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flatness of the earth. It rested on the science of the day,, on scripture as usually interpreted, and on common
observation. No gibe that is now directed against those who believe the Arctic
to be inhabitable and fairly pleasant is quite so amusing as those directed four
hundred and forty years ago at against the advocates of the roundness of the earth,
pointing out that in such a case the would water would be spilled out of the wells
in China and the Chinamen themselves would be walking like flies on a ceiling
with feet upwards and pigtails hanging down.

But the nearly universal view of the earth's flatness received
such a blow from the voyages of Columbus and Magellan that it was only another
two hundred years until the majority of Europeans ceased laughing about the
inverted Chinamen and began to favor the view that the earth was probably round.

If the masses were slow-minded, the reverse was true of the
leaders who quickly realized that if the earth were round it would be possible
to reach Cathay by sailing west. They tried it; but the Americas barred the
way and the route to China around the Horn was both long and stormy.

For men in whose lifetime the world had changed from a pancake
to a sphere, it was easy to throw by the board as well all the other geographical
conceptions of the ancients. They forgot or disregarded the Greek and Roman
doctrine that human and animal life was not possible in the remote north, and
boldly reasoned that since the earth was a sphere you could reach China not only
by sailing west but also by sailing north. This led to a series of voyages
perhaps the most gallant in recorded history. They were productive in terms of
knowledge, but negative with regard to the main purpose of finding a shortcut to
the riches of the East.

When ice barred the way to ships steering directly north, the navi-
gators felt their way east or west along the margin, hoping for a thoroughfare.
Long after they had concluded that a direct northerly route was impossible, they
cherished the hope of circumventing either North America or Asia by what were