NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 127 



which kept ahead of us the entire day. We had this day observed 

 specimens of the Unio and some other species of fresh- water shells 

 along the shore. And of birds, besides the duck, plover, and 

 loon, which frequent the water, we noticed the thrush, robin, 

 blackbird, and crow. The comparative coolness of the day ren- 

 dered the annoyance from mosquitos less severe than we had 

 found them the preceding day. The night on this sandy and 

 bleak elevation proved cool, with a heavy dew, which resulted in 

 a dense fog in the morning. We found ice on the bottoms of 

 the canoes, which are turned up at night, of the thickness of a 

 knife-blade. 



Our third day's ascent witnessed no diminution of the strength 

 and alacrity with which our canoemen urged our way up the 

 stream. We were off betimes, in a lowering and dense atmo- 

 sphere, which obscured objects. After advancing some six miles, 

 there are a series of small rapids, which are, taken together, called 

 Ka-ka-bi-ka,* where I estimated the river to sink its level sixteen 

 feet, in a short distance ; at none of these is the navigation, how- 

 ever, impeded. The rock stratification appears too compact for 

 sand-rock, and is obscured by contiguous boulders, which are in- 

 dicative of the strong drift-formation, which has spread from the 

 north and east over this region. Four miles after ascending the 

 last of the Kakabika Rapids, we landed at the foot of the Paka- 

 gama Falls. Here the lading was immediately put ashore, the 

 canoes landed, and the whole carried over an Indian portage path 

 of two hundred and seventy-five yards. This delay afforded an 

 opportunity to view the falls. The Mississippi, at this point, 

 forces its way through a formation of quartzy rock, during which 

 it sinks its level, as estimated, twenty feet, in a distance of about 

 three hundred yards. There is no perceptible cascade or abrupt 

 fall, but the river rushes with the utmost velocity down a highly 

 inclined rocky bed towards the northeast. It forms a complete 

 interruption to navigation, and must, hereafter, be the terminus 

 of the navigation of that class of small steamboats which may be 

 introduced above the Falls of St. Anthony. The general eleva- 

 tion of the geological stratum at the top of this fall must be 



* From ka, a particle affirmative of an adverse quality, aubik, rock, and ons, a 

 diminutive inflection. 



