Book Description

Excerpt from The Saint Lawrence: Its Basin Border-Lands; The Story of Their Discovery, Exploration and Occupation In the following pages an attempt has been made to set forth in order the chief facts relating to the discovery and exploration of the northeastern part of the continent of North America. It is the nearest to Europe, and has an interest of its own, inasmuch as it was the first part of the main continent to be reached from the Old World. No attempts to penetrate beyond the sea coast of this region have been recorded, until the Cartier voyages opened up the Gulf and the River St. Lawrence as a broad waterway leading to the mysterious West, or, as often called in the language of that day, to the East. The limits of exploration remained for sixty years after Cartier at the site of the present city of Montreal, eighty-six miles above the head of tide water. The foundation of Quebec by Champlain in 1608 initiated a new series of explorations. These extended over the whole basin of the St. Lawrence and over the water-parting into the 1 basin of the Mississippi contiguous to it. The story is full of geographic and historic interest, and abounds with romantic adventure. This also forms a part of our theme. To narrate intelligibly the achievements of these explorers, it is necessary, incidentally, to dwell upon the geography of these regions. Following up the avenue of "the River of Canada," the French pioneers outflanked the barrier of the Alleghenies, "the endless mountains" which so long retarded discovery at the south. They passed readily up into the great fresh-water seas in the centre of the continent and over the portages at the heads of their tributaries into the adjoining basins at the north, the west, and the south, unlocking all the river communications of the interior. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.