ettlements, quite apart from
thought of ousting the French. Englishmen had no sooner landed
in America than they attempted to cross the Western mountain
barrier. Ralph Lane made the attempt in 1586, Christopher
Newport and John Smith in 1606, and Newport himself in 1607.
John Lederer, a German surgeon exploring for Governor Berkeley,
of Virginia, reached the top of Blue Ridge in 1609, but did not
descend the western slope. Two years later, Abraham Wood
discovered the Great Kanawha. It is possible that the French
Jesuit Le Moyne was on the Alleghany River as early as 1656. La
Salle was probably at the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville) in
1669. But it was not until about 1700 that French and English
fur-traders met in open rivalry on the Ohio. It was with no
thought of the French that Governor Spottswood, of Virginia,
passed over the Blue Ridge in 1714. The situation in short, was
this: The English colonists early wanted the over-mountain
country watered by the Ohio, but were too weak at first to hold
for agricultural settlement lands so far from home, in the face
of a savage foe. The French wanted the valley solely for the
fur trade, but Iroquois opposition long kept them from
entering; when at last they were able to do so, the English
colonists had also grown strong enough to move in, and then
ensued the long and bloody struggle in which New France
fell.--R. G. T.

[2] In the journal (drawn up for the inspection of Gov.
Dinwiddie) of the events of his mission to the commander of the
French forces on the Ohio; this was the first of those splendid
acts of a public nature, performed by Gen. Washington.

[3] Only five companies of the first Virginia regiment
served on Braddock's campaign--hence there was no second
regiment, nor any Colonel Russell engaged in that service; there
was, however, at this period, a Colonel or Lieut.-Colonel
William Russell, who emigrated from England when a young lawyer,
to Virginia, about 1710, and settled in Culpeper, and by the
readjustment of county lines he was thrown into the new county
of Orange. He was a man of much prominence, and at one time was
high sheriff of Orange; and apparently lieutenant-colonel of
militia, and as such, in the early p