Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 43693-h.htm or 43693-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43693/43693-h/43693-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43693/43693-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical and errors have been corrected. DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. SUMMARY NARRATIVE OF AN EXPLORATORY EXPEDITION TO THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, IN 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of Its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832. By Authority of the United States. With Appendixes, Comprising the Original Report on the Copper Mines of Lake Superior, and Observations on the Geology of the Lake Basins, and the Summit of the Mississippi; Together with All the Official Reports and Scientific Papers of Both Expeditions. by HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, and Co. 1855. Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1854, by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co., in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. [ORIGINAL DEDICATION.] TO THE HON. JOHN C. CALHOUN, SECRETARY OF WAR. SIR: Allow me to inscribe to you the following Journals, as an illustration of my several reports on the mineral geography of the regions visited by the recent Expedition under Governor Cass. I beg you will consider it, not only as a proof of my anxiety to be serviceable in the station occupied, but also as a tribute of individual respect for those exertions which have been made, during your administration of the War Department, to develop the physical character and resources of all parts of our Western country; for the patronage it has extended to the cause of geographical science; for the protection it has afforded to a very extensive line of frontier settlements by stretching a cordon of military posts around them; and for the notice it has bestowed on one of the humblest cultivators of natural science. HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. ALBANY, 1821. PREFACE. The following pages embrace the substance of the narratives of two distinct expeditions for the discovery of the sources of the Mississippi River, under the authority of the United States. By connecting the incidents of discovery, and of the facts brought to light during a period of twelve years, unity is preserved in the prosecution of an object of considerable importance in the progress of our geography and natural history, at least, from the new impulse which they received after the treaty of Ghent.