CHAPTER III. 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. 



June 24th, 1497, a year before Columbus discovered 

 the American continent, the crew of a little vessel, the 

 " Matthew," bound from Bristol on a voyage of discov- 

 ery to ascertain the shortest line from England to 

 Cathay, sighted land. The vessel was under the com- 

 mand of John Cabot, who was accompanied by his son 

 Sebastian, a lad still under age, perhaps but nineteen or 

 twenty years old. Sebastian kept the ship's log; but 

 the narratives of this, as well as his other voyages, have 

 been lost. 



The land was called " Prima vista," and it was believed 

 by Biddle and Humboldt, as well as Kohl and others^ 

 that this region which the Cabots first saw was the coast 

 of Labrador in 56° or 58° north latitude. While the- 

 narrative of this momentous voyage has been lost, a map 

 of the world ascribed to Sebastian Cabot, and engravedl 

 in 1549, contained an inscription, of which we will copy 

 an extract translated in Hakluyt's Voyages (iii. 27). 



" In the yeere of our Lord 1497, lohn Cabot, a Vene- 

 tian, and his sonne Sebastian (with an English fleet set 

 out from BristoU) discouered that land which no man 

 before that time had attempted, on the 24 of lune about 

 fiue of the clocke early in the morning. This land he 

 called Prima vista, that is to say. First scene, because as 



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