Excerpt from Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. 10 The narratives of the earliest travels and exploration by Europeans within the area that is now Minnesota, written by one of the two hardy adventurers whose experiences are there chronicled, remained unknown to historians during more than two hundred years. This precious manuscript record, beginning the history of the occupation of our state by white men, is said by its editor, Gideon D. Scull, of London, to have been "for some time the property of Samuel Pepys, the well-known diarist, and Secretary of the Admiralty to Charles II and James II. He probably received it," as the editor further states, "from Sir George Cartaret, the Vice-Chamberlain of the King and Treasurer of the Navy, for whom it was no doubt carefully copied out from his rough notes by the author, so that it might, through him, be brought under the notice of Charles II. Some years after the death of Pepys, in 1703, his collection of manuscripts was dispersed and fell into the hands of various London tradesmen, who bought parcels of it to use in their shops as waste-paper. The most valuable portions were carefully reclaimed by the celebrated collector, Richard Rawlinson." 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.