168 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



fio that the South American portion was drawn from his own personal 

 knowledge. No one was better equipped for such a task, for John Fiske, 

 quoting Las Caeas, saj'S he was the best pilot of his day, and that his 

 reputation as a cartographer was also high, and his maps were much 

 admired." This exaggeration of the east and west coast lines appears on 

 all plane charts of that period. What data susceptible of even approxi- 

 mately scientific comparison could have been ascertained in these early 

 coasting voyages with the rough instruments then in use ? If, therefore, 

 any one takes these early maps and measures along the coasts and finds 

 the distances correspond to the recent accurate scientific surveys of the 

 admiralty charts, he will have overproved his case, and the more exact 

 the coincidences appear the more likely it will be that they are imagina- 

 tive. The geography of these coasts, as of all others, very slowly attained 

 its present accuracy. These early maps must be taken chiefly for their 

 general direction, because the compass was the mainstay of the old sailors, 

 and La Cosa's map can no more be held to conform to measurements 

 than can the Cantino, the Canerio, the Euysch, the Sylvanus, or any 

 other of the earlier maps of America. I cannot exjîress my meaning 

 better than by using the words of Mr. John Fiske. He says : " The dis- 

 ^' covery of America was not such a simple and instantaneous affair as is 

 " often tacitly assumed." *'" And again : " In geographical discussion the 

 " tendency to overlook the fact that Columbus and his immediate succes- 

 " sors did not sail with the latest edition of Black's General Atlas in their 

 '' cabins is almost inveterate ; it keeps revealing itself in all sorts of queer 

 " statements, and probably there is no cure for it except in familiarity 

 " with the long series of perplexed and struggling maps made in the six- 

 " teenth century. Properly regarded, the discovery of America was not 

 ^' a single event but a very gradual process." ''^ So Bunbury, in his History 

 of Ancient Geography, likewise observes : " Not only is geography in its 

 ■" very nature a progressive science, but the slightest attention to its 

 " history in media;val or modern times will show that the steps of its 

 ^* progress are often vacillating and uncertain." A more extended survey 

 of the maps of the period would have prevented any one from taking the 

 flags on La Cosa's map so seriously as to suppose that they were intended 

 to represent real flags, planted at regular intervals by Cabot along the 

 -coast, and that a search by officers of the Geological Survey could ever 

 result in discovering along the shore holes drilled in the rocks, or piles of 

 «tones, reared to support the flagstaffs. 



The coast line I have taken as the south coast of Newfoundland is 

 repeated in Ruysch's*^ map of the world, published with the Ptolemy of 

 1508, and there also it is portrayed as the east coast of Asia, because the 

 lîiver Polisacus is shown. An extract from this map is given (p. 157) 

 showing the western half. The extract from the Cantino map (fig. 4) 

 shows Cortereal's discoveries on the cast coast of Newfoundland. On 



