634 COSMOS. 



landed on the eastern coast of Africa he found that the 

 Indian pilots at Melinde were acquainted with the use of 

 astrolabes and ballestilles.*' Thus by the more general inter- 

 course consequent on increasing cosmical relations, by original 

 inventions, and by the mutual fructification afforded by the 

 mathematical and astronomical sciences, were all things gra- 

 dually prepared for the discovery of tropical America ; the 

 rapid determination of its configuration; the passage round 

 the southern point of Africa to India ; and, finally, the first 

 circumnavigation of the globe great and glorious events 

 which, in the space of thirty years (from 1492 to 1522), 

 contributed so largely in extending the general knowledge of 

 the regions of the earth. The minds of men were rendered 

 more acute and more capable of comprehending the vast 

 abundance of new phenomena presented to their considera- 

 tion, of analysing them, and by comparing one with another, 

 of employing them for the foundation of higher and more 

 general views regarding the universe. 



It will be sufficient here to touch upon the more prominent 

 elements of these higher views, which were capable of lead- 

 ing men to a clearer insight into the connection of pheno- 

 mena. On entering into a serious consideration of the 

 original works of the earliest writers of the history of the 

 Conquista, we are surprised so frequently to discover the 

 germ of important physical truths in the Spanish writers of 

 the sixteenth century. At the sight of a continent in the 

 vast waste of waters which appeared separated from all other 

 regions in creation, there presented themselves to the excited 

 curiosity, both of the earliest travellers themselves and of those 

 who collected their narratives, many of the most important 

 questions which occupy us in the present day. Among these 

 were questions regarding the unity of the human race, and its 

 varieties from one common original type ; the migrations of 

 nations, and the affinity of languages, which frequently mani- 

 fest greater differences in their radical words than in their 

 inflections or grammatical forms ; the possibility of the migra- 



silence need not surprise us when reference is made to a long-known 

 matter. In the part of the Trattato di Navigazione of the Cavalier 

 Pigafetta, given by Amoretti in extracts, amounting, indeed, only to 

 ten pages, the " catena della poppa" is not again mentioned. 

 * Barros, Dec. 1, liv. iv. p. 320. 



