HISTORY. 69 



Soon after ihc lime Avlicn tliis expcclilion is slated to liave 

 happened, Mr. Robert Cavalier de la Sale was appointed by 

 the king of France to conduct an expedition, and make dis- 

 coveries in llie north-western parts of North America. Mr. 

 Tonti was associated with him in the enterprise.- On the 7th 

 of August, 1679, they eml)arked with Father Louis Henne- 

 pin, a Franciscan missionary, and two other priests and thirty 

 men, on board a small vessel which La Sale hud Iniilt, at a 

 short distance above the Fulls of Niagara, and commenced 

 the voyage. They proceeded up lakes Erie, St. Clair, and 

 Huron, and passed into the lake called Tllinouac by the Li- 

 dians, Illinois by the French, and now known as Lake Michi- 

 gan. Lake Erie was at that time known under the name of 

 Conty ; Huron was called Orleans ; Michigan, Dauphin and 

 Illinois ; Superior, Conde and Tracy ; and Ontario, Fron- 

 tenac. 



After pursuing the voyage as far as the Bay of Puans, 

 now called Green Bay, La Sale sent back his vessel to Nia- 

 gara, while himself and his associates proceeded to the 

 Southern part of the lake, where by appointment they were 

 to await the return of the vessel. The ship however 

 foundered on the lake, and nothing was afterwards heard of 

 vessel or crew. 



La Sale und his remaining associates coasted southward 

 along the western shore of the lake as far as the mouth of a 

 river designated by Hennepin as the river of the Miamis, 

 now called St. Joseph's, which was the point agreed upon 

 between them and their companions who hud departed in the 

 ship, as the place of rendezvous, and where they were to be 



become known. Further: the express object of La Sale's expedition was 

 to discover the Missisippi — which could not have been if it had been 

 already discovered, as pretended, six years before he undertook it, by his 

 own countrymen, under the direction of his own government. 



