The eastern coast of North America[3] shows us that, south of rock-bound Labrador, the only places north of New York where capes are to be found jutting northward from the land are northern Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, the southern shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Cape Ann, and Cape Cod.
There is no stretch of open, harborless, sandy coast from Cape Bauld to Cape Spear, with its steep, sterile, rocky shores.[4] There are two or three stretches of unbroken coast from three to five miles long, north and south of Canada Bay, northwest of Conception Bay, and northeast of Bonavista Bay, but these are not the shores of capes jutting to the north, with long strands and sand banks.
If we begin with Cape Breton and follow the coast northward we find no extensive stretch of harborless coast until we reach Island Point. From this point to Cape Smoke there is a comparatively unbroken coast about thirty miles in extent whose "headlands are composed of primary and metamorphic rocks, principally granite, with clay slate in nearly vertical strata, while sandstone, conglomerate, shale, limestone, and occasionally beds of gypsum and red and yellow marl occur on the intervening shores."[5] Here, then, there are not long strands and sand banks. Cape North is a headland of slate one thousand feet high.[6] Dr. Gustav Storm, of the University of Christiania, in his well-known book, Studier over Vinlandsreiserne, etc., page 42, points out a resemblance between Cape Breton and Keel Cape, and states that the eastern shores of Cape Breton Island are "specially described as low-lying and sandy." According to the United States Hydrographic Office Report, No. 99, page 289, the southeast coast of Cape Breton Island from Michaux Point to Cape Gabarus "is low and has a barren and rocky appearance, and the shore is broken into numerous lakes and ponds, protected from the sea by beaches of gravel and some small rocky islands and ledges.... From Cape Gabarus to Cape Breton, a distance of fifteen miles, the land is of moderate height and the shore broken into coves and small harbors." Between Louisburg and Cape Breton, eight miles beyond, "there are three small harbors, too intricate and rocky in their entrances to admit vessels of any burden," and Cape Breton itself is "low and rocky and covered with grassy moors." This is unlike the open, harborless coast with long strands and sand banks of the Sagas. Within the Gulf of St. Lawrence the capes which jut to the north are Cape St. George,[7] with rocky, precipitous cliffs six hundred feet above the sea; North Point,[8] on Prince Edward Island, which is broken about five miles down the coast by Tignish River, and beyond that by the red sandstone cliff of Cape Kildare; Escuminiac Point,[9] at the entrance to Miramichi Bay, a broken coast with low sandstone cliffs; and Birch Point,[10] on Miscou Island, with a steep cliff of sandstone ten feet high.
Campobello is a rocky island, and Cape Ann is rocky and has no long, harborless coast.
Cape Cod[11] juts to the north with open water west of it, and beyond that again land. It has also a long, harborless coast on the east, with strands and sand banks, and is scored with bays toward the south.
Cape Cod, then, is the only cape north of Sandy Hook which corresponds to the description in the Saga, and near here we should look for Vinland, leaving the southern shores until later.
Vinland, which was discovered by Leif Erikson, is only described as Vinland in the Flat Island Book. This account states that Leif Erikson's party "came to a certain island which lay north of the land." That Leif Erikson should have thought that Cape Cod was an island is obvious, because it is impossible from the cape to see the southern shore of Massachusetts Bay twenty miles away. There is no need to explain why he also believed it to lie north of the land, as no one and final answer can be given, although several can be easily suggested; that water and land again lay to the west is clearly stated in all three accounts.
Afterward "they sailed into that sound which lay between the island and the promontory which jutted northward from the land; they steered in westward past the promontory. There was much shallow water at ebb tide, and then their ship stood up and then it was far to look to the sea from their ship." Across the water which lies between Cape Cod and the mainland is Rocky Point, a high and therefore noticeable promontory jutting northward from the land. Past this one can only continue westering to the north, and thence we must now look along the land to find the place where, in the words of the Flat Island Book, "a certain river flowed out of a certain lake," having, as was said before, great shallows at its mouth at ebb tide, whence it was far to look to the ocean.
Following round the inner coast of Cape Cod, we pass Plymouth and on to Boston before we find in the Charles River and Boston Back Bay a river flowing through a lake into the sea, where great shallows at its mouth are a conspicuous feature and it is far to look to the ocean.
At this point we may add one more feature to the description of Keel Cape—that it appears to be an island when approached from the north. Now we can continue our search down the North Atlantic coast, noting that Sandy Hook is not scored with bays at the south, and that Cape Henlopen and Cape Henry could not have been mistaken for islands.[12]