Note 11a — II.

Page 6.—The following note with respect to this able priest's writing is taken from 'Nar. and Crit. Hist. Am.,' iv., 298, 299: "The Jesuit Lafitau published at Paris in 1724 his 'Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains' in two volumes, with various plates, which in the main is confined to the natives of Canada, where he had lived long with the Iroquois. Charlevoix said of his book, twenty years later, 'We have nothing so exact on the subject;' and Lafitau continues to hold high rank as an original authority, though his book is overlaid with a theory of Tartaric origin of the red race. Mr. Parkman calls him 'the most satisfactory of the elder writers.'" Garneau, ii., 154, mentions that he discovered in 1716 a plant in the Canadian forests which is of the nature of ginseng, which for awhile was a valuable article of export to Canton. Eventually it became valueless in China on account of its being prepared improperly.