NAREATIYE OF THE EXPEDITION 



CHAPTEE I 



Departure — Considerations on visiting the northern summits early in the season — 

 Cross the Highlands of the Hudson — Incidents of the journey from Albany to 

 Buffalo — Visit Niagara Falls — Their grandeur the effect of magnitude — Embark ^ 

 on board the steamer Walk-in-the-AVater — Passage up Lake Erie — Reach Detroit. 



The determination to penetrate to the source of tlie Mississippi, 

 during tlie summer montlis, made an early departure important. 

 I had, while at Potosi, in Missouri, during the prior month of 

 February, written to Hon. J. B. Thomas, U. S. S., Washington, to 

 endeavor to secure an appointment to explore the mineralogy and 

 natural features of the upper Mississippi Eiver ; and as soon as I 

 had published my treatise on the mines and minerals of Missouri, 

 I proceeded to Washington, and submitted to the proper officers 

 of the Government, my account of the mineralogical wealth of the 

 w^estern domains, with a plan for the management of the public 

 mines. Mr. Calhoun decidedly favored these views ; but, foresee- 

 ing the necessity of congressional action on the subject, and the 

 necessary delays of departmental references, said to me, that he 

 had just received a memoir from Governor Cass, of Michigan, 

 proposing an expedition to the source of the Mississippi, to leave 

 Detroit early in the spring, and offered me the position of mine- 

 ralogist and geologist on that service. This agreeing, as it did, 

 with my prior views of exploring the public domains, I gladly 

 accepted, and immediately returned to the city of New York to 

 prepare for the journey. 



, The year 1820 had commenced with severe weather, the Hudson 

 being frozen hard, as high as AYest Point, on the 1st of January; 



