262 THE OCEAN RIVER 



nies and the mother country by delaying the growth of the 

 maritime colonies, while settlers poured into Maine and Mas- 

 sachusetts and built a native marine power there on the great 

 fisheries of the Gulf of Maine. Meanwhile, even though the 

 attention of the new and powerful merchant class in England 

 was finally centering on the lowly cod, the idea of quick wealth 

 by a new passage to the Indies still persisted. In testimony to 

 this, Martin Frobisher made three voyages west from Green- 

 land searching for the Northwest Passage; and John Davis 

 explored the strait named after him as far as 72° N. latitude at 

 about the same time that Gilbert and Raleigh were failing to 

 settle Englishmen in Nova Scotia or the Carolinas. 



But no one had yet the vaguest notion of the great revolun 

 tion of the Ocean River, although they were aware of the 

 Labrador Current. The testimony of Peter Martyr, first printed 

 in 1516, spoke of the westward course of waters in the Carib- 

 bean and the southwesterly course of the Labrador Current. 

 Of Cabot's observations he wrote: ''As he traveled by the 

 coasts of this great land which he named Baccalaos, he saith 

 he found the like course of waters towards the west, but the 

 same to run more gently and softly than the swift waters which 

 the Spaniards found in their navigations southward. Where- 

 fore, it is not only more likely to be true, but ought also of 

 necessity to be concluded, that between both the lands hith- 

 erto unknown, there should be certain great open places 

 whereby the waters should thus continually pass from the East 

 unto the West, which waters I suppose to be driven about the 

 earth by the incessant moving and impulsion of the heavens." 

 Not yet feeling sure that the North American continent ex- 

 tended unbroken from the Isthmus of Panama to the Arctic, 

 no one could yet conceive of a great circular turning of the 

 west-running waters. So there was nothing possible for men to 

 seek but a passage through the land to the eastern seas. 



While explorations continued along the North American 



