edged master in his chosen
field. It is work, too, of the first order of importance. It would be
hard to mention a subject on which so many reams of direful nonsense
have been written as on the discovery of America; and the prolific
source of so much folly has generally been what Mr. Freeman fitly calls
"bondage to the modern map." In order to understand what the great
mariners of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were trying to do, and
what people supposed them to have done, one must begin by resolutely
banishing the modern map from one's mind. The ancient map must take its
place, but this must not be the ridiculous "Orbis Veteribus Notus," to
be found in the ordinary classical atlas, _which simply copies the
outlines of countries with modern accuracy from the modern map, and then
scatters ancient names over them!_ Such maps are worse than useless. In
dealing with the discovery of America one must steadily keep before
one's mind the quaint notions of ancient geographers, especially
Ptolemy and Mela, as portrayed upon such maps as are reproduced in the
present volume. It was just these distorted and hazy notions that swayed
the minds and guided the movements of the great discoverers, and went on
reproducing themselves upon newly-made maps for a century or more after
the time of Columbus. Without constant reference to these old maps one
cannot begin to understand the circumstances of the discovery of
America.

In no way can one get at the heart of the matter more completely than by
threading the labyrinth of causes and effects through which the western
hemisphere came slowly and gradually to be known by the name AMERICA.
The reader will not fail to observe the pains which I have taken to
elucidate this subject, not from any peculiar regard for Americus
Vespucius, but because the quintessence of the whole geographical
problem of the discovery of the New World is in one way or another
involved in the discussion. I can think of no finer instance of the
queer complications that can come to surround and mystify an increase of
knowledge too great and rapid to be comprehended by a single generation
of men.

In the solution of the problem as to the first Vespucius voyage I follow
the lead of Varnhagen, but always independently and with the documentary
evidence fully in sight. For some years I vainly tried to pursue
Humboldt's clues to some intelligible conclusion, and felt inhospitably
inclined toward Varnhagen's views as