12 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[La Salle, 1680. 



sent there this Faffert, by land, with some Nadouesioux and Sauteurs, who returned in company 

 with him. This young man having made a report on his return of the number of beaver which 

 he might obtain from that direction, he resolved to attempt to go there himself; and under the 

 guidance of a Sauteur and a Nadouesioux, with four Frenchmen, they ascended the Nemitsakouat, 

 whence, by a short portage, he descended into that in which he said he had passed forty leagues 

 of rapids ; and having seen that the Nadouesioux were further down with my men and the Father,? 

 having gone down the river from the village of the Nadouesioux where they had already been, he 

 comes on to flnd them. He returned to the village, whence they all together re-descended and by 

 the way of the river Ouisconsing reached Montreal. There he was considerably elated at having 

 been one of their party, having even insulted the commissaries, and also the Deputy Procureur, 

 (at present the Procureur- General), named d'Auteuil. Mons. le Oomte de Frontenac had him 

 arrested, and took measures to keep him in prison in the bastile at Quebec, intending to send him 

 to France on the certification of the facts by Mons. 1'Intendaut, to the end that the amnesty 

 granted to his coureurs des bois should not result in his discharge. 



To know who this Du Luth is, it is necessary that you be informed by Mons. Dalera. 

 Meantime he pretends to have made a considerable discovery, and to demand this country as if to 

 the advantage of the Islinois, a proceeding which is quite agreeable, and which he hopes may 

 compensate for his rebellion. Secondly, there are only three routes by which to go there one is 

 by lake Superior, the second by the bay of the Puans, and the third by the Islinois and the terri- 

 tory that is covered by my commission. The first two lie under suspicion, and it will not be 

 necessary to open to him the third to my disadvantage, he not having incurred any expense, and 

 having made great gain without risk, at the same time that I have endured great fatigues, perils 

 and losses. Further, through the Islinois is a detour of three hundred leagues for him. For the 

 greater part of the country of the Nadouesioux is not that which he has discovered. It has been 

 known for a long time, and the R. P. Hennepin and Michel Accault were there before him. Even 

 that one of his fellow-deserters who was there, was one of my soldiers whom he bribed. Further- 

 more this country is not habitable, little adapted to cultivation, having only marshes full of wild 

 rice (folle avoine ) on which the people live ; and there can be derived from this discovery no 

 advantage whether it be attributable to my men or to Du Luth, because the streams are not 

 navigable. But the king having granted us the trade in buffalo hides, this would be ruined in 

 going to and coming from the Nadouesioux by any other route than by lake Superior by which 

 Count Frontenac has power to send him there in search for beaver, in pursuance of the authority 

 which he has to grant permits. But if they go by way of the Ouisconsing, where for the present the 

 chase of the buffalo is carried on, and where I have commenced an establishment, they will ruin 

 the trade of which alone I am laying the foundation on account of the great number of buffaloes 

 which are taken there every year, almost beyond belief. 



LA SALLE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 



Ascending still the JtfJssisstpt, at twenty leagues above this river, are found the falls which 

 those whom I sent, and who passed there first of all, named from St. Anthony. They have the 

 height of thirty or forty feet, and there the river is also narrow. There is an island in the 

 midst of the fall, and the two shores of the river are no longer bordered by mountains, which 

 diminish insensibly up to there ;* but the land on both sides is covered with light timber, ** as 

 we style it, that is to say, oaks and other hard woods, standing far apart, such as grow only in 

 poor lands. There are also some prairies. Here the canoes are carried about three or four hun- 

 dred steps, and eight leagues above is the river of the Nadoesioux, ou the westf side. It is narrow 

 at its entrance and drains a poor country covered with shrubs through about fifty leagues, where 

 it terminates in a lake called lake of the Issati, which spreads over a great marsh where grows the 

 wild rice, at the point of its outlet in this river. 



* Hennepin says the mountains extend only to the mouth of the Wisconsin. Hennepin. 

 ** Perhaps this bois clairs means deciduous trees. 



t This is evidently an error of some copyist, as the river, which is well known as Bum river, is an eastern tribu- 

 tary of the Mississippi. 



