NOTES. XCV11 



Nos parece que seria bien que llevasedes con vos un buen Estrologo, y nos 

 parescia que seria bueno para esto Fray Antonio de Marchena porque es buen 

 Estrologo y siempre nos parecio que se conforraaba con vuestro parecer." 

 Respecting this Marchena, who is identical with Fray Juan Perez, the Guar- 

 dian of the Convent de la Rabida where Columbus in his poverty in 1484 

 " asked the monks for bread and water for his child," see Navarrete, T. ii. 

 .p. 110; T. iii. p, 597 and 603 (Munoz, Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, lib. iv. 

 f 24). Columbus, in a letter to the Christianissimos Monarcas from Jamaica, 

 July 7, 1503, calls the astronomical Ephemerides " una vision profetica" 

 (Navarrete, T. i. p. 306). The Portuguese astronomer Buy Falero, a native 

 of Cubilla, named by Charles V. 1519, Caballero de la Orden de Santiago, 

 at the same time as Magellan, performed an important part in the prepara- 

 tions for Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation. He had prepared expressly 

 for him a treatise on determinations of longitude, of which the great historian 

 Barros possessed some chapters in manuscript (Examen crit. T. i. p. 276 and 

 302; T. iv. p. 315): probably the same which in 1535 were printed at 

 Seville by John Exomberger. Navarrete (Obra postuma sobre la Hist, de la 

 Nautica y de las ciencias matematicas, 1846, p. 147) could not find the book 

 even in Spain. Respecting the four methods of finding the longitude which 

 Falero had received from the suggestions of his "Demonio familiar," see 

 Herrera, Dec. II. lib. ii. cap. 19 ; and Navarrete, T. v. p. Ixxvii. Subse- 

 quently the cosrnographer Alonso de Santa Cruz, the same who (like the 

 apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen, 1525) attempted to determine the longi- 

 tude by means of the variation of the compass-needle, made impracticable 

 proposals for accomplishing the same object by the conveyance of time ; but 

 his chronometers were sand-and-water timepieces, wheelworks moved by 

 weights, and even " wicks saturated with oil," which burnt out in very equal 

 intervals of time! Pigafetta (Transunto del Trattato di Navigazione, p. 219) 

 recommends altitudes of the moon on the meridian. Amerigo Vespucci 

 speaking of the method of determining longitude by lunars, says with great 

 naivete and truth, that its advantages arise from the " corso piu leggier de la 

 lima" (Canovai, Viaggi, p. 57). 



C 455 ) p. 298. The American race, which is the same from 65 N. lat. to 

 55 S. lit., did not pass from the life of hunters to that of cultivators of the 

 soil through the intermediate gradation of a pastoral life. This circumstance 

 is the more remarkable, because the bison, enormous herds of which roam 

 over the country, is susceptible of domestication, and yields much milk. Little 

 attention has been paid to an account given in Gomara (Hist. gen. de las 

 VOL. II. 2 H 



