V.

THE COMING OF NICOLET.

The magnificent cenotaph raised on the Menasha park, under
the inspiration of the women's clubs of Menasha, unveiled on
Labor Day, September 3, 1906, with fitting ceremony, com-
memorates one of the greatest voyages in the history of the world.
And as it was the event which made known the interior of the
continent and opened to the world the vast empire of the West, it
may easily be regarded by its results as the greatest event in the
history of the West.
For ten years after this remarkable voyage over unsailed seas
of 2,000 miles by the first white man, the records seem silent on
the remarkable event. It was "Vimont's Relations of 1643"
which first described the event and sent it to Paris, where it was
published to the world.
Nicolet with his seven Huron Indians braved the terrors of
darkest America fourteen years after the Pilgrims landed and
twenty-four years after Canada was founded, but thirty years
before Marquette followed in his wake to push his way still
farther toward the setting sun and forty years before La Salle
entered the Illinois. There were then scarcely 1,000 white people
in America, and yet it was only 270 years ago.
Stories had been brought to Quebec, which was a log cabin vil-
lage then, of the Indians who resided about the great lakes, and
from such narratives the French governor, Champlain, had made
up a map of our country in the West in which he had located
Lake Winnebago, which he called "Lac des Puans," way up north
of Lake Superior, and made the Fox river run south into Lake
Superior (1632). At this time it was supposed by the scholars
and government of France that the rich empire of China lay
somewhere in the West beyond the setting sun. It had for many
years been the great desire of numerous hardy and reckless ad-
venturers to get at the fabled riches of this mythical China. They
supposed if they could reach this far-off land they could return
home laden with diamonds, sparkling gems, gold and silver, and
be the envy of all their neighbors. In their story the visiting
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