ISBN: 9780217556057

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustra… Meer...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVI THE TWO AMERICAS AND THE RELATION OF SOUTH AMERICA TO EUROPE LEXANDER HAMILTON bade his fellow citi the short introduction prefixed to his history explains its theme as being an account of the relations of two great continents, that is, Europe and Asia, and of the reasons which produced such recurring strife between them. Let us attempt to think a little of the southern part of the western world as a whole, in its relations as a continent to the other continents, and especially to that other continent with which it is connected by a narrow neck of land, the Isthmus of Panama, and which has also drawn its name from the same navigator. The series of incidents by which the name of a Florentine was given, first, to a continent he probably did not discover, and then to another which he never saw, is a curious one. Everybody knows Christopher Columbus sailed out into the west in search of new lands, expecting them to be a part of Asia, and that to the day of his death, after four voyages, he believed that he had found India. In the last of those voyages, when he was wearily beating up along the coast of Darien against the currents, he fancied himself near the continentally; and Herodotus, in Straits of Malacca. It is natural, therefore, that neither he nor his first successors in exploration should have given a name to the new western land south of the Caribbean Sea, even when they had explored enough of it to know it was a continent. They named particular regions, but a general name was not needed because it was expected that the parts seen would turn out to be parts of Asia. Then in 1497 other voyagers who sailed forth to explore said that they found a new land, far off in the ocean to the southwest of the Canary Islands. Next year Columbus discov... Ethlyn T. Clough, Books, History, South American Life; An Account Of Past And Contemporary Conditions And Progress In South America Books>History, General Books LLC<