hen Gomez, who was sent out in the year 1524. by Charles
V, the rival of Francis I. He spent about ten months on the voyage,
following much the same course as Verrazano, but examining with far
greater care the coast of Nova Scotia and the territory about the
opening of the Gulf of St Lawrence. His course can be traced from the
Penobscot river in Maine to the island of Cape Breton. He entered the
Bay of Fundy, and probably went far enough to realize from its tides,
rising sometimes to a height of sixty or seventy feet, that its farther
end could not be free, and that it could not furnish an open passage to
the Western Sea. Running north-east along the shore of Nova Scotia,
Gomez sailed through the Gut of Canso, thus learning that Cape Breton
was an island. He named it the Island of St John-or, rather, he
transferred to it this name, which the map-makers had already used.
Hence it came about that the 'Island of St John' occasions great
confusion in the early geography of Canada. The first map-makers who
used it secured their information indirectly, we may suppose, from the
Cabot voyages and the fishermen who frequented the coast. They marked
it as an island lying in the 'Bay of the Bretons,' which had come to be
the name for the open mouth of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Gomez, however,
used the name for Cape Breton island. Later on, the name was applied to
what is now Prince Edward Island. All this is only typical of the
difficulties in understanding the accounts of the early voyages to
America. Gomez duly returned to the port of Corunna in June 1525.

We may thus form some idea of the general position of American
exploration and discovery at the time when Cartier made his momentous
voyages. The maritime nations of Europe, in searching for a passage to
the half-mythical empires of Asia, had stumbled on a great continent.
At first they thought it Asia itself. Gradually they were realizing
that this was not Asia, but an outlying land that lay between Europe
and Asia and that must be passed by the navigator before Cathay and
Cipango could rise upon the horizon. But the new continent was vast in
extent. It blocked the westward path from pole to pole. With each
voyage, too, the resources and the native beauty of the new land became
more apparent. The luxuriant islands of the West Indies, and the Aztec
empire of Mexico, were already bringing wealth and grandeur to the
monarchy of Spain. South of Mexico it had been already found tha