THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 265 



discoveries would have led to that of America south of 

 the equator ; and .Robertson was justified in describing it as 

 in the destiny of mankind, that before the end of the fifteenth 

 century the new continent should be known to European 

 navigators. 



Amongst the characteristic qualities possessed by Chris- 

 topher Columbus, we must especially distinguish the pene- 

 trating glance and keen sagacity with which, though without 

 learned or scientific culture, and without acquired knowledge 

 in physics or in natural history, he could seize and combine 

 the various phenomena of the external world. On arriving 

 " in a new world and under a new heaven/' ( 412 ) he noticed 

 carefully the form of the land, the physiognomy of the 

 vegetation, the habits of the animals, the distribution of 

 heat, and the variations of the earth's magnetism. The old 

 navigator, whilst endeavouring to find the spices of India, 

 and the rhubarb (ruibarba) which had already acquired so 

 much celebrity through Arabian and Jewish physicians, and 

 through the reports of Rubruquis and the Italian travellers, 

 examined very closely the roots, fruits, and form of the leaves 

 of the plants which fell under his observation. In this 

 portion of our work, where we desire to recal the influence 

 which the great epoch of nautical enterprizes and discoveries 

 exercised on the enlargement of men's views of nature, our 

 descriptions will become more animated by being attached 

 to the individuality of a great man. In the journal of his 

 voyage and in his accounts, which were published for the 

 first time between 1825 and 1829, we find allusions to 

 almost all the subjects to which scientific activity was after- 

 wards directed in the latter half of the fifteenth and the 

 whole of the sixteenth centuries. 



