THE GEOJRGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 237 



We stood luckless spectators, to gaze and envy, while he advanced. The lighted flam- 

 beau in his hand brought the splendid furniture of this tesselated palace into view ; 

 the surface of the jostled pool laved his sides as he advanced, and the rich stalagmites 

 that grew up from the bottom reflected a golden light through the water, while the 

 walls and ceiling were hung with stalactites which glittered like diamonds. 



In this wise he stood in silent gaze, in awe and admiration of the hidden works 

 of nature ; his figure, as high as the surface of the water, was magnified into a giant, 

 and his head and shoulders not unfit for a cyclop ; in fact, ho was a perfect figure of 

 Vulcan. The water in which he stood was a lake of liquid fire. He held a huge 

 hammer in his right hand, and a flaming thunderbolt in his left, which he had just 

 forged for Jupiter. There was but one thing wanting, it was the " sound of the ham- 

 mer," which was soon given in peals upon the beautiful pendants of stalactite and 

 spar, which sent back and through the cavern the hollow tones of thunder. — G. C, 

 pages 148, 149, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years. 



Julien Dubuque (called by the Indians "Little Mght") was born in 

 France in 1764, and removed to Canada when a boy. 



He was of an adventurous spirit, and with two companions, in 1782, 

 came to the United States and settled at Prairie du Chien, now Wis- 

 consin, in 1783. He and his two friends also built a trading village at 

 Prairie du Chien in 1783 as a rival to the post. The site of this village 

 is now within the limits of the present city of Prairie du Chien. He 

 afterwards built a trading-post near the present town of McGregor, 

 Iowa. 



He lived at Prairie du Chien for several years and traded amongst 

 the Indians. "At this place, September 22, 1788, the chiefs of the Fox 

 Indians, who lived in a village near the present city of Dubuque, on 

 the west side of the Mississippi River," by a signed agreement conveyed 

 to him a tract of land at the Spanish mines, 740 miles above Saint Louis, 

 on the Mississippi River. The conveyance was for occupation and 

 working the mines within the tract conveyed. This was. the first con- 

 veyance of title to lands by Indians to a white man within the bound- 

 aries of the present State of Iowa, and on the grant Dubuque made the 

 first white man's settlement in Iowa. 



In 1794 he applied for and received a confirmation of his Indian grant 

 from Baron de Carondolet, the Spanish governor. It contained a con- 

 dition that he should not trade with the Indians — only mine — without 

 the written consent of Don Andrew Todd, a merchant and Indian- 

 trader, to whom Carondolet referred Dubuque's petition. Dubuque 

 mined his lead mines, and the product was used by the Indians and 

 whites of the West for many years. Several of the pipes in the original 

 Catlin collection were ornamented with bands of lead from his mine. 

 He married a Fox woman, Potosa, and became a man of influence with 

 the Indians of the Mississippi country. He was a man of character and 

 was respected by all who came in contact with him. He died March 

 24, 1810, at his mines, and was buried on the bluff, as shown by Mr. 

 Catlin's picture, No. 330. Catfish Creek, a small stream, here empties 

 into the Mississippi. 



The grave was originally surrounded by a wall of limestone. 



