248 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Barques and Cap des Sauvages, identified by Ganong, Pope and Bishop 

 Howley as Cape Kildare, Eichmond bay and the " North Point." From 

 the Cap des Sauvages, Cartier followed the shore until he saw land on the 

 north. That was the coast of New Brunswick, and he saw "that it did 

 " joj'ne with the land abovesaid." He saw the interlocking headlands of 

 Prince Edward Island and the mainland joining, as any one may see them 

 now, and he thought it was a bay, and called it the Ba}' of St. Lunario. 

 He thought it was "as deep as it was wide," and so, on the maps, it is 

 laid down as a semi-circle, which, in fact, it roughly resembles, for the open- 

 ing of the strait is not seen, and Cartier did not see it, for he then followed 

 the New Brunswick shore toMiramichi bay, which he correctly described 

 as triangular, and from thence he went to Miscou Point (Cap d'Es- 

 perance). 



What I wish particularly to impress on the reader is, that when 

 Cartier struck land on Tuesday morning, after leaving the Magdalen, he 

 thought it was the mainland from the Cap d'Orleans to Miscou Point. 

 It was for him one long, continuous coast ; and so, in truth, it was, for all 

 cartographers, explorers, sailors and historians for nearly one hundred 

 years after. The maps are unanimous on this point. No amount of 

 rhetoric can dislodge this fact. A map of an earlier date would do it. A 

 citation from an early writer would do it. In the meantime, until such a 

 map or such a book be produced, it will not mend matters to charge me 

 with "puerile wilfulness." It is not my fault that these people omitted 

 to recognize Prince Edward Island. I have often passed through Cabot 

 strait to Quebec, and I certainly never saw it on these occasions ; but I 

 have crossed from Pictou to Charlottetown and from Shediac to Summer- 

 side, and have seen the land closing in with long, low points overlapping 

 on the far horizon, and then I saw how the error could have existed so 

 long. 



I am not singular in supposing that ('artier did not recognize the 

 coast to be part of an island. I am following Ganong and Pope and 

 Bishop Howley, but the archbishop himself admits it, and admits also 

 that the maps of the Cartier group do not recognize Prince Edward 

 Island. He gives it as a reason that Cartier entered the gulf by Belle- 

 isle and always subsequently steered for the north. We know, however, 

 from Cartier's narrative, that on his return from his second voyage he did 

 not steer north, but southeast, and passed through Cabot strait to St. 

 Pierre Miquelon and Renews. 



The point to which all this has been tending is that if any ish\nd be 

 found in the gulf at all in these early maps, it can bo no other than the 

 Magdalen group, for no other is known in the narrative. I am not speak- 

 ing of Anticosti and the Labrador, but of the bosom of the gulf. I would 

 also ))oint out that the axes of the Magdalens and Prince Edward Island 

 lie nearl}' at right angles to each other. On these early maps Cartier's 

 Prince Edward Island names, often disguised by blunders and transhi- 

 tion, will be found, but always attached to the mainland. 



Again, in so far as regai-ds the gulf and river St. Lawrence, this 

 Cabot map of 1544 is a map of the Cartier group, for it contains Cartier's 

 names ; but they are twisted by translations and errors so as to be nearly 

 unrecognizable. Scarcely one is spelled right. Thus Lac d'Angoulesme 

 becomes Laaga de Golesme, and Cap de Tionnot, C. de Tronot. It is in 

 the highest degree misleading to interpret these old maps as if they were 

 verbally and literally inspired documents, where a particle might modify 



