es, in their expedition of seven canoes and
twenty-one Amerindians, were accompanied by a remarkable young man
commonly known as La Salle, but whose real name was Robert
Cavalier.[7]

[Footnote 7: La Salle was the name of his property in France.]

Before leaving Lake Ontario, they actually passed the mouth of the
Niagara River and heard the falls, but had not sufficient curiosity to
leave their canoes and walk a short distance to see them. The
wonderful cascades of Niagara, where the St. Lawrence leaving Lake
Erie plunges 328 feet down into Lake Ontario (which is not much above
sea level), remained nearly undiscovered and undescribed until the
year 1678, when they were visited by Father Hennepin. Near the western
end of Lake Ontario the two Sulpician missionaries met another
Frenchman, Jolliet, who had come down to Lake Superior by way of the
Detroit passage, which is really the portion of the St. Lawrence
connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie. Jolliet told the missionary de
Casson of a great tribe in the far west, the Pottawatomies, who had
asked for missionaries, and who were of Algonkin stock. La Salle, on
the other hand, was determined to make for the rumoured Ohio River,
which lay somewhere to the south-west of Lake Erie.

The two Sulpicians wintered in "the earthly paradise" to the north of
Lake Erie, passing a delightful six months there in the amazing
abundance of game and fish. They then met with various disasters to
their canoes, and consequently gave up their western journey, passing
northwards through Detroit and Lake St. Clair into Lake Huron, and
thence to the Jesuit mission station of the Sault Ste. Marie. Here
they were received rather coldly, as being rivals in the mission field
and in exploration. They in their turn accused the Jesuits of thinking
mainly, if not entirely, of the foundation of French colonies, and
very little of evangelizing the natives.

JOLLIET, a Canadian by birth,[8] was dispatched by the Viceroy of
Canada in 1672 to explore the far west. Two years--1670--previously
the French Government had for the first time adopted a really definite
policy about Canada, and had taken formal possession of the Lake
region and of all the territories lying between the lakes and the
Mississippi. A great assembly of Indians was held at Sault Ste. Marie,
near the east end of Lake Superior; and here a representative of the
French Government, accompanied by numerous missionaries and by
Jolliet, read a