OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 64o 



and Fuenterrabia in Biscay, or as Venice and Pisa." The 

 great ocean, the South Pacific, was even at that time regarded 

 as merely a continuation of the Sinus magnus (fieyas KoXnos] 

 of Ptolemy, situated before the golden Chersonesus, whilst 

 Cattigara and the land of the Sines (Thinoj) were supposed to 

 constitute its eastern boundary. The fanciful hypothesis of 

 Ilipparchus, according to which this eastern shore of the 

 great gulf was connected with the portion of the African 

 continent which extended far towards the east,* and thus 

 supposed to make a closed inland sea of the Indian Ocean, 

 was but little regarded in the middle ages, notwithstanding 

 the partiality to the views of Ptolemy; a fortunate circum- 

 stance, when AVC consider the unfavourable influence which it 

 would doubtlessly have exercised on the direction of great 

 maritime enterprises. 



The discovery and navigation of the Pacific indicate an 

 epoch which was so much the more important with respect 

 to the recognition of great cosmical relations, since it was 

 owing to these events, and therefore scarcely three centuries 

 and a half ago, that not only the configuration of the western 

 coast of the new, and the eastern coast of the old continent 

 were determined ; but also, what is far more important to 

 meteorology, that the numerical relations of the area of land 

 and water upon the surface of our planet, first began to be 

 freed from the highly erroneous views with which they had 

 hitherto been regarded. The magnitude of these areas, and 

 their relative distribution, exercise a powerful influence on 

 the quantity of humidity contained in the atmosphere, the 

 alternations in the pressure of the air, the force and vigor of 

 vegetation, the gi eater or lesser distribution of certain species 

 of animals, and on the action of many other general pheno- 

 mena and physical processes. The larger area apportioned to 

 the fluid over the solid parts of the earth's crust (in the 

 ratio of 2 to 1 ), does certain y diminish the habitable 

 surface for the settlements of the human race, and for the 



* Whether the isthmus hypothesis, according to which Cape Prasum, 

 on the eastern shore of Africa, was connected with the eastern Asiatic 

 isthmus of Thinae, is to be traced to Marinus of Tyre, or to Hipparchus, 

 or to the Babylonian Seleucus, or rather to Aristotle, de Ccelo (ii. 14), 

 is a question treated in detail in another work, Examen crit., t. i. p;?, 

 144, 161, and 329; t ii. pp. 370-372. 

 2 T 2 



