268 * . COSMOS. 



to west over half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a long 

 series of false inferences, extended this space to 240 degrees, 

 and in his eyes the desired eastern shores of Asia appeared to 

 advance as far as the meridian of San Diego in Nevi^ Califor- 

 nia. He therefore hoped that he should only have to sail 120 

 degrees instead of the 231 degrees at which the wealthy Chi- 

 nese commercial city of Quinsay is actually situated to the 

 west of the extremity of the Spanish peninsula. Toscanelii, 

 in his correspondence with the admiral, diminished the ex- 

 panse of the fluid element in a manner still more remarkable 

 and more favorable to his designs. According to his calcula- 

 tions, the extent of the sea between Portugal and China was 

 limited to 52 degrees, so that, in conformity with the expres- 

 sion of the Prophet Esdras, six sevenths of the earth were dry. 

 Columbus, at a subsequent period, in a letter which he ad- 

 dressed to Queen Isabella from Haiti, immediately after the 

 completion of his third voyage, showed himself the more in- 

 clined to these views, because they had been defended in the 

 Imago Mundi by Cardinal d'Ailly, whom he regarded as the 

 highest authority.* 



* As the Old Continent, from the western extremity of the Iberian 

 peninsula to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130° of longitude, 

 there remain about 230° for the distance which Columbus would have 

 had to traverse if he wished to reach Cathai (China), but less if he only 

 desired to reach Zipangu (Japan). This diiference of 230°, which I 

 have here indicated, depends on' the position of the Portuguese Cape 

 St. Vincent (11° 20' W. of Paris), and the ftfr projecting part of the 

 Chinese coast, near the then so celebrated port of Quinsay, so often 

 named by Columbus and Toscanelii (lat. 30° 28', long. 117° 47' E. of 

 Paris). The synonyms for Quinsay, in the province of Tschekiang, are 

 Kanfu, Haugtscheufu, Kingszu. The East Asiatic general commerce 

 was shared in the thirteenth century between . Quinsay and Zaitun 

 (Pinghai or Sseuthung), opposite to the island of Formosa (then Tung- 

 fan), in 25° 5' N. lat. (see Klaproth, Tableaux Hist, de VAsie, p. 227). 

 The distance of Cape St. Viucentfrom Zipangu (Niphon)is 22° of longi- 

 tude less than from Quinsay, therefore about 209° instead of 230° 53'. 

 It is strikmg that the oldest statements, those of Eratosthenes and Strabo 

 (lib. i., p. 64), come, through accidental compensations, within 10° of 

 the above-mentioned result of 129° for the diflference of longitude of 

 the o'lKovfiivrj. Strabo, in the same passage in which he alludes to the 

 possible existence of two great habitable continents in the northern 

 hemisphere, says that our o'tKOVfievij, in the parallel of Thinoe, Athens 

 (see p. 189), constitutes more than one third of the earth's circumference. 

 Marinus the Tyrian, misled by the length of the time occupied in tno 

 navigation from Myos Hormos to India, by the erroneously assumed di 

 rectiou of the major axis of the Caspian from west to east, and by the 

 over-estimation of the length of the land route to the country of the 

 Seres, gave to the Old Continent a breadth of 225° instead of 129° 

 The Chinese coast was thus advanced to the Sandwich Islands. Colura- 



