XVI SUMMARY UF THE CONTExVTS. 



nent situated to the west. Commercial relations existed, however, m 

 late as 1481, between the Norwegian port of Bergen aiid Greenland — 

 p 228-238. 



Widely different, in a cosmical point of view, from the isolated ard 

 Darren event of the first discov^ery of the new continent by the North- 

 men, was its rediscovery in its tropical regions by Christopher Colum 

 bus, although that navigator, seeking a shorter route to Eastern Asia, 

 had not the object of discovering a new continent, and, like Amerigo 

 Vespucci, Ijelieved to the time of his death that he had simply reached 

 the eastern shores of Asia. The influence exercised by the nautical 

 discoveries of the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the six 

 teenth century on the rich abundance of the ideal world, can not be 

 thoroughly understoocl until we havo thrown a glance on the ages which 

 separate Columbus from the blooming period of cultivation under the 

 Arabs. That which gave to the age of Columbus the peculiar character 

 of an uninterrupted and successful striving for an extended knowledge 

 of the earth, was the appearance of a small number of daring minds 

 (Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam), 

 who incited to independent thought and to the investigation of sepa- 

 rate natural phenomena ; the revived acquaintance with the works of 

 Greek literatm-e • the invention of the art of printing ; the missionary 

 embassies to the Mogul princes, and the mercantile travels to Eastern 

 Asia and South India (Marco Polo, Maudeville, and Nicolo de' Conti); 

 the improvement of navigation; and the use of the mariner's compass 

 or the knowledge of the north and south pointing of the magnetic 

 needle, which we owe to the Chinese through the Arabs — p. 238-254. 

 Early expeditions of the Catalans to the western shores of Tropical 

 Africa ; discovery of the Azores ; general atlas of Picigano, of 1367. Re- 

 lations of Columbus to Toscanelli and Martin Alonso Pinzon. The more 

 recently known chart of Juan de la Cosa. The South Pacific and its 

 islands — p. 255-273. Discovery of the magnetic line of no variation in 

 the Atlantic Ocean. Inflection observed in the isothennal lines a hund- 

 red nautical miles to the west of the Azores. A physical line of demark- 

 tttion is converted into a political one ; the line of demarkation of Pope 

 Alexander VI., of the 4tli of May, 1493. Knowledge of the distribution 

 of heat; the line of perpetual snow is recognized as a function of geo- 

 graphical latitude. Movement of the waters in the Atlantic Ocean. 

 Great beds of sea-weed — p. 273-285. Extended view into the world 

 of space ; an acquaintance with the stars of the southern sky ; more a 

 sensuous than a scientific knowledge. Improvement in the method of 

 determining the ship's place ; the political requirement for establishing 

 the position of the papal line of demarkation increased the endeavor to 

 discover practical methods for determining longitude. The discovery 

 and first colonization of America, and the voyage to the East Indies 

 round the Cape of Good Hope, coincide with the highest perfection of 

 art, and with the attainment of intellectual freedom by means of relig- 

 ious refoiTn, the forerunner of great political convulsions. The dai-iiig 

 enterprise of the Genoese seaman is the first link in the immeasurable 

 chain of mysterious events. Accident, and not the deceit or intrigues 

 of Amerigo Vespucci, deprived the Continent of America of the name 

 of Columbus. Influence of the New World on political institutioug 

 and on the ideas and inclinations of the people of the Old Continent — 

 p. !285-301. 



VII. Period of great Discoveries in the Regions of Space. — The ap 

 plication of the telescope: a more correct vieu of the structure of the 



