is in touch visibly with the Past.
And what deeds of the Past these old stone buildings might tell if
they were given power of speech!

The name Niagara is of Iroquois origin, as are so many names of
New York State, and is of ancient application to the river and the
falls which bear them. The falls of the Niagara are indicated on
Champlain’s map of 1632 and in 1648 are spoken of by the Jesuit
Rugueneau as “a cataract of frightful height.” It is certain that
the indefatigable emissaries of the order of which he was a member
had penetrated to the region of the great falls before this. In
1678 the falls were visited by the Friar Louis Hennepin, who drew
a curious picture of them, still preserved, and gave a more curious
and exaggerated description.

[Illustration:

  Copyright, Detroit Publishing Company

FORT NIAGARA, ON NIAGARA RIVER, N. Y.]

In the year that the good Friar Hennepin was paying his respects
to Nature’s great wonder, Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle was
building his fort at Frontenac, now Kingston, Canada West, and in
1675 King Louis XIV, that brilliant and indefatigable monarch of
France, whose legislative labors in opposition to race suicide
in Canada justly earned him the title of the Father of Canada,
bestowed upon our cavalier a large grant of land near his fort.
La Salle, inspired by the brilliant discoveries of Marquette and
Joliet in the region farther west than that wherein he had his
bailiwick, determined to explore the lands south of Ontario and
to connect the territories which he hoped thus to acquire with
Quebec by means of a series of posts. Empowered by his royal master
with letters warrant to embark upon this form of enterprise, he
crossed over Ontario, picked out a settlement point at, or near,
the present Lewiston, New York, and commenced the building of a
small vessel on Cayuga Creek above the falls, the supplies for this
vessel being carried from his little settlement near Lewiston,
below the falls, and in the direction of his main base at Fort
Frontenac. At the same tim