Crucial Maps in the Early Cartography and Place-Nomenclature of the Atlantic Coast of Canada

__Crucial Maps__ was the last series of articles by the author, the results of his systematic investigations into New Brunswick's physiography, aborigines, early explorations, wars and settlements.

The Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada for the years from 1929 to 1937 included a series in nine parts of important papers on "Crucial Maps" which have been a frequent source of reference ever since for students of the history of discovery and of early cartography. Their author, William Francis Ganong, had a life-long interest in the natural and human history of his native province, New Brunswick. Although he was primarily a botanist, with four full-length books and an amazing number of articles to his credit, it was through his series of monographs in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada that the breadth of his interests became known. For over fifty years he contributed almost annually to the Transactions the results of his systematic investigations into New Brunswick's physiography, aborigines, early explorations, wars and settlements. Crucial Maps, which concluded in 1937, was the last series of articles. Ganong was the first investigator to employ a critical classification of maps based upon groupings by period and type, although the cartography of Canada's east coast had earlier been introduced by Baron Alexander von Humboldt.

Ganong's contributions to cartography are enormous: for example, his reconstruction of Cabot's voyages, while all may not agree with it, is a masterpiece of inductive analysis which will remain a model in historical research; his chapters on Gomez, Verrazzano and Fagundes are still the chief secondary sources on these discoverers. There have been notable additions to the bibliography of discovery and maps since Ganong wrote; recently published works as well as the complete file of Ganong's correspondence with his fellow cartographer, G.R.F. Prowse, were consulted by Theodore E. Layng, Map Division, Public Archives of Canada, in preparing the commentaries which accompany this edition of Crucial Maps. These commentaries, with Mr. Layng's introduction, also provide an interesting sketch of Dr. Ganong and his work. Another important feature of this edition is the index prepared by William Morley of the John Carter Brown Library.

In much of his work Ganong was a pioneer, and, while subsequent studies have reached different conclusions on some points, many of his results have seldom been challenged. Students of the present and future will still use and quote from Crucial Maps.

Royal Society of Canada Special Publications No. 7

Foreword 7 Contents 9 Introduction 11 I. John Cabot—The La Cosa Map and the Cape Breton Landfall [XXIII (1929), 135-75] 21 II. João Alvares Fagundes—Place-nomenclature and Cartography, 1520-1530, and Analysis of the Micmac Names on the Later Homem Maps [XXIV (1930), 135-87] 65 III. Jean de Verrazzano—Analysis of His Letter and the Maps of Maggiolo, 1527, and H. de Verrazzano, 1529 [XXV (1931), 169-203] 119 IV. Estêvão Gomez—The Influence of His Explorations on the Ribero-type and Chaves-Santa Cruz Maps [XXVI (1932), 125-79] 155 V. The Significance of Composite Maps from 1526 to 1600 [XXVII (1933), 149-95] 211 VI. Jacques Cartier—The Itinerary and Cartography of His Three Voyages [XXVIII (1934), 149-294] 259 VII. Additional Maps, Based on Cartier, to 1569 [XXIX (1935), 101-29] 405 VIII. The Mercator Map of 1569 and an Evaluation of Thévet's Works [XXX (1936), 109-29] 435 IX. The Cartographical Transition from Cartier to Champlain with Emphasis on the Levasseur Map [XXXI (1937), 101-30] 457 Commentaries and Map Notes 489 Historical Monographs and Papers 519 Index compiled 525 Maps 533