CAETOGRAPÏÏY TO CHAMPLAIN. 43 



his map of his first voyage he left the northwestern coast of Cape Breton and the eastern 

 coast of the Magdalenes undefined, as he had not been there, perhaps representing them 

 as standing ofi' into the sea, as was the custom among honest cartographers to signify a 

 coast unknown. Rotz, however, in copying the topography, extended the two indefinite 

 coasts to meet each other, thus making the Magdalenes a part of Cape Breton. Indeed 

 it is not impossible that this may have been Cartier's own idea. On his second voyage, 

 Cartier again visited these islands on his way home, and also visited the north of Cape 

 Breton, naming two capes there. This enabled him to fix the coast line in this region 

 and thenceforward to show it clearly on his maps. The maker of the Jomard map knew 

 of Cartier's second voyage, as the Isle of Assumption and the topography of the River St. 

 Lawrence show, yet for some reason he copied the error as to the Magdalenes, which w^as 

 not inexcvTsable in Rotz, but was in himself. He may indeed have taken it from Rotz, or 

 the two may have taken it from some other source in common ; certainly their topography 

 in this region is strikingly similar. 



C— 27te Name "Isle St. John." 



Now I face the most interesting question in the early cartography of the Gulf, the 

 origin, identity and history of the name " Isle St. John." Those who have followed me 

 through the preceding pages will before this, I trust, have foreseen whither my line of 

 thought is to lead me. 



It has been held by nearly all writers that Prince Edward Island received the name 

 Isle St. John, which it held from the time of Champlain until 1*798, from John Cabot, it 

 being the island sighted and so named by him June 24th, 149t.' So far as I have been 

 able to find, after a careful study of the question, the evidence for this rests upon the 

 following bases : — (1) Upon the name itself; Cabot somewhere in'this region discovered 

 an island and named it St. John ; Prince Edward Island was called Isle St. John from 

 very early times ; it is not unnatural in the absence of further evidence to consider them 

 to be the same. (2) Upon some statements, presently to be noticed, of Allefonsce, 

 Roberval's pilot. (3) Upon the evidence of the Cabot map, which places a large Isle St. 

 John in the Gulf. The first of these is connected with the last, and will be considered 

 along with it. 



Allefonsce several times distinctly speaks of an Isle St. John in this region, but never 

 in a way to enable us to locate it beyond doubt. Thus he says," " Turning to the Isle of 

 St. John, called Cape Breton, the outermost part of which is in the ocean in 45° from the 

 Arctic Pole, I say Cape of St. John, called Cape Breton," etc. ; again, in the printed " Voy- 

 ages avantureux," a work published after his death, and which must be consulted with 

 caution,' we read, " Having passed the Isle of St. Jehan, the coast turns to the west and 

 west-southward as far as the River Norombergue " (i.e. the Penobscot). Certainly such 

 phrases as these could not by any possibility whatever apply to our Prince Edward Island. 



' Yet some have said that it was because the Cape St. John of Cartier was on it, the cape named by Cartier 

 June 24th, 1534. This statement is made by no less an authority than Rev. E. Slafter, the scholarly annotator of 

 Otis's translation of Champlain. (Prince Soc. Ed. Boston, i. 288). 



- From De Costa's translation contained in America, iv. 69-76. 



" America, iv. 68. 



