284 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 



special instances to determine what originals were used in drawing 

 some of the chart copies, but it is impossible to say how far original 

 and copy agree with each other. So, also, the oldest manuscripts for 

 a cartographic history of America are not originals, but merely arbi- 

 trary combinations of various copies, not drawn from originals of 

 equivalent value, for the value of a first impression on the mind is 

 always dependent upon the intelligence of the pilot. Every copyist 

 is subjected to the risk of committing errors, through a misappre- 

 hension, or perhaps through careless haste. And here no connected 

 text is employed, as in the transcript of a literary composition, but 

 individual names without connection or correlation are strung along, 

 like beads, upon the water line of a seacoast. Cosmographers, too, 

 avail themselves in numerous instances of abbreviations in favor at 

 the time, and employed in manuscripts. The i)oints designated along 

 the coast are in some localities so crowded together that errors may 

 readily occur in their repetition, not alone through the misinterpreta- 

 tion of a name badly or illegibly written, but in some cases from its 

 entire omission. And thus the correct reduplication of a series of 

 appellations, so closely written, would be rendered almost imjiracti- 

 cable. Besides, if copperplates or woodcuts were designed for charts 

 written upon parchment, the brittle character of the material on which 

 it must be printed would doubtless make necessary a reduction in the 

 number of the local names. It could not be assumed, moreover, tluit 

 due discrimination had been exercised in the topography of these 

 sheets, and only the less unimportant particulars omitted. 



The principal share in the explorations made along the American 

 seacoast unquestionably belongs to the Spanish pilots, or to those 

 employed in the service of Spain. But it must in no wise be supposed 

 from this that Spanish influence in the development of the cartography 

 of America has been very considerable. The reverse, indeed, is the 

 case. Spanish cartography, it is true, begins immediately after the 

 first voyage of Colon, and innumerable traces in the literature of the 

 country, and the nmnuscripts contained in their archives, afford ample 

 evidence of the rapid development among them of the art of sketching 

 and designing marine charts. But desjute this fact, the dissemination 

 of this art throughout Spain, and its progress toward northern regions, 

 and consequent intluence upon the cartographic conceptions of middle 

 Europe during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, can not be 

 established. Columbus had jiromised to draw up a chart of the dis- 

 coveries of his first voyage, and lie had held out to their majesties an 

 assurance of its execution on his return home. On the 5th of Septem- 

 ber, 14:93, he was again reminded of his engagement by Queen Isabella 

 (Navarr. II., p. 122., 2d edition, 1859). Meanwhde the court records 

 communicate nothing to us, in respect either to the dispatch of the 

 chart or its receipt. It is proved in several ways that a chart of his 

 third voyage was in existence. Hojeda saw it first at Bishop Fon- 



