PORTION OF THE COSMOS. NEBULA. 249 



round the Cape, forming the general object of all voyages 

 along the western coast of Africa, led to the two clouds or 

 nubeculse being called by navigators the " Cape Clouds," 

 as being remarkable celestial phenomena seen in Cape 

 voyages. 



On the east coast of America, the continued attempts to 

 advance southward beyond the equator, and even to the 

 southern extremity of the continent, from the expedition of 

 Alonso de Hojeda, which Amerigo Yespucci accompanied in 

 1499, to the expedition of Magellan with Sebastian, del Cano 

 in 1521, and that of Garcia de Loyasa ( 441 ) with Francisco 

 de Hoces in 1525, had the effect of continually directing 

 the attention of navigators to the southern constellations. 

 According to the journals which we possess, and to the his- 

 torical testimonies of Anghiera, this was especially the case 

 in the voyage of Amerigo Yespucci and Yicente Yanez 

 Pinzon, in which Cape St. Augustin, in 8 20' S. Lat. was 

 discovered. Yespucci boasts of having seen three Cano- 

 puses (one dark, " Canopo fosco," and two " Canopi ris- 

 plendenti"). According to the attempt made by Ideler, the 

 ingenious author of works on Sidereal Nomenclature and on 

 Chronology, to elucidate Yespucci's very confused descrip- 

 tion of the southern heavens in his letter to Lorenzo Pier- 

 francesco de Medici, Amerigo must have used the word 

 "Canopus" in a manner as vague as did Arabian astro- 

 nomers the word " Suhel." Ideler shows that the " Canopo 

 fosco nella via lattea/' was no other than the black spot, or 

 large "coal-bag," in the southern cross ; and that the position 

 of three stars supposed to be identified with a, /3, and y of 

 the constellation of Hydrus, renders it highly probable that 

 the " Canopo risplendente di notabile grandezza," was the 



