second, because, like them, it was the attempt of people dissatisfied with their way of living to find new homes in which they would be happier than in their old homes. It differed from both the others in two respects: first, it was a movement of people who were already civilized and who, therefore, took with them habits and ideas which were not likely to change; second, it was a movement into wild countries where there was no civilized population with habits and ideas superior to those of the invaders.

The third migration did not occur all at once. The earliest attempt of a European people to cross the Atlantic took place nearly a thousand years ago (section 7), and though it led to the first discovery of America no permanent colony was established on the western continent. The migration can hardly be said to have started until long afterwards, when America was discovered a second time by Christopher Columbus at the close of the fifteenth century. The next two centuries witnessed the greater part of the third migration. European nations colonized the New World. By the middle of the eighteenth century European civilization was well established all along the American shores of the Atlantic.

7. The Earliest American Exploration. The very beginning of the movement across the Atlantic grew out of a civil war in Norway. The Norwegians-also called the Norsemen were descendants of Aryans who had settled in the Far North and had not shared in the second migration. They were among the freest people in the world. When their king, Harold the Fair-haired, attempted to curtail their freedom many of the boldest of them rebelled. These bold men, whom we call the Vikings, went aboard their ships and sailed away to Iceland. There, on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, they founded a famous little nation, a new Norway, which exists at this day. A hundred years later a daring Icelander, Eric the Red, led his countrymen still

farther across the unknown sea and founded a settlement in Greenland. Eric's son, Leif the Lucky, determined to know where the ocean ended. He sailed to the southwest and was the first European who saw the coast of North America. About the year 1000 Leif and his sailors made a landing

on the shore of a great bay, probably where now stands the city of Boston. They found so many wild grapes that they named the new country Vinland, or Vineland.

8. Christopher Columbus; Exploration in the Fifteenth Century. But Leif, unlike his father, did not found a colony. Eric's own colony in Greenland did not prosper, and after a while it was broken up. Nearly five hundred years went by before another and much more famous explorer crossed the Atlantic. This later discoverer of America was born in the old city republic of Genoa about the year 1450 and was named Christopher Columbus.

During the lifetime of Columbus great changes were taking place all over Europe. It was a time when old ideas

were passing away and new ideas were forming. Especially was it a time when great changes occurred in commerce. Nothing was more valuable in those days than the trade between Europe and eastern Asia, especially India. It was controlled chiefly by the republics of Genoa and Venice, whose ships carried European

products to the eastern Mediterranean ports-to Alexandria and to Constantinople. There the Venetians and the Genoese exchanged their goods for silks and spices that had been brought from China and India either by way of the Red Sea and Egypt or overland on camels, in long slow-moving caravans. These four Mediterranean seaports - Venice, Genoa, Alexandria, Constantinople-formed the four corners, so to speak, of the business world in those days. The Med

A VENETIAN GALLEY

iterranean traders dominated the commerce of Europe. They took oriental products to the Far North; they were so rich that they lent money as a business and thus were the beginners of modern banking.

In the fifteenth century the Mediterranean cities lost their control of European business, which passed into the hands of countries bordering on the Atlantic. No more momentous change has taken place in European history. It opened early in the century, when the energetic little Portuguese nation began exploring the Atlantic Ocean. A son of the king of Portugal, Prince Henry the Navigator, established the first school of scientific seamanship and persuaded many sailors to undertake perilous voyages upon unknown waters. It

was not easy to overcome their fears. Strange tales were believed about the Atlantic. Toward the south it was supposed to be boiling hot. Many a sailor was firm in the notion that at times monsters arose out of its depths and destroyed ships in the twinkle of an eye. Nevertheless Prince Henry persevered. The Azores and the Canary Islands were

ROUTES OF TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND CITIES OF SOUTHERN EUROPE

discovered. The Tropic of Cancer was passed (1434), and the story of a boiling tropical sea was disproved. At last Bartholomew Diaz sailed past the Cape of Good Hope (1487) and thus opened a new route for trade between Europe and Asia. Another great sailor, Vasco da Gama, carried the Portuguese flag to India (1498). From that day the Atlantic nations, trading by sea with India and China, had a great advantage over the Mediterranean nations. The latter gradually declined in wealth and importance. The Atlantic nations took their places as the chief commercial powers.1

1 Until very recently it was thought that the overland trade between Europe and Asia was broken up by the Turkish conquest of Constantinople (1453) and that the Portuguese aimed to recover the lost trade. If this

While these great events were taking place Christopher Columbus was growing up. His father was poor, and when still a little boy Columbus went to sea to become a sailor.

30 Longitude West 40 from Greenwich Longitude East 40 from Greenwich 80

At that time, though ignorant people still believed that the earth was flat, educated people were beginning to think that were true there would have been a period between 1453 and 1498 when new Indian products would not have reached Europe and those on hand would have risen in price; but such was not the case. Furthermore, the Turks, instead of closing the Eastern trade routes, made a commercial treaty with Venice. The ruin of Venetian and Genoese trade was not the cause but the result of the Portuguese discovery of the sea routes to India. Portugal agreed to divide all the new commerce and all the new countries with Spain. Acting under the direction of Pope Alexander VI the two countries fixed upon a line on the map three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands (1494). Portugal was to have everything to the east of that line, Spain everything to the west. The line of demarcation ran through Brazil (see map, p. 17).