404 Frank Carney 



when farm homes were estabUshed within its borders, not when 

 fur-trader's posts were located. 



Certain physiographic conditions are factors in the explora- 

 tion and the succeeding settlement of the lands. Man in later 

 centuries may progressively become less subject to the physical 

 features of the earth; but he will never become able to ignore 

 them. Mountains will always be mountains to him; plains, low 

 easy places for his activities; and rivers, the lines of his movement 

 across the lands, This is just as true when he moves no longer 

 on boats, but in freight cars and Pullmans; river valleys attract 

 railroads as well as the overland caravans of pioneers. 



Reports of the beauty of the Ohio country, its great river 

 and lake, had come to the ears of white men through the Indians. 

 Sporadically, for several decades, men from the coast colonies 

 had attempted to reach the region, but were thwarted. With- 

 out the modern methods of travel, to set out for a terminus 

 several hundred miles away in a wilderness, is a serious matter. 

 Even today the area is reached usually by definite physiographic 

 routes. Four routes were used in the early days. 



St. Lawrence river. An explorer, entering North America by 

 the St. Lawrence and keeping away from the southern shore of 

 the lakes, on his way into the interior, would cross the narrow 

 river between Lakes Erie and Huron. By this route, many of the 

 early French travelers reached the northwest territory. Doubt- 

 less they might have chosen a route lying south of the lakes, but 

 because of a serious mistake made by an early French explorer, 

 Cartier, the Indians living south of Lake Ontario were bitter 

 enemies of the French; the French, except when prompted by 

 missionary motives, usually kept away from the southern shore 

 of Lake Ontario. Probably the first white man who visited the 

 Ohio area entered this western country by the northern route. 



Mohawk pass. Another way of approach is through the low- 

 land of New York State, the Mohawk valley, which is the lowest 

 gap across the Appalachian mountains. This is the route through 

 which today moves the bulk of the industrial output of the Missis- 

 sippi valley on its way to the Atlantic cities and to Europe. 

 The Mohawk lowland afforded a convenient water-course to the 

 west, Clinton's ''ditch," joining Lake Erie and the ocean; and 

 later became the route of those great, effective lines of railroad, 

 the New York Central and the West Shore, the extensions of 



