near his old home in England. The inscription on Dighton rock is apparently an Indian inscription, similar to those found in New Mexico and elsewhere. There is no evidence of the visits of the Northmen to America, except their own Icelandic records; and the truth of these there is no good reason for doubting.

Columbus. It was a long time after the year 1000 before the people of Europe turned their attention to distant maritime enterprises. By and by the East India trade became a source of wealth to many European cities, especially to such as Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, which kept great fleets upon the Mediterranean. The Italian cities produced a set of able navigators, who were also men of learning and high scientific attainments, and their services were often put at the disposal of any government which would furnish them with the means of carrying out their bold enterprises. Spain and Portugal were very desirous of finding a passage by sea all the way to India, so that they might rival the commerce of the Italian cities. Portugal took the lead in this work during the fifteenth century. Portuguese captains kept venturing farther and farther down the west coast of Africa, until at last, in 1497, Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Indian Ocean to Hindustan. But several years before this it had occurred to Columbus that, since the earth is round like a ball, the easiest way to get to India would be to strike out boldly to the west, and sail straight across the Atlantic Ocean. Learned men had long known that the earth is round, but people generally did not believe it, and it had not occurred to anybody that such a voyage would be practicable. People were afraid of going too far out into the ocean. A ship which disappears in the offing seems to be going down hill; and many people thought that if they were to get too far down hill, they could not get back. Other notions, as absurd as this, were entertained, which made people dread the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was often called. Accordingly Columbus found it hard to get support for his scheme. At length, in 1492, Queen Isabella of Spain fitted out an expedition for him, consisting of three little vessels, only one of which had a deck. Early in October of that year, after a ten weeks' voyage, he discov

ered the islands of San Salvador and Hayti, and returned to Spain to tell of his success.

About fifteen years before this Columbus seems to have visited Iceland, and some have supposed that he then heard about the voyages of the Northmen, and was thus led to his belief that land would be found by sailing west. He may have thus heard about Vinland, and may have regarded the tale as confirming his theory. That theory, however, was based upon his belief in the rotundity of the earth. The best proof that he was not seriously influenced by the Norse voyages, even if he had heard of them, is the fact that he never used them as an argument. In persuading people to furnish money for his enterprise, it has been well said that an ounce of Vinland would have been worth a pound of talk about the shape of the earth.

Columbus made three other voyages, in the course of which he discovered other islands, and in 1498 sailed along the northern coast of South America. He supposed these lands to be a part of Asia, and called their swarthy inhabitants Indians, a name which will always cling to them, though really they are no more Indians than we are Chinese. Columbus made a mistake in calculating the circumference of the earth, and got it only about half as great as it really is, thus leaving out the Pacific Ocean and the width of the American continent. According to this calculation, when he had crossed the Atlantic he seemed to have sailed just far enough to reach Asia. He died in 1506, without even suspecting that he had discovered a New World.

Cabot and Vespucci. The example of Columbus was soon followed by other skilful and learned navigators. John Cabot and his son Sebastian were Venetians in the employ of Henry VII., king of England. In 1497 they sailed due west from England to Newfoundland and Labrador, and were thus the discoverers of the North American continent. Next year the father died, and Sebastian made another voyage, in which he followed the American coast as far south as Florida.

Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine in the service of Spain. It is not quite certain whether he made his first voyage to America

in 1497 or in 1499. It is certain that in the latter year he discovered Brazil, and followed the coast down to within about a hundred miles of the strait of Magellan. People would naturally have supposed this coast to be that of the great Asiatic peninsula which has been known since ancient times as Farther India. But Vespucci's voyage showed that this was a very different looking coast, and that it extended much farther to the south. It was accordingly supposed that this must be the coast of a new Asiatic peninsula to the eastward of Farther India. In a map made in those days Asia is depicted with four great peninsulas jutting southward, -first Arabia, then Hindustan, then Farther India, then America. It was natural that Vespucci's name should be given to that part of the world which he really did discover; and it was not strange that this name, first applied to the southern part of the New World, which for a long time was better known than the northern, should by and by get applied to the whole. Some people have talked and written very foolishly about the brave and high-minded Vespucci, as if he had laid claim to honor not justly due him, as if it were through some fraud of his that the New World came to be called America instead of Columbia. But Vespucci was in nowise responsible for this; and it would not have occurred to any one at that time to name any country after Columbus, because he was not supposed to have discovered a new country, but only a new way of getting to an old one. But if the great Genoese sailor has not had full justice done him on the map, he will forever rank as the most illustrious explorer of all time. His voyage in 1492 was a scientific triumph of the first order; and in view of its historic consequences, it must be called the most important event since the birth of Christ.

Magellan. The work of discovering the New World was not yet completed. The first success of Columbus made Portugal very jealous of Spain. The two kingdoms were ready to quarrel over their anticipated good fortune, each wishing to get the whole. The affair was referred to Pope Alexander VI., who drew an imaginary line through the Atlantic Ocean from north to south, 370 leagues west of the Azores, and decreed that all heathen lands

which should be discovered west of this line should belong to Spain, and all east of it to Portugal. The coast of Brazil happens to come east of this line, and thus fell to Portugal, while all the rest of America fell to Spain. Portuguese ships, after once crossing the Indian Ocean, kept sailing farther to the east and into the Pacific, until it began to become clear that the coast discovered by Vespucci was not the coast of an Asiatic peninsula, but that there was water to the west of it; how much water nobody knew or dreamed. In 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa first saw the Pacific Ocean from the top of a lofty hill in the isthmus of Darien. He naturally called it the South Sea, and it was known by that name for a very long time. There now came upon the scene the heroic man who finished what Columbus had begun, and showed that America was really a New World. This was Ferdinand Magellan, a native of Portugal, but engaged in the service of Spain. In dividing things between these two kingdoms the Pope had not said anything about the opposite side of the globe. Magellan had heard of the Molucca islands which might be reached by sailing eastward. He was authorized to reach them by sailing westward, and thus secure them for Spain. This gave him a chance to settle forever the question of the earth's rotundity. As long as America was supposed to be Asia, Columbus was thought to have settled it. But now it began to look as if America had nothing to do with Asia, and there was thus fresh room for doubt, which could only be finally cleared away by circumnavigating the globe. On this tremendous expedition Magellan started in 1519 with five small vessels. Crossing the Atlantic, he sailed down the coast of South America searching for a westerly passage, until he found the strait which bears his name. out upon the ocean whose waves pleasant that he named it Pacific. sailed month after month alone on this wide waste of waters, without seeing trace of land or sail, the courage of many gave out. Every day, they thought, showed more clearly that the earth was not round, after all, but that their captain was taking them out over an endless flat space, away from the world entirely. Their food

Passing through this, he came seemed to him so smooth and Now his trials began. As they

gave out and their sufferings were dreadful, but they had come so far that it was hopeless to turn back, and so, in spite of starvation and mutiny, Magellan kept on, and after such a record of endurance as the world has never seen surpassed, he reached the Ladrone islands, and met with traders who had come there by sailing eastward from Sumatra. Then Magellan knew that he had proved the earth to be round. He was soon after slain in a skirmish with some savages, but Elcano, his lieutenant, took possession of the Moluccas and kept on across the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope, reaching Spain in the autumn of 1522, with only one of his five ships afloat.

This wonderful voyage showed the true position of America with reference to the rest of the world. But it was a long time before much was known about North America, except a few points on the Atlantic coast. It is barely a hundred years since our Pacific coast was first carefully explored by the famous Captain Cook. It is less than a century and a half since the northwestern corner of our continent was discovered and taken possession of by the Russian navigator Behring. In the sixteenth century the attention of the Spaniards was confined to conquering the Indian kingdoms in Mexico and Peru, to colonizing various parts of South America and the West Indies, and to mining for precious metals, using the Indians as slaves and treating them with diabolical cruelty. Spain was then the strongest nation in the world, but France and England were her eager rivals, and neither paid any heed to the papal decree which assigned to her the dominion over North America.

Cartier and Ribaut. France was first in the field. King Francis I. sent word to the Emperor Charles V. "that since he and the king of Portugal had divided the earth between themselves, without giving him a share of it, he should like them to show him our father Adam's will, in order to know if he had made them his sole heirs." Meanwhile he should feel at perfect liberty to seize upon all he could get. The French had already