Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

immediately returned to the city of New York to prepare for the journey.

      The year 1820 had commenced with severe weather, the Hudson being frozen hard, as high as West Point, on the 1st of January; and there was a fall of snow between the 10th and 11th of February, which laid four feet deep in the streets of New York. March opened with mildness, and every appearance denoted an early spring, which led me to hasten my movement north. I left New York on the 5th of March, in the citizens' post-coach, on sleighs, for Albany, taking the route through Westchester, and over the Highlands of Putnam and Dutchess; sleeping at Fishkill and Kinderhook, the first and second nights, and reaching Albany on the morning of the 7th, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles. This distance we made in forty hours actual travelling, averaging four miles per hour, incidental stops included, which is about the rate of travelling by the trekschuits of Holland, [6] and by sledges over the frozen grounds of Russia. [7] In crossing the Highlands, some one, in the change of the stage-sleighs, pilfered a small box of choice minerals which I set store by; the thief thinking, probably, from the weight and looks of the box, which had been a banker's, that it was still filled with coin. We crossed the Hudson from Greenbush, in a boat drawn through a channel cut in the ice. Snow still laid in the streets of Albany, and a cold north wind presaged a change of temperature. Next day there was a hail-storm from the northwest, with rain and sleet, and on the morning of the 9th, the hail lay six inches deep in the streets. In the evening, proceeded by stage to the city of Schenectady, a distance of sixteen miles, across the arenaceous tract of the Pine Plains, by a turnpike, which forms the shorter line of a triangle, made by the junction of the Mohawk with the Hudson River. This tract is bounded southerly by the blue summits of the Helderberg, a prominent spur of the Catskill Mountain. At Schenectady, we experienced a night of severe cold, and the next day, at an early hour, I took a seat in the stage-sleigh for Utica, which we reached at seven in the evening. The distance is ninety-six miles, which we passed in seventeen hours, going an average rate of five miles per hour. The road lies up the valley of the Mohawk, a name which recalls the history of one of the most celebrated members of the Iroquois, a confederacy of bold and indomitable tribes, who, at an early day, either pushed their conquests or carried the terror of their arms from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi.

       The winter was still unbroken, and the weather had assumed so unpropitious an aspect, since leaving New York, that there was no probability of the navigation of the lakes being open so as to embark at Buffalo before May. I proceeded seventeen miles west to my father's residence, in the village of Vernon, to await the development of milder weather. On the 10th of April, I resumed my journey, taking the western stage, which had left Utica at two o'clock in the morning. We lodged the first night at Skeneateles, at the foot of the beautiful and sylvan lake of the same name, and reached Geneva the next day, at one o'clock in the afternoon. The roads were now dry and dusty; indeed, the last traces of snow had been seen in sheltered positions, in passing through Oneida County, and every appearance in the Ontario country indicated a season ten days more advanced than the valley of the Mohawk. The field poplar put forth leaves on the 18th, and apricots were in bloom on the 22d.

      At Geneva I remained until the 28th of April, when I again took my seat in the mail-stage, passing, in the course of the day, the lower margin of Canandaigua Lake, and through the attractive and tastefully laid-out village of the same name, and, after continuing the route through a most fertile country, with a constantly expanding vegetation, reached Avon, on the banks of the Genesee River. Here we slept. The next morning (the 29th), we crossed this noble stream, and, after a long and fatiguing day's staging, reached Buffalo in the evening. I was now at an estimated distance of two hundred and ten miles west of Utica, and three hundred and twenty-two from Albany. We had found the peach and apple-tree in blossom, and the vegetation generally in an advanced state, until reaching within eight or ten miles of Lake Erie, where the force of the winds, and the bodies of floating ice, evidently had the effect to retard vegetation. No vessel had yet ventured from the harbor, and although the steamer Walk-in-the-Water was advertised for the 1st of May, it was determined to delay her sailing until the 6th. This gave me time to visit Niagara [8] Falls, and some other places of historical interest in the neighborhood. This object I executed immediately, taking a horse and buggy, and keeping down the American shore. The distance is twenty-two miles, in which the Tonewanda River is crossed by a bridge. The day was clear and warm, with a light breeze blowing down the river. I stopped several times to listen for the sound of the Falls, but at the distance of fifteen, ten, eight, and even five miles, could not distinguish any; the course of the wind being, indeed, adverse to the transmission of sound, in that direction, until reaching within some two or three miles. There is nothing in the character of the country, in the approach from Buffalo, to apprise the visitor of the difference in its level and geological stratification, and thus prepare the mind to expect a cataract. It is different, I afterwards learned, in the approach from Lewiston, in which quite a mountain must first be ascended, when views are often had of the most striking parts of the gulf, which has been excavated by the passage of the Niagara River. It was not easy for me to erect standards of comparison for the eye to estimate heights. The ear is at first stunned by the incessant roar, and the eye bewildered by the general view. I spent two days at the place, and thus became familiarized with individual traits of the landscape. I found the abyss at the foot of the Falls to be the best spot for accomplishing that object. By far the greatest disproportion in the Falls exists between the height and great width of the falling sheet. The water is most thick and massy at the Horseshoe Fall, which gives one the most striking and vivid idea of creative power. In fitting positions in the gulf, with good incidences of light, the Falls look like a mighty torrent pouring down from the clouds. At the time of my visit, the wind drove immense fields of ice out of Lake Erie, with floating trees and other driftwood, but I never saw any vestiges of these below the Falls. In front of the column of water falling on the American side, there stood an enormous pyramid of snow, or congealed spray.

      What has been said by Goldsmith, and repeated by others, respecting the destructive influence of the Rapids above to ducks and water-fowl is imaginary—at least, as to the American sheet. So far from it, I saw the wild ducks swim down the Rapid, as if in pursuit of some article of food, and then rise and fly out at the brink, and repeat the descent, as if delighted with the gift of wings, which enabled them to sport over such frightful precipices without danger. I found among the debris in the abyss, pieces of hornstone, and crystals of calcareous spar, radiated quartz, sulphuret of zinc, and sulphate of lime. Its geology is best explained by observing that the river, in falling over the precipice of the Niagara ridge into the basin of Lake Ontario, leaps over horizontal strata of limestone, slate, and red sandstone. In this respect, nothing can be more simple and plain. It is magnitude alone that makes the cataract sublime.

      On returning to Buffalo, I found the lake rapidly discharging its ice, which had been recently broken up by a storm of wind; and, while awaiting the motion of the steamer, I was joined by Captain D. B. Douglass, Professor of Engineering at West Point, who had been appointed topographer and astronomer of the expedition. We embarked on the 6th of May, at nine o'clock in the morning, in the steamer Walk-in-the-Water, an elegant and conveniently-planned vessel, with a low-pressure Fulton engine. This boat had been put upon the lake two years before, when it made a trip to Michilimackinac, and was, indeed, the initial boat in the history of steam navigation on the Lakes. We embarked at Black Rock, and it was necessary to use a tow-line, drawn by oxen on the shore, to enable the boat to ascend the Rapids. This Captain Rodgers, a gentlemanly man, facetiously termed his hornbreeze. The oxen were dismissed a short distance before reaching the mouth of Buffalo Creek, where we reached the level of Lake Erie, five hundred and sixty feet above the tide-waters of the Hudson River. [9] We were favored with clear weather, and, a part of the time, with a fair wind. The boat touched at Erie, at the mouth of Grand River, at Cleveland, and at Portland, in Sandusky Bay, on coming out of which we passed Cunningham Island, and the Put-in-Bay Islands, from a harbor in which Perry issued to achieve his memorable naval victory on the 10th of September, 1813. Passing through another group of islands, called the Three Sisters, we entered the mouth of the Detroit River late on the afternoon of the 8th, just as the light became dim and shadowy. The scale of these waters is magnificent. We had a glimpse of the town and fort of Malden, or Amherstburg, and of Boisblanc, and Gross Isle, which were the last objects distinctly seen in our ascent. The boat pushed on her way, under the guidance of good pilots, although the night was dark, and we reached our destination,