Note II-5 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: ST. PAUL TO LEECH LAKE, SEPTEMBER 22D, 1805-JANUARY 31ST, 1806.

The rapids Pike thus ascends to the falls, and the comparative characters of the two gorges, of the Mississippi and Minnesota respectively, which unite at Fort Snelling, indicate that in prehistoric time the falls were located about the position of the fort. But there has been no natural recession within the brief historic period—merely a momentary flash on the screen of geologic duration. The most marked alteration of the falls that we know of was the accidental result of an unintended interference by man. This happened from the bursting of a log-boom. "Behind the boom were thousands of logs two or three feet across and twelve feet long. These descending by the fall probably acquired a velocity of not less than 64 feet a second, and striking endwise on the débris of the hard copping rock pulverized it so that the undermining of the soft sand rock which this débris protected went on with great rapidity," Warren, Ex. Doc. No. 57, 1866-7, p. 19. On July 5th, 1880, the Minn. Hist. Soc. celebrated the bi-centennial of the discovery of the falls, and there is no question that they were first seen of white men by the two companions of Accault within a few hours of July 5th, 1680, if not by the light of that very day. The occasion was a buffalo-hunt down river from the great Sioux town on Lake Buade (Mille Lacs), when the Indians brought the Picard and the priest (two of their three prisoners) along. The falls were named by Hennepin Sault de St. Antoine de Padoü (so map, 1683) "in gratitude for the favors done me by the Almighty through the intercession of that great saint whom we had chosen patron and protector of all our enterprises," as Shea's tr. Hennep., 1880, p. 200, puts it. What these favors were is not evident in the light of history; according to Hennepin's own relation, God's gracious designs, whatever they may have been, were effectually disconcerted by the Sioux, who took this slavish son of superstition by the nape of the neck and otherwise subjected him to dire indignities; while as to the monk Anthony, that Franciscan was born at Lisbon, Aug. 15th, 1195, died at Padua, June 13th, 1231, and there is not a scintilla of evidence that he did anything whatever subsequent to this latter date. We might laugh off even so glaring an anachronism as a mere theological pleasantry which deceives no one, were it not for the injustice it does to La Salle, who furnished the sinews of war for Accault's, Auguelle's, and Hennepin's campaign, and was the only person who patronized their trip, saving the said Sioux, who turned it into a personally conducted tour like our modern Cook's. "Saut St. Antoine" appears on Franquelin's map, 1688. The Sioux called these falls Minirara, the laughing water, whence Minnehaha. In Dakotan ira means to laugh, and the reduplicated form irara means to laugh much or often; but ira is compounded of i, the mouth, and ra, to curl; and in its application to the falls rara, which is simply ra reduplicated, should be translated curling and not laughing waters. Ungeographical transfer of Minnehaha to Brown's falls is simply poetical license. The Chip. name was Kakabikah, alluding to the severed rock. Hennepin calls the falls "something very astonishing," indeed "terrible," more suo crasso, and exaggerated the descent of waters to 50 or 60 feet. Carver brings him to book about this, and reduces the height to 30 feet. Pike's figures are very close indeed, and his description is the most accurate we had in 1810; Long makes the height practically the same, but Pike's breadth of 627 yards was reduced by Say and Calhoun in 1823 to 594. In view of these good measurements it is surprising that Schoolcraft elevates the falls to 40 feet perpendicular, and narrows the width to 227 yards. He was a man of great ability and still greater industry, whose acquirements were extensive and varied; yet he must be taken warily, for there is many a loose screw in his handiwork, and no structure is stronger than its weakest joint. The trouble with Schoolcraft is two-fold; he tried to cover too much ground to go over it thoroughly, and never emerged from the penumbra of that same theological occultation which kept Hennepin's wits in total eclipse. The natural beauty of this cataract was not destined to be a thing of joy forever; one's emotions, on beholding it now, are those that might be aroused by any mill-tail of similar dimensions. But the new beauty of utility has been conferred by human skill and ingenuity in utilizing the vast water-power, to which Minneapolis measurably owes her matchless progress and present opulence; pop. 1870, 13,000; 1880, 47,000; 1885, 129,000; now or lately, 220,000; thus surpassing the 190,000 of her elder sister, St. Paul—in fact becoming the alter ego of the wonderful pair. Considering the rapid building up of the fair interurban district, and consequently the absorption of respective suburbs into mutualities, it is logical to infer the complete Siamization of the splendid twins, and a clutch at the laurels of Chicago or New York. By that time such scenes as the Mississippi has here transferred to the canvas of human art will be shifted to the Great Falls of the Missouri, where history will repeat itself in another magnificent metropolis. Everything begins in watery elements; the force of falling water controls the course of empire; and the conversion of gravitational potentialities into electrical potencies realizes dreams of destiny, without the intercession of saints or the interference of God.