bo, who, after a long life of travel, sat
down in the eighty-fourth year of his age, during the reign of Augustus,
to write the geography of the world, including its cosmography. In this
work, where are gathered the results of ancient study and experience,
the venerable author, after alluding to the possibility of passing
direct from Spain to India, and explaining that the inhabited world is
that which we inhabit and know, thus lifts the curtain: "There may be in
the same temperate zone _two and indeed more inhabited lands_,
especially nearest the parallel of Thinae or Athens, prolonged into the
Atlantic Ocean."[3] This was the voice of ancient science.

Before the voyage of Columbus, Pulci, the Italian poet, in his _Morgante
Maggiore_, sometimes called the last of the romances and the earliest of
the Italian epics, reveals an undiscovered world beyond the Pillars of
Hercules.

"Know that this theory is false; _his bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The western wave, a smooth and level plain_,
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
_Beyond the limits he had vainly set
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way_.

"_Men shall descry another hemisphere_,
Since to one common centre all things tend;
So earth, by curious mystery divine
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
_At our Antipodes are cities, states,
And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore._
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light."[4]

This translation is by our own eminent historian, Prescott, who first
called attention to this testimony,[5] which is not mentioned even by
Humboldt. Leigh Hunt referred to it at a later day.[6] Pulci was born in
Florence, 1431, and died there, 1487, five years before Columbus sailed,
so that he was not aided by any rumor of the discovery which he so
distinctly predicts.

Passing from the discovery, it may not be uninteresting to collect some
of the prophetic voices about the future of America, the "All-Hail
Hereafter" of our continent. They will have a lesson also. Seeing what
has been already fulfilled, we may better judge what to expect. I shall
set them forth in the order of time, prefacing each prediction with an
account of the author sufficient to explain its origin and character. If
some are already