Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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(* He Died In 1512, As Mr. Munoz Has Proved By The Documents Of
The Archives Of Simancas.
Hist.
Del Nuevo Mundo volume 1 page 17.
Tiraboschi, Storia della Litteratura.) The most ancient monument we
possess of the geography of the New Continent,* is the map of the
world by John Ruysch, annexed to a Roman edition of Ptolemy in 1508.
(* See the learned researches of M. Walckenaer, in the Bibliographie
Universelle volume 6 page 209 article Buckinck. On the maps added to
Ptolemy in 1506 we find no trace of the discoveries of Columbus.) We
there find Yucatan and Honduras (the most southern part of Mexico)*
figured as an island, by the name of Culicar. (* No doubt the lands
between Uucatan, Cape Gracias a Dios, and Veragua, discovered by
Columbus (1502 and 1503), by Solis, and by Pincon (1506).) There is no
isthmus of Panama, but a passage, which permits of a direct navigation
from Europe to India. The great southern island (South America) bears
the name of Terra de Pareas, bounded by two rivers, the Rio Lareno and
the Rio Formoso. These Pareas are, no doubt, the inhabitants of Paria,
a name which Christopher Columbus had already heard in 1498, and which
was long applied to a great part of America. Bishop Geraldini says
clearly, in a letter addressed to Pope Leo X in 1516: Insula illa,
quae Europa et Asia est major, quam indocti Continentem Asiae
appellant, et alii Americam vel Pariam nuncupant [that island, larger
than Europe and Asia joined together, which the unlearned call the
continent of Asia, and others America or Paria].* (* Alexandri
Geraldini Itinerarium page 250.) I find in the map of the world of
1508 no trace whatever of the Orinoco.
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