Book Description

Excerpt from William Dawson Armstrong, American Composer A bright day in June, 1673, down the river come drifting with the current two canoes. In them are seated seven Frenchmen, two of them are Marquette and Joliet, the already famous explorers, who to their other laurels had just added the discovery of the Upper Mississippi. They were the first white men to view the site on which Alton now stands. That they got a start ling impression of it is shown by the record made by the gentle Father Marquette in his journal. The paint ing on the rocks which he described, was the famous Piasa Bird, since perpetuated in song and story. The good father's praise of the skill of Alton's prehistoric artist, is appreciated to this day, while his criticism of the wild and muddy ways of the Missouri is accepted. It is 243 years since he made his Observations and no reforma tion in the Missouri's mode of progress is yet apparent. 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.