feet. Niagara are nearer three hundred; and the Chaudière of the
Ottawa would answer Radisson's description better, were it not that he
says a man could go under the falls for a quarter of a mile. "The Lake
of the Castors" plainly points to Lake Nipissing.

[4] The two main reasons why I think that Radisson and Groseillers were
now moving up that chain of lakes and rivers between Minnesota and
Canada, connecting Lake of the Woods with Lake Winnipeg, are: (1)
Oldmixon says it was the report of the Assiniboine Indians from Lake
Assiniboine (Lake Winnipeg) that led Radisson to seek for the Bay of
the North overland. These Assiniboines did not go to the bay by way of
Lake Superior, but by way of Lake Winnipeg. (2) A mémoire written by
De la Chesnaye in 1696--see _Documents Nouvelle France_,
1492-1712--distinctly refers to a _coureur's_ trail from Lake Superior
to Lake Assiniboine or Lake Winnipeg. There is no record of any
Frenchmen but Radisson and Groseillers having followed such a trail to
the land of the Assiniboines--the Manitoba of to-day--before 1676.

[5] One can guess that a man who wrote in that spirit two centuries
before the French Revolution would not be a sycophant in
courts,--which, perhaps, helps to explain the conspiracy of silence
that obscured Radisson's fame.

[6] My reason for thinking that this region was farther north than
Minnesota is the size of the Cree winter camp; but I have refrained
from trying to localize this part of the trip, except to say it was
west and north of Duluth. Some writers recognize in the description
parts of Minnesota, others the hinterland between Lake Superior and
James Bay. In the light of the _mémoire_ of 1696 sent to the French
government, I am unable to regard this itinerary as any other than the