Joncaire's "Magazine Royal" was permitted to fall into decay, being abandoned in 1728 despite the fact that Louis XV. gave his approval to a plan for spending twenty thousand livres for its repair although approving strongly the erection of the castle, as it would prevent the English from trading on the north shore of Lake Ontario as well as getting a foothold on the Niagara River. Mr. Porter brings out well the service of Joncaire's "Magazine Royal" by saying: That building had done good service; it had given the French the desired foothold on the Niagara River; it had held and fostered the trade in furs; it had established French supremacy in this region, and furnished them with the key to the possession of the Upper Lakes and the Ohio Valley; and last, and most important of all, it had been the means of France obtaining a real fortress at the point where her diplomats and armies had been waiting to erect one; for over half a century it had served its purposes; a fort had been built at the mouth of the river, its usefulness was ended, and it was abandoned forever. The story that the foundations of the castle were laid within a gigantic wigwam at a time when the French had induced the Indians to go on a hunting expedition is probably no less true than most legends of the kind with which our history is filled; and if it is not literally true, the spirit of it undoubtedly is, for there must have been a fine story of stratagem and diplomacy in the conception and the erection of this massive old building upon which the tourist looks to-day with much interest. It is also a legend that the stone for the fort was brought from Fort Frontenac; this in a way threatens the authenticity of the former legend of the magical erection of the building. De Witt Clinton writing in 1810 explains that as the stones about the windows are different and more handsome than those in the rest of the building it is possible that they were brought from Kingston; he gave the measurements of the building as 105 by 47 feet. It is interesting and informing to observe from whence the fort here at the mouth of the Niagara received, first and last, its armament; it appears that upon the capture of Oswego twenty-four guns "of the largest calibre" were sent to Fort Niagara, and we know that during the final siege in 1759 some of the guns trained upon Johnson's army were lost by Braddock away down in the forests beside the Monongahela River. The position held by Fort Niagara in the French scheme of western occupation is clearly suggested by these facts.