284 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP 



and the lower limit of perpetual snow. That this limit is " a 

 function of the geographical latitude" was first recognised by 

 Petrus Martyr Anghiera in 1510. Alonso de Hojeda and 

 Amerigo Vespucci had seen the snowy mountains of Santa 

 Marta (tierras nevadas de Citanna) as early as 1500 ; Eodrigo 

 Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa examined them more closely 

 in 1501 ; but it was not until the accounts of the expedi- 

 tion of Colmenares, which the pilot Juan Vespucci, nephew 

 of Amerigo, communicated to his patron and friend 

 Anghiera, that the "tropical snow region" seen on the 

 mountainous shore of the Caribbean sea acquired a great, 

 and it might be said a cosmical, signification. The lower 

 limit of perpetual snow was now brought into connection 

 with the general relations of the decrease of temperature 

 and the diversity of climates. Herodotus, in discussing the 

 causes of the rising of the Nile (ii. 22), had positively de- 

 nied the existence of snowy mountains south of the tropic 

 of Cancer. Alexander's expeditions, indeed, conducted the 

 Greeks to the Nevados of the Hindoo Coosh (opr/ ayawitya) ; 

 but these are situated between 34 and 36 of north latitude. 

 The only notice with which I am acquainted of " snow in 

 the equatorial zone," prior to the discovery of America and 

 the year 1500, is one which has been very little attended to 

 by men of science, and which is contained in the celebrated 

 inscription of Adulis, which Niebuhr considers to be later 

 than Juba and than Augustus. The recognition of the 

 dependence of the lower limit of perpetual snow on the 

 latitude of the place, ( 439 ) and the first insight into the law of 

 the decrease of temperature in an ascending vertical line, 

 #nd the consequent gradual lowering, from the equator 



