Cganong] CARrOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK 323 



Probably the remarkable straits and passages shown by Ilomem on 

 his map of 1558, in the reg-ion of Bay Chaleur and the St. Lawrence, are 

 the result of an imperfect undei^standing of the text of Cartier's narra- 

 tive, possibly due to an imperfect knowledge of French on the part of 

 Homem, for, as Kohl says, he puts a passage wherever Cartier says he 

 looked for one. It is probable, also, that this attempt to add to a map 

 information obtained fi-om a narrative, gave the name Isle St. John to 

 Prince Edward Island. Mercator, in his map of 1560, certainly had 

 Cartier's narrative, for he uses the form Cap Desperance, which occurs 

 •only in the narrative, but not on other maps, which always use the form 

 C Despoir. Cartier's narrative locates C. Keal and C. St. John, both 

 really on Newfoundland, so indefinitely, and, moreover, gives the impres- 

 sion that they are so much farther south than they were, that Mercator 

 naturalh' placed them down on tin; Xova Scotia coast. Now, just in front 

 of C. S. Jean on that map lies a small island, and this island is as nearly 

 na possible in the position of the little Isle St. Jean of Champlain's map of 

 161-, which doubtless became the large Island of St. John on his 1632 

 map. This C. S. Jean appears on several later maps, as Wytfiiet, 1597 ; 

 John Dee, 1580, aiul others, and was, therefore, on the maps used by 

 ■Champlain. 



-7. On the Nature of the Evolution of the Cartography of a Special District. 



One does not go far in the study of the maps of a particular district 

 before he perceives that they do not fall into a series gradually impi-oving 

 from the earliest to the latest, but, on the contrar}', form a series of steps 

 where a sudden advance alternates with a long period not only without 

 improvement, but with a marked tendency to degeneration. These "inter- 

 mediate forms, as a rule, follow the latest ones which mark ihe advance, 

 hence are of the same types ; and we may say that, in general, the 

 maps of any given region fall into a series of a few successively improv- 

 ing types. The type maps it is usually easy to ti-ace to their origin, and 

 when this is done, they are found to be the jn-oducts ofactual exploration, 

 iind frequentl}' are the work of the exjilorers themselves. The map makers 

 of Europe had no source of information ex(;ept the reports of those who 

 had been in the new countries, and they eagerly seized upon these and 

 made the most of them ; but between the explorations there was nothing 

 to be done but to copy the latest maps accessible. Now. in making the 

 successive copies they rarely copied anew from the originals, but. like the 

 small boy and the lines in the copy-book, they copied the latest co])y ; 

 una thus, with no new knowledge, and with an accumulating series of 

 copyist's errors, the maps grew steadily wor.se until a new type suddeidy 

 -iil)peai-ed, after which the process was repeated. 



