so PENHALLOW ON 



It is, therefore, in no respect strange that the earlier explorers like Cartier, Maisonneuve, 

 Champlaiu, La Salle and others, should have failed to attach any very great degree of im- 

 portance to botanical research ; though one cannot help the feeling that the special activity 

 in this direction, which was manifest in the time of Mackenzie and other explorers of that 

 period, should have led them to attach more importance to the labors of the naturalist than 

 appears to have been the case. But it is to entirely different hands that we must look for 

 any very tangible results ; and these are the priests, the resident physicians and other 

 colonial officers, and a few eager naturalists who were despatched on special missions, to 

 gain glory for themselves, but most generally at great pecuniary sacrifice, and often, also, 

 at the permanent expense of their health. 



For our earliest knowledge of Canadian botany, we are first of all indebted to that 

 noble class of self-sacrificing men, the early French missionaries, who preceded or accom- 

 panied the various explorers in their expeditious, and to whom we owe much for some 

 of the most important results achieved during those times of great difficulty and personal 

 sacrifice. 



One of the earliest priests to leave any special notes upon the vegetation of Canada, 

 was the Franciscan, Hennepin, who sailed from France in company with François de Laval, 

 afterwards Bishop of Quebec, and who accompanied La Salle in his famous voyages during 

 the period from 16'79 to 1682.' To his care and foresight we largely owe the preservation 

 of the records of that ill-fated expedition. Hennepin explored the country through the , 

 entire region of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes ; westward into Wisconsin, where 

 he was carried as a captive, and southward to New Orleans. Of the vegetation, he has 

 comparatively little to say, beyond noting the occurrence of well-known trees. He cer- 

 tainly appears to have made no collections, nor did he give any written account of 

 special questions touching the botany of the districts he Aisited. He refers, on several 

 occasions, to the great density of the forests, which rendered travel by any other A'-ehicle 

 than the canoe, impracticable. He also speaks on more than one occasion, of the great 

 abundance of grape vines, which were everywhere designated by the French as " Vignes 

 de Battures " ; and to the prevalence of walnut, chestnut and phim trees about Lake Erie. 

 He makes mention of one fact which possesses a somewhat peculiar interest, viz., that he 

 frequently made blazes on trees, as was then customary, in order to mark the trail. These 

 he refers to as made in the form of a cross. 



In the Peter Redpath Museum of McGrill University, there is a specimen of a blaze 

 upon a beech tree, which may have been made for the purpose above indicated.' The 

 figure was made with a knife, and is in the form of a crowned arch enclosing the initials 

 /. C, M. J. and F., with a heart surmounted by a cross. According to the testimony 

 of Sisters of the Ville Marie Convent, this indicates, as would naturally be inferred, the 

 work of a Franciscan monk. The tree upon which the blaze was made, appears to have 

 been about four and one-half inches in diameter, while in the wood which subsequently 

 formed external to the blaze, at least 160 rings of annual growth have been counted. 

 Two impressions are to be observed — one representing the original blaze, and the other 

 a cast from it, made by the overgrowing wood, both being very clearly defined. The 



' Fr. Hennepin's Discovery in America, with La Salle's Voyages, etc., 1689. 

 ■■' Science, iii. 354. 



