57 
Zizania as Found by the Explorers of the Northwest. 
ba dias OF ag) Page 9 88 
_ That the wild rice has long been considered a characteristic 
plant of this region is easily shown by an examination of the 
writings of the explorers of this country, from those of the French 
to the latest of Schoolcraft. Those of the French are not at 
hand, but abundant citations could: be made from those of the 
English and Americans, and few must suffice. Captain Jonathan 
Carver, (1765-68), speaks of its ‘‘great abundance” in the val- 
ley of the St. Pierre, (since 1852 the Minnesota) up which he 
must have gone about 200 miles. Alexander Mackenzie (1789- 
’93), mentions its “abundance” along the ‘Grande Portage,” 
the chain of lakes and rivers from Lake Superior to the Lake of 
the Woods, and the use of it by the Algonquins. He makes the 
following statement regarding its northward range: ‘‘To the 
north of fifty degrees it is hardly known, or at least does not 
come to maturity.”* Major Zebulon Pike, (1805, 1806), tells of 
its gredt plenty about the sources of the Mississippi, and of its 
sale by the Indians to the fur-traders for their subsistance. In 
the account of the Lake of the Woods in Major Long’s expedi- 
tion, Prof. Keating, who accompanied the party as geologist and 
historiographer, writes: ‘“‘ We found in great abundance the plant 
which bears the wild rice; it was quite ripe at that season.t The 
Indians collect the grain in great plenty, considering it as one of 
their best articles of food, and that upon which they can place 
the greatest reliance. We have been led to make some inquiry 
as to the extent of the region in which the wild rice grows, and 
we find it to be very great. Mackenzie says that wild rice is 
hardly seen, or does not come to maturity, north of the fiftieth 
degree of latitude, and we believe that it does not grow west of 
the Mississippi below the mouth of the Missouri, or on any part 
of ‘this river. Its western extremities are probably about the 
sources of the St. Peter; it ranges in latitude from the thirty-first 
to the fiftieth degree, and in longitude from the Atlantic to the 
ninety-seventh degree.” 
*Mackenzie's Voyage, London, 1801, p. LXI. 
+End of August. 
$i. c, Vola, prod: 
