Also Aristotle In His Book De Mundo, And The Learned German, Simon
Gryneus, In His Annotations Upon The Same, Saith
That the whole
earth (meaning thereby, as manifestly doth appear, Asia, Africa, and
Europe, being all the countries then known)
To be but one island,
compassed about with the reach of the Atlantic sea; which likewise
approveth America to be an island, and in no part adjoining to Asia
or the rest.
Also many ancient writers, as Strabo and others, called both the
ocean sea (which lieth east of India) Atlanticum Pelagus, and that
sea also on the west coasts of Spain and Africa, Mare Atlanticum;
the distance between the two coasts is almost half the compass of
the earth.
So that it is incredible, as by Plato appeareth manifestly, that the
East Indian Sea had the name of Atlanticum Pelagus, of the mountain
Atlas in Africa, or yet the sea adjoining to Africa had name Oceanus
Atlanticus, of the same mountain; but that those seas and the
mountain Atlas were so called of this great island Atlantis, and
that the one and the other had their names for a memorial of the
mighty Prince Atlas, sometime king thereof, who was Japhet, youngest
son to Noah, in whose time the whole earth was divided between the
three brethren, Shem, Ham, and Japhet.
Wherefore I am of opinion that America by the north-west will be
found favourable to this our enterprise, and am the rather
emboldened to believe the same, for that I find it not only
confirmed by Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, but
also by the best modern geographers, as Gemma Frisius, Munsterus,
Appianus Hunterus, Gastaldus, Guyccardinus, Michael Tramesinus,
Franciscus Demongenitus, Barnardus, Puteanus, Andreas Vavasor,
Tramontanus, Petrus Martyr, and also Ortelius, who doth coast out in
his general map (set out Anno 1569) all the countries and capes on
the north-west side of America from Hochelega to Cape de Paramantia,
describing likewise the sea-coasts of Cathay and Greenland, towards
any part of America, making both Greenland and America islands
disjoined by a great sea from any part of Asia.
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