ad. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1576. 



of the olde, and also an inforcing of a great many new : 

 why then should we now doubt of our Northwest passage 

 and navigation from England to India? &c. seeing that 

 Atlantis now called America, was ever knowen to be an 

 Island, and in those dayes navigable round about, which 

 by accesse of more water could not be diminished. 



Also Aristotle in his booke De Mundo, and the 

 learned Germaine Simon Gryneus in his annotations 

 upon the same, saith that the whole earth (meaning 

 thereby, as manifestly doth appeare, Asia, Africk, and 

 Europe, being all the countreys then knowen) is but 

 one Island, compassed about with the reach of the sea 

 Atlantine : which likewise prooveth America to be an 

 Island, and in no part adjoyning to Asia, or the rest. 

 Siraboiib. 15. Also many ancient writers, as Strabo and others, called 

 both the Ocean sea, (which lieth East of India) Atlanti- 

 cum pelagus, and that sea also on the West coasts of 

 Spaine and Africk, Mare Atlanticum : the distance be- 

 tweene the two coasts is almost halfe the compasse of 

 the earth. 



So that it is incredible, as by Plato appeareth mani- 

 festly, that the East Indian Sea had the name Atlanticum 

 pelagus of the mountaine Atlas in Afrik, or yet the 

 sea adjoining to Africk, had the name Oceanus Atlanticus 

 Valerius of the same mountaine : but that those seas and the 



Anselmus in mG untaine Atlas were so called of this great Island 

 rum'uprtn- Atlantis, and that the one and the other had their names 

 dpium.fol. 6. for a memorial of the mighty prince Atlas, sometime king 

 Ger. 9. 10. thereof, who was Japhet yongest sonne to Noah, in 

 whose time the whole earth was divided between the 

 three brethren, Sem, Cam, and Japhet. 



Wherefore I am of opinion that America by the 

 Northwest will be found favourable to this our enter- 

 prise, and am the rather imboldened to beleeve the same, 

 for that I fmde it not onely confirmed by Plato, Aristotle, 

 and other ancient Phylosophers : but also by all the best 

 [II moderne Geographers, as Gemma Frisius, Munsterus, 



Appianus, Hunterus, Gastaldus, Guyccardinus, Michael 



162 



