In fact, said Dr.
Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day,
"Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant
any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part
of North America."
The moonshine of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder.
They had definitely proved, _even if there were no Gamaland_--as
Bering's voyage had shown--then there must be a southern continent
somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern
hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down. And there must
also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the
world would be top-heavy and turn upside down. It was an age when the
world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moonshine instead of
scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact!
All sorts of wild rumors were current. There was a vast continent in
the south. There was a vast sea in the north. Somewhere was the New
Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain. Just north
of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight
through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek
pilot--named Juan de Fuca--said he had traversed for the viceroy of New
Spain.
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