PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 17 



It is similar to the rice of the southern States, if not the 

 same ; is a principal article of food among some of the na- 

 tions residing here, and gave the name to a tribe that, for the 

 most part, subsisted on it. There are also, it is said, the 

 wild potato, and wild onion, found here. The former, as the 

 writer was informed by Le Claire, late interpreter to the Sac 

 and Fox Indians, gave the name to the Wabesepinicon river : 

 Wabe-se-pin, potato, or white potato, icon, abode, or resi- 

 dence. There is a piece of prairie also, some miles north of 

 that river, called, by the French, Pomme de terre (or potato) 

 prairie. Some of the streams are supposed to have derived 

 their names from the wild onion. Chicago, or Chicagua, 

 anything with a strong smell, is the name applied to this 

 vegetable, and to the skunk. The sun-flower, the artichoke, 

 and the resin plant, grow abundantly in places. 



Mr. Doty, in a letter to Gov. Cass, says the wabessepin 

 resembles a potato, is mealy when boiled, and grows only in 

 wet clay ground, about one and a half feet deep. The crane 

 potato, called sitchauc-wabessepin, is of the same kind, but 

 inferior in quality. The Indians use these for food, as well as 

 the menomini, and another long and slender root called wa- 

 tappinee. Probably it is the first of these that is referred 

 to by Nicollet, in the following extract, as the prairie 

 turnip : — " The future inhabitants of this region, among its 

 most interesting specimens of vegetation, w^ll find, as trees, 

 the American and red elm, lime tree, bur oak, white ash, 

 ash-leaved maple, nettle tree, large American aspen ; as 

 shrubs, the hazel, red root, peterswort, &c. ; as herbs, alum- 

 root, tufted and American vetch, wood sorrel, sedge and pas- 

 tm'e grasses. 



" The intermediate prairies are characterized by small 

 depressions, filled with rough grasses, and bordered by the 

 Canadian cinquefoil, the germander, southern lily, and but- 



