GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



301 



take actual control of the eastern coast of Green- 

 land, and to found there a mission and a mete- 

 orological station that might serve for a gather- 

 ing point for the Eskimos, Commander Holm, 

 who had been leader of an expedition to explore 

 the coast in 1883-'85, was commissioned to estab- 

 lish such a station. He arrived at Tasinsak Bay 

 called by Nordenskiold King Oscar Harbor 

 Aug. 26, built the provisional station by Sept. 5, 

 and returned to Copenhagen Sept. 17. 



The " Geographical Journal " has the follow- 

 ing in reference to the results derived from ob- 

 servations taken from log books of Danish ships 

 covering the period 1876-'90, and published in 

 the volume of " Danish Polar Observations " : 



Separate charts are given for the six months, April 

 to September, and the isothermal lines are drawn from 

 the temperatures computed for 1 squares. One of 

 the most striking features of these charts is the man- 

 ner in which they show the seasonal changes in the 

 axis of minimum surface temperature running north- 

 ward from Scotland past the Faroe Islands. This in- 

 flection of the isothermals is well defined in the charts 

 of mean surface temperature published by the Nor- 

 wegian North Atlantic Expedition, and the Danish 

 charts agree in showing that it is most strongly marked 

 during spring, almost disappearing in autumn facts 

 which seem to indicate that during the former season 

 the southeasterly winds, associated with the "Iceland 

 depression," tend to deflect part of the drift _ current 

 from the Gulf stream in a northwesterly direction, 

 dividing it into two main sections, and leaving an 

 intermediate space to be occupied by colder water. 

 The limits of the East Greenland current are defined 

 with great sharpness, and it would appear that this 

 stream sends a branch round the northeast and east 

 coasts of Iceland, divided from the main body by the 

 warm drift round the western extremity. In every 

 case the minimum surface temperature oif the coast 

 of Iceland is found to the east and northeast ; and the 

 fact that during July and August the sea is on an 

 average more than 1 F. colder than the air accounts 

 for the high relative frequency of fogs in those regions. 

 The occurrence of this cold area can scarcely be ex- 

 plained by any assumption of up-welling water, and 

 presents another example of the complex" " interdigi- 

 tatioii " arising when two surface currents meet each 

 other end on. 



America. In a paper read before the British 

 Association, Mr. Yule Oldham gave his conclu- 

 sions drawn from an old map made by Andrea 

 Bianco, of Venice, dated A. D. 1448. Marked on 

 this map are the Portuguese discoveries near 

 Cape Verd, which had been rounded in 1445 by 

 one of the Portuguese expeditions of Prince 

 Henry the Navigator ; and at the edge of the 

 map, southwest from Cape Verd, is drawn a 

 long stretch of coast line labeled " Atlantic Is- 

 land," and stating that it stretches 1,500 miles 

 westward. In " The Discoveries of the World," 

 published in the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, Antonio Galvano says that in 1447 a Por- 

 tuguese ship was carried by a storm westward 

 till an island was discovered, from which gold 

 was brought back to Portugal. This is certainly 

 noteworthy evidence in favor of an earlier dis- 

 covery than that by Columbus. 



Dr. von Wieser, of the University of Inns- 

 bruck, has found 3 sketch maps which have 

 every evidence of having been drawn by Colum- 

 bus himself. They were in a volume of miscel- 

 laneous papers belonging to the Strozzi collection 

 in the National Library at Florence. Dr. Peuck- 

 er writes : 



It is well known that the great discoverer on his 

 fourth voyage (1502-1504; made known the whole 

 coast of the Central American mainland from the 

 Gulf of Honduras to the Isthmus of Panama ; and the 

 map of this so-called Veragua coast was then drawn 

 by him in conjunction with his younger brother Bar- 

 tholomew. The latter, immediately after the death 

 of the admiral, brought such a map, together with a 

 description of the coast, to Italy, and presented both 

 to a certain Frate Hieronymo, who subsequently sur- 

 rendered map and description to Alex. Strozzi, an 

 enthusiastic collector of accounts of discoveries, the 

 same to whom the National Library at Florence owes 

 the above-mentioned collected volume. Hitherto 

 only the description contained in this in outline has 

 been known to the public, the map belonging to it 

 having been considered as lost. Now it is true that 

 this extract from the text of Bartholomew Columbus 

 is without any addition in the form of a map ; the 

 volume, however, contains another original document 

 on the fourth voyage of the admiral viz., a letter of 

 the latter from Jamaica of July 7, 1503. On the edge 

 of this letter Wieser has now found the sketch maps 

 in question only hastily drawn with the pen which, 

 taken together, form a complete ring map of the 

 equatorial zone. They faithfully reflect the ideas of 

 Columbus, have direct reference to his discoveries, 

 and primarily to the events of his fourth voyage. 

 Columbus was, as is well known, firmly convinced, 

 and this to his dying day, that he had reached the 

 east coast of Asia,' and with it the realm of the great 

 Khan of whom Marco Polo had written such alluring 

 accounts. Although the hoped-for passage across to 

 the Indian Ocean had not been discovered, he had 

 still obtained from the natives the certain information 

 that beyond the mountains, but a few days' journey to 

 the w r est, lay a second sea. This, thought Columbus, 

 must be the "sinus magnus" of the ancient geogra- 

 phers, and from the far coast of the isthmus discov- 

 ered, the Ganges could not lie at a greater distance 

 than a ten-days' march beyond. These geographical 

 ideas of the great discoverer are plainly reflected in 

 the above sketch maps, and more faithfully than on 

 any other cartographic record of the time. On it 

 alone do the islands discovered on his first voyage 

 appear unmistakably as lying directly in front of that 

 continental coast ; and this latter the region of the 

 present Central American republics as " Asia," " Si- 

 narum situs " (i. e., South China, with Tonkin), and 

 directly connected with "India extra Gangem," or 

 Farther India. Also the main argument of" Colum- 

 bus for the practicability of his plan of sailing to Asia 

 by the west, the supposition of a relatively very slight 

 breadth of the Atlantic Ocean (founded on the calcu- 

 lation of Mariuus of Tyre, who overestimated the 

 extent of the Asiatic continent by more than 100 of 

 longitude), finds clear expression in a note introduced 

 into the sketch. Respecting the fourth voyage of 

 Columbus also in particular, the map gives many 

 more details than any other more, e. g., than that of 

 Peter Martyr of the year 1511, or the anonymous map 

 in the Turin Library. The agreement of the map 

 with the description of the coast contained in the 

 volume does not admit of doubt ; and, on the other 

 hand, it may be regarded as out of the question that 

 the details were put down simply from the statements 

 of that text. The only remaining conclusion, there- 

 fore (since we know that the compiler of the volume 

 possessed a copy of the map prepared by Columbus 

 and his brother), is, that in these hasty sketches_we 

 have in fact a copy of that important and long-miss- 

 ing map a precious historical relic the only special 

 map preserved to us relating to the fourth voyage of 

 Columbus, and absolutely the only map which dates 

 back to the great discoverer himself. 



An expedition under Prof. Hite. of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, was engaged during 

 the summer in exploring Labrador in the region 

 of Sandwich Bay. This bay lies a short distance 



