[ganong] origin of ACADIA AND NORUMBEGA 109 



Weise, in his work on The Discoveries of America to the year 1525 

 (1884, 348). De Costa has suggested a possible origin in the name 

 Bergi applied on early maps to a place on the coast of Asia, of which 

 more below. 



Let us now trace the history of the word through the documents. 

 It occurs upon literally dozens of sixteenth century maps, with diverse 

 spellings, applied to a territory covering the general region of New 

 England and New York, to a large river opening as a gash in the coast 

 of that country, and to a city on the river, conformable to the tales of 

 returned travellers. Champlain in his Voyages of 1613 uses the form 

 NoREMBEGUE, and identifies the river with the Penobscot; but his 

 personal experience showed the falsity of the old stories, and his com- 

 mon sense comments, aided by the wit of Lescarbot, swept Norumbega 

 from the maps. It is easy to find the source of Champlain's Norem- 

 begue, for this form of the name, and the stories he controverts, occur 

 in a popular book which ran through seven editions prior to 1605 — 

 about the time when Champlain was writing (Harrisse, op cit. 155), 

 viz.. Les Voyages avantureux du Capitaine Jan Alfonce. This work was 

 founded on Alfonse's well-known Ms. Cosmographie of 1544, in which 

 he describes a cape, river, and city of Norombegue in the region of the 

 present Maine. His river has usually been taken to represent the 

 Penobscot, chiefly because of its form on his map, but l'Abbé Laverdière 

 has argued, I think with force, that the description indicates rather 

 the Bay of Fundy (Oeuvres de Champlain, 179). Thus much for the 

 form Norumbegue. The maps of the sixteenth century, however, 

 have usually the form Norumbega, or some close variant. This form 

 we can trace back without break to the Tierra de Nurumbega of a 

 well-known published map of 1556 by Gastaldi, whose earlier map of 

 1548 has Tierra de Nurumberg, our Larcadia being a locality on the 

 coast. A wider variant is found on some beautiful maps by Desceliers 

 of 1541-6, viz, Avorobagra, Anorobagra, (Anoribegue on his map 

 of 1550) applied to a special locality on the coast. The Norvega 

 of the map of Solis of 1598, given by Hors ford, does not appear earlier, 

 and no doubt was influenced by some theoretical association with 

 Norvega, the form for Norway, used on maps by the same author. 

 The R. Arambe of the Hakluyt map of 1587 is of course a reflection 

 of his text mentioned below, while the globe, with r. Noronbega 

 given by Harrisse as "circa 1535" (Discovery of North America, 613), 

 must surely belong much later. 



Thus we can trace the name Norumbega back with perfect cer- 

 tainty to the Norumbegue of Alfonse in 1544, applied to a river 

 especially, to the Nurumberg and Nurumbega of Gastaldi 's map of 

 1548 and 1556, applied to the country, and to the Anorobagra of 



