The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West

There now remains only one quotation to make from the ancients. We have been reserving it for two reasons--first, because it is a singularly happy anticipation of the discovery of the New World, so happy that it became a favorite stanza with the discoverer himself. This we learn from the life of the "Great Admiral," written by his son Ferdinand.

Secondly, because it adorns our title-page and has been characterized as "a lucky prophecy"--written in the first century A. D. The author, Seneca, was a dramatist as well as a philosopher, the lines occurring at the end of one of his choruses--Medea, 376. We may thus translate the prophetic stanza:

For at a distant date this ancient world Will westward stretch its bounds, and then disclose Beyond the Main a vast new Continent, With realms of wealth and might.

CHAPTER I

PRE-COLUMBIAN DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA

1 Norse Discovery.--