unacquainted with the letter, can determine from this inscription, or any other part of the map, the date either of the discovery or map; and this precise difficulty Euphrosynus Ulpius apparently encountered in attempting to fix the time of the discovery for his globe, as will hereafter be seen.  Why the time of the discovery should have been left in such an ambiguous state, compatibly with fair intentions, it is difficult to understand.  The year itself could and should, in the absence of any date on the map, have been stated directly in the legend, without compelling a resort to other authorities.  It is not unusual, it is true, for valuable maps and charts of this period to be left without the dates of their construction upon them; but when, as in this case, a date is called for, there seems to be no reason why it should not have been given.  This circumstance creates the suspicion that the legend did not belong to the map originally, but was added afterwards, as it now appears on the copy in the Vatican; or if it were upon it then, that it was intended to mislead and conceal the true date of the map.  But whatever may be the secret of its origin, this legend furnishes no positive evidence as to the time when the map was made, or pretended to have been made; and we are left to find its date, if possible, by other means.

A fact which indicates that this map could not have existed as late as 1536, in the form in which it is now presented, if it existed then at all, is that the western sea is delineated upon a map of the world, made in that year, by Baptista Agnese, an Italian cosmographer, without any reference to the Verrazzano discoveries, under circumstances which would have led him to have recognized them if he knew of them, and which would have required him to have done so if this map were his authority.  This sea is laid down by Agnese in the same manner as it is shown on the Verrazzano map, approaching the Atlantic, from the north, along a narrow isthmus terminating at latitude 40 Degrees, with the coast turning abruptly to the west; the ocean being thus represented open thence from the isthmus to Cathay.  A track of French navigation, not a single voyage, expressed by the words:  el viages de France, is designated upon it, leading from the north of France to this isthmus, referring obviously to the voyages of the fishermen of Brittany and Normandy, to the coasts of Nova Scotia and New England.  No allusion is made to the voyage of Verrazzano, or to the discoveries attributed to him by the Verrazano map.  The Atlantic coast on the contrary, is plainly delineated after the Spanish map of Ribero, as is shown by the form, peculiar to that map, of the coast, at latitude 40 Degrees, returning to the west.  It is apparent, therefore, that the two maps of Agnese and Verrazano, both representing the western sea in the same form, must have been derived from a common source, or else one was taken from the other; and that the map of Agnese could not, in either case, have been derived from a map showing the Verrazzano discovery, and must consequently have been anterior to the Verrazano map in its present form.