AJ-051: Marquette, Mississippi Voyage (1673)

              

236    EARLY NARRATIVES OF THE
NORTHWEST    [1673

shoals that
render its navigation very difficult. It is full
of
islands covered with vines. On the banks one sees
fertile
land, diversified with woods, prairies, and
hills. There are
oak, walnut, and basswood trees; and
another kind, whose
branches are armed with long thorns.
We saw there neither
feathered game nor fish, but many
deer, and a large number
of cattle. Our route lay to the
southwest, and, after navigat-
ing about thirty leagues,
we saw a spot presenting all the ap-
pearances of an iron
mine; and, in fact, one of our party who
had formerly
seen such mines, assures us that the one which
we found
is very good and very rich. It is covered with three
feet
of good soil, and is quite near a chain of rocks, the
base
of which is covered by very fine trees.1 After
proceeding
40 leagues on this same route, we arrived at
the mouth of our
river; and, at 42 and a half degrees of
latitude, we safely
entered Missisipi on the 17th of
June, with a joy that I cannot
express.2

Section
4. Of the Great River called Missisipi; its most
notable
    Features; of various
Animals, and especially the
Pisikious
    or Wild Cattle, their
Shape and Nature; of the First
Vil-
    lages of the Ilinois, where
the French arrived.
    Here we are,
then, on this so renowned river, all of whose
peculiar
features I have endeavored to note carefully.
The
Missisipi River takes its rise in various lakes in
the country
of the northern nations. It is narrow at the
place where
Miskous empties; its current, which flows
southward, is slow
and gentle. To the right is a large
chain of very high moun-
tains, and to the left are
beautiful lands; in various places,
the stream is divided
by islands. On sounding, we found ten
brasses of water.
Its width is very unequal; sometimes it is
three-quarters
of a league, and sometimes it narrows to three
arpents.3
We gently followed its course, which runs toward
the
south and southeast, as far as the 42nd degree of
latitude.
    1 The traces of a mine
seen here were probably those of the lead mines
of
southwestern Wisconsin.
    2
In 1910 a monument to Marquette was dedicated at Prairie du
Chien,
near the point where he entered the
Mississippi.
    3 I. e., about 600
feet.