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District of Pennsylvania, to wit :

BE IT REMEMBERED that on the Fifteenth day of August in the. Twenty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Thomas Dobson of the said District hath deposited in this Office the Title of a Book the right whereof he claims as Proprietor in the words following to wit:

"The Journal of Andrew Ellicott, late Commissioner on behalf of "the United States during part of the year 1796, the years 1797, 1798,

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1799, and part of the year 1800: for determining the Boundary be"tween the United States and the Possessions of his Catholic Majesty " in America, containing Occasional Remarks on the Situation, Soil, "Rivers, Natural Productions, and Diseases of the different Countries " on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Gulf of Mexico, with Six Maps, com" prehending the Ohio, the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to "the Gulf of Mexico, the whole of West Florida and part of East "Florida. To which is added an Appendix, containing all the Astro"nomical Observations made use of for determining the Boundary, with many others, made in different parts of the country for settling the "geographical positions of some important points, with maps of the " boundary on a large scale; likewise a great number of Thermometri"cal Observations made at different times and places."

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In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intitled "An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to the Act entitled "An Act supplementary to an Act entitled " An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching, historical and other prints.

GEO. BOND

Dep. Clerk of the District
of Pennsylvania.

LENOX LIBRARY

NEW YORK

PREFACE.

THE following work as now handed to the public with the exception of the Appendix, was drawn up between the 14th of June 1802, and the beginning of November following. A press of business then commenced in the Land Office, which prevented not only a careful revisal of the manuscript, but even a second reading. This circumstance, added to my distance from the printer, has rendered a short preface somewhat necessary in order to make a few explanations, and include some additions.

When the journal was drawn up, it was my intention to have divided the map of the Mississippi river from the mouth of the Ohio, to the Gulf of Mexico, into two parts only; but when I came to lay it down, it appeared better to divide it into three: the map containing the third, or lower part, contains also the island of Orleans, and great part of West Florida.

The maps belonging to the Journal are all laid down by a scale of 15 miles to an inch, and may easily be annexed to each other by a little attention to the meridians, and parallels of latitude.

It is stated in the account of the Mississippi, and the settlements on it, that the Sieur la Salle was the

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first European who descended that river to its mouth: -This is the general opinion; it is however proper to observe, that Father Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan Friar, and missionary, claims the credit of having descended the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico, in the year 1680, which is two years before it was accomplished by la Salle. Notwithstanding the relation given by Father Hennepin, and the truth, and propriety of some of his remarks, I am of the opinion that he has either been mistaken himself, or attempted to deceive his readers. This Reverend Father by his own account* left the Illinois on the 8th of March 1680, and arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi on the 25th of the same month: from which it appears, that he, and his two men, were 17 days in performing the voyage; but from these 17 days, 7 are to be deducted for the delays they met with from different causes, they were therefore but 10 days actually employed in descending the river, which is scarcely possible: but the time spent in their return to the Illinois, taken in the most favourable point of view, is too short to give the least credibility to the relation, and is moreover at variance with itself. On the 9th of April we find Father Hennepin in the neighbourhood of the Akanses, where he appears to have spent several days, for he informs us that he left them on the 24th of the same month, when he, and his men began to make use of great precaution, to prevent being seen by their comrades, whom they had left at the Illinois, and who supposed they had gone to the north up the Mississippi agreeably to the directions of la Salle, instead of to the south. They appear by the same narrative, to have passed their friends undiscovered,

* Printed in London in 1698.

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