PREFACE. IX 



should have been done at an earlier period ; but it may be suffi- 

 cient to say that other objects engrossed the attention of the author 

 for no small part of the intervening period, and that he could not 

 earlier control the circumstances which the publication demanded. 

 After his permanent return from the West — where so many years 

 of his life passed — it was his first wish to accomplish a long-cher- 

 ished desire of visiting England and the Continent, in which 

 America, and its manners and institutions, might be contemplated 

 at a distance, and compared by ocular proofs. And, when he de- 

 termined on the task of preparing this volume, and began to look 

 around for the companions of his travels, to avail himself of their 

 notes, he found most of them had descended to the tomb. For the 

 narrative parts, indeed, the manuscript journals, kept with great 

 fulness, were still preserved ; but the materials for the other division 

 of the work were widely scattered. Some of them remained in the 

 archives of the public offices to which they were originally com- 

 municated. Other papers had been given to the pages of scientific 

 journals, and their reprint was inexpedient. The rich body of 

 topographical data, and the elaborately drawn map of this portion 

 of the United States, prepared by Captain Douglass, U. S, A., 

 Avhicb would have been received with avidity at the time, had 

 been in a great measure superseded by subsequent discoveries,''^ 

 The only part of this officer's observations employed in this work, 

 are his determinations of the geographical positions. The latter 

 have been extended and perfected by the subsequent observations 

 of Mr. Nicollet. At every point, there have been difficulties to 

 overcome. He has been strenuous to award justice to his deceased 

 companions, to whose memory he is attached by the ties of sym- 

 pathy and former association. If more time has elapsed in pre- 

 paring the work than was anticipated, it is owing to the nature 

 of it ; and he can only say that still more time and attention would 

 be required to do justice to it. 



* This remark is limited to the country south of about 46°. North of that point, 

 there are no explorations known to me, except those of Lieutenant James Allen, 

 who accompanied me above Cass Lake, in 1832, and those of J. N. Nicollet, in 1836, 

 which were reported by him to the Topographical Bureau, and by the latter trans- 

 mitted to Congress. — Vide Senate Doc. No. 237, 1843. These observations relate to 

 the line of the Mississippi. Maj. Long's journey, in 1823, was icesi and north of 

 that river. 



