...r Hennepin, who accompanied La Salle, explored the Mississippi in a canoe from the mouth of the Illinois River, northward, in 1680, and discovered and named the Falls of St. Anthony. A little later Robert Cavelier de la Salle , an enterprising young trader, penetrated to the Mississippi, and afterwards visited the coast of Texas from the sea and planted the germ of a colony in Louisiana. See Americus Vespucius; Cabeza De...