This I accomplished with
great toil, owing to the low state of the water, in ten days; and, after
spending ten days more in traversing the lengthened shores and bays of
Lake Superior from _La Pointe_, returned to Sault St. Marie on the 14th
of August.
_Aug. 15th_. I had now accomplished the discovery of the true source of
the Mississippi River--and settled a problem which has so long remained
a subject of uncertainty in the geography of this celebrated river. If
De Soto began it (and of this there seems little question, for Narvaez
perished before reaching it), and Marquette and Joliet continued it; if
Hennepin and Pike and Cass carried these explorations higher, I, at
least, went to its remoter points, and thence traced the river to its
primary forks--ascended the one, crossed the heights of Itasca to the
other, and descended the latter in its whole length. This has been done
in a quiet way, without heralding or noise, but under the orders and at
the expense of the United States.
CHAPTER XLV.
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