Indian trails led toward it from all points of the compass; it was easily accessible by water from every quarter—and, by canoe, was the Indians preferred means of transportation.

It was thus easily reached by the tribes on the east and northeast by Lake Ontario; by the tribes on the north by Lake Simcoe and the portage to Toronto; by the tribes in the great west and northwest (covering a vast territory) by all the upper lakes; by the tribes in the southwest by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Alleghany rivers; by the tribes in the southeast by the Susquehanna River. Even in aboriginal days—by reason of its central location, its portage, its position as a Center of Trade, and its "Erie Stones"—Niagara was the best and most widely known spot on the Continent; even as—for other reasons—it is to-day.

Father Ragueneau, in a letter written from the Huron Country, in Canada, in 1648, and published in the "Jesuit Relation" of 1649, makes the second known direct printed reference to the Falls themselves, when he writes,—

which description was, word for word, the same as is found in a letter, written not later than 1645, from that same Huron Country, by Docteur Gendron, but which was not published until 1660.

The third direct printed reference to our Cataract was in a letter, written by Father Bressani, from that same Huron Country, in 1652, and published the following year. He wrote,—

Thus, up to 1660, the Jesuit Fathers, Ragueneau and Bressani, were the only persons, except Champlain, who had made any direct printed reference to Niagara's Waterfall; like him, neither of them ever saw it;—the three known men, who first mentioned in print what is to-day the best known Cataract on Earth, wrote from hearsay,—and none of them gave it a name.

Sanson, who, in 1650, had issued a map of North America, largely following those of Champlain, but improving on their accuracy (though not indicating Niagara), in 1656, issued one of New France or Canada, whereon he both correctly places our Waterfall, and, for the first time in Literature or Cartography gave it a direct name, marking it "Ongiara Sault." Much information about Canada had no doubt been made public in France—by Missionaries and Explorers, with the Government's approval—during those half-a-dozen years.

Hennepin, in 1683, was the first person to use the word "Niagara," which has been the accepted name ever since; though more than a hundred different ways of spelling it have been found. And from Hennepin's time,—by every known form of pictorial reproduction; during the last forty years by photography more than all other forms put together—Niagara has been the most pictured and therefore the best known spot on earth.

DOCTEUR GENDRON

In 1660, another, and a most interesting reference to our Cataract appeared in print; written by one Docteur Gendron. It does not appear that he ever saw it, but he seems to have learnt a good deal about it; of course he learnt it from the Indians; moreover, he learnt it from Hurons, who dwelt in more or less proximity to it; from men who, no doubt, themselves had seen it. He learnt it from the same source, not improbably from the same men, from whom Fathers Ragueneau and Bressani had gotten their less comprehensive knowledge of it—for he had a special reason, in the line of his profession, for learning about it. He had written home to France concerning it, at least three years before Ragueneau, at least seven years before Bressani, had done so. And, curiously enough, at the very time when Docteur Gendron wrote his letters, Fathers Ragueneau and Bressani were also in that Huron Country. It is, therefore, more than reasonably certain, that all three of them being Europeans, all three living among the Hurons,—whose territory was not large, through which news of the presence of white men in those days traveled fast,—that they must have known each other, not only as acquaintances, but as intimates. The Priests had their headquarters at the Home of the Huron Mission, and the Docteur would, for every reason, take up his residence in that same Indian Village. Those three men,—with the exception of Champlain, the earliest known chroniclers of the existence of Niagara Falls,—were doubtless near neighbors and close friends, in the Huron Country, in the wilds of Canada, over two hundred and fifty years ago.

Niagara in Early Days, by Thomas Cole.

In 1636, there had been published at Paris a work in five volumes, written by one Pierre Davity, who had died the year before, entitled "The Whole World; With all its Parts, States, Empires, Kingdoms, Republics and Governments." It had been reissued at least twice by 1649. In all three of those Editions, "America, The Third Part of the World," had been treated of at some length—especially the Southern Hemisphere;—and while Canada had not been overlooked, there had been no mention of Niagara.

In 1660, Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, who was both a Counsellor to the King and also his State Historian, reissued the work, enlarged and "brought up to date." This issue was in three volumes, folio; rather ponderous tomes; well printed, and elaborately bound. As in the previous editions, it was issued by consent of the King, and with the approval of the Clergy; and it now had the official editing of the King's Historian.

At the end of the portion relating to America—that is, at the very end of the last volume—its contents evidently coming to Rocoles' notice at the last moment; probably after the work was entirely printed (for the preceding page bears the imprint, "End of America"; and there is no mention of its contents in the Index), is a short Chapter entitled (translated),

This supplementary Chapter is six pages in length, and, while it is not signed, we may justly assume that Rocoles himself, and none other, wrote it. It begins,—

In the letters thus transcribed, "word for word," Sieur Gendron gives the location of the Huron Country, where he writes,—

From his descriptions of the Lake Region, from his location of other Indian tribes, and from the context, Sieur Gendron was very near the southern end of Georgian Bay, when he wrote those letters. That he was in the same Indian Village, as was the House, or Headquarters, of the Mission to the Hurons (which was located at that point), is deducable even more strongly, from the fact, that Father Ragueneau, in his report to his Superior, in 1648, uses, word for