On the 3d of March, an order was passed authorizing the Committee which was appointed February 12, to reduce to writing the facts and reasons upon which they framed their report relative to the Land Bank Company and which had not been able to conclude its work, to prepare the same during recess of the Court, to serve a copy on Robert Auchmuty, so that the directors might make answer at the May session.

There is a report on file which deals with the question of the liability of the directors and which may be the report of this Committee. It is not dated and is not signed, and its character and purpose can only be identified by its

contents.

Under date of June 7, the following entry is to be found:

In Council. The Committee appointed the last session of the General Court to reduce to writing the reasons and evidence upon which their report relative to the Land Bank or Manufactory Scheme was founded, and to deliver the same to Robert Auchmuty, Esq., made report of their doings thereon, and thereupon ordered that the same be considered on Friday next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and that Robert Auchmuty be notified of this order, that he may then put in a reply thereto if he see cause.

In the House of Representatives, read and concurred. The foregoing is the last entry in the records of the Court in which the affairs of the Land Bank are under consideration of the legislators. One other entry, made two years thereafter, would indicate that in the interim the whole thing had permanently disappeared. On the 9th of November, 1770, a petition was presented by Samuel Dexter, James Humphreys and Edward Sheaffe, for certain allowances for services and for expenses incurred by them in the examination of the affairs of the Land Bank in 1766

1 Archives, 104, 539.

2 Ibid., 104, 508.

8 Court Records, XXVII., 321.

4 Court Records, XXVIII., 359. Archives, 104, 443.

and 1767. These three men constituted the Commission to finish the Bank, appointed March 20, 1767. The application for pay apparently covers their services as committeemen prior to their appointment as Commissioners, and they ask that the allowance be made out of the public treasury. Among the items included is the bill of Seth Blodget,1 for rooms, attendance, wine, dinners and punches. The amount consumed by the Committee, when stated in old tenor, is appalling. £57, 18, 9, mainly for drinks, at fifteen sessions of a committee of three, would apparently task the services of the most experienced trencher-men of the day, but this sum when reduced to lawful money dwindles to £7, 14, 6, an amount not after all so great as to tax even. modern credulity. The consideration of a portion of this petition was referred to the next session. The habit in that respect was confirmed, and the last record that we have of the Land Bank is that an application for pay for services of a committee investigating its affairs, no longer directed against its funds but this time made upon the public treasury, is to come up at the next session amongst the unfinished business.

1 Archives, 104, 440.

THE HISTORY OF EXPLORATIONS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

BY STEPHEN D. PEET.

THERE have been three kinds of explorations in the Mississippi Valley since the discovery, each of which has contributed to a different department of science; the first to geography, the second to ethnology, and the third to archæology. It will take some time for us to give even the briefest review of these explorations, and yet they so join together and dovetail into one another that it seems to be important that they should all be considered together. We shall therefore follow the topical, rather than the chronological order, and shall consider the results which came from the carly explorations to the different departments, giving a separate division to each.

I. We begin with the explorations which were conducted in the interests of discovery. It will be noticed that these were conducted by different nationalities and covered different periods, the nationalities generally following the belts of latitude in which the mother country was situated.

Such was the case with the Spanish, French and English,'

1 The early maps show the startling effect of the discovery by Columbus upon all the nations of Europe, for voyages across the ocean were conducted by the different nationalities within the space of ten years; by the English under Sebastian Cabot in 1497; by the Portuguese under Ojeda in 1502; by the Spanish under Columbus and others in 1492; and by the French under Verrazano as early as 1503; but it still remains a question which one of the nationalities first reached the mainland and really discovered the continent. The following maps will show the dates of the voyages of the different nationalities along the coast of America, the letters and figures in brackets indicating the pages in Winsor's "Cartier to Frontenac," on which they are found.

"The King's Map." From a Portuguese Mappemonde, 1502 [p.7]. Ruysch, 1508, entitled Terrà Sancte Crucis Sive Mundus Novus [p. 8]. Sylvanus, 1511

though there were circumstances in the later explorations which ultimately brought the nations into conflict with one another. The English, who had made Jamestown Harbor the starting-point in the south and Port Royal on the north, extended their possessions westward and claimed. the belt between these two points by right of discovery and purchase. The French, commencing on the St. Lawrence, traversed the chain of the Great Lakes, but moved in a southwest direction, crossing the track of the English at the junction of the Ohio with the Alleghany, and that of the Spanish at the junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi; finally reaching the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Sabine River.

The Spanish who began exploration in Florida and the Gulf States extended their conquests to the Northwest, and claimed at one time all the territory west of the Mississippi River.2

[p. 11]. Portuguese Chart, 1520 [p. 15]. Verrazano, 1524 [p. 17]. Maiollo, 1527 [p. 19]. Michael Lok, 1532 [p. 20]. Mercator, 1538 [p. 49]. The Cabot Mappemonde, 1544 [p. 44]. Ortelius, 1570 [p. 65]. Judaeis, 1593 [p. 67]. Quadus, 1600 [p. 68]. Hakluyt Martyr, 1587 [p. 72]. The Ottawa Route, 1642 [p. 87]. Hudson's Bay and the St. Lawrence, 1613 [p. 110]. Visscher, 1652 [p. 178.] Sanson, 1656 [p. 179]. Heylyn's Cosmography, 1656-62 [p. 180]. Blaeu, 1665 [p. 182]. Creuxius, 1660 [p. 184]. Ogilby, 1670 [p. 210]. Duvals, 1682 [p. 216].

This atlas served to keep up the notion that the Ottawa and not the Niagara conducted the waters of Lake Erie to the sea.

1The English under the Cabots were seeking to rival the Spaniards in their discovery. They made their land-fall in 1497 in the neighborhood of New Foundland. They also discovered at the North a gulf supposed to correspond with the Mexican gulf at the South, and here found an expanse of water which had already coursed another great continental valley, and by which it was practicable to go a long distance towards the interior.

2 It is supposed that Ojeda, the Portuguese, visited Venezuela and Brazil in 1492; and the navigator Cortereal reached the coast of New England in 1501, for there is a globe which represents the name Terra Corterealis above the St. Lawrence, and near it the date" Anno Christi, 1501."

The Cantino map described by M. Harrisse shows that the Portuguese sailed the whole length of the Eastern coast of North America as early as 1502, for on it the coast of Greenland, New Foundland, Florida, and the West coast of Gulf of Mexico are well depicted.

"On the King map," "Terra Laboratoris" and "Terra Cortereal" are close together, showing that the Portuguese reached this point as early as 1502.

It is remarkable that nearly all the information which we have about the interior and the Indian tribes there, during the first two hundred years, is from the historians of different nationalities, and is contained in books printed in different languages. To illustrate, our history of the southern tribes, those between the Gulf coast and the Appalachian Mountains, is written in Spanish; that of the tribes of the Middle States,-Powhatans, Cherokees, and Algonquins, -is contained in English books; that of the northern tribes,-Hurons, Athapascans, Algonquins and Sioux, including the Dakotas,-in French books. The later history of the Iroquois and the tribes of the interior was written both by English and French, the Jesuit relations containing the largest portion of the record.

Still, there are cross-lights; for while the volume by Cabeça de Vaca and that by Garcilasso de la Vega, and the Portuguese Narrative are still relied upon as giving the best picture of the southern tribes, the writings of De Bry and the paintings of the artist Wyeth bring before us a picture of the tribes who are situated on the sea-coast of Florida and South Carolina. The maps of Verrazano, the Spaniard, bring before us a picture of the tribes on the coast of Maine. The writings of Champlain furnish a picture of the Iroquois. Taking the reports by different nationalities we have an excellent account of the early condition of the various tribes, and are interested very much in the descriptions of them. The picture moves before us like a panorama. As the different expeditions are taken into the interior one portion after another of our noble continent is brought to view, making us feel as enthusiastic and exhilarated by the vision as were the discoverers themselves, producing upon us the impression that the reading of the letters did upon the minds of the Europeans at the time. Each part of the new costumes and

picture brings before us new scenes,

new surroundings, and new adventures. We listen and