The subject of Early Voyages has been so frequently and so thoroughly discussed by able modern writers that it is unnecessary, and indeed impracticable in so condensed an essay, to refer to ancient authorities alone, and prove everything from the beginning. I shall therefore, besides the Spanish historians Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Las Casas, Gomara, Herrera, and the standard collections of Ramusio, Grynæus, Purchas, and Hakluyt, freely use the works of later writers according to their relative worth. And of these last mentioned I epitomize the following. _Historia del Nuevo-Mundo, escribíala D. Juan Baut. Muñoz_, tom. i.—all ever published—_En Madrid_, 1793, contains a clear well-written _prologo_, or essay, on the first three voyages of Columbus with minor mention of contemporary discoveries. An account is also given of the author's labors in beginning the large and invaluable collection of documents completed and published by Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV._, 5 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1825-37. This collection of Navarrete's is without doubt the most valuable work on the subject of early American voyages, and the foundation of all that followed; containing as it does the original Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese texts of the more important Spanish and Portuguese expeditions from 1393 to 1540—the Latin and Portuguese done into Spanish—together with over five hundred original documents from the Spanish archives, with extensive and generally impartial notes by the editor. For a biographical sketch of this author see chapter iii. of this volume. Washington Irving's _Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus and his Companions_, published in London, 1828-31 (edition used, that of New York, 1869, 3 vols.), is an able and elegant abridged translation of Navarrete, and of _La Historia de el Almirante D. Christoval Colon_, by his son Fernando Colon, in _Barcia_, _Historiadores Primitivos_, tom. i., Madrid, 1749. Alexander von Humboldt's _Examen critique de l'histoire de la Géographie du nouveau continent, et des progrès de l'astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème Siècles_, 5 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1836-9, is a most exhaustive digest of materials furnished by Navarrete and the older historians, illustrated with the results of the author's personal investigations. The work embraces two treatises; first, the causes which led to the discovery of America; second, facts relating to Columbus and Vespucci, with the dates of geographic discoveries. Humboldt's _Abhandlung über die ältesten Karten_, printed as an introduction to _Ghillany_, _Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, Nuremberg, 1853, of which I have only a manuscript English translation, is an essay as well on the naming of America as on early maps. Another important treatise is that of J. G. Kohl, _Die beiden ältesten General-Karten von America_, Weimar, 1860,