The reports
made of these explorations afford information which, if extensively
known among the people, would tend to direct a larger emigration into
the upper part of the territory. They often launch off into
exclamations as to the beautiful surface of the country; while their
account of native fruits and the bracing climate and fertile soil
picture to the imagination all the elements of a home.
M. Nicollet was a foreign gentleman who possessed superior scientific
knowledge and a rare zeal to prosecute researches. He made an
exploration through the valley of the St. Peter's and the Missouri;
and from thence to the sources of the Mississippi, in the year 1839.
The official report which he made is a valuable document, but
difficult to be obtained. I shall therefore make a few extracts from
it. I should here remark that M. Nicollet died before he had completed
the introduction to his report. "The Mississippi," he says, "holds its
own from its very origin; for it is not necessary to suppose, as has
been done, that Lake Itasca may be supplied with invisible sources, to
justify the character of a remarkable stream, which it assumes at its
issue from this lake. There are five creeks that fall into it, formed
by innumerable streamlets oozing from the clay-beds at the bases of
the hills, that consist of an accumulation of sand, gravel, and clay,
intermixed with erratic fragments; being a more prominent portion of
the great erratic deposit previously described, and which here is
known by the name of 'Hauteurs des Terres' heights of land.
"These elevations are commonly flat at top, varying in height from 85
to 100 feet above the level of the surrounding waters. They are
covered with thick forests, in which coniferous plants predominate.
South of Itasca Lake, they form a semicircular region with a boggy
bottom, extending to the south-west a distance of several miles;
thence these Hauteurs des Terres ascend to the north-west and north;
and then, stretching to the north-east and east, through the zone
between 47 degrees and 48 degrees of latitude, make the dividing ridge
between the waters that empty into Hudson's Bay and those which
discharge themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. The principal group of
these Hauteurs des Terres is subdivided into several ramifications,
varying in extent, elevation, and course, so as to determine the
hydrographical basins of all the innumerable lakes and rivers that so
peculiarly characterize this region of country.
"One of these ramifications extends in a southerly direction under the
name of Coteau du Grand Bois; and it is this which separates the
Mississippi streams from those of the Red River of the North.
"The waters supplied by the north flank of these heights of land
still on the south side of Lake Itasca give origin to the five
creeks of which I have spoken above. These are the waters which I
consider to be the utmost sources of the Mississippi.
