PROGEESS OF ASTKONOMY. 151 



plication of the telescope. Both were the means of revealing 

 new and unknown regions of space. I have already in other 

 works considered 16 the reports circulated first by Americus 

 Vespucius, then by Magellan, and Pigafetta (the companion of 

 Magellan and Elcano), concerning the splendour of the southern 

 sky; and the descriptions given by Vicente Yanez, Pinzon, 

 and Acosta, of the black patches (Coal Sacks), and by 

 Anghiera and Andrea Corsali of the Magellanic clouds. A 

 merely sensuous contemplation of the aspect of the heavens 

 here also preceded measuring astronomy. The richness of the 

 firmament near the southern pole, which, as is well known, is 

 on the contrary peculiarly deficient in stars, was so much 

 exaggerated that the intelligent Polyhistor Cardanus indi- 

 cated in this region 10000 bright stars which were said to 

 have been seen by Vespucius with the naked eye. 1 * 



Friedrich Houtman and Petrus Theodori of Embden (who, 

 according to Olbers, is the same person as Dircksz Keyser) 

 now first appeared as zealous observers. They measured dis- 

 tances of stars at Java and Sumatra; and at this period the 

 most southern stars were first marked upon the celestial maps 

 of Bartsch, Hondius, and Bayer, and by Kepler's industry 

 were inserted in Tycho Brahe's Rudolphine tables. 



Scarcely half a century had elapsed from the time of Ma- 

 gellan's circumnavigation of the globe before Tycho com- 

 menced his admirable observations on the positions of the 

 fixed stars, which far exceeded in exactness all that had hitherto 

 been done in practical astronomy, not excepting even the la- 

 borious observations of the Landgrave William IV. at Cassel. 

 Tycho Brahe's catalogue, as revised and published by Kepler, 

 contains no more than 1000 stars, of which one-fourth at 



l *. Cosmos, pp. 664-8 ; Humboldt, Examen crit. de VHis- 

 tolre de la Geogr.^t. iv. pp, 321-336; t. v. pp. 226-238. 



l * Cardani Paralipomenon, lib. viii. cap. 10. (Opp., t. ix, 

 ed. Lugd. 1663, p. 508.) 



