Where La Salle had failed, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was to succeed. In 1699 he entered the Gulf of Mexico and explored the region around the mouth of the Mississippi, leaving a colony at Biloxi, which was afterward trans ferred to Mobile. With him was one already known as an explorer of the northern region, Pierre Le Sueur. He in 1695 had discovered and named the Saint Peter (the Minnesota) River and observed a quantity of green earth near it; and now, in the belief that it was cop per, he led a party of men up the river to work it and establish a fort on the Blue Earth (Green) River.
Just at this time (1703) Baron La Hontan, a man who participated in many explorations in the north of the Valley, published an account of his wanderings which contains some valuable information with much that is false. He claimed to have discovered a river (La Riviere Longue) entering the Mississippi from the west near Lake Pepin and to have followed it to its source in a large lake at the foot of mountains, on the other side of which was another river which emptied into the Pacific. This figured on maps foryears before it was found to be fictitious.
The right to out° this great country of Louisiana was granted to Antoine Crozat in 1714 and agents were immediately dispatched to explore the tributaries of the Mississippi: Before the year was out St. Denis followed the Red River and crossed to the Rio Grande, where he came upon a Spanish mission and was im, prisoned, sent to Mexico and ordered to return, La Harpe in 1719 pushed up the Red River and across to the Arkansas, reaching lat. 21', He established a post among the Indians, claimed all this country for France and defied the Spaniards in a letter to the Spanish gov ernor. The exploration of the Missouri was attempted in 1719 by Du Tisne and followed up to six leagues above Grand River, at the peril of his life among hostile Indians, who attempted in vain to bar his passage.
In this southwestern section of the Valley French intrusion was resented by the Spaniards. Their claim to Texas rested on the exploration of its rivers by Francisco de Urdinola in 1575, and an expedition led across its borders by Hernando del Bisque in 1675. Farther west their control was assured by the work of mis sionaries. Father ICino, a Jesuit, had entered Arizona as early as 1658 and by 1679 had es tablished five missions and become well ac quainted with the country. On one of his expe ditions he reached the mouth of the Colorado and discovered that Lower California was a peninsula, not an island, as was supposed.
With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 the missions passed into the hands of the Fran ciscans, who inaugurated the era of Spanish exploration and settlement in California by a colony at San Diego in 1769. Years before
pioneers from the East broke through the moun tains and seized upon the country, these mission aries had permeated it and stamped their in fluence upon it.
Meanwhile the French at the north were every year sending traders and explorers into the Interior. For some time they continued to use the routes followed by Marquette through Green Bay and by La Salle up the Chicago, but in 1716 they opened a new one by way of the Wabash and another in 1720 by way of the Miami. A dispute over boundaries arose be tween the English and the French. Governor Spotswood of Virginia urged upon the English the necessity of colonizing the Ohio Valley and in 1716 made his fantastic ride with the of the Golden Horseshoe° to see if a way through the mountains could be found. He crossed the Blue Ridge the Shenandoah Valley, but it was not until 1732 that the first settler, Joist Hite, entered the region.
Other efforts were being made to cross the mountains. When it was learned that the French were winning the allegiance of the Cherokees from the English, Sir Alexander Cuming, a Scotchman, set out in 1730 with a party from Charleston and made a circuit of 500 miles across the mountains, bringing back several Indians in token of renewed faith. In 1736 Col. William Mayo and a party of sur veyors followed the Potomac to its springs and discovered a portage to waters flowing into the Monongahela. Another route was opened to the Kanawha, an affluent of the Ohio, in 1744 by Col. James Wood, a well-known frontiersman and explorer. Dr. Thomas Walker in 1748 led an expedition across the Virginia mountains, named Cumberland Gap and River and made a circuit through West Virginia.
As the country became better known public interest awakened and in 1748 a number of Virginians formed themselves into the °Ohio Company" for the purpose of colonizing the Ohio Valley. To anticipate them, the governor of Montreal dispatched Bienville de Celeron down the Ohio to bury at the mouths of its tributaries plates inscribed with the declaration that all territory drained by those waters be longed to France. In spite of this, the Ohio Company sent out Walker in 1750 to survey lands for settlement. He explored Kentucky and built the first house in the region now com prised in that State. Christopher Gist was also sent to explore routes to the north, select lands for settlement and investigate the Indian tribes. He made a circuit of 1,200 miles north to the Scioto and Miami and then south of the Ohio, visiting all the Ohio tribes and returning by way of the Licking, Kentucicy and Roanoke rivers. On a second mission in 1751, he discov ered a new gap from the Potomac to the Monongahela and explored the Kanawha.