60 GASPARD DE CORTEREAL. 



Drying-sheds are used in many parts of the Newfound- 

 land coasts. They are built of stone, and so situated as 

 to obtain all the sunshine available in that region of fogs, 

 and to admit of a free current of air. The sun's heat is 

 desirable, but not its rays ; and these are warded off by 

 an arrangement of branches, which can be shifted so as 

 to prevent them from striking directly on the fish, while 

 the wind is still at liberty to blow upon it. The wind 

 dries, say the Newfoundlanders, but the sun scorches. 



It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of this 

 nutritious and most useful fish. When, writes an ac- 

 complished author, towards the commencement of the 

 sixteenth century, Gaspard de Cortereal (a Portuguese 

 gentleman, jealous of the Spaniards, and their rival in 

 the desire of discovering new countries) cast anchor in 

 the midst of the fogs of the savage coasts of a sterile 

 island, and landed for the first time in Newfoundland, he 

 certainly did not think that he was opening for Europe 

 a source of riches more profitable, equally certain, and far 

 less exhaustible than those which the proud rivals of 

 his nation derived from the mines of Potosi, the conquest 

 of which had been effected with such effusion of blood ; 

 but the fact has so turned out, and a fish in other respects 

 by no means remarkable has become, in the hands of 

 almost every nation in Europe, the origin of one of their 

 most assured and lucrative branches of commerce. 



We agree with our author's reflections, but dispute his 

 facts. The discovery of the Terra de Haccalhaes, or 

 " Codfish-land," was made by John, not Gaspard, Cor- 

 tereal ; and took place in or about 1463, not towards the 

 commencement of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese 

 would seem to have commenced the cod-fishery soon after 



