The Discovery of America

Fiske, John, The Discovery of America with some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest, Vols. 1 & 2, Boston & New York:Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899.

Volume 1 is available online at Project Gutenberg.

John Fiske (March 30, 1842 – July 4, 1901) was an American philosopher and historian. (…)The largest part of his life was devoted to the study of history, but at an early age inquiries into the nature of human progress led him to a careful study of the doctrine of evolution, and it was through the popularization of Charles Darwin's work that he first became known to the public.[1] He applied himself to the philosophical interpretation of Darwin's work and produced many books and essays on this subject. His philosophy was influenced by Herbert Spencer's views on evolution. (…)Nineteenth-century enthusiasm for brain size as a simple measure of human performance, championed by scientists including Darwin's cousin Francis Galton and the French neurologist Paul Broca, led Fiske to believe in the racial superiority of the "Anglo-Saxon race". However, Fiske's racism was tempered by commitment to African-American causes. Indeed, so anti-slavery was he that twenty-three years after the cessation of the American Civil War, he declared the North's victory complete "despite the feeble wails" of "unteachable bigots." (…)In books such as Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (ISBN 0-384-15780-7), Fiske aimed to show that "in reality there has never been any conflict between religion and science, nor is any reconciliation called for where harmony has always existed."

Note: Dr. Mathews had two bookmarks on pages 122 and 152 of Volume 2, which dealt with maps: The Lenox map, the Ruysch map and a 1541 Gerardus Mercator map:

It is one of the earliest records of a reaction against the theory that it would be possible to walk westward from Cuba to Spain dry-shod. Here the new discoveries are all placed in the ocean at a good distance from the continent of Asia, and all except South America are islands. The land discovered by the Cabots [Carbonear?] appears, without a name, just below the Arctic circle, with a small vessel approaching it on the east. Just above the fortieth parallel a big sea monster is sturdily swimming toward Portugal. The sixtieth meridian west from Lisbon cuts through Isabel (Cuba) and Hayti, which are placed too far north, as on most of the early maps. If we compare the position of these islands here with the imaginary Antilia on Ruysch’s map, we shall have no difficulty in understanding how they came to be called Antilles. A voyage of about 1,000 miles westward, from Isabel, on this Lenox globe, brings us to Zipangri (Japan), which occupies the position actually belonging to Lower California. Immediately southeast of Japan begins a vast island or quasi-continent, with the name “Terra do Brazil” at its northwestern extremity. The general name of this whole portion of the earth is “Mundus Novus” or “Terra Sanctae Crucis.” The purely hypothetical character of the coastline is confessed by the dots. The maker knew nothing of the existence of the Pacific ocean and nothing of South America except the northern and eastern coasts;… John Fiske The Discovery of America, Vol 2 , pp. 121-122.