258 COSMOS. 



navigation of the Spaniards and Portuguese, can not be over* 

 looked. The great instruments of the schools of Bagdad and 

 Cairo were imitated, on a small scale, for nautical purposes. 

 Their names even were transferred ; thus, for instance, that 

 of '• astrolabou " given by Martin Behaim to the main-mast, 

 belongs originally to Ilipparchus. When Vasco de Gam a 

 landed on the eastern coast of Africa, he found that the Indian 

 pilots at Melinde Avere acquainted with the use of astrolabes 

 and ballestilles.* Thus, by the more general intercourse con- 

 sequent on increasing cosmicai relations, by original inventions, 

 and by the mutual fructification afforded by the mathematical 

 and astronomical sciences, were all things gradually prepared 

 tor the discovery of tropical America ; the rapid determination 

 of its configuration ; the passage round the southern point of 

 Africa to India ; and, finally, the first circumnavigation of 

 the globe — great and glorious events, which, in the space of 

 thirty years (from 1492 to 1522), contributed so largely in ex- 

 tending the general knowledge of the regions of the earth. 

 The minds of men were rendered more acute and more capa- 

 ble of comj)rehending the vast abundance of new phenomena 

 presented to their consideration, of analyzing them, and. by 

 comparing one with another, of employing them for the foun- 

 dation of higher and more general views regarding the uni- 

 verse. 



It will be sufficient here to touch upon the more prominent 

 elements of these higher views, which Avere capable of lead- 

 distance sailed over, the appeal is made only to the accordant judgment 

 ( juicio) of twenty very experienced seamen (" que ajimiten en su car- 

 ta de 6 en 6 horas el camiuo que la nao fard segun su juicio"). If the 

 log had been in use, no doubt Ferrer would have indicated bow often 

 it should be thi'own. I find the first mention of the application of tho 

 log in a passage of Pigafetta's Journal of Magellan's voyage of circum 

 navigation, which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the Am- 

 brosian Library at Milan. It is there said that, in the month of Janu- 

 ary, 1521, when Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, " Secoudo 

 la misura che facevamo del viaggio coUa catena a poppa, noi percorre- 

 vamo da 60 in 70 leghe al giorno" (Amorelli, Prbno Viaggio intorno 

 al Globo Tcrracqueo, ossia Navigazione fatta dal Cavaliere Antonio 

 Pigafetta sulla squadra del Cap. Magaglianes, 1800, p. 46). What 

 can tliis arrangement of a chain at the hinder part of a ship (catena a 

 poppa), " which we used throughout the entire voyage to measure the 

 way," have been, except an apparatus similar to our log? No special 

 mention is made of the log-line divided into knots, the ship's log, and 

 the half-minute or log-glass, but this silence need not surprise us when 

 reference is made to a long-known matter. In the part of the Tratiato 

 di Navigazione of the Cavalier Pigafetta, given by Amoretti in extracts, 

 amounting, indeed, only to ten pages, tL^ "catena della poppa" is r^ol 

 again mentioned. * Barros, Dec. i., liv. iv., p. 320 



