718 REPORT— 1897. 



available, and even one or .two contemporary documents bearing upon tbe subject 

 have seen the light. This enables us to give a more trustworthy account of these 

 early voyages. 



When King Alfonso died in 1481 the whole of the western coast of Africa, as 

 far as Cape Catherine, had been discovered. King John, his successor, entered 

 heart and soul into the business of exploration so successfully carried on by his 

 ancestors. In 1483 (and not 1484) he despatched Diogo Cao on his first voyage, 

 which led to the discovery of the Congo and of the coast to the south of that river 

 as far as lat. 13° 27' S. After his return, on April 14, 1484, the explorer wa.^ 

 knighted, and figures of the two columns which he had erected were introduced 

 into the coat of arms which was granted him. He set out again almost imme- 

 diately, and succeeded in revealing the coast as far as Cape Cross in lat. 21° 53' S. 

 If a legend on Germano's old chart can be trusted, he never returned from this 

 expedition, but died near the last column erected by him. Martin Behaim claims 

 to have commanded one of the ships of this expedition ; and although it is possible 

 that he was a member of it, he certainly did not play the important part as captain 

 or ' cosmographer ' which he claimed. His reputation is based upon a globe the 

 manufacture of which he superintended at the request of the town council of his 

 native town, Nurnberg (14U2), and a passage in Barros' ' Asia,' which mentions 

 him as a member of a board of mathematicians, instituted by King John to devise 

 a method of determining latitudes by means of meridian altitudes of the sun. This, 

 however, is all a myth. Long before the time of Behaim, and even before Regio- 

 montanus, his alleged teacher, such tables had been prepared by Zacuto, a learned 

 Spanish Jew, and these tables, as also the astrolabe, were in use among Portuguese 

 mariners long before Behaim first came to Lisbon, in 1484, and there is no reason 

 to assume that Behaim ever took an interest in scientific work. His globe shows 

 that he was thoroughly incompetent, for in laying down the part of the coast 

 which he claims to have personally visited he errs to the extent of 24 degrees in 

 latitude. 



In 1486 an expedition from Benin brought news that there resided, at a con- 

 siderable distance in the interior, a powerful Christian king, who was at once 

 identified with ' Prester John ' of Abyssinia. King John forthwith despatched two 

 expeditions, both of which started in 1487, the one, including Paiva and Covilhao, 

 by land, the other, under Bartholomew Bias, by sea. Covilhao reached India, 

 journeyed along the east coast of Africa as far south as Sofala, and ultimately 

 entered Prester John's country. Bias doubled the Cape of Good Hope, probably. 

 at the beginning of 1488, and followed the coast as far as tbe Great Fish River, 

 when his crews insisted upon being taken home. Thus the possibility of reaching 

 India by sailing all round Africa had been demonstrated, and the realisation of the 

 far-reaching plans of Henry the Navigator only became a question of time. 



SATUEDAY, AUGUST 21. 



The Section did not meet. 



MONDAY, AUGUST 23. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Institutions engaged in Geographic Work in the United States. 

 By Marcus Baker, Vice-President of the National Geographic Society. 



The paper, written at the suggestion of the Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, is a 

 summary account of the principal Federal and State organisations w"hich have con- 

 ducted important geograi^hical explorations and surveys in the United States 



