AMERiCA                      39

lon ginquos Oceani tractus fuisse abreptos, ac multis diebus
vi tempestatis jactatos, tandem ad ingentem insulam in
Oceano Atlantico, complurium dierum navigatione a Lybia
in oetasum  remotam venisse; cujus solum fructiferurn,
arines: navigabiles, sumptuosa aedificia fuerint. Inde
Carthaginienses et Tyrrhenos harum terrarum notitiam
accepisse. Postea Carthaginienses, cum saepe a Tyriis
et Mauritanis bello premerentur, Gadibus praeter naviga-
tis, et Atlantico provectos oceano, tandem ad novak has
regiones appulisse, et coloniam duxisse; eamque rem diu
tacitum servasse, ut si rursum sedibus ejicerentur, haberent
locum in quem se -cum  suis reciperent.-Repertam a
Carthaginiensibus fortuito insulam; et in eam injussu Ma-
gistratus commigrasse plurimos: quod disfluente paulatim
populo coeperit postea Capitale esse."
  Here we are, told by Diodorus, that the Phmenicians
were, at a very early period, driven by the violence of the
winds far beyond the pillars of Hercules or the straits
of Gibraltar* into the ocean' That they discovered
to the west of Lybia or Africa, at the distance fof a few
layi' sailing from that continent, a large and fertile island
and finely watered with navigable rivers; That this dis-
covery was soon made- known to the Carthaginians, a
Pheenioan colony in Africa, and to the Tyrrhennians or
Tuscans in Italy: That the Carthaginians some time after
undertook, on account of hostile invasions made by the
Moors and Tyrians, a voyage in which they passed the
straits of Gibraltar and advanced beyond Cadiz -without
the pillars of Hercules, till they arrived in those new re-
gions, where thcj made a settlement; but the policy of
C~arthage dislodged the colony, and laid a strict prohibition
on all the subjects of the State not to attempt any future
establishment.
  It is truly suprising that historians of considerable re-
nown should have mistaken the American continent for the
-fertile and ttiful island which is mentioned in this pas-
sage from Diodcus. This geographical sketch of the
new country which the Phcnicians discovered, and the