Not long after the discovery of Francesca by Verrazzano, French barques were making voyages to its 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 site of the fortified trading house which they erected and called Le Fort d’Anormée Berge (The Fort of the Grand Scarp).[462] [Illustration: Copy of a part of a map of the city of New York made by James Lyne in 1728.] 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 “Norombègue,” and by the Indians “Aggoncy,” says[463]: “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 Norombègue, and the Indians Aggoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts Grande river.[464] Several other beautiful rivers enter 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 Norombègue.”[465] 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.[466] [Illustration: A part of Gerard Mercator’s map of the world, made in Duisburg in 1569; copied from “Les monuments de la géographie recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales, publiés en fac-similé.” par M. Jomard, Paris.]