Earliest American Sciences
The first European focus of scientific study in America was geography, and the map was one of the most important tools. Some of the earliest geographic descriptions of the area that is now the United States were written by Englishmen who explored the Atlantic coast along present-day North Carolina and around the Chesapeake Bay (Virginia and Maryland). They made three trips to the area, which was then called the territory of Virginia, during the 1580s to try to start a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island (see Cha During an expedition in 1585 English mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) conducted a detailed survey of the geographic features of Roanoke, nearby islands, and portions of the mainland. He also kept a journal of his observations of Native American customs. In 1588 Harriot published A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, primarily to encourage English colonization in North America. It is considered one of the earliest known large-scale statistical land surveys and possibly the first description of Native Americans to be written in English.
After the colony at Roanoke failed, the English did not return to North America for nearly twenty years.
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