IRON AND STEEL. 57 



The missionaries having parted from La Salle, left Otinaoustet- 

 tawa on the i st October, with their retinue, accomplished the remainder 

 of the portage to the Grand River, which they reached about Gait, 

 and descended its difficult and tortuous channel. In fourteen days 

 they reached its mouth and encamped on the northern shore of 

 Lake Erie, which they describe as a " vast sea tossed by tempestuous 

 winds." They built a camp for the winter at or near the mouth of 

 the river and employed their time in hunting game and drying the 

 flesh of the larger animals for subsistence on their journey. To this 

 they added 70 bushels of nuts of various kinds, and apples, plums 

 and grapes (all wild of course.) They spent the winter at this place, 

 and six months afterwards, on March 23rd, 1670, they erected a 

 cross bearing the arms of Louis XIV ot France, and took formal 

 possession of the country in the name of that king. Three days 

 afterwards they resumed their voyage to the west, and while 

 encamped upon Long Point a violent gale in the night arose, des- 

 troying the contents of one of their canoes. They deplored the loss 

 of their powder and lead, but most of all of their holy chapel, without 

 which the Eucharist could not be celebrated. They proceeded 

 onward, however, through Lake Erie, Detroit river, and Lake Huron 

 even to Sault Ste. Marie, but becoming discouraged returned 

 thence to Montreal by way of the French and Ottawa rivers. An 

 immense distance truly to be paddled in open canoes. 



IRON AND STEEL. 

 A Brief Historic Sketch of their Manufacture and Use. 



BY A. T. FREED. 



It is customary to speak of the stone, the bronze and the iron 

 ages of the world, as if they were distinctly marked epochs. It is a 

 mistake so to regard them, for, while our fathers undoubtedly aban- 

 doned stone weapons and implements for bronze, and bronze for iron, 

 the changes took place at widely remote periods in different countries, 

 and the periods in which the several materials were used in the same 

 country overlapped each other. National intercourse was slow and 

 restricted in the early ages of the world, and one nation would be in 

 possession of an important discovery long before another not distant 



