OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 285 



ghiera survived Columbus sufficiently long to become acquaint- 

 ed vi^ith the deflection of the waters of the Atlantic through- 

 out their whole course, and to recognize the existence of the 

 rotatory movement in the Mexican Gulf, and the propagation 

 of this movement to the Tierra de los Bacallaos (Newlbund- 

 land) and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. I have elsewhere 

 circumstantially considered how much the expedition of Ponce 

 de Leon, in the year 1512, contributed to the establishment 

 of more exact ideas, and have shown that in a treatise writ- 

 ten by Sir Humphrey Gilbert between the years 1567 and 

 1576, the movement of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean from 

 the Cape of Good Hope to the Banks of Newfoundland is 

 treated according to views which coincide almost entirely with 

 those of my excellent deceased friend, Major Rennell. 



At the same time that the knowledge of oceanic currents 

 was generally difiused, men also became acquainted with those 

 gr^t banks of sea weed {Fiicus natans) — the oceanic mead- 

 ows which presented the singular spectacle of the accumula- 

 tion of a social plant over an extent of space almost seven times 

 greater than the area of France. The great Fitcus Bank, the 

 March Sargasso, extends between 19° and 34° north latitude. 

 The major axis is situated about 7° west of the island of Cor- 

 vo. The lesser Fucus Bank lies in the space between the 

 Bermudas and the Bahamas. Winds and partial currents 

 variously affect, according to the character of the season, the 

 length and circumference of these Atlantic fucoid meadows, 

 for the first description of which we are indebted to Columbus. 

 No other sea in either hemisphere presents an accumulation 

 of social plants on so large a scale."* 



The important era of geographical discoveries and of the 

 sudden opening of an unknown hemisphere not only extended 

 our knowledge of the earth, but it also expanded our views of 

 the whole universe, or, in other words, of the visible vault of 

 heaven. Since man, to borrow a fine expression of Garcilaso 

 de la Vega, in his wanderings to distant regions sees " lands 

 and stars simultaneously change,"! the advance to the equa- 

 tor on both coasts of Africa, and even beyond the southern 

 extremity of the New Continent, must have presented to trav- 

 elers, by sea and land, the glorious aspect of the southern con- 

 stellations longer and more frequently than could have been 



* Examen Crit., t. iii., p. 26 and 66-99 ; and see, also, Cosmos, vol. 

 i., p. 308. 



t Alonso de Ercilla has imitated the passage of Garcilaso in the Aran 

 cana : " Climas passe, mude coustelaciones." — See Cosmos ante, j). 72. 



