Mr. Fiske's luminous narrative lends significance to Mr. Thacher's suggestion, for Vespucci discovered a large portion of the mainland of the North American continent which Columbus had never seen. To this extent his first voyage gave a new meaning to Columbus' work, without diminishing, however, the glory of the latter's great achievement. Americus, indeed, had his predecessors, for John and Sebastian Cabot, sent out by Henry VII. of England a short time before his discovery, had set foot upon Labrador, and probably had visited Nova Scotia. And even before Cabot, the Northern Vikings, among them Leif Ericcson, had found their way to this continent and perhaps set up their Vineland in Massachusetts. And before the Vikings there may have been other migrants, and before the migrants the aborigines, who were the victims of all the explorers from the Vikings to the Puritans. But their achievements had no meaning and left no results. As Prof. Fiske says: "In no sense was any real contact established between the eastern and western halves of our planet until the great voyage of Columbus in 1492." It was that voyage which inspired the great voyage of Americus in 1497. He followed the path marked out by Columbus, and he invested the latter's discovery with a new significance. Upon the basis of merit and historical fact, therefore, Mr. Thacher's suggestion deserves consideration; and why should Italians be jealous, when Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and John Cabot were all of Italian birth? ALL WITHIN THE KEN OF COLUMBUS. HYDE CLARKE, Vice-President Royal Historical Society of England, in his "Examination of the Legend of Atlantis," etc. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1886. At the time when Columbus, as well as others, was discussing the subject of new lands to be discovered, literary resources had become available. The Latin writers could be examined; but, above all, the fall of Constantinople had driven numbers of Greeks into Italy. The Greek language was studied, and Greek books were eagerly bought by the Latin nations, as before they had been by the Arabs. Thus, all that had been written as to the four worlds was within the ken of Columbus. COLUMBUS A HERETIC AND A VISIONARY TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, an American writer and Unitarian minister. Born at Hanover, N. H., in 1810; died at Jamaica Plain, June 8, 1888.[32]