14 Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton Smith 
able wind must infallibly have driven her to some shore in 
the West Indies or tropical America. There existed, be- 
sides, already in that age, a vague notion of land to the 
westward. <A chart existed in the library of St Mark at 
Venice, representing the west coast of Europe and Africa 
with islands scattered on the Atlantic Ocean, terminating 
in the west with one of great extent, denominated Antilia, 
and another, only partially introduced, bearing west from 
Cape Finisterra, and not so eastward as Antilia, with the 
name of Isola de Laman Fatanaxio. The chart is ascribed 
to the Venetian hydrographer, Andrea Bianco, and dated 
1436. Now, although this document might be a forgery of 
the Venetian government; to colour some claim to a share 
in one or other of the Indies, after they were both dis- 
covered ; still we have the certainty, that, already in 1493, 
the Spaniards applied the name Antilia to Hispaniola and 
Cuba, as recorded by Peter Martyr; and if the name be 
what Hofmann asserts, derived from Ante insula, it would 
prove that there was an opinion extant of a continent be- 
yond it; which, moreover, is vaguely asserted to have been 
known to Biscayan fishing ships and whalers, driven far to 
the west from their then usual stations on the coast of Ire- 
land. With us the wonder that such a fact should have 
been so long left disputable would be the greater, if it were 
not known to what extent the industrial sciences were con- 
demned by the scholastic learned, until the news arrived 
from both the Indies that gold was abundant beyond sea, and 
the subsequent interest of Spain to cast discredit on all prior 
knowledge of a western world. 
Dicuil, the Irish monk, who wrote in the time of Charle- 
magne, might be mentioned here, as an instance of geo- 
graphical information existing in his time, which was after- 
wards overlooked or denied; for he incidentally notices 
Iceland, then already inhabited by British families, though 
the discovery is accorded, at a later period, to a Northman 
navigator. See his work, De Mensura Orbis. 
But for want of space many facts and arguments to illus- 
trate the questions under consideration might be added. 
What has been said appears sufficient to establish the con- 
