i 



602 COSMOS. 



was as yet unaided by telescopic powers, new regions, un- 

 known constellations, and separate revolving nebulous masses. 

 At no other period, as we have already remarked, were a 

 greater abundance of facts, and a richer mass of materials 

 for the establishment of comparative physical geography, 

 presented to any one portion of the human race. At no 

 other period have discoveries in the material world of space 

 called forth more extraordinary changes in the manners and 

 well-being of men, and in the long-enduring condition of 

 slavery of a portion of the human race, and their late 

 awakening to political freedom; nor has any other age 

 afforded so large an extension to the field of view by the 

 multiplication of products and objects of barter, and by the 

 establishment of colonies, of a magnitude hitherto unknown. 



On investigating the course of the history of the universe, 

 we shall discover that the germ of those events which have 

 imparted any strongly marked progressive movement to the 

 human mind, may be traced deeply rooted in the track of 

 preceding ages. It does not lie in the destinies of mankind, 

 that all should equally experience mental obscuration. A 

 principle of preservation fosters the eternal vital process of 

 advancing reason. The age of Columbus attained the object of 

 its destination so rapidly because a track of fruitful germs had 

 already been cast abroad by a number of highly, gifted men, who 

 formed, as it were, a lengthened beam of light amid the dark- 

 ness of the middle ages. One single century the thirteenth 

 shows us Roger Bacon, Nicolaus Scotus, Albertus Magnus, 

 and Vincentius of Beauvais. The mental activity once 

 awakened, was soon followed by an extension of geographical 

 knowledge. When Diego Bibero returned, in the year 1525, 

 from the geographical and astronomical congress which had 

 been held at the Puente de Caya, near Yelves, for the purpose 

 of settling the contentions that had arisen regarding the 

 boundaries of the two empires of the Portuguese and the 

 Spaniards, the outlines of the new continent had been already 

 laid down from Terra del Fuego to the coasts of Labrador. 

 On the western side of America opposite to Asia, the advance 

 was, of course, less rapid; although Rodriguez Cabrillo had 

 penetrated further northward than Monterey as early as 1543; 

 and notwithstanding that this great and daring mariner met 

 his death in the canal of Santa Barbara, in New California, 





