He claimed to be an alchemist, avowing to have discovered formulas for defying the ravages of time and age, and also of turning baser metals to gold. He said he was born 300 B. C. and expected to live forever. He was not an adventurer, for he had independent means, although the sources thereof were unknown. He was wonderfully informed, and talked intelligently of conversations he claimed to have had with Christ, the Apostles, Pliny, Nero, and other people of the past.

He became a favorite with Marchioness Le Pompadour, and was consulted upon many matters of state. Among other things he said that destiny required the disposition of French American territory to Spain.

In 1762, the degenerate king made a secret sale of Louisiana territory to the Spanish Crown. And the sale has proven of especial significance to western Nebraska, for upon Spanish sovereignty, where the doctrine of appropriation of water for useful purposes

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

had been in force for centuries, is based a court decision in Nebraska, which is the foundation of all our irrigation appropriations. Francis G. Hamer, now upon the Supreme bench, is the man who contested for this decision, and won against the old English common law of riparian rights.

While the Spanish flag floated over the city of St. Louis, until Napoleon, with his tremendous energy appeared to change the maps of the world, the population of the city was largely French, and the voyageurs who allied with trapping, hunting and exploring expeditions, were largely of French extraction. Readers will note the preponderance of French names appearing in these stories. St. Genevieve, near St. Louis, was formerly one of the points much connected with this particular territory. Many of these buoyant, laughing, singing, industrious people, had to do with the taming of the wilderness about us.