In a subsequent letter written from Illinois he speaks of this route, and also in his memorial to Frontenac in 1677, as the best one for traffic between the Great River and Canada, though it does not appear that he ever passed over it.—(Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract 25). Joliet was likewise ambitious of the glory of discovering the Great River, of which the Jesuit missionaries and the Indians gave glowing descriptions. He seems to have persuaded Galinée and DeCasson that this was the better route. La Salle and the Sulpitians here became alienated, and after attending mass separated on the 30th of September, they to find Lake Erie and the Ottawas of Mackinaw; he to pursue his original design. He had been for some days sick of a fever, which Galinée attributed to the sight of several rattlesnakes. He declared it to be so late in the season that his _voyageurs_, not accustomed to such a rigorous climate, would perish in the woods during the winter. From the hour of this separation we are without explicit information of his journeyings for a term of nearly three years. During this period the exploration of the Ohio country was effected, and in the opinion of M. Margry, the Mississippi was discovered by him, in advance of Joliet and Marquette. These wanderings, of which after two hundred years we know very little, show more originality of design, more audacity in execution, and a more pertinacious resolution under difficulties, than his later achievements on the Mississippi. No one has set up against him a rival claim to the discovery of the Ohio. His heirs, his admirers, and his countrymen should cherish the memory of that discovery as the most wonderful of his exploits. The historical obscurity which has befallen these expeditions is a painful fact, but is in some measure compensated by a glamour of romance, which deepens with the lapse of time. On seeing his favorite plan of an advance by the north shore of Lake Erie frustrated, he may have determined to brave all dangers and enter the lake by way of Niagara. There are many plans which he may have determined upon, of which we can only form a vague conjecture. He may have turned his canoes along the north shore, and spent the winter in hunting in that country. Color is given to this surmise by the statement of Nicholas Perrot that he met La Salle on the Ottawa in 1670, but this is not probable. Taken in the order of the anonymous relation, he was on a river which ran _from east to west_, before passing to Onontague (Onondaga), but there is no water route passable from Lake Ontario to the Ohio which would pass Onondaga. It is far more probable that the enthusiastic young explorer entered Niagara River with his Shawnee guide and made the portage to Lake Erie. He could soon find one of the portages to the waters of the Ohio, spoken of by the Senecas. One of them was from Lake Erie near Portland and Westfield, N. Y., of six or