WHETHER or not the valley of the French Broad near Asheville was ever, as has been supposed, the head of a mountain lake, whose lowest or deepest part was above Mountain Island and Hot Springs, is an unsettled question for the geologists. Certain it is that the French Broad has cut its way through the mountains at Mountain Island as is apparent to the most casual observer of the mountains at that place, not only in the obvious signs that still remain to indicate the exact spot where it cut through, but also in the unquestionable beds of that river in the days gone by now on the tops of the mountains which lie along its western banks probably 200 feet higher than its present bed, and only a short distance above the Mountain Island. These old beds cross the channel of the present stream below the Palisades at Stackhouse's and above the Mountain Island. They contain many stones worn smooth and rounded by the abrasions to which their position in the river bed subjected them. The stones so common and peculiar which lie near the surface on the Battery Park hill and appear to be of water formation are also worthy of notice in this connection.

Why may not this be the famous lake mentioned by Lederer in his account of his exploration into North Carolina westward in 1669-70 which historians have found it so hard to account for. It certainly fills the description and lies near the place which he describes when he says in regard to his visit to the Sara:

"This nation is subject to a neighbor king residing upon the bank of a great lake called Ushery, environed on all sides with mountains and Wisacky marsh.

"The sixth and twentieth of June, having crossed a fresh river which runs into the lake of Ushery, I came to the town, which was more populous than any I had seen before in my march. The king dwells some three miles from it, and therefore I had no opportunity of seeing him the two nights which I stayed there. This prince, though his dominions are large and populous, is in continual fear of the Oustack Indians, seated on the opposite side of the lake, a people so

addicted to arms that even their women come into the field and shoot arrows off their husbands' shoulders, who shield them with leathern targets.

"The water of Ushery Lake seemed to my taste a little brackish, which I rather impute to some mineral waters which flow into it, than to any saltness it can take from the sea, which we may reasonably suppose is a great way from it. Many pleasant rivulets fall into it, and it is stored with great plenty of excellent fish. I judged it to be about ten leagues broad, for were not the other shore very high it could not be discerned from Ushery. How far this lake tends westwardly, or where it ends, I could neither learn nor guess." (2 Hawks History of North Carolina, page 49.)

It is impossible to reconcile this description, as has been attempted to be done, with a flood in the Catawba River. Moreover, Lederer had already informed us that, "I have heard several Indians testify that the nation of Rickohockans, who dwelt not far to the westward of the Apalataean Mountains, are seated upon a land, as they term it, of great waves—by which I suppose they mean the seashore."

Now the Rickohockans were the Cherokees. (Mooney Siouan Tribes of the East, page 54.)

It is most probable that De Soto, on the great expedition in which he discovered the Mississippi River, passed through Western North Carolina in 1540. This famous general and discoverer after he had commanded a squadron of horse under Pizarro in the conquest of Peru with which he captured the Inca Atahualpa and put his army to flight, and after he had acquired large wealth in Peru, was made governor of Cuba. Having the permission of the great emperor Charles V., he set out from Havana on May 12 1539, with an army of nearly fifteen hundred men, on an expedition of conquest and discovery upon the continent of North America. In fifteen days he landed on the western coast of Florida at Espiritu Santo Bay. From this place he marched northward until he came to Cofachiqui, identified as Silver Bluff on the Savannah River in Barnwell County, South Carolina. From this place he resumed his march on May 3, 1540, and continuing northward for about one hundred and fifty miles, he reached the Indian

proceeded on his journey, discovered the Mississippi River above its mouth, crossed it, found the Hot Springs in Arkansas, returned southward, reached again the Mississippi, died in 1542 on its banks and was buried in its bed.

Now it would be impossible for an army on the Broad or Pacolet River within one day's march of the mountains to march westward for six days, five of which was through mountains, and reach the sources of the Tennessee or any other river, without passing through Western North Carolina.