In 1636, there had been published at Paris a work in five volumes, written by one Pierre Davity, who had died the year before, entitled "The Whole World; With all its Parts, States, Empires, Kingdoms, Republics and Governments." It had been reissued at least twice by 1649. In all three of those Editions, "America, The Third Part of the World," had been treated of at some length—especially the Southern Hemisphere;—and while Canada had not been overlooked, there had been no mention of Niagara.
In 1660, Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, who was both a Counsellor to the King and also his State Historian, reissued the work, enlarged and "brought up to date." This issue was in three volumes, folio; rather ponderous tomes; well printed, and elaborately bound. As in the previous editions, it was issued by consent of the King, and with the approval of the Clergy; and it now had the official editing of the King's Historian.
At the end of the portion relating to America—that is, at the very end of the last volume—its contents evidently coming to Rocoles' notice at the last moment; probably after the work was entirely printed (for the preceding page bears the imprint, "End of America"; and there is no mention of its contents in the Index), is a short Chapter entitled (translated),
"Certain Special Information about the Country of the Hurons in New France. Recorded by the Sieur Gendron, Doctor of Medicine, who has lived for a long time in that Country."
This supplementary Chapter is six pages in length, and, while it is not signed, we may justly assume that Rocoles himself, and none other, wrote it. It begins,—
"One of my friends having lately placed in my hands a few letters written in the years 1644 and 1645, which Sieur Gendron, native of Voue in Beausse, had sent to him from that Country [of the Hurons], where he was at that time; I have had the curiosity to transcribe from them, word for word, what follows; for a better knowledge and acquaintance of those lands, newly discovered. And I have done so the more willingly because this person is worthy of credence, and he wrote these letters to men of merit, who had travelled much."
In the letters thus transcribed, "word for word," Sieur Gendron gives the location of the Huron Country, where he writes,—
"I now am," "as between the 44th and 45th degrees of Latitude; and as to Longitude, it is half an hour more to the west than Quebec."
From his descriptions of the Lake Region, from his location of other Indian tribes, and from the context, Sieur Gendron was very near the southern end of Georgian Bay, when he wrote those letters. That he was in the same Indian Village, as was the House, or Headquarters, of the Mission to the Hurons (which was located at that point), is deducable even more strongly, from the fact, that Father Ragueneau, in his report to his Superior, in 1648, uses, word for word, over more than a score of printed lines, in locating the adjoining Indian tribes, the language of Sieur Gendron, written at least three, possibly four, years before, and published by Rocoles in 1660.
That he did so, not plagiarizing, but with the knowledge and consent, and not improbably (in those parts of his letter which dealt with physical conditions) with the assistance, of Docteur Gendron, must be admitted by those who know from history of the splendid abilities, the exalted piety, and the noble character of Father Paul Ragueneau, S.J., who, after his labors amongst the Hurons were ended, became the Superior of his Order at Quebec—that is, in Canada.