APPENDIX. 283 



Porcupine ridge of mountains. One otlier portage, one of a mile 

 and a half, and a continued succession of falls, called the Grand 

 Rapids, extending nine miles, and certainly unsurmountable except 

 by the skill and perseverance of the Canadian boatmen, conduct 

 us to a comparatively tranquil part of the river. From here to 

 the head of the Savannah River, a small branch of the St, Louis, 

 the navigation is uninterrupted, and after a portage of four miles, 

 the descent is easy into Lake au Sable, whose outlet is within 

 two miles of the Mississippi. 



This was until 1816 the principal establishment of the British 

 Northwest Company upon these waters, and is now applied to 

 the same purpose by the American Fur Company. 



From Lac au Sable, we ascended the Mississippi to the Upper 

 Red Cedar Lake, which may be considered as the head of the 

 navigation of that river. The whole distance, 850 miles, is almost 

 uninhabitable. The first part of the route the country is gene- 

 rally somewhat elevated and interspersed with pine woods. The 

 latter part is level wet prairie. 



The sources of this river flow from a region filled with lakes 

 and swamps, whose geological character indicates a recent forma- 

 tion, and which, although the highest table-land of this part of the 

 Continent, is yet a dead level, presenting to the eye a succession 

 of dreary uninteresting objects. Interminable marshes, numerous 

 ponds, and a few low, naked, sterile plains, with a small stream, 

 not exceeding sixty feet in width, meandering in a very crooked 

 channel through them, are all the objects which are found to re- 

 ward the traveller for the privations and difficulties which he 

 must encounter in his ascent to this forbidding region. 



The view on all sides is dull and monotonous. Scarcely a living 

 being animates the prospect, and every circumstance recalled 

 forcibly to our recollection that we were far removed from civil- 

 ized life. 



From Lac au Sable to the mouth of the St. Peter's, the distance 

 by computation is six hundred miles. The first two hundred 

 present no obstacles to navigation. The land along the river is 

 of a better quality than above ; the bottoms are more numerous, 

 and the timber indicates a stronger and more productive soil. 

 But near this point commence the great rapids of the Mississippi, 

 which extend more than two hundred miles. The river flows 



