[373] See Vol. II. p. 26. His son Ferdinand enlarges upon this. The passage in Seneca’s Medea was a favorite. This is often considered rather as a lucky prophecy. Leibnitz, Opera Philologica (Geneva, 1708), vi. 317. Charles Sumner’s “Prophetic Voices concerning America,” in Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1867 (also separately, Boston, 1874). Hist. Mag. xiii. 176; xv. 140.
[374] Vol. II. 25. Harrisse, Bib. Amer. Vet. i. 262.
[375] Perizonius, in his note to the story of Silenus and Midas, quoted from Theopompus by Ælian in his Varia Historiæ (Rome, 1545; in Latin, Basle, 1548; in English, 1576), quotes the chief references in ancient writers. Cf. Ælian, ed. by Perizonius, Lugd. Bat. 1701, p. 217. Among the writers of the previous century quoted by this editor are Rupertus, Dissertationes mixtæ, ad Val. Max. (Nuremberg, 1663). Math. Berniggerus, Ex Taciti Germaniâ et Agricolâ questiones (Argent. 1640). Eras. Schmidt, Dissert. de America, which is annexed to Schmidt’s ed. of Pindar (Witelsbergæ, 1616), where it is spoken of as “Discursus de insula Atlantica ultra columnas Herculis qua America hodie dicitur.” Cluverius, Introduction in univers. geogr., vi. 21, § 2, supports this view, 1st ed., 1624. In the ed. 1729 is a note by Reiskius on the same side, with references (p. 667).
Of the same century is J. D. Victor’s Disputatio de America (Jenæ, 1670).
In Brunn’s Bibliotheca Danica are a number of titles of dissertations bearing on the subject; they are mostly old.
[376] Even the voyage of Kolaos, mentioned in Herodotus (iv. 152), is supposed by Garcia a voyage to America.
[377] Mœurs des Sauvages (Paris, 1724).
[378] Attempt to show that America must have been known to the Ancients (Boston, 1773).
[379] History of America, 1775.
[380] See Vol. II. p. 68. Humboldt (i. 191) adopts the view of Ortelius that the grand continent mentioned by Plutarch is America and not Atlantis. Cf. Brasseur’s Lettres à M. le Duc de Valmy, p. 57.