And this highway of plates across the empire of New France gives but
suggestion of the meagerest fraction of the fruitage of the planting of
the leaden plates or the grafting of the arms of France upon the trees
along the Ohio--forty pounds of iron, it has been estimated by one graphic
statistician, for every man, woman, and child on the globe to-day,
[Footnote: H. N. Casson. United States produces thirty million tons
annually, Pennsylvania eleven and a quarter million. "Mineral Resources,"
1912.] and I do not know how much tin. And, in a sense, all from a small
box or crate of plates made of lead--six, eight, or more in number, eleven
inches long, seven inches wide, and one eighth of an inch thick, and
engraved with an inscription--one of which was found not long ago, by some
lads, protruding from the bank of one of the tributary rivers! The
inscription ran (in translation):
"Year 1749, in the reign of Louis XV., King of France, We, Celoron,
commanding the detachment sent by the Marquis De la Galissoniere,
Commander General of New France, to restore tranquillity in certain
villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at [here is inserted the
name of the tributary at its confluence with the Ohio] this [date] as a
token of renewal of possession heretofore taken of the aforesaid river,
Ohio, of all streams that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the
sources of the aforesaid streams, as the preceding Kings of France enjoyed
it, or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld by force of
arms and by treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix la
Chapelle.
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