Réné-Robert Cavelier, better known by his territorial patronymic of La Salle, was born at Rouen, in Normandy, some time in the year 1643. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptism took place on the 22nd of November of that year, at which time it is probable that he was only a few days old. His family had long been wealthy burghers of Rouen, and there were no obstacles in the way of his receiving a liberal education. He early displayed an aptitude for science and mathematics, and, while still young, entered a Jesuit Seminary in his native town. By this act, which constituted the first step towards taking holy orders, he forfeited the inheritance which would otherwise have descended to him--a forfeiture which does not seem at any time to have weighed very heavily on his mind. He seems to have occupied for a short time the position of a teacher in the Seminary. After profiting for several years by the discipline taught in the establishment he requested and obtained his discharge, obtaining high praise from the directors of the Seminary for the diligence of his studies and the purity of his life. "The cravings of a deep ambition," says Mr. Parkman, "the hunger of an insatiable intellect, the intense longing for active achievement, subdued in him all other passions; and among his faults the love of pleasure had no part." His father had died a short time before La Salle quitted the Seminary, and he would then have at once succeeded to a large patrimony but for his connection with the Jesuits. A small sum--amounting to several hundred livres--was handed over to him, and in the spring of 1666 the young adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in New France, towards which the attention of all western Europe was at that time directed. He had already an elder brother in this country--the Abbé Jean Cavelier, a Sulpician priest at Montreal. The Sulpicians had established themselves there a few years before this time, and had already become proprietors and feudal lords of the city and island. They were granting out their lands to settlers on very easy terms, and La Salle obtained a grant of a large tract of land a short distance above the turbulent current now known as the Lachine Rapids. Here he became a feudal proprietor and fur trader on his own account. Such a pursuit, however, was far from satisfying the cravings of his ambition. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a passage to the South Sea, and a new road for commerce to the riches of China and Japan. Indians often came to his secluded settlement; and on one occasion he was visited by a band of Seneca Iroquois, some of whom spent the winter with him, and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country and flowing into the sea, but at such a distance that its mouth could only be reached after a journey of eight or nine months. Evidently the Ohio and the Mississippi are here merged into one. In accordance