CCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 261 



glory of events which will survive in the memory of the latest 

 ages. 



Columbus, in sailing westward from the meridian of the 

 Azores, through a wholly unexplored ocean, and applying the 

 newly-improved astrolabe for the determination of the ship's 

 place, sought Eastern Asia by a western course, not as a mere 

 adventurer, but under the guidance of a systematic plan. lie 

 certainly had with him the sea chart which the Florentine 

 physician and astronomer, Paolo ToscaneUi, had sent him in 

 1477, and which, fifty-three years after his death, was still in 

 the possession of Bartholomew de las Casas.* It would ap- 



derived from facts, to the observation of which one man has led. — 

 Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun., 1663, t. ii., probl. p. 630 and 659, at nunc 

 quibus te laudibus aflferam Christophore Columbi, noii familiiB tantura, 

 non Genuensis urbis, non Italia? Provincia;, non Europae, partis orbis 

 solum, sed humaui generis decus. I have been led to compare the 

 " problems" of Cardauus vv^ith those of the latter Aristotelian school, 

 because it appears to me remarkable, and characteristic of the sudden 

 enlargement of geography at that epoch, that, amid the confusion and 

 the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail ahnost equal- 

 ly in both collections, the greater part of these problems relate to com 

 parative meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm in- 

 sular climate of England contrasted with the winter at Milan ; on the 

 dependence of hail on electric explosions ; on the cause and direction 

 of oceanic currents ; on the maxima of atmospheric heat and cold oc- 

 curring after the summer and winter solstices ; on the elevation of the 

 region of snow under the tropics ; on the temperature dependent on 

 the radiation of heat from the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ; 

 on the greater intensity of light in the southern hemisphere, &c. " Cold 

 is merely absence of heat. Light and heat are only ditterent in name, 

 and are in themselves insepaiable." Cardani Opp., t. i., De Vita Pro- 

 pria, p. 40; t. ii., Probl. 621, 630-632, 653, and 713; t. iii.,i>e Subtili- 

 tate, p. 417. 



* See my Examen Cril., t. ii., p. 210-249. According to the manu- 

 script, Historia General de las Indias, lib. i., cap. 12, " la carta de ma- 

 rear que Maestro Paulo Fisico (ToscaneUi) envio 6 Colon" was in the 

 hands of Bartholome de las Casas when he wrote his work. Colum- 

 bus's ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, t. i., p. 

 13), does not entirely agree with the relation which I find in a manu- 

 script of Las Casas, for a communication of which. I am indebted to M. 

 Ternaux Compans. The ship's journal says, '* Iba hablando el Almi- 

 i-ante (martes 25 de Setiembre, 1492), con Martin Alonso Pinzon, capi- 

 tal!, de la otra carabela Pinta, sobra una carta que le habia enviado tres 

 dias hacia 4 la carabela, donde SL-gun parece tenia pintidat el Almirante 



ciertas islas por aquella mar " In the manuscript of Las Casas 



(lib. i., cap. 12), we find, on the other hand, as follows: " La carta de 

 marear que embio (ToscaneUi al Almirante), yo que esta historia es- 

 crivo la tengo en mi poder. Creo que todo su viage sobre esta carta 

 fund6" (lib. i., cap. 38) ; " asi fu6 que el marte? 25 de Setiembre, llegase 

 Martin Alonso Pinzon con su caravela Pinta k hablar con Christobal Co- 

 .on, sobre una carta de marear que Cht'^tobal Colon leviaembiado .... 



