A great many more references could be given, emphasizing the reliance of the red man on his rude husbandry; but perhaps enough has already been said to make it plain that something is due him for taking the initial step in the development of the great grain regions of the upper Mississippi valley. Neither are we left wholly to deduce our conclusions from circumstantial evidence. The early military expeditions of the West and Northwest were for the most part dependent on supplies obtained from the Indians.[25] The accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition tell of the dependence of the party on provisions furnished by the Indians, and even so far north as the Mandan village they traded for Indian corn. At Mackinac Island, a point hardly within the present corn belt, the Indians raised a sufficient quantity of that cereal to attract the attention of the British garrison as well as of various travellers. As early as 1766 Jonathan Carver saw the importance of the agricultural products of the Wisconsin Indians, and after enumerating the crops grown by the “Saukies” before mentioned, speaks thus of the Sauk village: “This place is esteemed the best market for traders to furnish themselves with provisions, of any within eight hundred miles of it.” Thus it is seen that the Indians, on their own account, furnished provisions for their own war parties; for the English forays against Americans and Spanish; for explorers like Marquette, Carver, and Lewis and Clark, and the long list of later adventurers who came to spy out the land and eventually to expel the tribesmen from their fields. The traders who ranged the woods and rivers for a century before civilization ruined their traffic, depended in a large measure on the meagre stores of Indian corn and beans; while even the troops which finally hunted the natives from their homes, filled their camp kettles either from the _caches_ or the corn fields of the fugitives. Nor was this all. The earliest settlers seized upon the little cultivated plots as the most desirable ground for their own first plantings, and utilized the native-grown seed, since it was known to be adapted to the soil and climate. It is interesting to note that the two crops which the Indians prized most highly, corn and tobacco, are at present two of the foremost products of Wisconsin. BENJAMIN HORACE HIBBARD, PH. D. (Communicated by Wisconsin Historical Society.) THE AUTHENTICITY OF CARVER’S “TRAVELS” In his paper on “The Travels of Jonathan Carver,” read before the American Historical Association in Chicago, December 29, 1904, Prof. E. G. Bourne of Yale University, presented the results of an investigation as to the originality and authenticity of the second part of this famous book, which is devoted to giving a systematic account of the manners and customs of the Indians in the Northwest, and of the animals and products of the soil.