254 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



Sir John Herschel has determined the positions of 105 

 stars from the 14th to the 16th magnitude, which are pro- 

 jected against or detach themselves from the altogether un- 

 resolved, uniformly shining, and unchequered nebulous 

 ground ( 448 ). 



Opposite to the Magellanic luminous clouds, and at a 

 greater distance from the Southern Celestial Pole, there 

 revolve around it the black spots or patches which at an early 

 period, at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the six- 

 teenth centuries, attracted the attention of Portuguese and 

 Spanish Navigators. They probably constitute, as already 

 noticed, the " Canopo fosco" spoken of by Amerigo Yes- 

 pucci, in his third voyage, among the "three Canopuses" 

 of which he makes mention. I find the first certain nidi- 

 cation of these spots in the first Decade of Anghiera's work, 

 " De rebus Oceanicis." (Dec. 1, lib. ix., ed. 1533, p. 

 20, b.) "Interrogati a ine nautse qui Yicentium Agnem 

 Pinzonum fueraut comitati (1499), an antarcticum viderint 

 polum : stellam se nullam huic arcticse similem, quse dis- 

 cerni circa punctual (polum ?) possit cognovisse inquiunt. 

 Stellarum tamen aliam, ajunt, se prospexisse faciem den- 

 samque quandam ab liorizonte vaporosam caliginem, quse 

 oculos fere obtenebraret." The word " stella" is here taken 

 to mean generally a celestial form or object, and the nar- 

 rators may have expressed themselves rather indistinctly 

 respecting a "caligo" which "darkens the eyes" Pater 

 Joseph Acosta of Medina del Campo speaks in a more satis- 

 factory manner respecting the black patches and the cause 

 of their appearance. In his Historia Natural de las Indias 

 (lib. i. cap. 2,) he compares them, in respect to colour and 

 form, to the dark part of the moon's disk. "As," said he, 



