182 J. G. BOUEIlSrOT 



kuowu. lu a map of 1544-45 by Allefousce, who accompanied Roberval to Canada as his 

 pilot iu 1541, and was the author of a well-kuown work ou cosmograxihy, the island of 

 Cape Breton is roughly defined, and the entrance to the gulf, as I have previously stated, 

 is distinguished as the Entrée des Bretons. In the later map of Mercator, which shows a 

 distinct advance in cartography and in the knowledge of these waters, evidence is given 

 of the existence of a large island on the eastern coast, although the name itself is still 

 only affixed to one of its capes. Year by year, however, as the maps of the sixteenth 

 century clearly show, especially after Cartier's famous voyages, a knowledge of the coast 

 lines of the eastern parts of North America was steadily growing, and from the coming 

 of Champlain to this continent we must date the commencement of a new era iu the 

 colonization and the geography of America. His map of 1612, with all its defects, gives 

 the most accurate description of the general features of Cape Breton which had appeared 

 to that time. Although no name is given to the whole island, its leading natural charac- 

 teristics, especially the great arm of the sea which nearly divides it into two parts, the 

 large island on its southwestern coast, afterwards known as Isle Madame, English Har- 

 bour, now Louisbourg, Inganiche and its northern cape, Saint Loran, now probably Cape 

 North, are delineated with some degree of correctness. The Strait of Canseau is defined, 

 but it is distingnished iu a note as the Passage du Glas, whilst Cauçeau, from which it 

 subsequently took its name, is accurately placed on the southeastern shore of Acadie or 

 Nova Scotia. In Champlain's later map of 1632 the general features of the island are bet- 

 ter still defined than in the former case, and the Strait of Canseau is giveu the name 

 which it has generally borne, while the rocky islet of St Paxil, which was incorrectly placed 

 in 1G12, begins to find its proper geographical position. But even on this later map the 

 island is not given the general name of Cape Breton, though the present Prince Edward 

 Island is called St. Jean. In fact, it is not clear when the name of Cape Breton was given 

 by geographers to the whole island. As previou.sly stated, the name of the land of the 

 Bretons was for many years, in the oldest maps, giveu to a large ill-defined country which 

 was afterwards known as Acadie. In L'Escarbot's map of 1609, which is by no means so 

 accurate as Champlain's of three years' later, the island is described as Bacaillos, the 

 Basque term which was inditferently applied during the previous hundred years to New- 

 foundland and Labrador and the countries generally on the gulf where the cod is most 

 plentiful, and which in these later times has disappeared from those lands and now clings 

 only to an islet off Conception I^)ay, latitude 48° 6", and to a cape on the western coast of 

 Nova Scotia.' Champlain, writing in 1603, calls Cape Breton the island of Saint Laurent, 

 " where," he adds, " is le cap Brelon and where a nation of savages called the Sourecjuois 

 [Micmacs] pass the winter." In his account of his later voyages, however, he writes of 

 the island of Cape Breton {Ue du cap Brelon). It would seem that the name was not well 

 established for some time, but that it gradually became the custom to apply the name of 

 the cai)e to the island itself. We see that is the case in the accounts given of two 

 voyages made by two English vessels iu 1594 and 159'7, in which there is a distinct refer- 

 ence made to the " Islaud of Cape Breton." A French writer" of later times tells us that 

 the island was " first of all called the Isle du Cap,'' and afterwards the English Harbour," 



' See App. V to this work. 



^ Pichon alias Tyrell, author of a memoir of Cape Breton. See App. I.\ to this work, where the curious liis- 

 tory of this erratic i>erson is hriefly told. 



■' In Herman ^toll's Atlas (London, 1715-20) Capo Breton is called Gaspey Island. See map 4 showing north 

 parts of America claimed hy Franco. 



