Page:Legendaryislands00babcuoft.djvu/173

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ROSELLI MAP OF 1468 155 Antillia, its eastern and western faces are provided with highly artificial bays, three in each. Its northern end is beveled upward and westward. I think this large island probably represents Florida, similarly situated to the northward of Cuba and divided from it by Florida Strait. Its area must have been nakedly con- jectural, as much later maps show its line of supposed severance from the mainland to have been drawn by guesswork. I IN MAR The inclined northern end of Salvagio is divided by a narrow sea belt from I in Mar, which has approximately a crescent form and a bulk not very different from that commonly ascribed at that time to Madeira. "I," of course, stands for Insula or one of its derivatives, such as Ilia, a word or initial applied or omitted at will. "Island in the Sea" is probably the true rendering, though formerly the initial and the two words were sometimes blended, as Tanmar or Danmar, to the confusion of geographers. A larger member of the Bahama group lying near the Florida coast would seem to fill the requirements, being naturally recognized as more at sea than Florida or Cuba. Great Abaco and Great Ba- hama are nearly contiguous and, considered together, would give nearly the required size and form; but it is not necessary to be individual in identification. Possibly Insula in Mar as drawn was meant to be symbolical and representative of the sea islands generally rather than to set forth any particular one of them. THE ROSELLI MAP OF 1468 The Roselli map of I468, 21 the property of the Hispanic Society of America, New York City, is nearly as complete as the Beccario map of 1435. It lacks only the western part of Reylla (a name here corrupted into "roella"), by the reason of the limitations of the material. These maps were generally drawn on parchment made of lambskin with the narrow neck of the skin presented toward the west, perhaps as the quarter in which unavoidable E. L. Stevenson: Facsimiles of Portolan Charts Belonging to the Hispanic Society of America, Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 104, New York, 1916, PI. 2.