[82] Crow-wing River.—In returning from Itasca Lake, in 1832, I passed from Leech Lake by a series of old Indian portages into Lake Ka-ge-no-ge-maug, or Long Water Lake, which is its source; and from thence descended it to its entrance into the Mississippi.—Vide Exp. to Itasca Lake. N. Y., Harpers, 1834: vol. i. 8vo. with maps.
[83] The Indian name of this river is Kagiwegwon, or Raven's-wing, or Quill, which is accurately translated by the term Aile de Corbeau, but it is improperly called Crow-Wing. The Chippewa term for crow is andaig, and the French, corneille—terms which are appropriately applied to another stream, nearer St. Anthony's Falls.
[84] The Chippewas affirm that this was the last time the buffalo crossed the Mississippi eastwardly. It did not appear, in the same region, in 1821.
[85] In the treaty of Indian boundaries of Prairie du Chien, of 1825, this mission of the Sioux became a point of reference by the Sioux chiefs Wabishaw, Petite Corbeau, and Wanita, as denoting the limit of their excursions north. The Chippewas, on the contrary, by the mouths of Babasikundiba, Kadawabeda, and the Broken Arm of Sandy Lake, contended for Sac River as the line. I discussed this subject, having Indian maps, at length, with the chiefs and Mr. Taliaferro, the Sioux agent, of St. Peter's. An intermediate stream, the Watab River, was eventually fixed on, as the separating boundary between these two warlike tribes.—Indian Treaties; Washington, D. C. 1837. Vol. i. 8vo. p. 370.
[86] It is recently asserted that this change in the stratification occurs about a mile above the Falls. [Sen. Doc. p. 237.] By the same authority it is shown that the aggregate fall of the Mississippi from the mouth of Sandy Lake River to the Falls of St. Anthony is 397 feet.
[87] Both words are derived from the verb to laugh.
[88] This is now (1854) the central area of Minnesota Territory—a territory in a rapid process of the development of the population and resources of a State.
[89] Ex. Doc., No. 237.
[90] Army Register.
[91] Vide Appendix, for a letter from Gen. Cass to the Secretary of War on this curious topic.