DE VARENNES, Pierre Gauthier, Sieur de la Verendrye, French traveller, born in France; died in Quebec in 1749. He emigrated to Canada, and was for some time engaged in trading in peltry with the Indians. M. de Beauharnais, governor of Canada, originated a scheme to reach the Pacific, and its execution and expense were undertaken by De Varennes, who discovered the Rocky mountains in 1731. While on this tour he discovered, among massive stone pillars, a small stone bearing on two sides graven characters of an unknown language. The stone was afterward sent to Paris, and there the resemblance the characters were thought to bear to the Tartaric was regarded as supporting the hypothesis of an Asiatic immigration into America. The king of France conferred the cross of St. Louis upon De Varennes, and at the time of his death he was about to resume, by the king's desire, his attempt to reach the Pacific ocean.