52 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



souri and the Mississipi, to the mouth of the latter river at 

 Old French Balize, it has only a fall of 357 (380 English) 

 feet in an itinerary distance of more than 1280 geographical 

 miles The surface of Lake Superior is 580 (618 English) 

 feet above the level of the sea, and its depth near Magdalen 

 Island is 742 (791 English) feet; its bottom, therefore, 

 is 162 (173 English) feet below the surface of the ocean. 

 (Nicollet, p. 99, 125, and 128.) 



Beltrami, who separated himself from Major Long's ex- 

 pedition in 1825, boasted of having discovered the source of 

 the Mississipi in Lake Cass. The river in the upper part of 

 its course passes through four lakes, of which Lake Cass is 

 the second. The uppermost is the Istaca Lake (in lat. 47 

 13' and long. 95 0'), and was first recognised as the true 

 source of the Mississipi in the expedition of Schoolcraft and 

 Allen in 1832. This afterwards mighty river is only 17 

 feet wide and 15 inches deep when it issues from the 

 singular horse-shoe-shaped Lake of Istaca. It was not until the 

 scientific expedition of Nicollet, in 1836, that a clear know- 

 ledge of the localities was obtained and rendered definite by 

 astronomically determined positions. The height of the 

 sources of the Mississipi, viz. of the remotest affluent 

 received by the Lake of Istaca from the dividing ridge or 

 " Hauteur deTerre," is 1575 (1680 English) feet above the 

 level of the sea. In the immediate vicinity, and indeed on 

 the southern slope of the same dividing ridge, is Elbow Lake, 

 in which the smaller Bed River of the North, which after 

 many windings flows into Hudson's Bay, has its origin. The 

 Carpathian mountains present similar circumstances in the 



