Page:Legendaryislands00babcuoft.djvu/180

 i62 ANTILLIA AND THE ANTILLES It is also true that the Antillia of Beccario and others is made to extend nearly north and south instead of east and west; that I in Mar is placed north of its greater neighbor instead of east; and that the whole chain of islands is moved into considerably more northern latitudes than the group which we suppose them to rep- resent. Thus the i astern, or lower, end of Cuba is actually in the latitude of the lower part of the Sahara, and a point above the upper end of Florida would be in the latitude of the upper part of Morocco; whereas in the maps discussed the average location of the chain from the lower end of Antillia to the most northerly island, I in Mar, would run from the latitude of northern Morocco to that of southern France. There are slight individual differences in this matter of extension, but I believe Antillia always begins below Gibraltar and ends above northern Spain and a little below Bordeaux. But some dislocation, of course, is to be looked for in mapping exploration in an unscientific period. The changes of direction and extension are not greater than in the American coast line of Juan de la Cosa's very important map of 1 5OO, 30 not to mention even more extravagant instances of later date; and the shifting of latitudes may partly be accounted for by ignorance of the southward dip of the isothermal lines in crossing the Atlantic westward. Thus a Portuguese sailor on reaching a far western island or shore having what seemed to him the climate and conditions of Gascony would be likely to suppose that it was really opposite Gascony, though in fact it might be more nearly opposite the Canaries; and the same cause of error would apply all down the line. Cuba is not really directly opposite Portugal but may easily have been believed so. IDENTITY OF ANTILLIA WITH THE ANTILLES A more difficult question is raised by the absence of Haiti and Porto Rico from these maps, with all the more eastward Antilles. But it is possible that they may not have been visited or even seen. We can imagine an expedition that would touch Great
 * Krctschmer, atlas, PI. 7.