Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/82



shore of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Wisconsin to that of the Des Moines.

Bancroft estimates that at the time of the discovery of America, the entire Indian population of the region now embraced in the States of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, was but little more than twenty-five thousand. And all of this land was still sparsely occupied one hundred and eighty years later. The extent and importance of the discoveries made by these energetic pioneers was not realized by France, and no effort was made by the government to occupy or further explore the new empire.

Joliet was but twenty-seven years old at this time. He was an expert draughtsman, and had carefully prepared maps and notes descriptive of their joint discoveries. But he met with a great misfortune in descending the St. Lawrence River, where his canoe was capsized and all of his valuable papers and maps lost. No complete history of the expedition was now in existence, and the only report he was able to make to the French Government was an imperfect narrative, from memory, of the results of the discoveries. Some years later he gathered all the data obtainable and reproduced the lost maps from memory as accurately as was possible, with a chart of the general course of the river. He added to it such proximate draught as he was able to make from information obtained from the Indians, of that portion of the lower valley and river beyond which their voyage extended. *

*Illinois has given the name of this young explorer to one of its large towns.