ON CAPE BRETON. 297 



"Tlie Landfall of Cabot," in the 'Transactions of the Geographical Society of Quebec ' for 1888, (published for 

 1SS6-S7-SS-89 in one volume in 1889), by Jamos R. Howley, F. G. S., of Newfoundland. It was written mainly to 

 refute the theory raised by Professor Eben Horsford in a letter to the American Geographical Society (Bulletin 

 No. 2, for 1885, N. Y.), that the site of the landfall was Salem Neck, in 42°, 32n. lat., and that the town of Norura- 

 begue was on the f'harles River. This theory, in his opinion, shows how the imaginative faculty can be stretched 

 on questions on which the evidence is doubtful, and there is room for much disputation. Mr. Howley gives his 

 view in favour of Labrador, but he admits that the presence of the w'orJs " prima tierra vista " on the coast of Cape 

 Breton " is a difficult question to dispose of," and all he can conclude at last after the usual assumptions and at- 

 tempted applications of old and never reliable maps to the subject of controversy is that, though he does " not pre- 

 tend to have established the fact, that Cabot's actual landfall in 1497 could be no other land than some part of the 

 Labrador coast, yet the foregoing evidence tends greatly towards tliat conclusion." Most students (see supra, App. I. ) 

 agree with him when he says that " at all events it must be conceded that the grounds upon which that suppo- 

 sition is placed, are certainly of a more promising character than those which Mr. Horsford brings forward to 

 establish his theory for Salem Neck and Cape Ann." 



"Cabot's Landfiill," in the 'Magazine of American History' for October, 1891, by the Very Reverend M. F. 

 Howley, DD., a Roman Catholic clergyman of Newfoundland. Here a scholarly dignitary comes to the rescue of 

 Bonavista or Cape St. John, on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, as the site of the famous discovery of 1497, " in 

 whose favour,'' in his opinion, " there still remains a strong presumption," despite the strength of tlip evidence for 

 Labrador. It is impossible, ot course, to follow the writer in his disquisition, which, as usual, shows all the anxiety 

 to make old authors and maps— not a difficult lask when we consider their vagueness— harmonize with his assump- 

 tions. He, like all others, cannot surmount the difficulty of the words "prima tierra visla"on the delineation of 

 Cape Breton, and is consequently obliged to fall back on the only possible way of getting out of the difficulty, by 

 supposing that some person, not knowdng much about Spanish, inserted the words on the map. But the fact that 

 the words "prima tierra vista" on the north of Cape Breton, corresponds verhaiim ei Utrralhn with the inscription 

 on the sides,— an inscription, as much a part of the map as the delineation itself of the coasts and their names- 

 shows that they were written on the same authority, if not by the same person, obviously Sebastian Cabot who 

 alone could know the facts. Dr. Howley is not always remarkably accurate in his statements, in discussing a sub- 

 ject on which one should attempt to follow the exact wording of the authorities, or evidence, on which the whole 

 argument is necessaril) based. For instance, he says that " Cabot is supposed to have sighted land at Cape 

 North, and at the same time, [the italics are mine] or shortly after, to have seen this island off the coast, insula quje 

 ex adverso est, an island jwt ulong.fide, en face ou tout à côté." These are the observations lie makes before going on 

 to advance his opinion that Cabot could not have sighted P. E. Island or St. John on the same day he made Cape 

 North. But, in the first place, "ex adverso," properly translated (See any good Latin-English dictionary, like 

 'Andrews),' is "over against," and not alongside. In 'Hakluyt's not very accurate translation of Adams's extract, 

 it is given, not alongside, but " that island which lielh out before the land." More than that. Dr. Howley could not 

 have consulted either Adams's extract or the inscriptions on the mappe monde, when he writes of the island being 

 discovered " at the same time." Adams's extract gives the discovery of prima tierra vista at live o'clock in the 

 morning, and of the island on the same day and not at the same time or hour. The Latin inscription on the 

 mappe monde of 1544, is " bora 5, sub. diluculo," (" Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am.," iii. 21, n.) which agrees with Adams. 



The Spanish inscription refers to the first land being seen in the morning simply, without giving the hour— a 

 discrepancy which a mere fabricator of the map and its inscriptions would be anxious to avoid, if he desired to 

 deceive the world. It is clear, at any rate, that the discovery was early in the morning, at a time of the year, 

 when the daylight i-s longest— over 15 hours in that latitude,— and it was therefore quite possible for Cabot, with a 

 strong favouring breeze, to have sighted P. E. Island before darkness set in on the same day lie di.scovered the 

 northern part of Cape Breton. Indeed, the inscription is clearly very general in its scope, and was written many 

 years after the discovery, but such as it is, it sufficiently explains the respective positions of prima tierra vista, and 

 of the island which the navigators next saw on the same day. One is inclined to doubt Dr. Howley's care in con- 

 sulting authorities, when he tells us in another place that Cartier discovered and named St. Paul's island, "le Cap 

 de Saint Paul." The relation of the second voyage to which I refer fully below, (See infra, App. VIL) does not speak 

 of an island at all, but only of some cape clearly to the south of Cape North or Cape St. Liwrence. It is such 

 mere generalizations, and careless references to the authorities that mar an otherwise scholarly article, and leads 

 us to ask, whether in his zeal to make his point he does not at times inadvertently mislead his readers. 



In the " Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am." {iii. 23 ; iv. 84) there are copies of a part of the Seba-stian Cabot mappe 

 monde. A still clearer copy for consultation on the questions at issue, is given in the " Discovery of North America " 

 (p. 358) by Dr. Kohl, who endeavored to show how utterly impossible it is, that it was either drawn by Sebastian 



Sec. II, 1891. 38. 



