NOTES. 1XXXV 



chus" of Aulus Gellius (Noct. Atticse, xi. 16), but of the "quodam Cornelio 

 scribente," in tiie auswer of the king Theodoric to the prince of the JSstyans, 

 who was to be informed respecting the true origin of amber from the Germ, 

 cap. 45, of Tacitus. 



( m ) p. 202. Opus Epistol. No. ccccxxxvii. and dlxii. An extraordinary 

 person, Hieronymus Cardanus, a fantastic enthusiast and at the same time aa 

 acute mathematician, also calls attention in his " physical problems" to how 

 much of the knowledge of the earth consisted in facts to the observation of 

 which one man has led. Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun. 1663, T. ii. Probl. p, 

 630 and 659 ; " at nunc quibus te laudibus afferam Christophore Columb^ 

 non familise tantum, non Genuensis urbis, non Italise Provincise, non Europa 

 partis orbis solum, sed humani generis decus." In comparing the " pro- 

 blems" of Cardanus with those of the later Aristotelian school, amidst the 

 confusion and the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail 

 almost equally in both collections, I remark in Cardanus a circumstance 

 which appears to me characteristic of the sudden enlargement of geography 

 at that epoch ; namely, that the greater part of his problems relate to compa- 

 rative meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm insular cli- 

 mate of England in contrast with the winter at Milan ; on the dependence 

 of hail on electric explosions ; on the cause and direction of oceanic cur- 

 rents ; on the maxima of atmospheric heat and cold not arriving until after 

 the summer and winter solstices ; on the elevation of the region of snow 

 under the tropics; on the temperature dependent on the radiation of heat 

 from the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ; on the greater intensity of 

 light in the southern hemisphere, &c. " Cold is merely absence of heat. 

 Light and heat differ only in name, and are in themselves inseparable." Car- 

 dani Opp. T. i. de vita propria, p. 40; T. ii. Probl. 621, 630 632, 653 and 

 713 ; T. iii. de subtilitate, p. 417. 



( 41 ) p. 263. See my Examen crit. T. ii. p. 210249. According to 

 the manuscript, Historia general de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 12, "la carta de 

 marear que Maestro Paula Fisico (Toscanelli) envio a Colon" was in the 

 hands of Bartholome de las Casas when he wrote his work. Columbus's 

 ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, T. i. p. 13), does 

 not quite agree with the relation which I find in a manuscript written by Las 

 Casas, which was kindly communicated to me by M. Teruaux-Compans. 

 The ship's journal says, " Iba hablaudo el Alrnirante (martes 25 de Setiembre, 

 1492) con Martin Alonso Pinzon, capitan de la otra carabela Pinta, sobra 

 una carta que le habia enviado tres dias hacia a la carabela, donde segun 



