Position of the military post established at the mouth of the St. Peter's--Beauty, salubrity, and fertility of the country--Pictographic letter--Indian treaty--The appearance of the offer of frankincense in the burning of tobacco--Opwagonite--native pigments--Salt; native copper--The pouched or prairie rat--Minnesota squirrel--Etymology of the Indian name of St. Peter's River--Antiquities--Sketch of the Dacota--Descent of the Mississippi to Little Crow's village--Feast of green corn. In favor of the soil and climate, and of the salubrity of the position, the officers speak in terms of the highest admiration. The garrison has directed its attention to both horticulture and agriculture. About ninety acres of the choicest bottom land along the St. Peter's Valley, and the adjacent prairies, have been planted with Indian corn and potatoes, cereal grains, and esculents, inclusive of a hospital, a regimental, and private gardens. At the mess-table of Col. Leavenworth, and in our camp, we were presented with green corn in the ear, peas, beans, cucumbers, beets, radishes, and lettuce. The earliest garden peas were eaten here on the 15th of June, and the first green corn on the 20th July. Much of the corn is already too hard for the table, and some of the ears can be selected which are ripe enough for seed corn. Wheat, on the prairie lands, is found to be entirely ripe, and melons in the military gardens nearly so. These are the best practical commentaries on the soil and climate.[88] [88] This is now (1854) the central area of Minnesota Territory--a territory in a rapid process of the development of the population and resources of a State. The distance of the St. Peter's from the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to be about two thousand two hundred miles. Its position above St. Louis is estimated at nine hundred miles. Its elevation above the Gulf is but 744 feet. The precise latitude of this point is 44° 52´ 46´´.[89] The atmosphere is represented as serene and transparent during the summer and spring seasons, and free from the humidity which is so objectionable a trait of our eastern latitudes. The mean temperature is 45°.[90] Its geology and mineralogy will be noticed in my official reports. It will be sufficient here to say that the stratification, at and below St. Anthony's Falls, consists wholly of formations of sandstones and limestones, horizontally deposited, whose relative positions and ages are chiefly inferable from the evidences of organic life, in the shape of petrifactions, which they embrace. The lowest of this series of rocks is a white sandstone, consisting of transparent, loosely cohering grains, special allusion to which is made by Carver, in his travels in 1766, and which may be received as testimony, were there no other, that this too much discredited author had actually visited this region. [89] Ex. Doc., No. 237. [90] Army Register.