612 COSMOS. 



the opposite coast, Helluland it mikla, Markland and the good 

 Vinland, and if he connected this knowledge of a neighbouring 

 continent with those projects which had already engaged his 

 attention since 1470 and 1473, his voyage to Thule (Iceland) 

 would have been made so much the more a subject of consi- 

 deration during the celebrated law- suit regarding the merit of 

 an earlier discovery, which did not end till 1517, since the 

 suspicious fiscal officer mentions a map of the world (mappa 

 mundo] which had been seen at Rome by Martin Alonzo 

 Pinzon, and on w r hich the New Continent was supposed to be 

 marked. If Columbus had desired to seek a continent of 

 which he had obtained information in Iceland, he would 

 assuredly not have directed his course south-west from the 

 Canary Islands. Commercial relations were maintained 

 between Bergen and Greenland until 1484, and, therefore, until 

 seven years after Columbus' voyage to Iceland. 



Wholly different from the first discovery of the New Conti- 

 nent in the eleventh century, its re-discovery by Christopher 

 Columbus and his explorations of the tropical regions of Ame- 

 rica, have been attended by events of cosmical importance, and 

 by a marked influence on the extension of physical views. 

 Although the mariners who conducted this great expedition at 

 the end of the fifteenth century, were not actuated by the 

 design of attempting to discover a new quarter of the world, 

 and although it would appear to be proved that Columbus and 

 Amerigo Vespucci died in the firm conviction that they had 

 merely touched on portions of Eastern Asia,*' yet the expedi- 



* See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy documents, 

 for Columbus, in the Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 233, 250, and 261, and for 

 Vespucci, t. v. p. 182-185. Columbus was so fully convinced that Cuba 

 was part of the continent of Asia, and even the south part of Khatai 

 (the province of Mango), that on the 12th of June, 1494, he caused all 

 the crews of his squadron (about 80 sailors) to swear that they were con- 

 vinced he might go from Cuba to Spain by land, "que esta tierra de Cuba 

 fuese la tierra firme al comienzo de las Indias y fin a quien en estas partes 

 quisiere venir de Espaiia por tierra"); and that "if any who now swore 

 io should at any future day maintain the contrary, they would have to 

 expiate their perjury, by receiving one hundred stripes, and having the 

 tongue torn out." (See Information del Escribano publico, Fernando 

 Perez de Luna, in Navar^te, Viages y Descubrimientos de las Espa- 

 noles, t. ii. pp. 143, 149.) When Columbus was approaching the island 

 of Cuba on his first expedition, he believed himself to be opposite tha 



