XXIV 



INTRODUCTION. 



without difficulty, the shelter of the warehouse, where we made him as comfortable 

 as the circumstances permitted, and used every means in our power to save him ; 

 ineffectually, however, for he died about four o'clock next morning. 



In the category of accidents that befell us that year, is to be included one, which 

 came near having a fatal termination. It occurred while I was ascending the Upper 

 Des Moines. Our bowsman (as the voyageur who manages the bow paddle is called) 

 having discharged his rifle at a deer, had reloaded it, and, in the excitement of the 

 chase, had hastily laid it down beside another gun, on the forward thwart of the 

 canoe, with the muzzle imprudently pointing, in a direct line, towards myself; I 

 being seated, with Mr. B. C. Macy, in the centre of the canoe. A sudden jerk of 

 the boat caused the discharge of the rifle. Had not the breech of the other gun 

 chanced to lie slantingly across the muzzle of the discharged piece, this Report, in 

 all probability, would have been completed by some one else than its present author. 

 As it was, the ball struck the brass mounting of the other piece, which, together 

 with the stock of the gun, it shattered to pieces, being itself split up into several 

 fragments, and diverted from its original direction. Of the fragments, three passed 

 through, and severely lacerated, the deltoid muscle of my left arm ; and two others, 

 probably portions of the mounting, wounded Mr. Macy ; one, pretty badly, on the 

 cap of the knee, and another, which was afterwards extracted, on the face. Besides 

 these, both of us received several slighter wounds ; the coat which I wore being 

 perforated by more than a dozen holes. No more serious consequences, however, 

 resulted, than that Mr. Macy, for many days, could scarcely step in or out of the 

 canoe, and that I was disabled for a few weeks. 



The next year, my principal assistant, Dr. Norwood, came very near losing his 

 life, like Dr. Houghton, on Lake Superior. One of those sudden squalls, so common 

 on that sea-like body of water, arose, while the party, in their bark canoe, were, at 

 some distance from shore. Before they could effect a landing, the waves already 

 ran so high, that the voyageurs were unable to manage the light bark, which was 

 dashed on shore and broken to pieces ; all the party, however, escaping with their 

 lives. 



There is a risk, against which all surveying parties, whether geological or linear, 

 would do well, in such a country as this, carefully to provide ; as unforeseen and 

 unexpected delays, at portages and elsewhere, sometimes of necessity occur : it is 

 the failure of provisions. We have frequently, notwithstanding the utmost pru- 

 dence, exhausted the last pound of eatables, and travelled a day or more, without 

 breaking our fasts. On one occasion, a single pigeon supplied a corps of three men 

 during three days ; but only one of my company was ever reduced to the same 

 extremity as a party of United States linear surveyors, who, when running a meri- 

 dian line, reached Lake Superior in a state of exhaustion and emaciation from 

 hunger, which disqualified them, for some time, from proceeding with their work. 



