The map shows only Spanish discoveries, but it is by far the most accurate yet made. Cuba, now proved to be an island, is so laid down. No name is given to the Mundus Novus, which, by a knowledge of the Spanish voyages, is made to extend much farther north and west than in Ruysch's map; but above the known coasts a place is left open where the passage to India it was believed might yet be found. The representation of a country, corresponding with Florida, to the north of Cuba, under the name of 'Isla de Beimini,' may indicate that Florida had been reached either by Ocampo in 1508, by some private adventurer, as Diego Miruelo, who is said to have preceded Ponce de Leon, or, as is claimed by some, by Vespucci in his pretended voyage of 1497; but more probably this region was laid down from the older maps—see Behaim's map, p. 93—and the name was applied in accordance with the reports among the natives of a wonderful country or island, which they called _bimini_, situated in that direction. The map is not large enough to show exactly the relation which Peter Martyr supposed to exist between these regions and the rest of the world, but the text of the first decade leaves no doubt that he still believed them to be parts of Asia. The _Ptolemy_ of 1511 has a map which I have not seen, but which from certain descriptions resembles that of Ruysch, except that it represents Terra Corterealis as an island separated from the supposed Asiatic coast; the name Sanctæ Crucis for South America being still retained. As long as the new lands were believed to be a part of Asia, the maps bore some resemblance to the actual countries intended to be represented, but from the first dawning of an idea of separate lands we shall see the greatest confusion in the efforts of map-makers to depict the New World. _Harrisse_, _Bib. Am. Vet._, no. 68; _Kunstmann_, _Entdeckung Am._, 133; _Kohl_, _Die beiden ältesten Karten von Am._, p. 33. A copy of this map was published in _Lelewel's Atlas_.