PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 9 



tract of land, diversified by hills, dales, woodland and lakes : 

 the latter abounding in fish. The region of country is pro- 

 bably the most elevated betw^een the Gulf of Mexico and 

 Hudson's Bay. From its summit, proceeding from its 

 western to its eastern limits, grand views are afforded. At 

 its eastern border, particularly, the prospect is magnificent 

 beyond description, extending over the immense green turf 

 that forms the basin of the Red River of the North, the 

 forest-capped summits of the hauteurs des terres that sur- 

 round the sources of the Missisippi, the gi'anite valley of the 

 Upper St. Peter's, and the depressions in which are Lake 

 Travers and the Big Stone Lake. 



" The other portions of the coteau, ascending from the 

 lower latitudes, present pretty much the same characters. 

 This difference, however, is remarkable : that the woodlands 

 become scarcer, whilst the open prairies increase in extent. 

 It is very rarely only that gi'oves are met with, to which the 

 N'dacotahs, or Sioux, have given the name of Tchan Witah, 

 or Wood Islands. When these groves are surrounded by 

 water, they assume some resemblance to oases, and hence I 

 have assigned this name to some of them on my map. 



" These oases, possessed of a good soil, well w^ooded, 

 offering an abundance of game, and waters teeming with fish, 

 ofier inducements for permanent settlements. In this region 

 there are frequent instances of a marsh or lake furnishing 

 waters to different hydrographical basins, — a fact observed 

 by the Sioux, and which they express in the compound word 

 of iheir dialect, mini-akipan-kaduza ;* — from 7ni?ii, water ; 

 akipan, division, share ; and kaduza, to flow, to run out." 

 [Nicollet, pp. 7, 8, 9, 10.] 



* Mr. Nicollet seems to mistake the application of the phrase nnni- 

 akipan-haduza. Akipan is probably a ridge of land, or, as the white set- 

 tler calls it, in the very word of the Indians, a divide. The phrase is pro- 



2* 



