202 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



that they did fish there. The crew had reason to know it, for they had 

 a fight with the Indians. Then the narrator goes on to describe the 

 country : There were " goodly okes, fir trees of a great height, a kind of 

 " tree called of us quickbeame, and chérie trees and diverse other kindes 

 " unknowne." The quickbeam is the mountain ash, and " they found 

 " also raspeses, strawberries, hurtes (hurtleberries), and herbes of good 

 " smell and diverse good for the skurvie, and grasse very ranke and of 

 " great length." All this is very much to the point, and Hakluyt could 

 not have supported my view better if he had written expressly to com- 

 bat, on my behalf, the idea that Cape Breton was a desolation of rocks 

 and morasses, abandoned even by Indians. The people of the " Mari- 

 gold " in 1593 were favourably impressed by the place, as John Cabot 

 was in 1497. 



Again, in the Discorso d'un gran capitano, in Eamusio (HI., 423), the 

 next point to Cape Race is said to be Cape Breton, and they are said to 

 lie east and west. Chabert, a naval officer, sent by the king of France 

 in 1750 on a scientific expedition, to correct the charts, says of Scatari : 

 " This island is the usual landfall for all vessels sailing to Louisbourg." ^^ 

 He also sailed in a thick fog from the banks to Cajîe Breton. Markham, 

 also, in his introduction to vol. No. 86 of the Hakluyt Society, has no 

 difficulty in recognizing that, in case of fog, the island of Caj)e Breton is a 

 natural landfall, and it is so natural that, in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's sail- 

 ing directions for the expedition of 1583, Cape Eace was the first point of 

 rendezvous, " And if we shall not happen to meet at Cape Ease, then the 

 " place of rendezvous to be at Cape Briton, or the nearest harbour to the 

 " westward of Cape Briton." ^"^ 



The above are instances from old voyages, and, on inquiry from 

 those who have access to the logs of steamships sailing to the St. Law- 

 rence, I am informed that in the month of June Cape Eace is not visible 

 three days out of four, because of the fogs which at that season are the 

 rule rather than the exception, and that from the vicinity of Cape Eace 

 to St. Pierre island is the worst spot for fogs on the whole Newfoundland 

 coast, for, unless the wind be either from the north or northwest, that 

 coast in the summer months is wrapped in fog.^"^ Any one may see for 

 himself, who chooses to look at the pilot charts of the North Atlantic 

 issued by the naval department at Washington, that such is the ease. 

 The weariness of this controversy is due to the singular fact that, no 

 matter how absolutely trite any proposition may be, some one will be 

 found to rise up and contradict it. Even the fog prevailing at Cape Eace 

 in June is disputed, and, to save a tedious discussion about that, I have 

 given in Appendix C a table from the returns of the lighthouse-keeper at 

 Cape Eace, showing the number of foggy days in June during the last 

 four years. Any one who knows better may contradict the lighthouse- 

 keeper. 



