DISAPPEARANCE FROM MAP 177 ITS DISAPPEARANCE FROM THE MAP The only other witnesses to the visual existence of the island, so far as recorded, were James Hall (probably by honest mistake) in 1606 and Thomas Shepherd (gravely distrusted) in 167 1. 4 Nevertheless an impressive insular figure grew up in the maps, bearing the name "Buss" to commemorate the vessel that first found it. In some instances it was made a very large island indeed. Shepherd's map, reproduced herewith (Fig. 24), was ac- companied by a brief descriptive narrative which may be at- tributed to a fancy for yarning, with no strong curb of conscience on the fancy. Buss remained an accepted figure of geography for considerably more than a century. Quite naturally, however, the efforts of reliable searchers failed to find this island again, for it was not really there. A theory of cataclysm seemed more acceptable than to discard outright what so many maps, books, and traditions had attested. Van Keulen's chart of I745 5 led the way with the inscription "The submerged land of Buss is nowadays nothing but surf a quarter of a mile long with rough sea. Most likely it was originally the great island of Frisland." So the name "Sunken Land of Buss" passed into general use with geographic sanction. After much disturbance of mariners' and cartographers' minds not only the phantom island but its legacy, the supposed line of breakers and dangers, vanished altogether from the records. There is no "Buss" to be found on maps after about the middle of the nineteenth century, though the preceding hundred years had been prolific in them. Probably we must suppose a later date for the cessation of current mention of the sunken land of that name, in recognition of what, according to belief, once had been but existed (above water) no longer. Indeed, even after the opening of this twentieth century the same hypothesis has revived, 6 with scientific support of a sub- 4 Miller Christy, pp. 171 and 173. 6 Nieinve wassende zee caart van de Noord-Oceaen, med een gedeelte van de Atlantische, etc., Amsterdam, 1745 (as cited by Miller Christy, op. cit., p. 178, footnote i). 8 H. S. Poole: The Sunken Land of Bus, Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotian Inst. of Set., Vol. ii, 1902-06, pp. 193-198. See also: Sir John Murray and R. E. Peake:
