PLATE VII. 



NICOLLET'S MAP, 1842. 



Nicollet's map of the upper Mississippi, the Minnesota, the Red River of the 

 North and the James River valleys constitutes the most important contribution ever 

 made to the topography and physical geography of Minnesota.* He incorporated all 

 facts previously known, and added much to their number and their exactness, in 

 constructing the map, a part of which is reduced and shown by Plate VII. He gave 

 names to many lakes and physical features or adopted those which were current. 

 Catlin, Schoolcraft, Featherstonhaugh, Allen, Keating and Long had preceded him, 

 but they were mainly confined to the ready routes of travel, passing through the 

 country in a single season, but Nicollet crossed' the country in all directions and 

 spent several years, winters included, in procuring the data of his map. 



Within Minnesota are represented two remarkable physical characters, i.e., two 

 districts of lakes. One of these, the Undine region, includes the great bend of the 

 Minnesota river at Mankato, running from Dakota county southwestward to Brown 

 county and then northwestward, its western area, under the name Plateau du Coteau 

 des Prairies, extending through several counties to the head of that range in Dakota, 

 westward from Traverse lake. The other tract covers the upper waters of the 

 Mississippi, its lakes and its numerous streams, these constituting the perennial 

 source, or Victoria Nyanza, of the Mississippi and of the Red river of the North. 

 Connecting these is a range of low hills named Coteau du Grand Bois, later known as 

 the Big Woods, the last name, however, being latterly extended 'to include the whole 

 timbered spur which projects as far south as to the southern limit of the Undine 

 region and divides the original prairies of the state into eastern and western portions. 



Lake Buade, called also Missisagaigan on some French maps, meaning many, or 

 much, lake, and translated by the early French by Mille Lacs, by the time of Nicollet 

 had lost entirely the name given it by Hennepin, and is Minsi sagaiagoning, or Mille 

 Lacs. Its outlet, called river St. Francis by Hennepin, is by Nicollet called Iskodo 

 Waboo, or Rum river, i. e., Skootay Waboo, or Fire-Water, river, indicating that the 

 present name of that river was of Chippewa origin, and has simply been translated 

 into English. 



The geographical names of Nicollet's map have mostly been perpetuated to 

 the present time. It is just to the early explorers that the first names applied to 

 lakes and streams be preserved, whenever they are known, and especially when they 

 are attested by the publication of a good map or description. N. H. w. 



* Joseph Nicolas Nicollet, the Minnesota geographer, should not be confounded with Jean Nicollet, who was an American 

 pioneer from France nearly 200 years earlier, but who never visited Minnesota. See American Geotoyi.tl, vol. viii, pp. 843-352, 1891, 

 and vol. xiii, pp. iai-128, 189J. Also M'm-'./i.v'/i Jlistorical Collections, vol. xi, pp. !->. 



