CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE FRANCE, 1632. As the map of 1632 has often been referred to in this work, we have introduced into this volume a heliotype copy. The original was published in the year of its date, but it had been completed before Champlain left Quebec in 1629. The reader will bear in mind that it was made from Champlain's personal explorations, and from such other information as could be obtained from the meagre sources which existed at that early period, and not from any accurate or scientific surveys. The information which he obtained from others was derived from more or less doubtful sources, coming as it did from fishermen, fur-traders, and the native inhabitants. The two former undoubtedly constructed, from time to time, rude maps of the coast for their own use. From these Champlain probably obtained valuable hints, and he was thus able to supplement his own knowledge of the regions with which he was least familiar on the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Beyond the limits of his personal explorations on the west, his information was wholly derived from the savages. No European had penetrated into those regions, if we except his servant, Étienne Brûlé, whose descriptions could have been of very little service. The deficiencies of Champlain's map are here accordingly most apparent. Rivers and lakes farther west than the Georgian Bay, and south of it, are sometimes laid down where none exist, and, again, where they do exist, none are portrayed. The outline of Lake Huron, for illustration, was entirely misconceived. A river-like line only of water represents Lake Erie, while Lake Michigan does not appear at all. The delineation of Hudson's Bay was evidently taken from the TABULA NAUTICA of Henry Hudson, as we have shown in Note 297, Vol. II., to which the reader is referred. It will be observed that there is no recognition on the map of any English settlement within the limits of New England. In 1629, when the _Carte de la Nouvelle France_ was completed, an English colony had been planted at Plymouth, Mass., nine years, and another at Piscataqua, or Portsmouth, N. H., six years. The Rev. William Blaxton had been for several years in occupation of the peninsula of Shawmut, or Boston. Salem had also been settled one or two years. These last two may not, it is true, have come to Champlain's knowledge. But none of these settlements are laid down on the map. The reason of these omissions is obvious. The whole territory from at least the 40th degree of north latitude, stretching indefinitely to the north, was claimed by the French. As possession was, at that day, the most potent argument for the justice of a territorial claim, the recognition, on a French map, of these English settlements, would have been an indiscretion which the wise and prudent Champlain would not be likely to commit.