40 VIEWS OF NATURE, 



expedition, boasted that he had found the sources of the 

 Mississippi in Lake Cass. The river passes, in its upper 

 course, through four lakes, the second of which is the one 

 referred to, while the outermost one, Lake Istaca (47 IS' 

 north lat., and 95 west long.), was first recognised as the 

 true source of the Mississippi, in 1 832, in the expedition of 

 Schoolcraft and Lieutenant Allen. This stream, which sub- 

 sequently becomes so mighty, is only 17 feet in width, and 

 15 inches deep, when it issues from the singular horse-shoe- 

 shaped Lake Istaca. The local relations of this river were 

 first fully established on a basis of astronomical observations 

 of position by the scientific expedition of Nicollet, in the 

 year 1836. The height of the sources, that is to say, of the 

 last access of water received by Lake Istaca from the ridge 

 of separation, called Hauteur de Terre, is 1680 feet above 

 the level of the sea. Near this point, and at the southern 

 declivity of the same separating ridge, lies Elbow Lake, the 

 source of the small Red River of the north, which empties 

 itself, after many windings, into Hudson's Bay. The Car- 

 pathian Mountains exhibit similar relations in reference to 

 the origin of the rivers which empty themselves into the 

 Baltic and the Black Sea. M. Nicollet gave the names of 

 celebrated astronomers, opponents as well as friends, with 

 whom he had become acquainted in Europe, to the twenty 

 small lakes which combine together to form narrow groups 

 in the southern and western regions of Lake Istaca. His 

 atlas is thus converted into a geographical album, remind- 

 ing one of the botanical album of the flora Perumana of 

 Ruiz and Pavon, in which the names of new families of 

 plants were made to accord with the Court Calendar, and 

 the various alterations made in the OJiciales de la Secrc- 

 taria. 



The east of the Mississippi is still occupied by dense 

 forests; the west by prairies only, on which the buffalo 

 (Bos Americanus) and the musk ox (Bos moschatus) pasture. 

 These two species of animals, the largest of the new world, 

 furnish the nomadic tribes of the Apaches-Llaneros and 

 Apaches-Lipanos with the means of nourishment. The 

 Assiniboins occasionally slay from seven to eight hundred 

 bisons in the course of a few days in the artificial enclosure? 

 Constructed for the purpose of driving together the wild 



