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SYLVANUS MAP OF 1511 65 far the minimization of distance might be carried by some map-makers. THE SYLVANUS MAP OF 1511 The fact is, this matter does not rest in supposition only, for the thing has undoubtedly happened. The map of Sylvanus, 43 1511, brings the Gulf of St. Lawrence and surroundings as an insular body almost as near Ireland as are many of the presentations of Brazil Island on older maps. He shows in front a single large island; a square gulf behind it; a bent shore line forming the border on the north, west, and south; and two gaps well repre- senting the Straits of Belle Isle and Cabot. The names given are Terra Laboratorum and Regalis Domus. Nobody doubts that it illustrates the St. Lawrence Gulf region, though there has been much speculation as to what unknown explorer has had his discoveries commemorated here, thjrje.n years before the first voyage of Carrier. Why should not a like episode of dis- covery and imperfect record have happened at a still earlier date? It is not to be supposed that Brazil Island was generally con- ceived of by intelligent persons as no farther at sea than it appears on the map of Dalorto, 1325, and divers later ones. Peasantry and fisher folk might, indeed, confuse it with the mythical Isle of the Undying accessible only to a few chosen ones but vanishing from ordinary mortal gaze and thus account for Brazil's elusiveness, though so near at hand ; but the sturdy explorers of Bristol 44 who kept sailing westward in search of the island, before and after Columbus, sometimes at least being away on this quest for many months together, must often have passed over the very site given by Dalorto and far beyond. They were looking for solid earth and rock and must have been convinced that the real Brazil was to be found in remoter seas. Also, during a great part of the period in which Brazil appeared Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. n. 44 See Ayala's letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, copied in many Cabot narratives; e. g. in the work cited above in footnote 10, p. 430, and at the beginning of the next chapter.