280 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VIII., No. 190 



protuberances of the skin are very plain. Its limbs 

 are regular and properly shaped, including the fin- 

 ger-like toe of its feet, and its eyes and mouth are 

 natural. There can be no doubt of its being a mum- 

 mified frog, and now various and tough questions 

 arise regarding it : How did it get that far under 

 ground ? How did it become embedded in that chunk 

 of coal, which probably had been blasted from the 

 centre of a thick vein ? How many thousands of 

 years had it been buried ? and various other queries, 

 which we will leave for the scientist to unravel and 

 explain." 



Mr. Stevenson tolls me that he is personally ac- 

 quainted with all the parties concerned in the dis- 

 covery of this specimen, and has carefully examined 

 the piece of coal whence the mummy was taken, and 

 says, further, that it came from the vault, and not 

 from either the sides or the floor of the mine. 



He has done me the honor to turn the specimen 

 over to me for diagnosis, as well as to take such 

 steps as I saw fit to ascertain if there be any similar 

 cases on record, and, finally, how geologists or 

 paleontologists explain such finds as this. The speci- 

 men is now before me, and I at once recognizad it as 

 a species of Hyla, though I am unable to say which 

 one. It apparently agrees in all its external char- 

 acters with a specimen I have of Hyla versicolor, 

 kindly diagnosed for me by Professor Cope last sum- 

 mer, though it is rather smaller. As will be seen 



from the life-size figure I have made of it, which il- 

 lustrates this letter, it is in nearly a natural position ; 

 its feet, however, are somewhat drawn up under it. 

 I have figured it as viewed directly from above. It 

 is completely mummified, and in a wonderfully per- 

 fect state of preservation, being of a dark, snuff- 

 brown color, somewhat shrunken, and, in short, re- 

 duced to a condition, that, if properly excluded from 

 the air, would keep for an indefinite length of time. 

 I am aware that these tree-frogs very often climb 

 into some of the most unheard-of places ; but it 

 struck me that it would be interesting to have some 

 one tell us if they ever heard of a Hyla finding its 

 ■way to the vault of a coal-mine 541 feet under 

 ground, and climbing into the solid coal-bed after 

 getting there. R. W. Shupeldt. 



Fort Wingate, N. Max., Sept. 14. 



The source of the Mississippi. 



A correspondent in the number of Science for Aug. 

 13 contributes an article on Captain Glazier's claim 

 to have discovered the -true source of the Mississippi. 

 The writer commences by quoting Science of May 15, 



1885, in which it is stated that Glazier gave his own 

 name to the lake he discovered. This is an error 

 invented by some official jealous that any man not in 

 the employment of the government should presume 

 to make a discovery falling within the range of the 

 government survey. In the Brainerd Tribune of 

 Aug. 14, 1881, occurs the following, from the pen of 

 one of Captain Glazier's companions, a gentleman, it 

 is to be presumed, of veracity. It may be premised 

 that Brainerd is the nearest point to the source of 

 the Mississippi that can boast of a newspaper. The 

 writer says, after describing the ascent to the newly 

 discovered lake through the stream that unites it 

 with Lake Itasca, " On its one promontory our party 

 landed after exploring its shores ; and, after slaking 

 our thirst at a spring of ice-cold water which bub- 

 bled up near by, the little party was marshalled in 

 line, and Captain Glazier made a few remarks ap- 

 propriate to the discovery of the true source of the 

 Father of waters. After this, six volleys were fired 

 in honor of the occasion, and then the question of a 

 name for the new lake arose. This being left for the 

 captain''s companions to decide, Mr. Barrett Chan- 

 ning Paine, after alluding in warm terms to the 

 time, money, and energy expended by Captain 

 Glazier in this expedition, proposed that it he named 

 ^ Lake Glazier'' in his honor. This proposition was 

 received with applause, and carried by acclamation." 

 Thus, we see. Captain Glazier did not ' give his own 

 name' to the lake. He, on the contrary, suggested 

 that it should retain its Indian appellation of ' Poke- 

 gama.' 



There is nothing to be found in Schoolcraft's nar- 

 rative to show that he penetrated south of' Itasca. 

 He speaks of an inlet to Lake Itasca leading from a 

 smaller lake to the south, but clearly did not visit 

 that smaller lake, and hence did not ' discover ' it. 

 Nor was it known to exist by Mr. Nicollet, who came 

 after him. The latter explorer states that there are 

 five creeks falling into Itasca. Captain Glazier dis- 

 covered six, the sixth originating in a lake (not a lake- 

 let) about five miles to the south of Itasca. This lake 

 was not known to Nicollet. It lies nearly due south 

 of the western arm of Itasca. He visited the others 

 (which are mere ponds), but missed the most impor- 

 tant one, probably owing to difiiculty of access, the 

 soil around it and for some distance from it being 

 extremely swampy, and its inlet to Lake Itasca com- 

 pletely hidden by the densest vegetation. Such an 

 inlet could not have been known to exist, except 

 from the information of the Indian whose hunting- 

 ground was in the immediate neighborhood. The 

 ' infant Mississippi ' flows from this lake, unknown 

 until Captain Glazier forced his way into it in 1881, 

 under the guidance of Chenowagesic. The lakelets 

 or ponds shown on Nicollet's map have nothing to do 

 with the source of the river ; and the map itself, so 

 far as Lake Itasca and its region are concerned, is 

 altogether misleading. Itasca has three arms or 

 bays, not two, as shewn on Nicollet's map. The 

 ' small lake south of and tributary to Lake Itasca ' 

 was not the lake discovered by the Glazier party ; 

 the lakes (or ponds) ' fully explored and mapped by 

 Nicollet ' did not include the Glazier Lake ; and those 

 ' surveyed, mapped, and named by the land office 

 prior to 1879 ' were mere lakelets or ponds, all of 

 them taken together considerably less in volume than 

 the one discovered by Glazier. Your correspondent 

 indulges in a glaring petitio j^rincipii in the para- 

 graph from which the above quotations are made. 



