NOTES. XC1T 



ingenious apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen. So earnest were the en- 

 deavours to learn more exactly the direction of the curves of magnetic decli- 

 nation, that in 1585 Juan Jayme sailed with Francisco Gali from Manila to 

 Acapulco for the sole purpose of trying in the Pacific a declination instrument 

 which he had invented. See my Essai polftique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T. 

 ir. p. 110. 



t 484 ) p. 282. Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 17. These 

 four magnetic lines of no variation led Halley, by the contests between Henry 

 Bond and Beckborrow, to the theory of four magnetic poles. 



( 435 ) p. 282. Gilbert de Magnete Physiologia nova, lib. v. cap. 8, p. 200. 



t 436 ) p. 283. In the temperate and cold zones, the inflexion of the iso- 

 thermal lines is general between the west coast of Europe and the east coast 

 of America, but within the tropics the isothermal lines run almost parallel to 

 the equator ; and in the hasty conclusions into which Columbus suffered him- 

 self to be led, no account was taken of the difference between sea and land 

 climates, or between east and west coasts, or of the influence of winds, as 

 in the case of winds blowing over Africa. Compare the remarkable conside- 

 rations on climates which are brought together in the Vida del Almiraute 

 (cap. 66). The early conjecture of Columbus respecting the curvature of the 

 isothermal lines in the Atlantic Ocean was well founded, if we limit it to the 

 extra-tropical (temperate and frigid) zones. 



(**) p. 283. An observation of Columbus (Vida del Almirante, cap. 55 ; 

 Examen crit. T. iv. p. 253 ; Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. note 

 388). 



( 438 ) p. 283. The admiral, says Fernando Colon (Vida del Aim. cap. 58) 

 ascribed the many refreshing falls of rain, which cooled the air whilst he was 

 sailing along the coast of Jamaica, to the extent and denseness of the forests 

 which clothe the mountains. He takes this opportunity of remarking, in his 

 ship's journal, that " formerly there was as much rain in Madeira, the Cana- 

 ries, and the Azores ; but since the trees which shaded the ground have been 

 cut down, rain has become much more rare." This warning has remained 

 almost unheeded for three centuries and a half. 



(*) p. 284. Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 355 and 482 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 327, 

 and note 400) ; Examen crit. T. iv. p. 294 ; Asie centrale, T. iii. p. 235. The 

 inscription of Adulis, which is almost fifteen hundred years older than 

 Anghiera, speaks of " AbyssLaiao, gaow in which a man may sink up to the 

 knees." 



