244 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



reference to pp. xvii. and xviii. it will be seen that the main outflow or 

 the St. Lawrence river is by Cabot strait on the side of St. Paul's Island, 

 and that the circulation of the gulf is kept up by an inflow on the Cape 

 Eay or northern side of the strait, and that there is a space of neutral or 

 variable current between. As the strait between St. Pavil's and Cape Ray 

 is 42 miles wide a vessel to be influenced by either current must stand 

 well in to the land. The cui-rent inwards turns round Cape Eay and 

 flows, not northwest, but to the north northeast along the coast of New- 

 foundland, crosses the gulf to the north shore towards Cape Whittle, and 

 thence flows W'Cstward to Anticosti, to the outflowing Gaspé current. In 

 that way the circulation of the gulf is maintained. The hydrography of 

 the gulf, as ascertained by the very latest survey's, thus shows that a. 

 vessel, in the influence of the current on the Cape Ray side, would be 

 drawn to the north along the lofty coast of Newfoundland ; if, however, 

 she should be on the St. Paul side the current flowing out would set her 

 on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton, for as the whole discharge of the 

 St. Lawrence passes out there, it is a well defined and persistent current 

 and is often felt as far south as Scatari island (p. xviii). 



The archbishop considers it very uni'easonable to suppose that any 

 one sailing along the Atlantic coast of America should not have seen and 

 sailed through the entrances to the gulf. I have just stated the width of 

 Cabot strait. The only other entrances are the Strait of Canso, eight- 

 tenths of a mile across, and the Strait of Belle-isle, not thirty but twelve 

 miles across, because a strait is measured where it is most strait. There^ 

 is nothing surprising in the fact that the gulf was not opened up until 

 Cartier's time. Similar things have taken place almost in our own day. 

 In 1818 Sir John Ross mistook Lancaster Sound, 30 miles wide, for a bay 

 surrounded by mountains, and he even named them the Croker Mountains, 

 Again, on the Pacific coast of the Dominion, precisely parallel cases 

 occurred. Captain James Cook made a survey- of that coast in 1778 and 

 did not find out that Vancouver was an island. He touched at Nootka 

 Sound on the west coast of the island, but missed both the Strait of Juan 

 de Fuca and the Dixon channel. Fur traders had been for some years 

 on the coast when Meares named the strait in 1788 which Barclay 

 had discovered in 1787, and Dixon named the channel after himself, which 

 he discovered the same year. Captain Vancouver conducted a scientific 

 survey of the whole coast in 1792-3, and discovered and named Pugct 

 Sound and Burrard inlet, and was the first to circumnavigate Vancouver 

 Island. But even Vancouver supposed the broad estiuiry of the Colum- 

 bia to bë a bay until after Captain Clray had entered it. 



Then, again, it is the fact that the Bay of Fundy does not appear ou 

 any of the maps or in any description of the coast for a very long period. 

 Cartier gives no hint of observing the entrance to the River St. Lawrenco 

 on his first voyage, but sailed from Gaspé to Anticosti. He entered by 

 Belle-isle and sailed out the same way. not knowing then of the existence of 

 Cabot strait. On his second voyage, however, he sailed out by way of St. 

 Paul. If Cabot did, as the archbishop supposes, sail round Anticosti, how 

 is it that he did not see the great estuary of the St. Lawrence leading ta 

 the west, for it is 81 miles wide, and the north shore is low, and not visible 

 from the south shore until opposite Point de Monts ? There is no " pal- 

 " pable absurdity" whatever in supposing the early sailors to have passed 

 the opening of Cabot strait, and, moreover, we know for a fact that 

 Stephen Gomez, in 1525, actually did so. He spent ten months on the: 



