believe Acadia to be merely a corruption of that classic
name.] which we now associate with a great tragedy of
history and song, was first used by the French to
distinguish the eastern or maritime part of New France
from the western part, which began with the St Lawrence
valley and was called Canada. Just where Acadia ended
and Canada began the French never clearly defined--in
course of time, as will be seen, this question became a
cause of war with the English--but we shall not be much
at fault if we take a line from the mouth of the river
Penobscot, due north to the St Lawrence, to mark the
western frontier of the Acadia of the French. Thus, as
the map shows, Acadia lay in that great peninsula which
is flanked by two large islands, and is washed on the
north and east by the river and gulf of St Lawrence, and
on the south by the Atlantic Ocean; and it comprised what
are to-day parts of Quebec and Maine, as well as the
provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward
Island. When the French came, and for long after, this
country was the hunting ground of tribes of the Algonquin
race--Micmacs, Malecites, and Abnakis or Abenakis.

By right of the discoveries of Jean Verrazano (1524) and
Jacques Cartier (1534-42) the French crown laid claim to
all America north of the sphere of Spanish influence.
Colonial enterprise, however, did not thrive during the
religious wars which rent Europe in the sixteenth century;
and it was not until after the Edict of Nantes in 1598
that France could follow up the discoveries of her seamen
by an effort to colonize either Acadia or Canada. Abortive