328 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



tance in connection with the history of the discoveiy and exploration 

 of North America, and on this account has been thoronghlj' investigated 

 by Kohl, Winsor, Harrisse, and others. It must possess also great 

 interest to the monographer of the cartography of Nova Scotia and New- 

 foundland, and although it has received some attention from Howley, 

 Prowse (father and son), and Patterson, it is not at all likely that it has 

 yet yielded all that it contains of local interest and value. Kohl's admir- 

 able treatment of it for Maine, however, leaves but little to be said u]»on 

 that part of the subject. 



If one turns to this study with the different periods of our history 

 in mind, he naturally asks first whether maps made by Indians have 

 played any part in our cartography. No doubt sketches made by them 

 for the early explorers gave much information about places the explorers 

 could not visit, and it is not unlikely that such sketches are the originals 

 of some features upon early maps ; in fact there is no other imaginable 

 source from which accurate information could have been derived where 

 the explorers did not themselves visit the places. But from our present 

 standpoint, the Indian period has not affected our cartography.' 



First amongst the explorers of the eastern coast of North America 

 were the Northmen, though in this sentence we have expressed nearly all 

 that is certain about their relation to the subject. It is. however, of 

 interest to note that there exist maps, which, though of comparatively 

 late date, are believed to show the results of the early Norse voyages to 

 America from original sources of information, and one of the best of these 

 is that of the Icelander, Stephanius of 1570. (Fig 2.) As interpreted by 

 Kohl, Helleland is Newfoundland, Markland, Nova Scotia, and Promon- 

 torium Vinlandice, Cape Cod. There are other Icelandic maps discussed 

 by Kohl, who also describes the still earlier map of Antonio Zeno of 1400, 

 which, however, belongs really much later, but which is of some interest 

 for the introduction of the names Estotiland and Drogeo, which long per- 

 sisted on American maps. But it is not until after the voyages of the 

 Cabots that we reach the true beginnings of our cartograph}'. 



1 Though t'lese Indian maps have not in the slightest influenced oui' carto- 

 graphy, they ai-e worthy of some attention. Fre((nent references occur in books of 

 travel elsewhere to maps drawn on bark or skin by Indians, but the only ones known 

 to me made by Indians in our region which have been preserved, are three or four 

 drawn about 1797 by Passama(|Uoddy Indians for the Boundary Commissioners, and 

 preserved among the manuscripts in the library of the Maine Historical Society. One 

 of these has been published in the Magazine of American History, XXVI., 2(î4, and 

 may be compared with the modern map of the same district on p. 202 of i he same 

 paper. It is very crude, as are the others in the same set, but probably no more so 

 than would be the case if made by white men under the same circumstances. I do 

 not think they represent the best an Indian can do at mapmaking. I have a map of 

 the Tobique River, drawn for me by a Maliseet Indian, which, except for a distortion 

 obviously due to the size and shape of the paper, is surprisingly accurate, but as 

 the maker had been to school, it can hardly be viewed as aboriginal. 



