July 27, 18Sa.] 



SCIENCE. 



115 



were examined in detail, more and more points were 

 discovered wiiich conld witli difficulty be brought 

 into harmony witli that prima facie view. Inquirers 

 who were not subject to the disturbing influence of 

 Rouman patriotism came to the conclusion that the 

 present Romance-speaking population of Roumania 

 and Transylvania have migrated thither fnmi the 

 lands south of the Danube since the beginning of 

 the twelfth century. In addition to the ordinary 

 ethnologic evidence, the philological argument has 

 been effectually urged by Paul Uunfalvy. Both in 

 the middle ages and at the present time, a people is 

 found in various parts of the Balkan peninsula 

 whose speech so closely resembles that of the northern 

 Roumans as to prove that they are dialects of one 

 language, and must have been diffused from a com- 

 mon centre. — {Academy, May IH.) J. w. P. [133 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



It was known some months since how Mr. Henri 

 Harrisse had ni.ade, as he claimed, a discovery that 

 the Portuguese had as early as 1502 mapped out the 

 eastern seaboard of the present United St.ites from 

 Florida to the neighborhood of 4(i° north latitude. 

 A few weeks ago Sir. EIarri>se laid a copy of the dis- 

 covered map before the French institute with docu- 

 mentary proof of its date (l.i02). A more particular 

 statement has reached us in a letter from the Rev. 

 Edward E. Hale, written in Paris, where he had in- 

 spected Mr. Harrisse's copy of the map and document 

 which were found in the archives of the Este family 

 in Modena. We must await conclusive particulars, 

 to be published by Mr. Harrisse, before determining 

 if this last be one of the important contributions to 

 the study of early American cartography, which this 

 whilom Xew-York lawyer has made. Meanwhile it 

 is not at all clear whether the new map is going to 

 contribute any thing further than what we have 

 already known from the old Portuguese chart, which 

 Lelewel gives in his Giorjraplde du moyen ur/e, pi. 43, 

 with a conjectural date between 1-jitl and 1504. This 

 gives a rude representation of Florida, with its east- 

 erly coast trending northerly, and coming abruptly to 

 an end. Lying to the north-east, and in mid-ocean, 

 is a bit of continental shore, indicating the Cortereal 

 discoveries in its latinized name, ' Regalis domus,' 

 with a large island adjacent called ' Terra labora- 

 torum,' or Labrador. The earliest printed map of 

 this region bears a strong resemblance to the Por- 

 tuguese chart, and would seem to have been based 

 on the same or similar information; and this is the 

 famous Stobnicza map, which was published at 

 Cracow not far from 1512. The 1511 Ptolemy has 

 the Cortereal region, but omits Florida. From two 

 maps in the 1513 Ptolemy a delineation very like the 

 Portuguese chart can lie maile up; and after this its 

 contours became for some years an established type 

 frequently met with. Another Portuguese chart is 

 well known to students in this held; and that is the 

 one which has been reproduced by Stevens, Kunst- 

 mann, Kohl, and others, and is usually placed be- 

 tween 1514 and 1520. If it embodied current knowl- 



edge in Portug,il, it was certainly not generally 

 known there that the eastern coast united with the 

 Cortereal region; for the ocean is represented as 

 washing uninterruptedly between. 



From what Mr. Hale writes, the newly found map 

 would seem to be much the same in character as the 

 15i;i printed Ptolemy maps, thus carrying back their 

 delineation ten or eleven years earlier; and this, we 

 have seen, takes us to the supposed date (1.501-1504) 

 of the Lelewel Portuguese chart, which is essentially 

 like the 1513 maps, and seemingly like the Este map: 

 but a sight of Harrisse's discovered chart, in due 

 time to reach us, will give us something more than 

 conjecture on which to base an estimate of its im- 

 portance. 



There is one discovery, however, which we are 

 waiting for, and in time it may come; that is, the 

 evidence, cartographical we hope, rather than docu- 

 mentary, that the Biscayau fisherman knew the 

 Grand Banks and the adjacent coasts long before 

 Columbus. It seems harder not to believe that this 

 W.1S the case than to believe it. The hardy fisher- 

 men of the Bay of Biscay had stretched their courses 

 farther and farther to ihe north in pursuit of the 

 stock-fish or cod, whicli was the staple food of 

 Catholic Europe for more than a hundred days in the 

 year. They had gone to Iceland, and, by easy gra- 

 dation, to the Greenland seas; and we must remem- 

 ber that on this very Portuguese chart of 1501-1504, 

 and in the Ptolemy, preceding the time of Columbus, 

 Greenland was but a prolongation of north-western 

 Europe. Accordingly, following ^heir game, the 

 fishermen could easily have cruised still farther 

 along the Labrador coast, .and to the neighborhood 

 of Newfoundland, without in the least supposing 

 they had fovind a new world, but rather a hitherto 

 uuvisited region of the old world. So, on their re- 

 turn, their sailor's yarns would raise no suspicion 

 of a new quarter of the globe, such as Europe was 

 startled at when Columbus returned from his pur- 

 posed quest. It was not the fishermen's report, ac- 

 cordingly, that could have incited Cabot; but, wlien 

 news reached England of the discovery of the 

 Spaniards, it can easily be conceived how these 

 sailor's yarns may have been interpreted in the 

 belief that the land found by Columbus must, by 

 the analogy of continents, have stretched to the 

 north, and could be found by sailing west from 

 England. Further, so far .is Columbus' views were 

 shared, that he had reached the co.ast of Asia, the 

 reports of Marco Polo and the rest showed that the 

 Asian coast must lie also in that very direction. 

 Now, when Cabot re.iched the land, and found the 

 natives calling the stock-fish or cod, baccalaos, where 

 did they get the very term which Biscayan fishermen 

 had applied to the same fish for centuries ? This has 

 always been a puzzle. It seems to us that it will yet 

 be discovered that Oabot had only reached by a 

 southern passage the region which the Biscayans liad 

 long been sailing to by the northern. The archives 

 of Europe, we are confident, will yet reveal the 

 proof. Only last summer the Rev. Mr. Hale, search- 

 ing the archives at Madrid, found a sketch by Cortes 



