by Mr. Cowell. The plan of the city was engraved by the same artists, after an original draught by Mr. Mullhausen.

To several gentlemen, who have kindly aided the publisher in gathering materials for the work, he would here express his grateful acknowledgements. For the historical facts embodied in the volume, he is indebted to several works on the history of Louisiana, and the discovery and early settlement of our country.

NORMAN'S
NEW ORLEANS AND ENVIRONS.

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE DISCOVERY AND TERRITORIAL HISTORY OF LOUISIANA

De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi.

Louisiana is the name given by the French, to all that extensive tract of land, lying West of the Mississippi River, which was ceded by them to the United States in 1803. The line of its western boundary follows the Sabine River to the 32d degree of north latitude; thence, due north to the Red River; along that stream westerly to the meridian of 100 west longitude; thence due north to the Arkansas River, ascending that to its source; thence due north to the 42d degree of latitude; and along that, parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Its northern boundary is a matter of dispute between the United States and Great Britain, and the discussion, at the present moment is somewhat exciting and ominous. It is the only question in relation to any part of our border, which has not been amicably adjusted by treaty. We claim the boundary formed by a line drawn from the Lake of the Woods, in the 49th degree of latitude, due west to the Rocky Mountains, thence to the parallel of 54, and on that to the Pacific. The British, on the other hand, claim that part, lying west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the 46th parallel, or the latitude of the Columbia River. Our claim to the whole of this Territory, the part in dispute being called the Oregon, is based upon priority of discovery, and purchase. The British claim the northern portion by right of possession. The question has been held in suspense for several years, under a treaty of joint occupancy, which is now about to terminate. The question of ownership and jurisdiction, will probably be adjusted definitely in the course of a few years. We trust it may be done without the necessity of an appeal to arms.

The vast domain, included within the above named boundaries, contains more than twelve hundred thousand square miles. It is about six times the size of France, and nearly twice as large as the whole territory embraced in the thirteen original States of the Union—an empire, in itself sufficiently extensive to satisfy the ambition of any ordinary people.

The discoveries of Columbus, and his immediate successors, were confined to the islands in and about the Gulf of Mexico, and a part of the adjacent coast of the two Continents. The immense tracts that lay inland, stretching thousands of miles towards the setting sun, were unknown and unexplored for nearly half a century after the landing of the Europeans on this coast. Those of North America were first visited in 1512, by Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish adventurer in quest of the Fountain of Immortal Youth, which the Indians represented as gushing up in one of the Elysian Valleys of the West;—but, unfortunately for him and for posterity, death overtook him before he reached the Fountain, and the directions for finding it perished with him. Having made the first land on Pascha Florida, or Palm Sunday, he gave the name of Florida to all the country lying to the North and West.

In consequence of the premature death of Ponce de Leon, the expedition was given up, and little more was known of these regions until 1538, when Hernandez de Soto, having been made Governor of Cuba, and Adelantado of Florida, undertook, with a company of six hundred men, to explore these his western dominions. He penetrated Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, and struck the Mississippi not far from the place now known as the Chickasaw Bluffs. Thence he passed over to the Red River, and descending that, had nearly reached its mouth, when he was seized with a sudden fever, and died. To prevent his body from falling into the hands of the Indians, it was sunk in the stream at the mouth of Red River, near its junction with "the father of waters."

The expedition of de Soto consumed four years, during which, his adventures, among the various tribes and nations then teeming in these quiet regions, were diversified and full of the most romantic interest. He was succeeded in 1542 by Lewis de Moscoso, or Mucoso, who, with none of the address or enterprise of de Soto, found himself and his small company, now reduced by disease and constant warfare with the natives, to about three hundred men, encompassed with difficulty, and in danger of being entirely cut off. They built seven brigantines, probably the first specimens of scientific ship building on the Mississippi, and then dropped down the river. Pursued by thousands of exasperated Indians in their canoes, harrassed, wounded, and some of them slain, the miserable remnant at length found their way out of the river, about the middle of July.

No sooner had they put to sea, than a violent tempest arose; when another calamity befell them, which will be feelingly understood by many of the navigators of these waters, in our own day. I will give it in the language of the historian, who was one of the party. "While they were in this tempest, in great fear of being cast away, they endured an intolerable torment of an infinite swarm of musketoes, which fell upon them, which, as soon as they had stung the flesh, it so infected it, as though they had been venomous. In the morning, the sea was assuaged, and the wind slacked, but not the musketoes; for the sails, which were white, seemed black with them in the morning. Those which rowed, unless others kept them away, were not able to row. Having passed the fear and danger of the storm, beholding the deformities of their faces, and the blows which they gave themselves to drive them away, one of them laughed at another."

It is manifest from the narrative of de Soto's expedition, that a dense population once covered this whole territory. It is equally manifest that they were a race infinitely superior to the almost exterminated tribes which still remain. In the arts of what we term civilization, in the comforts and conveniences of social life, in the organization of society, in works of taste, in a knowledge of the principles, and an appreciation of the beauties of architecture, and in the application of the various mechanical powers requisite to the construction of buildings on a grand and magnificent scale, they may challenge comparison with some of the proudest nations of antiquity, in the old world. What has become of those mysterious nations, we are at a loss to conjecture; but their works remain, though in ruins, eternal monuments of their genius and power. As far as they have been explored, they afford ample evidence that the appellation "New World" is an entire misnomer. As the eloquent Mr. Wirt once said—"This is the old World," and the day may come, when the antiquarian will find as much that is attractive and interesting in the time hallowed ruins and the almost buried cities, of America, as those of Pompeii and Herculaneum, of