601 



PERIOD OF OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. OPENING OP THE 



WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EXTENSION OF SCIENTIFIC 



KNOWLEDGE, AND THOSE EVENTS WHICH LED TO 

 OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. COLUMBUS, SEBASTIAN CABOT 



AND GAMA. AMERICA AND THE PACIFIC. CABRILLO, 



SEBASTIAN VIZCAINO, MENDANA AND QUIROS. THE 



RICHEST ABUNDANCE OF MATERIALS FOR THE FOUN- 

 DATION OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IS PRESENTED TO 

 THE NATIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE. 



THE fifteenth century belongs to those remarkable epochs in 

 which all the efforts of the mind indicate one determined and 

 general character, and one unchanging striving towards the 

 same goal. The unity of this tendency, and the results by 

 which it was crowned, combined with the activity of whole 

 races, give to the age of Columbus, Sebastian Cabot and Gama 

 a character both of grandeur and enduring splendour. In the 

 midst of two different stages of human culture, the fifteenth 

 century may be regarded as a period of transition, which 

 belongs both to the middle ages and to the beginning of more 

 recent times. It is the age of the greatest discoveries in 

 space, embracing almost all degrees of latitude and all 

 elevations of the earth's surface. While this period doubled 

 the number of the works of creation known, to the inhabitants 

 of Europe, it likewise offered to the intellect new and 

 powerful incitements towards the improvement of natural 

 sciences, in the departments of physics and mathematics.* 



The world of objects now, as in Alexander's campaigns, 

 although with still more overwhelming power, manifested itself 

 to the combining mind in individual forms of nature, and in 

 the concurrent action of vital forces. The scattered images 

 of sensuous perception were gradually fused together into one 

 concrete whole, notwithstanding their abundance and diver- 

 sity, and terrestrial nature was conceived in its general 

 character, and made an object of direct observation, and not 

 of vague presentiments, floating in varying forms before the 

 imagination. The vault of heaven revealed to the eye, which 



* Compare Humboldt, Examen crit. de I' Hist, de la Geographic, t. i. 

 pp. viii. and xix. 



