268 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF 



to the westward of that land, " which would conduct in less 

 than nine days' voyage to the Chersonesus aurea of Ptolemy, 

 and to the mouth of the Ganges.-" In the same Carta 

 rarissima which contains the beautiful and highly poetic 

 narration of a dream, the Admiral says that at the part near 

 the Bio del Belen " the two opposite coasts of Yeragua are 

 situated relatively to each other like Tortosa near the 

 Mediteranean and Fuenterrabia in Biscay, or like Yenice 

 and Pisa." This bouthern or western sea, the great Pacific 

 ocean, was at that time still regarded as only a continuation 

 of the Sinus Magnus (/ueyag KO\TTOG) of Ptolemy, beyond 

 which lay the golden Chersonesus, whilst Cattigara and the 

 land of the Sinse (Thinse) was supposed to form its eastern 

 shore. The fanciful hypothesis of Hipparchus, according 

 to which this eastern coast of the great Gulf, or Sinus 

 Magnus, joined itself on to a part of the continent of Africa 

 advancing far to the East, ( 419 ) (thus making the Indian ocean 

 a closed inland sea,) was happily little regarded in the middle 

 ages, notwithstanding their attachment to the opinions of 

 Ptolemy ; it would doubtless have exercised an unfavourable 

 influence on the direction of the great nautical enterprizes 

 of the age. 



The discovery and navigation of the Pacific, mark an epoch 

 so much the more important in reference to the recognition 

 of great cosmical relations, as it was by their means, and 

 scarcely therefore three centuries and a half ago, that not 

 only the western coast of America and the eastern coast of 

 Asia were first known, but also, what is of much greater 

 importance, on account of the meteorological results 

 which follow from it, that the prevailing highly erroneous 

 views respecting the relative areas of land and water upon 



