XCV1 NOTES. 



meritent pour celale nom de ' saintcs lumieres, luci sante,' Les trois ctoiles 

 . ' qui eclairent le pole' representent les vertus theologales, la foi, 1'esperauce 

 et la charite. Les premiers de ces etres nous revelent eux-memes leur double 

 nature ; ils chauteut : ' Ici nous somraes des nymphes, dans le ciel nous 

 fommes des etoiles; Noi sem qui Ninfe, e nel del semo stelle* Dans la 

 Terre de la verite, le Paradis terrestre, sept nymphes se trouvent reunies : Li 

 cerchio lefacevan di se claustro le sette Ninfe. C'est la reunion des vertus 

 cardinales et theologales. Sous ces formes mystiques, les objets reels du 

 firmament, eloignees les uns des autres, d'apres les lois eternelles de la 

 Mecaniqwe celeste, se reconnaissent a peine. Le monde ideal est une libre 

 creation de 1'ame, le produit de 1'iuspiration poetique." (Examen crit. T. iv. 

 p. 324332.) 



(**) p. 292. Acosta, lib. i. cap. 5. Compare my Relation historique, 

 T. i. p. 209. As the stars a and 7 of the Southern Cross have almost the 

 same right ascension, the Cross appears perpendicular when passing the meri- 

 dian ; but the natives too often forget that this celestial timepiece marks the 

 hour each day 3' 56" earlier. I am indebted for all the calculations respect- 

 ing the visibility of southern stars in the northern latitudes to the kind com- 

 munications of Dr. Galle, by whom the planet of Le Verrier was first disco- 

 vered in the heavens. "The uncertainty of the calculation according to 

 which the star a of the Southern Cross, taking refraction into account, would 

 have begun to be invisible in 52 25' N. lat. in the year 2900 before the 

 Christian era, may possibly amount to more than 100 years, and according to 

 the strictest formula of calculation could not altogether be removed, as the 

 proper motion of the fixed stars cannot well be assumed to be uniform for such 

 long intervals. The proper motion of a Crucis is about \ of a second annu- 

 ally, chiefly in right ascension. The uncertainty produced by neglecting this 

 *nay be presumed not to exceed the above-mentioned limit. 



() p. 294. Barros da Asia, Dec. I. liv. IV. cap. 2 (1778), p. 282. 

 C 462 ) p. 294. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos qua 

 hicieron por mar los Espafioles, T. iv. p. xxxii. (in the Noticia biografica de 

 Fernando de Magallanes). 



( 3 ) p. 295. Barros, Decad. III. Parte ii. p. 650 and 658662. 

 ( 454 ) p. 296. The queen writes to Columbus : " Nosotros mismos y no 

 otro alguno, habemos visto algo del libro que nos dejastes (a journal of his 

 voyage in which the distrustful navigator had omitted all numerical data of 

 degrees of latitude and of distances) : quanto mas en esto platicamos y vemos, 

 conocemos cuan gran cosa ha seido este negocio tro y que habeis s do 

 en ello mas que nunca se penso que pudiera saber ninguuo de los uacidot . 



