178 BUSS ISLAND AND OTHERS marine range in 53 N. and 35 W., really ocean-bottom moun- tains 8,000 feet high between Ireland and Newfoundland, re- ported 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 destruc- tion and disappearance are the islands of imported diabolism, appearing on maps now and then through the centuries. Bianco's "The Hand of Satan" (i436 7 ; 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 De- mons," 8 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 Gunn- bjorn's skerries, exhibits two Insulae Demonium near the middle of the dreaded Ginnungagap passage between Labra- dor 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, 9 makes a single island of them, "marked Y. de Demones", and brings it On Recent Contributions to the Knowledge of the Floor of the Atlantic Ocean, Royal Geogr. Soc., London, 1904; references on pp. 8 and 10 and inset "Soundings Taken by S. S. Minia, 1903" of the accompanying chart. 7 A. E. Nordenskiold: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing Directions, transl. in F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, PI. 20. 8 Justin Winsor: Cartier to Frontenac: Geographical Discovery in the Interior of North America In its Historical Relations, 1534-1700, with Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources, Boston and New York, 1894. PP- 60-6 1. 3 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerika's in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), Berlin, 1892; reference in atlas, PI. 16.
