68 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



one thousand miles, or more, except finding the three rivers, 

 Des Moines, Missouri, and Ohio, and Indian villages at three 

 points on the river.* 



* The foregoing is abstracted from a narrative appended to the work pub- 

 lished in the name of Hennepin, called " Nouvelle Decouverte d'une Pays 

 vaste," and comprising twenty-six pages. Marquette's relation is said, 

 by Charlevoix, to be contained in the " Recueil des Voyages of Thevenot," 

 printed in Paris in 16S7. I have not seen Thevenot, but it is probable that 

 the relation referred to is the same as that from which the above is abridged. 

 But all relations put forth under the name of Marquette must be considered 

 apocryphal. 



Additional JVote. — The relation as contained in Thevenot has just been 

 published in Paris. It is the same referred to above. It is impossible 

 to conceive that a person who has made a discovery so important, should 

 pass, for the space of one thousand miles, down this noble and majestic 

 stream, in itself one of the wonders of the world, and then new to all the 

 world save himself and a few hunting bands of Indians, and possessing 

 some very remarkable peculiarities; and should, in a volume expressly 

 designed to communicate his great discovery to the world, have given such 

 a meagre account of it ; passing the two chains of rapids without intimat- 

 ing or apparently knowing that such were on the river ; naming none 

 of the eight considerable rivers coming in from the west, nor those on the 

 other side, except three of the principal streams which might be known 

 by accounts given by the Indians. The book states but two items in rela- 

 tion to the country— that there was a chain of very high mountains on its 

 bank, immediately below the Wisconsin ; which is an error, there being 

 no such chain. The only elevation here is Pike's Mountain, and that but 

 little more than two hundred feet above the common level. The other is 

 the distance from Missouri River to Ohio, two hundred miles, said to be 

 twenty leagues. While everything is omitted that would naturally be told, 

 the volume relates that they saw geese and swans without feathers, as these 

 birds had a fashion of shedding them at this season ; and also monstrous 

 fish, and other monsters. Beside all this, it is known that Marquette never 

 went east of Lake Michigan after the pretended voyage, but died on the 

 lake about two years after. And the relation under his name was not pub- 

 lished till eight years after the voyage, and a year or more after the disco- 

 very by Hennepin, and then came forward to fill up a desideratum in a 

 collection of voyages published by Thevenot, which could not decently 

 appear without a notice of this river, the discovery of which had then 



