OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 855 



of the cooler temperature." The solemn reception of the 

 Admiral in Barcelona took place in April, H93, and as early 

 as the 4th of May of the same year, the celebrated bull was 

 signed by Pope Alexander VI., which ** establishes to all 

 eternity," the line of demarcation* between the Spanish and 

 Portuguese possessions, at a distance of one hundred miles 

 to the west of the Azores. If we consider further, that 

 Columbus, immediately after his return from his first voyage 

 of discovery, proposed to go to Rome, in order, as he said, 

 to "give the Pope notice of all that he had discovered," 

 and if the importance attached by the cotemporaries of Co- 

 lumbus to the discovery of the line of no variation, be further 

 borne in mind, it will be admitted, that I was justified in 

 advancing the historical proposition, that the Admiral, at the 

 moment of his highest court favour, strove to have a "phy- 

 sical line of demarcation converted into a political one." 



The influence which the discovery of America, and the 



* On the singular differences of the " Bnla de concesion a los Reyea 

 Catolicos de las Indias descnbiertas y que se descubieren," of May 

 3, 1493, and the "Bula de Alexandro VI., sobre la partition del 

 oceano," of May 4, 1493, (elucidated in the Bula de estension of the 

 25th of September, 1493) see Examen crit., t. iii. pp. 52-54. Very 

 different from this line of demarcation is that settled in the " Capitula- 

 tion de la partition del Mar Oceano entre los Reyes Catolicos y Don 

 Juan, Rey de Portugal," of the 7th June, 1494, 370 leagues (174 t( > a n 

 equatorial degree) west of the Cape Verd Islands. (Compare Navar- 

 rete, Coleccion de log Viages y descub. de los Esp., t. ii. pp. 28-35, 

 116-143, and 404 ; t. iv. pp. 55 and 252.) Thia last-named line, which 

 led to the sale of the Moluccas (de el Moluca) to Portugal, 1529, for 

 the sum of 350,000 gold ducats, did not stand in any connection with 

 magnetical or meteorological fancies. The papal lines of demarcation 

 deserve, however, more careful consideration in the present work, be- 

 cause, as I have mentioned in the text, they exercised great influence 

 on the endeavours to improve nautical astronomy, and especially on the 

 methods attempted for the determination of the longitude. It is also 

 very deserving of notice, that the capitulation of June 7, 1494, affords 

 the first example of a proposal for the establishment of a meridian hi a 

 permanent manner by marks graven in rocks, or by the erection of towers. 

 It is commanded, " que se haga alguna sefial 6 torre," that some signal 

 or tower be erected wherever the dividing meridian, whether in the 

 eastern or the western hemisphere, intersects an is.' and or a continent 

 in its course from pole to pole. In the continents, the rayas were to 

 \& marked at proper intervals, by a series of such marka or towera, 

 which would indeed have ben no slight undertaking. 



