coast, some to obtain cod-fish and others furs. As related by Jean Alphonse, the people of the village of L' Anormée Berge had "many peltries of all kinds of animals.” The large quantities of beaver, otter, and other skins obtained from the Manants, dwelling at the mouth of the Grande River, induced the speculative Frenchmen engaged in the traffic to erect at this point a small fort, where their factors might reside and more advantageously enlarge their purchases of furs. The Indian village, on the island on which the city of New York is built, was picturesquely situated on the border of the deep, limpid lake, then covering the sites of the plots of ground included between the lines of Elm, Baxter, Worth, and Franklin streets. Near the south end of the lake (which extended as far as the intersection of Centre and Duane streets and emptied into the Hudson at Canal Street) was a small island. Eligible, and opposite the tongue of land on which the Manants dwelt, the French fur factors selected it as the

which he landed and explored the whole coast extending from the tropic of Cancer, namely, from the twenty-eighth to the fiftieth degree, and still more toward the north.

"He planted at this place the ensigns and arms of the king of France, so that the Spaniards themselves, who were there afterward, have called this country French land. It extends in latitude from the twenty-fifth to the fiftyfourth degree toward the north; and in longitude, from the two hundred and tenth to the three hundred and thirtieth degree. The east part of it is called by the moderns the land of Norumberge, which ends at the Gulf of Gamas, which separates it from the island of Canada."

"Celle qui est vers le pole Arctique ou Septentrion, est nommee la nouuelle France, pour autant que l'an mil cinq ces vingt quatre, Jean Verrazano Florentin fut enuoyé par le Roy François premier, & par Madame la Regente sa mere aux terres neuues, ausquelles il prit terre & descouurit toute la coste qui est depuis le Tropique de Cancer, à scauoir depuis le vingt-huictiesme degrè iusques au cinquantiesme: & encore plus deuers le North. Il planta en ce païs les enseignes, & armoiries du Roy de Frace: de sorte que les Espagnols mesmes qui y furent depuis ont nomé ce païs terre Francesque. *** La partie Orientale d' icelle est nommee par les modernes terre de Norumberge, laquelle abortit au Golphe de Gamas, qui la separe d' auec l'Isle de Canada."-L' historie notable de la Florida sitvee es Indes Occidentales, Par le Capitaine Laudonnière. Mise en lumiere par M. Basanier. Paris, 1586. pp. 1, 2.

Copy of a part of a map of the city of New York made by James Lyne in 1728.

Ferrets Ship Id. Deans Dock hter Ho.

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Hessels Ship Ya. ch Ship Td. horns Board lil.

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site of the fortified trading house which they erected and called Le Fort d' Anormée Berge (The Fort of the Grand Scarp).1

The French geographer, André Thevet, who sailed along the coast of La Terre d' Anormée Berge, in 1556, besides corroborating some of the preceding statements respecting the discovery of New France, and mentioning the fact that the Grande River was called by his countrymen the river of "Norombegue," and by the Indians "Aggoncy," says: "Having left Florida on the left hand with a great number of islands, islets, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, one of the beautiful rivers that are in the world, which we named Norombegue, and the Indians Aggoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts Grande river.3 Several other beautiful rivers enter

'The Dutch, when they took possession of Manants Island, in the seventeenth century, called the lake het Versch water (the Fresh water). The island on which the French built the fort was, in 1728, selected as the site of a powder-house, which was erected there to isolate it from common intruders. John Fitch, in the summer of 1796, navigated his small steamboat on the Fresh water lake.-Vide History of the city of New York. By David T. Valentine. 1853. pp. 11, 282-284. History of the city of New York. By Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. New York and Chicago, 1877-1880. vol. ii. pp. 423, 424, 565, 736. Documentary history of New York. vol. ii. p. 603.

André Thevet was born at Angoulème, France, about the second year of the sixteenth century. He visited Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, and on his return to France, in 1554, published an account of his travels. In July, 1555, he accompanied Chevalier Villegagnon to Brazil to plant a colony there of French Protestants. When Thevet arrived at Rio Janeiro in November, he was taken sick, and to hasten his recovery he embarked for France on the last day of January, 1556. The vessel sailed on the home voyage northward along the coast of North America as far as Newfoundland. Thevet died in Paris, November 23, 1590. He was the author of the following works: "Cosmographie du Levant," Lyons, 1554; "Les singulairités de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amérique, et de plusieurs autres terres et fles découvertes de notre temps," Paris, 1556; "Discours de la bataille de Dreux," Paris, 1563; "Cosmographie universelle, illustrée de diverses figures des choses les plus remarquables vues par l'auteur," Paris, 1571; and "Les vrais portraits et vies des hommes illustres, grecs, latins, et païens, recueillés de leurs tableaux, livres, médailles, antiques et modernes," Paris, 1584.

231.

• Aggoncy or Aggonzi signified the head. Voyages. Hakluyt, vol. iii. p.

this one, on which formerly the French had built a small fort about ten or twelve leagues up it, which fort was surrounded by fresh water that empties into the river, and this place was called the fort of Norombegue."

The site of the fort of L'Anormée Berge is indicated by Gerard Mercator on his celebrated map of the world, made at Duisburg, Germany, in 1569. The famous cartographer not only designates the situation of the French fort on the east side of the Grande River with a conventional sign used by map-makers, but also inscribes the name "Norombega" immediately over it. As is seen, he outlines the Grande River to the height of its navigation, at the confluence of the Mohawk, as far as the French had explored it."

It seems that the French fur merchants undertook to build, about the year 1540, a château or castle, at the

“Ayant laissé la Florida à main gaulche, auec grand nombre d'Isles, Islettes, Goulphes, & Promontoires, se presente l'vne des belles riuieres qui soit en toute la terre, nómee de nous Norombegue, & des Barbares Aggoncy, & marquee en quelques Cartes marines riuiere grande. Il entre plusieurs autres belles riuieres dans ceste cy, & sur laquelle iades les François feirent bastir vn petit fort, quelque dix ou douze lieuës en icelle, lequel estoit enuironé d'eau doulce, qui se va desgorger das icelle : & fut nommee ceste place le fort de Norombegue."-La cosmographie vniverselle. D' André Thevet. A Paris, 1575. tom. ii. chap. iii. fol. 1008, b.

The copy of Mercator's map preserved in the National library, in Paris, which is entitled Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio at usum navigantium emendeté accommodata," measures seventy-eight and a half inches by fifty inches. On this map is represented the earth in plano, the meridians being paralleled and the parallels of latitude straight lines, according to those principles of projection known as Mercator's projection. Respecting the latter, he says, in an inscription on the chart: "On account of which considerations, we have increased gradually the length of the degrees of latitude toward each pole proportionate to the increase of the parallels beyond the length which they have on the globe, relatively to the equator:-" Quibus consideratis, gradus latitudinum versus utrumque polum paulatim auximus pro incremento parallelorum supra rationem quam habint şad acquinoctialem." Abraham Ortelius, the eminent cartographer, speaks of this map of Mercator's as "his never-enough-praised universal chart,—Sua nunquam satis laudata universalis

tabula,"