THE MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. 38& 
in this manner, and receive a return blow from the vibrations of the pedestal, 
particularly if the pedestal is of a light structure, but as the iron and the stone do 
not vibrate in the same period there must be times when the result is a move- 
ment in the direction of the force. The effect of this vibration has been partic- 
ularly noticeable at the Harper's Ferry bridge, where there was a movement of 
four inches in four years. After the insertion of planks between the stone and 
iron, this movement ceased where the masonry of piers has a platform of timber 
between its foundation and rock, no displacement of stone has been noticed. 
Mr. Randolph contends that a monolith would be the best support for structures. 
subject to vibration caused by strains, but that a monolith of the specific gravity 
of granite would give a damaging return blow. Timber would answer the pur- 
pose, but is perishable. The material which, in his opinion, is most serviceable, 
is an artificial stone which is about two-thirds the weight of granite, is compact, 
durable and with very little elasticity. — Railway Age. 
THE MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. 
The library of Harvard College, in Gore Hall, has recently been enriched 
with a photographic fac simile of the large map of the world in the National Li- 
brary in Paris, known as the map of Sebastian Cabot. This interesting memorial 
was discovered in Germany about the year 1844 in the house of a Bavarian curate, 
and, through the good offices of M. de Martins, was in that year purchased for 
the Paris Library. It is a large elliptical mappemonde, engraved on copper, i 
metre 48 centimetres in width, i metre 42 centimetres in height. Along each 
side of the map, that is to say outside the circle, is a table 30 centimetres in 
width ; the first, on the left, inscribed at the head Tabula Prima, and that on the 
right Tabula Secunda. On these tables are seventeen legendes, or inscriptions, 
in duplicate, that is to say in Spanish and in Latin, printed and pasted on the 
map. Each legend in Latin immediately follows the Spanish original and bears 
the same number. 
Besides these seventeen inscriptions there are five others in Spanish which 
have no Latin exemplars. The ancient map, composed, as we shall see further 
on, in the year 1544, while Cabot was yet living in Spain, contains geographical 
delineations of discoveries down to about that period. In representing the north- 
east coast of our continent, NewFoundland is laid down as a group of islands, 
and we easily recognize the River and Bay of St. Lawrence, Cape Breton and the 
Isle of St. John. The west coast of America is delineated as far north as latitude 
35°, California being drawn from the well known chart made by the pilot Castillo 
in 1 541. To the north of this, of course, is the unknown region, for nobody 
then knew certainly whether America and were one continuous continent or were 
divided by straits, and the conjectures of the geographers were at variance. But 
the interest in this map centres principally in its inscriptions; and, though the 
most of these contain little of value in a geographical or historical point of view, a 
