These authors proved entirely too near-sighted and would not read what the cards themselves displayed before their semi-opened vision, probably because they despised the professional prophets. Besides, the French, Spanish, German, and English writers each claimed for his own country the first knowledge of Playing Cards used for games, without recognising that their bantlings all came from a common mother stock, the great Tarot pack. Thus the arguments, deductions, and theories of these writers can command respect only to a limited degree. Merlin and Chatto have treated cards as interesting examples of the xylographic art, and it is certainly true that they were an important factor in developing it; but this period in the history of Playing Cards was by no means its childhood, as the writers seem to consider. Many of them did not know that almost every one of the European countries had emblems peculiar to the locality, which is also the case in Asia. None of the museums have even now any packs except those peculiar to their own State. In the Middle Ages games became necessary amusements in camp and home, so there was a demand for a rapid and inexpensive form of reproduction that should take the place of the expensively painted replicas of the Book of Thoth, which before had been within reach only of the wealthy. Of course, the original emblems had never been entirely lost or forgotten, but had been concealed in the hands of the initiates, who regarded them with reverence and transmitted them secretly from one to the other, but did not use cards for gambling or amusement. These persons did not reveal the history or import of the Book of Thoth to the triflers of the outside world, and had no desire to see their treasured secrets cheaply reproduced, to be carelessly handled by curious or pleasure-loving people. The author of "The Game of Gold," published at Augsburg in 1472, says he has read that "the game of cards was introduced into Germany in 1300." This is one of the first written accounts of Playing Cards used for games. It was pointed out by Chatto that there is a Chinese legend claiming Playing Cards as being used in China some two thousand years before Christ. Doubtless the Chinese recognized that their games of divination, as still commonly played, were identical with the cards used for chance, as the little flat cards are still used for both purposes. When Columbus made his first voyage across the Atlantic, his men gambled continually, and, although the superstitious sailors threw the cards overboard when they feared that they would never reach land, they manufactured new ones immediately on their arrival in America, and taught the savages their game, so we know without question that cards reached America in 1492. They were called Naypes and bore the emblems of Swords, Money, Cups, and Rods.