Kbiices respecting New Booh. sj 



too much neglected; and Mr. Clarke deserves- our thanks 

 for having presented them to the attention of scientific men. 

 He reserves for a future volume a jnore particular discus- 

 sion of this important discovery, which, we doubt not, 

 will, after these remarks of his, be assigned to the Arab 

 navigators on the Indian ocean. In the excellent narrative 

 which he has given of Da Gama's voyage, Mr. Clarke sub- 

 joins ar.cther proof of the justice of his ideas from a passage 

 in Osoruis, the vvliole of which had inadvertently been 

 omitted in Mr. Gibbs's translation. This early Arab or 

 Moorish compass was found by Gama on his arrival to 

 have been long used by the Indian seamen ; and Osoriui 

 thus introduces liis description of it : — Utehantur in vav'i- 

 gando Korniis navicidaris, qvas nuiUa' acus appellant. Qua- 

 rum formani^ propter eos qui a viariti?nis regloiiilus ronoti 

 sunt, hand al/enuin arbitror explicare .... The same his- 

 torian also mentions their early use of the quadrant long 

 before it was known in Europe : — Ouarlrantibus etiam, solis 

 varias coni'ersiones, ct quantum qiiceqiie regro ub cBquinoc~ 

 tJali cinulo distaret, observabat. (Progress of Maritime 

 Discovery, ch. iii. note i. p. 451.) 



Previous to Da Gama's voyage, Mr. Clarke, ver}' pro- 

 perly, in order to impress the mind of his readers with a 

 just idea of the perils which Gama had to surmount, gives 

 some concise h\drographical remarks on that navigation ; 

 and as his work is intended to form (the first time that any 

 one has made the attempt) an extensive system of hy- 

 drography, he offers the following simple divisions of 

 the ocean to the attention of nautical men: — 1. The 

 North Atlantic, extending from the equator to Cape 

 Farewell on the coast of Greenland in 60" north lati- 

 tude. 2. South Atlantic, from the equator to an imagi- 

 nary line drawn from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape 

 Horn. 3. Indian ocean, bounded to the south by a line 

 carried from the Cape of Good Hope to the south-west 

 point of New Holland. 4. The North Pacific, flowing 

 from the equator to an imaginary hue stretched from the 

 south-eastern point of Van Dieman's Land to the southern 

 Cape of New Zealand, and continued thence to Cape Horn, 

 'i he remaining portions of the ocean flowing round the 

 northern and southern poles, to be called the North and 

 f^oiith i'olaj- Seas. (Ibid. ch. ii. p. 35 1.) Among these hy- 

 ■ilrograpliical remarks we observe a great manv latitudes and 

 longitudes on the western coast of Africa, now fir?t pub- 

 lished, which were ascertained from lunar observations by 

 <»n ollicvr of rank in the king's service. Tlic nature and li- 

 mits 



