124 : The Atlantic 



in search of him and discovered and named St. John's Harbor in 

 Newfoundland. From here the three ships of the expedition dis- 

 bursed to search different parts of the coast. Two of the ships kept 

 an appointment in St. John's in August but Miguel and his vessel 

 were lost. 



It is interesting to relate these voyages to the work of Christopher 

 Columbus. Columbus' voyage of 1492 was a significant and memo- 

 rable event but it was not, as usually claimed, a discovery of the 

 American continent and it is no detraction to point this out. All that 

 he did, and all that he claimed to have done, was to discover some 

 islands in the sea which he believed to be near the coast of Asia. It 

 was not untU the third voyage of 1498 that Columbus picked up a 

 portion of the South American coast and it was not until 1502 that 

 he reached the Central American coast around Panama. Columbus 

 did not believe — and did not want to believe — that a great continent 

 and a great ocean lay between his ships and the Orient. On the other 

 hand, Cabot and Corte-Real were sailing along the mainland of 

 North America at exactly the same time that Columbus and Ves- 

 pucci were picking up the coast of South America. They met with 

 less recognition and acclaim but they were more realistic. They knew 

 that they had discovered a very large land mass, possibly a continent. 



It took a number of further voyages to demonstrate that the old 

 Vineland, Labrador and other lands of the northern explorers were 

 actually connected with the new Florida of the Spaniards but an im- 

 portant contribution was made by a man named Verrazano. Verra- 

 zano was a Florentine who, after extensive travel, drifted into the 

 employment of the French. In 1524 he fitted out four vessels and set 

 out from the Brittany coast to sail to China. A succession of storms 

 forced him to return. After this he was able to repair one vessel 

 and man it with about fifty men. He arrived on the American coast 

 in latitude 34° north — ^that is, near Cape Hatteras. Following the 

 coast northward, he apparently saw Barnegat Bay and shortly after- 

 ward arrived at New York harbor. Thus, he was in New York and 

 at the mouth of the Hudson River before Henry Hudson. He gives 

 a lively description of the bay and of the coming and going of the 

 Indians between the various shores of the harbor. Leaving New 

 York, he sailed between Block Island and Martha's Vineyard and 

 came into Narragansett Bay where Newport now stands. He sailed 

 along the New England coast and touched Newfoundland, which 

 had aheady been visited by Breton sailors, for Aubert had been to 

 the St. Lawrence in 1508. Verrazano's long and successful voyage 



