La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

32 LA SALLE AND THE SULPITIANS. [1671.Ohio, — confused, vague, and in great part incorrect,as it certainly is, is nevertheless well sustained asregards one essential point. La Salle himself, in a.y memorial addressed to Count Frontenac in 1677,affirms that he discovered the Ohio, and descended itas far as to a fall which obstructed it. 1 Again, hisrival, Louis Joliet, whose testimony on this pointcannot be suspected, made two maps of the region ofthe Mississippi and the Great Lakes. The Ohio islaid down on both of them, with an inscription to theeffect that it h&d been explored by La Salle. 2That1 The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the thirdperson) :" L'anne'e 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avecbeaucoup de depenses, dans lesquels il decouvrit le premier beaucoupde pays au sud des grands lacs, et entre autres la grande riviered'Ohio; il la suivit jusqu'a un endroit ou elle tombe de fort hautdans de vastes marais, a la hauteur de 37 degres, apres avoir etegrossie par une autre riviere fort large qui vient du nord ; et toutesces eaux se dechargent selon toutes les apparences dans le Golfedu Mexique."This " autre riviere/' which, it seems, was above the fall, mayhave been the Miami or the Scioto. There is but one fall on theriver, that of Louisville, which is not so high as to deserve to bedescribed as " fort haut," being only a strong rapid. The latitude,as will be seen, is different in the two accounts, and incorrect inboth.* One of these maps is entitled Carte de la decouverte du SieurJoliet, 1674. Over the lines representing the Ohio are the words,"Route du sieur de la Salle pour aller dans le Mexique." Theother map of Joliet bears, also written over the Ohio, the words," Riviere par ou descendit le sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac Eriepour aller dans le Mexique." I have also another manuscript map,made before the voyage of Joliet and Marquette, and apparently inthe year 1673, on which the Ohio is represented as far as to a pointa little below Louisville, and over it is written, "Riviere Ohio,ainsy appellee par les Iroquois a cause de sa beaute, par oh le sieur