PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 133 



discovered by the Carthaginians), and the Orkneys, Faroe Isl- 

 ands, and Iceland, became the respective M^estern and north- 

 ern intermediate stations for passing to the New Continent 

 They indicate the two directions by which the European por- 

 tion of the human race first became acquainted with the na- 

 tives of North and Central America. This consideration give? 

 a great, and, I might almost say, a cosmical importance to the 

 question whether and how early the Phoenicians of the mother 

 country, or those of the Iberian and African settlements (Ga- 

 deira, Carthage, and Cerne), were acquainted with Porto Santo 

 Madeira, and the Canary Islands. In a long series of events, 

 we willingly seek to trace the first and guiding link of the 

 chain. It is probable that fully 2000 years elapsed from the 

 foundation of Tartessus and Utica by PhoBnicians, to the dis- 

 covery of America by the northern course, that is to say, to 

 Eric Randau's voyage to Greenland, "which was followed by 

 voyages to North Carolina ; and that 2500 years intervened 

 before Christopher Columbus, starting from the old Phoenician 

 settlement of Gadeira, made the passage by the southM^est 

 route. ^ 



In accordance with the requirements for the generalization 

 of ideas demanded by the present work, I have considered the 

 discovery of a group of islands lying only 168 miles from the 

 African shore as the first member of a long series of similarly- 

 directed eflbrts, but I have made no allusion to the Elysiwn, 

 the Isla7ids of the Blessed, fabled by the poetic visions of 

 fancy, as situated on the confines of the earth, in an ocean 

 warmed by the rays of the near setting sun. All the enjoy- 

 ments of life and the choicest products of nature were sup- 

 posed to be placed at the remotest distance of the terrestrial 

 globe. f The ideal land — the geographical myth of the Elys- 

 ion — was removed further to the west, even beyond the Pil- 

 lars of Hercules, as the knowledge of the Mediterranean was 

 extended among the Hellenic races. True cosmical knowl- 

 edge, and the earUest discoveries of the Phoenicians, regard- 



* Strabo, lib. xvii., p. 826. The destruction of Phoenician colonies by 

 Nigrilians (lib. ii., p. 131) appears to indicate a very southern locality; 

 more so, perhaps, than the crocodiles and elephants mentioned by Han- 

 no, since both these were certainly, at one period, found north of the 

 desert of Sahara, in Maunisia, and in the whole western Atlas country, 

 as is proved from Strabo, lib. xvii., p. 827 ; iElian., De Nat. Anim., vii., 

 2 ; Plin., v., 1, and from many occurrences in the wars between Ronid 

 and Carthage. See, on this important subject, referring to the geogra- 

 phy of animals, .Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, 2 ed., t. i., p. 7i, and Qua- 

 tremere, op. cit., p. 391-394. + Herod., iii., lOfi. 



