180 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION". 



to its mouth, is but another cliaracteristic feature of it — the one 

 laying stress on its turbidity in fiood^ and the other on its strength 

 of current. These are certainly the two leading traits of the "Wis- 

 consin, which rushes with a great average velocity over an in- 

 clined plane, without falls, for a great distance. It originates in 

 a remarkable summit of sandy plains, which send out to the west 

 the Chippewa Eiver of Lake Pepin, to the north the Montreal 

 and Ontonagon of Lake Superior, and to the east the Menomonee 

 of Green Bay, while the Wisconsin becomes its southern off- 

 drain, till it finally turns west at the Portage, and flows into the 

 Mississippi. 



We ascended, the first day, eighteen miles; the next, thirty- 

 six ; the third day, thirty -four miles ; the fourth, forty ; the fifth, 

 thirty-eight, and the sixth, sixteen, which brought us to the Fox 

 and Wisconsin Portage, a spot renowned from the earliest French 

 days of western discovery. For here, on the waters separating 

 the Mississippi from the great lakes, there had, at successive 

 intervals, been pitched the tents of Marquette, La Hontan, Carver, 

 and other explorers, who have, in their published journals, left 

 traces of their footsteps. La Salle, who excelled them all in 

 energy of character, proceeded to the Mississippi from Lake 

 Michigan, down the Illinois. 



Our estimates made the distance from the Mississippi to this 

 point one hundred and eighty-two miles. It is a wide, and (at 

 this season) shallow stream, with transparent waters, running over 

 a bed of yellow sand, checkered with numerous small islands, 

 and long spits of sandbars. There is not a fall in this distance, 

 and it must be navigable with large craft during the periodical 

 freshets. It receives the Blue, Pine, and other tributaries in this 

 distance. Its valley presents a geological section, on a large 

 scale, of the series of lead-bearing rocks extending in regular 

 succession from the fundamental sandstone to the topmost lime- 

 stones. The water being shallow and warm, we often waded 

 from bar to bar, and found the scene a fruitful one for its fresh- 

 water conchology. The Indians frequently amused me by 

 accounts of the lead mines and mineral productions of its borders ; 

 but I followed them in this search only to be convinced that 

 they were without sincerity in these representations, and had no 

 higher objects on this head, than,'by assuming a conciliatory man- 



