He is satisfied that the southern limit was the gulf of St Lawrence, founding this belief on maps of 1500 (see p. 115 this vol.) and 1508 (p. 126 this vol.), 1514, and 1544, the latter said to have been made by Cabot himself. That Cabot did not reach the southern coast of the United States seems proved by the fact that he was in Spain from 1513 to 1524, holding high positions, including that of piloto mayor, while that coast was actually being explored, and he making no claim to a previous discovery. The point reached, therefore, must remain undetermined between Cape Hatteras, where Kohl fixes it, and the gulf of St Lawrence, with a strong probability, as I think, in favor of the latter. Nothing whatever is known of the route or date of Cabot's return. And it is to be remembered that concerning this voyage we have only one contemporary document, which is a letter dated in 1498, stating simply that the expedition was still absent. All additional details are from accounts written after the geography of the New World was better known in consequence of the discovery of the South Sea. Nothing, then, can be proved by Cabot's voyages beyond the discovery of the continent in June, 1497, and the exploration of the coast from the gulf of St Lawrence to above 60° in 1498. The statement of Asher, _Life of Henry Hudson_, London, 1860, that Cabot "was the first to recognize that a new and unknown continent was lying as one vast barrier between western Europe and eastern Asia," accepted also by Kohl, _Hist. Discov._, p. 145, appears to me utterly without foundation. Cabot's complaint that a new-found land—that is a land further north and east than any part of Asia described by Polo—was a barrier to his reaching India, and the fact that on a map made as late as 1544, and doubtfully attributed to him, a separate continent is shown, seem weak authority for according him so important a discovery, especially when other voyagers and geographers, intimate with him and fully acquainted with his discoveries, continued for many years to join those discoveries to the Asiatic continent. See, beside references on page 107, _Peter Martyr_, dec. iii. cap. vi.; _Gomara_, _Hist. Ind._, fol. 31, 115; _Robertson's Hist. Amer._, book ix.; _American Antiq. Soc., Transact._, 1865, p. 25 et seq.; _Kohl's Hist. Discov._, pp. 135-46, 481; _Stevens' Notes_, pp. 35, 52; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, pp. 53-4. * * * * * [Sidenote: THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS.]