VI CONTENTS. 



The conjectured Discovery of America by the Irish 234 



The Efforts of Missionaries 235 



The Traces of Gaelic supposed to be met with in American Dia- 

 lects 236 



The Rediscovery of America by Columbus 238 



The Discovery of Tropical America 240 



Albertus Magnus, Bacon, and Vincenzius of Beauvais 241 



Realists and Nominalists 243 



The Encyclopedic Works of the fifteenth Century 246 



The Revival of Greek Literature 248 



Important Events in Asia 249 



Early Travelers 249, 250 



Marco Polo's Narratives 251 



Use of the Magnetic Needle 253 



The supposed Inventor of the Mariner's Compass 254 



Application of Astronomy to Navigation 255 



Martyr de Anghiera 260 



The Charts consulted by Columbus 261 



The Characteristics of Columbus 263 



The Discovery and Navigation of the Pacific 267 



The first Circumnavigation of the Earth 270 



The Conquistadores 271 



The Discovery of the Sandwich Islands, &c 272 



Spanish Travelers in the new Continent 274 



Papal Line of Demarkation 277 



Line without Magnetic Variation 278 



The Magnetic Pole 281 



The Line of Perpetual Snow 282 



The Equatorial Current 283 



The first Descriptions of the Southern Constellations 286 



The Coal-bags and the Magellanic Clouds 286 



The Southern Cross 288 



The Determination of the Ship's Place 291 



The Age of the Conquista 296 



VII. Great Discoveries in the Heavens 301—351 



The Telescope 302 



The seventeenth Century 302 



Nicolaus Copernicus 303 



The different Stages of the Development of Cosmical Contempla- 

 tion 309 



The Theory of Eccentric Intercalated Spheres 316 



The great Men of the seventeenth Century 316 



The accidental Discovery of the Telescope 317 



Telescopic Discoveries 319 



The Discovery of Jupiter's Satellites 320 



The Spots upon the Sun 324 



Galileo 324 



Kepler 325 



