12 
There are two facts mentioned as proofs of an actual intercourse 
between Europe and America, centuries before the voyage of Co- 
lumbus, which I cannot omit to mention. Basnage gives an ac- 
count of a Jewish tomb, with a Hebrew inscription, having been 
discovered in one of the Azores by the Spaniards, when. they first 
visited the island ;* and the same writer relates a still more extra- 
ordinary circumstance. 
“ On a trouve, dans les mines, une Médaille d’Auguste, qui y 
avoit été peut étre portée des ce tems-la; et il y a une vallée qu’on 
appelle Impériale, C. Autin. parce qu’on voit dans la plupart des 
Maisons |’Aigle de l’Empire.’’+ We have this medal more parti- 
cularly described in a subsequent work :—“ Sunt qui hanc conti- 
nentem, (Americam scilicet,) a Platone sub nomine Atlantis des- 
criptam, opinentur ; inquitque Marineus, in Chronico suo Hispa- 
ni, hic nummum antiquum Augusti Cesaris effigie insignitum in 
Aurofodinis inventum esse, missumque in rei veritatem summo 
Pontifici per Dom: Johanem Rufum, Archiepiscopum Consenti- 
num.”{ Other traces of European, or even of Jewish customs, 
observable in America, might be noticed; but they do not properly 
belong to my subject. 
In the controversy, which arose after the discovery of America, 
respecting the justness of Columbus’ claim to the honor of being 
the first modern navigator who had crossed the Atlantic, his ene- 
mies contended, that he had been indebted to the enterprise of 
others for his success; and frequent appeals were made to old charts, 
in which the West India islands were marked. The truth is, that 
maps of this description do even now exist in the library of St. 
Mark at Venice ; and there is one in particular, made by Andrew 
Bianco, in the year 1436, wherein the situation of a large island 
* Lib. vi. + Idem, + Abraham Ortelius Theatrum orbis. 
