_Moose_, derived from the Kri language, is the Canadian term, "Elk" being misapplied to the wapiti (red) deer.
Champlain calls the elk _orignac_, its name in Algonkin.] At last his little expedition in "a skiff and canoe" had to draw into the bank, warned by the noise that they were approaching a great fall of water--the La Chine or St.Louis Rapids.

Champlain wrote: "I saw, to my astonishment, a torrent of water descending with an impetuosity such as I have never before witnessed....

It descends as if in steps, and at each descent there is a remarkable boiling, owing to the force and swiftness with which the water traverses the fall, which is about a league in length....

The territory on the side of the fall where we went overland consists, so far as we saw it, of very open wood, where one can go with his armour without much difficulty." From the Algonkin Indians in the neighbourhood of these St.Louis Rapids, and also from those living near Quebec, Champlain obtained a good deal of geographical information to add to his own observations.
He was given an idea, more or less correct, of Lake Ontario, the Falls of Niagara, Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and perhaps also of Lake Superior, a sea so vast, said the Amerindians, that the sun set on its horizon.

This sheet of water, Champlain calculated, must be 1200 miles distant to the west, and therefore identical with the "Mer du sud" (Pacific Ocean), which all North-American explorers for three centuries wished to reach.
After collecting much information about possible copper mines in the regions north and south of the Lower St.Lawrence, and of silver[8] in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and a terrible story which he more than half believed about a monster of prodigious size, the _Gougou_,[9] Champlain set sail for France at the end of August, 1603.
[Footnote 8: Or lead mixed with silver.