Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/367



JONATHAN CARVER AND THE NAME OREGON 355

today, flowing from Lake Winnipeg into Hudson's Bay; and was given the name by La Verendrye about 1741. The upper end of Lake Winnipeg, above the narrows, was Verendrye's and Carver's "Lake Bourbon." The Red River of the North, flowing into Lake Winnipeg from the south was never named "Bourbon," not even on Carver's maps. There was only an appearance of truth about this scheme of four such rivers and that had been made known by map makers nearly forty years before Carver claims to have heard about it, as is evi- denced in the following letter written by the French governor of Canada to the ministere des colonies at Paris : 14

Monseigneur I have the honor to send you a copy of a map of the course of the river of the west, made by the savage Ochagac and others.

If the account of these savages is accurate, that river must discharge above California. The Sieur Chaussegros has traced, from the Sieur de ITsle's map on a flying sheet, the course of the river reduced according to the map. He finds that the river discharges toward the entrance discovered by Martin Daguilar. He has also reduced the savages' map, on which there are three scales, while his is drawn to only one and shows the whole course of the river, from the height of land beyond Lake Superior to above California. The savages have traced on the map the upper portion of the Mississippi River, which takes its rise to the south of Lake Ouinipigou, and, according to the Sieur de ITsle's map, the river Rio Colorado would take its rise about the same spot.

I observed with the Sieur Chaussegros that this country is traversed by two great rivers, which take their rise about the middle ; one flows toward the east which is the Saint Lawrence, the other to the south and is the Mississipy. There remain to the west an extent of territory from seven to eight hundred leagues in width, without any large river in it. This would be contrary to all the knowledge we have of countries that are known in the world ; where in so vast an area there is always some great river that traverses it ; which leads me to think that

14 From manuscript in archives in Pans; see pp. 103-4 of Wisconsin His- torical Society Collections, vol. 17. In this connection read L. P. Burpee's chapter on Carver in his book entitled The Search for the Western Sea.