born and reared. The winds and tides certainly furnish the fishermen enough to cope with.

"First, the winds. This spot is midway between three great Lakes which surround it and seem to be incessantly playing ball with one another, the winds from the Lake of the Illinois no sooner subsiding than the Lake of the Hurons sends back those which it has received, whereupon Lake Superior adds others of its own. Thus they continue in endless succession; and, as these Lakes are large, it is inevitable that the winds arising from them should be violent, especially throughout the autumn.

"The second inconvenience arises from the tides, concerning which no fixed rules can be given. For whether they are caused by the winds, which, blowing from one direction or another, drive the water before them, and make it run in a sort of flow and ebb; or whether they are true tides, and hence some other cause explains the rise and fall of the water, we have at times noted such irregularity in this action, and again such precision, that we cannot yet pronounce upon the principle of these movements, so regular and again so irregular. We have indeed noted that at full and at new Moon the tides change once each day,today high, tomorrow low, for eight or ten days; while at other times hardly any change is perceptible, the water maintaining nearly an average altitude, neither high nor low, unless the winds cause some variation.

"But in this sort of tide three things are somewhat surprising. The first is, that it almost always flows in one direction here, namely, toward the Lake of the Illinois,and meanwhile it ceases not to rise and fall as usual. The second is, that it runs almost always against the wind, sometimes with as much strength as the tides be

fore Quebec; and we have seen cakes of ice moving against the wind as rapidly as ships under sail. The third is that, amid these currents, we have discovered a great discharge of water gushing up from the bottom of the Lake, and causing constant whirlpools in the strait between the Lake of the Hurons and that of the Illinois. We believe this to be an underground outlet from Lake Superior into the two latter lakes; and, indeed, we do not otherwise see any answer to two queries, namely, what becomes of all the water of Lake Superior, and whence comes that in the two Lakes of the Hurons and of the Illinois? For, as to Lake Superior, it has but one visible outlet, which is the River of the Sault; and yet it is certain that it receives into its bosom more than forty fine rivers, of which fully twelve are wider and of greater volume than that of the Sault. Whither, then, does all that water go, unless it find an issue underground and so passes through? Moreover, we see only a very few rivers entering the Lakes of the Hurons and of the Illinois, which, however, are of enormous size, and probably receive the greater part of their water by subterranean inlets, such as that one may be of which we are speaking.

"But, whatever the cause of the currents, the fishermen feel their effects only too well, since these break their nets, or drive them upon the rocks at the bottom of the lake, where they easily catch, owing to the shape of rocks of this sort, which are of a truly remarkable nature. For they are not ordinary stones, but are all transpierced like sponges, in forms so diversified by numerous cavities and sinuosities as to furnish a pleasing spectacle to the curious,-who would find in one of these stones a sort of illustration, in miniature, of what is attempted with such ingenuity in artificial grottoes."-Jesuit Relations, LV, 157–167.

CHAPTER II

FATHER MARQUETTE AT MICHILIMACKINAC

T

HE name of Jacques Marquette is one that will ever be associated with the history of Mackinac. One of a family of six children, he was born June 1, 1637, in the celebrated old hill town of Laon, France. He came of a family which was prominent in the history of Laon a century before the discovery of America by Columbus, and apparently his father's home was one of wealth as well as of distinction. From his mother he inherited that strong religious nature and from his father those qualities of the soldier which made him the successful soldier of the Cross in the wilds of the New World. Educated in the Jesuit College at Nancy he early yearned for the life of the missionary, and when not yet thirty years of age he found himself at Quebec, in 1666. By physique he was fitted for the school rather than the Indian mission, and the extreme hardships of forest life were to limit his work to only nine years.

Until 1668 Marquette studied the Indian languages under the instruction of Father Druillettes; in that year he was appointed to the Ottawa country where, we are told, he "founded a Mission on the southern side of the Sault Ste. Marie, the earliest in what is now the State of Michigan. Here he was joined by Dablon, and in September, 1669, Marquette was sent to La Pointe to take the place of Allouez who had other work to do." 1

1 Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. 199. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.

Marquette himself tells the story of his work at La Pointe in a letter to the Superior of the Missions, and very significant for his later work are his words about the Illinois Indians and his desire to establish a Mission among them. It had already been planned that he should do so, as soon as he could be relieved at La Pointe, and he therefore learned all he could about those people from the Indians who came to La Pointe. He says: 3 "With this purpose in view the Outaouaks gave me a young man who had lately come from the Illinois, and he furnished me the rudiments of the language during the leisure allowed me by the savages at La Pointe in the course of the winter. One can scarcely understand it, although it is somewhat like the Algonquin; still I hope by the Grace of God to understand and be understood, if God in His goodness lead me to that country." That Marquette had clearly in mind the intention to explore a "great river" of which he had heard as flowing through the country of the Illinois, appears from his statement that "when the Illinois come to La Pointe they cross a great river which is nearly a league in width, flows from north to south, and to such a distance that the Illinois, who do not know what a canoe is, have not yet heard mention of its mouth. . . . any It is hard to believe that that great river discharges its waters in Virginia, and we think rather that it has its mouth in California. If the savages who promise to make me a canoe do not break their word to me, we shall explore this river as far as we can, with a Frenchman and this young man who was given me, who knows something of those languages and has a faculty

4

2 Jesuit Relations, LIV, 169-195. The Burrows Brothers Company, Cleveland, O.

3 Ibid., LIV, 187.

* Ibid., LIV, 189, 191.

for learning the others. We shall visit the nations dwelling there, in order to open the passage to such of our Fathers as have been awaiting this good fortune for so long a time. This discovery will give us full knowledge either of the South Sea or of the Western Sea."

Disturbances among the Indians at La Pointe were soon

to end the mission there and bring about the founding of a new mission at Michilimackinac. The Sioux, the "Iroquois of the North" as they are called by Dablon who gives an account of these troubles," were at war with all nations "in consequence of a general league formed against themselves as against a common foe," and the Ottawas and Hurons at La Pointe became embroiled with them during Marquette's stay there. Murders were committed on both sides. Both Ottawas and Hurons concluded it would be 5 Ibid., LV, 169-173.