Notes on the earliest discoveries in America. 313 
respecting the Islands of India beyond the Ganges lately discov- 
ered,’ dated February, 1498. Columbus thought his success 
complete. He aimed at Zipangu, or Japan, and to his dyi 
day in 1506, believed that he had found it nearly where his cal- 
culations had placed it, but never was man more mistaken, and 
never did mistake produce greater results. Believing our earth 
to be a globe, Columbus reasoned correctly that by sailing west 
e would come to the East of Marco Polo, but from want of 
knowledge of longitude, he; like everybody else, from Ptolemy 
down, was vastly deceived as to the size of the globe. From 
Cadiz to the Ganges the distance had been computed from the 
days of Alexander at about 180°, or half round the globe. 
From the Ganges to the Corea and Cathay, and thence to 
Zipangu fifteen hundred miles more, the distance was a 
exaggerated by Marco Polo. So that, still going east, the dis- 
tance from Zipangu to Cadiz was calculated to be about equal 
to the space from Palos to Saint Domingo. Upon this error in 
longitude hung no doubt the problem of cireumnavigating the 
globe, for had Columbus suspected the real distance to Japan 
by the west, he would never probably have ventured to pene- 
trate the “sea of darkness,” or have found sailors bold enough 
to accompany him. The actual distance from San Francisco to 
session, sup ; agg m7 
erected conjointly the flags of jk ote and Venice, on the 24 
of June, 1497, The next year Sebastian Cabot, undera supple- 
mental license dated Feb. 3, 1498, sailed again with the view 
