The lines laid down by Popes Alexander and Julius may still be found upon the maps of the period, but their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of ludicrous errors.
Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth yielded but slowly.

Plain as it had become to scholars, they hesitated to declare it to the world at large.

Eleven hundred years had passed since St.
Augustine had proved its antagonism to Scripture, when Gregory Reysch gave forth his famous encyclopaedia, the Margarita Philosophica.

Edition after edition was issued, and everywhere appeared in it the orthodox statements; but they were evidently strained to the breaking point; for while, in treating of the antipodes, Reysch refers respectfully to St.
Augustine as objecting to the scientific doctrine, he is careful not to cite Scripture against it, and not less careful to suggest geographical reasoning in favour of it.
But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory.

Magellan makes his famous voyage.