It will be observed that in both of the maps of 1697, extracts from which are given herewith, the Mississippi River is marked as continuing its course to the Gulf. This change is made to illustrate an interpolation in the text (pp. 249-312), borrowed from Father Membré’s Journal of La Salle’s descent of the river, as given in Le Clercq’s _Premier Établissement de la Foi_, p. 153. Sparks, in his _Life of La Salle_, was the first to point out this correspondence. Mr. J. H. Perkins, reviewing Sparks’s book in the _North American Review_ in January, 1839 (reprinted in his _Memoir and Writings_, vol. ii.), on the “Early French Travellers in the West,” referring to the partial statements of the distrust of Hennepin in Andrew Ellicott’s _Journal_, and in Stoddard’s _Sketches of Louisiana_, makes, for the first time, as he thinks, a thorough critical statement of the grounds “for thinking the _Reverend Father_ so great a liar.” Further elucidation of the supposed theft was made by Dr. Shea in his _Discovery of the Mississippi_, etc., p. 105, where, p. 83, he translated for the first time into English Membré’s Journal. The Membré narrative is much the same as a _Relation de la Découverte de l’Embouchure de la Rivière Mississippi, faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l’année passée_, 1682, preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de la Marine, and printed in Thomassy’s _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_. Gravier, p. 180, holds it to be the work of La Salle himself (Boimare, _Text explicatif pour accompagner la première planche historique relative à la Louisiane_, Paris, 1868; cf. Gravier’s Appendix, no. viii). That there was a fraud on Hennepin’s part has been generally held ever since Sparks made his representations. Bancroft calls Hennepin’s journal “a lie.” Brodhead calls it an audacious falsehood. Parkman (_La Salle_, p. 226) deems it a fabrication, and has critically examined Hennepin’s inconsistencies. Gravier classes his narrative with Gulliver’s. The excuse given in the _Nouvelle Découverte_ for the tardy appearance of this Journal is, that fear of the hostility of La Salle having prevented its appearance in the _Description de la Louisiane_, that explorer’s death rendered the suppression of it no longer necessary. It is, moreover, proved that passages from Le Clercq are also appropriated in describing the natives and the capture of Quebec in 1628. The reply to this was that Le Clercq stole from a copy of Hennepin’s Journal, which had been lent to Le Roux in Quebec. These revelations led Shea seriously to question in his _Mississippi_ if Hennepin had ever seen the upper parts of that river, and to suspect that Hennepin may have learned what he wrote from Du Lhut. Harrisse, p. 176, brings forward some new particulars about Hennepin’s relations with Du Lhut.