Convinced that his undertaking was practicable, Carver started from Michilimackinac in September, 1766, in company with some traders who were going among the Sioux by the old route leading through Green Bay, Fox River and the Wisconsin. What he could learn about the upper tributaries of the Mississippi seems to have determined Carver to fix his final starting-point somewhere about the Falls of St. Anthony. These falls were reached on the 17th of November. When Carver came to the point overlooking them, his Indian guide surprised him by beginning to chant aloud an invocation to the spirit of the waters. While doing this he was stripping off first one, then another, of his ornaments, and casting them from him into the stream. First he threw in his pipe, then his tobacco, then the bracelets he wore on his arms and wrists, and lastly his necklace and ear-rings. When he had thus divested himself of every article of value he possessed, the Indian concluded his prayer of adoration with which his propitiatory offerings were so freely joined. Carver's journey, in this direction, ended at the River St. Francis. Returning south he ascended the St. Peter's, or Minnesota River, by his own account, for a distance of two hundred miles, to the villages of the Sioux with whom he passed the winter. [Illustration: FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.] But after thus penetrating far into what is now the State of Minnesota, Carver found himself unable to proceed. The gifts that were to be sent after him, and which were essential to securing a safe-conduct among the Indian nations on his route, did not come. No alternative therefore remained but to go back to Prairie du Chien, the great Indian trading-mart of all that region, where the explorer finally gave up the attempt to go west at this time. He then returned to Canada by way of the St. Croix and Lake Superior, bringing with him the information gained by a seven months' residence among the Sioux. Carver's Travels were published in England in 1778, ten years after his return, although his notes and maps had been in the government's possession for some years, permission to publish them having been refused him. [Illustration: INDIAN BURIAL SCAFFOLD.] It is here that we first find the name of Oregon,[1] given to the great river of the Pacific slope. Carver speaks of it repeatedly as "the river of the West that falls into the Pacific Ocean." This explorer afterward (1774) decided to renew the effort to cross America, his indicated route being up the St. Peter's to its head, thence across to the Missouri, up this stream to its source, and, after discovering the source of the "Oregon or River of the West, on the other side the summit of the dividing highlands," to descend it to the sea. His purpose was frustrated by the war between England and the colonies. He has, however, put on record his opinion touching the future of the great Mississippi valley. This is his prophecy: