294 COSMOS. 



have lost sight of land for several days, know not where they 

 are. They would not be able to find the countries again 

 which I have discovered. To navigate a ship requires the 

 compass [compas y arte), arid the knowledge or art of the as- 

 tronomer." 



I have given these characteristic details in order more 

 clearly to show the manner in which nautical astronomy — the 

 powerful instrument for rendering navigation more secure, and 

 thereby of facilitating access to all portions of the earth — was 

 first developed in the period of time under consideration, and 

 how, in the general intellectual activity of the age, men per- 

 ceived the possibility of establishing methods which could not 

 be made practically applicable until improvements were ef- 

 fected in solar and lunar tables, and in the construction of 

 time-pieces and instruments for measuring angles. If the 

 character of an age be " the manifestation of the human mind 

 in any definite epoch," the age of Columbus and of the great 

 nautical discoveries must be regarded as having given a new 

 and higher impetus to the acquirements of succeeding centu- 

 ries, while it increased in an unexpected manner the objects of 

 science and contemplation. It is the peculiar attribute of 

 important discoveries at once to extend the domain of our pos- 

 sessions, and the prospect into the new territories which yet 

 remain open to conquest. Weak minds complacently believe 

 that in their own age humanity has reached the culminating 

 point of intellectual progress, forgetting that by the internal 

 connection existing among all natural phenomena, in propor- 

 tion as we advance, the field to be traversed acquires addition- 

 al extension, and that it is bounded by a horizon which inces- 

 santly recedes before the eyes of the inquirer. 



Where, in the history of nations, can we find an epoch sim- 

 ilar to that in which events so fraught with important results 

 as the discovery and first colonization of America, the passage 

 to the East Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, and Magel- 

 lan's first circumnavigation, occurred simultaneously with the 

 highest perfection of art, with the attainment of intellectual 



posals for accomplishing the same object by the conveyance of time; 

 but his chronometers were sand-and-water clocks, wheel-works moved 

 by weights, and even by wicks " dipped in oil," which were consum- 

 ed in very equal intervals of time ! Pigafetta ( Transunto del Trattato 

 di Navigazione, p. 219) recommends altitudes of the moon at the me- 

 ridian. Amerigo Vespucci, speaking of the method of determining lon- 

 gitude by lunar distances, says, with great naivete and truth, that its 

 advantages arise from the " corso piii leggier de la luna.^' (Canovai, 

 Viaggi, p. 57.) 



