Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 7).djvu/170

 evolution of new routes leading to the Mississippi, occurred the first use of the Wabash river by white explorers. This stream was occasionally reached in the earliest period by leaving Lake Michigan on the St. Joseph river and then by a short portage to the headwaters of a northern branch of the Wabash, but the more important way to reach it was by the 'Miami river of Lake Erie' and a short portage. Of the five great portage routes, this was the last one to come into general use by the whites Many have tried to trace La Salle's voyage of 1670 by the Wabash river. Joliet's map of 1674, which locates La Salle's route by way of Lake Erie and the Wabash, has been used in support of this contention. But the route laid down is clearly a later interpolation and adds nothing directly to the argument. It is, however, most significant that within a few years La Salle had become in some manner fully aware of this Wabash route and the advantages it offered. During the