His own words are: "A vast platform crosses this distin guished supreme elevation, and, what is more astonishing, in the midst of it rises a lake. How is this lake formed? Whence do its waters proceed? This lake has no issue! And my eyes, which are not deficient in sharpness, cannot discover in the whole extent of the clearest and widest horizon any land which rises above it. All places around it are, on the contrary, considerably lower."
Beltrami then went to examine the surrounding country, and found the lake, to which he gave the name of Lake Julia, to be bottomless. This lake he pronounces to be the source of the Mississippi River. This opinion was published abroad and accepted by some, but later explorations proved him to be wrong. A small lake to the south-west, afterwards found to be the true source, was described to him by his guide as Lac La Biche, and he placed this on his chart as "Doe Lake," the west source of the Mississippi. It is a curious fact that Lake Julia was the same lake surveyed twenty-five years before by astronomer Thompson.
After further explorations, Beltrami returned to Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Minn., being clothed in Indian garments, with a piece of bark for a hat.
The intrepid explorer found his way to New Orleans, where he published "La Découverte des Sources du Mississippi." Though the work was criticized with some severity, yet Beltrami, on his arrival at London in 1827, published "A Pilgrimage in Europe and America" in two volumes, which are the source of our information. The county in Minnesota, which includes both Julia and Doe Lakes, is appropriately called Beltrami County.
CASS AND SCHOOLCRAFT.
Lewis Cass, of New Hampshire was appointed Governor of Michigan in 1813. Six years after this he addressed the Secretary of War in Washington, proposing an expedition to and through Lake Superior, and to the sources of the Mississippi. It was planned for an examination of the principal features of the North-West tributary to Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. This was sanctioned in 1820, and the expedition embarked in May of that year at Detroit, Michigan, Henry Schoolcraft being mineralogist, and Captain D. B. Douglas topographer and astronomer.
The expedition, after much contrary weather, reached Sault Ste. Marie, and the Governor, after much difficulty, here negotiated a treaty with the Indians. Going by way of the Fond du Lac, the party entered the St. Louis River, and made a tiresome portage to Sandy Lake station. This fur-trading post the party left in July, and ascended the Upper Mississippi to the Upper Cedar Lake, the name of which was changed to Lake Cassina, and afterwards Cass Lake. From the Indians Governor Cass learned that Lac La Biche—some fifty miles further on—was the true source of the river, but he was deterred by their accounts of the lowness of the water and the fierceness of the current from attempting the journey any further. The expedition ingloriously retired from the project, going down to St. Anthony Falls, ascending the Wisconsin River, and thence down Fox River. The Governor himself in September arrived in Detroit, having crossed the Southern Peninsula of Michigan on horseback.
Hon. J. W. Brown says: "When Governor Cass abandoned his purpose to ascend the Mississippi to its source, he was within an easy distance, comparatively speaking, of the goal sought for. Less timidity had often been displayed in canoe voyages, even in the face of low water, and an O-z-a-win-dib or a Keg-wed-zis-sag, Indian guides, would have easily won the battle of the day for Governor Cass."
SCHOOLCRAFT AT LENGTH SUCCEEDS.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, of good family, was born in New York State, and was educated in that State and in Vermont. His first expedition was in company with De Witt Clinton in a journey to Missouri and Arkansas. On his return he published two treatises which gave him some reputation as an explorer and scientist. We have already spoken of the part taken by him in the expedition of Governor Cass. He received after this the appointment of "Superintendent of Indian Affairs" at Sault Ste. Marie, and to this we are indebted for the treasury of Indian lore published in four large quarto volumes, from which Longfellow obtained his tale of "Hiawatha."