THE DISCOVERY OF BURLINGTON BAY. 43 



the Indian army from Lake Simcoe through the chain of lakes in the 

 vicinity of Lindsay along the Trent river to its mouth, through the 

 Bay of Quinte, discovering Lake Ontario, and crossing the same in 

 canoes to the Iroquois country, landing near Oswego, where they 

 laid seige to an Indian town surrounded with a triple stockade, upon 

 which there were mounted galleries for warriors, who fired arrows 

 and stones and poured water upon fires built upon the outside, and 

 defended their works generally with such courage that their assailants 

 had to retire discomfited. 



But some years later than the date above given, the Iroquois, 

 becoming more formidable, burst across the Niagara river and Lake 

 Ontario with a fierceness which nothing could withstand. They 

 captured one Huron town after an other, slaughtering, torturing and 

 sometimes eating their captives, till finally in 1649 a general mass- 

 acre took place, ending in the destruction of the whole nation with 

 the exception of two small bands, one of which went westward and 

 became absorbed in the powerful tribes about Lake Superior, and 

 the other followed the Jesuits to Quebec. At the present day, at 

 the Indian village of Lorette, some few miles from Quebec, may be 

 found the sole survivors of the once mighty Huron nation. 



Some unpublished manuscripts, having reference to explora- 

 tions in America, have lately been discovered in the Bibliotheque 

 Nationale, in Paris, among which was a journal giving an account 

 of an expedition in 1669 by De La Salle, whose name stands almost, if 

 not quite, at the head of the intrepid explorers of this continent, and 

 two Sulpician missionaries, who started from Montreal in canoes, 

 passed up the St. Lawrence, along the south shore of Lake Ontario, 

 and made a short stay on the shore of Burlington bay. 



I shall beg leave to introduce to your attention this evening an 

 extract from the journal in question as the basis of my present 

 paper. The map annexed to the journal forms an interesting illus- 

 tration of the knowledge acquired by the party of the form and size 

 of the North American lakes during their long pioneer voyage from 

 Montreal to Sault Ste. Marie. A copy of the original, which is in the 

 possession of a gentlemen of Buffalo, measures 4A feet in length by 

 2% feet in breadth, and I am happy to say that I am in possession of 

 a tracing of a small portion thereof, showing the localities of this 

 vicinity exactly as they appear in the original. The map is covered 

 with annotations in the French language. 



