[461] “That which is toward the arctic or north pole is called New France insomuch as in the the year 1524, Jean Verrazano, a Florentine, was sent by King Francis I. and Madame, the regent, his mother, to the new countries, on 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 fifty-fourth 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 Frāce: 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. [462] 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.