Niagara Falls 



1604 the end, they come to a strait two leagues broad and extending 

 amp am a con siderable distance into the interior. They said they had 

 never gone any farther, nor seen the end of a lake some fifteen 

 or sixteen leagues distant from where they had been, and that 

 those relating this to them had not seen any one who had seen 

 it. . . . 



Then they enter a lake some hundred and fifty leagues in 

 length, and some four or five leagues from the entrance of this 

 lake there is a river extending northward to the Algonquins, and 

 another towards the Iroquois, where the said Algonquins and 

 flie Iroquois make war upon each other. And a little farther 

 along, on the south shore of this lake, there is another river, 

 extending towards the Iroquois; then, arriving at the end of this 

 lake, they come to another fall, where they carry their canoes; 

 beyond this, they enter another very large lake, as long, perhaps, 

 as the first. The latter they have visited but very little, they said, 

 and have heard that, at the end of it, there is a sea of which they 

 have not seen the end, nor heard that any one has, but that the 

 water at the point to which they have gone is not salt, but that 

 they are not able to judge of the water beyond, since they have 

 not advanced any farther; that the course of the water is from 

 the west towards the east, and that they do not know whether, 

 beyond the lakes they have seen, there is another watercourse 

 towards the west ; that the sun sets on the right of this lake ; that 

 is, in my judgment, northwest more or less; and that, at the first 

 lake, the water never freezes, which leads me to conclude that 

 the weather there is moderate. 



After this, they enter a very large lake, some three hundred 

 leagues in length. Proceeding some hundred leagues in this 

 lake, they come to a very large island, beyond which the water 

 is good; but that, upon going some hundred leagues farther, the 

 water has become somewhat bad, and, upon reaching the end 

 of the lake, it is perfectly salt. That there is a fall about a league 

 wide, where a very large mass of water falls into said lake ; that, 

 when this fall is passed, one sees no more land on either side, 



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