Pierre Margry, Assistant-Custodian of the Archives of the Marine and Colonies at Paris, whose labors as an investigator of the maritime and colonial history of France can be appreciated only by those who have seen their results.” Gravier about the same time referred to the twenty years of study which had made M. Margry the most learned of students of La Salle’s history. It was evident that investigators could not profit by this accumulation of material, unless M. Margry’s hopes of publication were realized. He refused offers to purchase. In conjunction with M. Harrisse, an effort was made by him in 1870-1871 to enlist the aid of the United States Congress; but a vote which passed the Senate failed in the House. The great fire at Boston in 1872 stayed the progress which, under Mr. Parkman’s instigation, had been made to insure a private publication. At last, by Mr. Parkman’s assiduous labors in the East, and by those of Colonel Whittlesey, Mr. O. H. Marshall, and others in the West, and with the active sympathy of the Hon. George F. Hoar, a bill was passed Congress in 1873, making a subscription for five hundred copies of the intended work.[670] With this guaranty M. Margry put to press the series of volumes entitled _Mémoires et documents pour servir à l’histoire des origines Françaises de pays d’outre-mer: découvertes et établissements des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud d’Amérique septentrionale_. The first volume appeared in 1876. It contained an Introduction by M. Margry, and was prefixed by a very questionable likeness of La Salle,—the picture (of which nothing was said by the editor) having no better foundation than the improbable figure of the explorer in a copperplate, published some years after his death, representing the scene of his murder, and of which a fac-simile is annexed.[671] Of the intended volumes, three are devoted to La Salle, and appeared between 1876 and 1878: vol. i., _Voyages des Français sur les grands lacs, et découvertes de l’Ohio et du Mississippi_, 1614-1684; vol. ii., _Lettres de La Salle, et correspondance relative à ses entreprises_, 1678-1685 (these include letters also preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale); vol. iii., _Recherche des bouches du Mississipi et voyage à travers le continent depuis les côtes du Texas jusqu’à Québec_. [Illustration]