GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 231 
Isabella, Catawba, and Clinton grape do well; large vineyards havo been started. Wild apples, 
plums, and grapes everywhere abound, and it is believed that cultivated fruits will flourish; 
but as the smoke is yet issuing from the camp fires but recently deserted by the Indians, time 
has not been given to test its adaptation to the raising of fruit; 200,000 industrious whites now 
inhabit this State, which ten years ago had not fifty white families within its limits. What 
better test can be required of its adaptation to the wants of a laboring population? Iron ore 
is abundant, and in the northeastern portion of the State copper, silver, and other ores are 
found. Thus, looking to Minnesota alone, we have in the general vicinity of the northern 
route an area of 83,000 square miles, furnishing at least 53,000,000 acres of arable land, where 
all the vegetables and all the cereals obtain the highest perfection, and over a large portion of 
which the Indian corn also thrives. 
PLATEAU OF THE BOIS DE SIOUX 
The Red River of the North receives from the west many tributaries, of which the most 
important is the Wild Rice river, the Shyenne, the Maple, and Elm rivers. The Shyenne has ` 
its source near the 101st meridian, flows generally on a duc east course about three degrees, 
then making a great bend to the southward from 47° 40/ of latitude, courses eastward along 
the parallel of 46° 40’ until it joins the waters of the Red River of the North. These rivers 
may be described as follows: Wild Rice river, the next towards the east, arises south of the 
great bend of the Shyenne, and at the border of the Cóteau des Prairies, then flowing in a 
winding course towards the northeast for about a hundred miles, joins Red river in latitude 
46° 48’, The Bois de Sioux also arises at the foot of the côteau, in a lake twelve miles long, 
called Lake Traverse, and after a course of thirty-five miles nearly straight towards the N.N E., 
joins Red river at latitude 46° 20’. 
Lieutenant Pope found the average depth of this branch three feet, so that there seems to be 
no obstacle to a communication through it with the Minnesota, if a connexion is made between 
Lake Traverse and Big Stone lake above the mouth of this branch. Red river has a depth of 
from 21 to 4 feet, and is often called the Otter Tail, from the name of the lake in which it rises 
thirty miles nearly due east. These three streams uniting form a body of water but little larger 
than the Shyenne, with which it unites about latitude 41910. Thence the course of Red 
river is nearly north until it crosses the boundary, and its depth increases from four to fifteen 
feet, the whole navigable distance from Lake Traverse being 462 miles, though it does not 
continue so for more than eighty miles north of latitude 49°, where falls and rapids occur. 
Two of the most important landmarks west of the general region of the Bois de Sioux are the 
Cóteau des Prairies and the Dead Colt Hillock, the former of which is described by Nicollet 
as follows: The basin of the Upper Mississippi is separated from that of the Missouri by an 
elevated plain, the appearance of which seen from the valley of the St. Peters, (Minnesota,) or 
that of the Rivière à Jacques, looming as if it were a distant shore, has suggested for it the 
name of Cóteau des Prairies. Its more appropriate designation would be that of plateau, which 
means something more than is conveyed to the mind by the expression a plain. Its northern 
extremity is in latitude 46°, extending south to 43°; after which it loses distinctive elevation 
above the surrounding plains and passes into rolling prairies; its length is about 200 miles, and 
its general direction N. NW. and S.SE. 
