Opening the text

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

History

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

Name: 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
Author: Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe

Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe

Great Lakes (North America); Mississippi River -- Sources; Northwest, Old -- Description and travel

FIRST EMERGENCE OF ROCK, IN PLACE, ABOVE THE SURFACE.--We are passing,
in this section, along and near to the outcrop of the secondary strata
of the peninsula, but these strata are covered with a heavy deposit of
diluvial clays, sands, and pebble drift. The first emergence of fixed
rocks, above the line of the drift, occurs after passing Elm Creek in
the advance to Ship Point (_Pointe aux Barques_). It is a species of
coarse gray, loosely compacted sandstone, in horizontal layers. This
rock continues to characterize the coast to and around the Ship Point
promontory into Saganaw Bay. It possesses a few fossil remains of
corallines; but the rock is not of sufficient compactness and durability
for architectural purposes. It is conjectured to be one of the outlying
series of the coal measures, of which this coast exhibits, further on,
other evidences.

SAGANAW BAY.--The phenomena of this large body of water, which is some
sixty miles long, appear to indicate an original rent in the
stratification, having its centre of action very deep. If the peninsula
of Michigan be likened to a huge fish's head, this bay may be considered
as its open mouth. We crossed the inner bay from Point aux Chenes, where
it is estimated to be twenty miles across.[213] The traverse is broken
by an island, to which the Indians, with us, applied the name of
Sha-wan-gunk.[214] It is composed of a dark-colored limestone, of dull
and earthy fracture and compact structure. It presents broken and
denuded edges at the water level. I observed in it nodular masses of
chalcedony and calc. spar. The margin of the island bears fragments of
the boulder stratum.

  [213] Ships make the traverse where it is sixty miles wide.

  [214] The reason of this name I did not learn. It is apparently the
  same name as that bestowed on a mountain range in Orange and Ulster
  Counties, New York, lying south of the Catskills, where it is
  sometimes called, for short, Shongum. The meaning is, evidently,
  something like South-land-place. The local _unk_ may be translated
  hill, island, continent, &c. &c.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

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

History

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

FIRST EMERGENCE OF ROCK, IN PLACE, ABOVE THE SURFACE.--We are passing,
in this section, along and near to the outcrop of the secondary strata
of the peninsula, but these strata are covered with a heavy deposit of
diluvial clays, sands, and pebble drift. The first emergence of fixed
rocks, above the line of the drift, occurs after passing Elm Creek in
the advance to Ship Point (_Pointe aux Barques_). It is a species of
coarse gray, loosely compacted sandstone, in horizontal layers. This
rock continues to characterize the coast to and around the Ship Point
promontory into Saganaw Bay. It possesses a few fossil remains of
corallines; but the rock is not of sufficient compactness and durability
for architectural purposes. It is conjectured to be one of the outlying
series of the coal measures, of which this coast exhibits, further on,
other evidences.

SAGANAW BAY.--The phenomena of this large body of water, which is some
sixty miles long, appear to indicate an original rent in the
stratification, having its centre of action very deep. If the peninsula
of Michigan be likened to a huge fish's head, this bay may be considered
as its open mouth. We crossed the inner bay from Point aux Chenes, where
it is estimated to be twenty miles across.[213] The traverse is broken
by an island, to which the Indians, with us, applied the name of
Sha-wan-gunk.[214] It is composed of a dark-colored limestone, of dull
and earthy fracture and compact structure. It presents broken and
denuded edges at the water level. I observed in it nodular masses of
chalcedony and calc. spar. The margin of the island bears fragments of
the boulder stratum.

  [213] Ships make the traverse where it is sixty miles wide.

  [214] The reason of this name I did not learn. It is apparently the
  same name as that bestowed on a mountain range in Orange and Ulster
  Counties, New York, lying south of the Catskills, where it is
  sometimes called, for short, Shongum. The meaning is, evidently,
  something like South-land-place. The local _unk_ may be translated
  hill, island, continent, &c. &c.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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

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

No reviews yet