In 1853, Shea’s valuable “Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi” was brought out at New York.[132] The contents of this work have been perhaps sufficiently indicated in the notices of contemporary journals, which are reproduced in it. In 1860 Thomassy published “Géologie pratique de la Louisiane,” in which he presented some important inedited documents. This writer contemplated writing a history of La Salle’s exploits from the MSS. in the French archives, and, as a preliminary, issued in separate form the documents which he had collected, under the title, “De La Salle et ses relations inédites,” Paris, 1860. In 1869 Parkman published the first edition of his “Discovery of the Great West,” forming the third volume of the series of historical narratives upon “France and England in North America.” In the latest edition, published in 1879, the title was changed to “La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West.” In the writing of the later edition the author had the use of additional documentary material, since printed by Margry, which caused a revision of some portion of the work. Gravier’s “Découvertes [etc.] de La Salle,” Paris, 1870, and the supplementary monograph published by him in 1871, add little that is not in Parkman’s work. The later publication corrects some errors and deficiencies in the first. Dr. Shea’s contributions to the history of the first explorations of the West, beside his “Discovery of the Mississippi,” New York, 1853, consist mainly of notes to the many important original narratives which he has edited, notably those of Hennepin, Le Clercq, and Charlevoix. The following works contain among the first travellers, accounts of the country traversed by Marquette, Hennepin, and La Salle: