THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 269 



the surface of the globe, were first dispelled. The relative 

 magnitude and distribution of these areas are most in- 

 fluential conditions in determining the quantity of moisture 

 contained in the air, the variations of atmospheric pressure, 

 the degree of vigour and luxuriance of vegetation, the more 

 or less extensive distribution of particular kinds of animals, 

 and many other great and general physical phenomena. The 

 larger extent of fluid surface (in the proportion of 2-f- to 1), 

 does indeed restrict the habitable range for the settlements of 

 man, and for the nourishment of the greater number of 

 mammalia, birds, and reptiles ; but it is nevertheless, under 

 the present laws which govern organised beings, a beneficent 

 arrangement and necessary condition for the preservation 

 and well being of all the living inhabitants of continents. 



When at the end of the fifteenth century there arose an 

 earnest and pressing desire to find the shortest way to the 

 Asiatic spice lands, and when the idea of reaching the East, 

 by sailing to the West, germinated almost simultaneously in 

 the minds of two men of Italy, the navigator Columbus, 

 and the physician and astronomer Paul Toscanelli, ( 42 ) it 

 was generally believed, in conformity with the opinion put 

 forward by Ptolemy in the Almagest, that the old continent, 

 from the western coast of the Iberian peninsula to the 

 meridian of the easternmost Sinse, occupied a space of 180; 

 or in other words, that it extended from East to West, 

 over an entire half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a 

 long series of erroneous inferences, extended this space to 

 240, making the desired eastern coast of Asia advance as far 

 as the meridian of San Diego in New California. Columbus 

 hoped therefore that he would only have to sail over 120, 

 instead of the 231 which the rich trading city of Quinsay, 

 for example, is actually situated to the westward of the 



