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Show 9 its entire length , , could not be navigated by steamboats or sail vessels , but it is equally true that it formed , , in connection with the Wisconsin , one of the earliest and most ( im- im ) portant channels of communication between the Upper Mississippi and the lakes . . It was this route which Marquette and Joliet took in 1673 on their voyage to discover the ( Mis- Mis ) sissippi ; and the immense fur trade of the Northwest was carried over it for more than a century . The Court also quoted ( p . 440 ) from Smith , ( His- His ) tory of Wisconsin ( Vol . I , page 81 ) as follows : At this ( time -time time ) ( 1718 ) the three great ( ave- ave ) nues from the St . Lawrence to the Mississippi were , , one by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers , one by the way of Chicago , and one by the way of the Miami of the Lakes , when , after crossing the portage of three leagues over the summit level , a shallow stream led into the Wabash and Ohio . In Economy Light & Power Co . v . . United States , , '256 U . . S . . , 113 , navigability of the Desplaines River was under consideration . The opinion pointed out that as early as 1675 there was the use of the rivers by fur traders ( page 117 ) : But both courts found that in its natural state the river was navigable in fact , and that it was actually used for the purposes of ( navi- navi ) gation and trading in the customary way , and with the kinds of craft ordinarily in use for that purpose on rivers of the United States , from early ( fur-trading furtrading ) days ( ( about |