France marked out its North American empire with forts and trading posts running between which two points?

1. France sent over fewer settlers than Britain but more explorers, missionaries and fur traders. 2. Those men took possession of the Mississippi River and built a line of forts and trading posts along it. 3. The crescent that resulted stretched from Quebec in the northeast to New Orleans in the south. 4. It pinned the British to the narrow belt of land east of the Appalachian Mountains. _Source: An Outline of American History (U.S. Information Agency, 1990, public domain), section BRITISH AND FRENCH CLASH_