CAETOGEAPHY TO CHAMPLAIN. 47 



We get a side lig'lit on the question in the statement that the land (either the iirst land 

 seen, or the island) was sterile and contained many white bears (" Es tierra muy steril, 

 ayenella miichos orsos plancos") ; but the main fact is that the island was near the iirst 

 land seen. This resolves itself into the cpestion of Cabot's Landfall, which, in turn, 

 becomes resolved very largely into the question of the authenticity of the Cabot map. 



It is well known that upon the Cabot map, the words " prima terra .vista" are placed 

 at the north of Cape Breton Island.' Now, two views are open to us, both of which have 

 had their adherents ; which are, that the map is genuine, and inade by Sebastian Cabot, 

 or that it is a forgery. In the latter theory Dr. Kohl was an emphatic believer. Even Dr. 

 Deaue, who accepts the map as authentic, has to admit that : " The map itself, as a work of 

 Sebastian Cabot, is unsatisfactory, and many of the legends on its sides are also unworthy 

 of its alleged author." Dr. Kohl points out so many discrepancies, errors and imperfec- 

 tions in the map, that their weight is well-nigh irresistible.- There is certainly this to 

 be said — there is nothing on the map in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region, except the 

 words " prima terra vista" and "Isle St. John," which is not fully explained by Cartier's 

 explorations. If Sebastian Cabot visited the Grulf, his map shows no trace of it whatever, 

 except on this one word ' Isle St. John." But if the map, as we have it, is what I believe 

 it to be, the work of a compiler, who may have used in part material from some real, but 

 now lost, maps of the Cabots, the solution is not difficult. The compiler used Cartier's 

 maps, for all around the Gulf are Cartier's names, and Cartier's topography ; for his own 

 reasons he placed " prima terra vista " on Cape Breton. Off in the Gulf to the west on 

 Cartier's maps was a group of islands, one of them very large. This corresponded in 

 position and size with " Isle St. John " of the inscriptions, and it was so named, the name 

 being added to substantiate as it were the " prima vista." ' 



This view receives the strongest coniirmation from the fact that this Cabot map, 

 of all the large number known to us of the sixteenth century, is the only one which marks 

 " Isle St. John." * All or nearly all others have in precisely the same position a large island 

 or group of islands, but ivithout exception, vjhen names are applied to them, they are Cartier's 

 names applied by him to the Magdalene Islands. An examination of the series of maps 

 presented with this paper will, I believe, make this point quite clear. 



Hist, and Genealogical Register, Oct., 1878, pp. 3S1-3S9). The latter give.s a map illustrating Cabot's supposed 

 course in the Gulf. These writers have very little basis for such a view, and it is emphatically contradicted 

 by the La Cosa map, which, no one doubts, shows the Cabots' discoveries, and which shows no large island on the 

 coast. What navigators the Cabots must have been to sail completely around Newfoundland, and not see it ! Besides 

 this, such an erratic course as attributed to them in the Ciulf, is quite inconsistent witli Cabot's purposes and aims» 

 The whole difticulty is that Isle St. John of the Cabot map, hpii been assumed to be Prince Edward. The former 

 paper takes no account of Cartier's influence on the map, indeed does not mention Cartier at all. 



' See map, antea, p. 35. 



^ Discovery of Maine, pp. 358-377. See also flowley. Ecclesiastical History of Newfoundland, pp. 50 et .seq-, 

 where some objections to the genuineness of the map appear to be very well taken. 



' It is not a difficult feat of the imagination to picture at that time, political reasons which might make it advi- 

 sable for France and Spain to wish to prove that the Cabots did not make land on Newfoundland, where the best 

 fisheries were. Sebastian Cabot was in the service of Spain, it must be remembered, when this map was made. 

 Harrisse suggests [np. cil. p. 95) that if Cabot's landfall was on Newfoundland or Labrador, Sebastian Cabot may 

 may have placed " Prima Vista " in Cape Breton, preferring to be known as the discoverer of the laud that France 

 was trying to colonize, rather than of the barren coast to the north. 



' Tliat the name " Isle St. John " is copied upDn no other map is very significant ; it shows the estimation in 

 which the map was held by Sebastian Cabot's contemporaries. 



