72. R. de Tessalon. Mississague.
There are in the Kohl Collection, in the Department of State, two maps of Lake Ontario, of 1666, the original of one of which is credited to the Dépôt de la Marine.
He was determined to track it; and gaining some money by selling his grant at Lachine, and procuring the encouragement of Talon and Courcelles, he formed an alliance for the journey with two priests of the Seminary at Montreal, Dollier de Casson and Galinée, who were about going westward on a missionary undertaking. La Salle started with them on the 6th of July, 1669, with some followers, and a party of Senecas as guides. The savages led them across Lake Ontario to a point on the southern shore nearest to their villages, which the party visited in the hope of securing other guides to the great river of which they were in search. Failing in this, they made their way to the western extremity of the lake, where they fell in with Joliet, as mentioned in the preceding chapter. La Salle now learned Joliet’s route; but he was not convinced that it opened to him the readiest way to the great river of the Indians, though the Sulpitians were resolved to take Joliet’s route north of Lake Erie. When these priests returned to Montreal, in June, 1670, they brought back little of consequence, except the data to make the earliest map which we have of the Upper Lakes, and of which a sketch is given herewith.
This map of Galinée, says Parkman,[548] was the earliest attempt after Champlain to portray the great lakes. Faillon, who gives a reproduction of this map,[549] says it is preserved in the Archives of the Marine at Paris; but Harrisse[550] could not find it there. There is a copy of it, made in 1856 from the original at Paris, in the Library of Parliament at Ottawa.[551] Faillon[552] gives much detail of the journey, for the Sulpitians were his heroes; and Talon made a report;[553] but the main source of our information is Galinée’s Journal, which is printed, with other papers appertaining, by Margry,[554] and by the Abbé Verreau.[555]
The Michigan peninsula, which Galinée had failed to comprehend, is fully brought out in the map of Lake Superior which accompanies the Jesuit Relation of 1670-1671.[556] Mr. Parkman is inclined to consider a manuscript map without title or date, but called in the annexed sketch “The Lakes and the Mississippi” (from a copy in the Parkman Collection), as showing “the earliest representation of the upper Mississippi, based perhaps on the reports of the Indians.”[557] He calls it the work of the Jesuits, whose stations are marked on it by crosses. It seems however to be posterior to the time when Joliet gave the name Colbert to the Mississippi.
THE LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI.
This map bears legends or names corresponding to the following key: 1. Les Kilistinouk disent avoir veu un grand naviere qui hiverna à l’embouchure de ce fleuve; ils auroient fait une maison d’un coste et de l’autre un fort de bois. 2. Assinepouelak. 3. Oumounsounick. 4. Ounaouantagouk. 5. Chiligouek. 6. Outilibik. 7. Noupining-dachirinouek. 8. Ouchkioutoulibik. 9. Missisaking-dachiri-nouek. 10. Outaouak. 11. Michilimakinak. 12. Baye des Puans. 13. Oumalouminek. 14. Outagamik. 15. Nadouessi. 16. Icy mourut le P. Meynard. 17. Kikabou. 18. Ouenebegouk. 19. Pouteoutamic. 20. Ousakie. 21. Illinouek Kachkachki. 22. Mouingouea. 23. Ouchachai. 24. Ouemissirita. 25. Chaboussioua. 26. Pelissiak. 27. Monsoupale. 28. Paniassa. 29. Taaleousa. 30. Metchagamea. 31. Akenza. 32. Matorea. 33. Tamikoua. 34. Ganiassa. 35. Minou. 36. Kachkinouba.