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 1832Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
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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
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Great Lakes (North America); Mississippi River -- Sources; Northwest, Old -- Description and travel
It rained the next morning (6th), by which we lost two hours, and we had
some unfavorable winds, but, by dint of hard pushing, we made forty-five
miles, and slept at Gravelly Point. In this line we passed successively,
at distances of seventeen and thirty miles, the rivers Manistic and
_Becsie_, which is the Canadian phrase for the anas canadensis. Clouds
and murky weather still hovered around us on the next morning, but we
left our encampment at an early hour. Thirteen miles brought us to the
Omicomico, or Plate River, nine miles beyond which found us in front of
a remarkable and very elevated sand June, called the Sleeping Bear--a
fanciful term, derived from the Indian, through the French _l'ours qui
dormis_. Opposite this feature in the coast geology, lie the two large
wooded islands called the Minitos--well-known objects to all mariners
who venture into the vast unsheltered basin of the southern body of Lake
Michigan. Thirty miles beyond this sandy elevation, brought us to the
southern cape of Grand Traverse Bay, where we encamped, having advanced
fifty-two miles. This was the first place where we had noticed rocks in
situ, since passing the little Konamic River, near Chicago. It proved to
be limestone, of the same apparent era of the calcareous rock which we
had observed at Sturgeon Bay and the contiguous west shore of Lake
Michigan. The line of lake coast included in this remark is three
hundred and twenty miles; during all which distance the coast seems, but
only seems, to be the sport of the fierce gales and storms, for there is
reason to believe that the formations of drift clay, sand, and gravel
rest, at various depths, on a stratification of solid, permanent rock.
To us, however, it proved a barren field for the collection of both
geological and mineralogical specimens. There were gleaned some rolled
specimens of organic remains, of no further use than to denote the
occurrence of these in some part of a vast basin. There was a specimen
of gypsum from Grand River. The few patches of iron sand I had noticed,
were hardly worthy of record after the heavy beds of this mineral which
we had passed in Lake Superior. The same remark may be made of the few
rolled fragments of calcedonies, and other varieties of the quartz
family, gleaned up along its shores, for neither of these constitute a
reliable locality.
[Illustration: Petrified leaf of the _Fagus Ferruginea_.]
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