at their request to a number of the libraries in the different states printed copies of this address, and now the supply has been about exhausted and the document is about out of print, and I think I should give here a short synopsis of it. [Illustration: _Charles Clinton Nourse_ From Photograph by W. Kurtz, Madison Square, New York, 1876] The following is the introductory matter, stating something of the discovery of the territory that now constitutes our state: Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: On the 13th of May, A.D. 1673, James Marquette and Louis Joliet, under the direction of the French authorities of Canada, started from the Straits of Mackinaw, in their frail bark canoes, with five boatmen, "to find out and explore the great river lying on the west of them, of which they had heard marvelous accounts from the Indians about Lake Michigan." From the southern extremity of Green bay they ascended the Fox river, and thence carried their boats and provisions across to the Wisconsin. Descending that stream, they reached the Mississippi on the 17th of June, and entered its majestic current, "realizing a joy," wrote Marquette, "that they could not express." Rapidly and easily they swept down to the solitudes below, and viewed on their journey the bold bluffs and beautiful meadows on the western bank of the stream, now revealed for the first time to the eyes of the white man. This was the discovery of Iowa. The address then proceeds to give a short account of the first settlements in Iowa at Keokuk, Burlington, Davenport, and Dubuque, and also the settlements afterwards made at Council Bluffs and Sioux City, and cites the various treaties made from time to time between the government of the United States and the Indians, extinguishing the Indian title. It also gives something of the topography of the country, and in regard to its resources and the natural fertility of the soil it contains the following: