
...to the Atlantic, the discovery of America and the opening of the Cape route to India. Portugal and Spain started on their careers as great commercial and colonizing nations, the former destined for a time to control the commerce of the Far East, the other to possess more than half of the Americas and to dominate the Pacific.
GROWTH OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
Classical ideas of the world.—The discoveries of the century completely transformed the conceptions of geography. Greek and Roman...