Note 538 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Brevoort (Hist. Mag., xiii. 45) thinks that the “Isola Verde” and “Isle de Mai” of the fifteenth-century maps, lying in lat. 46° north, was Newfoundland with its adjacent bank, which he finds in one case represented. Samuel Robertson (Lit. & Hist. Soc. Quebec, Trans. Jan. 16) goes so far as to say that certain relics found in Canada may be Basque, and that it was a Basque whaler, named Labrador, who gave the name to the coast, which the early Portuguese found attached to it! We find occasional stories indicating knowledge of distant fishing coasts at a very early date, like the following:—