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 and Lake Ontario; Joliet and Marquette met at Mackinaw. All routes converged on these narrow land and water courses, while on the broad lakes sojourners passed each other at short distances unwittingly. For in the old days of canoes the coming and going routes varied with a thousand circumstances. Of course the traveler's general rule was to reach quickest waters flowing toward his destination. If he was making for the mouth of the Mississippi from Montreal his best route would be to turn south from Lake Ontario to the first easterly head of the Allegheny River, in preference to pushing further west to the head of any of the other tributaries of the Mississippi. Following the same rule, the route from Quebec to the Kennebec Valley was by way of Moosehead Lake; the return route was by way of the Dead River. A person returning from the "Falls of the Ohio" (Louisville, Kentucky) to Canada would, other things being equal, make for the nearest head of a stream flowing into Lake Erie.

In the case of the Great Lakes, winds and changing water-level soon became