It was not until 140 years after La Sallewrote his polemic to the governor that Henry School-craft would rightly assess and report on the geographicallayout of the Illinois Country. He was the forerunner ofengineers who established a commercial water-link be-tween the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, and credit forthe idea to build that artificial Illinois and Michigan Ca-nal should be attributed to him, not to Jolliet.

ToJolliet’s claim that game animals such as bison were plen-tiful in the Illinois Country, La Salle wrote, “The buffaloare becoming scarce here since the Illinois are at war withtheir neighbors; both kill and hunt them continually.”

Jolliet also toldDablon that “A settler would not there spend ten years incutting down and burning the trees; on the very day ofhis arrival, he could put his plow into the ground.”