It was the 9th (Aug.) at half-past ten in the morning before the expedition left the Prairie to ascend the Wisconsin, the mouth of which we reached after descending the Mississippi three miles. This is an impressive scene--the bold cliffs of the west bank of the Mississippi, with Pike's-hill rising in front on the west, while those of the Wisconsin Valley stand at but little less elevation on the north and south. At this season of the year the water is clear and placid, and mingles itself in its mighty recipient without disturbance. But it is easy to conceive, what the Indians affirm, that in its floods it is a strong and turbid mass of moving waters, against which nothing can stand. This character of the stream is believed, indeed, to be the origin of the Indian name of Wisconsin. Miskawägumi, means a strong or mixed water, or liquid. By adding to this word _totoshabo_ (milk), the meaning is coagulated or turning milk; it is often used to mean brandy, which is then called strong water; by adding _iscodawabo_, the meaning is fire-water. Marquette, in 1673, spells the name of the river indifferently Meshkousing, and Mishkousing. Of this term, the inflection _ing_, is simply a local form, the letter _s_ being thrown in for euphony. This word appears to be a derivation from the term _mushkowa_, strong water. By admitting the transmutation of _m_ to _w_, the initial syllable _mis_ is changed to _wis_, and the interpretation is then river (or place) of strong waters. The term of _kipesagi_, applied to its mouth, is but another characteristic feature of it--the one laying stress on its _turbidity in flood_, and the other on its _strength of current_. These are certainly the two leading traits of the Wisconsin, which rushes with a great average velocity over an inclined plane, without falls, for a great distance. It originates in a remarkable summit of sandy plains, which send out to the west the Chippewa River of Lake Pepin, to the north the Montreal and Ontonagon of Lake Superior, and to the east the Menomonee of Green Bay, while the Wisconsin becomes its southern off-drain, till it finally turns west at the Portage, and flows into the Mississippi.
We ascended, the first day, eighteen miles; the next, thirty-six; the third day, thirty-four miles; the fourth, forty; the fifth, thirty-eight, and the sixth, sixteen, which brought us to the Fox and Wisconsin Portage, a spot renowned from the earliest French days of western discovery. For here, on the waters separating the Mississippi from the great lakes, there had, at successive intervals, been pitched the tents of Marquette, La Hontan, Carver, and other explorers, who have, in their published journals, left traces of their footsteps. La Salle, who excelled them all in energy of character, proceeded to the Mississippi from Lake Michigan, down the Illinois.