THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 



both Columbus and Amerigo Yespucci died in the firm per- 

 suasion ( 375 ) that the lands which they had seen were 

 merely portions of Eastern Asia, yet his voyage has all the 

 character of the execution of a plan founded on scientific 

 combinations. The expedition steered confidently onward 

 to the west through the gate which the Tyrians and Colseus 

 of Samos had opened, through the " immeasurable sea of 

 darkness" (mare tenebrosura) of the Arabian geographers ; 

 they pressed forwards towards an object of which they 

 thought they knew the distance: the mariners were not 

 accidentally driven by tempests, as were Naddod and Gardar 

 to Iceland, and Gunnbiorn the son of Ulf Kraka to Green- 

 land, nor were the discoverers conducted onward by inter- 

 vening stations. The great Nuremberg cosmographer, 

 Martin Behaim, who accompanied the Portuguese Diego 

 Cam on his important expeditions to the west coast of 

 Africa, lived four years (1486-1490) at the Azores ; but it 

 was not from these islands, situated at -f-ths of the distance 

 of the Iberian coast from that of Pensylvania, that America 

 was discovered. The determined purpose of the act is 

 finely celebrated in the stanzas of Tasso. He sings of that 

 which Hercules dared not attempt : 



Non oso di tentar 1'alto Oceano 



Segno le mete, e'n troppo brevi chiostri 



L'ardir ristrinse dell' ingegno umano 



Tempo verra che fian d'Ercole i segni 



Favola vile ai naviganti industri 



Tin uom della Liguria avra ardimento 



All' incognito corso esporsi in prima 



TASSO, xv. st. 25, 30 and 31. 



And yet all that the great Portuguese historical writer 

 John Barros, ( 3 7 6 ) whose first decade appeared in 155 2, has 



