144 Journey to the Céteau des Prairies, §c. 
much doubt in my mind. I believe that the geologist may take 
the different varieties which he may gather at the base of the 
Coteau in one hour, and travel the continent of North America 
all over, without being enabled to put them all in place; coming 
at last to the unavoidable conclusion, that numerous chains or 
beds of primitive rocks have reared their heads on this continent, 
the summits of which have been swept away by the force of the 
diluvial currents, and their fragments jostled together and strewed 
about, like foreigners in a strange land, over the great valleys of 
the Mississippi and Missouri, where they will ever remain and be 
gazed upon by the traveller, as the only remaining evidence of 
their native ledges, which have been again submerged or covered 
with diluvial deposits. 
There seems not to be, either on the Coteau or in the great 
valleys on either side, so far as I have travelled, any slaty or other 
formation exposed above the surface, on which grooves or scratches 
can be seen, to establish the direction of the diluvial currents in 
those regions ; yet I think the fact is pretty clearly established 
by the general shapes of the valleys, and the courses of the moun- 
tain ridges which wall them in on their sides. 
The Céteau des Prairies is the dividing ridge between the St. 
Peter’s and the Missouri rivers; its southern termination or slope 
is about in the latitude of the Falls of St. Anthony, and it stands 
equidistant between the two rivers, its general course bearing 
two or three degrees west of north, for the distance of two oF 
three hundred miles, when it gradually slopes again to the north, 
throwing out from its base the head waters and tributaries of the 
St. Peter’s on the east; the Red River and other streams which 
empty into the Hudson’s Bay on the north; “ La Riviere J aques”’ 
and several other tributaries to the Missouri on the west ; and t 
Red Cedar, the loway and the De Moines on the south. 
This wonderful anomaly in nature, which is several hundred 
miles in length, and varying from fifty to an hundred in width, 18 
‘undoubtedly the noblest mound of its kind in the world: it graé 
ually and gracefully rises on each side, by swell after swell, with- 
out tree, or bush, or rocks, (save what are to be seen at the Pipe 
Stone Quarry,) and is every where covered with green grass, af- 
fording the traveller, from its highest elevations, the most U2 
bounded and sublime views of—nothing at all,—save the blue 
and boundless ocean of prairies that lie beneath and all around 
