed while this address was being made, and it was evident, from the glances of the hearers, that it was received with unfriendly feelings, and several chiefs spoke in reply. They were averse to the proposition, and first endeavored to evade it by pretending to know nothing of such former grants. This point being restated by the American commissioner, and pressed home strongly, was eventually dropped by them. Still, they continued to speak in an evasive and desultory manner, which had the effect of a negative. It was evident that there was a want of agreement, and some animated discussion arose among themselves. Two classes of persons appeared among the chiefs. Some appeared in favor of settling a boundary to the ancient precinct of French occupancy, provided it was not intended to be occupied by a garrison, saying, in the symbolic language of Indians, that they were afraid, in that case, their young men might kill the cattle of the garrison. Gov. Cass, understanding this, replied that, as to the establishment of a garrison, they need not give themselves any uneasiness—it was a settled point, and so sure as the sun that was then rising would set, so sure would there be an American garrison sent to that point, whether they renewed the grant or not. This decisive language had a sensible effect. High words followed between the chiefs. The head chief of the band, Shingabawossin, a tall, stately man, of prudent views, evidently sided with the moderates, and was evasive in his speech. A chief called Shingwauk, or the Little Pine, who had conducted the last war party from the village in 1814, was inclined to side with the hostiles. There was a chief present called Sassaba, a tall, martial-looking man, of the reigning family of chiefs of the Crane Totem, who had lost a brother in the battle of the Thames. He wore a scarlet uniform, with epaulets, and nourished a deep resentment against the United States. He stuck his war lance furiously in the ground before him, at the beginning of his harangue, and, assuming a savage wildness of air, appeared to produce a corresponding effect upon the other Indian speakers, and employed the strongest gesticulation. His address brought the deliberations to a close, after they had continued some hours, by a defiant tone; and, as he left the marquée, he kicked away the presents laid before the council. Great agitation ensued. The council was then summarily dissolved, the Indians went to their hill, and we to our tents.

It has been stated that the encampment of the Indians was situated on an eminence a few hundred yards west from our position on the shore, and separated from us by a small ravine. We had scarcely reached our tents, when it was announced that the Indians had raised the British flag in their camp. They felt their superiority in number, and did not disguise their insolence. Affairs had reached a crisis. A conflict seemed inevitable. Governor Cass instantly ordered the expedition under arms. He then called the interpreter, and proceeded with him, naked-handed and alone, to Sassaba's lodge at the hostile camp. Being armed with short rifles, we requested to be allowed to accompany him as a body-guard, but he decidedly refused this. On reaching the lodge of the hostile chief, before whose door the flag had been raised, he pulled it down with his own hands. He then entered the lodge, and addressing the chief calmly but firmly, told him that it was an indignity which they could not be permitted to offer; that the flag was the distinguishing symbol of nationality; that two flags of diverse kind could not wave in peace upon the same territory; that they were forbid the use of any but our own, and should they again attempt it, the United States would set a strong foot upon their rock and crush them. He then brought the captured flag with him to his tent.

In a few moments after his return from the Indian camp, that camp was cleared by the Indians of their women and children, who fled with precipitation in their canoes across the river. Thus prepared for battle, we momently expected to hear the war-whoop. I had myself examined and filled my shot-pouch, and stood ready, rifle in hand, with my companions, awaiting their attack. But we waited in vain. It was an hour of indecision among the Indians. They deliberated, doubtingly, and it soon became evident that the crisis had passed. Finding no hostile demonstration from the hill, Lieuts. Pierce and Mackay directed their respective commands to retire to their tents.

The intrepid act of Governor Cass had struck the Indians with amazement, while it betokened a knowledge of Indian character of which we never dreamed. This people possess a singular respect for bravery. The march of our force, on that occasion, would have been responded to, instantly, by eighty or a hundred Indian guns; but to behold an unarmed man walk boldly into their camp and seize the symbol of their power, betokened a cast of character which brought them to reflection. On one person in particular the act had a controlling effect. When it was told to the daughter of Wäbojeeg (Mrs. Johnston), she told the chief that their meditated scheme of resistance to the Americans was madness; the day for such resistance was passed; and this man, Cass, had the air of a great man, and could carry his flag through the country. The party were also under the hospitality of her roof. She counselled peace. To these words Shingabowassin responded; he was seconded by Shingwäkonce, or the Little Pine. Of this effort we knew nothing at the moment, but the facts were afterwards learned. It was evident, before the day had passed, that a better state of feeling existed among the Indians. The chief Shingabowassin, under the friendly influences referred to, renewed the negotiations. Towards evening a council of the chiefs was convened in one of the buildings of this Pocahontean counsellor, and the treaty of the 16th June, 1820 (vide Ind. Treaties United States) signed. In this treaty every leading man united, except Sassaba. The Little Pine signed it, under one of his synonymous names, Lavoine Bart. By this treaty the Chippewas cede four miles square, reserving the right of a place to fish at the rapids, perpetually. The consideration for this cession, or acknowledgment of title, was promptly paid in merchandise.

The way being thus prepared for our entry into Lake Superior, it was decided to proceed the next day. Before leaving this point, it may be observed that the falls are produced by a stratum of red sandstone rock, which crosses the bed of the St. Mary's at this place. The last calcareous formation, seen in ascending the straits, is at Isle a la Crosse. As we proceed north, the erratic block stratum becomes heavier, and abraded masses of the granite, trap, sandstone, and hornblende series are confusedly piled together on the lake shores, and are abundant at the foot of these falls. In the central or middle channel, the waters leap from a moderate height, from stratum to stratum, at two or three points, producing the appearance, when seen from below, of a mass of tumbling waves. The French word Sault (pronounced so) accurately expresses this kind of pitching rapids or falls. The Indians call it Bawateeg, or Pawateeg, when speaking of the phenomenon, and Bawating or Pawating, when referring to the place. Paugwa is an expression denoting shallow water on rocks. The inflection eeg is an animate plural. Ing is the local terminal form of nouns. In the south or American channel, there is no positive leap of the water, but an intensely swift current, which is parted by violent jets, between rocks, still permitting canoes, skilfully guided, to descend, and empty boats to be drawn up. But these falls are a complete check to ship navigation. The descent of water has been stated by Colonel Gratiot, of the United States Engineers, at twenty-two feet ten inches.[ [40] They resemble a bank of rolling foam, and with their drapery of trees on either shore, and the mountains of Lake Superior in the distance, and the moving canoes of fishing Indians in the foreground, present a most animated and picturesque view.

To the Chippewas, who regard this spot as their ancient capital, it is doubtless fraught with many associations, and they regard with jealousy the advance of the Americans to this quarter. This tribe, in the absence of any older traditions, are regarded as the aboriginal inhabitants of the place. They are, by their language, Algonquins, and speak a pure dialect of it. They call themselves Ojibwas. Bwa, in this language, denotes voice, Ojibwamong signifies Chippewa language, or voice. It is not manifest what the prefixed syllable denotes. They are a numerous people, and spread over many degrees of latitude and longitude. We have had them constantly around us, in some form, since leaving Detroit, and they extend to the Great Winnipeg Lake of Hudson's Bay. They appear, at the French era of discovery, to have been confined almost exclusively to the north bank of the St. Lawrence, below the influx of the Ottowa River, extending to Lake Nepising, and the geographical position seems to have been the origin of the name Algonquin.

Whilst encamped here, we witnessed the descent down the rapids of eleven barges and canoes laden with furs from the north. This trade forms the engrossing topic, at this point, with all classes. Hazardous as it is, the pursuit does not fail to attract adventurers, who appear to be fascinated with the wild freedom of life in the wilderness.

CHAPTER V.

Embark at the head of the portage at St. Mary's—Entrance into Lake Superior—Journey and incidents along its coasts—Great Sand Dunes—Pictured Rocks—Grand Island—Keweena peninsula and portage—Incidents thence to Ontonagon River.

Having accomplished the object of our visit, at this place, no time was lost in pushing our way into the basin of Lake Superior. The distance to it is computed to be fifteen miles above the Sault. It was nine o'clock of the morning following the day of the treaty, when the men began to take the canoes up the rapids, and transport the provisions and baggage. This occupied nearly the whole of the day. Taking leave of Lieutenant Pierce, who returned with his command, from this point and our hospitable hostess, we proceeded to the head of the portage, long before the canoes and stores all arrived. To while away the time, while the men were thus employed, we tried our skill at rifle shooting. It was six o'clock in the evening before the work of transportation was finished, and the canoes loaded, when we embarked. The view from the head of the portage is imposing. The river spreads out like an arm of the sea. In the distance appear the mountains of Lake Superior.

We proceeded two leagues, and encamped at Point aux Pins, on the Canadian shore. At six o'clock the next morning we were again in our canoes, and crossed the strait, which is here several leagues wide, to the west, or Point Iroquois Cape. In this traverse we first beheld the entrance into Lake Superior. The scene is magnificent, and I could fully subscribe to the remark made by Carver, "that the entrance into Lake Superior affords one of the most pleasing prospects in the world." The morning was clear and pleasant, with a favoring breeze, but a tempest of wind and rain arose, with severe thunder, soon after we had accomplished the passage, which compelled us hastily to land on the Point Iroquois shore. This storm detained us five or six hours before the waters were sufficiently calm to embark. Among the boulders, I picked up a fine specimen of graphic granite, most perfectly characterized. About two o'clock, we entered this great inland sea. How feeble and inadequate are all geographical attempts to describe this vast body of water, with its imposing headlands, shores, and islands. The St. Mary's River passes out between two prominent capes, called Gros Cape and Point Iroquois. The former rises up in elevated barren peaks of sienite and hornblende rock; the latter consists of nearly equally elevated masses of horizontal red sandstone, covered with a dense forest. The line of separation is, perhaps, three leagues, forming a geological gap, through which, at ancient periods, the drift and boulder strata has been forced, with an amazing power. For we find these boulders, of the disrupted sienites, hornblende, trap, and sandstone rocks of these northern latitudes heaped in profusion along the entire shores of the river, and cast out, far and wide, into the basin of Lake Huron.

There is a little island, called Isle des Iroquois, just off the foot of the American cape, which is a noted stopping-place for boat and canoe voyagers. On passing this spot, the lake spreads out like a sea. Towards the north, can be seen on the horizon the blue peaks of distant mountains. Southerly, the Point Iroquois formation of sandstone appears skirting the shore, at several miles distance. At the computed distance of fifteen miles, we passed the mouth of the Taquimenon River. It was already evening when we came here, but we were far out from shore, and the guides thought best to keep on their course a league farther, which brought us, at 11 o'clock at night, into the mouth of the Onzig, or Shelldrake River. At this spot, we found an encampment of Chippewa Indians, who were friendly, and quite profuse in their salutation of bosho. At the moment we were ready to embark, the next morning, a brigade of traders' boats, on the route to Michilimackinac, was descried, coming in to the same point. This interview detained us till 8 o'clock. Within a league, we met eighteen or twenty Chippewa canoes on their journey towards the same point; and at the computed distance of three leagues from the Onzig, we reached, and turned the bleak shores of White-Fish Point, called Namikong[ [41] by the Indians. Thus far, we had been imbayed in an arm of the lake which embraces Parisian Island, another link of the sandstone formation; but here the lake, stretching westwardly, displays itself in all its magnificence. On the left, spreads a long line of sandy coast; on the right, an illimitable expanse of water, which was bounded only by the horizon. Beyond these features, there is not a prominent object to catch the eye. The magnificence which first pleases, at last tires. The change of course brought the wind ahead, and we were soon compelled to land on these bleak sandy wastes. While thus detained, an express canoe from St. Mary's reached us with letters. A couple of hours were employed in dispatching this canoe on its return; meantime the wind lulled, and we went on ten miles and encamped on the sands.

The next morning, we were again in motion at five o'clock. Twelve miles coasting along this unvaried shore, brought us to the mouth of a stream called Neezhoda, Seepe,[ [42] or Twin River, which is imprecisely called Two-Hearted River by the traders. The peculiarity of this stream consists in the union of two separate rivers, near the point of its outlet. Seven leagues beyond this spot brought us to the inlet called Grande Marais. Immediately west of this begins an elevated naked coast of sand-dunes, called Gitche Nägow,[ [43] or La Grande Sables. To comprehend the geology of this coast, it is necessary to state that it consists of several heavy strata of the drift era, reaching a height of two or three hundred feet, with a precipitous front on the lake. The sands driven up by the lake are blown over these heights, forming a heavy deposit. It is this sandy deposit, falling down the face of the precipice, that appears to convert the whole formation into dunes, whereon the sandy coating rests, like a veil, over the pebble and clay-drift. Their desert and Sahara-like appearance is quite impressive to the travellers who visit these coasts in boats or canoes. The number of rapacious birds which are observed about these heights, adds to the interest of the prospect. Dr. Wolcott, and some other members of the party who ascended the formation, reported a small lake on this elevation. The sands were observed, in some places, to be deposited over its vegetation so as to arrest its growth. The largest trees were often half buried and destroyed. Not less than nine miles of the coast, agreeably to voyageur estimates, are thus characterized by dunes.

I found the sandstone formation of Cape Iroquois to reappear at the western termination of these heights on the open shores of the lake, where I noticed imbedded nodules of granular gypsum. At this point, known to our men as La Pointe des Grandes Sables, we pitched our tents, at nightfall, under a very threatening state of the atmosphere. The winds soon blew furiously, followed by a heavy rain-storm—and sharp thunder and lightning ensued. Our line of tents stood on a gently rising beach, within fifty yards of the margin of the lake, where they were prostrated during the night by the violence of the waves. The rain still continued at early daylight, the waves dashing in long swells upon the shore. At sunrise the tempest abated, and by eight o'clock the atmosphere assumed a calm and delightful aspect. It was eleven o'clock, however, before the waves sufficiently subsided to permit embarkation. Indeed, a perfect calm now ensued. This calm proved very favorable—as we discovered on proceeding three leagues—to our passing the elevated coast of precipitous rock, called Ishpäbecä,[ [44] and Pictured Rocks. This coast, which extends twelve miles, consists of a gray sandstone, forming a series of perpendicular façades, which have been fretted, by the action of the waves, into the rude architecture of pillared masses, and open, cavernous arches. These caverns present their dark mouths to observation as the voyager passes. At one spot a small stream throws itself from the cliffs into the lake at one leap. In some instances the cliffs assume a castellated appearance. At the spot called the Doric Rock, near the commencement of these picturesque precipices, a vast entablature rests on two immense rude pillars of the water-worn mass. At a point called Le Portail, the vast wall of rock had been so completely excavated and undermined by the lake, that a series of heavy strata of rock rested solely on a single pillar standing in the lake. The day was fine as we passed these geological ruins, and we sat silently gazing on the changing panorama. At one or two points there are small streams which break the line of rock into quadrangles. A species of dark red clay overlies this formation, which has been carried by the rains over the face of the cliffs, where, uniting with the atmospheric sand and dust, it gives the whole line a pictorial appearance. We almost held our breath in passing the coast; and when, at night, we compared our observations around the camp-fire, there was no one who could recall such a scene of simple novelty and grandeur in any other part of the world; and all agreed that, if a storm should have arisen while we were passing, inevitable destruction must have been our lot. We came to Grand Island at a seasonable hour in the evening, and encamped on the margin of its deep and land-locked harbor. Our camp was soon filled with Chippewas from a neighboring village. They honored us in the evening by a dance. Among these dancers, we were impressed with the bearing of a young and graceful warrior, who was the survivor of a self-devoted war-party of thirteen men, who, having marched against their ancient enemies the Sioux, found themselves surrounded in the plain by superior numbers, and determined to sell their lives at the dearest rate. To this end, they dug holes in the earth, each of which thus becoming a fortification for its inmate, who dared their adversaries till overpowered by numbers. One person was selected to return with the news of this heroic sacrifice; this person had but recently returned, and it was from his lips that we heard the tragic story.

My mineralogical searches along the shores this day rewarded me with several water-worn fragments of agate, carnelian, zeolite, and prase, which gave me the first intimation of our approach to the trap and amygdaloidal strata, known to be so abundant in their mineral affluence in this quarter.

We left Grand Island the next morning at six o'clock, and passing through a group of sandstone islands, some of which had had their horizontality disturbed, we came to the mouth of Laughing-fish River, where a curious flux and reflux of water is maintained. From this place, a line of sandstone coast was passed, northwardly, till reaching its terminus on the bay of Chocolate River. This is a large and deep bay, which it would have required a day's travel to circumnavigate. To avoid this, the men held their way directly across it, steering N. 70° W., which, at the end of three leagues, brought us to Granite Point. Here we first struck the old crystalline rocks or primitive formation. This formation stretches from the north shores of the Gitche Sebeeng,[ [45] or Chocolate River, to Huron Bay, and gives the traveller a view of rough conical peaks. These characterize the coast for a couple of days' travel. They are noted for immense bodies of iron ore, which is chiefly in the condition of iron glance.[ [46] At Presque Isle, it assumes the form of a chromate of iron in connection with serpentine rock. We encamped on level ground on a sandstone formation, in the rear of Granite Point, and had an opportunity of observing the remarkable manner in which the horizontal sandstone rests upon and against the granitical, or, more truly, sienitic eminences. These sandstone strata lap on the shoulders of the primitive or crystalline rocks, preserving their horizontal aspect, and forming distinct cliffs along parts of the coast. This sandstone appears, from its texture and position, to be the "old red sandstone" of geologists.

The next morning (23d) we quitted our encampment at an early hour, in a haze, and urged our way, with some fluctuations of weather, an estimated distance of eleven leagues. This brought us, at four o'clock in the afternoon, to Huron River. Sitting in the canoe, in a confined position, makes one glad at every opportunity to stretch his limbs, and we embraced the occasion to bathe in the Huron. The shore consists of a sandy plain, where my attention was called to the Kinnikenik, a plant much used by the Indians for smoking. It is the uva ursi. I had seen it once before, on the expedition, at Point aux Barques.

We inspected here, with much attention, an Indian grave, as well from the care with which it was made, as the hieroglyphics cut on the head-posts. The grave was neatly covered with bark, bent over poles, and made roof-shaped. A pine stake was placed at the head. Between this and the head of the grave, there was placed a smooth tablet of cedar wood, with hieroglyphics. Mr. Riley, our interpreter, explained these. The figure of a bear denoted the chief or clan. This is the device called a Totem. Seven red strokes denoted his scalp honors in Indian heraldry, or that he had been seven times in battle. Other marks were not understood or interpreted. A paling of saplings inclosed the space.

On the following morning, our camp was astir at the customary early hour, when we proceeded to Point aux Beignes, a distance of six miles. Attaining this point, we entered Keweena Bay, coasting up its shores for an estimated distance of three leagues. We were then opposite the mouth of Portage River, but separated from it a distance of twelve miles. I was seated in Lieutenant Mackay's canoe. The whole squadron of five canoes unhesitatingly put out. The wind was adverse; before much progress had been made in crossing, three of our flotilla, after struggling against the billows, put back; but we followed the headmost one, which bore the Governor's flag, and, seizing hold of the paddles to relieve the men, we succeeded in gaining the river. The other canoes came up the next morning, at seven o'clock, when we all proceeded to cross the Portage Lake, and up an inlet, which soon exhibited a rank growth of aquatic plants, and terminated, after following a very narrow channel, in a quagmire. We had, in fact, reached the commencement of the Keweena Portage.

Before quitting this spot, it may be well to say, that the geology of the country had again changed. Portage Lake lies, in fact, in the direction of the great copper-bearing trap dyke. This dyke, estimating from the end of the peninsula, extends nearly southwest and northeast, probably seventy miles, with a breadth of ten miles. It is overlaid by rubblestone and amygdaloid, which latter, by disintegration, yields the agates, carnelians, and other silicious, and some sparry crystalline minerals, for which the central shores of Lake Superior are remarkable. Nearly every part of this broad and extensive dyke which has been examined, yields veins, and masses of native copper, or copper ores.

The word was, when we had pushed our canoes into the quagmire, that each of the gentlemen of the party was to carry his own personal baggage across the portage. This was an awkward business for most of us. The distance was but two thousand yards, but little over a mile, across elevated open grounds. I strapped my trunk to my shoulders, and walked myself out of breath in getting clear of the brushy part of the way, till reaching the end of the first pause, or resting-place. Here I met the Governor (Cass), who facetiously said: "You see I am carrying two pieces," alluding to his canoe slippers, which he held in his hands. "A piece," in the trade, is the back load of the engagee.

On reaching the termination of the second "pause," or rest, we found ourselves on a very elevated part of the shore of Lake Superior. The view was limitless, the horizon only bounding the prospect. The waves rolled in long and furious swells from the west. To embark was impossible, if we had had our baggage all brought up, which was not the case. The day was quite spent before the transportation was completed. This delay gave us an opportunity to ramble about, and examine the shore. In a boulder of serpentine rock, I found an imbedded mass of native copper, of two pounds' weight. On breaking the stone, it proved to be bound together by thin filaments of this metal. Small water-worn fragments of chalcedony, agate, carnelian, and other species of the quartz family were found strewn along the beach, together with fragments of zeolite. Masses of the two former minerals were also found imbedded in amygdaloid and trap-rock, thus denoting the parent beds of rock. In the zeal which these little discoveries excited on the subject of mineralogy, the Chippewa, Ottowa, and Shawnee Indians attached to the expedition participated, and as soon as they were made acquainted with the objects sought, they became successful explorers. They had noticed my devotion to the topic, from the time of our passing the Islands of Shawangunk, Michilimackinac, and Flat-rock Point, in the basin of Lake Huron, where organic forms were chiselled from the rock; and bestowed on me the name of Paguäbëkiegä.[ [47]

It turned out the next morning, that the whole of the baggage and provisions had not been brought up, nor any of the canoes. This work was early commenced by the men. About half the day was employed in the necessary toil. When it was concluded, the wind on the lake had become too high, blowing in an adverse direction, to permit embarkation. Nothing remained but to submit to the increased delay, during which we made ourselves as familiar with the neighboring parts of the lake shore as possible. During the time the expedition remained encamped at the portage, I made a short excursion up the peninsula northeastwardly, accompanied by Captain Douglass, Mr. Trowbridge, and some other persons. The results of this trip are sufficiently comprehended in what has already been stated respecting the geology and mineralogy of this prominent peninsula.

On the following morning (27th) the wind proved fair, and the day was one of the finest we had yet encountered on this fretful inland sea. We embarked at half-past four A. M., every heart feeling rejoiced to speed on our course. The prominent headlands, west of this point, are capped, as those on its south-eastern border, with red sandstone. The wind proved full and adequate to bear us on, without endangering our safety, which enabled the steersmen to hold out boldly, from point to point. We had not proceeded far beyond the cliffs west of the portage, when the dim blue outlines of the Okaug or Porcupine Mountains[ [48] burst on our view.[ [49] Their prominent outline seemed to stretch on the line of the horizon directly across our track. The atmosphere was quite transparent, and they must have been seen at the distance of sixty miles. Captain Douglass thought, from the curve of the earth, that they could not be less than eighteen hundred feet in height. We successively passed the entrance of Little Salmon-Trout, Graverod, Misery, and Firesteel Rivers, at the latter of which a landing was made; when we again resumed our course, and entered the Ontonagon River, at half-past three in the afternoon. A large body of water enters the lake at the spot, but its mouth is filled up very much by sands. One of those curious refluxes is seen here, of which a prior instance has been noticed, in which its waters, having been impeded and dammed up by gales of wind, react, at their cessation, with unusual force. The name of the River Ontonagon[ [50] is, indeed, due to these refluxes, the prized dish of an Indian female having, agreeably to tradition, been carried out of the river into the lake.

Captain Douglass made observations for the latitude of the place, and determined it to be in north latitude 46° 52´ 2´´. The stationary distances of the route are given in the subjoined list, in which it may be observed that they are probably exaggerated about one-third by the voyagers and northwest traders, who always pride themselves on going great distances; but they denote very well, in all cases, the relative distances.

CHAPTER VI.

Chippewa village at the mouth of the Ontonagon—Organize an expedition to explore its mineralogy—Incidents of the trip—Rough nature of the country—Reach the copper rock—Misadventure—Kill a bear—Discoveries of copper—General remarks on the mineral affluence of the basin of Lake Superior.

A small Chippewa village, under the chieftainship of Tshwee-tshweesh-ke-wa, or the Plover, and Kundekund, the Net Buoy, was found on the west bank of the river, near its mouth, the chiefs and warriors of which received us in the most friendly manner. If not originally a people of a serene and placid temperament, they have been so long in habits of intercourse with the white race that they are quite familiar with their manners and customs, and mode of doing business. They appeared to regard the Canadian-Frenchmen of our party as if they were of their own mode of thinking, and, indeed, almost identical with themselves.

The Ontonagon River had, from the outset, formed an object of examination, from the early and continued reports of copper on its borders. It was determined to lose no time in examining it. Guides were furnished to conduct a party up the river to the locality of the large mass of this metal, known from early days. This being one of the peculiar duties of my appointment, I felt the deepest interest in its success, and took with me the apparatus I had brought for cutting the rock and securing proper specimens.

The party consisted of Governor Cass, Dr. Wolcott, Captain Douglass, Lieutenant Mackay, J. D. Doty, Esq., and myself. We embarked in two canoes, with their complement of men and guides. It was six o'clock, when, leaving the balance of the expedition encamped at the mouth of the river, east shore, we took our departure, in high spirits, for the copper regions. A broad river with a deep and gentle current, with a serpentine channel, and heavily wooded banks with their dark-green foliage overhanging the water, rendered the first few miles of the trip delightful. At the distance of four miles, we reached a sturgeon-fishery, formed by extending a weir across the river. This weir consists of upright and horizontal stakes and poles, along the latter of which the Indians move and balance themselves, having in their hands an iron hook on a pole, with which the fish are caught. We stopped a few moments to look at the process, received some of the fish drawn up during our stay, which are evidently the Acipenser oxyrinchus, and went on a couple of miles higher, where we encamped on a sandbar. Here we were welcomed, during the sombre hours off the night, with a pertinacity we could have well dispensed with, by the mosquitos.

We resumed the ascent at four o'clock in the morning. The river is still characterized for some miles by rich alluvial banks, bearing a dense forest of elm, maple, and walnut, with a luxuriant growth of underbrush. But it was soon perceived that the highlands close in upon it and narrow its channel, which murmurs over dangerous beds of rocks and stones. Almost imperceptibly, we found ourselves in an alpine region of a very rugged character. The first rapid water encountered had been at the Indian weir, on the 27th. These rapids, though presenting slight obstacles, became more frequent at higher points. We had been in our canoes about three hours, the river having become narrower and more rapid, when the guides informed the party that we had ascended as far into the mountainous district as was practicable; that there was a series of bad rapids above; and that, by landing at this spot, the party could proceed, with guides, to the locality of the copper rock. Accordingly, arrangements were made to divide the party; Governor Cass placed at my service the number of men necessary to explore the country on foot, and carry the implements. Dr. Wolcott and Captain Douglass joined me. I took my departure with eight persons, including two Indian guides, in quest of the mineral region, over the highlands on the west bank of the river; while the Governor, Major Forsyth, and the other guides, remained with the canoes, which were lightened of half their burden, in hopes of their being able to ascend the stream quite to the Rock. Starting with my party with alacrity, this trip was found to be one of no ordinary toil.

Not only was the country exceedingly rough, carrying us up and down steep depressions, but the heat of the sun, together with the exercise, was oppressive, nor did our guides seem to move with a precision which betokened much familiarity with the region, if they did not feel, indeed, some compunction on leading whites to view their long superstitiously concealed mineral treasures. At one o'clock we came to an Indian path, leading directly to the place. The guides here sat down to await the party under Governor Cass, who were expected to join us at this spot. The thermometer at this hour stood at 90° in the shade of the forest. We had not been long seated when the other party made their appearance; but the Governor had been so much exhausted by clambering up the river hills, that he determined to return to his point of landing in the river. In this attempt he was guided by one of the Ontonagon Indians, named Wabiskipenais,[ [51] who missed his way, and wandered about he knew not whither. We leave him to thread his way back into the valley, with the Executive of the Territory, wearied and perplexed, at his heels, while the results of my excursion in search of the copper rock are detailed. After the reunion at the path, my mineralogical party proceeded some five or six miles, by estimation, farther, through a more favorable region, towards the object of search. On approaching the river, they passed some antique excavations in the forest, overgrown with saplings, which had the appearance of age, but not of a remote age. Coming to the brink of the river, we beheld the stream brawling over a rapid stony bed, at the depth of, perhaps, eighty or a hundred feet below. Towards this, its diluvial banks, charged with boulders and pebbles, sloped at a steep angle. At the foot, laid the large mass we were in search of, partly immersed in the water. Its position may be inferred from the following sketch:—

Fig. 1

The rock consists of a mass of native copper in a tabular boulder of serpentine. Its face is almost purely metallic, and more splendent than appears to consist with its being purely metallic copper. There is no appearance of oxidation. Its size, roughly measured, is three feet four inches, by three feet eight inches, and about twelve or fourteen inches thick in the thickest part. The weight of copper, exclusive of the rock, is not readily estimated; it may be a ton, or a ton and a half. Old authors report it at more than double this weight. The quantity has been, however, much diminished by visitors, who have cut freely from it. I obtained adequate specimens, but found my chisels too highly tempered, and my hammer not heavy enough to separate large masses. Having made the necessary examinations, we took our way back up the elevated banks of the river, and across the forest about six miles, to the final place of debarkation of Gov. Cass and his party. But our fears were at once excited on learning that the Governor, with his guide, Wabishkepenais, had not reached the camp. It was already beginning to be dark, and the gloom of night, which is impressive in these solitudes, was fast closing around us. Guns were fired, to denote our position, and a light canoe was immediately manned, placed in charge of one of the gentlemen, and sent up the river in search. This canoe had not proceeded a mile, when the object of search was descried, with his companions, sitting on the banks of the river, with a real jaded air, with his Indian guide standing at no great distance. Wabishkepenais had been bewildered in his tracks, and finally struck the river by the merest chance. The Governor, on reaching camp, looked as if he had been carried over steeps and through gloomy defiles, which had completely exhausted his strength, and he was not long in retiring to his tent, willing to leave such rough explorations for the present, at least, to other persons, or, if he ever resumed them, to do it with better guides. Poor Wabishkepenais looked chagrined and as woebegone himself as if he had encountered the bad influences of half the spirits of his Indian mythology; for the fellow had really been lost in his own woods, and with a charge by whom he had felt honored, and employed his best skill to conduct. The camp-fires already threw their red glare among the trees as night spread her sable pall over us. The tents were pitched; the canoes turned up on the shore to serve as a canopy for the men to sleep under. Indians and Canadians were soon engaged at their favorite pipes, and mingled their tones and hilarious conversation; and we finally all slept the sounder for our eventful day's toils and misadventures. But deeply printed on our memory, and long to remain there, are the thrilling scenes of that day and that night.

At five o'clock the next morning, the entire camp was roused and in motion, when we began to descend the stream. We had descended about ten miles, when the Ontonagon Indians stopped the canoes to examine a bear-fall, on the east bank. It was a fine open forest, elevated some six or eight feet above the water. It was soon announced that a bear was entrapped. We all ascended the bank, and visited the locality. The structure had been so planned that the animal must needs creep lowly under a crib of logs to get at the bait, which he no sooner disturbed than a weight of logs fell on his prostrated legs. The animal sat up partially on his fore paws, when we advanced, the hinder being pressed heavily to the earth. One of the Indians soon fired a ball through his head, but it did not kill him, he still kept his upright position. Dr. Wolcott then requested permission to fire a shot, which was aimed at the heart, and took effect about that part, but did not kill him. One of the Indians then dispatched him with an axe. He was no sooner dead than one of the Indians, stepping up, addressed him by the name Muk-wah, shook him by the paw, with a smiling countenance, saying, in the Indian language, that he was sorry they had been under the necessity of killing him, and hoped the offence would be forgiven, as one of the shots fired had been from an American.[ [52]

This act of the Indian addressing the bear, will be better understood, when it is stated that their mythology tells them, that the spirit of the animal must be encountered in a future state, when the enchantment to which it is condemned in this life, will be taken off.

On passing down the river, an Indian had promised to disclose another mass of native copper, near the river, and we stopped at a spot indicated, to enable him to bring it. Whether he repented of his too free offer, agreeably to Indian superstition, or feared some calamity to follow the disclosure, or really encountered some difficulty in finding it, I know not, but it is certain that, after some time spent in the search, or affected search, he came back to the river without producing it.