PflVSlCAL CONTEMl'LATION OF THE UNIVERSE. J 3;") 



purarisB. The strong oceanic current, which is directed be- 

 yond the Pillars of Hercules from northwest to southeast, might 

 long have prevented the coast navigators from discovering the 

 islands most remote from the continent, and of which only the 

 smaller, Porto Santo, was found to be inhabited in the fif- 

 teenth century ; and, owing to the curvature of the Earth, 

 the summit of the great volcano of Teneriffe could not be 

 seen, even with a strong refraction, by Phoenician mariners 

 sailing along the coast, although I found, from my own ob- 

 servations, that it was discernible from the slight elevations 

 that surround Cape Bojador,* especially in cases of eruption, 

 and by the reflection of a high cloud resting over the volcano. 

 It is even asserted that eruptions of Mount -^tna have been 

 seen, in recent times, from Mount Taygetos in Greece.! 



island of Pliny's Latin etymology!), see Credner's Bihlische Vorstellung 

 vom Paradiese, in IW^ew^ s Zeitschr. fiir die Historische Theologie, bd. vi., 

 1836, s. 166-186. Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, in a work en- 

 titled Memoria em que se pretende provar que os Arabes nao conhccerao 

 as Canarias antes dos Portuguezes, 1844, has recently collected all that 

 has been written from the most ancient times to the Middle Ages re- 

 specting the Canary Islands. Where history, so far as it is founded on 

 certain and distinctly-expressed evidence, is silent, there remain only 

 different degrees of probability ; but an absolute denial of all facts in 

 the world's history, of which the evidence is not distinct, appears to me 

 no happy application of philological and historical criticism. The many 

 indications which have come down to us from antiquity, and a careful 

 consideration of the relations of geographical proximity to ancient un- 

 doubted settlements on the African shore, lead me to believe that the 

 Canary Islands were known to the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, 

 and Romans, perhaps even to the Etruscans. 



* Compare the calculations in my Rel. Hist., t. i., p. 140 and 287. 

 The Peak of Teneriffe is distant 2° 49' of an arc from the nearest point 

 of the African coast. In assuming a mean refraction of 0'08, the sum- 

 mit of the Peak may be seen from a height of 1291 feet, and, therefore, 

 from the Montanas Negras, not far from Cape Bojador. In this calcu 

 lation, the elevation of the Peak above the level of the sea has been 

 taken at 12,175 feet; Captain Vidal has recently determined it trigo 

 nometrically at 12,405, and Messrs. Coupvent and Dumoulin, baromet- 

 rically, at 12,150. (D'Urville, Voyage au Pole Sud, Hist., t. i., 1842, p 

 31, 32.) But Lancerote, with a volcano, la Corona, 1918 feet in height 

 (Leop. V. Buch, Canarische Inseln, s. 104), and Fortaventura, lie much 

 nearer to the main land than Teneriffe ; the distance of the first-named 

 island being 1° 15', and that of the second 1° 2'. 



t Ross has only mentioned this assertion as a report {Hellenika, bd. 

 i., 8. xi.). May the observation not have rested on a mere deception? 

 If we take the elevation of ^Etna above the sea at 10,874 feet (lat. 37*^ 

 45', long, from Paris 12° 41'), and that of the place of observation, on 

 the Taygetos (Mount Elias), at 7904 feet (lat. 36° 57', long, from Paris 

 20° 1'), and the distance between the two at 352 geographical miles, 

 we have for the point from which light was emitted above iEtna, and 

 was visible on Taygetos, fully 48.675 feet, which is four and a half 



