336 COSMOS. 



Ferdinand the Catholic, Petrus Martyr de Anghiera, in his 

 work De rebus Oceanicis et Orle novo (dec. i. lib. ix. p. 96), 

 that the designation which refers to Magellan's circumna- 

 vigation is not the older name. 81 For the notices here 

 indicated are both of the year 1515; whilst Pigafetta, the 

 companion of Magellan, does not mention the nebbiette in 

 his journal earlier than January, 1521, when the ship "Vic- 

 toria" passed through the Patagonian Straits into the South 

 Sea. The very old designation of " Cape Clouds" did not, 

 moreover, arise from the vicinity of the more southern con- 

 stellation of " Table mount," since the latter was first intro- 

 duced by Lacaille. The name would more probably seem to 

 refer to the actual Table Mountain, and to the appearance of a 

 small cloud on its summit, which was dreaded by mariners as 

 portending the coming of a storm. We shall presently see 

 that both the nubeculce, which had been long observed in the 

 southern hemisphere, although not definitely named, acquired 

 with the spread of navigation, and the increasing animation of 

 certain commercial routes, designations which were derived 

 from these very routes themselves. 



The constant navigation of the Indian Ocean, washing the 

 shores of Eastern Africa, was the earliest means especially 

 since the time of the Lagides and the Monsun-navigation of 

 making mariners acquainted with the stars near the Southern 

 Pole. As early as the middle of the tenth century, we find, 

 as already observed, that the Arabs had given a name to the 

 larger of the Magellanic Clouds. This designation is, accord- 

 ing to Ideler's researches, identical with that of the White 

 Ox, el-bakar of the celebrated astronomer, Derwisch Abdur- 

 rahman Sufi of Rai', a city in the Persian province of Irak. 

 In his Introduction to the knowledge of the starry heavens, 



81 Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 665 and note. 



