24G The Progress of Geographical Discovery. 



the mountains of the Isthmus of Panama, was the first to discover the 

 Pacific ocean, which was for many years called the South sea, because it 

 was supposed to reach only to the equator northwards and Asia to be 

 continued eastward to the land of Cortereal. 



Let us now look at the map in the Ptolemy of 1513 and Schoner's 

 globe of the same year. " A strange confusion now began to seize 

 the German geographers of Strasburg and Vienna. They made Cuba 

 an island and called it Isabella, aud then transferred all the names 

 from Isabella to a mainland named usually Terra de Cuba, connect- 

 ing it with Paria (sometimes with and sometimes without a narrow 

 strait), standing bolt upright, and extending to forty-eight degrees 

 north latitude, with a point like Florida and a gulf to the west of it. 

 This was still supposed to be Asia, the Florida-like projection being 

 the Corea, and the gulf, the Gulf of Ganges, and the three-mouthed 

 river the Ganges." . On the globe of Schoner it is separated from 

 Zipangu by five or six degrees of Balboa's newly-discovered South sea, 

 which is by an unusual guess for that period carried up to the north 

 pole. 



Looking on Schoner's globe of 1513 we find the inevitable coast of 

 Asia within twenty degrees of Zipangu and that island is only five 

 degrees to the west of Cuba. South America is much narrowed at 

 the center and a mythical continent with the name of Brasil curls 

 about to the south like a modern gerrymander. 



Passing on for seven years we find no great changes in the Schoner 

 globe of 1520. North of the equator it is practically the same. At the 

 south, South America is designated as America, or Brasil, or the land 

 of parrots. The lower continent is increased north and south and is 

 called Lower Brasil. 



In 1531 a globe of Orontius Fine shows some very curious views of 

 geography. South America, the West India islands and the peninsula 

 of Florida are given with a fair degree of accuracy, but there accuracy 

 ends. The isthmus of Central America broadens out to a width of 

 twenty degrees under the name of Parias and is a continuation of 

 East India with China to the north, from the coast of which sweeps 

 around a large gulf to the western shores of Florida. The eastern 

 coast of Florida runs nearly straight north for fourteen hundred miles, 

 then turns abruptly to the east on the latitude of sixty degrees for 

 thirty-six hundred miles. This vast land is called Baccaleos and is a 

 continuation of Asia. 



Fifteen hundred and thirty-two, forty years from the discovery of 

 Columbus. Look now at the map of Munster given in the Novus 



