OF
LOUISIANA AND THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN UNDER THE FRENCH DOMINATION.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE original spelling of the name Mississippi, the nearest approach to the Algonquin word, is Mêché Sébè,[123] a form still commonly used by the Louisiana creoles. Tonty suggested Miche Sepe; Father Laval, Michisepe, which by Father Labatt was softened into Misisipi. Marquette added the first s in Missisipi, and some other explorer a second in Mississipi, as it is spelled in France to-day. No one knows who added a second p in Mississippi, for it was generally spelled with one p when the United States bought Louisiana.[124]
In Vol. IV. of the present History the earliest maps of the Mississippi Basin are enumerated, and fac-similes or sketches of the following may be seen in that volume:—
1672-73 (p. 221). An anonymous map of the course of the Mississippi, which is also to be found in Breese’s Early Hist. of Illinois. Other early maps, without date, are noted in Vol. IV. at pp. 206, 215.
1673-74 (pp. 208, 212, 214, 218). Joliet’s maps; and (p. 220) Marquette’s map, which has since been reproduced in Andreas’s Chicago, i. p. 47.
1682-84-88 (pp. 227, 228, 230, 231). Franquelin’s maps,—the last of which has since been reproduced in Winchell’s Geological Survey of Minnesota, Final Report, i. pl. 2.
1683-97 (pp. 249, 251, 252, 253). Hennepin’s maps, also to be found in Winchell and Breese.