Note 58 — Chapter III

Wisconsin takes its name from its principal river, which drains an extensive portion of its surface. It rises in Lake Vieux Desert (which is partly in Michigan and partly in Wisconsin), flows generally a south course to Portage, in what is now Columbia county, where it turns to the southwest, and, after a further course of one hundred and eighteen miles, with a rapid current, reaches the Mississippi river, four miles below Prairie du Chien. Its entire length is about four hundred and fifty miles, descending, in that distance, a little more than one thousand feet. Along the lower portion of the stream are the high lands or river hills. Some of these hills present high and precipitous faces towards the water. Others terminate in knobs. The name is supposed to have been taken from this feature; the word being derived from mis-si, great, and os-sin, a stone or rock.

Compare Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi, pp. 6 (note) and 268; Foster's Mississippi Valley, p. 2 (note); Schoolcraft's Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes, p. 220 and note.

Two definitions of the word are current—as widely differing from each other as from the one just given. (See Wis. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. I., p. 111, and Webster's Dic., Unabridged, p. 1632.) The first—"the gathering of the waters"—has no corresponding words in Algonquin at all resembling the name; the same may be said of the second—"wild rushing channel." (See Otchipwe Dic. of Rev. F. Baraga.)

Since first used by the French, the word "Wisconsin" has undergone considerable change. On the map by Joliet, recently brought to light by Gravier, it is given as "Miskonsing." In Marquette's journal, published by Thevenot, in Paris, 1681, it is noted as the "Meskousing." It appeared there for the first time in print. Hennepin, in 1683, wrote "Onisconsin" and "Misconsin;" Charlevoix, 1743, "Ouisconsing;" Carver, 1766, "Ouisconsin" (English—"Wisconsin"): since which last mentioned date, the orthography has been uniform.