What Columbus discovered was an attractor. Something, theretofore unknown, was west of Spain within a few weeks voyage. Something that might be exploited for gold or slaves. And attract, it did!

Within 15 years Martin Waldseemuller was able to print a map of the world that included two continents in the west. He was very taken by the stories of a con man named Amerigo Vespucci, so much so that he labeled the southern one AMERICA. The important thing about his map (1507) that had a lot marked "Terra Incognita," was establishing the idea of continents surrounded by water.

Around 1540, two Spaniards independently sailed up the west coast of the new continent and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). Four years later, Battista Agnese made a world map including their stories that looks very familiar to us. The track is Magellan and the red colored bay on the west coast of New Spain is the Gulf. The water was red from Colorado Plateau mud carried down the river. What we know as "The Red Sea" east of Africa is also colored red.

Waldseemuller's North America is not at all like Agnese's. The gulf and peninsula appeared on many subsequent maps, eventually acquiring the name "California." In 1620, California was depicted as an island and shown as such on many maps up into the 20th century. No anglo walked across the Southern Arizona-California desert until after 1700 by which time Fr Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, had dispelled the Island idea.

Who knew what in the first half of the second millennium when everything moved slower than 3 mph? The Norse settled Vinland but never saw the need to tell anybody. By 1500, ships were improving, men were exploring, and maps began to proliferate. Alarcon's and Ulloa's descriptions of the Gulf of California made it to Agnese in less than 4 years.

The magic, here, is that most of these rare old maps are available on the web.