LITMIR.BIZ

In the Atlantic Ocean, over against the Pillars of Hercules, lay an island larger than Asia and Africa taken together, and in its vicinity were other islands. The ocean in which these islands were situated was surrounded on every side by main-land; and the Mediterranean, compared with it, resembled a mere harbor or narrow entrance. Nine thousand years before the time of Plato this island of Atlantis was both thickly settled and very powerful. Its sway extended over Africa as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as the Tyrrhenian Sea. The further progress of its conquests, however, was checked by the Athenians, who, partly with the other Greeks, partly by themselves, succeeded in defeating these powerful invaders, the natives of Atlantis. After this a violent earthquake, which lasted for the space of a day and a night, and was accompanied with inundations of the sea, caused the islands to sink; and for a long period subsequent to this, the sea in that quarter was impassable by reason of the slime and shoals.—Plato, Tim., 24-29, 296; Crit., 108-110, 39, 43. The learned Gessner is of opinion that the Isle of Ceres, spoken of in a poem of very high antiquity, attributed to Orpheus, was a fragment of Atlantis. Kircher, in his "Mundus Subterraneus," and Beckman, in his "History of Islands," suppose the Atlantis to have been an island extending from the Canaries to the Azores; that it was really ingulfed in one of the convulsions of the globe, and that those small islands are mere fragments of it. Gosselin, in his able research into the voyages of the ancients, supposes the Atlantis of Plato to have been nothing more nor less than one of the nearest of the Canaries, viz, Fortaventura or Lancerote. Carli and many others find America in the Atlantis, and adduce many plausible arguments in support of their assertion.—Carli, Letters Amer.; Fr. transl., ii., 180. M. Bailly, in his "Letters sur l'Atlantide de Platon," maintains the existence of the Atlantides, and their island Atlantis, by the authorities of Homer, Sanchoniathon, and Diodorus Siculus, in addition to that of Plato. Manheim maintains very strenuously that Plato's Atlantis is Sweden and Norway. M. Bailly, after citing many ancient testimonies, which concur in placing this famous isle in the north, quotes that of Plutarch, who confirms these testimonies by a circumstantial description of the Isle of Ogygia, or the Atlantis, which he represents as situated in the north of Europe. The following is the theory of Buffon: after citing the passage relating to the Atlantis, from Plato's "Timæus," he adds, "This ancient tradition is not devoid of probability. The lands swallowed up by the waters were, perhaps, those which united Ireland to the Azores, and the Azores to the Continent of America; for in Ireland there are the same fossils, the same shells, and the same sea bodies as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe."—Buffon's Nat. Hist., by Smellie, vol. i., p. 507.

The first authentic description of the Mar di Sargasso of Aristotle is due to Columbus. It spreads out between the nineteenth and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude. Its chief axis lies about seven degrees to the westward of the Island of Corvo. The smaller bank, on the other hand, lies between the Bermudas and Bahamas. The winds and partial currents in different years slightly affect the position and extent of these Atlantic "sea-weed meadows." No other sea in either hemisphere displays a similar extent of surface covered by plants collected in this way. These meadows of the ocean present the wonderful spectacle of a collection of plants covering a space nearly seven times as large as France.—Humboldt's Cosmos.

See Appendix, No. II. (vol. II.)

See Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., cap. lxxxiv., 84, p. 836, Bekk. This work, "A Collection of Wonderful Narratives," is attributed to Aristotle; the real compiler is unknown. According to Humboldt, it seems to have been written before the first Punic war.—Diodorus of Sicily, vol. xix. Aristotle attributes the discovery of the island to the Carthaginians; Diodorus to the Phœnicians. The occurrence is said to have taken place in the earliest times of the Tyrrhenian dominion of the sea, during the contest between the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi and the Phœnicians. The Island of the Seven Cities (see Appendix, No. II. (vol. II.)) was identified with the island mentioned by Aristotle as having been discovered by the Carthaginians, and was inserted in the early maps under the name of Antilla. Paul Toscanelli, the celebrated physician of Florence, thus writes to Columbus: "From the Island of Antilia, which you call the Seven Cities, and of which you have some knowledge," &c. In the Middle Ages conjectures were religiously inscribed upon the maps, as is proved by Antilia, St. Borondon (see Appendix (vol. II.)), the Hand of Satan, Green Island, Maida Island, and the exact form of vast southern regions. Humboldt refers the name of Antilia so far back as the fourteenth century. The earliest date given by Ferdinand Columbus is 1436. "Beyond the Azores, but at no great distance toward the west, occurs the Ysola de Antilia, which we may conclude, even allowing the date of the map to be genuine (in the library of St. Mark, at Venice, date 1436), to be a mere gratuitous or theoretic supposition, and to have received that strange name because the obvious and natural idea of antipodes has been anathematized by Catholic ignorance." He elsewhere says that "some Portuguese cosmographers have inserted the island described by Aristotle in maps under the name of Antilia."—Hist. of the Discovery of America, by Don Ferdinand Columbus, in Ker, vol. iii., p. 3-29.

The origin of the name Antilla, or Antilia, is still a matter of conjecture. Humboldt attributes to a "littérateur distingué" the solution of the enigma, from a passage in Aristotle's "De Mundo," which speaks of the probable existence of unknown lands opposite to the mass of continents which we inhabit. These countries, be they small or great, whose shores are opposed to ours, were marked out by the word porthornoi, which in the Middle Ages was translated by antinsulæ. Humboldt says that this translation is totally incorrect; however, the idea of the "littérateur distingué" is evidently the same as Ferdinand Columbus's. The following is the hypothesis favored by Humboldt: "Peut-être même le nom d'Antilia qui paraît pour la première fois sur une carte Vénitienne de 1436 n'est il qu'une forme Portuguaise donnée à un nom géographique des Arabes. L'étymologie que hasarde M. Buace me paraît très ingénieuse.... La syllabe initiale me paraît la corruption de l'article Arabe. D'al Tinnin et d'Al tin on aura fait peu à peu Antinna et Antilla, comme par un déplacement analogue de consonnes, les Espagnols ont fait de crocodilo, corcodilo et cocodrilo. Le Dragon est al Tin, et l'Antilia est peut-être, l'île des dragons marins."—Humboldt's Ex. Crit., vol. ii., 211.

Oviedo applies the relation of Aristotle to the Hesperian Islands, and asserts that they were the "India" discovered by Columbus. "Perchè egli (Colombo) conobbe come era in effetto che queste terre che egli ben ritrovava scritte, erano del tutto uscite dalla memoria degli uomin; e io per me non dubito che si sapissero, e possedessero anticamente dalli Rè de Spagna: e voglio qui dire quello che Aristotele in questo caso ne scrisse, &c.... io tengo che queste Indie siano quelle autiche e famose Isole Hesperide cosè dette da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna. Or come la Spagna e l'Italia tolsero il nome da Hespero 12 Re di Spagna cosi anco da questo istesso ex torsero queste isole Hesperidi, che noi diciamo, onde senza alcun dubbio si de tenere, che in quel tempe questo isole sotto la signoria della Spagna stessero, e sotto un medesmo Re, che fu (come Beroso dice) 1658 anni prima che il nostro Salvatore nascesse. E perchè al presente siamo nel 1535 della salute nostra, ne segue che siano ora tre milo e cento novantatre anni che la Spagna e'l suo Re Hespero signoreggiavano queste Indie o Isole Hesperidi. E come cosa sua par che abbia la divina giustizia voluto ritornargliele."—Hist. Gen. dell' Indie de Gonzalo Fernando d'Oviedo, in Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 80.

"It is very possible that in the same temperate zone, and almost in the same latitude as Thinæ (or Athens?), where it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, there are inhabited worlds, distinct from that in which we dwell."[ "The idea of such a locality in a continuation of the long axis of the Mediterranean was connected with a grand view of the earth by Eratosthenes (generally and extensively known among the ancients), according to which the entire ancient continent, in its widest expanse from west to east, in the parallel of about thirty-six degrees, presents an almost unbroken line of elevation."—Humboldt's Cosmos]—Strabo, lib. i., p. 65, and lib. ii., p. 118. It is surprising that this expression never attracted the attention of the Spanish authors, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, were searching every where in classical literature with the expectation of finding some traces of acquaintance with the New World.

"D'Anville a dit avec esprit que la plus grande des erreurs dans la géographie de Ptolémée a conduit les hommes à la plus grande découverte de terres nouvelles c'est, à dire la supposition que l'Asie s'étendait vers l'est, au delà du 180 degré de longitude."

Both Strabo and Aristotle speak of "the same sea bathing opposite shores," Strabo, lib. i., p. 103; lib. ii., p. 162. Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. ii., cap. 14, p. 297. The possibility of navigating from the extremity of Europe to the eastern shores of Asia is clearly asserted by the Stagirite, and in the two celebrated passages of Strabo. Aristotle does not suppose the distance to be very great, and draws an ingenious argument in favor of his supposition from the geography of animals. Strabo sees no obstacle to passing from Iberia to India, except the immense extent of the Atlantic Ocean. It is to be remembered that Strabo, as well as Eratosthenes, extend the appellation of Atlantic Sea to every part of the ocean.—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent.

See Appendix, No. III. (vol. II.)

"Au milieu de tant de discussions acerbes qu'une curieuse malignité et le goût d'une fausse érudition classique firent naître sur le mérite de Christophe Colomb, parmi ses contemporains, personne n'a pensé aux navigations des Normands comme précurseurs des Génois. Cette idée ne se presenta que soixante quatre ans après la mort du grand homme. On savait par ces propres récits 'qu'il étoit allé à Thulé' mais alors ce voyage vers le nord ne fit naître aucun soupçon sur la priorité, de la découverte.... Le mérite d'avoir reconnu la première découverte de l'Amérique septentrionale par les Normands appartient indubitablement au géographe Ortelius, qui annonça cette opinion des l'année 1570. 'Christophe Colomb, dit Ortelius, a seulement mis le Nouveau Monde en rapport durable de commerce et d'utilité avec l'Europe' (Theatr. Orbis Terr., on p. 5, 6). Ce jugement est beaucoup trop séverè."—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent.

"Biorn first saw land in the Island of Nantucket, one degree south of Boston, then in New Scotland, and lastly in Newfoundland."—Carl Christian Rafn, Antiquitates Americanæ, 1845, p. 4, 421; Humboldt's Cosmos.

"The country called 'the good Vinland' (Vinland it goda) by Leif, included the shore between Boston and New York, and therefore parts of the present states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita, Vecchia and Terracina, where, however, the average temperature of the year is between 46° and 52° (Fahr.). This was the chief settlement of the Normans. Their active and enterprising spirit is proved by the circumstance that, after they had settled in the south as far as 41° 30' north latitude, they erected three pillars to mark out the boundaries near the eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, in the latitude of 72° 55', upon one of the Women Islands northwest of the present most northern Danish colony of Upernavik. The Runic inscription upon the stone, discovered in the autumn of 1824, contains, according to Rask and Finn Magnusen, the date of the year 1135. From this eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, the colonists visited, with great regularity, on account of the fishery, Lancaster Sound and a part of Barrow's Straits, and this occurred more than six centuries before the bold undertakings of Parry and Ross. The locality of the fishery is very accurately described; and Greenland priests, from the diocese of Gardar, conducted the first voyage of discovery in 1266. These northwestern summer stations were called the Kroksjardar, heathen countries. Mention was early made of the Siberian wood, which was then collected, as well as of the numerous whales, seals, walrus, and polar bears."—Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 20, 274, 415-418, quoted by Humboldt.

One of the objections brought forward by Robertson against the Norman discovery of America is, that the wild vine has never since been found so far north as Labrador; but modern travelers have ascertained that a species of wild vine grows even as far north as the shores of Hudson's Bay.[Sir A. Mackenzie's Travels in Iceland, 1812. Preliminary Dissertation by Dr Holland, p. 46] Since Robertson's time, however, the locality of the first Norman settlement has been moved further south, and into latitudes where the best species of wild vines are abundant.

Rafn, Antiq. Amer.

The Esquimaux were at that time spread much further south than they are at present.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 268.

Eric Upsi, a native of Iceland, and the first Greenland bishop, undertook to go to Vinland as a Christian missionary in 1121.

"The learned Grotius founds an argument for the colonization of America by the Norwegians on the similarity between the names of Norway and La Norimbègue, a district bordering on New England."—Grotius, De Origine Gentium Americanarum, in quarto, 1642. See, also, the Controversy between Grotius and Jean de Laët.

Accurate information respecting the former intercourse of the Northmen with the Continent of America reaches only as far as the middle of the fourteenth century. In the year 1349 a ship was sent from Greenland to Markland (New Scotland) to collect timber and other necessaries. Upon their return from Markland, the ship was overtaken by storms, and compelled to land at Straumfjord, in the west of Iceland. This is the last account of the "Norman America," preserved for us in the ancient Scandinavian writings. The settlements upon the west coast of Greenland, which were in a very flourishing condition until the middle of the fourteenth century, gradually declined, from the fatal influence of monopoly of trade, by the invasion of the Esquimaux, by the black death which depopulated the north from the year 1347 to 1351, and also by the arrival of a hostile fleet, from what country is not known.

By means of the critical and most praiseworthy efforts of Christian Rafn, and the Royal Society for Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen, the traditions and ancient accounts of the voyage of the Normans to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland (the mouth of the River St. Lawrence at Nova Scotia), and at Winland (Massachusetts), have been separately printed and satisfactorily commented upon. The length of the voyage, the direction in which they sailed, the time of the rising and setting of the sun, are accurately laid down. The principal sources of information are the historical narrations of Erik the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandson, probably written in Greenland itself, as early as the twelfth century, partly by descendants of the settlers born in Winland.—Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 7, 14, 16. The care with which the tables of their pedigrees was kept was so great, that the table of the family of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son, Snorre Thorbrandson, was born in America, was kept from the year 1007 to 1811.

The name of the colonized countries is found in the ancient national songs of the natives of the Färöe Islands.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 268-452.

See Appendix, No. IV. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. V. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. VI. (vol. II.)

See Appendix, No. VII. (vol. II.)

The numerous data which have come down to us from antiquity, and an acute examination of the local relations, especially the great vicinity of the settlements upon the African coast, which incontestably existed, lead me to believe that Phœnicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans, and probably even the Etruscans, were acquainted with the group of the Canary Islands.—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 414.

"Porro occidentalis navigatio, quantum etiam famâ assequi Plinius potuit, tantum ad Fortunatas Insulas cursum protendit, earumque præcipuam à multitudine canum Canariam vocatam refert."—Acosta, De Natura Novi Orbis, lib. i., cap. ii.

Respecting the probability of the Semitic origin of the name of the Canary Islands, Pliny, in his Latinizing etymological notions, considered them to be Dog Islands! (Vide Credner's Biblical Representation of Paradise, in Illgen's Journal for Historical Theology, 1836, vol. vi., p. 166-186.)—Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 414.

The most fundamental, and, in a literary point of view, the most complete account of the Canary Islands, that was written in ancient times, down to the Middle Ages, was collected in a work of Joachim José da Costa de Macedo, with the title "Memoria cem que se pretende provar que os Arabes não connecerão as Canarias autes dos Portuguesques, 1844." (See, also, Viera y Clavigo, Notic. de la Hist. de Canaria.)—Humboldt's Cosmos.

See Appendix, No. VIII. (vol. II.)

"Jean de Bethancourt knew that before the expedition of Alvaro Beccara, that is to say, before the end of the fourteenth century, Norman adventurers had penetrated as far as Sierra Leone (lat. 8° 30'), and he sought to follow their traces. Before the Portuguese, however, no European nation appears to have crossed the equator."—Humboldt.

"Les Normands et les Arabes sont les seules nations qui, jusqu'au commencement du douzième siècle, aient partagé la gloire des grandes expéditions maritimes, le goût des aventures étranges, la passion du pillage et des conquêtes éphémères. Les Normands ont occupé successivement l'Islande et la Neustrie, ravagé les sanctuaires de l'Italie, ravagé la Pouille sur les Grecs, inscrit leurs caractères runiques jusque sur les flancs d'un des lions que Morosini enleva au Pirée d'Athènes pour en orner l'arsenal de Venise."—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent, vol. ii., p. 86.

"No nation," says Southey, "has ever accomplished such great things in proportion to its means as the Portuguese." Its early maritime history does, indeed, present a striking picture of enterprise and restless energy, but the annals of Europe afford no similar instance of rapid degeneracy. There was an age when less than forty thousand armed Portuguese kept the whole coasts of the ocean in awe, from Morocco to China; when one hundred and fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. But in all their enterprises they aimed at conquest, and not at colonization. The government at home exercised little control over the arms of its piratical mariners; the mother country derived no benefit from their achievements. To the age of conquest succeeded one of effeminacy and corruption.—Merivale's Lectures on Colonization, vol. i., p. 44.