The voyage son, A.D. 100). *Winsor's Amer on this manuscript is the more to be regretted as it is this saga which contains the most detailed accounts of the voyages of the Northmen. There can be little doubt that Leif Ericson was the first of Leif Eric Northman to see Vinland, and that he made this voyage in the year 1000, or just before, as it was made in the same summer in which another Northman sailed from Norway to ica, 1, 61-69; Iceland; and the date of the latter's voyage is tolerably well ascertained. It is almost certain that Vinland was some part of North America; but as to its exact location, History Leaf there is no definite information. Fiske's Dis covery, I, 164; American lets, No. 3. The Newfoundland fisheries. Geographi- These hardy navigators made many other voyages to Vinland; but gradually they ceased coming, and all memory of the western land faded away, except as it existed in old manuscripts which were known only to a few scholars. II. English and French Fishermen. -It is probable that other European mariners were on the American coasts before 1492; but of their voyages there is not as much knowledge as there is of the expeditions of the Northmen. These later seamen were English and French fishermen who sailed across the North Atlantic to fish for cod off the shores of Labrador and Newfoundland. It is improbable that these early voyagers realized that the lands which they visited were portions of a new continent; they thought that they were parts of European and Asiatic lands, and Greenland is so represented on the maps of that period. 12. Early Geographical Ideas. The idea that the earth was spherical in shape, and not flat, as had been taught in the Homeric poems, was held by many learned men among the ancients. For instance, Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fourth century before the birth of Christ, had proved to his own satisfaction, by observations made during eclipses and in other ways, that the earth was round. This theory had been held by men who lived before Aristotle; but the idea seems to have been regarded as novel when he wrote. A most remarkable statement was made on the subject by another Greek writer, Eratosthenes, who 1474] Ideas of Toscanelli, Behaim, and Columbus 21 lived in the third century before Christ. His works are lost, but according to Strabo, a Roman geographer (B.C. 40-A.D. 60), he wrote: "If the extent of the Atlantic Ocean were not an obstacle, we might easily pass by sea from Iberia to India, still keeping the same parallel, the remaining portion of which occupies more than a third of the whole circle. But it is quite possible that in the temperate zone there may be two or even more habitable earths." of the theory during the The globular theory of the form of the earth was preserved Preservation during the Middle Ages by the Arab philosophers; it also appears from time to time in the writings of Christian authors. For instance, Roger Bacon, one of England's earliest and one of her greatest thinkers, refers to it. was Bacon, too, who first interpreted famous passages in Seneca, that it was only a short distance from Spain to the Indies, to mean the distance westward across the Atlantic. 13. Ideas of Tos canelli, Behaim, and Toscanelli and Colum bus. Toscanelli reached Columbus and the impression it left on his mind cannot be stated. The map has long since disappeared; the representation of it given herewith is simply an attempt to show the relation of Toscanelli's ideas to the actual fact. There is, however, a map, or rather a globe, which presents the ideas of the period just preceding the discovery of *Winsor's Columbus. From Italian Columbian Commission Report. (The black line shows route advised by Toscanelli; the dotted line shows position of America.) 1474] Ideas of Toscanelli, Behaim, and Columbus 23 sor's Colum bus, 186-190; Winsor's America. The maker was Martin Behaim, a German navi- Behaim's gator, who had already sailed along the shores of eastern globe. WinAfrica. He completed the globe in the summer of 1492, before he heard of Columbus's discovery. The portion of it which relates to the subject in hand is here reproduced. Both Behaim and Toscanelli thought that the earth was about three fourths as large as it really is because they had no America, II, 104. idea of the great masses of water which lie between western Europe and eastern Asia. One result of this error was to place Japan (called Cipango on Behaim's globe) where Mexico really is. Looking at the facsimile of Behaim's globe, it is easy to understand what it was that Columbus tried to do when he sailed forth on his great voyage; it is also easy to understand how he was led to believe that he had reached an outlying Asiatic land when, as a matter of fact, he was off the coast of Cuba. It is fortunate that Columbus's this mistake arose, or Columbus would not have set out on voyage. Japan is really about ten thousand miles west his mistaken theories. Clough's The voyage. *Winsor's Columbus; Irving's Columbus (abridged ed.), 55-119; American lets, No. 1. of Europe; Columbus maintained that it was only three thousand miles west of the Canaries. It was difficult to procure men and vessels for the shorter voyage; it might have been impossible to obtain either the one or the other for such a tremendous venture as the real problem demanded. As it was, the task to which Columbus set himself was without precedent. For a thousand years wise men had believed the earth to be a ball, and that Asia might be reached by sailing across the Sea of Darkness; until Columbus appeared, no one had deliberately set forth to test the truth of the theory : What if wise men, as far back as Ptolemy, Judged that the earth like an orange was round, 14. Columbus's First Voyage, 1492. On the 3d of August, 1492, the little fleet of three vessels passed out of the roadstead of Palos; on August 24 and 25 the Peak of Teneriffe was in sight; and, on September 3, the Canaries were behind them. Westward they sailed, wafted along Fiske's Dis- by light easterly breezes, with every now and then a calm; covery, 1,419; at one time the weeds of the Sargasso Sea were around History Leaf them, and they steered northward to avoid them, and then westward again. On October 7, after they had been out of sight of land for more than a month, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the captain of the Pinta, induced the admiral to change the course of the fleet to the southwest. It was well that he did SO. Had the vessels continued longer on their westerly course, they would have passed north of the Bahamas, out of sight of land, have become involved in the current of the Gulf Stream, and have reached the American shores in the stormy region of the Carolina coasts. As it happened, however, on the evening of October 11, Columbus saw a light in the distance, and at two o'clock the Pinta, which was in advance, made land. When day dawned, the land was in plain sight; it proved to be an island, called by the |