4 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
surveyor, the soldier, the statesman, has each in his turn made his im- 
press on the beautiful district which is inclosed between Niagara, Lake 
Ontario and Grand River. In 1669 that famous gentleman-adventurer 
of the French regime, Réné Robert Cavelier de La Salle, first saw the 
shimmer of the waters of the bay, then surrounded by virgin forest, just 
touched by the finger of autumn.» Among his companions were Dol- 
lier de Casson, a soldier-priest, who wrote the first history of Montreal, 
and Galinée, another Sulpician priest, who was something of a surveyor, 
and gave to the world a journal of his western trip as well as a rude de- 
lineation of the Upper Lakes. Galinée no doubt owed much to the 
map* which was shown him by the famous Canadian trader, Louis Joliet, 
whom La Salle and his companions met at the Indian town of Tinatona, 
which local antiquarians place about a mile east of Westover, near the 
eastern boundary of Beverley, a township still rich in relics of the days 
of Indian occupation.* In this interesting map we see clearly outlined 
for the first time the beautiful bay, so intimately associated with the 
prosperity, pleasure and pride of Hamilton. The history of Joliet and 
La Salle has no further connection with the history of the Heights and 
Bay ; they separated soon after this memorable meeting at Tinatona 
to prosecute the dreams which they had of adventures and discoveries 
in the West. On a June day, 1673, Joliet and Marquette, trader and 
missionary, glided down the tranquil waters of the Wisconsin into the 
eddies of the Mississippi, which they followed as far as the villages of 
the Arkansas. Nine years later, La Salle also steered his canoe 
“ Past the Ohio shore, and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi ” 
and found his way to the Gulf of Mexico and gave to France the great 
region of Louisiana which owes its historic name to this intrepid ex- 
plorer. 
For more than a century after this memorable meeting of adven- 
turous Frenchmen, in the forests of Ontario, this beautiful district dis- 
appears from history. Indians alone fished in the prolific waters of the 
bay and lake, or brought down the wild fowl in the luxuriant marshes 
of the valley or strath of Dundas—known to sportsmen in later times 
as ‘ Coote’s Paradise” Before the end of the eighteenth century the 
pioneer came to the noble country which lies between the turbulent 
Niagara and the more peaceful Bay, now a land of rich fruitage and 
lovely vistas of lake through forest groves and luxuriant orchards. The 
close of the successful revolution of the old Thirteen Colonies brought 
to the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Niagara Rivers a large body 
of devoted men and women, who remained faithful to Great Britain 
