294 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 



Aguada watering place 



Alflea village. 



Arenas sand banks. 



Anegadas ..swamps. 



Aiicon I'iiy- 



Arboledas . . forest. 

 Arecifes .. .ridges. 



Baliia *....bay. Rio dolee sweetriver 



Rio salado salt river. 



Rio escon- concealed 

 dido. river. 



Rio verde green river. 



Salinas salt beds. 



Fondnra deeps. 



Furna creek. 



Mar baxa shallows. 



Medanos bills. 



Plaia Hat coast 



Pracel sboals. j Tierra liana., .plains. 



Similar oeueral distinctions in reference to tlie character of the 

 coast, singularly enougU, maybe found upon cliarts, engraved or wood- 

 cut; that is to say, where they are true copies of marine charts. 



The woodcut is the most brittle of all the substances employed, but 

 it came in use in all German charts. And here distortions of names 

 most readily occur, as well as limitations in the manner of representing 

 the prominent local features. The woodcuts fronting the marine 

 charts are inferior and rough, and reflect only imperfectly the informa- 

 tion obtained. Yet such a merely general index as bahia has become 

 a symbol of recognition for a whole collection of maps. The well- 

 known Bay of All Saints, on the coast of Brazil, was converted into 

 Abatia of the Saints, through the general distortion of names, and 

 afterwards into Abbey of all the Saints. It was in the German cos- 

 mography, beginning with the Waldseemiiller charts of 1513, that the 

 remarkable error first appeared, which was more widely spread by 

 Schouer (Harrisse, Discovery of Xorth America, p. 275). 



THE TERRESTRIAL CHARTS AND GLOBES. 



It deserves to be particularly emphasized that in those countries to 

 which we are chiefly indebted for discoveries in the New World, no 

 cosmographic science existed; that in Spain and Portugal no globe has 

 been iiroduced, and only very rarely has a woodcut come to light. 



What position the newly discovered islands — for of such the North 

 American regions apparently consisted — and also what situation the 

 great continent occupied on both sides of the equator relatively to all 

 other parts of the known world; whether the new country was to be 

 included with Asia in a broad signification, or whether connected with 

 Asia at all; whether what is now called North and South America 

 stand in any correlation to each other — all these questions were dis- 

 cussed in (iermany and Italy, and more recently in France, but neither 

 in Spain nor Portugal. Various opinions and doctrines in reference to 

 these points arose and environed the gradual evolution of the new 

 hemisphere. 



This first geographical development of scientific inquiry had gone 

 forth from Italy with the resuscitation of the "Ptolemiius." German 

 astronomers and mathematicians were once more seated at the feet of 

 the ancient Alexandrine geograjjliers. For this reason the charts first 

 printed are, almost without exception, closely allied with the rapidly 

 succeeding editions of the Ptolemiius. In accuracy of drawing and 

 copiousness of nomenclature, the Italian editions far exceeded the Ger- 

 man, for here we find the copperplate. In Germany, on the other 



