Having spent several hours in the chase, we again embarked, and proceeded down the river until three o'clock in the afternoon. On the left bank of the river two prominent elevations of the granitical series, rising through the prairie soil, attracted my attention. Immediately below this locality, a high and level prairie stretches on the west shore, which had a striking appearance from its being crowned with the poles and fixtures of a large, recently abandoned Sioux encampment. At this spot the expedition landed and encamped. The quick glances of Babasikundiba and his party of delegates immediately discovered a pole, at the site of the chief's lodge, bearing a birch bark scroll, or letter, inscribed with Indian hieroglyphics, or devices. It turned out that this spot was the northern terminus of a Sioux peace embassage, dispatched from St. Peter's shortly previous, under the direction of Col. H. Leavenworth, U. S. A., the newly-arrived commanding officer at that post. The message was eagerly received and read by the Chippewa delegates. By it they were informed that the Sioux also desired a termination of hostilities. The scroll was executed by tracing lines, with the point of a knife, or some sharp instrument. The pictographic devices thus drawn denoted the exact number of the party, their chiefs, and the authority under which these crude negotiations were commenced. Of this mode of communicating ideas among the Algonquin tribes, we have before given details in crossing the boggy plateau of Akik Sepi, between the St. Louis River and Sandy Lake. The present instance of it is commented on in an interesting communication of the era, in the appendix, from the pen of Gov. Cass. It was now no longer doubtful that the Chippewa mission would be successful, and the satisfaction it produced was evident in the countenances and expressions of Babasikundiba and his colleagues. I took a canoe and crossed the Mississippi, to inspect the geology of the opposite shore. On reaching the summit of the rock formations rising through the prairies, which had attracted my notice from the river, I found them to consist of sienite, which was almost exclusively made up of a trinary compound of white quartz, hornblende, and feldspar--the two former species predominating. The feldspar exhibited its splendent black crystals in fine relief in the massy quartz. This formation extended a mile or more. What excited marked attention, in surveying these rocks, was their smoothly rubbed surfaces, which seemed as if they must have been produced by equally hard and heavy masses of rock, driven over them from the north. I registered this locality, in my Geological Journal, as the Peace Rock, in allusion to the purport of the Indian mission, evidences of which were found at the opposite encampment.[85]