To bear the sword, on prancing steed arrayed; To lift the voice admiring Senates own; To tune the lyre, enraptured muses played; Or pierce the starry heavens--the blue unknown-- These were the aims of many sons of fame, Who shook the world with glory's golden song. I sought a moral meed of less acclaim, In treading lands remote, and mazes long; And while around aerial voices ring, I quaff the limpid cup at Mississippi's spring. H. R. S. [165] Narrative of an Expedition to Itasca Lake. Harpers. 1834. 1 vol. 8vo. p. 307. [Illustration: Itasca Lake, the source of the Mississippi River, 3,160 miles from the Balize. A. Mississippi River. B. Route of expedition to the Lake. C. Schoolcraft's Island.] The line of discovery of the Mississippi, explored above Cass Lake, taking the east fork from the primary junction, as shown by Mr. Allen's topographical notes, is one hundred and twenty-three miles.[166] This is the shortest and most direct branch. The line by the Itascan or main branch of it is, probably, some twenty or twenty-five miles longer. It is evident, as before intimated, that the river descends from its summit in plateaux. From the pseudo-alpine level of the parent lake, there is a principal and minor rapids, for the former of which the Indians have the appropriate name of _Kakabikons_, which is a descriptive term for a cascade over rocks or stones. Then the river again deploys itself in a lake and a series of minor lakes on the same level, and this process is repeated, until it finally plunges over the horizontal rocks at St. Anthony's Falls, and displays itself, for the last time, in Lake Pepin. Commencing with the latter lake, it may be observed for the purposes of generalization, and to give definite notions rather of its hydrography than geology, that there are nine plateaux, of which Governor Cass, in 1820, explored six. The other three, beginning at his terminal point, have now been indicated. The heights of these are given, barometrically. The distances travelled are given from time. The annexed diagram of these plateaux, extending to the Pakagama summit, will impress these deductions on the eye. [166] Mr. Nicollet, who ascended the same fork in 1836, makes the distance twelve miles more. _Vide_ Ex., Doc. No. 237.