322 JOHN E. REES
the greatest finds in the mountains. No tribe had the oppor- tunity to know these things as did the Shoshonis, which knowl- edge they imparted to other tribes with which they came in contact.
Bancroft, the historian, wrote, "Although living lives of easy poverty, the wild tribes of America everywhere possessed dor- mant wealth enough to tempt the cupidity alike of the fierce Spaniard, the blithe Frenchman and the sombre Englishman. Under a burning tropical sun, where neither animal food nor clothing was essential to comfort, the land yielded gold, while in hyperborean forests where no precious metals were discov- ered, the richest peltries abounded ; so that no savage in all this northern continent was found so poor that grasping civilization could find nothing of which to rob him." 8
In the settlement of North America the French occupied the northern, the Spanish the southern and the English the central parts. In 1754, the contest between England and France for supremacy on this continent began, the bone of contention being the Indian fur trade along the Ohio River, which struggle was designated the "French and Indian War". This war ended by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which divested France of all her possessions in America, the English thenceforth assuming con- trol. 9 Jonathan Carver, a captain in the conquering English army, made an exploring expedition toward the interior of this newly acquired territory during the years 1766-7-8, for the purpose of securing some information and knowledge for the English people. He traveled by the way of the Great Lakes toward the head waters of the Mississippi and ascended the Minnesota River two hundred miles above its mouth, his object being to study the character of the country, the customs of the inhabitants and to endeavor to ascertain the size of the continent by traversing it. The information which he gained was published in a book entitled, "Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America"
Some extracts from Carver's writings say, "That range of mountains, of which the Shining Mountains are a part, begins
8 Bancroft's History of Central America, I, 63,
9 Ridpath's History of the World, VI, 669.
