Having in the first part of this Volume discours’d at large concerning the original of the _Americans_, and whether that part of the World call’d _India Occidentalis_, or _America_, were known to the Ancients, or own its Discovery wholly to the Moderns, as also of all the Discoveries that have been made of the several parts thereof, and by whom, we shall now pass on to the Topographical part, describing every particular Province or Region, by giving an account of their Situation, Temperature, Productions, Nature of the Soil, and Quality of the Inhabitants. _America_, lying Westward of the _Azores_, and the Worlds Meridian, is by some suppos’d to consist of one vast Island, and several lesser ones, scatter’d about it: Nor can this supposition be thought vain, if, as many think, it be inviron’d on the North-side, as toward the East, South, and West it is known to be; East and South, by the _Atlantick Ocean_; and West, by _Mar del Zur_: But because the North-West Passage, though attempted by many, as _Nelson_, _Davis_, _Forbisher_, _Button_, _Smith_, _Hudson_, and others, hath not yet by any been fully discover’d; so that it is not certainly known whether _America_ be joyn’d to _Greenland_, and the _Arctick_ Region, by a continu’d Tract of Land, or sever’d by the Ocean: We shall follow the method of those Geographers, who, reputed sufficiently Authentick, have divided this new World into Islands, and two grand _Peninsula_’s joyn’d together by an _Isthmus_, or Neck of Land, call’d _The Straight of Darien_, by some _The Straight of Panama_, lying almost under the Equinoctial Line, and extending in length from _Nombre de Dios_ Southward above a hundred Miles, and from East to West seventeen Miles over in the narrowest place. Of these two grand _Peninsula_’s the Northern is generally call’d _America Mexicana_, from _Mexico_ the chief City of the Province, properly call’d _Mexicana_; which was heretofore without doubt the most potent, rich, and flourishing of all the Kingdoms of the _Indians_, at least on the North-side of the _Isthmus_. In the division of the several Provinces of _America_, as well those of the Northern as of the Southern Continent, we find so various an account among the several Geographers that have written of them (not any two of them agreeing in one and the same order) that to reconcile the differing methods of so many disagreeing Authors would be an endless work: wherefore we shall pitch upon the surest course, and not omitting the mention of any of the Provinces taken notice of by the said Authors, hereby endeavor to take in whatsoever material hath been observ’d by all of them, and by the way take occasion to shew how one differs from another in the distribution of them. Those therefore of the Northern _America_ (that as near as can be we may bring the design of many into one) seem most fitly describ’d in this following order: 1. _Estotiland_; 2. _Terra Laboratoris_, or _Nova Britannia_; 3. _Canada_, or _Nova Francia_; 4.