112 LECTURES. 



harbors and capes, and which was their ne plus ultra on the western 

 coast. 



Many assertions in history are of such a kind that we do not give 

 to them a very liigh degree of credence, if we find them only reported 

 in hooks. But if we see the same thing also depicted on a map, our 

 conviction of the truth is enhanced. So, for instance, many may 

 doubt the fact, reported in Spanish authors, that as early as the year 

 1519, the Mississippi was discovered by the captains of the Conquesta- 

 dor Garay. But when we produce to them maps of the period on which, 

 not only the whole configuration of the northern coast of the Mexican 

 Gulf is given according'to nature, but on which also in the middle 

 of this coast a broad river is depicted, having the true latitude of the 

 mouth of the Mississippi, they feel much more inclined to believe the 

 asserted discovery. 



The history of the cosmographical speculations and hypotheses, 

 which prevailed at the different period.>^ of geographical knowledge, 

 forms a very interesting chapter of the history of science and civiliza- 

 tion. These speculations, it is true, were also usually treated of in 

 books. But they are sometimes so fanciful and wild, that we can 

 scarcely credit their having ever been seriously entertained. When, 

 however, w^e behold them carefully drawn on maps, and find that those 

 maps were reproduced a thousand times, and passed into every hand, 

 we clearly recognise how deeply rooted those speculations or prejudices 

 must have been in the minds of a former age. We learn, for instance, 

 that the Dutch, when they discovered, north of Japan, the island 

 of Yesso, imagined it to be a large country, reaching from Asia 

 to America. At first it seems scarcely possible that such an erroneous 

 supposition could become the conviction of the time. But the Dutch 

 not only described this fanciful continent of Yesso in their books ; 

 they also laid it down on their maps as a bridge extending from Cali- 

 fornia to Tartary, with the inscription : " This is the land over which 

 the seven Israelitish tribes wandered from Asia to America." They 

 delivered such maps to all their contemporary students and navigators. 

 And these maps, therefore, prove to us, more than books, to what a 

 degree these contemporaries must have been impressed with those 

 speculations. 



Very otten the maps of a time are the only guides which enable us 

 to guess the real design of the expeditions sent out for discovery, and 

 to explain the movements of their commanders. In this respect, we 

 may observe, that the published reports and books very rarely give us 

 full information on the subject. The reports which we have, for in- 

 stance, of the expeditions of Bartholomew Diaz, of Vasco de Garaa, 

 of Magellan, of Drake, of Hudson, were not written by the comman- 

 ders themselves, but by some ' ireitleman" accom[)anying them, a 

 missionary or volunteer, who <«nly occasionally was induced to take 

 notes of what he considered worthy of record. The papers and maps 

 of the connnanders themselves went generally another way. They 

 were deposited in the archives of the governments, and are in innu- 

 merable instances lost to us. 



From such second-hand information as we have, we therefore learn 

 many curious things and events, which happened to be obs<.rved by 



