168 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
boundary back to where it was up to the previous year, namnely, 45° ? 
This would be the easier, inasmuch as the Plymouth Company had pos- 
sessed it less than a year, had made no plans whatever for its settle- 
ment, and, as we have seen, in all probability received it simply in order 
to announce England’s claim to it. This would bring the natural 
boundary therefore between Nova Scotia and Virginia (or New Eng- 
land) at 45°. But settlement was progressing in New England, and 
was expected soon to advance rapidly in Nova Scotia, and therefore a 
more readily recognizable boundary than a parallel of latitude was 
obviously needed. The most unmistakable inland natural boundary is 
a well identified river. Now, the only reliable maps of the time, 
namely, those of Champlain (see map No. 6), marked in the immediate 
vicinity of the point where the parallel of 45° intersected the mainland 
a definite large named river, extending directly back from the coast, a 
river, moreover, well known from the narratives of Champlain as one 
where settlement had been attempted, and hence was made the more 
easy to identify, namely, the St. Croix. It was therefore not only 
natural, it was inevitable, that this river should be chosen for the 
boundary. 
Why, now, was the western head of the river specially mentioned, 
as it was to the no small confusion of the subsequent diplomatic his- 
tory of this boundary ? To answer this question we must know what 
idea the framers of this charter had as to the form of the river St. 
Croix, and as to the nature of its western source. For this we must 
turn, not to a modern map, but to the map or maps which the framers 
of the charter had before them. Happily we know this map with rea- 
sonable certainty. It must have been that of Champlain, published in 
his works in 1613 (see map No. 6). All maps prior to Champlain’s 
voyage to this coast in 1604, were, as I have shown in a previous Mono- 
graph (“Cartography of New Brunswick”) of an extremely old and 
erroneous type, so erroneous that their localities are not recognizable, 
while the Bay of Fundy is not shown at all. Champlain established a 
new and comparatively accurate type for this region, and moreover, gave 
it the greatest publicity through his works.t Either this map or some 
copy of it was therefore almost beyond a doubt used in drawing the 
charter of 1621. Turning now to this important map (map No. 6), we 
find the St. Croix clearly shown. The flag marks the settlement on 
St. Croix Island, and just north of it are the three branches of the 
cross (with the head of the cross swung somewhat to the right), which 

1 We know that a manuscript map of 1610, recently published in Brown’s 
“Genesis of the United States,’ based upon Champlain, was in possession of 
King James in 1610, but this of course would be superseded by the later and 
more accurate published maps of Champlain. 
