22 INTRODUCTION. 



mation lias not kept pace with the increased importance which 

 that section of the Union has latterly assumed — with the great 

 improvements of society — and with the spirit and the enterprise 

 of the times. A new era has dawned in the moral history of our 

 country, and, no longer satisfied with mere geographical outlines 

 and boundaries, its physical productions, its antiquities, and the 

 numerous other traits which it presents for scientific research, 

 already attract the attention of a great proportion of the reading 

 community ; and it is eagerly inquired of various sections of it — ■ 

 whose trade, whose agriculture, and whose population have been 

 long known — what are its indigenous plants, its zoology, its 

 geology, its mineralogy, &c. Of no part of it, however, has the 

 paucity of information upon these, and upon other and more 

 familiar subjects, been so great, as of the extreme north-western 

 regions of the Union, of the great chain of lakes, and of the 

 sources of the Mississippi Eiver, which have continued to be the 

 subject of dispute between geographical writers. 



Impressed with the importance of these facts, Governor Cass, 

 of Michigan, projected, in the fall of 1819, an expedition for ex- 

 ploring the regions in question, and presented a memorial to the 

 Secretary of War upon the subject, in which he proposed leaving 

 Detroit the ensuing spring, in Indian canoes, as being best adapted 

 to the navigation of the shallow waters of the upper country, and 

 to the numerous portages which it is necessary to make from 

 stream to stream. 



The specific objects of this journey were to obtain a more cor- 

 rect knowledge of the names, numbers, customs, history, condi- 

 tion, mode of subsistence, and dispositions of the Indian tribes ; 

 to survey the topography of the country, and collect the mate- 

 rials for an accurate map; to locate the site and purchase the 

 ground for a garrison at the foot of Lake Superior ; to investigate 

 the subject of the north-western copper mines, lead mines, and 

 gypsum quarries, and to purchase from the Indian tribes such 

 tracts as might be necessary to secure to the United States the 

 ultimate advantages to be derived from them. To accomplish 

 these objects, it was proposed to attach to the expedition a topo- 

 graphical engineer, an astronomer, a physician, and a mineralogist 

 and geologist, and some other scientific observers. 



Mr. Calhoun not only approved of the proposed plan, but 



