226 Antitjiiitics of Scu-York. 



and the other referring to European establishments and opera- 

 tions ; and as the whites as well as the Indians would frequently 

 resort to the former for protection, habitation, or hunting, they 

 must necessarily containm any articles of European manufacture, 

 and thereby great confusion has resulted by blending together 

 distant eras greatly remote in point of time. 



The French had, undoubtedly, large establishments in the ter- 

 ritory of the Six Nations. A quarto volume in Latin, written by 

 Francis Creuxiues, a Jesuit, was published at Paris in 1664, 

 and is entitled " Historice Canadensis sen Novce Francia Libri 

 decern ad annum usque Christi, MDCLVI." It states that a 

 French colony was established in the Onondaga territory about 

 the year 1655 ; and it thus describes that highly fertile and un- 

 commonly interesting country. " Ergo biduo post ingenti ag- 

 mine deductus est ad locum gallorum sedi atque domicilio des- 

 tinatum, leucas quatuor dissitum a pago, ubi primum pedem 

 fixerat, vix quidquam a natura videre sit absolutius : ac si ars, 

 ut in Gallia, ceteraque Europa, accederet, haud temere certaret 

 cum Baijs, Pratum ingens cingit undique silva cosdua ad ripam 

 Lacus Gannentase, quo Nationes quatuor, principes Iroquise to- 

 tius regionis tanquam ad centrum navigolis confluere perfacile 

 queant, et unde vicissim facillimus aditus sit ad eorum singula.s, 

 per amnes lacusque circumfluentes. Ferinse copia certat cum 

 copia piscium, atque ut ne desit quidquam, turtures eo undique 

 sub veris initium convolant, tanto numero, ut reti capiantur. Pis- 

 cium quidem certe volant, ut piscatores esse ferantur qui intra 

 unius noctis spatium anguillas ad mille singuli, hamo capiant. — 

 Pratum intersecant fontes duo, centum prope passus alter ab 

 altero dissiti : alterius aqua salsa salis optimi copium submi- 

 nistrat, alterius lympha dulcis ad potionem est ; et quod mirere, 

 uterque ex uno eodemque coUe scaturit." It appears from 

 Charlevoix's History of New France, that missionaries were sent 

 to Onondaga in 1654 ; that they built a Chapel and made a 

 settlement ; that a French colony was established there under 

 the auspices of Le Sieur Dupuys in 1656, and retired in 1658 ; 

 and that the missionaries finally abandoned the country in 1668. 

 When La Salle started from Canada and went down the Missis- 



