Indeed, even after the opening of this twentieth century the same hypothesis has revived,[294] with scientific support of a submarine range in 53° N. and 35° W., really ocean-bottom mountains 8,000 feet high between Ireland and Newfoundland, reported upon in 1903 by Captain de Carteret of the cable ship Minia. They are not on the same spot and would still require a great lift to reach the surface. Of course their past sinking is not impossible, but there is no need to explain Buss by cataclysm any more than Mayda or Brazil Island, Drogio or Icaria.
Islands of Demons
Somewhat allied by nature to these reported isles of destruction and disappearance are the islands of imported diabolism, appearing on maps now and then through the centuries. Bianco’s “The Hand of Satan” (1436[295]; [Fig. 25]), if correctly translated (see Ch. X, [p. 156]), is probably the first to present this quality. He locates the sinister island well to the southward; but the most pictorial appearance is Gastaldi’s (for Ramusio) “Island of Demons,”[296] with its eager and capering imps at the bleak and savage northern end of Newfoundland. The preferred site, however, would seem to be yet a little farther north. Ruysch, in the map referred to above, which announces the burning up of Gunnbjörn’s skerries, exhibits two Insulae Demonium near the middle of the dreaded Ginnungagap passage between Labrador and Greenland. There is no suggestion of volcanic action in their case, and it does not appear that any real islands occupied the spot. The reason for the delineation and the name is still to seek.
The map of 1544, attributed to Sebastian Cabot,[297] makes a single island of them, “marked Y. de Demones”, and brings it nearer the eastern front of Labrador below Hamilton Inlet. Agnese[298] in the same century enlarges it greatly but still keeps it just off the Labrador coast. The Ortelius map of 1570[299] ([Fig. 10]) shows the insular haunt of devils, plural again in form and name, but retains approximately the site chosen by Cabot. Mercator’s world map of 1569[300] keeps the islands plural beside the upper tip of Newfoundland, approximating Gastaldi’s position. There seems to have been a pronounced and general concurrence of belief in diabolical evil in the northeastern coast of America, perhaps because it is there that the Arctic current brings down its tremendous freight, and tempests are at their wildest, and all barrenness and bleakness at their worst.
Fig. 25—Section of the Bianco map of 1436 showing the Island of the Hand of Satan and Antillia. (After Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)
Saintly Islands
Much farther south, on the lines followed by Columbus and his Latin successors and in the tracks of vessels plying between the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes and the West Indies, what may be considered as a contrary impulse—that of exultant religious enthusiasm—came into play in island naming. The Island of the Seven Cities (Ch. V) will be recalled but needs no further consideration here. St. Anne, La Catholique, St. X, and Incorporado (in the sense of Christ’s Incarnation) are among the more conspicuous instances. The second-named was always in low latitudes. It occurs in the latitude of the tip of Florida, in mid-Atlantic in the Desceliers map of 1546[301] ([Fig. 9]); also as “La Catolico” on Portuguese maps, with similar situation. Desceliers shows Encorporade (Incorporado) about east of Cape Hatteras and south of western Newfoundland; but he also has Encorporada Adonda not far from Nova Scotia. Thomas Hood (1592)[302] makes a wild and unenlightened transformation of Incorporado to “Emperadada” and puts it about opposite the site of Savannah, but not so far east as the considerable outjutting of the coast which must be meant for Cape Hatteras and its neighborhood. However, this location is not very different from that usually given it. Desceliers has two islands marked St. X, one being in the longitude of St. Michaels and latitude of Bermuda; the other in the longitude of eastern Newfoundland and latitude of the Hudson. In about the same latitude as the latter, and more than half way between it and the Azores, an island called St. Anne is shown. There seems nothing real to prompt the derivation of these religiously named islands. Perhaps they are merely the offspring of optical delusion, fancy, and fervor.
Daculi and Bra
On the other side of the Atlantic the much earlier map island Daculi must be reckoned as of kin to them, since its map legends deal with beneficent wonder working or magical medical aid, and its name may be identical with or have originated the saintly one which still denotes an outlying Hebridean island. Though less renowned than the island of Brazil and less significant, Daculi shares with it the record for first appearance of mythical islands on portolan maps.