_History._--The early history of Louisiana belongs to the romance of American history. It is possible that the mouth of the Mississippi was discovered in 1519 by Alonso Alvarez de Piñeda, but this interpretation of his vague manuscript remains conjectural; and that it was discovered by the expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez cannot be established. That Hernando de Soto entered the borders of the present state of Louisiana, and that his burial place in the Mississippi was where that river takes the waters of the Red, are probable enough, but incapable of conclusive proof. Survivors of de Soto's expedition, however, descended the Mississippi to its mouth in 1542. Spain set up no claim to the region, and when Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, came down the river in 1682 from the French possessions to the north, he took possession in the name of France, which hereby gained her first title to the vast drainage basin of the Mississippi. In honour of Louis XIV. the new possession was named "Louisiana"--a name then and until 1812 applied to a much larger area than that of the present state. La Salle attempted to settle a colony in 1684, but missed the Mississippi's mouth and landed in Texas, where he was murdered in 1687 by some of his followers. In 1697, after Ryswick, Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville (1662-1706) was chosen to lead another colony, which reached the Gulf coast early in 1699. Soon after Iberville had built Fort Maurepas (near the present city of Biloxi, Mississippi) in 1699, a fort was erected on the Mississippi river about 40 m. above the mouth.