150 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



considerable tributary from the west, whicli opens a line of com- 

 munication with, the Eed River valley, 



• About ten o'clock we encountered a series of rapids extending 

 some eight hundred or a thousand yards, in the course of which 

 the river has a probable aggregate fall of sixteen feet. These 

 rapids bear the malappropriate title of the Big Falls. Following 

 these, were a series called Prairie Rapids. At half-past four we 

 passed the entrance of the River St. Francis, a considerable stream 

 on the left bank. At this spot, Hennepin terminated his voyage 

 in 1681, and Carver in 1766. There is an island at the point of 

 confluence. At six o'clock we passed the entrance on the west 

 shore of the stream called Cornielle, by the French, which is the 

 true interpretation of the Sioux name Karishon^ and the Chippe- 

 wa term Andaig^ which mean the crow, and not the raven. We 

 encamped five miles below, on the east bank, having been thir- 

 teen hours in our canoes, with a generally strong current. My 

 mineralogical gleanings, during the day, had given some speci- 

 mens of the interesting varieties of the quartz family, for which 

 the geological drift is noted, and a single piece of agatized wood. 

 The geological floor on which the river runs, has been indicated. 



At five o'clock the following morning (30th) we resumed the 

 descent, and at the distance of two leagues reached the entrance 

 of the Missisagiegon, or Rum River. It is Carver, I believe, who 

 first gives us this name, for a stream which the Indians describe 

 as a river flowing from a lake of lakes — a term, by the wa}^, which 

 the French, with their usual adherence to Indian etymology, have 

 called Mille Lacs. The term missi^ in this word, does not signify 

 great, but a collected mass, or all kinds, and sometimes every- 

 where — the allusion being to water. Sa-gi-e-gon is a lake, and 

 when the prefixed term missi^ is put to it, nothing could more 

 graphically describe the large body of water, interspersed with 

 islands, which give a confused aspect, from which the river issues. 

 The Dacotas call this lake Mini WaMn, meaning Spirit-water, 

 which is probably the origin of the name of Rum River. 



About thirteen miles below Rum River, and when within half 

 a mile of the Falls,* I observed calcareous rocks in horizontal 



* It is recently asserted that tliis change in the stratification occurs about a mile 

 above the Falls. {Sen. Doc. p. 237.] By the same authority it is shown that the 

 aggregate fall of the Mississippi from the mouth of Sandy Lake River to the Falls 

 of St. Anthony is 397 feet. 



