In the summer of 1680 Louis Hennepin, a Recollet monk, in company with Michael Accault and a Picard named Du Gay first explored the Upper Mississippi. Hennepin wrote a famous description of his travels, and gave the name to the falls he had discovered. But La Salle, Hennepin's fellow-voyager across the Atlantic, was the first to write a description of the Falls of St. Anthony, from information which must have been furnished by one of Hennepin's party. [Illustration THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY ABOUT 1850.] For almost a century after Hennepin no white man visited the Falls of St. Anthony. In 1776, Captain Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, started on an exploring expedition, to the Northwest and reached the falls about the middle of November. Carver made the first picture of the falls and gives an accurate description, from which it appears that the island which is now many feet below the waterfall was then in its midst. Carver greatly appreciated the beauty of the country, but, like Hennepin, passed away leaving only his description and his picture. The War of the Revolution came and left no trace on the Northwest. At its close the sovereignty of France and of the new nation which had been born into the world faced each other on the banks of the Mississippi. In 1803 the west as well as the east bank became part of the domain of the United States. But the inhabitants knew nothing of the change until Captain Zebulon M. Pike, of the army, came to put an end to alleged improper transactions on the part of certain British traders. On an island a few miles below the falls Pike held a council with the Sioux and signed a treaty which extinguished the Indian title to a tract of land extending nine miles on each side of the river north from the mouth of the Minnesota River, and including the Falls of St. Anthony. Twelve years later Major Long, with two grandsons of Carver, ascended the river from St. Louis in a six-oared skiff, and wrote that "the murmuring of the cascade, the roaring of the river and the thunder of the cataract all contribute to render the scene the most interesting and magnificent of any I ever before witnessed."