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610 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Iceland. During his residence and voyages in these distant outposts of European civilization he familiarized himself with Western waters and deep-sea sailing, and probably heard many tales of distant lands and seas. We have al- ready noted that medieval scholars knew that the world was round and had speculated as to the distance between the western shores of Spain and the easternmost coasts of Asia. In the same year that Columbus went to the Madeiras, Toscanelli, a Florentine scholar, in response to inquiries from Lisbon had written to the Portuguese king that it was possible to reach China by sailing west and had sent a chart to illustrate his argument. The Portuguese king failed to follow Toscanelli's advice, but Columbus, although not a very learned man, got hold of this idea and determined to put it to the test by a voyage straight westward to Cathay. Sailing from Palos with three caravels provisioned for a year, he put into the Canaries to refit and then sailed west The dis- ^ or ^ ve wee ^ s without reaching land. The crew covery of began to grumble and then to plot against him, but he held to his purpose and on October 12, 1492, came to one of the small islands of the West Indies which he named San Salvador. He cruised about the archi- pelago for three months and then returned in triumph to Spain. Columbus made three subsequent voyages to the West Indies and northeast coast of South America, but died in the belief that he had reached Asiatic waters. Before his death other mariners had followed in his trail. Amerigo Vespucci, who accompanied some of these expeditions, was impressed by the fact that the South American coast did not correspond at all to the latitudes assigned to Cathay in the maps and geographies, and so wrote friends a letter in which he proclaimed it at least asa" New World." This letter was published and his name became associated with the new continents, which both in the south and the north were finally named "America." Now that Spain had apparently found a westward route to the East, it became imperative for the Portuguese to complete their circumnavigation of Africa if they wished