Chapter I: Front Matter

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LEGENDARY ISLANDS OF THE ATLANTIC

American Geographical Society Research Series No. 8 W. L. G. Joerg, Editor

LEGENDARY ISLANDS OF THE ATLANTIC

A Study in Medieval Geography

by

WILLIAM H. BABCOCK

Author of “Early Norse Visits to North America”

New York American Geographical Society 1922

Copyright, 1922 by The American Geographical Society of New York

The Conde Nast Press Greenwich, Conn.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I INTRODUCTION 1

II ATLANTIS 11

III ST. BRENDAN’S EXPLORATIONS AND ISLANDS 34

IV THE ISLAND OF BRAZIL 50

V THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES 68

VI THE PROBLEM OF MAYDA 81

VII GREENLAND OR GREEN ISLAND 94

VIII MARKLAND, OTHERWISE NEWFOUNDLAND 114

IX ESTOTILAND AND THE OTHER ISLANDS OF ZENO 124

X ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES 144

XI CORVO, OUR NEAREST EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR 164

XII THE SUNKEN LAND OF BUSS AND OTHER PHANTOM ISLANDS 174

XIII SUMMARY 187

INDEX 191

The following chapters are reprinted, with modifications, from the _Geographical Review_: III, Vol. 8, 1919; V, Vol. 7, 1919; VI, Vol. 9, 1920; VIII, Vol. 4, 1917; X, Vol. 9, 1920; XI, Vol. 5, 1918.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(_All illustrations, except Figs. 1, 15, and 23, are reproductions of medieval maps. The source is indicated in a general way in each title; the precise reference will be found in the text where the map is first discussed._)

FIG. PAGE

1 Map of the Sargasso Sea, 1:72,000,000 28

2 The Pizigani, 1367 (two sections) 40–41

3 Beccario, 1426 45

4 Dalorto, 1325 51

5 Catalan map, 1375 58

6 Nicolay, 1560 62

7 Catalan map, about 1480 64

8 World map in portolan atlas, about 1508 (Egerton MS. 2803) 74

9 Desceliers, 1546 76

10 Ortelius, 1570 77

11 Ptolemy, 1513 82

12 Prunes, 1553 88

13 Coppo, 1528 97

14 Bishop Thorláksson, 1606 98

15 Map of the early Norse Western and Eastern Settlements
of Greenland, 1:6,400,000 103

16 Clavus, 1427 104

17 Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, after 1466 105

18 Sigurdr Stefánsson, 1590 107

19 Zeno, 1558 126

20 Beccario, 1435 152

21 Pareto, 1455 158

22 Benincasa, 1482 160

23 Representation of Corvo on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
maps as compared with its present outline 172

24 Buss Island, probably 1673 176

25 Bianco, 1436 179