LIGHT mist was upon the water when we departed from Sholes's, but a gentle breeze swept it off to the hills as we turned the point of Mount Independence and entered the broader expanse near Ticonderoga. We caught a last glimpse of the gray ruins as our boat sped by, and before nine o'clock we landed at Chimney Point, opposite Crown Point, where the lake is only half a mile wide. * Here the French established their first settlement on Lake Champlain, in 1731, and commenced the cultivation of the grains of the country. They erected a stone wind-mill in the neighborhood, which was garrisoned and used as a fort during the wars with the English colonies. When Professor Kalm, the Swedish naturalist and traveler, during his botanical tour through New York and Canada in 1749, visited this settlement, five or six cannons were mounted in the mill. The place was then called Wind-mill Point. ** The same year in which the French settled at Chimney Point, they built a strong fort upon the shore opposite, and called it Fort St. Frederic, in honor of Frederic Maurepas, the then Secretary of State. It was a starwork, in the form of a pentagon, with bastions at the angles, and surrounded by a ditch walled in with stone. Kalm says there was a considerable settlement around the fort, and pleasant, cultivated gardens adorned the rude dwellings. There was a neat little church within the ramparts, and every thing betokened a smiling future for a happy and prosperous colony. But the rude clangor of war disturbed their repose a few years afterward; the thunder of British artillery frightened them away, and they retired to the north end of the lake. For many years the chimneys of their deserted dwellings on the eastern shore were standing, and gave the name of Chimney Point to the bold promontory. ** * Chimney Point is in the southwestern corner of Addison town, Vermont, and is the proper landing-place for those who desire to visit the ruins of Crown Point fortress, on the opposite side of the lake. ** From Kalm's account it appears probable that the wind-mill was upon the shore opposite, at the point where now may be seen the ruins of what is called the Grenadiers' Battery. He says it was "within one or two musket-shots of Fort St. Frederic," a fortification immediately on the shore opposite Chimney Point.