108 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXIII. 



of Mr. Sammon, of the Copeland House, Pem- 

 broke. When noon came, pa sent me home for his 

 dinner, and when I got back with it he sat down 

 to eat it, while I went on drawing the logs with our 

 team of oxen, Buck and Brin, to the heaps where 

 they were being burned. We burned timber those 

 times that would make a man's fortune now-a-days. 

 There was an old fallen red pine that lay down- 

 hill with its top in the little creek that comes out of 

 Green lake. Pa had chopped the trunk of this 

 tree info three logs, and I drew two of them away 

 with the oxen, but the third log, just below the 

 branches was not chopped clean off, and I hitched 

 the oxen to it and pulled it around sideways so as 

 to break it off. I had to dig away the moss and 

 marl that the old tree lay in so as to get the chain 

 around the log, and when the log swung around it 

 rolled back the moss like a blanket, and there on 

 the ground I saw a round yellow thing, nine or 

 ten inches across, with figures on it, and an arm 

 across it, pointed at one end and blunt at he other. 

 Alongside of it was a lump of rust that might have 

 been chains or something like that, but I did not 

 pick it up. I showed the compass to pa, and he 

 put it on a stump a little way up the hill. Just 

 then Captain Roverman (sic) came along to see 

 how the work was going, and old Captain Cowley 

 was with him. Pa showed them the compass and 

 they took it away, and pa said they promised to 

 give me $10.00 for it, but I never got a farthing nor 

 saw hide or hair of the compass since. Poor pa let 

 them have it, but if I had got it up to the house, 

 ma would not have give it to them that easy. The 

 compass was lying about two or three rods from the 

 edge of the creek. I never saw water enough in 

 creek to float a canoe." 



Considering that it was more than fifty years 

 since Mr. Lee had found the astrolabe and that he 

 had never seen it or any reproduction of it since, 

 his description of the instrument, while not quite 

 correct, is remarkably close to the reality, and 

 does great credit to his memory, as well as giving 

 his story the undoubted stamp of truth. It will be 

 noticed that as a plain man making no pretence to 

 book learning, Mr. Lee never ventures on the 

 name "astrolabe," but always speaks of the in- 

 strument as a "compass." Sometimes in conversa- 

 tion, with a real feeling for style, to avoid iteration, 

 he refers to it as "the item." 



Captain Overman eventually gave the astrolabe 

 to Mr. R. W. Cassels, of Toronto, president of the 

 Ottawa Forwarding Company, but this priceless relic 

 of the founder of Canada was so lightly appreciated 

 by Canadians that it was permitted to leave the 

 country, and in 1901 an American connoisseur, Mr. 



Samuel V. Hoffman, of New York, added it to 

 his large collection of astrolabes. It is still in Mr. 

 Hoffman's possession, and to him I am much in- 

 debted for the photograph of it illustrating this 

 article. 



In comparison with the exquisitely finished in- 

 struments of precision carried by the modern ex- 

 plorer, Champlain's astrolabe is a very rough pro- 

 duction. A careful description of it is given by 

 Russell in his pamphlet already referred to. The 

 instrument, which has the date 1603 engraved on it 

 near the bottom, is of brass, and is of 554 inches 

 diameter. The metal is ! g inch thick at the 

 top and increases to Vs inch at the bottom, the 

 extra weight below being intended to give stead'.ness 

 in use. A ring at the bottom, to which, Russell 

 surmises, a weight was to be hung for additional 

 stability on shipboard, was accidently broken off 

 before the astrolabe came into Mr. Hoffman's hands. 

 The suspension ring at the top has a double hinge 

 to ensure the instrument hanging plumb. (The fine 

 statute of Champlain in Major's Hill Park, Ottawa, 

 shows the great explorer holding his astrolabe up- 

 right in his hand, but this is an artistic license; in 

 making an observation, the instrument was held sus- 

 pended from the top.) The circle is divided into 

 single degrees, and it was possible, as Champlain's 

 observations prove, to determine latitude by aid of 

 the instrument to within 1 5 minutes of a degree or 

 even less. 



Last October under Mr. Lee's guidance, I visited 

 the place where the astrolabe was picked up. Lee 

 had not been there for many years, yet he had no 

 difficulty in finding the place, and the surround- 

 ings agreed accurately with the description he had 

 given me two months before. Naturally, tremen- 

 dous changes have taken place in the 300 years 

 since Champlain and his men, heavily laden, "et 

 plus greuez de mousquites que de leur charge, " 

 forced their way through the primeval woods. The 

 sombre pine forest that then rolled unbroken over 

 the ridges and valleys has long disappeared, and 

 the somewhat hilly land is now laid out in well 

 cultivated farms with clumps of hardwood bush 

 here and there. Hardwoods grow to the water's 

 edge around Green lake, except at its foot, where 

 there are some old farm buildings, and a large 

 sloping field, along the bottom of which the small 

 stream that issues from the lake flows through alders 

 and poplars. It was on the right bank of this 

 "creek" a few yards from the water, and about 

 200 yards below the lake, that Lee found the astro- 

 labe in the moss. There is no prominent object in 

 the landscape to mark the exact spot, and where 

 the instrument lay is now cultivated ground. But 



