49. The Horsefoot-crab, _Limulus polyphemus_. Champlain gives the Indian name, _siguenoc_. Hariot saw, while at Roanoke Island, in 1585, and described the same crustacean under the name of _seekanauk_. The Indian word is obviously the same, the differing French and English orthography representing the same sound. It thus appears that this shell-fish was at that time known by the aborigines under the same name for at least a thousand miles along the Atlantic coast, from the Kennebec, in Maine, to Roanoke Island, in North Carolina. _Vide Hariot's Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia_, Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 334. See also Vol. II. of this work, notes 171, 172, 173, for some account of the black skimmer and the wild turkey.
ARRIVAL OF SUPPLIES AND REMOVAL TO PORT ROYAL.--DE MONTS RETURNS TO FRANCE.--SEARCH FOR MINES.--WINTER.--SCURVY.--LATE ARRIVAL OF SUPPLIES AND EXPLORATIONS ON THE COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS.--GLOCESTER HARBOR, STAY AT CHATHAM AND ATTACK OF THE SAVAGES.--WOOD'S HOLL.--RETURN TO ANNAPOLIS BASIN.
On the 8th of August, the exploring party reached St. Croix. During their absence, Pont Gravé had arrived from France with additional men and provisions for the colony. As no satisfactory site had been found by De Monts in his recent tour along the coast, it was determined to remove the colony temporarily to Port Royal, situated within the bay now known as Annapolis Basin. The buildings at St. Croix, with the exception of the store-house, were taken down and transported to the bay. Champlain and Pont Gravé were sent forward to select a place for the settlement, which was fixed on the north side of the basin, directly opposite to Goat Island, near or upon the present site of Lower Granville. the situation was protected from the piercing and dreaded winds of the northwest by a lofty range of hills, [50] while it was elevated and commanded a charming view of the placid bay in front. The dwellings which they erected were arranged in the form of a quadrangle with an open court in the centre, as at St. Croix, while gardens and pleasure-grounds were laid out by Champlain in the immediate vicinity.
When the work of the new settlement was well advanced, De Monts, having appointed Pont Gravé as his lieutenant, departed for France, where he hoped to obtain additional privileges from the government in his enterprise of planting a colony in the New World. Champlain preferred to remain, with the purpose of executing more fully his office as geographer to the king, by making discoveries on the Atlantic coast still further to the south.