296 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP 



were all tried with more or less success. We have observa- 

 tions of conjunction by Columbus, in the night of the 13th 

 of January, 1493, from Haiti. The necessity of giving to 

 each great expedition a well-instructed astronomer, in addi- 

 tion to the naval officers, was so generally felt, that Queen 

 Isabella wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493, 

 that " although he had shewn in his enterprises that he 

 knew more than any other mortal man (que ninguno de los 

 nacidos), yet she advised him to take with him Pray Antonio 

 de Marchena, as a learned and skilful man in the know- 

 ledge of the stars/' Columbus says, in the description of 

 his fourth voyage, " there is but one infallible method of 

 keeping a ship's reckoning, namely, the astronomical one. 

 Those who understand it may be content. What it yields 

 is like a ' vision profetica/ ( 454 ) Our ignorant pilots, when 

 they have lost sight of the coast for many days, know not 

 where they are ; they would not be able to find again the 

 lands which I have discovered. To navigate requires ' com- 

 pas y arte/ the compass, and the knowledge or art of the 

 astronomer/' 



I have given these characteristic details, because they 

 0ring more sensibly before us the manner in which nautical 

 astronomy, the powerful instrument of rendering navigation 

 secure and certain and thereby facilitating access to all 

 regions of the globe, received its first development in the 

 epoch of which we are treating ; and how, in the general 

 movement of men's minds, there was an early recognition 

 of the possibility of methods, which had to await for their 

 extensive practical application the improvement of time- 

 keepers and of instruments for measuring angles, as well as 

 correct solar and lunar tables. If the character of an age 



