nions, in opposition to my wish that it should
retain its Indian appellation.

"Finally, whatever the verdict may be upon the merits of my claim
to have been the first to locate the _source_ of the Mississippi
River and publish it to the world, if any person had seen this lake
prior to 1881 it was certainly not known to the white residents of
Northern Minnesota, or to the Indian tribes in the vicinity of its
headwaters. Lake Itasca was still recognized as the fountain-head,
was so placed upon maps, and taught as such in all the schools of
the country.

"I simply claim to have established the fact that there is a
beautiful lake above and beyond Itasca--wider and deeper than that
lake--with woodland shores--with three constantly flowing streams
for its feeders--and in every way worthy of the position it
occupies as the primal reservoir or TRUE SOURCE of the Father of
Waters.

"Willard Glazier.
Syracuse, New York, December, 1886."

* * * * *

A letter from Pearce Giles, of Camden, New Jersey, who was identified
with the GLAZIER expedition from its inception to its close:

"_To the Editor--Boston Herald_:

"In 1832 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft led an expedition through the wilds
of Northern Minnesota and discovered what he believed to be the
source of the Mississippi. Being at a loss for an appropriate name
to bestow upon the lake which constituted this supposed source, so
the story goes, he asked a companion what were the Latin words
signifying 'true head,' and received in reply '_veritas caput_.'
This was rather a ponderous name to give a comparatively small body
of water, even though the Father of Waters here took his first
start in the world. The explorer, therefore, conceived the idea of
uniting the last two syllables of the first word with the first
syllable of the second, thus, by a novel mode of orthography,
forming a name which might easily pass for one of Indian
origin--_Itasca_. A person versed in orthographical science would
probably perceive at once that the name did not belong to the same
family of harsh Indian appellations which have affixed themselves
permanently to many towns and rivers in Wisconsin and Minnesota,
but was more allied to the softer langua