TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 789 



netic pole, and the focus of greatest magnetic force ; also often, but incorrectly, 

 called a pole. The first of these, discovered by Ross in 1835, was revisited in May 

 1847 by officers of the Franklin Expedition, whose observations have perished, and 

 was again reached, or very nearly so, by McClintock in 1859, and by Schwatka in 1879 ; 

 the latter of these explorers, however, was not equipped for observation. The utmost 

 interest attaches to the question wbether the magnetic pole has shifted its position in 

 fifty years, and although I am far from rating the difficulty lightly, it is probably 

 approachable overland, without the great cost of an Arctic expedition. The second 

 has never been visited at all, although Dr. R. Bell, in his exploration of Lake 

 Nipigon, was within 200 miles of it, and the distancejis about the same from the Rat 

 Portage. It is in the neighbourhood of Cat Lake. Here then we have objects 

 worthy of a scientific ambition and of the energies of this young country, but 

 requiring liberal expenditure and well-planned efforts, continued steadily, at 

 least in the case of the first, for, perhaps, three or four years. Of objects more 

 exclusively geographical, to which it may be hoped that this meeting may give 

 a stimulus, I am inclined to give a prominent place to the exploration of that 

 immense tract of seventy or eighty thousand square miles, lying east of the 

 Athabasca River, which is still nearly a blank on our maps, and in connection 

 with such future exploration, I cannot omit to mention that monument of 

 philological research, the Dictionary of the Languages of the native Ohipewyans, 

 Hare Indians, and Loucheux, lately published by the Rev. E. Petitot. The 

 lexicon is preceded by an introduction giving the result of many years' study 

 among these people of the legends or traditions by which they account for their 

 own origin. M. Petitot, who formerly was unconvinced of their remote Asiatic 

 parentage, now finds abundant proof of it. But perhaps his most interesting con- 

 clusion is that in these living languages of the extreme north, we have not only 

 the language of the Nabajos, one of the Apache tribes of Mexico, which has been 

 remarked as linguistically distinct from the others, but also the primitive Aztec 

 tongue, closely resembling the language of the Incas, the Quichua, still spoken in 

 South America. I need not say how greatly these relations, if sustained by the 

 conclusions of other students, are calculated to throw light upon the profoundly 

 interesting question of the peopling of America. 



5. This is perhaps a proper occasion to allude to a novel theory proposed about 

 two years ago, with high official countenance, upon a subject which will never 

 cease to have interest, and perhaps never be placed quite beyond dispute. I mean 

 the landfall, as it is technically called, of Columbus, in 1492. The late Captain 

 G. V. Fox, of the Admiralty, Washington, argued in a carefully prepared work, 

 that Atwood's Key, erroneously called Samana on many charts, is the original 

 Guanahani of Columbus, renamed by him S. Salvador, also that Crooked Island and 

 AcHin Island are the Maria de la Concepcion of Columbus and the true Samana of 

 succeeding navigators in the sixteenth century. The last supposition is unques- 

 tionably correct. Crooked, Acklin, and Fortune Islands, which from the narrow- 

 ness of the channels dividing them may have been, and very probably were, united 

 four centuries ago, are plainly the Samana of the Dutch charts of the seventeenth 

 century, and are so named on the excellent chart engraved in 1775 for Bryan 

 Edwards' ' History of the West Indies,' but the view that Atwood's Key is identical 

 with Guanahani is original, and is neither borne out by any old chart, nor by Colum- 

 bus' description. This small island is conspicuously wanting in the one physical 

 feature by which Guanahani is to be identified ' una laguna en medio muy grande.' 

 There is no lake or lagoon in it, nor does its distance from Samana tally at all with 

 such slender particulars as have been left us by Columbus respecting his proceedings. 

 The name S. Salvador has attached, not to Atwood's Key, but to Cat Island, one 

 of the Bahamas ; it is true that modern research has shifted it, but only to the next 

 island, and on very good grounds. Cat Island is not muy liana, very level ; on 

 the contrary, it is the most hilly of all the Bahamas, and it has no lake or lagoon. 

 Watling Island, a little to the SE. of Cat Island, and now generally recognised as 

 the true Guanahari or S. Salvador, is very level ; it has a large lagoon, it satisfies 

 history as to the proceedings of Columbus for the two days following his discovery, 

 by being very near the numerous islands of Exiuna Sound, and I think few impar- 



