Excerpt from Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. 10 The editor states in his introduction to Radisson's narratives All his manuscripts have been handed down in perfect preser vation. They are written out in a clear and excellent handwrit ing, showing the writer to have been a person of good education. The president of the Prince Society, in his preface of the same volume, says: The narratives contained in it are the rec ord of events and transactions in which the author was a principal actor. They were apparently written without any intention of publication, and are plainly authentic and trustworthy The author was a native of France, and had an imperfect knowl edge oi the English language. The journals, with the exception of the last in the volume, are, however, written in that language, and, as might be anticipated, in orthography, in the use of words, and in the structure of sentences, conform to no known standard of English composition. But the meaning is in all cases clearly conveyed, and, in justice both to the author and reader, they have been printed verbatim et literati/m, as in the original manuscripts. By extracts given further on, describing the two expedi tions to Minnesota, the style of Radisson's writing will be well shown. Many parts of the narration where we should wish quite complete statement are given very briefly or omitted entirely. Other parts, on the contrary, have a fullness of garrulous detail which brings to View very vividly the many adventures, hard ships and dangers encountered among the savages, with frequent descriptions of their manner of life in the Wigwam, in their rude agriculture, in the hunt, on the war path, and in councils of public deliberation. The details are everywhere consistent with the now well known characteristics of these Indian tribes, and they thus bear decisive testimony that the narrator had actual experience by living long among them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.