TItANSACTIONS OF &1KCTION E. 



811 



vi,*iti'd Vialand. ^^'lK'n we can discover rrrt'enluiul'.s verdant mountains, wu can 

 also liopt; to find tiie vineclad hills of Viiilaiid tlic Good. 



The jiiiper then ilrt!\v nttontion to a romarkaljle fact whieli is new to Iiisioriana, 

 tliat tbe eastern parts of British North America once formed part of the earliest 

 Kuropeiui Colony in the New World. Documents were ([uoted that havt; been 

 •.vitliin the past year published by the I'ortufruese, which show that from A. I). 1500 

 ■,, 1.1'!), coniniissious wer»^ reirularly issued to theCorte Heals and their successors. 

 Ill 1""*U Spain annexed Portugal. Jiast winter was spent Ity the writer in tlie 

 AzKiv,", whence two expeditions siiih'd to colonise Cupe Breton, A.D. \i'r2i and 

 l.'ilir, wliich probably made settlements ut St. I'eter's nud In;jronishe. AN'hen 

 S|i;»iii lieeame the owner of Terra Nova, she sent a colony thither, which the 

 writer traced to Spiinisii Harbour (Sydney) Cape Breton. Jle also showed that a 

 (iimmi^sioii issued in lolil to l''ii;,'undes, as governor of all the country between the 

 >]uiush territories and the Land of the (,'orte Ueals. The latter colony was 

 thirteen years earlier than any other in the New WorM, and the settlement in 1521 

 wiistlie earliest in North Am(>rica. It was nearly 11 century before the French 

 o'louised Cape Breton. (a\]w Kace (( 'abo Kaso * bare cape '), the Bay of Funday 

 Fonda ' deep '), and ni,iny otiier names are memorials of a lost cidony which existed 

 -.". .".Imosta century. History luis bet 11 hitherto silent as to it. 



4', Note stir quelqni'f! Iicissins hijilrmjraphiijiies di' Doviunion Orioital. 

 Bij the Rev. Abb(' J. C. Lai i.ammi:, A.M. 



.1.1' aiitiior lirst rendered some account of his own explorations in the basin of 

 1/jli' St. John, and then spoke of the Mistassiui Lake, only (luite recently dis- 

 •i?d, in the interior of Labrador, and the superior of the Ontario in size. 



.". Oa Surveys of the Dominmi Lnmh — North-Western Territories 0/ 

 Canada. Bij Lindsay Russkll. 



Tl;e principal topics treated in this paper were : — 



i. The relevancy of these surveys to the objects of Section K, in that to them — 

 a- tliey pro^Tess — is lar^rely due the attainment of accurate knowledge of tiie details 

 i tiip();.'niphy of an almo.st continental area. 



:'. \ notice of what the <reneral cartopi-ra])hy of these reg'ions owes to indi- 

 (iiiial explorers and scientists who had previously traversed them— Sir Alexander 

 'iatkeiizie, Bease and Simpson Back, Franklin, Kichardsun — in general f^eofjraphy ; 



er. ill topographical and scientific surveys, to Sir J. II. Lefroy, Sir .John I'alliser, 

 iv. IL'ctor, and the Rev. Abbe IVllitot in his mapping of his explorations in the 

 i rtliern basin of the Mackenzie. 



o. A short exposition of the system in which Dominion lands are laid out into 

 *'«ii«-liipg, sections, and quarter-sections — the latter being the unit of individual 

 ' ildini^s — preceded l)y a brief explanation of tiie circumstances under which those 

 ii'lierto unsurveyed ami almost unmapped regions camij under the administration 

 ':tlie Canadian Government, and the conse(iuent necessity that arose for rapid 



vey of vast areas into these subdivisional units for agricultural occupation. 



4. A technical description of processes of survey ami of instruments used. The 

 iiixuhies encountered in securing — within restricting limits of reasonable e.x- 

 iwulitiire — adequate check upon unavoidable accumulation of error, in a system 

 > i!:c!i consists of a continual building or adding on of ligures, the contours of 

 ^ u'li are established by linear measurement under circumstances that unavoidably 

 "i-aii hut a very moderate approximation to accuracy. The following are the 

 u.eclcs adopted: — • 



(") Checks by astronomlcally-delennined latitudes: number of latitude stations 

 ';> ilrttormined : instruments used. ( 'omparatively unsatisfactory result of these as 

 'ii^eks on account of relatively large local deviations of the vertical met with. 

 Vi'Uness those recorded on the Survey of the International Boundary by the joint 

 ^■f^A, and Imperial Commission. 



ik 



