Within a few years there has been produced a map which seems to have been made by Joliet immediately after his return to Montreal. This would make it the earliest map of the Mississippi based on actual knowledge, and the first of a series accredited to Joliet. It is called _Nouvelle découverte de plusieurs nations dans la Nouvelle France en l’année 1673 et 1674_. Gabriel Gravier first made this map known through an _Étude sur une carte inconnue; la première dressée par L. Joliet en 1674, après son exploration du Mississippi auec Jacques Marquette en 1673_.[566] A sketch of it, with a key, is given herewith. The tablet in the sketch marks the position of Joliet’s letter to Frontenac, of which a reduced fac-simile is also annexed. “In this epistle,” says Mr. Neill, “Joliet mentions that he had presented a map showing the situation of the Lakes upon which there is navigation for more than 1,200 leagues from east to west, and that he had given to the great river beyond the Lakes, which he had discovered in the years 1673-1674, the designation of Buade, the family name of Frontenac.[567] He adds a glowing description of the prairies, the groves, and the forests,” and writes of the quail (_cailles_) in the fields and the parrot (_perroquet_) in the woods. He concludes his communication as follows: “By one of the large rivers which comes from the west and empties into the River Buade, one will find a route to the Red Sea” [Mer vermeille, _i. e._ Gulf of California]. [Illustration] “I saw a village which was not more than five days’ journey from a tribe which traded with the tribes of California;[568] if I had arrived two days before, I could have conversed with those who had come from thence, and had brought four hatchets as a present. You would have seen a description of these things in my Journal, if the success which had accompanied me during the voyage had not failed me a quarter of an hour before arriving at the place from which I had departed. I had escaped the dangers from savages, I had passed forty-two rapids, and was about to land with complete joy at the success of so long and difficult an enterprise, when, after all dangers seemed past, my canoe turned over. I lost two men and my box in sight of the first French settlement, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me but my life, and the wish to employ it in any service you may please.” This Report was sent to France in November, 1674. There is in Mr. Barlow’s Collection a large map (27 × 40 inches), which is held by Dr. Shea and General Clarke to be a copy of the original Joliet Map, with the Ohio marked in by a later and less skilful hand. A sketch of it is annexed as “Joliet’s Larger Map.”