FOREWORD The brief study included in the following pages is intended to supply the needs of the general reader. Indeed, it was partly suggested by a number of inquiries received by the author concerning some of the topics of which it treats. It is also designed to furnish supplemental reading matter for all institutions of learning that offer courses of instruction in American political history. It will be found useful by readers of every class, except a few Columbians, special students of every topic connected with the progress of geographical information. This essay is based upon the great scientific works bearing upon the discovery of America as well as upon former studies of the writer. For the benefit of readers desiring to enter more fully upon an examination of the larger topics considered in this volume there has been added a brief bibliography. Washington, D. C., INTRODUCTION This re-study of familiar themes attempts no more than the correction of certain popular errors relative to the significance of Norse exploration in America, European knowledge of Asia in the fifteenth century, the geographical information of Columbus, and the equipment of that memorable expedition which gave to civilization a new world. To trace in outline the maritime achievements which culminated in the discovery of the American continents is an undertaking of the greatest magnitude. To endeavor to sketch even a few of its more important phases may be regarded as a piece of presumption. The main facts in the extension of geographical science are mentioned in countless monographs and unnumbered volumes. To collect and arrange this material is something more than the labor of a summer's day. With some suspicion, then, of the extent of the larger theme, the author of this study has chosen a smaller one. It is, however, sufficiently ample, and an accurate knowledge of it is indispensable to a firm grasp of the beginnings of American history. The discovery of the New World was |