CARTIEE'S COURSE. 



175 



that a hint or vestige of the Bay St. Lawrence can be seen on the maps of La Cosa, 1500, and 

 Reinel, 1505 ; I must say I cannot see it. At all events a mere indentation in the coast 

 would not be sutHcient proof of knowledge of the existence of the gulf But immediately 

 after the publication of Cartier's voyage (1513), we have a whole series of maps, beginning 

 with John Rotz, 1542 ; then the far-famed Cabot map of 1544 ; the Dauphin, 1546 ; Vallard, 

 1547 (4?) ; Homem, 1558, etc. : all copied one from another, and all embodying the discoveries, 

 even the very names, of Cartier's voyage. 



There is, however a map of earlier date than Cartier, which would seem to give a very 

 clear conception of the insular character of Newfoundland, under the name of Terra Lahora- 

 toris, with the gulf fully detiued behind it ; and the Labrador coast under the name of Domns 

 Begalis (Cortereal). This map, liy Sjdvanus, which has escaped the above mentioned writers, 

 is published in the edition of the Ptolemy of 1511. Through the kindness of Dr. Ganong, I 

 am able to present a sketch of it. 



't*;:^^ 



Map of Sylvanu.s in the Ptolemy of 1511. 



On a closer inspection of this map and a comparison of it with those of Majollo, Verra- 

 zano and Ribero, etc., which followed shortly after it (1527-28-29), and of which maps this 

 one is doubtless the source and fount, it will be seen that the land of Lahoratoris is too far 

 north for Newfoundland ; it being in the same latitude as Ireland. On the maps just men- 

 tioned the relative position of Laboratoris and Cortereal is the same. Lahoratoris occupies 

 a separate piece of territory corresponding very closely to the present Greenland. On Ruysch's 

 map, 1508, it is actually called Greenland ; and Cortereal is undoubtedly Newfoundland. 

 Ruysch thus gives it Terra Nova, the passage or open water between them being Hudson's 

 Straits. On this Ptolemy map the configuration of the lower part of the land of Doraus 

 Regalis is unquestionably the same as that which on Ribero, Verrazauo and Majollo, repre- 

 sents Cape Race in Newfoundland, hence I conclude that this apparent island of Terra Labo- 

 ratoris does not represent Newfoundland, nor the open water behind it the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, but the open sea between Greenland and Labrador and the Bay of Hudson. The 

 knowledge of this sea and strait was obtained, not from the Portuguese, but from the Cabots, 

 who in 1497 sailed into this bay as far north as 68^, and who thought it was an open passage 

 leading to Cathay. 



