Upon this map a deep gulf is shown, indenting America from a strait in the north, which leads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the region of Hudson’s straits, in latitude 60 Degrees N. This gulf runs southerly into the continent as far as latitude 40 Degrees N., approaching the Atlantic coast, and in that respect, alone, conforms to the representation of the western sea on the maps of Verrazano and Lok.  It differs materially, however, from that sea, and indicates an entirely different meaning and origin.  It is simply a gulf, or deep bay, like Hudson’s bay, but reaching further south, being land-locked on all sides, except the north, as high as latitude 60 Degrees N.; whereas the western sea, on the other maps, is, as already observed, an open sea, extending westerly from the isthmus in latitude 40 Degrees, without intervening land, uninterruptedly to India.  The intention of the delineation of this portion of the map, is not equivocal.  For the first time, on any map, there is found upon it the name of Francisca, which is placed above the parallel of 50 Degrees N. latitude and above that of C. Britonum, designated thus by name, in the proper position of Cape Breton.  It is placed between the river St. Lawrence, which also is represented but not named, and the gulf before mentioned.  This name, Francisca, [Footnote:  Called Francese in the discourse of the French captain of Dieppe.] or the French land, and the position, indicate the then recent discoveries in that region, which were due to the French under Jacques Cartier, and which could properly belong to no other exploration of the French.  The gulf, no doubt, relates to the great lakes or fresh water sea of which Cartier had heard from the natives, as he himself mentions. (Hakluyt, III. 225.)

With the correction, therefore, of the date of the Munster map, the argument in favor of the authenticity either of the Verrazzano discovery or of the Verrazano map, based upon the recognition by the Munster map, of that discovery immediately after it is alleged to have taken place, or after the alleged construction of the Verrazano map, in 1529, and before any other voyages were made by the French to that region, falls entirely to the ground.  And with the actual representation upon it of the discoveries of Cartier, without any allusion to the alleged discoveries of Verrazzano or the pretensions of the Verrazano map, while giving the latest discoveries in America, it is fairly to be concluded that both were unheard of, or utterly discredited by the author of the Munster map.

The map of Agnese stands, therefore, as the earliest chart of an acknowledged date showing the western sea, and that is independently of the Verrazzano discovery, or the Verrazano map.  The hitherto unpublished maps produced by Mr. Kohl, also for the purpose of proving the influence of the Verrazzano discovery, fail entirely of that object.  The first of them, in point of date, the sketch (No.  XV. c) from