DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 39 ) tobacco, and do not think that this comes from America; when planting your potatoes, that these were originally imported from Virginia ; when drink- ing your cocoa, that this also comes from America ; or that the gold or jewels you see in a shop window may have been taken from the mines of California or the Brazils. Probably the only person to whose mind the discovery of America is ever present is the agri- culturist who deplores the importation of wheat. It may, however, be the case, that such desultory remarks may have awakened in you a desire to become better acquainted with the early history of that great continent. I may say, that towards the end of the fifteenth century the discovery of America was in the air. Scientific and astronomical knowledge had _pro- gressed, and that the earth was shaped like a globe, and at any rate that it was spherical and not flat, was, if not an ascertained fact, at least a general belief. America, despite the 3000 miles of intervening ocean, was scented by the nostrils of acute scholars and gready adventurers. Travellers had explored the shores of the Atlantic, and discovered some tropical islands from which they returned laden with strange spices and fruits, and skins of strange birds and animals. There were countless legends