584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the antipodes as St. Augustine had done, believed firmly in the 

 sphericity of the earth, and, interpreting these statements of the 

 book of Esdras in connection with this belief, he held that, as only 

 one seventh of the earth's surface was covered by water, the ocean 

 between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could 

 not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the extent of the land 

 upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely authorized 

 statement the globe must be much smaller, and the land of 

 " Zipango," reached by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of 

 Asia, much nearer than had been generally believed. 



On this point he laid stress in his great work, the Ymago 

 Mundi, and an edition of it having been published in the days 

 when Columbus was thinking most closely upon the problem of a 

 westward voyage, it naturally exercised much influence upon his 

 reasonings. Among the treasures of the library at Seville, there 

 is nothing more interesting than a copy of this work annotated 

 by Columbus himself ; from this very copy it was that Columbus 

 obtained confirmation of his belief that the passage across the 

 ocean to Marco Polo's land of Zipango in Asia was short. But 

 for this error, based upon a text supposed to be inspired, it is un- 

 likely that Columbus would have had the courage to undertake 

 his voyage. It is a curious fact that this single theological error 

 thus promoted a series of voyages which completely destroyed not 

 only this but every other conception of geography based upon the 

 sacred writings.* 



5. The Character of the Earth's Surface. It would be 

 hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical truth with- 

 out referring to one passage more in the history of the Protestant 

 Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way of the 

 simplest statement of geographical truth which conflicted with 

 the words of the sacred books. 



In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at 

 Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many 

 services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of 

 Ptolemy's Geography, in which Judea was spoken of, not as " a 

 land flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance 

 with the truth, as, in the main, meager, barren, and inhospitable. 

 In his trial this simple statement of geographical truth was used 



* For this error, so fruitful in discovery, see D'Ailly, Ymago Mundi (my own copy is of 

 1490); the passage referred to is folio 12 verso. For the passage from Esdras, see chap, vi, 

 verses 42, 47, 50, and 52 ; see also Zockler, Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theolo- 

 gie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. i, p. 461. For one of the best recent statements, see Ruge, 

 Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Berlin, 1882, pp. 221 et seq. For the letter of 

 Columbus acknowledging his indebtedness to this mistake in Esdras, see Navarrete, Viajes 

 y Descubrimientos, Madrid, 1825, tome i, pp. 242-264 ; also Humboldt, Hist, de la Geo- 

 graphic du Nouveau Continent, vol. i, pp. 68, 69. 



