A number of the relations in the _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_ cover portions of the period and territory of this chapter. These have been collected and translated by Bishop Kip in the _Early Jesuit Missions_ (Albany, 1866). To avoid repetition, he has made certain abridgments. Some of the material thus left out has value to the student of the early history of Illinois.[103] Major Amos Stoddard, in his _Sketches Historical and Descriptive of Louisiana_ (Philadelphia, 1812), furnished an unostentatious and modest book, which has been freely quoted. The _Relation du voyage des dames religieuses Ursulines de Rouen_, etc. (Paris, 1872), with an introduction and notes by Gabriel Gravier, is an exact reprint of a publication at Rouen in 1728 of certain letters of Marie Madeleine Hachard, sœur Saint-Stanislas, to her father. The account of the tedious journey of the nuns from Paris to Orient, and of their perilous voyage to New Orleans, was worth preservation. M. Gravier has performed his part of the work with the evident satisfaction which such a task would afford a bibliophile and an antiquary. His introductory chapter contains a condensed history of Louisiana down to 1727, and is strongly fortified with quotations. He acknowledges himself to be indebted to M. Boimare for a great number of valuable unpublished documents relating to the foundation of New Orleans. Greater familiarity with his subject would have enabled him to escape several errors of date and of statement into which he has been led by authorities whose carelessness he apparently did not suspect. The memorial concerning the Church in Louisiana (_note_ 1, p. 113 _et seq._) is a document of great value and interest. M. Gravier (p. lvi) states that the Relation is substantially the same as the _Relation du voyage des fondatrices de la Nouvelle Orléans, écrite aux Ursulines de France, par la première supérieure, la mère St. Augustin_, which was reprinted by Dr. Shea in an edition of one hundred copies in 1859, under the general title of _Relation du voyage des premières Ursulines à la Nouvelle Orléans et de leur établissement en cette ville [1727], par la Rev. Mère St. A. de Tranchepain; avec les lettres circulaires de quelquesunes de ses sœurs, et de la dite mère_ (62 pp.). The _History of the American Indians, particularly those Nations adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia_, etc., by James Adair, who was forty years in the country, is a work of great value, showing the relations of the English traders to the Indians, and is of much importance to the student of Indian customs.[104] The _Géologie pratique de la Louisiane_, by R. Thomassy (New Orleans and Paris, 1860), contains copies of some rare documents which were first made public in this volume.