(The North Part Of America by Henry Briggs 1625) (1906)

Briggs, Henry. The north part of America conteyning Newfoundland, New England, Virginia, Florida, New Spaine and Nova Francia, with ye rich Iles of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and Porto Rieco on the south and upon ye west the large and goodly island of California. The bonds of it are the Atlantick Ocean on ye South and East sides ye south sea on ye west side and on ye North Fretum Hudson and Buttons baye a faire entrance to ye nearest and most temperate passage to Japan & China [facisimle]. [1:31,680,000]. In: Samuel Purchas. Hakluytus Posthumus, or, Purchas His Pilgrimes : Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others, Vol. XIV. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1625. As reproduced by, Hakluytus Posthumus, or, Purchas His Pilgrimes : Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others, 1906.

Thirteen years elapsed between Thomas Button’s primal discovery of the larger portion of the Hudson Bay coast of Manitoba and its delineation on a published map in 1625. The Briggs’ map is a vary simple one in appearance but it is basic for the future story of northwestern exploration and cartography. It was used later by Captains Foxe and James in their searches for a western water passage from the Bay, and from it a group of maps evolved, continuing and augmenting the configurations first presented upon this map. A Gerritsz-type east shore and James Bay shore is extended north to approximately 56 degrees. Very likely Briggs did not carry the coast north to 60 degrees latitude, as Gerritsz, because Button had sailed southwest from the entrance to Hudson Bay to approximately 58 degrees north in the Bay and had not sighted the supposed shore by this latitudinal position. From the end of the Gerritsz-type coast there is a gap approximately 2 degrees of latitude and some 5 degrees of longitude, after which Button’s west coast, beginning at Port Nelson, curves in a great arc north into Roe’s Welcome to the 65th degree of latitude. In this area there is a large peninsula projecting out from the west mainland, which represents un circumnavigated Southampton Island. The large bight thus formed was named Button’s Bay. There were three other gaps left in the western shore of the Bay indicating three major straits, considered to be possible avenues of future exploration west to the Western Sea. Button gave the name of New Wales to the land lying west of the newly-discovered coast and Port Nelson to the estuary of the Nelson river thereby affixing the first two place-names to Manitoba territory.