Re: Waldseemuller map & Pacific Ocean

mike4ty4@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi.

Why all the shock and awe about the famous Waldseemuller Map showing
the Pacific Ocean before Balboa "discovered" it? One does not need too
much of a brain to put this together:

1. Europe had traded with the Far East for a long time, this is what
prompted Christopher Columbus to set sail for China across the Atlantic
Ocean (the land and other routes were cut off.). Ever heard of the
famous "Silk Road"? Marco Polo's trips took him along the oceans off
Asia, and that was ~400 years B.B. (Before Balboa.)

2. From all that experience, they would have known that there was an
ocean off the east coast of Asia, I mean, how could they possibly miss
it? You go to China, which is right there on the coast! If they didn't
know there was ocean there, then why would Columbus think he could
reach China by sailing west?

3. When the Americas were discovered, then it would be simple to reason
that the ocean would have to resume at some point due to one's seeing
it off Asia, so hence Waldseemuller draws it on his map!

Doesn't that make some sense? They would have reasoned it. It was a
very good, but not very difficult, guess they made.

Sure it makes sense. All Balboa did was provide a concept to which the
name "Pacific" could be attached. Columbus was probably thinking of "the
Ocean" as a whole. B. confirmed that once you got beyond the newly
discovered lands there was a whole lot more Ocean to the west.

But what puzzles me is where you saw all this "shock and awe"? The most
recent discussion of this map on sci.arch was concerned with whether
Alaska was depicted on it. Only a couple of our resident eccentrics
thought so.

Ross Clark
.

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