OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 261 



glory of events which will survive in the memory of the latest 

 ages. 



Columbus, in sailing westward from the meridian of the 

 Azores, through a wholly unexplored ocean, and applying the 

 newly-improved astrolabe for the determination of the ship's 

 place, sought Eastern Asia by a western course, not as a mere 

 adventurer, but under the guidance of a systematic plan. He 

 certainly had with him the sea chart which the Florentine 

 physician and astronomer, Paolo Toscanelli, had sent him in 

 1477, aud which, fifty-three years after his death, was still in 

 the possession of Bartholomew de las Casas.* It would ap- 



derived from facts, to the observation. of which one man has led. 

 Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun., 1663, t. ii., probl. p. 630 and 659, at nunc 

 quibus te laudibus afferam Christophore Columbi, non familise tantum, 

 non Geimensis urbis, nou Italia? Provincial, non Europe, partis orbis 

 solum, sed humani generis decus. I have been led to compare the 

 " problems" of Cardauus with those of the latter Aristotelian school, 

 because it appears to me remarkable, and characteristic of the sudden 

 enlargement of geography at that epoch, that, amid the confusion and 

 the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail almost equal- 

 ly in both collections, the greater part of these problems relate to com 

 parative meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm in- 

 sular climate of England contrasted with the winter at Milan ; on the 

 dependence of hail on electric explosions ; on the cause and direction 

 of oceanic currents ; on the maxima of atmospheric heat and cold oc- 

 curring after the summer and winter solstices ; on the elevation of the 

 region of snow under the tropics ; on the temperature dependent on 

 the radiation of heat from the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ; 

 on the greater intensity of light in the southern hemisphere, &c. " Cold 

 is merely absence of heat. Light aud heat are only different in name, 

 and are in themselves inseparable." Cardani Opp., t. i., De Vita Pro- 

 pria, p. 40; t. ii., Probl. 621, 630-632, 653, and 713; t. iii.,Z>e Subtili- 

 tate, p. 417. 



* See my Examen Crit., t. ii., p. 210-249. According to the manu- 

 script, Historia General de las Indias, lib. i., cap. 12, " la carta de ma- 

 rear que Maestro Paulo Fisico (Toscanelli) envio i. Colon" was iii the 

 hands of Bartholome de las Casas when he wrote his work. Colum- 

 bus's ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, t. i., p. 

 13), doL-s not entirely agree with the relation which I find in a manu- 

 script of Las Casas, for a communication of which I am indebted to M. 

 Ternaux Compans. The ship's journal says, " Iba hablando el Almi- 

 raute (martes 25 de Setiembre, 1492), con Martin Alouso Pinzon, capi- 

 tau de la otra carabela Piuta, sobra una carta que le habia enviado tres 

 dias hacia a la carabela, donde s^gun parece tenia pintt:das el Almirante 



ciertas islas por aquella mar " In the manuscript of Las Casas 



(lib. i., cap. 12), we find, on the other hand, as follows: " La carta de 

 marear que embi6 (Toscanelli al Almiranle), yo que esta historia es- 

 crivo la tengo en mi poder. Creo que todo su viage sobre esta carta 

 fundo" (lib. l., cap. 38) ; " asi fue que el martes 25 de Setiembre, Uegase 

 Martin Alonso Pinzon con su caravela Piuta a hablar con Christobal Co- 

 lon, sobre una carta de marear que Christobal Colon le via enibiado .... 



