Bidding adieu to the Leech Lake chief the next morning at sunrise (4 h. 45 m.), after giving him a lancet, with directions to vaccinate any of his people who had been overlooked, I embarked on the Kaginogamaug. This is a beautiful lake, with sylvan shores and crystal water, some four or five miles long. We were just forty minutes, with full paddles, in passing it. The outlet is narrow, and overhung with alders. The width is not over six feet, with good depth, but the turns are so sudden, and the stream so thickly overhung with foliage, that the use of the axe and the paddle as an excavator were often necessary. It then expands into a lake, called Little Vermilion, which is fringed with a growth of birch and aspen, with pines in the distance. Its outlet is fully doubled in width, and we had henceforth no more embarrassment in descending. This outlet is pursued about eight miles. I noticed the tamarack on its banks, and the nymphæ odorata, scirpus lacustris, and Indian reed on the margin. It expands into Birch Lake, a clear sheet, about one mile long, with pebbly bottom, interspersed with boulders. A short outlet, in which we passed a broken fish-dam, connects it with Lac Plè. This lake is about three and a half miles long, exhibiting a portion of prairie on its shores, interspersed with small pines. From it, there is a portage to Ottertail Lake, the eastern source of Red River. This is the common war road of the Mukundwa against the Sioux. On coming out of Lac Plè, freshwater shells began to show themselves, chiefly species of naiades, a feature in the natural history of this stream which is afterwards common; but I observed none of much size, and they are often greatly decorticated. Four or five miles lower, we entered Assowa Lake, and about a mile and a half further, Lac Vieux Desert, or Old Gardon Lake, so called from the remains of a trading station, where we halted for breakfast. On resuming the descent, just twenty minutes were required, with vigorous strokes of the paddle, to pass it. It has an outlet about two miles long, when the stream again expands into a lake of considerable size, which we called Summit Lake. Thus far, we had been passing on a geological plateau of the diluvial character, extending southwest. But from this point the course of the river veers, at first towards the east and northeast, and, after a wide circuit, to the southeast, and eventually again to the southwest. From this point, rapids begin to mark its channel. The river, consequently, assumes a velocity which, while it hurries the traveller on, increases his danger of running his frail bark against rocks or shoals. We had been driven down this accelerated channel two hours and fifteen minutes, when it expanded into a sheet called Long Rice Lake. This is some three miles in length, and, at a very short distance below it, the river again expands into a considerable lake, which, from the circumstance of Lieut.