The _St. Peter_ has its rise in a small lake about three miles in circumference, at the base of a remarkable ridge, distinguished by the name of Coteau des Prairies. It enters the Mississippi nine miles below the falls of St. Anthony. Its length in all its windings is about five hundred miles. Its course is exceedingly serpentine, and is interrupted by several rocky ridges, extending across the bed of the river and occasioning falls of considerable descent. During the times of spring freshets and floods, this river is navigable for boats from its mouth to the head of Big Stone Lake about fifteen miles from its sources. For a distance of about forty miles on the lower part of the river, it is from sixty to eighty yards only wide, and navigable for pirogues and canoes in all stages of the water; higher up, its navigation is obstructed in low water by numerous shoals and rapids. The aggregate descent of the St. Peter may be estimated at about one hundred and fifty feet, the general level of the country at its source having an elevation of about fifty feet above the river. The chief of its tributaries is the Blue-earth river, which flows in from the south a hundred miles west of the Mississippi by a mouth fifty yards in width. It is chiefly noted for the blue clay which the Indians procure upon its banks, and which is much employed in painting their faces and other parts of their bodies. The river St. Peter’s enters the Mississippi behind a large island, which is probably three miles in circumference, and is covered with the most luxuriant growth of sugar-maple, elm, ash, oak, and walnut. At the point of embouchure it is one hundred and fifty yards in width, with a depth of ten or fifteen feet. Its waters are transparent, and present a light blue tint on looking upon the stream. From this circumstance the Indians have given it the name of Clear-water river. _Red River_ of the north rises near the sources of the St. Peter’s; and by a northern and winding course runs nearly two hundred miles in our territorial limits; and then passes into the British dominions of Upper Canada, and empties into Lake Winnepeck. Its principal branches are Red Lake river and Moose river, the latter of which streams rises within a mile of fort Mandan on the Missouri. Red river is a broad, deep, and very interesting stream, abounding with fish, and the country along its banks with elk and buffaloes.