A, 



Original Difcovery of Amirica. loy 



III. 



A li'emoir vpon the Difcovery of America. By JIT. OtTO. 

 [Concluded from pngc 77.] 



lFTER having performed feveral other interefling voyages, the Chevalier Behem died at 

 Lifboii in July ijo5, regretted by every one, but leaving behind him no other work 

 than the globe which vi'e have juft been fpealdiig of. It is' made from the writings of 

 Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo, and efpecially from the account of Mark Paul, the Venetian, a 

 celebrated traveller of the thirteenth century ; and of John Mandeville, an En^lilhman, 

 who, about the middle of the fourteenth century, publiflied an account of a journey of 

 thirty-three years in Africa and Afia. He has alfo added the important difcoveries made by 

 iiimfelf on the coafls of Africa and America. 



From thefe circumltantial accounts, little known to modern writers, we muft conclude 

 that Martin Behenira, of whom Garcilaflb makes mention, is the fame Chevalier Behem, 

 upon being the place of whofe birth Nurenberg prides itfelf fo much. It is probable that, 

 as foon as he was knighted in Portugal, he thought it neceflary to give a Poriuguefe ter- 

 mination to his name, to make it more fonorous and more conformable to the idiom of the 

 country. Garcilaflb, deceived by this refemblance of found, has made him a Spaniard, in 

 order to deprive Chriflopher Columbus of the honour of having procured to his country fo 

 great an advantage. And what ought to confirm us in this opinion is, that we neither find 

 in Mariana, nor any other Spanifh hiftorian, the name of this Martin Behenira, who was 

 certainly a man of too much importance not to have had a didinguiflied place in hiftory. 

 Be fides, the Spanitli pride would have been flattered in giving to a native thofe laurels 

 with which it crowned Chriftopher Columbus. 



It is then very unlikely that this navigator was treated as an enthufiaft, when he offered 

 to the Court of Portugal to make difcoveries in the weft. The fearch after unknown 

 countries was at that time the reigning paflion of this Court ; and even if the Chevalier 

 Behem had not offered the interefting ideas which he had procured, the novelty of the 

 projeft would undoubtedly have engaged King John to fupport the views of Columbus : 

 but it appears that this prince declined it, becaufe all his thoughts were turned at that 

 time to the coaft of Africa, and the new paflage to the Indies, from whence he procured 

 great riches ; whilft the fouthern coaft of Brazil, and the territories of the Patagonians, 

 feen by Behem, oflered to him only barren lands inhabited by unconquerable favages. The 

 refufal of John II., very far from weakening the teftimony of Behem's difcoveries is then 



and dcduaions may be fecn in Pricftley's Optics, p. 436. Count Rumford is the firft, as far as I know 

 who has flicwn that the cffeft depends not immediately on the nature of the light, but principally upon the 

 manner in which the organs of fight, or perhaps the organs of thought (if in truth there be any difftrence here 

 between them), are atTcflcd by the fiiccellivc adiions they undergo. The colours called accidental, which are ren- 

 dered permanent for a time after the impreirion of bright objefls upon the eye, and the cfretts of Icf's forcible 

 imprelUonj, for which the laft quoted work, p. 631, and the .luthors there referred to, mSy be confultcd;— the 

 I'.irinony and difcord of colours, probaWy arifing from the pleafurc or difguft afforded by the admixture of au 

 iccidtntal colour with anew fenfation, or real colour;— the phenomena of dazzling, which is of the fame nature 

 » iliii laft combination i~-ind the general arrangement and inferences to be found in tlie Zonnomia of Darwin 

 a.'l Lear evident relation to the fafts exhibited by Count Rumford, and open a wide field for cuiious relcaicli. n' 



" ^ rather 



