472 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Behaim's Map dates immediately before the discovery, and Cabot's Map 

 thirty or forty years after, the re-discovery of the New World. 



Behaim was one of the most noted cosmographers of his age ; he was a native 

 of Nuremberg, in Germany, and in person took an active part in the advance- 

 ment of geographical knowledge ; and we find him in the service of Portugal 

 going with Diego Carn on a voyage of discovery along the west coast of Africa,, 

 in the latter portion of the fifteenth century. Behaim's Map owes a good deal 

 of its reputation to its representation of an island very near the Equatorial line, 

 which he names on his map of the Western Hemisphere, " Insula Antilia'^ gen- 

 andt ^^ Septtvttade," and attaches this legend in German to it: " Nach Christe 

 Geburth, 565, kahm S. Brandon mit seinen Schiffe, auf diese Insel der daselbst 

 vil munders besahe und uber sieben Jahr darnach wieder in sein land zoge."* 



This Island, very much in shape like the Island of Trinidad, extends about 

 to 7° north latitude, and thence south to about i^° north latitude, not far, indeed, 

 from the position of Trinidad, and differing from it in longitude about 8°, which 

 need not be considered much of an error for that period of navigation, when 

 with most imperfect means of getting the average rate of motion of a ship under 

 sail, with nothing but stars to guide the pilot at night, and the sun by day, the 

 daily reckoning was but one move beyond John Phoenix's rule, viz : " To find the 

 distance to the nearest fixed star, guess at half the distance and multiply by two.'' 

 Consequently, even for several centuries after Behaim's time longitudes were cal- 

 culated only by the daily count, by compass course and the " Log"; these, with 

 rough approximate observations for latitude and without the corrections for re- 

 fraction, parallax, curvature, etc. As late as the seventeenth century, nautical 

 and astronomical tables contained directions for making astronomical quadrants 

 for direct sight. 



St. Brandon, whoever he may be, or if we accept the report that he was an 

 Irish saint who had left the far " Jerue " on a missionary trip, was evidently one 

 who feared not to trust himself to the fickle ocean, in the small vessels of that 

 perion. 



That he visited and saw a large island in the western ocean, we are com- 

 pelled to believe, for Behaim's own notes say that " seven years after, he returned 

 to his own country." St. Brandon was a traveler evidently. Behaim's Globe 

 has, for nearly 400 years, been the subject of much adverse criticism, not always 

 just and sometimes grossly misinterpreted; yet to this day its quaintness and its 

 average quality of accuracy have been admitted, and we cannot believe him as 

 seeking to anticipate or to deprive the great Columbus of his well earned fame. 



Behaim beheved that the earth was a globe, heretical even to this day, as 

 some esteem it; witness " Brudder Jasper " in Virginia, who honestly holds up 

 for the old doctrine that the world is a vast plain, bounded, we suppose, by the 

 " Nirnium propinqui solis " of old Flaccus. 



♦ Translation — About 565 after the birth of Christ, came St. Brandon with his ship to this Island, where he 

 saw many wonderful things and after seven years returned again to his own country. 



