ABSTRACT
Thomas Harriot was one of the most distinguished scholars and scientists of his time. But his activities were so various and the accessibility of his prodigious remains so unevenly distributed that he has remained largely unknown to the generality of students of the period until the past generation. Harriot came up to Oxford as a plebeian member of St Mary Hall in 1576. At the time, North America was still almost unknown to the English, apart from the summer fishermen who dried their cod each summer on the shores of Newfoundland. Harriot was concerned with his major problem, that of mapping as accurately as he could the land and water of the surrounding country. By a strange coincidence, it was in the year 1576 that Englishmen first tried to come to grips with the problem of North America, but not with the aim of exploring its interior or of settling colonies on its fringes.
