It was high noon when we reached the rapids of the Kákala. This is a formidable rapid, at which the river rushes with furious velocity down a rocky bed, which it seems impossible boats or canoes should ever safely descend. It demands a portage to be made, under all circumstances, the water sweeping round a curve or bow, of which the portage path is the string. This is the apparent meaning of the term, in the Indian tongue; but it is disguised by early orthography, in which the letter _l_ has taken the place of _n_, and the syllable _in_ of _au_. The term _kakina_ is the ancient French form of the Indian transitive-adjective _all_, inclusive, entirely. There is another root for the term in _kakiwa_, which is the ordinary term for a portage, or walk across a point of land, which is rendered local by the usual inflection, _o-nong_.
We found the portage path to be a well-beaten wagon road across a level fertile plain, which appeared to have been in cultivation from the earliest Indian period. Probably it had been a locality for the tribes, where they raised their favorite maize, long before the French first reached the waters of Green Bay. Evidence of such antiquity in the plain of Kákala appeared in an ancient cemetery of a circular shape, situated on one side of the road, on a comparatively large surface, which had reached the height of some eight or ten feet, by the mere accumulation of graves. This has all the appearance of a sepulchral mound, in the slow process of construction; for, on viewing it, I found a recent grave. We passed, on this plain, a Winnebago village of ten or twelve lodges, embracing two hundred souls. The portage is continued just one mile. Embarking again, at this point, we proceeded down the river, and encamped eight miles below this point, having, with every exertion, made but twenty miles this day.
The interest which had been excited by the conchology of the Mississippi and Wisconsin valleys, was renewed in the descent of the Fox River, particularly in the section of it below Winnebago Lake. Shrunk to its lowest summer level, its shores disclosed almost innumerable species of unios, many of which had been manifestly dragged to the shores and opened by the muskrat, thus serving to give hints for finding the living species. Among these, the U. obliqua, U. cornutus, U. ellipticus, U. carinatus, U. Alatus, U. prælongus, and U. parvus, were conspicuous; the latter of which, it is remarked by Mr. Barnes, is the smallest and most beautiful of all the genus yet discovered in America.[123] In the duplicates, from this part of the Fox River, transmitted to Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, he found a species with green-rayed beaks, on a yellow surface and iridescent nacre, having a peculiar structure, which he did me the honor to name after me.[124] The description of Mr. Lea is as follows: "Unio Schoolcraftensis. Shell subrotund, somewhat angular at posterior dorsal margin, nearly equilateral, compressed, slightly tuberculate posteriorly to umbonical slope. Substance of the shell rather thick; beaks elevated; ligament short; epidermis smooth yellow, with several broad green rays; teeth elevated, and cleft in the left valve, single, and rising from a pit in the right; lateral teeth elevated, straight, and lamellar; anterior cicatrices distinct, posterior cicatrices confluent; dorsal cicatrices within the cavity of the shell on the base of the cardinal tooth; cavity of the beaks angular and deep; nacre pearly white and iridescent. Diameter ·7, length 1·1, breadth 1·3 inches."