History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the present time . came ac-quainted with the best geographical scienceof his time. This had convinced him that India couldbe reached by sailing westward. The theo-retical possibility of so doing was of courseadmitted by all who held the earth to be asphere, but most regarded it practically im-possible, in the then condition of navigation,to sail the necessary distance. Columbusconsidered the earth far smaller than wasusually thought, a belief which we findhinted at so early as 1447, upon the famousmappe-inonde of the Pitti
History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the present time . came ac-quainted with the best geographical scienceof his time. This had convinced him that India couldbe reached by sailing westward. The theo-retical possibility of so doing was of courseadmitted by all who held the earth to be asphere, but most regarded it practically im-possible, in the then condition of navigation,to sail the necessary distance. Columbusconsidered the earth far smaller than wasusually thought, a belief which we findhinted at so early as 1447, upon the famousmappe-inonde of the Pitti Palace in Florence,whereon Europe appears projected farround to the northwest. Columbus seemsto have viewed this extension as a sort ofyoke joining India to Scandinavia by thenorth. He judged that Asia, or at leastCipango, stretched two-thirds of the way to 48 DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT [1484 Europe, India being twice as near west-ward as eastward. Thirty or forty days hedeemed sufficient for making it. Tosca-nelli and Behem as well as he held thisbelief; he dared boldly to act upon Queen Isabella of Spam. But to do so required resources. Thereare indications that Columbus at sometime, perhaps more than once, urged hisscheme upon Genoa and Venice. If so itwas in vain. Nor can we tell whether suchan attempt, if made, was earlier or laterthan his plea before the court of Portugal, i484j COLUMBUS 49 for this cannot be dated. The latter wasprobably in 1484. King John II. was im-pressed, and referred Columbuss scheme toa council of his wisest advisers, who de-nounced it as visionary. Hence in 1485 ori486 Columbus proceeded to Spain to layhis project before Ferdinand and the way he stopped at a Franciscanconvent near Palos, begging bread for him-self and son. The Superior, Marchena, be-came interested in him, and so did one ofthe Pinzons—famous navigators of king and queen were at the time hold-ing court at Cordova, and thither Columbuswent, fortified with
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectuniteds, bookyear1912
