The majestic solitudes of these lakes first received the white man in 1679, when the discoverers La Salle and Hennepin, in the vessel of sixty tons, which they had built with their Indians at Cayuga Creek, sailed up Niagara River, Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, to Mackinaw, and thence through Lake Michigan to the mouth of Green Bay. Entering Lake Erie on the 7th of August, 1691, they arrived at Green Bay on the 2d of September following, encountering many storms and cautiously seeking their untried way. After gathering a rich cargo of furs, the vessel, in charge of the pilot and five men, started to return, and was heard of no more. She doubtless perished with her crew in a gale on Lake Huron. She carried seven cannon, was well manned and armed, adorned with carved griffin and eagle heads, and bore the banner and religion of France amid all the border tribes. Surely the voyage of Columbus, discovering Hispaniola, while sailing before and obeying the trade winds, did not surpass in real adventure this simple expedition of those half-warrior pioneer voyageurs, Fathers Hennepin and La Salle. The memory of their visit is yet immortal in the local names given by them and still cherished; while the influence of France still lingers at Detroit and many other prominent points in this wide region, once the empire of Louis XIV. We reached the Saut Sainte Marie about 4 P. M. of the 2d of August. Here the River St. Mary, or the eastern outlet of Lake Superior, after a wide course of fifty miles, gathers the multitude of its waters into a narrow channel of less than a mile in width and length, of swift and impassable rapids. The grand Ship Canal, with its stone banks of about eighty feet width and three locks, transports the largest tonnage around these rapids. This great work was completed in 1857 by the contractors, Erastus Corning, of New York, Fairbanks, and others, for a contract price of seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, chiefly mineral, in the State of Michigan. During our steamer's canal passage of about two hours, we were interested by the picturesque scenery, untenanted save by the wigwam and the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net, strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a capacious basketful and more, before the steamer leaves the canal. And thus we floated onward to the bosom of great Superior.