208 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



Faith in the connection ot North America with Asia out- 

 lived many a proof to the contrary. It was scarcely less cred- 

 ulous than the " hard shell " citizens of the Egyptian section 

 of Illinois, who are reported to continue deaf to all reports 

 concerning the death of " Old Hickory," and so still cast their 

 Presidential votes for Jackson. 



But this Asiatic mania, if I may so call it, was much less 

 lasting in reference to South than to North America. That 

 portion of our hemisphere in fact approaches the old world 

 nearer than the northern half of it does, and its actual distance 

 from Africa was under-rated. On some early maps its eastern- 

 most cape was set down as no more than ten degrees west of the 

 Cape Verd group. Its outline was also ascertained by nau- 

 tical survey, while the corresponding coast of North America 

 was still mapped after the model of Asia. 



As neither the position nor the coast-line of South America 

 had anything in common with European ideas respecting 

 Asia or the globe southeast of it, it was at once regarded as a 

 discovery veritably new. Accordingly^ while the West Indies 

 were viewed as only an extension of the Canaries, and Colum- 

 bus was thought to have discovered only some other islands 

 further toward the Indies of the East {Insulas alias incognitas 

 versus Indos), and North America was drawn after an Asiatic 

 pattern, or held at most for a thin barrier on the road to Asia 

 and cut through by straits if not by seas, — men were already 

 satisfied that South America was nothing less than a continent, 

 and so sought for it a name. No man did more to make South 

 America thus known to the old world than Americus. He 

 was first to trace its shore line through fifty degrees of latitude 

 even down to Patagonia. 



"As early as 1501, Yespuccius proposed to double the ex- 

 tremity of the Southern Hemisphere." H. Harries, p. 226. 

 "Would it have been surprising if he had appeared in the ear- 

 liest maps and books honored with a name in the world of 

 wonder he had revealed? But he does not? 



