Champlain's English Log

Extract

In Lieutenant-Commander Waters' paper ‘The Development of the English and the Dutchman's Log' (this Journal, 9, 70) there is an illustration (Fig. 1, p. 73) of the English log, reproduced from Champlain's Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France Occidentale. The device illustrated, though no doubt correct in intention, could not have performed the function stated, namely, of floating ‘vertically in the water presenting its full face to the ship's wake' (p. 74). This raises the suspicion that Champlain had not examined the log minutely enough, if at all, or at least had failed to instruct his draughtsman properly.