Project Gutenberg's The Story of Geographical Discovery, by Joseph Jacobs

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Story of Geographical Discovery
How the World Became Known

Author: Joseph Jacobs

Release Date: December 7, 2004 [EBook #14291]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall.

[Illustration: Arms granted to SEBASTIAN DEL CANO, Captain of the
_Victoria_, the first vessel that circumnavigated the Globe

[_For a description, see pp._ 129-30]]

The Story of Geographical Discovery

How the World Became Known

By Joseph Jacobs

With Twenty-four Maps, &c.

PREFACE

In attempting to get what is little less than a history of the world,
from a special point of view, into a couple of hundred duodecimo
pages, I have had to make three bites at my very big cherry. In the
Appendix I have given in chronological order, and for the first
time on such a scale in English, the chief voyages and explorations
by which our knowledge of the world has been increased, and the
chief works in which that knowledge has been recorded. In the body
of the work I have then attempted to connect together these facts
in their more general aspects. In particular I have grouped the
great voyages of 1492-1521 round the search for the Spice Islands
as a central motive. It is possible that in tracing the Portuguese
and Spanish discoveries to the need of titillating the parched
palates of the mediaevals, who lived on salt meat during winter and
salt fish during Lent, I may have unduly simplified the problem.
But there can be no doubt of the paramount importance attached
to the spices of the East in the earlier stages. The search for
the El Dorado came afterwards, and is still urging men north to
the Yukon, south to the Cape, and in a south-easterly direction
to "Westralia."

Besides the general treatment in the text and the special details
in the Appendix, I have also attempted to tell the story once more
in a series of maps showing the gradual increase of men's knowledge
of the globe. It would have been impossible to have included all
these in a book of this size and price