164 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



According to Lewis and Clarke, the Indians of Columbia river eat the roots of a spe- 

 cies of thistle, fern, rush, liquorice, and a email cylindric root, resembling in flavour and 

 consistency the sweet potato. 



NOTE H H. 



This production has been used by the Indians from time immemorial. In a curious 

 book, entitled A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards 

 called Florida, and by the French La Louisiane, &c. by Daniel Coxe, Esq. printed, 

 London, 1741, it is thus described : "Besides, this country naturally affords another sort 

 of excellent corn, which is the most like oats of any European grain, but longer and larger ; 

 and I have been assured by many very credible persons, who, out of curiosity, had divers 

 ways prepared it, that it far exceeds our best oatmeal. This is not sown and cultivated 

 by the Indians, but grows spontaneously in marshy places, in and by the sides of rivers, 

 like reeds or rushes. The Indians, when it is ripe, take handfulls, shake them into their 

 canoes ; what escapes them falling into the water, without any further trouble produces 

 the next year's crop." Hearne saw it as far north as Churchill river, near the 60th de- 

 gree of north latitude. Ellis, in his account of A Voyage to Discover a North West 

 Passage, mentions, that there are great quantities of wild rice by the sides of the lakes 

 and rivers which run into Hudson's Bay, between the 50th and 55th degrees of north lati- 

 tude. On the 21st September, Pike stopped at a Sioux village, between Pepin and the 

 Falls of St. Anthony, and in about 44 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, and found it 

 evacuated, all the Indians having gone out to gather fols avoin ; and he says, that the 

 Indian traders chiefly depend for their support upon wild oats, of which they purchase 

 great quantities from the savages ; and that at an establishment on Red Cedar Lake, near 

 the Mississippi, in the 47th degree of latitude, they give one dollar and fifty cents per 

 bushel for it. The Menomeni, a nation of Indians inhabiting on the north west of Lake 

 Michigan, are called, by the French, Fols Avoins, from this plant, which grows in great 

 plenty among them. Henry, in his Travels in Canada and the Indian Territories, bought 

 wild rice at Lake Sagunai in great abundance ; he says it grows in shoal water, and the 

 Indians gather it by shaking the ears into canoes. Hennepin says, that among the Fols 

 Avoins it appears above the water in June, and is gathered in September, and that it pro- 

 duces more meal than European oats. Mackenzie asserts, that the Indians, on Lake Sa- 

 genuja, depend principally for food upon fish, and wild rice which grows spontaneously in 



