We understand that copper, iron, and lead are very abundant through the whole country, and that the great mass of copper upon the Outanagon River has been fully examined. Upon this, as well as upon other subjects, we hope we shall, in a few days, be able to communicate more detailed information.
DISCOVERY
OF THE
ACTUAL SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
IN
ITASCA LAKE,
BY AN EXPEDITION, AUTHORIZED BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT OF
THE UNITED STATES, IN 1832.
BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,
UNITED STATES SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS FOR MICHIGAN, ETC.
CHAPTER XXI.
The search for the veritable source of the Mississippi is resumed.—Ascent to Cass Lake, the prior point of discovery—Pursue the river westerly, through the Andrúsian Lakes and up the Metoswa Rapids, forty-five miles—Queen Anne's Lake.
Twelve years elapse between the closing of the prior, and the opening of the present narrative. In the month of August, 1830, instructions were received by Mr. Schoolcraft to proceed into the Upper Mississippi valley, to endeavor to terminate the renewed hostilities existing between the Chippewa and Sioux tribes. These directions did not come to hand at the remote post of Sault de Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior, in season to permit the object to be executed that year. On reporting the fact that the tribes would be dispersed to their hunting-grounds before the scene could be reached, and that severe weather would close the streams with ice before the expedition could possibly return, the plan was deferred till the next year. Renewed instructions were issued in the month of April, 1831, and an expedition organized at St. Mary's to carry them into immediate effect.
These instructions did not require the broad table-lands on which the river originates to be visited, though the journey connected itself with preliminary questions; nor was it found practicable to extend the geographical examinations, in the Mississippi Valley, beyond about latitude 44°.
The force designed for this expedition consisted of twenty-seven men, including a botanist and geologist, and a small military party under Lieut. Robert E. Clary, U. S. A. Entering Lake Superior, in the month of June, with a bright pure atmosphere and serene weather, the party enjoyed a succession of those clear transporting vistas of rock and water scenery, which render this picturesque basin by far the most magnificent, varied, and affluent in its prospect in America. It is in this basin only, of all the series of North American lakes which stretch west from the St. Lawrence, that peaks and high mural walls of volcanic formation, pierce through, or lift up, the horizontal series of the silurian system; and that, in the lake region, the latter is found in singular juxtaposition, by means of these upheavals, with the senites, sienitic granites, and metamorphic rocks composing the globe's nucleus, or primary out-pushed stony coats of these latitudes.