From this time to the great discovery of 1492, few expeditions remain to be mentioned. It must not be forgotten, however, that by this time trading voyages were of ordinary occurrence all along the eastern Atlantic coast and its adjoining islands from Scandinavia to Guinea. A lively commerce was carried on throughout this century between Bristol and Iceland, and in the words of Kunstmann, substantiated by older authorities, "a bull of Nicolas IV. to the bishops of Iceland, proves that the pope in 1448 was intimately acquainted with matters in Greenland." It seems incredible that during all this intercourse with northern lands, no knowledge of America was gained by southern maritime nations, yet so far as we know there exists no proof of such knowledge. [1476.] John of Kolno, or Szkolny, is reported to have made a voyage in the service of the king of Denmark in 1476, and to have touched on the coast of Labrador. The report rests on the authority of Wytfliet, _Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ augmentum_, Lovanii, 1598, fol. 188, supported by a single sentence, "Tambien han ydo alla hombres de Noruega con el Piloto Iuan Scolno," in _Gomara_, _Hist. Gen. de las Indias_, Anvers, 1554, cap. xxxvii. fol. 31; by a similar sentence in _Herrera_, _Hist. Gen._, Madrid, 1601, dec. i. lib. vi. cap. xvi., in which the name is changed to Juan Seduco; and by the inscription, _Jac Scolvus Groetland_, on a country west of Greenland on a map made by Michael Lok in 1582, fac-simile in _Hakluyt Soc._, _Divers Voy._, p. 55. According to Kohl, _Hist. Discov._, pp. 114-15, this voyage is considered apocryphal by Danish and Norwegian writers. Lelewel, _Géog. du moyen âge_, p. 106, regards the voyage as authentic, and Kunstmann, _Entdeckung Am._, pp. 45-8, attaches to it great importance as the source of all the voyages to the north which followed. Humboldt, _Exam. Crit._, tom. ii. pp. 152-4, gives but little attention to the voyage, and confesses his inability to decide on its merits: "Je ne puis hasarder aucun jugement sur cette assertion de Wytfliet." [1477.] In this year Columbus, whom we first find with the Portuguese traders on the African coast, sailed northward, probably with an English merchantman from Bristol, to a point one hundred leagues beyond Thule, in 73° north. _Colon_, _Hist. del Almirante_ in _Barcia_, tom. i. p. 4; _Muñoz_, _Hist. Nuevo Mundo_, pp. 43-7; _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. p. 272. He probably visited Iceland, although he gives the latitude incorrectly, taking it very likely from ancient geography rather than his own observations. [1482.] According to Kunstmann, the edition of Ptolemy this year, _Ptolomæi Cosmographia_, Ulmæ, 1482, lib. viii., contains a map that includes Greenland, and must have been compiled from northern sources.