APPENDIX A. 

 The Atlantic Coast of Labrador. 



John Cabot, within five months after his return from his first voyage, 

 and before he had started on the second, stated that the land he had dis- 

 covered was excellent and the climate temperate such as gave promise of 

 producing silic and dye-woods. The following catena of authorities will 

 show that Labrador could not have been the coast which was the subject 

 of John Cabot's eulogy. In weighing the evidence the fact must be taken 

 into account that ice and icebergs were novelties to sailors whose exper- 

 iences were limited to the seas then known and that no one, even now, 

 will enter the Labrador ice pack without anxiety ; how much more then 

 would a sight so unaccustomed have impressed the sailors of those days ! 

 Yet in none of the contemporary documents is there any allusion to ice 

 or any mention which suggests it ; but when we take up the later 

 accounts, derived from Sebastian Cabot, we find special stress laid u])on 

 the gigantic " pieces of ice found swimming in the sea," as of something 

 new and unusual. 



Lest it may be conjectured that some change in climate has occurred 

 to modify the physical conditions of Labrador, extracts from the reports 

 of the eai'liest sailors are included. Jacques Cartier's experience was in 

 the milder regions of southern Labrador. This is his opinion of the 

 "excellent soil," reported by Cabot as giving promise of silk and dj^e- 

 woods : 



Jacques Cartier's First Voyage, 1531. From Hakluyt. 



" If the soile were as good as the harboroughes are, it were a great 

 " commoditee ; but it is not to be called the new land, but rather stones 

 " and wilde cragges, and a place fit for wilde beastes, for in all the North 

 " Island 1 did not see a cart-load of good earth ; j^et went I on shoare in 

 " many places, and in the Island of White Sand there is nothing else but 

 " mosse and small thornes, scattered here and there, withered and dry. 

 " To be short, I believe that this was the land that God allotted to Caine." 



The candid sailor expresses himself strongly. It is not "soile," and 

 should not be called -'land," but rather " stones and wilde' cragges." 



Captain Luke Fox's experiences of Cape Chidley in 1631 are as fol- 

 lows : He made the cape on June 22nd, " which to do I stood over as 

 " neere as I could for ice that was at least six leagues off." He was try- 

 ing to enter Hudson's Strait, but he never thought of anchoring, as Mr. 

 Harrisse thinks pilots always did in those days, and perhaps they did in 

 southern seas. He adopted the usual course, " We made fast to a piece 

 " of ice." Fox found the strait blocked, but pushed into the ice, and 

 drifted with it in the ebb and flow of the tide. He got clear about July 

 3rd, and on the 8th he weathered out a gale by again making fast to a 

 piece of ice. In the same year, 1631, Captain .James was attempting at 

 the same time to enter the strait. He sighted Cape Chidley on June 24th, 

 while fast beset in the ice, " not being able to see an acre of sea from top- 

 " mast head." It was not until the 20th of July that he got into a little 

 open water, and began to make way westward. The experiences of 

 Davis and Baffin and Frobisher around Cape Chidley were similar. 



Sec. II., 1896. 2. 



