PROCEEDINGS. 25 



traders and trappers have been considered too meager as a 

 basis for any exact account. But hidden away in the lumber 

 rooms of wealthy Spanish and French families, and piled on the 

 shelves of national libraries in Paris, Madrid and Mexico are 

 hosts of letters, journals and reports, "which are gradually 

 emerging from their seclusion and undergoing the scrutiny of 

 acute and practical eyes. 



The documents edited by M. Margry and published by the 

 United States Government in the year 1882, throw a flood of 

 light upon early French discoveries and explorations in the 

 west. And when the vast libraries of all the nations that took 

 part in these adventurous travels shall give up their dead treas- 

 ures, we have reason to hope that we will be able to add many 

 years to the authentic history of our state. 



I have recently read an article which presented sufficient 

 reason for us to believe that — fourscore years before the Pil- 

 grims landed on the venerable coast of Massachusetts; sixty- 

 eight years before Hudson discovered the ancient and beautiful 

 river which still bears his name; sixty-six years before John 

 Smith, with his cockney colonists, sailed up the summer stream 

 which they named after James I of England, and commenced 

 the settlement of what was afterward to be Virginia; twenty- 

 three years before Shakespeare was born; while Queen Eliza- 

 beth was a little girl and Charles V sat upon the united throne 

 of Germany and Spain, Nebraska was discovered; the peculi- 

 arities of her soil and cHmate noted, her fruits and productions 

 described, and her animals and inhabitants depicted. 



We catch our earlier glimpses of this region from one who 

 had enlisted in the service of God instead of the service of 

 mammon. There was found about thirty years ago in the 

 archives of St. Mary's college, in Montreal, the identical map 

 which Father Marquette prepared of his voyage down the 

 Mississippi, executed by his own hand, and bearing all the 

 marks of authenticity. Upon this map, drawn in the year 

 1673, appears the territory which now forms the state of Ne- 

 braska. The general course of the Missouri is given to a point 

 far north of this lattitude; the, Platte river is laid down in 

 almost its exact position, and among the Indian tribes which 

 he enumerates as scattered about this region we find such 



