Featherstonhaiigh^s Geological Report. 



129 



the right bank, and not from the east, the intervening space 

 being occupied by the present main channel. From the top of 

 Trempe a PeaUy its whole history is seen at a glance : the 

 eastern bluffs are distant at least five miles from it, and in one 

 part recede still more; an extensive prairie, having few or no 

 trees, extending east and west about twenty-five miles, and 

 from five to six miles wide, north-by-east, by compass, sep- 

 arating this out-lier from those bluffs to the east. It is evident 

 that the Mississippi has once passed north of this out-lier, 

 has covered the prairie, then a lake, and has coasted the dis- 

 tant eastern bluffs. This affords another incontrovertible 

 instance of that remarkable reduction of the fresh-water level 

 of this continent, before alluded to, at which period the con- 

 tracted channel left the then lake, and cut off the Trempe a 

 Peau from the right bank. Ompedo Wakeen, brother to 

 Wabeshah, a celebrated chief of a neighboring band of Naco- 

 tahsj told me, on the evening of the day I visited the place, 

 that the Indians called it Minnay Chonkahah, or Bluff in the 

 water, and that they resorted to it at the beginning of the 

 wild-geese season, to make offerings to Wakon, or the deity, 

 for success in hunting. 



A few miles higher up, there is another prairie on the right 

 bank, where Wabeshah's band have their lodges ; and about 

 half way from this place to Lake Pepin, is another, on the same 

 side of the river, still more extensive, and bordered with cedar 

 trees. Having a copy of Carver's Travels with me, and having 

 always found his descriptions deserving of very great confi- 

 dence, I had been anxious to discover a remarkable locality 

 he speaks of,* and which, from the doubts expressed by other 



* *' One day, havincr landed on the shore of the Mississippi, some niiles below 

 Lake Pepin, whilst my attendants were preparing my dinner, I walked out to take 

 a view of the adjacent country. I had not proceeded far before I came to a fine, 

 level, open plain, on which I perceived, at a little distance, a partial elevation, that 

 had the appearance of an intrenchment. On a nearer inspection I had greater rea- 

 son to suppose that it had really been intended for this many centuries ago. Not- 

 withstanding it was now covered with gras:i, I could plainly discern that it had 



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