The "Jesuit Relation" of August 1, 1674, reporting the conversation of
Joliet, who had lost all his precious papers in the Lachine Rapids, makes
this interesting prophecy: [Footnote: Thwaite's edition, 58:105.] "It
would only be necessary to make a canal by cutting through half a league
of prairie, to pass from the foot of the Lake of the Illinois [Michigan]
to the River St. Louis [Mississippi].... A bark [built on Lake Erie] would
easily sail to the Gulf of Mexico. "The monument to him stands by the
canal that has been cut through not merely a league but many leagues
(thirty-eight miles) and lets the waters of Michigan flow southward to the
Illinois. Of this site Joliet is quoted as saying, "The place at which we
entered the lake is a harbor, very convenient for receiving vessels and
sheltering them from the wind;" [Footnote: "Jesuit Relations" (Thwaites),
58:107.] and of the prairies back of the harbor: "At first when we were
told of these treeless lands I imagined that it was a country ravaged by
fire, where the soil was so poor that it could produce nothing.
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