Feathers tonhaugh s Geological Report. 145 



continuation of the deposite I had seen before at Myakah, and 

 valuable only for the savages to paint themselves with. From 

 this bluff, I advanced in a westerly direction about two miles, 

 over a part of the country grown up with small poplars, ha 

 zels, wild roses, and grass, in the hope of seeing the Coteau 

 de Prairie, and making arrangements to proceed to it from 

 this quarter ; but I saw nothing of the kind from any eminence 

 which I could gain ; and having in my hand, and reading on 

 the spot, what had been said of M. Le Sueur, his mountains, 

 and his copper mines, I found myself obliged to come to the 

 conclusion that these discoveries were fables invented to give 

 him influence at the court of France. Before I left the north 

 west country, and after I had visited the Coteau de Prairie, 

 I found it was distant at least sixty miles from this spot, which 

 leaves only the blufTs of the river to represent the mountains 

 spoken of in the manuscript of La Harpe. 



Seeing the state of the country here, and having made up 

 my mind to proceed up the St. Peter s to its source, and 

 strike the Coteau de Prairie there, if the season admitted of 

 it, I descended the Makato, which the natives informed me 

 had eleven forks and was full of rapids, and regained the St. 

 Peter s. The water above the junction was very clear, and 

 had but little current for several miles, being somewhat kept 

 back by the Makato ; the stream is about one hundred yards 

 broad, and runs for some distance through low. well-wooded 

 banks, forming a very pleasing country. About twelve miles 

 up the river, the slopes are covered with large boulders, near 

 which the river narrows to about fifty yards, and gradually 

 becomes shallow, its sandy bed being covered with very 

 beautiful unios of various species, the beaks of which were 

 not at all decorticated. Twenty miles from the Makato, the 

 St. Peter s has made a recent cut-off and abandoned its old 

 bed ; not far from this place a large mass of sandstone is in 

 place in the middle of the river. Minday Maha-tanka, or 

 Great-goose (Swan) lake, lies nearly five miles north of this 

 10 



