150 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



1,135 miles west to Greenland ceases, for the course is sometimes said to 

 be northwest and sometimes west. Measuring the distances on the chart 

 it appears that a northwest course would take him uj) Davis strait into 

 Cumberland sound ; westward was Cape Chidley, G30 miles away ; south- 

 west was Labrador, the nearest points of which Indian Harbour and 

 Indian Tickle were each respectively 545 and 550 [miles distant ; and, 

 southwest by south, 715 miles away, was Cape St. John in Newfound- 

 land, where he had to find his appointed landfall in making a westerly 

 course. The problem was difficult, but the Arctic current comes in like 

 a Deus ex machina and drops him down on the cape required. This is 

 how it came about. At Greenland " he met, of course, the great Labra- 

 " dor current" (p. 21) — "the distance from Greenland to Labrador is 

 " about 800 miles. If we allow Cabot six days to make that distance, at 

 " 140 miles a day, more or less, and if we allow him to drift southwest- 

 " wards, by force of the Labrador current, at the rate of 50 miles in 24 

 " hours, that would bring him southward about 300 miles before striking 

 " land. In that case he would make the landfall on the Labrador coast 

 " about latitude 55°, or in the neighbourhood of Byron bay. He may, 

 " however, have been carried farther south and struck on the Newfound- 

 " land coast." ^* 



Several objections present themselves. The distances are erroneously 

 given. Cape Chid ley is only 630 miles west of Cape Farewell, and the 

 coast of Labrador extends eastwards through ten degrees of longitude, or 

 half the whole westerly course ; therefore he could not have missed it, 

 especially when sailing at the rate of 140 miles a day. Thus, fi'om Cape 

 Farewell, on a westerly course, he would have crossed the meridian of 

 Cape St. John at a distance of only 345 miles west ; and as Cape Fai'e- 

 well is in 60°, and Cape St. John is in 50° north latitude, he would have 

 to drop 600 miles of latitude while making only 345 miles of west longi- 

 tude — a very immoderate use of the Arctic current. And, moreover, the 

 extreme rate of the Labrador current is not two miles, but one mile and 

 a half an hour. I certainly will not dispute the lectui'er's conclusion, 

 and will cheerfully admit that if Cabot went to Greenland, and if the 

 current had been one-third swifter, and if the distance to Labrador had 

 been one-third longer and the distance to Newfoundland one-half shorter, 

 the claims of Cape Breton would be " utterly out of court." I would, 

 however, beg the student to observe that the Arctic current does not 

 stop short at Cape St. John, and a vessel will drift as easily south from 

 Cape St. John as south to it. I shall return to the current later on. 



Having now got John Cabot to Cape St. John, it will be in order to con- 

 sider the marks of identification which point it out as a landfall. We learn 

 that "it is (p. 36) a high and prominent headland" "fixed on by the 

 " Treaty of Utrecht, A.D. 1713, as the limit of the French treaty rights." 

 This is inaccurate, and, moreover, has no bearing on the landfall of 1497. 



