| Show THE MAP CpLtH1BU8 USED I j SIt S-It Was Purely Theoreiral and Placed latin Yhoroimcrica Lhs Columbus was nided by tbe map work of Toscan lli This distinguished astronomer who drew his rmip about 1470 calculated tho circumfenence of tho earth near the truthhe made it only 124 milestoo great This accuracy for that day is simply amazing amaz-ing Toscanelli however was all in dreamland aboutAsia ho elongated Asia till it covered the whole Pacific ocean Then ho pictured open ocean beginning be-ginning at about the longitude o f California and extending east to Europe Coiuinbusporedbver this map and carried car-ried it with him Oil his voyage as the nearest thing to a chart which was obtainable obtain-able Nevertheless l Columbus had a theory of his own oljout the width of the Atlantic ocean an5 about thb circumference of the earth Colurnbus feelieVed that ToscanellPs figure of the eurthscircumferonce was ail too largo so instead of about the truo circumference cir-cumference e Cofuaibus weut back and accepted ac-cepted Ptolemys estimate and thus made I it 3800 miles too litlo He iulculated that to reach the wonderful island of Zip angu or Japan ho would have to sail only about 2500 miles from the Canaries In other words he put Japan a little nearer Europe than the West Indies Columbus squeezed tho earth up till he tnado its circumference cir-cumference just too small for America Yet the continent that his theory made impossible im-possible was to be his immortal glory It was very lucky however that Columbus Col-umbus thus jumped America in his reckoning < and that Toscauelll had I stretched Asia across to California For had Columbus known that tne real distance dis-tance from the Canaries to Japan was 12000 miles he of course > would never have dreamed of undertaking that voyage America would have who for her discoverer discov-erer till she revealed her presence by some accident Uuless Columbus had made this ludicrous error in his science he would never have made his extraordinary venture ven-ture FKAUOIS BCLLAMT |
