X.—A part of the map of the world made by Juan de la Cosa in 1500 cover-pocket XI.—A part of the map of the world made by Johann Ruysch, contained in the edition of Ptolemy’s geography printed in Rome in 1508 cover-pocket XII.—A part of the map of the world made by Visconte de Maiollo in 1527 cover-pocket DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA. CHAPTER I. The oldest scriptures, sacred and profane, attest the antiquity of the red race.[1] As early as the antediluvian period this division of the human family had taken possession of the islands and continent of the western hemisphere, where it founded an empire, the most famous and formidable of primeval times. Great in political power, its commercial, agricultural, and other economical interests were commensurably vast and unparalleled. The skill of its architects and engineers was exhibited in large and imposing edifices and in extraordinary and extensive public works. Aggressively belligerent, its armies overran parts of Europe and Africa, exacting tribute, deposing and substituting rulers. When the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, began to explore the interior of the continent of America for gold, silver, and precious stones, they found populated provinces, great cities, temples, palaces, aqueducts, canals, bridges, and causeways. The astonished adventurers also discovered the vestiges of an aboriginal people, among which were many massive tablets of stone covered with columns of strange hieroglyphics and antique images, picturing a past civilization for the rise and growth of which modern archæologists have not yet satisfactorily determined dates. In the early ages of the world the Egyptians recorded whatever they deemed important and worthy of preservation concerning the principal inhabitants of the globe. These inquisitive chroniclers of antediluvian traditions placed in their archives some remarkable information respecting the original people of the western hemisphere. The historical value of this information is enhanced by the fact that those parts of it which seem to be the most improbable are supported by similar statements in the Bible, while the less astounding are verified by the discovery, on the continent of the so-called New World, of such remains as those which are said to have existed in the country west of the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.