A paper by R. S. Robertson in the American Antiquarian, ii. 123, aims to show that this last portage was known to Allouez as early as 1680, and had perhaps been indicated by Sanson in his map of Canada as early as 1657. It would seem to have been little frequented, however, because of the danger from the Iroquois parties, but was reopened in 1716. Regarding La Salle’s connection with this portage, see a letter by Mr. Parkman quoted by Baldwin in his Early Maps of Ohio, p. 7, and letters of La Salle in Margry’s Découvertes, etc. Cf. H. S. Knapp’s History of the Maumee Valley from 1680, Toledo, 1872 (P. Thomson’s Bibliography of Ohio, no. 681). The southern shore of Lake Erie was the latest known of all the borders of the great lakes.
Margry in his fifth volume has two papers on the routes of these early explorers,—“Postes de la route des Lacs au Mississipi (1683-1695),” and “Postes dans les Pays depuis le Lac Champlain jusqu’au Mississipi (1683-1695).” The series of the Great Lakes show the following heights above tide-level at New York: Ontario, 247 feet; Erie, 573 feet; Huron and Michigan, 582 feet; Superior, 602 feet. The Mississippi at St. Paul is 80 feet above Superior.
[599] Parkman examines the evidence in favor of this site in a long note in his La Salle, p. 223.
[600] There is some dispute about the origin of this name. Le Clercq says it was so designated “on account of many vexations experienced there;” others say it was a reminiscence by Tonty of the part he had taken in the siege of Crèvecœur in the Netherlands. Cf. Shea’s Hennepin, p. 175.
[601] He now addressed to Frontenac, Nov. 9, 1680, a “Relation sur la nécessité de poursuivre le découverte du Mississipi,” which is given in Thomassy’s Géologie pratique de la Louisiane, Paris, 1860, App. B. p. 199. It is translated in the Historical Magazine, v. 196 (July, 1861). Margry (ii. 32) gives a letter of La Salle, in which he describes his operations and the obstacles he encountered in the Illinois country in founding Fort Crèvecœur, etc.; and (p. 115) another letter on the expedition (Aug. 22, 1680, to the autumn of 1681).
[602] Margry (ii. 164) gives a fragmentary letter of La Salle describing the country as far as the mouth of the Missouri; and (p. 196) another detached fragment, in La Salle’s hand, describing the rivers and peoples of the new region.
[603] Margry, ii. 181.
[604] The “Procès verbal de prise de possession de la Louisiane, 9 Avril, 1682,” is in Margry, ii. 186; in Gravier’s La Salle, App. p. 386; and in Boimare’s Texte explicatif pour accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane, Paris, 1868. The English of it is given by Sparks and in French’s Hist. Coll. of Louisiana, vol. i. and vol. ii.
[605] Zénobe Membré’s letter, “de la Rivière de Mississipi, le 3 Juin, 1682,” is given in Margry (ii. 206); and also (ii. 212) the letter of La Salle, dated at Fort Frontenac, Aug. 22, 1682, detailing his experiences.
[606] Géologie pratique de la Louisiane, p. 9. Cf. Harrisse, Notes, etc., no. 698. It is translated in French’s Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, 2d ser., ii. 17. Thomassy also printed in 1859 a tract of twenty-four pages, De la Salle et ses relations inédites de la découverte du Mississipi, avec carte.