2 Gardiner G. Hubbard — Discoverers of America. 



from seamen who had no accurate means of determining dis- 

 tances, his maps, though showing most of the countries of Eu- 

 rope, Asia and northern Africa (plate 1*), were inaccurate and 

 unreliable, though vastly superior to those of a later date. These 

 maps were either entirely lost sight of or so changed by the pic- 

 torial extravagances of the map-makers of succeeding ages as to 

 be of little value (plates 2t and 4). 



St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and other fathers of the church 

 believed the earth to be a vast plain. They said with Isaiah, that 

 the heaven which embraces the universe is a vault ; with Job, 

 that it is joined to the earth ; and Avith Moses, that the length 

 of the earth is greater than the breadth. This they insisted was 

 the teaching of the word of God and must be accepted. Those 

 who believed that the world might be round declared that there 

 could be no inhabitants on the other side, for that Christ said "All 

 tribes of the earth shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds 

 of heaven with power and great glory." 



The famous bull of Alexander VI, published in 1493, Avhich 

 gave all newly discovered land one hundred leagues west of the 

 Azores to the Spaniards and all east of that line'j to Portugal, im- 

 plied that the earth was a plain. 



For 1,500 years science and the church were in opposition as 

 to the shape of the earth, and there were very few, whatever might 

 be their convictions, who dared question the infallibility of the 

 church. Thus all progress in natural science was checked, and 

 geography and map-making practically ceased to exist. 



Early in the fourteenth century Marco Polo's book of travels 

 appeared. This greatly increased geographic knowledge and had 

 a direct and strong bearing on the discovery of America. 



In the preceding century the father and uncle of Marco Polo, 

 merchants of Venice, made two journeys to the court of the great 

 Khan Kublai, in eastern China. On the second journey Marco 

 Polo accompanied his father and uncle. They went by Persia, 

 over the Pamir mountains, through Turkestan, across the great 

 desert of Gobi, and through Mongolia to China. There they re- 

 sided for many years, sent by the Khan on several missions and 



* Claudius Ptolemy's maj) of the world (circa A D 150), forming the 

 accompanying plate 1, is reproduced from "The Discovery of America," 

 by John Fiske, 1892, vol. i, p. 263. 



t Photolithographed directly from the "Chronicon Nurembergense " 

 (auctore Hartman Schedel), 1493, fol. xiii. 



J Shown in the Juan de la Cosa map, plate 4. 



