 URL a new theory on mapping the new world by guy gugliotta washington post staff writer monday october NUMBER NUMBER page aNUMBER in NUMBER a group of scholars working in france produced an extraordinary map of the world the first to put the still recent discoveries of columbus and others into a new continent separate from asia and to call that continent america with the waldseemuller map the new world was born but there was something else what would later come to be called south america and central america were surprisingly well shaped not only on the east coast where explorers had already sailed but also on the west coast which no european was known to have seen the ice cream cone bulge that sticks out into the pacific at the junction of modern day chile and peru is readily visible and in almost exactly the right geographical spot not only in the main map but also in an inset printed along its top the shape of south america in the main map appears distorted because of the curvature of the earth it is an improbable coincidence if it was a coincidence for the map NUMBER large printed pages to be arrayed in one NUMBER square foot wall display was published six years before vasco balboa s NUMBER trip across the isthmus of panama and NUMBER years before ferdinand magellan s NUMBER NUMBER trip around the world did someone get there earlier yahoo groups sponsor NUMBER dvds free s p join now URL to unsubscribe from this group send an email to forteana unsubscribe URL your use of yahoo groups is subject to URL 