The First Battle of Lake Champlain. 



127 



when it is remembered that Champlain distinguished this lake above 

 all other localities which he discovered or explored, by giving it his 



What three rivers are these wmch he marks? He would hardly have 

 missed the Great Cbazy river, with its broad estuary, for the most 

 northerly one. Going southward he would naturally pass the hidden 

 mouth of the Saranac river, three miles westward from Cumberland 

 Head, across Cumberland Bay, and he might easily have missed it, as 

 he did the mouth of the Merrimack in passing down the Atlantic 

 coast in 1605. The Great Ausable river he could hardly have failed of 

 seeing, and he must, undoubtedly, have seen the Boquet river, which 

 has the appearance at its mouth of being the largest of the three men- 

 tioned, although it is the smallest. The three rivers, then, which Cham- 

 plain marked for the west side of the lake were, probably, the Chazy, 

 the Ausable, and the Boquet, there being no river between the most 

 southerly one, the Boquet, and Ticonderoga at the outlet of Lake 

 George. On his map Champlain marked the " cape which extends into 

 the lake on the western side," very distinctly, and placed by it the figure 

 65, referring to his explanation of this as "the place on Lac Cham- 

 plain where the Iroquois were defeated." Now this cape, the only 

 one marked on the western side of the lake on Champlain's map, is 

 represented on that map as being about equi-distant from Lake George 

 and the southernmost of the three rivers, the Bouquet, which is 

 about forty-five miles north of the outlet of Lake George, or Ticon- 

 deroga; Crown Point being between these points, about fourteen 

 miles north from Ticonderoga. The testimony of the map, then, 

 seems conclusive against the hypothesis that the battle was at Ticon- 

 deroga, which lies directly at the outlet of Lake George. 



We next come to the Journal of Champlain, and his description of 

 the scene of the battle: " The extremity of a cape which extends into 

 the lake on the western bank." Now, there is no spot in the vicinity 

 of Ticonderoga or between Crown Point and Ticonderoga which an- 

 swers to this description, the little jutting points along that shore 

 having no resemblance to capes extending into the lake. 



The place which has been designated as the scene of the battle is about 

 half a mile north of Fort Ticonderoga. Here the shore trends to the 

 southeast for a short distance, but there is no cape there. The water 

 there is shallow all along the shore, being marked on the United States 

 Coast Survey as only six inches deep, and it will be readily seen that 

 the heavy oak bark canoes of the Iroquois, each carrying ten to eigh- 

 teen persons could not have landed there. 



