ere is little
doubt left in the reader's mind, after perusing Captain Willard
Glazier's 'Down the Great River,' that we have all been in the
wrong about it, and that this most peerless river was born, not in
Itasca's sparkling springs, but in another wider and deeper lake
that lies still further south and bears the name of its discoverer,
the author of this interesting volume of exploration and adventure.
There is something charming in the simple thought of an expedition
such as the one undertaken by Captain Glazier. Imagine long, silent
days of absolutely unbroken communion with Nature! Slipping along
in a frail canoe, without the sound of an uncongenial human speech,
of clanging bells or grating wheels, through circling hours of
unbroken calm, with only the swish of bending reeds and lapping
waters to break the hush and remind one of a sentient world.
Perhaps the author and his Indian guides occasionally exchanged a
word, or the two white companions and himself indulged in a laugh
that started the rattling echoes of the hills, but there was no
chatter, no twaddle, no dissensions. The narrative reads like a
story. Reading it, one longs to start for LAKE GLAZIER to-morrow,
and thence descending, halt not in his long course until his
faithful canoe slips out into the waters of the Southern Gulf,
three thousand miles away. A man with a soul in him would rather
take such a trip with all its hardships and its perils than go on a
hundred cut-and-dried trips to Europe. The book is handsomely bound
and well illustrated."

* * * * *

_Chicago Herald._

"For half a century or more it has been understood that Lake Itasca
was the source of the Mississippi River, but Captain Willard
Glazier has exploded this theory by a canoe voyage undertaken in
1881. The results of his investigations were given to geographers
at the time and accepted as satisfactory and complete. Maps were at
once changed by the map publishers, and LAKE GLAZIER, a tributary
of Lake Itasca, was set down as the true source of the 'Father of
Waters.' The story of Captain Glazier's adventures is told by him
in a book entitled 'Down the Great River,' which is entertaining as
well as being of importance as a contribution to the geography and