Excerpt from The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. 2 of 12: A History of the Southern States Designed to Record the South's Part in the Making of the American NationIn the year 1524 Giovanni Verrazano, a native of Florence, Italy, was sent across the Atlantic by Francis I., of France. Verrazano reached the American coast at a point near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, North Carolina. He coasted thence southward fifty leagues in search of a harbor. This voyage, of course, brought him to the region now known as South Carolina. The whole shore, runs Verrazano's description of the country, is covered with fine sand about-fifteen feet thick, rising in the form of little hills about fifteen paces broad. Ascending farther, we found several arms of the sea, which make in through inlets, washing the shores on both sides as the coast runs. He speaks, also, of immense forests of trees, more or less dense, too various in color and too delightful and charming in appearance to be described. They are adorned with palms, laurels, cypresses and other varieties unknown to Europe, that send forth the sweetest fragrance to a great distance.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.