THE QUESTION OF THE SOURCES OF THE

MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

BY PROF. E. LEVASSEUR,

MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

Translation by Col. William P. Clough of the Minnesota Historical Society, from a publication by the Institute of France in its Bulletin of Historic and Descriptive Geography, issued by the Committee of Historic and Scientific Researches, sitting in the Ministry of Public Instruction, 1894.

The sources of the Mississippi have been the subject of animated debate for a dozen years. A mission, with which Mr. J. V. Brower was charged in 1889, by the Minnesota Historical Society, and a volume published in 1893 in Minnesota Historical Collections, by the Society, containing the memoir of Mr. Brower, have closed the discussion. It is from that interesting volume, entitled The Mississippi River and its Source: A Narrative and Critical History of the Discovery of the River and its Headwaters, accompanied by the Results of Detailed Hydrographic and Topographic Surveys, by Hon. J. V. Brower, that we draw the materials for the following sketch.

I. .

The region of the sources of the Mississippi is formed by a deposit of glacial drift 100 feet and more in thickness, having numerous depressions, which probably existed in the primitive rock, and which today are so many lakes. One of the frontal moraines, the Itasca, traverses this region. The multiplicity of

lakes, great and small, and of the streams that unite them,

the density of the forest that surrounds them, and the leanness of a soil that has failed to attract settlers, have been so many obstacles to the precise determination of the river's sources.

II.

The French were the first Europeans who penetrated this region. They came by way of the Great Lakes. Champlain had not been farther than lake Huron. Nicollet, interpreter of the French Company, advanced, in 1635, westward from the bay of the Puans (Green bay) as far as to the country of the Dakotas. He travelled some three days, as he says, along the course of a great river, by which one could reach Japan. But Nicollet left neither map nor description.

In 1641, the fathers Raymbault and Jogues sailed nine days upon lake Superior, and went among the savage tribes who dwelt on the south side of the lake.

Two traders, Groseilliers and Radisson, made two voyages into that region; the first, presumably, in 1658; they penetrated to the westward of the lakes, a treeless country, where the Indians raised a little corn. It was evidently the prairie. They must, therefore, have crossed the upper Mississippi river; but they merely mentioned, later on, the "Grand river.” About that time (Relation of 1667) a Jesuit missionary, the father Allouez, located at the Mission of the Holy Spirit, upon lake Superior, heard mention of a great river named Messipi. It was the first time the name had been pronounced in Europe.

The intendant, Talon, in 1672, sent the Sieur Joliet to explore the Mississippi* (it had then become known by that name), which was supposed to empty into the Gulf of California. Father Marquette accompanied him. They arrived via the Bay of the Puans, at the Wisconsin river, where their guides, frightened by the length of the voyage, deserted them; and they descended to the confluence with the Mississippi (June 15, 1673), "a river," says Marquette, "that takes its source in several northern lakes." Having descended the Mississippi itself, as far as the vicinity of the confluence with the Arkansas, they gained the conviction that the stream, to

*"M. Talon has judged it expedient for the service to despatch the Sieur Joliet to the land of the Maskoutens and the great river called the Mississippi, which is believed to empty into the Gulf of California."-Letter of Frontenac to Colbert, cited by Margry.

which they gave the name Colbert, emptied into the Gulf of Mexico.

La Salle, who, about the same time, had explored the region to the southward from lake Erie (1669-1672) and probably had descended a portion of the Ohio, without reaching the Mississippi, returned to Canada, after a visit to France. He was entrusted by Seignelay with the exploration of the western part of New France. In 1679, he appears to have arrived, in a canoe, by way of lake Michigan, at the mouth of the river of the Miamis (Saint Joseph), and, from there, to have reached the river Teakiki (Kankakee). On January 5, 1680, he was at lake Peoria, on the Illinois river, where he constructed a fort (Fort Creve-Coeur), and a large boat for descending the Mississippi. The Indians tried in vain to terrify him, so as to deter him from his project.

A Recollet, Father Hennepin, accompanied by two men, separated from La Salle's expedition, passed down the Illinois, and afterward ascended the Mississippi (March, 1680). Captured by the Sioux, near the Des Moines river, the voyageurs were carried off, by way of the Mississippi, and afterward by land, as far as to Mille Lacs. Released, they (Father Hennepin and one of his companions) saw grand cascades that they named the Falls of Saint Anthony. Some time afterward, they met the Sieur Du Luth, sent to find them, and, together with him, returned to Canada by way of the lakes.*

La Salle, who by dint of his energy, had maintained his position in his fort, and had even revisited Canada, found himself in readiness to set out, in 1682, with Tonti, a Recollet father, twenty-four French, eighteen Indian men, and seven Indian women. He descended the Illinois (December, 1682); afterward the Mississippi as far as the sea; and took possession,† in the name of the French king, of the country which he named Louisiane, and which comprised the whole region drained by the tributary waters of the river, "from its sources, in the country of the Sioux, or Nadoussioux," down to its mouth, confident that they were the first Europeans who had descended or ascended the "Colbert."

*[Here appears, in the original pamphlet, Fig. 1, being part of the map of "The New Discoveries to the West of New France," based upon memoirs of Delisle, 1750.1

An official account states that there was planted a cross, and underneath it a leaden plate, whereon were inscribed these words: "In the name of Louls XIV., King of France and Navarre, April 9, 1682."

The river had been discovered; but, in spite of some voyages made subsequent to that of Marquette into the Sioux country, its source was not precisely known at the date of the loss of Canada by France. Only this was known; that it originated in the little lakes west of lake Superior. Mr.. Brower gives, in his account, a fragment of a map of the "New Discoveries to the West of New France," based upon the memoirs of Delisle (1750). The Mississippi is there laid down as heading in a small lake lying to the south of another lake, which, discharging into lake Superior, is perhaps the Lake of the Woods.

III.

The English having become masters of Canada, one of their explorers, Carver, ascended the Mississippi (1766-1769); going no higher up, however, than a little beyond the river Saint Croix.

An American, William Morrison, who frequented that region, saw, in 1804, as he says in a letter written long afterward, at lake La Biche, "the source of the great river Mississippi." He thus was the first European who had seen that source, or at least the first whose presence in the locality is attested by written evidence. But whence came the French names cited by Morrison himself? Lac de La Biche, which has become, in English, Elk lake; lac Travers, lac La Folie? It must be believed, that French hunters or traders, or possibly mixedbloods speaking French, had preceded him; and that, if they had not visited the very source, they had, from the natives, learned of it with sufficient precision to give originally, or by translation of Indian words, the French names to these lakes.

After the cession of Louisiana, the United States Government commissioned Lieutenant Pike to examine the sources of the Mississippi; but he went no farther than a lake called Red Cedar, which is none other than the Cass lake of the present day. He wrote (1806): "This may be called the upper source of the Mississippi river." It was far from it. Fourteen years later (1820), General Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan, directed to the same end an expedition that set out from the head of lake Superior and proceeded as far as the lake later

named Cass; but, having learned from the Indians that the source of the river was farther west, in the lake La Biche, and that the streams were not navigable, it went no farther.

In 1824, an Italian adventurer, Beltrami, published, in New Orleans, a work entitled The Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi. In reality, he had reached Red lake in a canoe, and, from there, a region studded with lakes. From the height of land, he stated that he saw the waters flowing toward the four points of the horizon. Upon the most elevated plateau was a lake which he named Julia and proclaimed it as the true source of the Mississippi. It was probably Turtle lake, which lies at the northerly rim of the Mississippi basin.

IV.

As yet, there had been no scientific exploration of the region of the sources. The first is due to Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who had accompanied General Cass in his expedition of 1820. Schoolcraft, appointed in 1830 Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Michigan, was charged by the War Department to make such an exploration. He set out with a missionary, the Rev. Mr. Boutwell, in 1832, and, with Lieut. James Allen, gained Cass lake; and, guided by the Chippewa Indian chief, Ozawindib, ascended in a bark canoe the eastern branch of the Mississippi. Subsequently, by a portage, he reached the easterly arm of the lake visited by him. He regarded this lake as the river's source, and called it Itasca.* Thence he returned to Cass lake.

Upon the very hastily drawn map that accompanies the account of Schoolcraft's expedition, the river springs in two branches which unite in lake Travers.† The eastern branch is that which he ascended. The western branch heads in lake Itasca by a brook, "which is," writes Lieutenant Allen, "20 feet broad, and 2 feet deep."

*The origin of this name is fantastic. Schoolcraft had asked Boutwell to tell him how the true source of a stream would be designated in Latin or in Greek. Boutwell, remembering his Latin imperfectly, only recalled the words veritas and caput. "All right," answered Schoolcraft. "I will use the end of the first word and the beginning of the second. Itas-ca shall be the name of the source of the Mississippi." (The Mississippi River, p. 145.)

[Here appears in the original pamphlet, Fig. 2, a sketch of the sources of the Mississippi, intended to illustrate the visit of Schoolcraft to Lake Itasca in 1832.]