This volume is the concluding one of a series projected by the late John Gilmary Shea, LL. D., on the "Discovery and Explorations of the Mississippi Valley." The initial volume, issued in 1852, comprises the Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membré, Hennepin and Anastase Douay. The second, issued in 1861, contains those of Cavelier, St. Cosme, Le Seur, Gravier and Guignas.
The present volume, giving Joutel's Journal of La Salle's third and last voyage, is reprinted from the first English translation of 1714, of the original French edition of 1713.
A facsimile reprint of the above English edition was issued (privately) by the Caxton Club of Chicago, in 1896, in an edition of 203 copies, and enriched by textual notes by Prof. Melville B. Anderson, now of Menlo Park, California,—the result of his careful collation of the English with the French original. These notes, by the special permission of Mr. Anderson, have been incorporated in the present volume and indicated by his initials.
With a view, also, to render this edition as compendious a source of reference as possible for the student of this subject, we have added, by the courtesy of the author, the exceedingly full and valuable "Bibliography of the Discovery and Explorations in the Mississippi Valley," by Mr. Appleton P. C. Griffin, formerly of the Boston Public Library, now Chief Bibliographer of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
