PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY AND AFFILIATED 



SOCIETIES 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A special meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington, was 

 held December 3, 1912, at 4.30 p.m. in the new building of the National 

 Museum, Mr. Stetson, the President, in the chair. 



Mr, Wm. H. Babcock read a paper on The Islands of Antillia illus- 

 trated by lantern-slide maps, taking the title of his paper from Peter 

 JMartyr's Decades of the Nev) World where that author in view of "the 

 cosmographers," states that he believes these islands were what his 

 contemporary, Columbus, had discovered. Peter Martyr's own sketch 

 map of 1511 was exhibited, showing Florida as one of them under the 

 name of Beineni. There were also displayed the maps of Beccaria, 

 Bianco, Pareto and Benincasa, from 1435 to 1487, who may be among 

 "the cosmographers" referred to. They show a group of four large 

 islands roughly corresponding in size, arrangement and other respects 

 with Cuba, Jamaica, Florida or Beimeni, and Andros or the Bahamas. 

 On Beccaria's map they bear the names Antillia, Reylla, Salvagio and 

 Insula in Mar (Opposite Island or Island out Before, King Island, 

 Savage Island and Island in the Sea). These are nearly as far west of 

 the Azores as the latter are west of Europe and in such a location must 

 be either the creatures of mere fancy or appurtenances of America. 

 But it is not likely that mere guess-work could produce the remarkable 

 correspondences of these great map islands with the reality, such an 

 island group being altogether unique in the Atlantic. 



Behaim's globe of 1492 contains an inscription to the effect that a 

 Spanish vessel visited Antillia in 1414. This is more vaguely endorsed 

 by another on the map of Ruysch (1508), which credits the Spaniards 

 with finding Antillia long ago. That something of the kind happened 

 in the first quarter of the fifteenth century may be inferred from the 

 fact that Beccaria (1535) names the group collectively "The Newly 

 Reported Islands," most likely borrowing this title legend from his 

 earlier map of 1426, altho the fourteenth, century maps had contained 

 no suggestion of Antillia and her consorts. 



The other fifteenth century maps named corroborate Beccaria, being 

 very consistent in outline and arrangment so far as they go, altho two of 

 them give but three islands and Bianco shows only Antillia and a part 

 of Salvagio, which he calls La JMan de Satanaxio, but this last seems to 

 be a case of mutilation. However, the Laon globe of 1493 shows only 

 these two main (rectangular) islands. 



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