Discowry.—Whatever may have been the kind and degree of aboriginal civilization, A. was not destined to be the perpetual inheritance of the red man. New actors were to appear on the seene, before whom the old possessors were in a great measure to pass away.
Previously to the times of Columbus, Europeans had certainly visited A. The Scan dinavians, after having colonized Iceland in 875 A.D., and Greenland in 983, had, by the year 1000, discovered A. as far down as 41° 30' n. lat., a point near to New Bedford, in the state of Massachusetts. These Scandinavians afterwards settled in the neighborhood —the mother-country, most probably through the intervention of Iceland and Greenland, maintaining an intercourse with the colony down to the 14th century. But these enter prises do not appear to have left any special impress on the character or prospects of the new continent, being more akin, perhaps, to similar incidents of yet earlier ages, than to the long-meditated and well-matured scheme of the illustrious Genoese. Subsequently to the Scandinavian discovery, and previous to that of Columbus, A. is believed by some to have been visited by a Welsh prince. In Cardoc's Ilietorie of Cambria it is stated that Madoc, son of Owen Gwpmedil, prince of Wales, set sail westward in 1170 with a small fleet, and, after a voyage of several weeks, landed in a region totally different both in its inhabitants and productions from Europe. Madoc is supposed to have reached the coast of Virginia. Neither this, however, if true, nor the earlier Scandinavian expeditions, can be said even to have formed a connecting-link between the A. of the red man and the A. of his white brother. Even if the northmcn had possessed resources worthy of their heroic courage, the old world was not yet ripe for the appropriation of the new.
At the end of the 15th c., however, science and politics were alike strengthening Europe for its task. The mariner's compass and the astrolabe had facilitated long voy ages out of sight of land; while, in almost every country of Christendom, various causes were consolidatino. government, and promoting the growth of population—a position which derives, perhaps, its best illustration from the fact that the capture of Granada— the last foothold of the Moslem in Spain—preceded by only a few months the dicovery of A.
Columbus (q.v.) set out on his great enterprise to discover A. under the patronage of the crown of Spain, on Friday, the 3d of Aug., 1492; at which date, properly speak. ing, begins the deeply interesting history of A. Had the Atlantic been broader, or had not the easterly trades wafted Columbus almost on a parallel from the Canaries to the Bahamas, he must have failed in his bold attempt; and in fact, those same easterly trades, assisted by a still nearer approach of the two continents, speedily proved their own value in this respect by carrying the Portuguese, without their own consent, to the shores of Brazil. Nay, Columbus's discovery of A., if not so accidental, was quite as uninten
tional as that of the Portuguese. It was towards the e. that his hopes directed his west ern course, hopes whose supposed fulfillment still lives in the misapplication to the new world of the terms Indian and Indies. Much of our subsequent knowledge of A. has been owing to the same desire of reaching the East Indies that led to its discovery. The gorgeous ea.st was the aim alike of Davis, Bailin, and Hudson at the n., and of .Magellan, Schouten, and Lemaire at the s., to say nothing of the earlier enterprise of Balboa on the isthmus of Darien ; while, under a similar impulse, the French of Canada were as cending lake after lake as nature's ready-made highway to the same goal. Even to more recent times may these remarks be applied. While the eastern coasts of Africa, and the upper shores of Asia, as not bearing on the grand question of oriental traffic, were com paratively neglected and forgotton, our own Cook and Vancouver, in quest of a passage between the two oceans, surveyed every nook and cranny of A. from Columbia river to Behring's strait. Nor yet have the aspirations of Columbus and his noble band of suc cessors and imitators been altogether disappointed. That same continent which, in their case, barred a westward advance along nearly the whole interval between the arctic and antartic circles, has to us already become, or is gradually becoming, more than a substi tute for the ocean which it was found so extensively to displace. By means of the railway across the isthmus of Panama, the Carribean sea, whether for passengers or for goods, is virtually nearer to the Pacific than an open channel could have rendered it to any sea going vessels. Nor is it merely across the scanty span of Central A. that art is outstrip ping nature in the race. The Pacific railroad now spans the vast territory of the United States, from Omaha to San Francisco, and brings the e. and w. shores of the great con tinent of North.A. within three days' journey from each other. The length of this line is nearly 2000 miles. Nor is this the only line of communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Pennsylvania railroad, originally connecting Philadelphia with Pittsburgh, now embraces an uninterrupted line from ocean to ocean, with numerous branch lines, and forms the longest line of railway in the world, being 4000 in. in length.