is dream was
of a western waterway to the Pacific Ocean. In 1669, with an outfit
that had cost him his entire fortune, with a small party he ascended
in canoes the St. Lawrence, and a few weeks later was upon the broad
Ontario. Out of the mists and shadows that enveloped much of
his subsequent career, it were impossible at all times to gather
that which is authentic. It is enough that, with Hennepin as one of
his fellow-voyagers, he reached the Ohio and in due time navigated
the Illinois, meantime visiting many of the ancient villages.

"But his great achievement--and that with which abides his imperishable
fame--was his perilous descent of the Mississippi from the Falls
of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico. On the sixth day of April, 1682,
upon the east bank of the lower Mississippi, with due form and
ceremony and amid the solemn chanting of the _Te Deum_ and the
plaudits of his comrades, La Salle took formal possession of the
Louisiana country in the name of his royal master, Louis the
Fourteenth of France.

"For the period of ninety-two years, beginning with the discoveries
of Marquette and Joliet, the Illinois country was a part of the
French possessions. Sovereignty over the vast domain of which
it was a part was exercised by the French King through his commandant
at Quebec. But as has been truly said, 'The French sought and
claimed more than they had the ability to hold or possess. Their line
of domain extended from the St. Lawrence around the Great Lakes and
through the valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a
distance of over three thousand miles.' Truly a magnificent domain,
but one destined soon to pass forever from the possession of the
French monarch and his line.

"The hour had struck, and upon the North American continent the
ancient struggle for supremacy between France and her traditional enemy
was to find bloody arbitrament. Great Britain claimed as a part
of her colonial possessions in the New World the territory bordering
upon the Great Lakes and the rich lands of the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys. As to the merits of the French and English contention as
to superior right by discovery or conquest, it were idle now to
argue. Our concern is with the marvellous results of the long-continued
struggle which for all time determined the question of race supremacy
upon this continent.

"Passing rapidly the minor incidents of the varying fortunes of
the stupendous struggle which had b