46 COSMOS. 



Hoces ill 1525. It M'ould appear from tlie jou'iiak still ev 

 tant, and from the historical testimony of Anghiera^ that the 

 southern stars were made the special objects of attention dur- 

 ing the voyage in which Amerigo Vespucci and Vicente Yanez 

 Pinzon discovered Cape San Augustin in 8° 20' south lati 

 tude. Vespucci boasts on this occasion of having seen three 

 Ca?iopi (one daivk, Ca?iopofosco; and two bright stars, Cano- 

 pi ris,plendenti). We find from an attempt made by Ideler, 

 the ingenious author of works on the " Names of the Stars" 

 and on " Chronology," to explain Vespucci's very confused 

 description of the southern heavens, in his letter to Lorenzo 

 Pierfrancesco de' Medici, of the party of the " Popolani," that 

 Vespucci used the name in nearly as indefinite a manner as 

 the Arabian astronomers had used the word Suhel. Ideler 

 shows that the '- canopo fosco nclla via lattea'^ must have 

 been the black spot, or large coal-sack in the Southern Cross ; 

 while the position of three stars, in which are supposed to be 

 recognized a, jS, and y of Hydrus, renders it very probable 

 that the " canopo risplendente di notabile graiidezza'' (of 

 considerable extent) is the Nubecula Major, and the second 

 risplendente the Nubecula Minor. ^ It is very singular that 

 Vespucci should not have compared these recently-noticed 

 celestial objects to clouds, as all other observers had done. 

 Oi\e would have thought the comparison irresistible. Peter 

 Martyr Anghiera, who was personally acquainted with all 

 the discoverers, and whose letters were written under the 

 vivid impression excited in his mind by their narratives, de- 

 scribes, with striking truthfulness, the mild but unequal efful- 

 gence of the nubeculse. He says, " Assecuti sunt Portugallen 

 ses alterius poll gradum quinquagesimum amplius, ubi punc-- 

 tum (polum ?) circumeuntes qiiasdain niibeculas licet intueri, 

 veluti in lactea via sparsos fulgores per universi coeli globum 

 intra ejus spatii latitudinem."t The exceeding fame, and 



* Humboldt, Examen Crit. de la GSogr., torn, iv., p. 205, 295-316 

 torn, v., p. 225-229, 235. Ideler, Sternnamen, § 346. 



t Petrus Martyr Angh., Oceanica, dec. Hi., lib. i., p. 217. I can 

 prove from the numerical data in dec. ii., lib. x., p. 204, and dec. iii., 

 lib X., p. 232, that the portion of the Oceanica, in which the Magellanic 

 Clouds are referred to, was written between 1514 and 151G, and there 

 fore immediately after the expedition of Juan Diaz de Solis to the Ric 

 de la Plata (then known as the Rio de Solis, una mar dulce). The lati- 

 tudes are much exaggerated. 



f " The Portuguese extended their discoveries to within less than 50 

 degrees of the South Pole, where they plainly observed certain uebul.'t 

 moving round the pohit (pole?), like the luminous spots scattert-d ir. 



