It seems altogether likely that "Brazil" was applied to the entire
outjutting region of America surrounding the Gulf of St.
Lawrence--that part of this continent which is by far the nearest
Ireland. Besides the facts above stated, certain coincidences of real
geography and of these old maps favor that belief, and they are quite
unlikely to have been guessed or invented. Thus certain maps,
beginning with 1375, while keeping the circular external outline of
Ireland, reduce the land area to a mere ring, enclosing an expanse of
water dotted with islands; and certain other maps show it still
nearly circular externally, and solid, but divided into two parts by
a curved channel nearly from north to south. The former exposition is
possible enough to one more concerned with the nearly enclosed Gulf
of St. Lawrence and its islands than with its two comparatively
narrow outlets; the second was afterward repeated approximately by
Gastoldi's map illustrating Ramusio when he was somehow moved to
minimize the width of the Gulf, though well remembering the straits
of Belle Isle and Cabot. There are some other coincidences, but it is
unnecessary to dwell on them. Land west of Ireland must be either
pure fancy or the very region in question, and it is hardly
believable that fancy could guess so accurately as to two different
interpretations of real though unusual geography and give them right
latitude, with such an old Irish name (Brazil) as might naturally
have been conferred in the early voyaging times. That an extensive
region, chiefly mainland, should be represented as an island is no
objection, as anyone will see by examining the maps which break up
everything north of South America in the years next following the
achievements of Columbus and Cabot. There was a natural tendency to
expect nothing but islands short of Asia.

It seems likely, therefore, that America was actually reached by the