SOURCE OP ST. Peter's river. ^21 



tion corresponding with the course of the rivei\ Near the 

 lower extremity of the lake is an island of considerahle 

 size, inhabited by a pretty numerous band of the Sioux. 

 Twenty-five miles lower down it enters Lac qui parle, 

 which is a handsome little lake seven and a half miles in 

 length, and whose breadth does not exceed one mile. It 

 receives from the west several small tributaries, the most 

 considerable of which are the Blue Earth, the Liard, or 

 Cotton-wood, the Yellow Medicine rivers, and the Spirit 

 Mountain rivulet, all of which take their rise in the Coteau 

 des Prairies. Its proximity to the Mississippi precludes 

 any room for tributaries of any considerable size from the 

 eastward, for a distance of more than two hundred miles 

 from its mouth, above which it receives two streams of re- 

 spectable size, viz. the Epervier and the Medicine Bark, 

 the latter of which rises near Otter-tail lake and the river 

 de Corbeau, and enters about sixteen miles below the Lac 

 qui parle. 



During the spring freshets, and at other times when 

 floods prevail, the St. Peter is navigable for Mackinaw 

 boats and pirogues, from its mouth to the head of Big 

 Stone Lake, there being but two obstructions that are im- 

 passable on such occasions, viz. at Patterson's Fall and the 

 Grand Portage, at which are carrying places or portages of 

 moderate length. For a distance of about forty miles on 

 the lower part of the river it is from sixty to eighty yards 

 wide only, and navigable for pirogues and canoes, in all 

 stages of the water ; higher up, its navigation is obstructed 

 in low water by numerous shoals and rapids. 



The only tributaries worthy of notice are the Blue 

 Earth, the Liard, improperly called White-wood, the 

 Red-wood, or more properly Red-tree, the Yellow Medi- 

 cine, the Beaver, and the Spirit Mountain rivers, all head- 



VoL. IL 29 



