322 EXPEDITION TO THE 



The river St. Peter is found traced on some of the old 

 maps of Louisiana ; for instance, on that which accompa- 

 nies the Rectieil de Voyages, published in Amsterdam in 

 1720, upon which Fort L'Huillier is marked. Upon this 

 map a coal mine is also designated, as existing about ten 

 leagues up tbe St. Peter. If this be not purely ideal, it 

 must have resulted from mistaking lignite for that mineral, 

 as this is not a coal country. 



Coxe, whose general accuracy entitles him to considera- 

 ble praise, and who appears to have taken great pains to 

 collect information on the subject of the discoveries made 

 in Louisiana, has, by a strange oversight, left out St. Pe- 

 ter's river, and introduced on his map, the Riviere Longue, 

 the Lake of Thoyago, and all the fables of Lahontan, 

 in whom he seems to place much confidence. This is 

 the more remarkable, as the Carolana, published in 1741, 

 was twenty years later than the Amsterdam Recueil. The 

 St. Peter is mentioned in an incidental manner by Charle- 

 I'oix in his Journal Historique, but he attempts no descrip- 

 tion of it* We have sought in vain for the origin of the 

 name; we can find no notice of it; it appears to us at pre- 

 sent not unlikely, that the name may have been given by 

 le Sueur, in 1795, in honour of M. St. Pierre de Repan- 

 tigni, to whom Lahontan incidentally alludes, as being in 

 Canada in the year 1789.t This person may have accom- 

 panied le Sueur on his expedition. It has been, we know 

 not upon what authority, suggested that the French name 

 of this river, St. Pierre, was a corruption of the term Sans 

 pierres, (without stones,) said to have been given to it, 

 because no stones occur along its banks for a considerable 

 distance from its mouth. It is very strange, that notwith- 



• Ut supra, pages 110, 295, and 296. f Laliontan, vol. I. p. 136. 



