[gaxong] cartography OF NEW BRUNSWICK 321 



2. Errors of imperfect knowledye of the makers. Tliis is so obvious a 

 source of error as hardly to need discussion. Cartier mistook the head 

 of Northumberland Strait for a closed bay ; lience Prince Edward Island 

 was thought a part of the mainland, and for nearl}^ a hundred years after 

 Cartier it was thus represented on the maps. He similarly mistook the 

 passage between Cfaspé and Anticosti for a closed ba}-, and it thus apjjears 

 on some maps, but he himself corrected this error later. The early 

 explorers missed the Bay ofFundy entirely, and it does not appear clearly 

 on the maps until about IGOO. 



3. Errors from the effort to reconcile erroneous features of the older 

 maps with new knowtedye. As is well known and will be later discussed, 

 the cartography of a given region advances not evenly, but bj' leaps. 

 When new knowledge, brought home by some explorer, was added to the 

 older maps, frequently it contradicted something already there. In 

 such cases the map-maker, with that same deep-seated reverence for the 

 older, especially if backed by the authority of some great name, which 

 still pi-evails among us. did not reject the old, but attempted to reconcile 

 it with the new facts. A good example of this is to be found in Mer- 

 cator's map of 1569, in w^hich along with a fairh^ correct representation 

 of our eastern coasts, he tries to retain the old Drogeo and Jistotilant of 

 earlier maps as well as numerous islands which have no existence ; and, 

 indeed, examples of this kind of error are common enough. Combined 

 with this was the natural ettbrt to keep as much information as possible on 

 the maps, no doubt an excellent principle from a business ])oint of view. 

 Thus islands, occuri-ing upon the earlier maps, were retained long after 

 it was shown that they did not exist where they were marked, and they 

 were simply moved to a new position. Thus an island of Claudia, a name 

 giveji by Verrazano to Block Island, wandered up and down this coast 

 for more than a century before it finally disappeared. It was probably 

 this same effort to retain all possible information and to leave no blanks, 

 which led to the repetition or doubling of sets of names, which is not in- 

 frequent on early maps. Another phase of these errors is to be seen in 

 cases where names placed on an island supposed to be a part of the main- 

 land, are retained on the mainland when the island is added to the map. 

 Thus, Cartier's names, E. des barques. C. des Sauvages, etc., applied on 

 Prince Edward Island when it was supposed to be a part of the main- 

 land, were kept on the mainland when the island was shown separated 

 from it on the maps ; and hence they appear upon the New Brunswick 

 coast. Homem's attempt to combine the Bay of Fundy and the Penob- 

 scot on his map of 1558 is an example of the same error. 



4- Errors from change of scale. Upon the early maps of the explorers, 

 no matter how small the scale, every place of importance had to be 

 marked, and plainl}' enough to be seen. Thus it would happen that some 

 capes, lakes, mouths of rivers, would occur upon them on a scale enorm- 



Sec. II., 1897. 18. 



