AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 25 | 
ouri and the Columbia rivers, we come to notice as directly 
connected with the progress of settlement in the Mississippi 
Valley, the expedition of Lt. Pike, in 1805-6, from St. Louis 
to the supposed head waters of the Mississippi. 
In this succinct and quaintly written narrative, we get a 
clear and connected view of the natural aspects and civil- 
ized. development of this region, after a lapse of one hundred 
and thirty-two years from its first discovery by Marquette. 
St. Louis, then, as now, recognized as the metropolis of this 
Upper Mississippi Valley, having thrown off the shackles of 
Spanish exclusiveness, had commenced its permanent 
growth as an American city. From this point (while Lewis 
‘and Clarke’s expedition was still in progress) Lieut. Pike 
started on his journey up the Mississippi river on the 9th 
of August, 1805. His outfit occupying a single-keel boat, 
comprised a party of twenty men and provisions for four 
months. The journey, necessarily slow and laborious ex- 
cept when aided by a favorable wind, allowed frequent 
shore excursions by hunting parties, generally accompanied 
by Pike himself. Thus the character of the adjoining coun- 
try came under the careful inspection of this in‘elligent ex- 
plorer. The map accompanying his report lays down, with 
considerable accuracy, the main features of the region thus 
passed over, including river tributaries, high points of land, 
open prairies, Indian villages, &c., &c. The distances are 
also carefully noted in the daily journal, interspersed with 
occasional remarks and suggestions, serving to give a life- 
like character to the narrative. By an unforeseen accident, 
two men of the party, making their way by land along the 
Iowa shore, just below the island formed by the Muscatine 
slough, were cut off from the main river channel, and thus 
separated from the boat party. In this dilemma they did 
not succeed in joining their comrades till they were picked 
up by some trading parties, and brought as far as Prairie du 
Chien. These two men, whose names are not given 1n the 
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