The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-02

their baby brothers and sisters. But
it is not the very poor who are most
careless of the safety and welfare of
their children. People in good cir
cumstanceS intrust helpless infants to
nurses who are no only ignorant, but
Indifferent. The use of soothing
syrups" containing laudanum has be-
come so common with lazy d heart
less nurses that pr ysicianS often dis
cover constitutions ruined and minds
wrecked by secret dosing in babyhOOd
with these inSidio.Is potionS. If peo-
pie really regard babies as having Il
value equal to or greater than that
Of prize colts, cats and puppies they
ought to be as careful in selecting
nurses as in choosing trainers; but I'M
fortunately great many persons
seem to think that anything in petit
coats can take care of baby.
--%~
The D'Este Map OF the American
Coast.
Paris Letter in the Boston Advertiser
/ had the pleasure. yesterday, of eX-
amining the fac .simile which Mr..
Henry Harrisse has made of the re-
markable map discovered by him in
the archives of the D'Este family in
Modena, which answers so decisively
many of the old questions regarding
the discov ry of America, and opens
for solution so may new ones. The
whole map is map Of the world,
beautifully drawn and colored on
vellum. Mr.. Harrisse, with the ad
mirable resources of the French print
ers in colors, has reproduced all that
part of it which illus
trates the Atlantic Ocean and its
shores. This is in the best style of its
day, with elegant illumination, gild-
ing and colors, with occasional pic
lures, and full explanation in the Por-
tugese language. The map was made
in the Portuguese interest, and carries
this interest so far that it even carries
Gorterea's discoveries at the mouth
of the st. Lawrence to a point east
ward of the celebrated line of denmark
alton, the meridian of sixty miles west
of Cape Verd. The size of the Allan
tic part of the map, of which Mr..
Harrisse will publish this perfect fac
smile, is perhaps four feet square,
or more. The date of the map is per-
fectly fixed by letter accompanying
it, which shows that it was sent to
by Cantino, his agent i'll Lisbon. Can
tho tells how much he paid for hav-
ing it executed.
Its interest for students OF our his
tory springs from the fact that on
this map, drawn up more than ten
years after Columbus sailed, before
Ponce de Icons discovery" of Flor
ida, long before VerazZano's pre-
tended discovery" of our coast, there
appears Florida, well drawn out, evil
IDENTIFY from knowledge, and to the
north and east of Florida the coast of
the United States. l shall best de-
scribe the coast. to those Of your
readers who are acquainted with the
early maps, by saying that it is identi-
cally the same with that figured after
ward on the maps in various editions
of Ptolemy published in the first half
of the sixteenth century. 1t is
evidently the origin of those
maps. The large Woodcut map of
1913, which has been often repro
duced, is for instance rough copy of
this in every particular. Even the
arbitrary line of which the engraving
is cut off on the west is the same with
the western line here. The names
are the same =" River of Lizards"
Bay of Encounter" and the rest.
The false pushing of CortereaPs
land to the east OF the meridian of
demarkaticn is the same. These in
dications in the maps which | may
speak of for convenience as the PtOle-
my series, now obtain a new import
ance, for it now appears that they
were connected with knowledge of
Florida, not borrowed from Ponce
de Icons voyage, but from some
earlier advantages. 1t is impossible
to apply here Mr.. Stevens ingenious
suggestion, that the map-makerS -
with white paper before them--Sup-
posed that they were drawing i'll the
coast of Asia when they gave us the
first rough line of the United States.
For at the extreme east of this whole
map there is an independent coast of
Asia, wrought out, not simply from
Marco Polo'S map, but from such in
formation as Portugal had thus early
picked up in the east from her own
eXpeditionS-andf from Malayan and
Chinese traders. The coast of our
country is sufficiently determined.
The names which are familiar to stu
dents-Which later geography blotted
out-appear here for the first time.
There is no Chesapeake bay, no Cape
Hatteras, no North river, no Long
Island, no Nantucket. A tolerable
Cape Cod may be invented by an i'm
aginatiye mind.
Mr.. Harrisse read a paper on the
subject before the institute on Fri
day week, which contained the results
which will aDDaar in the forthcoming
volume. He supposes that in spite
Of all prohibitions independent voy-
ayers followed Columbus and made
their own discoveries. Naturally
these discoveries of theirs would be
made public in Portugal more easily
than in Spain. 1t is curious cir
cumstance that the national desire to
secure Cortereals discoveries in Port
ugal leaves here an immense gap of
ocean between Newfoundland and
Labrador on the east and the north
ern part of the United States on the
west