=99. The Explorations of La Salle.=—Their work was finished ten years later by Robert de la Salle,[49] who with his companions crossed from Lake Erie to the Illinois River and, after enduring many hardships, tracked the Mississippi southward to the Gulf of Mexico. There, taking possession of the region for Louis XIV. of France, La Salle named it Louisiana in his honor. He had been about four years at his work, in which he had shown a courage that has made him memorable. Two years later, in 1684, he sailed from France to plant a colony on the Mississippi; but, missing its mouth, landed on the coast of Texas. Here a fort was built, and from its occupation France got her claim to the territory as far as the Rio Grande. La Salle and his party, after suffering many hardships, determined to separate into two bands. The party led by La Salle murdered their brave commander, and finally reached the Illinois River. =100. French and English Claims.=—Thus France, through the labors of her loyal subjects, had established a claim to an enormous region stretching from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, around the English colonies, to the mouth of the Mississippi, and thence to the Rio Grande. East and west the boundaries were practically the Alleghany and the Rocky mountains. But these claims were sure to be resisted, for the charters of the English colonies gave them almost indefinite rights to the westward, and they were growing too fast to be long cooped up between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic. Before the close of the seventeenth century, the struggle for predominance in the Mississippi Valley had begun, and in about seventy-five years France had been stripped of all the possessions which had been secured for her by the intrepidity and foresight of leaders who had often been but ill-supported by their king and government. WARS WITH THE FRENCH.