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upon the desert plains, and snowy eminences, which fell within his track.

The entire field of the observations recorded in Long's first 'Expedition' (with unimportant exceptions) lies south of the Missouri. To investigate the regions north of that stream, and extending northeastwardly to include the Upper Lakes and the sources of the Mississippi, Governor Cass, of Michigan, set on foot an expedition under the sanction of the government, in 1819. This expedition, of which an account has been published, accomplished its object, during the following year. But the immense field which it traversed, and the number of large rivers tributary to the lakes and the Mississippi, which the party could not explore, rendered further examinations desirable. To effect this object, the active and distinguished officer, who had at once planned and executed the outlines of this survey, addressed a memoir to the Secretary of War, recommending further examinations, in detail, of the northwestern regions. We will quote the object of the proposed examinations, as expressed in the memoir. Officers employed upon such services, should be directed to observe the natural appearances of the country; its soil, timber, and productions; its general face and character; the height, direction, and composition of its hills; the number, size, rapidity, &c. of its streams; its geological structure and mineralogical products; and any facts, which may enable the public to appreciate its importance in the scale of territorial acquisitions, or which may serve to enlarge the sphere of natural science.'* In estimating the streams, respecting which it was deemed desirable to procure more accurate information than could be obtained from the vague and contradictory accounts of Indians and Indian traders,' the St Peter's and Red River of lake Winnipeek, as far as the fortyninth parallel of north latitude, were deemed of paramount

interest.

Such, agreeably to our means of information, were the secret springs of the 'Expedition to the Source of the St Peter's River,' &c. After some delay and hesitancy in its organization, colonel Long, who had conducted the previous journey to the Rocky Mountains, was assigned to this service. Two naturalists, a graduate of the military academy, acting as astronomer, and a landscape-painter, were associated. Dr James

* Detroit, September 20, 1820.

+ Ib.

declining to resume the situation he occupied in the former expedition, Mr Keating was selected to keep the minutes of the journey, under the somewhat too formal name of 'Historiographer.'

The party left Philadelphia on the thirtieth of April, 1823, and passing westward, by the route of Wheeling, Columbus, Wayne, and Chicago, struck the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien. From this point, a small escort of troops was added, under command of lieutenant Scott. The land party were eight days in travelling to Fort St Anthony, at the mouth of the St Peter's. The distance is stated at two hundred and eleven miles. Those who ascended by water, performed the journey in a little less time. The distance they traversed is estimated at two hundred and twenty miles.

At St Anthony, some changes were made in the escort, and lieutenant Denny joined it. To facilitate the ascent of the St Peter's the expedition was divided, part going by land, and part in canoes. The latter ascended no higher than the Crescent,' a name bestowed upon the bend of the river, one hundred and thirty miles (by water) above the fort, where they unfortunately upset their canoes, either damaged or lost their stores, and determined to complete the ascent of the valley by land. For this purpose horses were furnished by the party on shore, part of the guard of soldiers was sent back to the fort, and an over-land expedition was formed. The attempt to trace the channel of the river was given up. They still, however, kept near the river, and occasionally saw it, and visited it. They found primitive rocks in its bed in latitude 44° 41′ 45′′, which they infer to be about the parellel in which governor Cass's party saw the last granite formations, in their descent of the Mississippi in 1820.

They continued the ascent to Big Stone lake, three hundred and twenty-five miles by land, and five hundred by water, as estimated, from the Mississippi. Above this lake, the St Peter's dwindles to a stream seven yards wide, but may still be ascended as far as the Coteau des Prairies, a ridge intervening between the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri; of which, it would have been extremely interesting to receive some account. No observations appear to have been made upon the atmospheric temperature, but from the nature and growth of the forest trees and plants, which the party witnessed upon the lower part of the river (Narrative, vol. I. p. 233)

it may be inferred that it possesses a temperate climate.* The rattlesnake, they were told, has been killed as far north as its source. The prairies, in some parts, present a rich, black soil, covered with luxuriant grasses; in others, they are sandy and sterile. The stream itself, they remark, is not calculated to become of much importance, considered as a channel of communication with the North. And if ever the commerce of that region shall justify any attempt to improve the natural channels of communication, which, by the way, we seriously doubt, it will be found that the route to Red river, through the river De Corbeau and Otter Tail lake, affords the greatest facilities.

The St Peter's, in its whole length, lies in the territories of the Dacota, or Sioux nation, estimated by Mr Keating at twenty-five thousand souls. This estimate is, we think, about fifteen thousand too high. From Big Stone lake, a journey of three miles brought the party to the head of lake Travers, which has its outlet northward, through Red river and lake Winnepeek, into Hudson's Bay. Along the line, of this route, keeping for the most part near the water courses, the party proceeded to Pembina. Here they exchanged their horses for Chippewa canoes, pursued the current of Red river to lake Winnepeek, thence, by the usual route of the traders, to river Winnepeek, up that stream to the lake of the Woods, and thence through Rainy river and Rainy lake, and the connecting chain of waters, to fort William, on the north shore of lake Superior. At the last point, the party abandoned their canoes, and proceeded in an open boat around the Canadian shores of the lake, to its outlet, the river St Mary's, and thence down that stream to the Falls, or (as we perceive the term to be sanctioned by usage) Sault Sainte Marie (M. T.), where the 'Narrative' of the Expedition properly closes. The gentlemen of the party continued in their boat to Michilimackinac, and returning through the lakes, by the way of Detroit, Buffalo, and Niagara, reached Philadelphia on the twenty-sixth of October, having been absent a little short of six months, and travelled, by esti

* From the comparative tables of Dr Lovel, Fort St Anthony appears to possess the mean annual temperature of Eastport (Maine), situated in the same parallel; with this difference, that the summers on the Mississippi are much hotter, and the winters much colder, than in the corresponding latitude on the Atlantic.

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mation, upwards of four thousand five hundred miles, averaging over twenty-five miles per diem, all stops and delays included.

It is not our intention, at the present time, to enter into an examination of the work, which was published as the result of this Expedition. Shortly after its appearance, it was reviewed in this Journal; and although the writer of the present article might not feel himself able to unite in all the opinions expressed on that occasion of the merit of the work, it will be inexpedient, after so long a lapse of time, to engage in a renewed examination of it. Our object, at present, is to offer our readers some notices of an important member of the family of North American Indians, the description of which occupies a considerable space in the 'Narrative' of Colonel Long's Expedition; we mean the Chippewas. This nation, from their remote and secluded position, on our extreme northwestern frontiers, have hitherto been less perfectly known to us, than the Shawanoes and Wyandots, and other more southerly tribes, whom it was our fate to encounter, at an earlier period, both in the council and in the field. Though speaking one of the great parent languages, which characterize the Indians of our continent, they had separated from the Algonquins, who retain the original tongue, and migrated westward, before the arrival of the French in the St Lawrence. They were first brought to our notice by the missionary writers, under the appellations of Ouchepouas' and Saulteurs.' The term Chippeways,' which occurs in Washington's report of his mission to Le Bœuf, addressed to governor Dinwiddie, very nearly preserves the sounds represented by the modern orthography of the word.

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The main body of the tribe is now placed where it was found by the earliest discoverers, upon the shores of lake Superior, extending northward with the boundary line of the Union, westward to the Mississippi and Red river, and southerly to the source of Black river, and the northern curve of Green Bay. In a message communicated to the senate, by the president of the United States in 1825, the whole number of Chippewas and Ottowas, inhabiting the territory of Michigan, in its utmost extent, is stated at eighteen thousand four hundred and seventy-three. In an official report made the year before, the number of Chippewas inhabiting the southern shores of lake Superior, and the sources of the Mississippi, is stated at seven thousand three hundred and twenty-four. This is, of course, exclusive of the band living at Sagana, erroneously

stated by Mr Keating to be a tribe of Ottowas,'* and of those portions of the nation living in a dispersed state amongst the Ottowas, Pottowattomies, Kenistenos, and Monomonies, and exclusive also of the kindred tribes of the Muskegoes, and the Nöpeming Inineewuk, inhabiting the Canadian borders of lake Superior.

The country in which it has thus been their destiny to be arrested in a life of migrations and warfare, is, for the most part, sterile and forbidding. It affords few of the advantages, either for the savage or civilized state, which swell the catalogue of good things, that usually attach men to the land of their nativity. Game is pursued as the sole means of a livelihood, and they rely wholly upon the traders, who visit them annually, to make their exchanges. They are not, like the Ottowas and the Cherokees, either pseudo-agriculturists or pseudo-manufacturers. No corn is planted, and no vegetable food is raised by them. The canoe and the war-club, the drum and the pipe, the mat of rushes and the sack of bark, complete the round of their mechanical arts. The wild rice which grows spontaneously in many of their small lakes and streams, is gathered by those whose position is favorable. They live, in the main, now, as they lived before the discovery of the continent, without the use of salt! Every year is cutting short the race of furred animals, upon which they depend. Their resources are so nearly balanced with their wants, that slight casualties, such as a change in the run of animals, tempests, or sickness, subject them to privations and sufferings, at which the heart shudders. With means thus diminished, and diminishing; with a climate of almost polar severity, and a soil that cannot, to any great extent, be tilled; when the beaver and the muskrat fail, their prospect must be gloomy. Yet they are Yet they are pleased with the land of their forefathers, and are happy when not under the immediate pressure of want.

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It has been the misfortune of this tribe, as respects their intercourse with our government, to have left behind them in the track of their migrations, or to have sent out from the parent stock, many of their enterprising or discontented brethren, who, settling on the lands of their kindred tribes, the Ottowas and the Pottowattomies, have had the address to pass as the

* Narrative, vol. ii. p. 122.

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