MAGELLANIC CLOUDS. 43 



feet delineation of this nebula has been given by Mr. John- 

 stone Stoney. (Philos. Transact., 1850, part i., pi. xxxv., 

 fig. 1.) A similar spiral form is observed in No. 99 of Mes- 

 sier's Catalogue, which presents also a single central nucleus, 

 and in other northern nebulae. 



It still remains for us to notice, more circumstantially than 

 could be done in " the general delineation of Nature,"* an ob- 

 ject which is unparalleled in the world of forms exhibited 

 throughout the firmament, and by which the picturesque 

 effect of the southern hemisphere if I may be permitted to 

 use the expression is heightened. The two Magellanic 

 Clouds, which were probably first named Cape Clouds by Port- 

 uguese, and subsequently by Dutch and Danish pilots,} most 

 strongly rivet the attention of travelers, as I can testify from 

 personal experience, by the intensity of their light, their in- 

 dividual isolation, and their common rotation round the South 

 Pole, although at different distances from it. We learn, from 

 the express mention and definite description of these circling 

 clouds of light by the Florentine, Andrea Corsali, in his trav- 

 els to Cochin, and by the Secretary of Ferdinand the Catho- 

 lic, Petrus Martyr de Anghiera, in his work De rebus Ocean- 

 ids et Orbe Novo (dec. i., lib. ix., p. 96), that the designa- 

 tion which refers to Magellan's circumnavigation is not the 

 older name ;t for the notices here indicated are both of the 

 year 15] 5, while Pigafetta, the companion of Magellan, does 

 not mention the nebbiette in his journal earlier than January, 

 1521, when the ship " Victoria" passed through the Patago- 

 nian Straits into the South Sea. The very old designation of 

 " Cape Clouds" did not, moreover, arise from the vicinity of 

 the more southern constellation of " Table Mount," since the 

 latter was first introduced by Lacaille. The name would 

 more probably seem to refer to the actual Table Mountain, 

 and to the appearance of a small cloud on its summit, which 

 was dreaded by mariners as portending the coming of a storm. 

 We shall presently see that both the nubeculce, which had 

 been long observed in the southern hemisphere, although not 

 definitely named, acquired with the spread of navigation, and 

 the increasing animation of certain commercial routes, desig- 

 nations which were derived from these very routes themselves. 



* Cosmos, vol. i., p. 85, and note. 



t Lacaille, in the M6m. de VAcad., annee 1755, p. 195. This is an 

 unfortunate confusion of terminology, in the same manner as Horner 

 and Littrow call the Coal-bags Magellanic Spots, or Cape Clouds. 



t Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 287, and note. 



