He had been an official of the ex-kingdom of Italy, and was sent into exile without trial—traveled in France, Germany, and England, in 1821-2—went to the United States in 1823, and descended the Ohio river to its mouth; thence, in company with Major Taliaferro, embarked for the Upper Mississippi—reached Fort St. Anthony (Snelling) May 20, 1823, whence he had expected to accompany Major T. up the river St Peter—at that time unexplored—with the intention of proceeding further, toward the sources of the Mississippi, also unknown. But circumstances did not admit of that, and he was on the point of changing his direction for the south, by traversing by land, the wild tracts lying between the Fort and Council Bluffs, when Major Long and his party unexpectedly arrived. He accompanied this expedition, which left the Fort on the 7th of July, as far as Pembina, where he quitted it, on the 9th of August, and with a _bois brule_ and the two Chippewas only, for companions, plunged into the wilderness lying to the south east, and struck “Robber’s” (Thief) river near its confluence with Red Lake River (which he calls “Bloody River,” and insists that it is the true Red River.) He then followed the course of the latter stream to Red Lake, whence, after visiting its south shore, he ascended the river of the Grand Portage to its sources at a small lake on a hill where he arrived on the 28th, and which, on “the theory of the ancient geographers, that the sources of a river which are most in a right line with its mouth, should be considered as its principal sources, and particularly when they issue from a Cardinal point and flow to the one directly opposite,” he maintained to be the head of the Red River of the North. This lake he also described as supplying the most northern sources of the Mississippi; and on that ground, and also that they had been previously unknown, rested his claims as a geographical discoverer. He named the lake “Julia,” from a dear friend of his, deceased, [Moroni says, “after the woman of his heart;”] and the stream issuing southwardly from it, the “Julian sources of the Mississippi.” The present Itasca Lake he referred to as called by the Indians “Bitch Lake,” (Lac la Biche—“Elk” Lake,) and as being most probably the “western sources of the Mississippi[1].” After ascending Leech Lake River, and visiting the lake itself, he returned by the Mississippi to the Fort, (Fort Snelling) arriving there the 30th of September, and thence descended to New Orleans, where, in the spring of 1824, he published the French account of his travels. He now disappears from our view. [1] See hydrographical discussion by Col. Whittlesey, appended to this memoir. § 3. BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS FROM RECENT ITALIAN SOURCES.