The French Period 



Indeed, even to this day the controversy regarding the origin 

 and proper spelling of the word has not been settled. 



The chapter deals essentially with first things. In the course 

 of it we have mentioned the first allusion to the cataract, indi- 

 cated the first writer to name the Falls, and quoted the first-hand 

 description. We have said nothing, however, about the first 

 man to see the Falls. Hennepin was long credited with their 

 discovery. The extracts in this chapter are sufficient evidence 

 that whether Hennepin was the first man to see the Falls or not, 

 he was not the first man to write of them. It is not at all beyond 

 the bounds of probability that Hennepin had read some of these 

 earlier accounts. It should be said for Hennepin in this con- 

 nection that he was the first man to see, to describe and to depict 

 Niagara. 1 We do not know and have no means of finding out 

 what white man first saw the Falls. There are those who think 

 that Etienne Brule was the man, but there is no proof of it. 



1 It should be borne in mind that we are here dealing with the Falls 

 and not with the river. Dallion, a Franciscan missionary, appears to 

 have reached the river as early as 1 626 though the name does not appear. 

 Brebeuf and Chaumonot were in the vicinity of the river in the winter of 

 1640—1641 but they probably never saw the Falls. Certainly they did 

 not write of them. Lalement, another Jesuit visitor, writing in 1 64 1 , 

 names the river but says nothing of the Falls. The list might no doubt 

 be extended. 



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