THE FRENCH RENEWED THEIR ATTEMPTS AT AMERICAN EXPLORATION. It shows
the western sea without a name, and the land north of it is called
Francisca." [Footnote: Journal of Am. Geog. Soc. of New York, vol.
IV, p. 279.] The inference left to be drawn is that, the presence of
the French in this region, as denoted by the name, Francisca, four
years before the discoveries in that quarter, by Jacques Cartier,
and by the delineation of the western sea upon the Verrazano map,
establish the authenticity both of the voyage of Verrazzano and the
map.

All this is erroneous. There was no edition of Ptolemy published in
1530 at Basle, or elsewhere, known to bibliographers. The map to
which reference is made, and which is reproduced by Mr. Kohl, was
first printed in 1540 at Basle, in an edition of Ptolemy with new
maps, both of the new and old world, and with new descriptions of
the countries embraced in them, printed on the back of each,
accompanied by a geographical description of the modern state of the
countries of the old world by Sebastian Munster. [Footnote:
Geographia Universalis, vetus et nova, complectens Claudii Ptolemai
Alexandrini enarrationis libros VIII. * * * Succedunt tabulos
Ptolemaice, opera Sebastiani Munsteri nto paratos. His adjectos sunt
plurime novae tabulae, moderna orbis faciem literis & pictura
explicantes, inter quas quaedam antehac Ptolemao non fuerunt
additae. Sm. fol. Basiteae apud Henricum Petrum Meuse Martio Anno
MDXI.] In all the editions of Ptolemy, containing maps of the new
world, before the year 1540, North America was represented according
to the mistaken ideas of Waltzemuller on that subject in 1513, and
without regard to the discoveries which took place after his
edition. The maps of Munster constituted a new departure of the
Ptolemies in this respect, and were intended to represent the later