174 FORMATIONS OF 
This observation, together with those previously obtained at Otter Tail Lake, and 
between that place and the Great Rapids, also an observation on Polaris, the same 
evening on which we reached these rapids, all prove that the whole of this portion 
of Red River is laid down on Nicollet’s map too far to the south, by from twelve to 
fourteen miles. Our observations for longitude make it also rather too far to the 
east; but as our corps was provided with but one chronometer, I do not feel the 
same confidence in the correctness of the results obtained for longitude. 
So soon as the repairing of the canoe was completed, it was reloaded, and we 
proceeded on our journey. In a few minutes, we again encountered difficult rapids, 
and a second time got fast upon the rocks, but succeeded in extricating the canoe 
without its sustaining material injury. The course of the river at these rapids was 
northwest, then west, and then southwest. Four miles from this, we passed, on the 
right, the mouth of a stream, coming from the chain of lakes at the northwest, to 
which Mr. Nicollet has given the names of various distinguished scientific gentle- 
men. Many of these lakes, however, are known to the Indians by other names, 
which it would, perhaps, have been better to adopt, and which it is probable they 
will ultimately retain. This stream is about half the size of the main branch, being 
from fifteen to twenty feet wide. 
Red River makes here several sudden bends, first to the southeast, then south- 
west, west, and northwest; the general course being, however, southwest. On the 
left side is a beautiful undulating prairie, dotted with groves of small oaks, throwing 
their long shadows athwart the prairie as the fleeting evening clouds coursed through 
the air. The rural beauty of this part of the Red River country is almost equal to 
that of the most attractive spots in Lowa. 
Boulders of crystalline rocks, and large fragments of limestone, are scattered over 
the prairie. The soil is good, and is no doubt calcareous, at least where the lime- 
stone reaches near to the surface. 
After passing a bank on the left about seventy-five feet high, our course was from 
south to southeast for a couple of miles, or more, when we came to two more rapids, 
about a quarter of a mile apart. 
Towards the top of a bank, about seventy feet in height, two or three miles lower 
down, but nearly on the same parallel of latitude as the Grand Rapids, I found frag- 
ments of limestone similar to those obtained at the head of those rapids, and, along 
with them, fragments of a. fissile marlite, which cannot be far out of place, and 
which, therefore, appears to be an associate of these same limestones. 
The general course of the river below this, is southwest by west, but it forms 
numerous bends to the southeast, south, southwest, and northwest. Within the 
next mile and a half we passed two more rapids. These were the last which we 
encountered for a distance of some two hundred and fifty miles. 
Red River, in making its great south bend, meanders through a boundless prairie, 
destitute of timber, which gradually declines in elevation, until at length it forms 
one vast plain, level as a floor, and elevated only about one and a half to two feet 
above the water at its ordinary stage in June. This south bend lies in latitude 
46° 9’, that is, from nine to ten miles farther north than it appears on Nicollet’s 
map. 
