290 A Recent Visit to Lake Itasca — Upham. 



to the Mississippi from the south between lakes Itasca and Pemidji^ 

 existed as grand topographic features of the country before the 

 glacial period, and were then occupied by streams flowing in the 

 same northward direction as now. It is improbable, however, that 

 Minnesota or any part of the northern states then had any con- 

 siderable number of lakes, their condition in this respect having 

 been like that now found in the southern states beyond the limit 

 of the glacial drift. 



Three species of pines occur plentifully about Itasca. Red 

 pine, commonly but erroneously called Norway pine, constitutes 

 perhaps three-fourths of the timber available for manufacturing 

 lumber. This species grows seventy-five to one hundred feet in 

 height and one and a half to two feet in diameter. In its most 

 dense groves it is almost unmingled with other species of trees^ 

 and its reddish brown straight trunks rise forty to sixty feet to the 

 first limbs and are so thickly set that their canopy of boughs al- 

 most excludes the sunshine. These groves have little or no under-- 

 brush, and seem prepared by nature for picnic grounds. The white 

 pine attains a height of ninety to a hundred and twenty-five feet 

 and a diameter of two to three or four feet. It is about a third as^ 

 plentiful as the red pine, and grows on more clayey soil, either 

 scattered or in groves, through whose to[36 every wind plays inimit- 

 able music. The jack y)ine (Pinus Banksiana, Lambert) occupies- 

 sandy and gravelly land, and is very abundant on such tracts in 

 the Itascan district and far eastward and northward. It has a 

 small but straight and tall trunk, sixty to eighty feet high and 

 nine to eighteen inches in diameter at the base. This species is- 

 used for fuel; and the Indians split and prepare its long, pliant 

 roots, called watah^ for sewing together the strips of birch bark of 

 their canoes. 



Among the other principal forest trees and shrubs of Itasca 

 are the common poplar or aspen, very plentiful, the large-toothed 

 poplar, the balsam poplar, cottonwood, canoe birch, black and burr 

 oaks, white elm, white and black ash, red and sugar maple, bass- 

 wood, wild plum, bird or pin cherry, high bush cranberry, common 

 and beaked hazel, prickly ash, moosewood, willow, and alder. In the 

 swamps, and frequently on higher land, tamarack, black spruce 

 and balsam fir grow in abundance, often festooned with moss. 



Last June a great fire ran through the woods northeast of 

 lake Itasca and northward to Craig's crossing, almost wholly burn- 



