64 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 29. 



in our time,* a brief summary of the chief 

 results will be sufficient for our purpose. 



The Ancients had no means to determine 

 the latitude and still less the longitude at 

 sea, so they navigated wholly by dead reck- 

 oning. The instruments at their command 

 were the sounding lead, and at a later time 

 the plane chart. The absence of an instru- 

 ment to measure the speed of a vessel was 

 not very material — -a good estimate of the 

 velocity can be easily obtained without it — 

 but the want of an instrument like our 

 compass, to guide the pilot when thick 

 weather prevailed, was sadly felt. Conse- 

 quently winter was not considered as a 

 season proper for navigation, and even in 

 summer they generally ranged the coast, 

 seldom venturing into the open sea. 



Nevertheless records have been left to us 

 of voyages accomplished by the Ancients, 

 whose daring and perseverance has hardly 

 ever been surpassed. The Phcenicians cu-- 

 cumnavigated Africa from east to west some 

 six hundred j'ears before the beginning of 

 our era. The Carthaginian Hannon ex- 

 plored the western coast of Africa. Towards 

 the north, Pytheas of Marseille went as far 

 as Thule, say Shetland Islands. Towards 

 the east the Greek mariner Alexander 

 reached China, and the pilot Hippalos 

 taught his countrymen how to avail them- 

 selves of the monsoon for a voyage to India. 



The world fell now under the sway of the 

 Romans, one of the most unscientific peoples 

 that ever existed, who left us a sad record of 

 how a nation could reach a high degree of 

 material prosperity, be great in war and in 

 internal administration and remain as un- 

 mindful of science as the savage of the 

 Australian wilds. As a redeeming quality 

 may be mentioned the frankness with which 

 the Romans acknowledged the fact. Cicero 



*See the recent -n-orks by Breusing (Nautik der 

 Alten, Bremen 1886, translated into French by M. 

 Vars, Paris 1887) and Torr (Ancient Ships, Cam- 

 bridge, 1894). 



tells US, for instance, that the Greek geom- 

 etry had been degraded by them to a simple 

 mensuration. Thej^ never became skillful 

 seamen, but land-lubbers as they were, they 

 somehow managed to beat at sea fleets 

 manned by expert sailors, and then very 

 willingly acknowledged the superior sea- 

 manship of the adversarj'. The demand for 

 exotic products,which was very great during 

 the Roman Empire, stimulated to a certain 

 degree navigation considered from a com- 

 mercial standpoint. 



In Spain — about which we are here par- 

 ticularly concerned — the interest in sea- 

 matters, planted there by the Phoenician 

 founders of Cadiz about 1160 B. C, was 

 however kept up. Cartagena and Barcelona 

 were important seaports even in that remote 

 time. 



And now a part of the world, including 

 Spain, changed its master again. The fol- 

 lowers of Mohammed conquered Egypt, 

 Syria, northern Africa, Persia and the 

 Iberian peninsula. It seemed at first that 

 these rude warriors were going to trample 

 all learning under their feet. But the 

 change came verj' soon and the wild raiders 

 became a cultured nation. Poetry had 

 already the Bedawin; science was borrowed 

 from more cultured people, the Greeks and 

 the Indians. Not only did the Ai'abs mas- 

 ter the Greek geometry and astronomy 

 and the Indian arithmetic and algebra, 

 but they enriched them with new discov- 

 eries. Still greater was their progress in 

 physics and chemistry. It will be suffi- 

 cient for our purpose to state that they 

 improved the astronomical tables and the 

 astrolabe and borrowed the compass from 

 the Chinese. A certain Bailak from Kis- 

 gak tells US:* 



" The mariners who navigate the Indian 

 sea are said to use a little hollow iron fish 



* I borrow the infonnation from Professor Wiede- 

 mann's pamphlet: Veher die Natarwisscnachaften, 

 hei den Arabern, Hamburg, 1890. 



