208 COSMOS. 



to west over half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a long 

 series of false inferences, extended this space to 240 degrees, 

 and in his eyes the desired eastern shores of Asia appeared to 

 advance as far as the meridian of San Diego in Now Califor- 

 nia. He therefore hoped that he should only have to sail 120 

 degrees instead of the 23 1 degrees at which the wealthy Chi- 

 nese commercial city of Quinsay is actually situated to the 

 west of the extremity of the Spanish peninsula. Toscanelii, 

 in his correspondence with the admiral, diminished the ex- 

 panse of the fluid element in a manner still more remarkable 

 and more favorable to his designs. According to his calcula- 

 tions, the extent of the sea between Portuoal and China was 

 limited to 52 degrees, so that, in conformity with the expres- 

 sion of the Prophet Esdras, six sevenths of the earth were dry. 

 Columbus, at a subsequent period, in a letter which he ad- 

 dressed to Queen Isabella from Haiti, immediately after the 

 conipletion of his third voyage, showed himself the more in- 

 clined to these views, because they had been defended in the 

 Imago Mu7idi by Cardinal d'Ailly, whom he regarded as the 

 highest authority.* 



* As the Old Continent, from the western extremity of the Iberian 

 peninsula to the coast of China, comjjrehends almost 130^ of longitude, 

 there remain about 230^ for the distance which Columbus would have 

 had to traverse if he wished to reach Cathai (China), but less if he only 

 desired to reach Zipangu (Japan). This ditference of 230°, which 1 

 have here indicated, depends on the position of the Portuguese Cape 

 St. Vincent (11° 20' W. of Paris), and the far projecting part of the 

 Chinese coast, near the then so celebrated port of Quinsay, so often 

 named by Columbus and Toscauelh (lat. 30° 28', long. 117° 47' E. of 

 Paris). The synonyms for Quinsay, in the pi'ovince of Tschekiang, are 

 Kanfu, Hangtscheufu, Kingszu. The East Asiatic general commerce 

 was shared in the tliirteenth century between Quinsay and Zaitun 

 (Pinghai or SseuthungV opposite to the island of Formosa (then Tung- 

 fan), in 25° 5' N. lat. (see Klaproth, Tableaux Hist, de VAsie, p. 227). 

 The distance of Cape St. Vincentfrom Zipangu (Niphon)is 22° of longi- 

 tude less than from Quinsay, therefore about 209° instead of 230° 53'. 

 It is striking that the oldest statements, those of Eratosthenes and Strabo 

 (lib. i., p. 64), come, through accidental compensations, within 10° of 

 the above-mentioned result of 129° for the difference of longitude of 

 the oUov/j.svrj. Strabo, in the same passage in which he alludes to the 

 possible existence of two great habitable continents in the northern 

 hemisphere, says that our oIkov/ievt], in the parallel of Thinse, Athens 

 (see p. 189), constitutes more than one third of the earth's circumference. 

 Marinus the Tyrian, misled by the length of the time occupied in tne 

 navigation from Myos Honnos to India, by the erroneously assumed di 

 rection of the major axis of the Caspian from west to east, and by the 

 over* estimation of the length of the land route to the country of the 

 Seres, gave to the Old Ccnitinent a breadth of 225° instead of 129° 

 The Chinese coast was thus advanced to the Sandwich Islands. Colum 



