In passing, we may note that Antela, the version of the Laon globe hereinafter referred to, is identical with the name of that Lake Antela of northwestern Spain which is the source of the river Limia, fabled to be no other than Lethe, so that Roman soldiers drew back from it, fearing the waters of oblivion. But as yet no one has taken up the cause of Spanish Antela as the origin of the island’s name. Probably it is a mere matter of coincidence. Humboldt admits that Antillia may be readily resolved into two Portuguese words, _ante_ and _illa_ (island). He even cites several parallel cases, of which Anti-bacchus will serve as an example. But he objects that such compound names have been used in comparison with other islands, not with a continent. In the present instance, however, the comparison would be with Portugal, not with all Europe, and the other member of it would be a map island which, he says, is as long as Portugal and seems curiously to borrow and copy Portugal’s general form and is arranged opposite to that kingdom far beyond the Azores across a great expanse of sea. It must be remembered that _illa_ is the old form of _ilha_, found in many maps, that either would naturally be pronounced “illia,” and that you cannot say “anteillia” or “antiillia” at all rapidly without turning it almost exactly into Antillia. The “island out before,” or the “opposite island,” would be the natural interpretation. The latter seems preferable. Notwithstanding the great importance which must always be attached to any opinion of Humboldt’s, there really seems no need to let fancy range far afield when an obvious explanation faces us in the word itself and on the maps. THE WEIMAR MAP Nordenskiöld, practically applying his test of the presence of Antillia and arranging his materials in chronological order, heads his list of “The Oldest Maps of the New Hemisphere”[254] with the anonymous map preserved in the Grand Ducal library in Weimar and credited to 1424.[255] But it seems that this map does not deserve that position, for it is not entitled to the date; Humboldt, inspecting the original, made out certain fragments of words and the Roman characters for that year on a band running from south to north between the Azores and Antillia; also, in more modern ink, the date 1424 on the margin. Whatever the explanation, he was convinced of error by subsequent correspondence with the Weimar librarian and admitted that it was probably the work of Conde Freducci not earlier than 1481. Apart from all considerations of workmanship and map outlines, the use of “insule” instead of “insulle” and of “brandani” instead of “brandany” in the inscription concerning the Madeiras marks the map as almost certainly belonging to the last quarter, not the first quarter, of the fifteenth century. THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426