Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/836

 826 Reviezvs of Books proceeds with painstaking exactness and minute research until La Salle and Tonty appear, when the labor of investigation becomes a labor of delight in recounting their heroic deeds. In the full swing of apprecia- tive and vigorous narrative, the hand of the penman is suddenly relaxed. Death stopped the story in the promise of its excellence as it cut off the writer in the very height of his usefulness. The narrative ends abruptly with the reappointment of Frontenac to the governorship of Canada in 1689. La Salle had met his tragic fate ; but his faithful follower, Tonty, " first seigneur of the Isle of Tonty," was still governor of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river. The reader of this story of the beginnings of French dominion in Illinois is immediately struck by the almost unparalleled list of citations, necessarily led by the Jesuit Relations. Scarcely a statement is made for ■which two or more authorities are not given. Where these materially differ, the author has stated his preference with the clearness of the lawyer. Indeed, the legal training of Mr. Mason is most evident in the judicial severity with which he examines the numerous and often conflict- ing statements in manuscripts and maps of the Jesuits and traders in those evolutionary days. His style is usually as simple as a chronicle, leaving the reader to absorb the facts. The multiplicity of names introduced makes the need of an index almost imperative. Its absence renders the book almost as useless to the student as a library would be without a catalogue. No doubt the unfin- ished condition of the work explains this lack; but it can scarcely ensure pardon to the publishers for the omission. The credit for the discovery of the upper Mississippi and the Illinois valleys Mr. Mason would give to Jolliet (always so written here) rather than to Marquette. " Every reliable authority demonstrates the mistake, and yet the delusion continues." His argument rests upon the state- ment of Marquette that Jolliet was sent to discover new countries and he to preach the gospel ; that Frontenac reported Jolliet as the man selected for this purpose ; that Father Dablon confirms this statement ; and that the Canadians rewarded only Jolliet for the discovery. Father Hennepin appears as "a vain, good-natured and sadly unre- liable friar." The Jesuits generally take a position of secondary im- portance and many appear in a way likely to be challenged by their ad- herents. On many points disputed by local historians, Mr. Mason speaks authoritatively. He locates Fort Crevecoeur in Woodford county, Illinois, some distance above Peoria; traces its name not to La Salle's disappointment, as does Parkman, but to a fort of that name in the Netherlands in the capture of which Tonty had participated, or to the French noble family of that name ; puts Fort St. Louis on the top of what is now " Starved Rock; " and follows Joutel in deriving the word "Chicago" from wild garlic. Quite naturally, the "first" things of Chicago occupy no little space, as when La Salle's letter headed " Du portage de Checagou 4 Jan. 1683 " is pointed out as the first document written entirely at what is now the western metropolis.