[s. B. DAWSON] THE A^OYAGES OF THE CABOTS 9 



run into a harbour or under the lee of an island every night to get shel- 

 ter, and sometimes they have to make fast to a piece of ice ; but this very 

 nepc-essity is another indication of where the landfall could not have been, 

 for there is no trace of such expedients in the records of the first voyage. 

 Another note of the landfall is John Cabot's statement to Pasqualigo, 

 immediately after his return, that he saw " two islands " ; whereas there 

 the Avhole coast is fringed by an archipelago of barren and rocky islands, 

 where trees do not grow. These are shown only on the large charts, and 

 writers not conversant with the coast are misled by the small scale maps 

 in atlases. The coast line is, moreover, 1,000 to 4,0(J0 feet high, steep and 

 precijiitous, with a swell which in calm weather (see Appendix A, p. 20) 

 breaks over islands thirty feet high. This formidable and rugged coast, 

 ice-encumbered and frequently lashed with the heaviest sea known to 

 sailors, cannot, in our view, be the land •' with an excellent and temperate 

 "cUmate," where silk and dye-woods grow, as described by Cabot ; 

 but Mr. Harrisse dismisses the ditiiculty by quoting from the " Encj^clo- 

 pœdia Britannica" the short but graphic phrase, "In Labrador summer 

 '• is brief but lovely." (See Appendix A, Labrador.) 



Mr. Harrisse has read books on Labrador but the want of local 

 knowledge still obscures his conclusions. He finds another proof of the 

 Labrador landfall in the abundance of fish reported by Cabot. This 

 leads him to remark that "however plentiful codfish may be on the banks 

 " of Newfoundland the quantity is surpassed near the entrance of 

 " Hudson's Strait. Modern explorers report that there cod and salmon 

 " form in many places a living mass, a vast ocean of living slime, which 

 " accumulates on the banks of Northern Labrador and the spot noted for 

 "its amazing quantity offish is the vicinity of Cape Chidleigh, which as 

 " the above details and other reasons seem to indicate as the place visited 

 " by John Cabot in 1497." 



This is a curious misconception. Mr. Harrisse is doubtless alluding 

 to Prof. Hind as " the modern explorer," but neither Prof. Hind nor any 

 one who borrows his graphic phrase applies the expression " living slime" 

 to the salmon and cod, but to the infusoria and other minute organisms 

 with Avhich the Arctic current abounds, and which constitute the food of 

 the immense number of fish in those waters and the attraction which 

 draws them there. (See Appendix B, Living Slime). The Arctic current 

 there and off Newfoundland is the great feeding ground for whales and 

 also for the small fish upon which the cod feed. The fishermen are now 

 pushing their operations further north on the Labrador coasts as the cod 

 begin to be less plentiful in the bays of Newfoundland, and in a few years 

 may follow the fish as far as Cape Chidley, whei-e the fishing season is 

 very much later, but the cod fishing until recently was solely east and 

 south of Newfoundland. Again, in dwelling upon the amazing quantity 

 of codfish as a crucial indication of the true landfall, Mr. Harrisse has 



