NOTES. 



already in very general use, lie did not think it necessary to name it ? in the 

 same way that Marco Polo does not mention tea, or the great wall of Chin*. 

 Such an assumption appears to me very improbable, even if there were no 

 other reason, because I find in the proposals made by the pilot Don Jayme 

 Ferrer, 1495, for the exact examination of the position of the Papal line of 

 demarcation, that, when it is question of the determination of the distance 

 sailed over, the appeal is made only to the accordant sentence (juicio) of 

 20 very experienced mariners (que apunten en su carta de 6 en 6 horas el 

 camino que la nao fara segun su juicio.) If the log had been in use, no doubt 

 Ferrer would have prescribed how often it should be hove. I find the first 

 application of the log in a passage of Pigafetta's Journal of Magellan's voyage 

 of circumnavigation, which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the 

 Ambrosian Libraiy at Milan. It is said in it, that, in the month of January 

 1521, when Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, " Secondo la misura 

 che facevamo del viaggio colla catena a poppa, noi percorrevamo da 60 in 70 

 leghe al giorno." (Amoretti, Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo, 

 ossia Navigazione fatta dal Cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta sulla squadra del Cap. 

 Magaglianes, 1800, p. 46.) What can this arrangement of a chain at the 

 hinder part of the ship (catena a poppa), " which we used throughout the 

 entire voyage to measure the way," have been other than an apparatus similar 

 to our log ? The "running out" log-line divided into knots, the log-ship, and the 

 half-minute or log-glasses are not mentioned ; but this silence need not sur- 

 prise us in speaking of a long-known matter. In the part of the Trattato di 

 Navigazione of the Cavaliere Pigafetta given by Amoretti in extracts, amount- 

 ing indeed only to 10 pages, the " catena della poppa" is not again mentioned. 



(**) p. 259. Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. p. 320. 



C 407 ) p. 261. Examen crit. T. i. p. 36 and 290. 



( 40S ) p. 262. Compare Opus Epistolarum Petri Martyris Anglerii Medio- 

 lanensis, 1670, ep. cxxx. and clii. "Prse Isetitia prosilisse te, vixque a 

 lachrymis prae gaudio temperasse quando literas adspexisti meas, quibus de 

 antipodium orbe, latenti hactenus, te certiorem feci, mi suavissime Pomponi, 

 insinuasti. Ex tuis ipse literis colligo, quid senseris. Sensisti autem, tan- 

 tique rem fecisti, quanti virum summa doctrina insignitum decuit. Quis nam- 

 que cibus sublimibns pra?stari potest ingeniis isto suavior ? quod condimen- 

 tum gratius ? a me facio conjecturam. Bcari sentio spiritus meos, quando 

 accitos alloquor prudentes aliquos ex his qui ab ea redeunt proviucia (Hispa- 

 niola insula.") The expression, " Christophorus quidam Colonus," reminds 

 ue, I will not say of the too often and unjustly quoted "nescio quis Plutar- 



