NOTES. 



historico sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar en Espafta, 1802, p. 28, 

 recals a remarkable passage in the Spanish Leyes de las Partidas (II. tit. ix. 

 ley 18) of the middle of the 13th century: "The needle which guides* the 

 mariner in the dark night, and shows him how to direct his course both in 

 good and in bad weather, is the intermediary (medianera) between the load- 

 stone (la piedra) and the North star" See the passage in Las siete 



Partidas del sabio Key Don Alonso el IX. (according to the usual manner of 

 counting the Xth.) Madrid, 1829, T. i. p. 473. 



( 40 ) p. 258. Jordano Bruno, par Christian Bartholmess, 1847, T. ii. 

 p. 181187. 



C 101 ) p. 258. Tenian los mareantes instrumento, carta, compas y aguja." 

 Salazar, Discurso sobre los progresos de la Hydrografia en Espafia, 1809, 

 p. 7. 



( m ) p. 258. Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 203 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 169.) 



( 403 ) p. 258. Respecting Cusa (Nicolaus of Cuss, properly of Cues on the 

 Moselle), see above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 140 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 106) ; and 

 Clemens' treatise, iiber Giordano Bruno and Nicolaus de Cusa, S. 97, where 

 there is given an important fragment, written by Cusa's own hand, and dis- 

 covered only three years ago, respecting a threefold movement of the earth. 

 (Compare also Chasles, Apercus aur 1'origine des methodes en Geometric, 

 1807, p. 529.) 



O 04 ) p. 259. Navarrete, Dissertation historica sobre la parte que tuvieron 

 los Espanoles en las guerras de Ultramar 6 de las Cruzadas, 1816, p. 100 ; 

 and Examen crit. T. i. p. 574 277. An important improvement in obser- 

 vation by means of the plumb-line has been attributed to Georg von Peuer- 

 bach, the teacher of Regiomontanus. But the use of the plumb-line had 

 long been known to the Arabs, as we learn by Abul- Hassan- Ali's compendious 

 description of astronomical instruments, written in the 13th century: Sedil- 

 lot, Traite des instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, 1835, p. 379 ; 1841, 

 p. 205. 



C 105 ) p. 259. In all the writings on the art of navigation which I have 

 examined, I find the erroneous opinion that the Log, for the measurement of 

 the distance passed over, has only been in use since the end of the 16th or 

 the beginning of the 17th century. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica (7th. 

 edition, 1842), Vol. xiii. p. 416, it is still said: "The author of the device 

 for measuring the ship's way is not known, and no mention of it occurs till 

 the year 1607, in an East India voyage, published by Purchas." This year 

 is also named as the extreme limit in all earlier and later dictionaries. 



VOL. II. 2 G 



