descended it to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude; where he stopped,
assured that it discharged itself not into the Gulf of California, but
into the Gulf of Mexico; and resolved to follow it thither at a future
day, when better provided with men and supplies. [Footnote: The memoir,--
after stating, as above, that he entered Lake Huron, doubled the peninsula
of Michigan, and passed La Baye des Puants (Green Bay),--says, "Il
reconnut une baye incomparablement plus large; au fond de laquelle vers
l'ouest il trouva un tres-beau havre et au fond de ce havre un fleuve qui
va de l'est a l'ouest. Il suivit ce fleuve, et estant parvenu
jusqu'environ le 280me degre de longitude et le 39me de latitude, il
trouva un autre fleuve qui se joignant au premier coulait du nordouest au
sud-est, et il suivit ce fleuve jusqu'au 36me degre de latitude."

The "tres-beau havre" may have been the entrance of the River Chicago,
whence, by an easy portage, he might have reached the Des Plaines branch
of the Illinois. We shall see that he took this course in his famous
exploration of 1682.

The Intendant Talon announces in his despatches of this year that he had
sent La Salle southward and westward to explore.]

The first of these statements,--that relating to the Ohio,--confused,
vague, and in great part incorrect as it certainly is, is nevertheless
well sustained as regards one essential point. La Salle himself, in a
memorial addressed to Count Frontenac in 1677, affirms that he discovered
the Ohio, and descended it as far as to a fall which obstructed it.
[Footnote: The following are his words (he speaks of himself in the third
person): "L'annee 1667, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec
beaucoup de depenses, dans lesquels il decouvrit le premier beaucoup de
pays au sud des grands lacs, et _entre autres la grande riviere d'Ohio_;