[127-14] “High mountains,” as we now understand the phrase, is an exaggerated term to apply to the bold bluffs about three or four hundred feet high on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, south of McGregor.
[128-15] This is a little south of Savanna, Ill., if Marquette’s latitude is right.
[128-16] Sparks has not given us the whole of the famous journal. Among other interesting things in this connection Marquette writes: “When we cast our nets into the water we caught sturgeon, and a very extraordinary kind of fish. It resembles the trout, with this difference, that its mouth is larger. Near its nose—which is smaller, as are also the eyes—is a large bone, shaped like a woman’s corset-bone, three fingers wide and a cubit long, at the end of which is a disk as wide as one’s hand. This frequently causes it to fall backward when it leaps out of the water.” This was the paddle fish, or spoonbill sturgeon.
[128-17] This was in about 41° latitude.
[130-18] The calumet was a pipe that usually consisted of a bowl of red stone and a long reed stem. In this the Indians smoked tobacco, passing the pipe from one to another in token of peace and friendship. To hold up the calumet was a signal of peace.
[131-19] These monsters Marquette further described thus: “They are as large as a Calf, they have Horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger’s, a face somewhat like a man’s, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish’s tail.” These figures were on the face of a bluff near Alton, Ill.
[132-20] What Father Marquette did not understand was, that the Missouri brought the mud from far to the northwest and poured it into the clearer waters of the Mississippi. The character of the rivers has not changed in this respect.
[132-21] To us this seems a curious supposition, and Father Marquette had little idea what it would mean to the hardy explorer who should go up the Missouri, cross the mountains and find the head waters of the Colorado. Trace such a route on a map of the United States, and read an account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
[134-22] This was near the mouth of the Saint Francis River, in Arkansas.
[136-23] As a matter of fact, they were more than seven hundred miles from the gulf.