two days later passed the point where De Soto (§ 20) had crossed the Mississippi more than a hundred and thirty years before. Thence moving southward in the shadow of forests of cottonwood, magnolia, and cypress, they came to the mouth of the Arkansas. There the natives warned them that they would encounter hostile tribes, and perhaps Spaniards, if they ventured farther down the stream.

The explorers resolved to go back and report what they had seen. Under the fierce rays of a July sun they began the exhausting toil of pushing their canoes northward against the powerful current. In time they reached the Illinois, and, crossing over from a tributary of that stream to the Chicago River, they entered the waters of Lake Michigan where the greatest city of the Northwest now stands.

158. La Salle's expedition to the Illinois country (1679-1680). Six years later (1679), La Salle, the commander of Fort Frontenac (now Kingston), set out to secure possession of the Mississippi to France and to open up trade with Mexico. He made his way to the Niagara River. There, a short distance above the Falls, he built the Griffin, the first vessel ever launched on the waters of the upper Great Lakes.

La Salle with his little party, among whom was Father Hennepin, a Franciscan friar, sailed (1679) to Green Bay. At Green Bay he loaded the Griffin with furs and sent the vessel back to Niagara with orders to obtain a cargo of supplies and return to him at the Chicago River or vicinity. The vessel was never again heard of. La Salle then embarked with his men in a fleet of canoes for the St. Joseph River on the east side of the lake. At that point (1679) the commander constructed Fort Miami. He then ascended the St. Joseph, and, crossing over the portage to the head waters of the Kankakee River, descended that stream, entered the Illinois, and kept on until (1680) he reached Peoria Lake. There he constructed Fort Crèvecœur. This fort marks the first attempt made by white men to take permanent possession of what is now the state of Illinois.

La Salle spent the winter (1679-1680) at the fort anxiously hoping for news of the arrival of the Griffin with provisions and supplies, which would enable him to complete a small vessel in which he purposed descending the Mississippi. Weary of waiting, La Salle at length resolved to go back to Fort Frontenac and get the things he needed. Leaving a small garrison to hold Fort Crèvecœur, he set out on the first of March (1680), accompanied by five of his followers, on his perilous journey of a thousand miles.

159. Father Hennepin's journey; La Salle explores the lower Mississippi and takes possession of Louisiana (1682); his death. Shortly before La Salle left Fort Crèvecœur he sent Father Hennepin (§ 158) to explore the lower Illinois. Hennepin went down that river to its mouth and then turned northward up the Mississippi. After many adventures among the Indians he passed the site where the flourishing city of St. Paul now stands, and reached (1680) a cataract which he named the Falls of St. Anthony; to-day those falls furnish the magnificent water power of Minneapolis, the largest flour-manufacturing center in the world.

When the French commander returned to the Illinois he found Fort Crèvecœur deserted. A band of Iroquois warriors had destroyed it. He was forced to turn back and seek shelter (1680) in Fort Miami (§ 158).

Subsequently La Salle, with a strong party, started (1681) for the third time to explore the Mississippi. Late in the season they left Fort Miami and crossed Lake Michigan to the Chicago River. Following the frozen Illinois, they reached open water just below Lake Peoria. There they embarked in their canoes, and in February (1682) entered the Mississippi. Early in April the French came in sight of the gleaming waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

There, amid volleys of musketry and shouts of "Long live the king!" La Salle planted a wooden column bearing the arms of France at one of the mouths of the "Great River of the West." Then, in the name of Louis XIV of France, he took formal

possession of the Mississippi from its source to the sea, and of all the country watered by it and by its tributaries. This immense territory, stretching from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains, La Salle named Louisiana in honor of the reigning French sovereign. France gained all this magnificent empire more than thirty years before the English had ventured as far west as the Blue Ridge (§ 137).

But the Mississippi empties into a sea which Spain claimed as her own, and she threatened death to all foreigners who should enter it. La Salle resolved to brave that decree, to fortify the mouth of the river, and to hold the great valley of the West against the world. The hand of an assassin (1687) put a stop to the execution of his plan.

160. Iberville's settlement; Mobile founded (1702); the Mississippi Company; New Orleans founded (1718). A number of years later, Iberville, a French-Canadian explorer, built a fort at Biloxi on the Gulf of Mexico (1699); he thus began the first European occupation of what is now the state of Mississippi.

A company of French Protestants begged Louis XIV to grant them permission to emigrate to Louisiana. They received this answer: "The king has not driven Protestants from France to make a republic of them in America." The Biloxi colonists did not succeed, and were transferred (1702) to Mobile; there they laid the foundation of a settlement which eventually became the state of Alabama.

A number of years later, reports reached Paris that a Frenchman had found enormous deposits of gold in the Illinois country. John Law, a clever Scotch financier who was doing business in the French capital, got himself appointed (1717) president of a grand stock company to work these gold mines and develop the resources of Louisiana. Law proposed to pay off the French national debt of $500,000,000 out of the profits of this gigantic undertaking. All Paris was seized with a mad fever of speculation.

When the bubble burst thousands of Frenchmen cursed the day when they first heard the name of Louisiana. But Law's