26 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



height from 85 to 100 feet above the level of the surround 

 ing waters. They are covered with tliick forests, in which 

 the coniferous plants predominate. South of Itasca Lake 

 they form a semicircular region with a boggy bottom, ex- 

 tending to the southwest a distance of several miles ; thence 

 these hauteurs des terres ascend to the northwest and north, 

 and then stretching to the northeast and east, through the 

 zone betAveen 47° and 48° of latitude, make the dividing 

 ridge between the waters that empty into Hudson Bay and 

 those which discharge themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. 



" The waters supplied by the north flank of these heights 

 of land, still on the south side of Lake Itasca, give origin to 

 the five creeks of which I have spoken above. These are 

 the waters which I consider to be the utmost sources of the 

 Missisippi. Those that flow from the southern side of the 

 same heights, and empty themselves into Elbow Lake, are 

 the utmost sources of the Red River of the North, so that 

 the most remote feeders of Hudson Bay and the Gulf of 

 Mexico are closely approximated to each other." — Nic. Rep., 

 p. 57, et seq. 



The principal creek of the five above-mentioned feeders of 

 Lake Itasca comes into the east bay of the lake, and is from 

 fifteen to twenty feet wide, and, at the time of Nicollet's visit, 

 two or three feet deep. This he considers the infant Missi- 

 sippi. Mr. Nicollet went up this stream three or four miles, 

 and thus describes it : — 



" As a further description of these head-waters, I may add 

 that they unite at a small distance from the hills whence they 

 originate, and form a small lake, from which the Missisippi 

 flows with a breadth of a foot and a half, and a depth of one 

 foot. At no great distance, however, this rivulet, uniting 

 itself with other streamlets coming from other directions, sup- 

 plies a second minor lake, the waters of which have already 



