July 19, 1895.] 



SCIENCE, 



65 



■which, they manage to arrange so that if 

 you put it into a dish of water it floats and 

 points -with its head and tail toward the 

 two directions north and south." 



So the dead reckoning was put on a 

 firmer basis and the determination of the 

 latitude at sea became possible. It would 

 be very interesting to find the first refer- 

 ence to the compass, known to the Arabs 

 as far back as 854, in the European liter- 

 ature. Navarrete found the following pas- 

 sage in the Spanish Laws compiled in the 

 middle of the thirteenth century: 



"And just as the mariners guide them- 

 selves in a dark night by means of the 

 needle which is a mediator between the 

 star and the stone and shews them where 

 they go, so," etc., etc. 



A well-known passage in Dante (Par. 

 XII., 29) proves that in his time the com- 

 pass was a familiar object. While the sci- 

 ences flourished among the Moslems they 

 were sadly neglected in Christian Europe. 



Towards the twelfth century, however, a 

 better day dawns in Spain. We see the 

 Kings of Castilla and Leon very solicitous 

 to spread knowledge in their kingdoms. 

 Alfonso VIIL, of Castilla, establishes a seat 

 of learning in Palencia. Alfonso IX., of 

 Leon, founds the University of Salamanca, 

 and finallj^ Alfonso the Wise publishes his 

 celebrated tables. In his time flourished 

 the renowned Mallorcan Eaimiindo deLulio, 

 who among many other subjects devoted 

 particular attention to seamanship. He 

 gave a geometrical construction to flnd the 

 ship's place if her preceding place, the course 

 steered and the distance run are known, 

 and improved the astrolabe. As helps to 

 navigation used in his time he mentions 

 the chart, compasses, the needle and the 

 sea star. Soon afterwards the Italians and 

 the Catalans improved the plane chart, 

 Eegiomontanus invented a metal astrolabe, 

 and Prince Henrique appeared on the scene 

 as a great promoter of maritime discovery. 



I shall not stop to give here an account of 

 the careers of the great discoverers of the 

 time, Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magal- 

 haes, but close my review by presenting a 

 short sketch of the great activity in Spain 

 in maritime affairs. 



The Spanish Eenascence never found a 

 worthy historian, so that I shall simply 

 state that at the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century we find the Spanish mathematicians 

 Ciruelo and Siliceo teachiag at the Uni- 

 versity of Paris, the philosopher Vives at 

 Oxford, while Servet, Harvey's forerunner 

 in the discovery of the circulation of the 

 blood, was burned alive in 1553. 



At the same time the Spanish govern- 

 ment was very active in promoting seaman- 

 ship. The office of pilot major and a chair 

 of cosmographj'and navigation were created, 

 and an official maker of nautical instru- 

 ments was appointed. The pilots had to 

 pass an examination before a tribunal con- 

 sisting of the pilot major, the professor of 

 navigation and the maker of instruments, 

 assisted by at least six expert pilots. In- 

 ventions tending to facilitate navigation 

 were rewarded. 



Thus Diego Eibeiro was awarded in 1532 

 a pension of 60,000 maravedis * a year for 

 his invention of metal pumps. Before 

 gi'anting this pension, his invention had 

 been submitted to a severe test on an experi- 

 ment vessel having a commission on board 

 to judge of the advantage gained by using 

 the new pump. A few years later, tu 1545, 

 Vicente Barrero, who was the first in Spain 

 to make wooden pumps, obtained an exclu- 

 sive privilege to construct them for ten 

 years, his pumps having been found much 

 cheaper than those of Eibeiro. 



In 1519 Martin Fernandez Enciso pub- 

 lished the first Spanish treatise on seaman- 

 ship, talking as his guide not only the 

 classical writers Ptolemy, Eratosthenes, 



*A maravedi was -wortli about two-thirds of a 

 cent in gold. 



