80 SAMUEL EDWAED DAWSON ON THE 



when we call the seal-skins which come from Behring's sea South sea seal we are uncon- 

 sciousl}' re-echoing the deliisions of three hundred j^ears ago. But the dream that this great 

 southern ocean swept far eastwards and inwards towards the Atlantic in a great hay was 

 dominant in Oartier's day, and for more than a hundred and twenty years after. In some maps 

 it seems to reach within a hundred miles of the Atlantic coast ; sometimes in tlie latitudes of 

 the Carolinas, and sometimes turther north. ISTo wonder Cartier sailed up our great river 

 expecting every headland would reveal the great secret. Jolliet paddled down the western 

 rivers with the same hope. Lake after lake raised the same anticipations as they opened out 

 their wondrous chain ; and even still, in these prosaic times, in imagination we can picture 

 the figure of the hrooding La Salle gazing wistfully over the waters of our familiar Lake St. 

 Louis, where it stretches away to the west from the bluff liank of his seigniory, at the rise 

 of the road near the present village of Lachine. 



By the year 1542 the cc^utour of the gulf began to get into the maps, and the map of 

 Rotz '"' of that year shows the whole outline of the gulf and the strait of Canso, but no indica- 

 tion of JSTorthumberland strait. The globe of Rotz (A.D. 1543) is the first to show the ISIagda- 



len group, but it does not show Prince Edward island. Tlie 

 peculiar curve, concave to the east, and the lay of the island 

 marked, as well as its situation in the direct course through 

 the gulf, render a mistake impossible. The Vallard map of 

 1543 shows the same group changed in shape, but Ganong's 

 reasons for identifying it with the great Magdalen are unan- 

 swerable.^" The island of Cape Breton is drawn out of place 

 _ and made to lie parallel with the coast of Nova Scotia, a dis- 



y\^ Jl^l tortion repeated on a few later maps ; among others, on the 



^^^XjS^"' ' mappemonde Harleyenne, as described by Mr. Harrisse."" 



Kotz, A. D. 1.542. j^^ ^j^.^j. ^^^.^^^^ however, Cape Breton island is called the island 



of St. Johan — a transfer of name from the satellite to the main island (appendix D) occur- 

 ring likewise in the rhymed routier of Jean Allefonsce by IMallart, as well as in that com- 

 piled by Secalart, but still retaining the island on the Atlantic coast. By the year 1543 

 the gulf had received on Vallard's map the name of Rio de Canada. The Spaniards called 

 it Golfo Quadrado (the scp;are gulf) ; and yet Prince Edward island had not been developed 

 on the maps, while we find the island of St. Jolni still in the Atlantic, wlietlier the name 

 be attached to the large or the small island, and wherever the words Cape Breton are found 

 a small island is alwaj's near {ex adverso). 



Tlie celebrated "Cabot" map of 1544 would come in here in order of date; but I pass 

 it for the present, and proceed to the Dauphin map of 1546. This map has a paramount 

 interest to Canadians, for upon it first appear the names Canada, Ochelaga, Sagnay, 

 L'Assomption, Belle Isle, Franciroy. It was drawn by Pierre Deceliers, at Arcpies, a town 

 which is almost a suburb of Dieppe, the centre of maritime activity in ISTormandy,'''' and its 

 author was a contemporary of Jacques Cartier. For the present incpiiry the chief import- 

 ance of this map is the delineation of the island whicli Cartier discovered in the gulf, and 

 which, in the so-called Cabot map of 1544, is called St. John. An inspection of this map — 

 a map, moreover, made in Cartier's lifetime — identifies it with the Magdalen. The name 

 group of islands is misleading, for the Magdalens (appendix F) consist of one large island 

 formed by a double line of sandbanks with three outlying islands — Entry island, in the 



