e henceforth disappears from the annals of the West.

Rene Robert Cavelier, better known as the Sieur de la Salle, completed
the work commenced by the trader and missionary. In 1666 he obtained a
grant of land at the head of the rapids above Montreal by the side of
that beautiful expanse of the St. Lawrence, still called Lachine, a name
first given in derisive allusion to his hope of finding a short route to
China. In 1679 he saw the Niagara Falls for the first time, and the
earliest sketch is to be found in _La Nouvelle Decouverte_ written or
compiled by that garrulous, vain, and often mendacious Recollet Friar,
Louis Hennepin, who accompanied La Salle on this expedition. In the
winter of 1681-82 this famous explorer reached the Mississippi, and for
weeks followed its course through the novel and wondrous scenery of a
southern land. On the 9th of April, 1682, at a point just above the
mouth of the great river, La Salle took formal possession of the
Mississippi valley in the name of Louis XIV, with the same imposing
ceremonies that distinguished the claim asserted by St. Lusson at the
Sault in the lake region. By the irony of fate, La Salle failed to
discover the mouth of the river when he came direct from France to the
Gulf of Mexico in 1685, but landed somewhere on Matagorda Bay on the
Texan coast, where he built a fort for temporary protection. Finding his
position untenable, he decided in 1687 to make an effort to reach the
Illinois country, but when he had been a few days on this perilous
journey he was treacherously murdered by some of his companions near the
southern branch of Trinity River. His body was left to the beasts and
birds of prey. Two of the murderers were themselves killed by their
accomplices, none of whom appear ever to have been brought to justice
for their participation in a crime by which France lost one of the
bravest and ablest men who ever struggled for her dominion in North
America.

Some years later the famous Canadians, Iberville and Bienville, founded
a colony in the great valley, known by the name of Louisiana, which was
first given to it by La Salle himself. By the possession of the Sault,
Mackinac, and Detroit, the French were for many years supreme on the
lakes, and had full control of Indian trade. The Iroquois and their
English friends were effectively shut out of the west by the French
posts and settlements which followed the explorations of Joliet, La
Salle, Du Luth, and other adv