274 COSMOS. 



means assume a similar development in the rough and war- 

 like body of the Conquistadores. Europe owes to another and 

 more peaceful class of travelers, and to a small number of dis- 

 tinguished men among municipal functionaries, ecclesiastics, 

 and physicians, that which it has unquestionably acquired by 

 the discovery of America, in the gradual enrichment of its 

 knowledge regarding the character and composition of the at- 

 mosphere, and its action on the human organization ; the dis- 

 tribution of climates on the declivities of the Cordilleras ; the 

 elevation of the line of perpetual snow in accordance with the 

 different degrees of latitude in both hemispheres; the succes- 

 sion of volcanoes ; the limitation of the circles of commotion 

 in earthquakes ; the laws of magnetism ; the direction of 

 oceanic currents ; and the gradations of new animal and veg- 

 etable forms. The class of travelers to whom we have allud- 

 ed, by residing in native Indian cities, some of which were 

 situated twelve or thirteen thousand feet above the level of 

 the sea, were enabled to observe with their own eyes, and, by 

 a continued residence in those regions, to test and to combine 

 the observations of others, to collect natural products, and to 

 describe and transmit them to their European friends. It 

 will suffice here to mention Gomara, Oviedo, Acosta, and 

 Hernandez. Columbus brought home from his first voyage 

 of discovery some natural products, as, for instance, fruits, and 

 the skins of animals. In a letter written from Segovia (Au- 

 gust, 1494), Queen Isabella enjoins on the admiral to perse- 

 vere in his collections ; and she especially requires of him that 

 he should bring with him specimens of " all the coast and 

 forest birds peculiar to countries which have a difierent cli- 

 mate and different seasons." Little attention has hitherto 

 been given to the fact that Martin Behaim's friend Cada- 

 mosto procured for the Infante Henry the Navigator black ele- 

 phants' hair a palm and a half in length, from the same west- 

 ern coast of Africa whence Hanno, almost two thousand years 

 earlier, had brought the " tanned skins of wild women " (of 

 the large Gorilla apes), in order to suspend them in a temple. 

 Hernandez, the private physician of Philip II., and sent by 

 that monarch to Mexico, in order to have all tjbe vegetable 

 and zoological curiosities of the country depicted" in accurate 

 and finished drawings, was able to enlarge his collection by 

 copies of many very carefully executed historical pictures, 

 which had been painted at the command of Nezahualcoyotl, 

 a king of Tezcuco,* half a century before the arrival of the 

 * This king died in the time of the Mexican king Axayacatl, who 



