TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 715 



5. A A'ev) Light on the Discovery of America. 

 By H. Yule Oldham, M.A., F.B.G.S. 



The development of America has had such a vital effect on the British Isles — 

 removing them from an obscure situation on the outskirts of the known world to 

 their true geographical position as the centre of the land masses of the globe — that 

 everything relating to its discovery is of exceptional interest. 



It is now well known that Columbus's famous voyage in A.u. 1492 opened the 

 way to the settlement of the New World. It is not so well known that it had 

 been visited before his time. 



A glance at the map of the Atlantic Ocean will show the three easiest points 

 of access. 



(1) North America, by means of the convenient stepping-stones, Iceland and 

 Greenland. 



(2) Central America, with the help of the steady N.E, trade-winds. 



(3) Brazil, in South America, which is not only the nearest point to the Old 

 World, but has the additional advantage of winds and currents tending in its 

 direction. 



There can be little doubt that America was visited by Norsemen about a.d. 1000 

 by the first route. Tradition and the records of some early maps, which show 

 large land masses as far west of the Azores as they are west of Europe, seem to 

 indicate that the second route had been possibly utilised early in the fifteenth 

 century, but the third and easiest was not available till tlie West African coa.st as 

 far as Cape Verde had been discovered. 



It was in a.d. 1445 that Cape Verde was for the first time rounded by one of 

 the exploring expeditions despatched from Portugal by the indefatigable Prince 

 Henry. 



There is good reason to believe that only two years later Brazil was reached. 



At that period great activity prevailed in Portugal ; a large and increasing- 

 number of ships were yearly despatched along the West African coast. Nothing 

 is less improbable than that one of these vessels should have been carried out to 

 sea and driven to the coast of Brazil ; and to show that this actually occurred we 

 have documentary evidence. 



There is at Milan a remarkable manuscript map, dated a.d. 1448, drawn by 

 Andrea Bianco, of Venice, one of the best known of the map-makers, who worked 

 in the first half of the fifteenth century. On this map are shown for the first 

 time the results of the Portuguese discoveries as far as Cape Verde ; but in addition 

 there is drawn at the edge of the map, south-west from that cape, in the direction 

 of Brazil, a long stretch of coast line labelled ' Authentic Island,' with a further 

 inscription to the effect that it stretches ' 1,500 miles westwards.' Such a name 

 and inscription are quite exceptional on maps of this kind, and must have been due 

 to definite information. 



Antonio Galvano in ' The Discoveries of the World,' published in the middle 

 of the sixteenth century, says that in a.d. 1447 a Portuguese ship was carried by a 

 great tempest far westwards until an island was discovered, from which gold was 

 brought back to Portugal, 



As Bianco's map of a.d. 1448 was made in London, it is likely that it represents 

 information about this voyage derived in Portugal, where Bianco probably called 

 on a voyage from Venice to England. 



The conclusion to be drawn is that South America was first seen in the very 

 year in which Columbus is believed to have been born by one of the Portuguese 

 explorers despatched by Prince Henry the Navigator. 



6. Explorations in the Sierra Madre of Mexico. By Osbebt H. Hovvarth. 



A comparLsou is made of physical features common to the whole western range 

 of North America from Oregon to Guatemala, illustrated by slides, and by notes 

 from other ranges of great extent, e.g., the Great Atlas and the Caucasus. 



