492, DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY BORDERING 
river. Its height is about ten feet. On the prairie, a short distance beyond, are 
other outliers of the same rock. Two miles further on it appears again, and it 
occurs frequently at intervals of a few miles, to the mouth of the Red Wood River. 
Two or three miles below the mouth of this river is one of the most interesting 
exposures of granite, on the left bank of the river. It rises in irregular, smooth 
knobs to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet. At an elevation of forty to 
fifty feet above the present channel, an ancient bed of the river is distinctly recog- 
nisable. The bottom of the bed, as well as the sides, to the height of eight or ten 
feet, are worn into polished grooves, five to twelve inches deep; there are besides 
smoothly worn pot-holes, not only in the former bed, but also at various heights, 
even to the top of the rock, and most of the granite surface is rounded and almost 
polished ; all giving evidence of having been laved for a very long period of time, 
by a swift current, and corroborating the conclusions heretofore drawn, from the 
existence of level terraces of alluvial land far above the present highest water- 
mark, and from the position of strata containing fresh-water shells in elevated 
positions, that the St. Peter’s once flowed at a higher level, or rather, that the land 
has been elevated at a very recent period of time. 
The Bois Rouge, or Red Wood River, as it is termed by Nicollet, is a small 
creek, only five or six yards wide, with only a few inches of water, and unfit even 
for canoe navigation. 
It was fortunate that by this time the main objects of the expedition up the St. 
Peter’s had been accomplished, since I was attacked, at this stage of my investiga- 
tions, with a severe acute pleurisy, from which I did not recover for several months, 
and which in all probability would have carried me off, but for the kind exertions 
of my friends in camp, and the hospitality and nursing care of Mr. Hopkins and 
family at Traverse des Sioux, and Captain Eastman and family at Fort Snelling. 
In conclusion, I may here review, cursorily, the most important facts ascertained 
in performing this part of my duty. 
With the exception of the Bois Franc District, the whole country may be con- 
sidered as prairie, the streams only being skirted with wood. On the whole, there 
is a want of timber for ordinary farming purposes in a thickly inhabited district ; 
but if the growth of timber be encouraged, as the population gradually increases, 
a deficiency may never be experienced. 
Throughout the greater part of the St. Peter’s country the traveller is surprised 
and charmed with the ever-changing variety and beauty of the scenery. 
The alluvial land bordering upon the river varies in width from a quarter of a 
mile to a mile or more. The greater portion of this constitutes numerous natural 
meadows, covered annually with a luxuriant growth of grass. A small proportion 
of these alluvial lands is well timbered with ash, elm, sugar and white maple, 
butternut, white walnut, lime, linden, box-elder, athens weed and hickory. A 
considerable portion of these flats, being subject to annual overflow, are wet and 
marshy; in their vicinity, at least in the early settlement of the country, intermit- 
tents may be expected to prevail in the autumnal months. 
A remarkable feature of this country consists in the small lakes and ponds scat- 
tered over it. Many of these are beautiful sheets of water, having the appearance 
