Cosmos : a sketch of a physical description of the universe

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^. '^ * '' V 2,5^*^n^nff^ '*

OXFOKD MUSEUM.
LIBRARY AND READING-ROOM.

THIS Book belongs to the " Studeut's
Library."
It may not be removed from the
Keading Room without permission
of the Librarian.

..«^fl^.»...^

"Z,''"7r^^>^*^*^-^^-^"''^^*^"'

ff^Mm^'^''''^>>.^^^

-/:^:-"xjmm^

q^u ^.'^K

COSMOS.

LOHDOM :

WiuoN akdUoilvt, 57, Skimmkk Strkxt,

SMOWHII.L.

COSMOS:

SKETCH

OF ▲

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE.

BY

[R VON HUMBOLDT.

\- V'-.

Xattti^yetjomruinvi^fttque mtU/m6$ in omnilnu mamentUftde carti, »i qui$ modo partet «>»
^4^^^ Vii &i)utaifi.^m5eetatur ant'mo.— Plxk. H. N. lib. vii. c. 1.

TRANSLATED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE QF

LrEUT..(X)L. EDWARD SABINE, R.A., Foe. Sec. E.S.

LONDON:

raiMTBD FOR

LONGMAN, BROWN. OBEEN, AND LONGMANS,

PATSmKOBTKR ROW; AND

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1848.

Vs.

CONTENTS.

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE..

Page

General Remarks .3

I. PoRTic Descriptions of Nature.

By the Greeks 6

By the Romans . . ... . . IC

By the early Christians 25

By the Germans of the middle ages . . '. . .30

By the Indians . . . . ; i 4 . .37

By the Persians . . . . , 40

By the Pinns . . . / 42

By the Hebrews . . . ... ., , . .43

By the Arabians 48

In modern Literature : —

Dante and Petrarch . . . . .50

Columbus 54

Camoens 57

Ercilla and Calderon 60

Shakspeare, Milton, and Thomson 61

Modem Prose Writers . 63

Travellers of the 14th and 15th centuries . .67
Modem travellers 68

VI

CONTENTS.

II. Landscape Painting.

In ancient Greece, Rome, and India .
niuminated MSS. and mosaics

TheVanEycks

Titian

European painters of the 16th and 17th centuries
Characteristic representation of tropical scenery .
Characteristic aspect of nature in different zones .
Panoramas

Page

74
78
78
79
81
82
87
90

III. Culture op chabacteeistic Exotic Plants.

Influence of well contrasted grouping 92

On the laying out of parks and gardens . ' . .96

HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE

UNIVERSE.

Division into historic periods, or epochs of progress, in the

generalisation of physical views

•

First Epoch. — Knowledge of nature possessed by the
nations who in early times inhabited the coasts of the
Mediterranean, and the extension of that knowledge
by attempts at distant navigation towards the N. E.
(the Argonauts) ; towards the South (Ophir) ; and
towards the West (Colseus of Samos)

Second Epoch. — Military expeditions of the Macedonians
under Alexander the Great. Fusion of the East
with the West under Greek dominion and influence.
Enlargement of the knowledge of nature possessed
by the Greeks consequent on these events

Third Epoch. — Increase of the knowledge of nature under
the Ptolemies. Alexandrian Institution. Tendency

101 to lie

117 to 148

149 to 165

CONTENTS. VU

Pagf

of the period towards the generalisation of the views
of nature, both in regard to the earth and to the
regions of space '. ' 166 to 177

Fourth Epoch. — The Roman Empire of the wotld.— In-
fluence on cosmical views of a great political union of
countries. Progress of Greography through commerce
by land. Pliny's physical description of the universe.
The rise of Christianity promotes the feeling of the
unity of the human race 178 to 200

Fifth Epoch. — Invasion of tbe Arabians. Aptitude of this
portion of the Semitic race for intellectual cultivation.
Influence of a foreign element on the development of
European civilisation and culture. Attachment of
the Arabians to the study of nature. Extension of
physical geography, and advances in astronomy and
in the mathematical sciences . . . . 201 to 229

Sixth Epoch. — Oceanic Discoveries. Opening of the
western hemisphere. Discoveries of the Scandina-
vians. Columbus. Sebastian Cabot. Vasco de Gama 230 to 300

Seventh Epoch. — Celestial Discoveries consequent on the
invention of the telescope.— Progress of astronomy
and mathematics from Galileo and Kepler to Newton
and Leibnitz 301 to 352

Ketrospective view of the epochs which have been con-
sidered. Wide and varied scope, and dose natural
connection, of the scientific advances of modem times.
The history of the physical sciences gradually becomes
that of the Cosmos 863 to 359

Notes i. to cxiv.

Index cxxvii.tocxlii.

*^* See Notice at back.

*•* A notice is appended by M. de Humboldt at the close of the
second volume of " Kosmos," stating, that the first portion
of that volmne, viz. ''On the Incitements to the Study of
Nature," was printed in July 1846; and that the printing
of the second portion, viz. "The History of the Physical
Contemplation of the Universe," was completed in the
month of September 1847.

From page 100 to the conclusion of the text, the
Translation, in its progress through the press, has had the
advantage of being compared with the original by the
Chevalier Bunsbn.

February 21, 1848.

COSMOS,

VOL. 11.

B

COSMOS:

A PHYSICAL DESCErPTION OP THE UNHTEESE.

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE.

Action of the external world on the imaginative faculty, and the
reflected image produced — ^Poetic descriptions of nature — ^Land-
scape painting — Cultivation of those exotic plants which determine
the characteristic aspect of the vegetation in the countries to which
they belong.

We now pass from the domain of objects to that of sensa-
tions. The principal results of observation, in the form in
which, stripped of all additions derived from the imagi-
nation, they belong to a pure scientific description
of nature, have been presented in the preceding volume.
We have now to consider the impression which the image
received by the external senses produces on the feelings,
and on the poetic and imaginative faculties of mankind.
An inward world here opens to the view, into which we desire
to penetrate, not, however, for the purpose of investigating —
as would be required if the philosophy of art were our aim—

ijrciTEMEjrrs to the stuht c

I

what in ffisthetic performances belonga essentiallj to tie
powers and dispositions of the mind, and what to the parti-
cular tlirection of the intellectual activity, — but that we may
trace the sources of tliat animated contemplation which
enhances a genuine enjoyment of nature, and discover the
particular causes which, in modern times especially, have
so powerfully promoted, tlirough the medium of the imagi-
nation, a predilection for the study of nature, and for the
undertaking of distant voyages.

I have alluded, in the preceding volume, to three (') kinds
of incitement more freijueut in modern than in ancient
times ; 1st, the Eesthetic treatment of natural scenery by vivid
and graphical descriptions of the vegetable and animal world,
which is a very modem bra-iich of literature; 2d, landscape
painting, so far as it pourtrays the characteristic aspect of
vegetation ; and, 3d, the more extended cultivation of tro-
pical plants, and the assemblage of contrasted exotic forms.
Each of these subjects might be historically treated and
investigated at some length ; but it appears to me better
suited to the spirit and object of my work, to unfold only a
few leading ideas relating to them, — to recal how differently
the contemplation of nature has acted on the intellect and
the feehngs of different races of men, and at different periods
of time, — and to notice how, at epoclis when there has been
a general cultivation of the mental faculties, the severe pur-
suit of exact knowledge, and the more deHcate workings of
the imagination, have tended to interpenetrate and blend
with each other. If we would describe the full majesty of
nature, we must not dwell solely on her external phteno-
mena, but we must also regaid her in her reflected image —
at one time filling the visionary land of physical m)'ths with

GENERAL REMARKS. 5

graceful phantoms, and at another developing the noble
germs of presentive art.

I here limit myself to the consideration of incite-
ments to a scientific study of nature; and, in so doing, I
would recal the lessons of experience, which tell us how
often impressions received by the senses from circumstances
seemingly accidental, have so acted on the youthful mind as
to determine the whole direction of the man's course through
life. Childish pleasure in the form of countries and of seas,
as delineated in maps (2) ; the desire to behold those southern
constellations which have never risen in our horizon (3) ; the
sight of palms and of the cedars of Lebanon, figured in a
pictorial bible, may have implanted in the spirit the first
impulse to travels in distant lands. If I might have recourse
to my own experience, and say what awakened in me the
first beginnings of an inextinguishable longing to visit the
tropics, I should name George Forster's descriptions of the
islands of the Pacific — paintings, by Hodge, in the house
of Warren Hastings, in London, representing the banks of
the Granges — and a colossal dragon tree in an old tower of
the Botanic Garden at Berlin. These objects, which I here
cite as exemplifications taken from fact, belong respectively
to the three classes above noticed, viz. to descriptions of
nature flowing from a mind inspired by her contemplation,
to imitative art in landscape painting, and to the immediate
view of characteristic natural objects. Such incitements are,
however, only influential where general intellectual cultiva-
tion prevails, and when they address themselves to dispo-
sitions suited to their reception, and in which a particular
course of mental development has heightened the suscepti-
bility to natural impressions.

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY O^ NATURE.

1. — Description of natora] acenety, and the feelings associated tbere-
'witb at diiTeieot times aiid luaong different races imd nations.

It has often been said, that if delight in nature were not
altogether unknown to the ancients, yet that its expression
was more rare and less animated among tliem than in modem
times. SchiQer (*), in his considerations on naive and
sentimental poetry, remarks, that "when we tliink of the
glorious scenery which snrrounded the ancient Greeks, and
remember the free and constant intercourse with nature in
which their happier skies enabled them to live, as well as
how much more accordant tlieir manners, their habits of
feeling, and their modes of representation, were with the
simplicity of nature, of which their poetic works convey so
true an impress, we cannot but remark with surprise how
few traces we find amongst tliem of the senlimental intejest
with which we moderns attach oiu^elves to natural scenes
and objects. In the description of these, the Greek is
indeed in the highest degree exact, faitliful, and circumstan*
tial, but without exhibiting more warmth of sympathy than
in treating of a garment, a shield, or of a suit of armonr.
Nature appears to interest his understanding rather than
his feelings ; he does not cling to her with intimate aifection
and sweet melancholy, as do the moderns." Much aa there
ia that is true and excellent in these remarks, they are far

^^ Mid proi

from being applicable to all antiquityj even in the sense ordi-
narily attached to the term ; I cannot, moreovcTj but regard aa
far too limited, the restriction of antiquity (as opposed to
modem times), exclusively to the Greeks ojid Romans : a
profound feeling of nature speaks forth in the earliest poetry
of the Hebrews and of the Indians ; — in mtioua, therefore,
of very different descent, Semitic, and Indo -Germanic.

We can only infer the feehng mth which the ancients
regarded nature from the portions of its expression which
have rettched us in the remains of their literature; we
must therefore seek for such passages the more diligently,
imd pronounce upon them the more circumspectly, as they
snt themselves but sparingly in the two great forma of
pical and lyrical poetry. In Hellenic poetry, at that flowery
a of the life of mankind, we find, indeed, tlie tenderest
expression of the love and admiration of nature mingling with
the poetic representation of human passion, in actions taken
from legendary history; but specific descriptions of natural
scenes or objects appear only as subordinate ; for in Grecian
^^^art idl is made to concenter within the sphere of human life
^^BWtd feeling.

^^^H Tlie description of nature in her manifold diversity, as n

^^^Bstinct branch of poetic literature, was altogether foreign to

^^^■he ideas of the Greeks. With them the landscape is

^^Rhvays the mere background of a picture, in the foreground

of wliich human figures are moving. Passion breaking

forth in action rivetted their attention almost exclusively ;

tlje agitation of pobtics, and a hfe passed chiefly in public,

withdrew men's minds from enthusiastic absorption in the

tranquil pursuit of nature. Physical phtenomena were always

eferred to man (^) by supposed relations or resemblances

8 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATUBAL 80EKBBY

either of external form or of inward spirit. It was almost
exclusively bj such applications that the consideration of
nature was thought worthy of a place in poetry in the form
of comparisons or similitudes, which often present small
detached pictures, full of objective vividness and truth.

At Delphi, pecans to spring [^) were sung — probably to
express men's joy that the privations and discomforts of
winter were past. A natural description of winter has been
interwoven (may it not be by a later Ionian rhapsodist?)
with the "Works and Days" of Hesiod('). This poemj
full of a uoble simplicity, but purely didactic in its form,
gives advice respecting agriculture, and directions for
different kinds of work and profitable employment, together
with ethical exhortations to a blameless life. Its tone rises
to a more lyrical character when the poet clothes the miseries
of mankind, or the fine allegorical mythus of Epimetheus
and Pandora, witli an anthropomorphic garb. In Hesiod's
Theogony, which is composed of various ancient and dissi-
milar elements, we find repeatedly (as, for example, in the
enumeration of the Nereides (^) ), natural descriptions veiled
under the significant names of mythic personages. In the
Bceotian bardic school, and generally in all ancient Greek
poetry, the phamomena of the external world are introduced
only by personification under human forms.

But if it be tnie, as we have remarked, that natural
descriptions, whetlier of the richness and luxuriance of
southern vegetation, or the portraiture in fresh and vivid
colours of the habits of animals, have only become a distinct
branch of literature in very modern times, it was not that
sensibility to the beauty of nature was absent (»), where the
perception of beauty was so intense, — or the animated exprcs-

BY THK GREEKS. V

sion of a contemplative poetic spirit wanting, where the
creative power of the Hellenic mind produced inimitable
master works in poetry and in the plastic arts. The defi-
ciency which appears to our modem ideas in this department
of antiquity, betokens not so much a want of sensibility, as
the absence of a prevailing impulse to disclose in words the
feeling of natural beauty. Directed less to the inanimate
world of phaenomena than to that of human action, and of
the internal spontaneous emotions, the earliest and the
noblest developments of the poetic spirit were epical and
lyrical. These were forms in which natural descriptions
could only hold a subordinate, and, as it were, an accidental
place, and could not appear as distinct productions of the
imagination. As the influence of antiquity gradually
declined, and as its blossoms faded, both descriptive and
didactic poetry became more and more rhetorical ; and the
latter, which, in its earlier philosophical and semi-priestly
character, had been severe, grand, and unadorned, as in
Empedocles' "Poem of Nature,'^ gradually lost its early
simple dignity.

I may be permitted to illustrate these general observations
by a few particular instances. Conformably to the character
of the Epos, natural scenes and images, however charming,
appear in the Homeric songs always as mere incidental
adjuncts. " The shepherd rejoices in the cahn of night,
when the winds are still ; in the pure ether, and in the
bright stars shining in the vault of heaven ; he hears from
afar the rushing of the suddenly-swollen forest torrent,
bearing down earth and trunks of uprooted oaks'^ {^^). The
fine description of the sylvan loneliness of Parnassus, and
of its dark, thickly-wooded rocky valleys, contrasts with the

62

ID DESCEIPnONS OF NATDRAI. SCENERY

Eimiling pictures of the many-fouiitamed poplar groves of
the PhBeacian Islands, and especially with the land of the
Cyclops, " where swelling meads of rich waving grass sur-
round the hills of undressed vines" (i'). Pindar, in a vernal
dithjramhus recited at Athens, sings "the earth covered
with new flowers, what time in Argive Nemea the first
opening shoot of the palm announces the approach of balmy
spring ;" he sings of Etna, " the pillar of heaven, the nnrse
of enduring snows ;" hut he quickly hastens to turn from
the awful form of inanimate nature, to celebrat-e Hiero of
Syracuse, and the Greeks' victorious combats with the
powerful Persian nation.

Let us BOt forget that Grecian scenery possesses the
peculiar charm of blended and intermingled land and sea ;
the breaking waves and changing brightness of the resound-
ing ocean, amidst shores adorned with vegetation, or pictu-
resque cliffa richly tinged with aerial hues. Whilst to other
nations the different features and tlie difl'erent pursuits
belonging to the sea and to the land appeared separate and
distinct, the Greeks, not only of the islands, hut also of
almost all the southern portion of the mainland, enjoyed the
continual presence of the greater variety and richness, as
well as of the higher character of beauty, given by the con-
tact and mutual influence of the two elements. How can
we imagine that a race so happily organised by nature, and
whose perception of beauty was so intense, should liave been
unmoved by the aspect of the wood-crowned elifl'a of the
dceplj-indent«d shores of the Mediterranean, the varied
distribution of vegetable forms, and, spread over all, the
added charms dependent on atmospheric influences, varying
by a silent uiterchange with the varying surfaces of land

BY THE GREEKS. 11

and sea, of mountain and of plain, as well as with the
varying hours and seasons ? Or how, in the age when the
poetic tendency was highest, can emotions of the mind thus
awakened through the senses have failed to resolve them-
sdvos into ideal contemplation ? The Greeks, we know,
imagined the vegetable world connected by a thousand
mythical relations with the heroes and the gods : avenging
chastisement followed injury to the sacred trees or plants.
But while trees and flowers were animated and personified,
the prevailing forms of poetry in which the peculiar mental
development of the Greeks unfolded itself, allowed but a
limited space to descriptions of nature.

Yet, a deep sense of the beauty of nature breaks forth
sometimes even in their tragic poets, in the midst of deep
sadness, or of the most tumultuous agitation of the passions.
When CEdipus is approachiug the grove of the Furies, the
chorus sings, 'Hhe noble resting-place of glorious Colonos,
where the melodious nightingale loves to dwell, and mourns
in clear and plaintive strains :" it sings "the verdant dark-
ness of the thick embowering ivy, the narcissus bathed in the
dews of heaven, the golden beaming crocus, and tlie ineradi-
cable, ever fresh-springing olive tree'' {^^). Sophocles, in
striving to glorify his native Colonos, places the lofty form
of the fate-pursued, wandering king, by the side of the sleep-
less waters of the Cephisus, surrounded by soft and bright
imagery. The repose of nature heightens the impression of
pain called forth by the desolate aspect of the blind exile,
the victim of a dreadful and mysterious destiny. Euripides {}^)
also takes pleasure in the picturesque description of '^ the
pastures of Messenia and Laconia, rejfreshed by a thousand

DESCTtlPTIOira OF NATURiX SCESERT

fountains, under an ever mild sky, and through wliicli tlie
beautiful Pamisus rolls his stream."

Bucolic poetry, bom in the Sicilian fields, and popularly
inclined to the dramatic, has been called, with reason, a
transitional form. These pastoral epics on a small scale
depict human beings rather than scenery : they do so in
Tlieocritus, in whose hands this form of poetry reached its
greatest perfection. A soft elegiac element is indeed every
where proper to the idyll, as if it had axisen from " the
longing for a lost ideal;" or aa if in the human breast a
degree of melancholy were ever blended mtli the deeper
feelings which the view of nature inspires.

"When the true poetry of Greece expired with Grecian
hberty, that which remained became descriptive, didactic,
instructive; — astronomy, geography, and the arts of the
hunter and the fisherman, appeared in the age of Alexander
and his successors as objects of poetry, and were indeed
often adorned with much metrical skill. The forms and
habits of animals are described with grace, and often with
such exactness that our modem classifying natural histo-
rians can reciigniae genera and even species. But in none
of these writings can we discover the presence of that inner
life^tbat inspired contemplation^whereby to the poet,
almost unconsciously to himself, the external world becomes
a subject of the imagination. The undue preponderance of
the descriptive element shews itself in the forty-eight cantos
of the Dionysiaca of the Egyptian Nonnus, which are dis-
tinguished by a very artfully constructed verse. Tliis poet
takes pleasure in describing great revolutions of nature ; he
makes a fire kindled by lightniug on the wooded bunks of

BY THE GREEKS. 13

the Hydaspes bum even the fish in the bed of the river ; he
tells how ascending vapours produce the meteorological
processes of storm and electric rain. Nonnus of Panopolis
is incUned to romantic poetry, and is remarkably unequal ;
at times spirited and interesting, at others verbose and
tedious.

A more delicate sensibility to natural beauty shews itself
occasionally in the Greek Anthology, which has been handed
down to us in such various ways, and from such diiBferent
periods. In the pleasing translation by Jacobs, all that
relates to plants and animals is collected in one section :
these passages form small pictures, most commonly, of only
single objects. The plane tree, which ^^ nourishes among
its boughs the grape swelling with rich juice,'' and which,
in the time of Dionysius the Elder, reached the banks of
the SiciUan Anapus from Asia Minor, through the Island of
Diomedes, occurs perhaps but too often ; still, on the whole,
the antique mind shews itself in these songs and epigrams as
more inclined to dwell on animal than on vegetable forms.

The vernal idyU of Meleager of Gadara in Coelo-Syria is
a noble and more important composition (^*). I am un-
willing, were it only for the ancient renown of the locality,
to omit all notice of the description of the wooded Tale of
Tempe given by ^lian {^^), probably from an earlier notice
by Dicearchus. It is the most detailed description of
natural scenery by a Greek prose writer which we possess;
and, although topographic, is at the same time picturesque.
The shady valley is enlivened by the Pythian procession
(theoria), "which gathers from the sacred laurel the
reconciling bough.''

In the latest Byzantine epoch, towards the end of the

14 DE9CEim0N3 OF NATTTHAL aCENEKY

fourth century, we fiud descriptions of scenery frequently
introduced in the romances of the Greek prose writers ; as
in the pastoral romance of Longus ('^), m which, however,
the author is much more succea''tiil in the tender scenes
taken from life, than m the expre-'Sion of sensibditj to tlie
beauties of nature

It is not the objCLt of the'^e pages to introduce more than
such few references to particular forms of poetic art, as may
teod to illnstrat* general considerations respecting the poetic
conception of the external world; and I should here quit
the flowery circle of Hellenic antiquity, if, in a work to which
I have ventured to give the name of " Cosmos," I could
pass over in silence the description of nature, with which the
pseudo Aristotelian boot of the Cosmos (or " Order of the
Universe") commences. Tliis description shews us "the
terrestrial globe adorned with Inxiuiant vegetation, abun-
dan% watered, and, which is most worthy of praise, inha-
bited by thinking beings" ['7). Tlie rhetorical colouring
of this rich picture of nature, so unlike the concise and
purely scientific manner of the Stagirite, is one of the many
indications by which it has been judged not to have been
his composition. Conceding this point, and ascribing it to
Appuleius (^^), or to Chrysippus {'S), or to ajiy other authorj
its place is fully supphed by a brief but genuine fragment
which Cicero has preserved to us from a lost work of
Aristotle (^o). "If there were beings hving in the depths
of the earth, in habitations adorned with statues and paint-
ings, and every thing which is possessed in abundance by
those whom we call fortunate, and if these beings should
receive tidings of the dominion and power of the gods, and
should then be brought from their hidden dwelling

BY THE EOMANS. 15

places to the surface which we inhabit, and should sud-
denly behold the earth, and the sea, and the vault of
heaven ; should perceive the broad expanse of the clouds and
the strength of the winds; should admire the sun in his
majesty, beauty, and eflFalgence; and, lastly, when night veiled
the earth in darkness, should gaze on the starry firmament, the
waxing and waning moon, and the stars rising and setting
in their unchanging course, ordained from eternity, they
would, of a truth, exclaim, ^ there are gods, and such great
things are their work/ " It has been justly said, that these
words would alone be sufficient to confirm Cicero's opinion
of ^'the golden flow of the Aristotehan eloquence^' (^i), and
that there breathes in them somewhat of the inspired genius
of Plato. Such a testimony as this to the existence of
heavenly powers, from the beauty and infinite grandeur of
the works of creation, is indeed rare in classical antiquity.

That which we miss with regard to the Greeks, I will not
say in their appreciation of natural phsenomena, but in the
direction which their literature assumed, we find still more
sparingly among the Eomans. A nation which, in conformity
with the old Siculian manners, manifested a marked predilec-
tion for agriculture and rural life, might have justified other
hopes ; but with all their capacity for practical activity, the
Eomans, in their cold gravity, and measured sobriety of
understanding, were, as a people, far inferior to the Greeks
in the perception of beauty, and far less sensitive to its infiu-
ence ; and were much more devoted to the realities of every-
day hfe, than to an idealising poetic contemplation of nature.

These inherent differences between the Greek and Roman
mind are faithfully reflected, as is always the case with
national character, in their respective literatures ; and I must

16 DESCEIPnoffS OP NATCllAL SCENERY

add to this consideration, that of the ackuowledged difference
in the organic structure of the two languages, notwithstand-
ing the affinity between the races. The language of ancient
Latinm is regarded as possessing leas flexihilitj, a more
limited adaptation of words, and " more of reahstic tendency"
than of "ideal mohility." The predilectiou for the imita-
tion of foreign G reek models in the Augustan age, might,
moreover, have been unfavourable to the free outpourings of
thsr native mind and feelmgs in reference to nature ; but yet,
powerful minds, animated by love of country, have effecLually
surmounted these varied obstacles, by creative iudividoality,
by elevation of ideas, and by tender grace in their preaeuta-
tion. The great poem which is the fruit of the rich genius
of Lucretius, embraces the whole Cosmos : it has much
afimitj with the works of Empedocles and Parmenides ; and
the grave tone in which the subject is presented is euhauced
by its archaic diction. Poetry and philosophy are closely
interwoven in it ; without, however, falling into that coldness
of composition, which, as contrasted with Plato's views of
nature so rich in imagination, is severely blamed by the rhetor
Menander, in the scut-ence passed by him on the " hymns to
nature" (**). My brother has pointed out, with great in-
genuity, the striking an^ogies and diversities produced by
the interweaving of metaphysical abstraction with poetry in
the ancient Greek didactic poems, in that of Lucretius, and
in the Bhagavad-Gita episode of the tidian epic Maliab-
harata (^^). In the great physical picture of the universe
traced by the Eoman poet, we find contrasted with Ids
cliilling atomic doctrine, and his often extravagantly wild
geological fancies, the fresh and animated description of
mankind exchanging the thickets of the forest for the pur-

BY THE ROMANS. 17

suits of agriculture, the subjugation of natural forces, the
cultivation of the intellect and of language, and the forma-
tion of civil society (2*).

When, in the midst of the busy and agitated life of a
statesman, and in a mind excited by political passions, an
animated love of natture and of rural solitude still subsists,
its source must be sought in the depths of a great and
noble character. Cicero^s writings shew the truth of
this assertion. Although it is generally recognised that in
the book De Legibus, and in that of the Orator, many things
are imitated from the Phsedrus of Plato(25)^ yet the picture
of Italian nature does not lose its individuality and truth.
Plato, in more general characters, praises the dark shade of
the lofty plane tree, the luxuriant abundance of fragrant
herbs and flowers, the sweet summer breezes, and the chorus
of grasshoppers.^' In Cicero's smaller pictures, we find, as
has been recently well remarked {^^), all those features
which we stiU recognise in the actual landscape : we see the
Liris shaded by lofty poplars ; and in descending the steep
mountain side to the east, behind the old castle of Arpinum,
we look on the grove of oaks near the Fibrenus^ as weU as
on the island now called Isola di Camello, which is formed
by the division of the stream, and into which Cicero retired,
as he says, to " give liimself up to his meditations, to read,
or to write.'' Arpinum, on the Volscian Mountains, was
the birthplace of the great statesman ; and his mind and
character were doubtless influenced in his boyhood by the
grand scenery of the vicinity. In the mind of man, the
reflex action of the external aspect of surrounding nature is
early and unconsciously blended with that which belongs to

18 DBscaiPTioTfa op natural scenery

the original tendencies, capacities, auil powers of his own
inner being.

In the midst of the stormy and eventful period of the
year 708 (from the fonndation of Rome), Cicero found con-
solation in his villas, alternately at Tusculum, Arpinum,
Cumffij aiid Antium. "Nothing," he writes to Atticns (*''},
" can be more delightful than this solitude ; more pleasing
than tills country dwelling, the neighbouring shore, and
the prospect over the sea. In the lonely island of Astura,
at the mouth of the river of the same name, and on the
shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, no human being disturbs me ;
and when, early in tlie morning, I hide myseK in a thick
wild forest, I do not leave it until the evening. Next to
my Atticus, nothing is so dear to me as solitude, in which I
cultivate intercourse with philosophy ; but this intercourse
is often interrupted with tears. I strive against these as
much as I can, but I have not yet prevailed." It has been
repeatedly remarked, that in these letters, and in those of
the younger Pluiy, expressions resembling those so common
amongst the sentimental writers of modem times may be
unequivocally recognised; I find ui them only the accents
of a mind deeply moved, snch aa in every age, and every
nation or race, escape from the heavily-op]>ressed bosom.

From the general diffusion of Eoman literature, the master
works of'VirgU, Horace, and Tibidlus, are bo widely and
intimately known, that it would be superfluous to dwell on
individual instances of the delicate and ever wakefnl sensi-
bility to nature, by whicli many of tbcm are animated. In
the jJineid, the epic character forbids the appearance of
descriptions of natural scenes and objects otherwise than as

BY THE EOMANS. 1&

subordinate and accidental features^ limited to a very small
space; individual localities are not pourtrayed (^s), but an
intimate understanding and love of nature manifest them-
selves occasionally with peculiar beauty. Where have the
soft play of the waves, and the repose of night, ever been
more happily described? and how finely do these mild and
tender images contrast with the powerful representations of
the gathering and bursting tempest in the first book of the
Georgics, and with the descriptions in the .Eneid of the
navigation and landing at the Strophades, the crashing fall
of the rock, and of ^tna with its flames (29). We might
have expected from Ovid, as the fruit of his long sojourn in
the plains of Tomi in Lower Msesia, a poetic description of
the aspect of nature in the steppes ; but none such has come
down to us from antiquity, either from him or from any other
writer. The Eoman exile did not indeed see that kind of
steppe which in summer is thickly covered by rich herbage
and flowering plants from four to six feet high, which, as
each breeze passes over them, present the pleasing picture
of an undulating many-coloured sea of flowers and verdure.
The place of his banishment was a desolate marshy district.
The broken spirit of the exfle, which yielded to unmanly
lamentations, was filled with recollections of the social
pleasures and the poUtical occurrences of Rome, and had no
place for the contemplation of the Scythian desert by which
he was surroimded. On the other hand, this richly-gifted
poet, so powerful in vivid representation, has given us,
besides general descriptions of grottos, fountains, and silent
moonlight nights, which are but too frequently repeated, an
eminently-characteristic, and even geologically-important
description of the volcanic eruption at Methone between

Epidfturus and Trtezene, which has been referred to iu the
"General View of Nature" eontained in the preceding
volume ('") .

It is especially to be regretted that Tibullus Bhonlj not
have left us any great composition descriptive of natural
6cenery, general or individual. He belongs to the few
among tlie poeta of the Augustan age who, being happOy
strangers to the Alexandrian learning, and devoted to retire-
ment and a rural life, full of feehng and therefore simple,
drew from their own resources. In many of his elegies (^'),
indeed, the landscape forms oidy the background of the
picture; but the Lustration of the Fields and the 6th Elegy
of the first book shew what might have been expected from
the Mend of Horace and Messala.

Lucan, the grandson of the rhetor Marcus Amiasus
Seneca, is indeed only too nearly related to his progenitor
in the rhetorical ornateness of his style; yet we find among
his writings a fine description of the destruction of a Druidic
forest {^^) on the now treeless shore of Marseilles, which is
thoronglily true to nature : the severed oaks, leaning against
each other, snpport themselvbs for a time before they fdl;
and, denuded of their leaves, admit the first ray of light to
penetrate tlie awful gloom of the sacred shade. Those who
have lived long in the forests of the New Continent, feel
how vividly the poet has depicted, with a few traits, the
luxuriant growth of trees whose giant remains are still found
buried in turf bogs in France {^^).

In a didactic poem entitled ^tna, written by Lucilius
the Younger, a friend of L, Annseus Seneca, the phffiuo-
meua of a volcanic eruption are described, not inaccurately,
lut vet in a far less animated and cliaracteristic manner tlian

BY THE HOMANS. 21

in the " ^tna Dialogus^^ {^) of the youthful Bembo, men-
tioned with praise in the preceding volume.

When, after the close of the fourth century, poetry
in its grander and nobler forms faded away, as if ex-
hausted, poetic attempts, deprived of the magic of creative
imagination, were occupied only with the drier realities of
knowledge and description : and a certain rhetorical polish
of style could ill replace the simple feeling for nature,
and the idealising inspiration, of an earlier age? We may
name as a production of this barren period, in which the
poetic element appears only as an accidental and merely
external ornament, a poem on the Moselle, by Ausonius, a
native of Aquitanian Gaul, who had accompanied Valentinian
in his campaign against the Allemanni. The ^^Mosella,^^
which was composed at ancient Treves {^^), describes some-
times not unpleasingly the already vine-covered hiUs of
one of the lovehest rivers of Germany ; but the mere topo-
graphy of the country, the enumeration of the streams which
flow into the Moselle, and the characters, in form, colour,
and habits, of some of the different kinds of fish which are
found in the river, are the principal objects of this purely
didactic composition.

In the works of Eoman prose writers, among which we
have already referred to some remarkable passages by Cicero,
descriptions of natural scenery are as rare as in those of
Greek writers of the same class ; but the great historians —
Julius Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus— in relating the conflicts
of men with natural obstacles and with hostile forces, are
sometimes led to give descriptions of fields of battle, and
of the passage of rivers, or of difficult mountain passes. In
the Annals of Tacitus, I am delighted with the description

I 22

nESCEIPnOKS o? matueal schseey

of GennanicQs'a unsuccessful navigation of the Amisia, and
with the grand geographical aketch of the mountain chains
of Syria and of Palestine {^^) . Curtius (^'j has left us a
fine natural picture of a forest wilderness to the west of
Hekatompylos, through which the Macedonian anny had
to pass in entering the humid province of Mazanderan;
to which I would refer more in detail, if, in a writer
whose period is so uncertain, we could distinguish with
any security between what he has drawn from his own
Kvely imagination, and what he has derived from historic
sources.

The great encyclopaedic work of the elder Pliny, which,
as his nephew, the younger Pliny, has finely said, is "varied
aa nature herseK," and wliich, in the ahundance of its
contents, is unequalled by any other ancient work, will be
referred to in the sequel, when treating of the " History of
the Contemplation of the Universe." This work, whicli
exerted a powerful influence on the whole of the middle
ages, is a most remarkable result of the disposition to com-
prehensive, but often indiscriminate collection. "Unequal in
style — sometimes simple and narrative, sometimes thonghtful,
animated, and rhetorically omate^it has, as, indeed, might
be expected from its foim, few individual descriptions of
nature; but wherever the grand concurrent action of the
forces in the universe, the well-ordered Cosmos (naturas
majestas), is the object of contemplation, we cannot mistake
the evidences of true inward poetic inspiration.

We would gladly adduce the pleasantly-situated villas of
the Romans, on the Pincian Mount, at Tusculura, and
Tibur, on the promontory of Miseuum, and near Puteoli and
BaicG, aa evidences of a love of nature, if these spots had not.

BY THE ROMANS. 23

like those in which were the villas of Scaurus and Mseeenas,
Lucullus and Adrian, been crowded with sumptuous build-
ings— temples, theatres, and race-courses alternating with
aviaries and houses for rearing snails and dormice. The
elder Sdpio had surrounded his more simple country seat
at liturnum with towers like a fortress. The name of
Matius, a friend of Augustus, has been handed down to us
as that of the individual whose predilection for unnatural
constraint first introduced the custom of cutting and training
trees into artificial imitations of architectural and plastic
models. The letters of the yoxmger Pliny furnish us with
pleasing descriptions of two (^®) of his numerous villas,
Laurentinum and Tuscum. Although buildings, surrounded
by box cut into artificial forms, aie more numerous and
crowded than our taste for nature would lead us to desire,
yet these descriptions, as well as the imitation of the Vale
of Tempe in the Tiburtine villa of Adrian, shew us that
among the inhabitants of the imperial city, the love of
art, and the solicitous care for comfort and convenience
manifested in the choice of the positions of their country
houses with reference to the sun and to the prevailing
winds, might be associated with love for the free enjoyment
of nature. It is cheering to be able to add, that on the
estates of Pliny this enjoyment was less disturbed than
elsewhere by the painful features of slavery. The wealthy
proprietor was not only one of the most learned men of his
period, but he had also those compassionate and truly
humane feelings for the lower glasses of the people who were
not in the enjoyment of freedom, of which the expression at
least is most rare in antiquity. At his villas fetters were
unused ; and he provided that the slave, as a cultivator of

24j descriptions op natubal sgeneby

the soil, should freely bequeath that which he had
acquired (39).

No description of the eternal snows of the Alps, when tinged
in the morning or evening with a rosy hue, of the beaniy of
the blue glacier ice, or of any part of the grandeur of the
scenery of Switzerland, have reached us from the ancients,
although statesmen and generals, with men of letters in
their train, were constantly passing through Helvetia into
Gaul. All these travellers think only of complaining of
the badness of the roads; the romantic character of the
scenery never seems to have engaged their attention. It ia
even known that Julius Caesar, when returning to his l^ons
in Gaul, employed his time, while passing over the Alps, in
preparing a grammatical treatise "De Analogia^^ (^),
Silius Italicus, who died under Trajan, when Switzerland
was abeady in great measure cultivated, describes the
district of the Alps merely as an awful and barren wilder-
ness (*^) ; although he elsewhere loves to dwell in verse on
the rocky ravines of Italy, and the wood-fringed banks of
the Liris (Garigliano) (*2). It is deserving of notice that
the remarkable appearance of groups of jointed basaltic
columns, such as are seen in several parts of the interior of
France, on the banks of the Ehine, and in Lombardy, never
engaged the attention of the Eomans sufBciently to lead
their writers to describe or even to mention them.

At the period when the feelings which had animated
classical antiquity, and had directed the minds of men to the
active manifestation of human power, almost to the exclu-
sion of the passive contemplation of the natural world, were
expiring, a new influence, and new modes of thought, were

BY THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 25

gaining sway. Christianity graduaUy diffused itself; and,
as where it was received as the religion of the state, its bene-
ficent action on the lower classes of the people favoured
the general cause of civil freedom, so also did it render
man^s contemplation of nature more enlarged and free.
The forms of the Olympic gods no longer fixed the eyes of
men : the fathers of the church proclaimed, in their sestheti-
cally correct, and often poetically imaginative language,
that the Creator shews himself great no less in inanimate
than in living nature ; in the wild strife of the elements as
well as in the silent progress of organic development. But
during the gradual dissolution of the Eoman Empire,
vigour of imagination, and simplicity and purity of diction,
declined more and more, first in the Latin countries, and
afterwards in the Greek or eastern portion of the empire.
A predilection for solitude, for saddened meditation, and
for an internal absorption of mind, seems to have influenced
simultaneously both the language itself and the colouring of
the style.

Where a new element appears to develop itself suddenly
and generally in the feelings of men, we may almost always
trace earlier indications of a deep-seated germ existing pre-
viously in detached and solitary instances. The softness
of Mimnermus (*3) has often been called a sentimental
direction of the mind. The ancient world is not abruptly
separated from the modem ; but changes in the religious
sentiments and apprehensions of men, in their tenderest moral
feelings, and in the particular mode of life of those who
influence the ideas of the masses, gave a sudden predomi-
nance to that which previously escaped notice.

The tendency of the Christian mind was to shew the
VOL. u. c

I

greatness and goodness of the Creator from the order of the
universe and the beauty of nature ; and this desire to glorify
the Deity through his works, favoured a disposition for
natural descriptions. We find the earliest and most detailed
instances of this kind in the writings of Minucius Felix, a
rhetorician and advocat-e living in Eome in the beginning
of the third century, and a contemporary of TertuDian and
Philostratus. We follow liim wit "leasure in the evening
twilight ta the sea sliore near Ostia, w,^,'- indeed, he
describes as more picturesque, and more favoutaoie to
health, than we now find it. The religious discourse
entitled " Octavius" is a spirited defence of the new faith
against the attacks of a heathen friend {**) .

This is the place for introducing from the Greek fathers of
the church extracts descriptive of natural scenes, which are
probably less known to my leaders than are the evidences of
the ancient Italian love for a rural life contained in Soman
literature. I will begin with a letter of the great Basil,
which baa long been an especial favourite with me. Basil,
who was a native of Cesarea in Cappadocia, left the pleasures
of Athene when little more than thirty years of age, and,
having already visited the Christian hermitages of CobIo-
Syria and Upper Egypt, withdrew, like the Essenes and
Therapeuti before Christianity, into a wilderness adjacent to
the Armenian river Iris. His second brother, Naucratiua (**),
had been drowned there while engaged in fishing, after
leading for five years the life of a rigid anchorite. Basil
writes to his friend Gregory of Nazianzum, " I beheve I
have at last fomid the end of my wanderings : my hopes of
uniting myself l^•ith thee — my pleasing dreams, 1 should
rather aay, for the hopes of men have been justly called

^^ OS a

BY THE KAaLT CHEISTIAira. S7

*aking drciims, — have remained unfulfilled, God has
caused me to find a place such as has often hovered before
the fancy of us both ; and that wliich imagination shewed

afar off, I now see present before me. A high mountain,
ithed witb thick forest, ia watered towards the north by

ih and ever flowing streams ; and at the foot of the
mountain extends a vide plain, which these streams render
fruitful. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kinds
of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fortress. Tliis wilder-
ness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the river,
precipitating itself foaming from the mountain, forms an
obstacle difflcolt to overcome ; and the other side is enclosed

a broad range of hills. My hut is so placed on the
the mountain, that I overlook the extensive plain,
and the whole course of the Iris, which is both more
beautiful, and more abundajit in its waters, than the
Strymon near Amphipohs. The river of my wilderness,
vrhich is more rapid than any wliich I have ever seen, breaks
against the jutting precipice, and throws itself foaming into
the deep pool below — to the mountain traveller an object on
wliich he gazes mth dehght and admiration, SBd valuable
to the native for the many fish which it affords. Shall I
describe to thee the fertilising vapours rising &om the
moist earth, and the cool breezes from the broken wafer?
shall I speak of the lovely song of the birds, and of the
profusion of flowers ? What charms me most of all is the
undisturbed tranquillity of the district : it is oidy visited
occasionally by hunters ; for my wilderness feeds deer and
herds of wild goats, not youi bears and your wolves. How
should 1 exchange any other place for this ! Alcmason,
when he had found tlie Echinades, would not wander

Il

38 DESCRTPnOSS OF NATUail SCENERY

farther" {*^). In this simple description of the 1
and of the life of the forest, there speak feelings more inti-
mately allied to those of modem times than any thing that
Greek and Eoman antiquity ha^e bequeathed to us. Prom
the lonely mountain hut to "which Basilius had retired, the
eye looks down on the humid roof of foliage of the forest be-
neath; the resting-place for which he and his friend Gregory
of Nazianzum (*') have so long panted is at last found.
The sportive allusion at the close to the poetic mj-thus of
Alcmeeon sounds like a distant lingering echo, repeating in
the Cliristiiui world accents belongiug to that which had
preceded it.

Basil's Homilies on the Hexsemeron also bear nitness to
hia love of nature. He describes the mildness of the con-
stantly serene nights of Asia Minor, where, according to his
expression, the stars, "those eternal flowers of heaven,"
raise the spirit of man from the visible to the Invisible (**).
When, in speaking of the creation of the world, he desires
to praise the beauty of the sea, he describes the aspect
nf the boundless plain of waters in its different and vary-
ing condittons — "how, when gently agitated by mildly-
breathmg airs, it gives back the varied hues of heaven, bow
in white, now in blue, and now in roseate light ; and caresses
the shore in peaceful play \"

We find in Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, the
same dehght in nature, the same sentimental and partly
melancholy vein. "When," he exclaims, "I behold each
craggy hill, each valley, and each plain clothed witJi fresh-
springing grass ; the varied foliage with which the tree* are
adorned ; at my feet the hlies to which nature has given a
double dower, of sweet fragrance, and of beauty of colour;

BY THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 29

and in the distance the sea, towards which the wandering
clond is sailing, — my mind is possessed with a sadness wliich
is not devoid of enjoyment. "Wlien, in autumn, the fruits
disappear, the leaves fall, and the brauches of the trees,
stripped of their ornaments, hang lifeless, in viewing this
perpetual and regularly recurring alternation the mind
becomes ahsorbed in the contemplation, and rapt as it
were in unison with the many- voiced chorus of the won-
drous forces of nature. "Whoso gazes through these with
the inward eye of the soul feels the httleuess of man in the
greatness of the universe" (^9) .

"While the early Christian Greeks were thus led, by
glorifying God in a loving contemplation of nature, to poetic
descriptions of her various beauty, they were at the same
time full of contempt for aU works of human art, "We find in
Chrysostom many such passages as these : "when thou lookest
on the glittering bnildings, if the ranges of columns would
seduce thy heart, turn quickly to contemplate the vault of
heaven and the open fields, with the flocks grazing by the
water's side. Who but despises all that art can shew wlulst
he gazes at early mom, and, in the sflence of the heart,
on tile rising sun pouring his golden light upon the
earth ; or when seated by the side of a fountain in the cool
grass, or in the dark shade of thick fohage, liis eye feeds
the while on the wide-extended prospect far vanisliing in the
distance" (*"). Autioch was at this period surronndtd by
hermitages, iu one of which Chrysostom dwelt it might
have seemed that eloquence had found again her element,
freedom, on returning to the bosom of nature in tlie then
forest -covered mountain districts of Syria and Aiia Minor

But when, during the subsequent period, so hostile to ail

30 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY

intellectual cultivatioii, Christianity spread among the Ger-
manic and Celtic races, who had previously been devoted to
the worship of nature, and who honoured under rude symbols
its preserving and destroying powers, the dose and affec-
tionate intCTcourse with the external world of phsenomena
which we have remarked among the early Christians of
Greece and Italy, as well as all endeavours to trace the
action of natural forces, fell gradually under suspicion, as
tending towards sorcery. They were therefore regarded as
not less dangerous than the art of the sculptor had appeared
to Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria, and almost all the
most ancient fathers of the church. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Councils of Tours (1163) and of
Paris (1209) forbade to monks the sinful reading of writings
on physical science (5^). These intellectual fetters were
first broken by the courage of Albert the Great and Soger
Bacon ; when nature was pronounced pure, and reinstated in
her ancient rights.

Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which have
shewn themselves in different periods of time ; and in two
literatures so nearly allied as were those of the Greeks and
the Romans. But not only are great differences in modes
of feeling produced by time, — ^by the changes whidi it
brings with it, in forms of government, in manners, and
in religious views, — but diversities still more striking are
produced by differences of race and of mental disposition.
How different in animation and in poetic colouring are the
manifestations of the love of nature and the descriptions of
natural scenery among the Greeks, the Germans of the
north, the Semitic races, the Persians, and the Indians!

BT THE OERHANS OF THE MIDDLE AOES. 31

An opinion has been repeatedly expressed, that the dehght
in nature felt by northern nations, and the longing desire
for the pleasant fields of Italy and Greece, and for the won-
derful luxuriance of tropical vegetation, are principally to be
ascribed to the long winter's privation of all such enjoy-
ments. We do not mean to deny that the longing for the
climate of pahns seems to diminish as we approach the
South of France and the Iberian Peninsula ; but the now
generally employed, and ethnologically correct name of Indo-
Germanic races, might alone be suf&cient to remind us that
we must be cautious lest we generaUse too much respecting
the influence thus ascribed to northern winters. The rich-
ness of the poetic Uterature of the Indians teaches us, that
within and near the tropics south of the great chain of the
Himalaya, the sight of ever verdant and ever flowering
forests has at all times acted as a powerful stimulus to the
poetic and imaginative faculties of the East-Arianic nations,
and that these nations have been more strongly inclined to
picturesque descriptions of nature than the true Germanic
races, who, in the far inhospitable north, had extended even
into Iceland. A deprivation, or, at least, a certain inter-
ruption of the enjoyment of nature, is not, however, im-
known even to the happier climates of Southern Asia : the
seasons are there abruptly divided from each other by alter-
nate periods of fertilising rain and of dusty desolating
aridity. In the Persian plateau of West Aria, the desert
often extends in deep bays far into the interior of the most
smiling and fruitful lands. In Middle and in Western
Asia, a margin of forest often forms as it were the shore of
a widely extended inland sea of steppe ; and thus the inhabi-
tants of these hot countries have presented to them the

L

82 OESCKIPnoNS of NAXnUAL scesekt

strongest contrasts of desert barrenness and liixuriiint vege-
tatioa, in the sanje horizontal plane, aa well as in the vertical
elevation of the snow-capped mountain chains of India and
of Afghanistan. AVlierever a lively tendency to the contem-
plation of nature is interwoven with the whole intellectual
cultivation, and with the religious feehngs of a nation, great
and striking contrasts of season, of vt^etation, or of eleva-
tion, are unfailing stimulants to the poetic imagination.

Delight in nature, inseparable from the tendency to objec-
tive contemplation which belongs to the Germanic nations,
shews itself in a high degree in the earhest poetry of the
middle ages. Of tliis the chivairic poems of the Minne-
singers during the Hohenstauffeu period afford us numerous
examples. Many and varied as are its points of contact
with the romanesc^ue poetry of the Provencals, jet its true
Germanic principle can never be mistaken. A deep felt and
all pervading love of nature may be discerned in all Ger-
manic manners, habits, and modes of life ; and even in the
love of freedom characteristic of the race{*2). The wander-
ing MinnesingCTs, or minstrels, though living much in
courtly circles (from which, indeed, they often sprang), still
maintained fret^uent and intimate intercourse with nature,
and preserved, in all its freshness, an idyllic, and oftoi an
elegiac, turn of thought. I avail myself on these subjects
of the researches of those most profoundly versed in the
history and hterature of our German middle ages, my noble-
minded friends Jacob and Wilhehn Grimm, "The poets of
OUT country of that period,^' says the last named writer,
"never gave separate descriptions of nature, their object
being solely to represent, in brilliant colours, the impression
of the landscape on the mind. Assuredly the eye and the

BY KEB QUaiUJfB OF THE HIDDI.B AGES. 33

feeling for nature were not wanting in these old German
masters; but the only expressious thereof which they have
left us are such as flowed forth in lyrical strains, in connec-
tion with the occurrences or the feelings belonging to the
narrative. To begin with the beat and oldest monuments of
the popular eposj we do not find any description of scenery
either in the Niebelungen or in Gudraii(5^), even where the
occasion might lead us to bok for it. In the otherwise
circumstantial description of the chase during which Sieg-
fried is murdered, the only natural features mentioned are
the blooming heather and the cool fountain under the
linden tree. In Gudrun, which shews something of a
higher polish, a finer eye for natiu'e seems also discernible.
When the king's daughter, with her companions, reduced
to slavery, and compelled to perform menial othces, carry
the garments of their cruel lord to the sea-shore, the time is
indicated as being the season ' when winter is just dissolv-
ing, and the birds begin to be heard, vj'ing with each other
in their songs; snow and rain still fall, and the hair of the
captive maidens is blown by the rude winds of March.
When Gudrun, hoping for the approach of her dehverer,
leaves her couch, the morning star rises over the sea, wliieh
begins to glisten in the early dawn, and she distinguishes
the dark helmets and the shields of her friends.' The words
are few, but they convey to the fancy a visible picture, suited
to heighten the feeling of expectation and suspense previous
to the occurrence of an important event in the narrative.
In like manner, when Homer paints the island of the
Cyclops and the gardens of Alcinous, his purpose is to
bring before our eyes tiie luxuriant fertihty and abundance
of the wild dwelling-place of the giant monsters, and the
" c2

1

Bi DESCaiPTIOSS 01 KATITRAL 3CENKB.Y

magniflceEt residence of a powerful king. In neither poet
is the deacription of nature a primaiy or independent
object."

"Opposed to these simple popular epics, are the mote
varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the
thirteenth century; among whom, Hartmann von Aue,
Wol&am von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (^),
in the early part of the century, are so much distinguished
above the rest, that they may be called great and classical.
It would be easy to bring together from their extensive
writings sufficient proof of their deep feehng for nature, as
it breaks forth in similitudea ; but distinct and independent
descriptions of natural scenes are never found in their pages ;
they never arrest the progress of the action to contemplate
the tranquil life of nature. How different is this from the
writers of modern poetic compositions ! Bernardiu de St.-
Pierre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames
for his pictures. The lyric poeta of the thirteenth ceutury,
when singing of love, (which is not, however, their constant
theme), speak, indeed, often of 'gentle May,' of the 'song
of the nightingale,' and ' the dew glistening on the bells of
heather,' but always in connection with sentiments springing
from other soiu'ccs, which these outward images serve to
reflect. Thus, when feelings of sadness are to be indicated,
mention is made of fading leaves, birds whose songs are
mute, and the fruits of the field buried in snow. The same
thoughts recur incessantly, not indeed without considerable
variety as well as beauty in the manner iif which they are
e^ressed. "W'alther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram von
Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness and the
latter by deep thought, have left us some lyric pieces.

BT THE GBItlU.NS OF THE UIDDLB AGES.

unfortunately only few in uurnber, whicli are deserving of
honourable naeatioa."

" If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
by means of tlie crusades, with Aaia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetie art in Germany nith new
imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny
climes, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the
negative. We do not Sud that acquaintance with the East
changed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period :
the crusaders had little familiar communication with the
Saraceus, and there was much of repulsion even between the
warriors of different nations associated for a common cause.
Friedrieh von Hansen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,
was one of the earheat German lyrical poets. His songs
often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious
feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object.
Neither he nor any of the writers who had takeu part in the ex-
peditions to Palestine, as Itehunar the Elder, Rubin, Neidliart,
and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of the
country in which they were sojourning. Eeiumar came to
Sj-ria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopold YI. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of
home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God.
The date-tree is occaaionaUy mentioned, in speaking of the
pahna which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders.
Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of
Italian nature having stimulated the imagination of those
minstrels who crossed the Alps. AValther von der Vogel-
weiJe, though he had wandered far, liad in Italy seen only
the Po; but Freidank(") was in Eome, and he merely

I

INBSGKIFnONS OW HATCOAL SGENEBY

remarks that ' grass now grows in the palaces of those who
once ruled there.' "

The German Thier-epos, which must not be confounded
with the oriental "fable," originated in habitual association
and fenuharity with the animal world ; to paint which was
notj however, its purpose. This peculiar cIhss of poem,
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a mauner, in
the iutroduction to his edition of Eeinhart Fuchs, shews a
cordial dehght in nature. The animals, not attached to the
ground, excited by passion, and gifted by the poet with
speech, contrast with the still life of the silent plants, and
form a constantly active element enhvening the landscape.
" The early poetry loves to look on the life of nature with hu-
man eyes, and lends to animals, and even to plants, human
thoughts and feelings; giving a fanciful and childlike
interpretation to all that has been observed of their forms
and habits. Plants and flowers, gathered and used by gods
and heroes, are aftern-arda named from them. In reading
the old German epic, in which brutes are the actors, we
breathe an air redolent as it were with the sylvan odours of
some ancient forest" (s^) .

Formerly we might have been tempted to number among
the memorials of Germanic poetr}' liaviiig reference to
external nature, the supposed remains of the Celto-Irish
poems, which, for half a century, passed as shapes of mist
from nation to nation, under the name of Ossian ; but the
spell has been brokeu since the complete discovery of the
literary fraud of the talented Macpherson, by his publication
of the supposed GaeUc original text, now known to have
been a retranslation from the Enghsh work. There are.

BY THE INDIANS. 37

indeed^ ancient Irish Fingalian songs belonging to the times
of Christianity, and perhaps not even reaching as hi back
as the eighth century; but these popular songs contain
little of the sentimental description of nature which gives a
particular charm to Macpherson's poems (^^) .

We have aheady remarked, that if sentimental and
rcMnantic turns of thought and feeling in reference to nature
belong in a high degree to the Indo-Germanic races of
Northern Europe, it should not be regarded only as a con-
sequence of climate ; that is, as arising from a longing desire
enhanced by protracted privation. I have noticed, that the
literatures of India and of Persia, which have unfolded
under the glowing brightness of southern skies, offer
descriptions full of charm, not only of orggmic, but also of
inorganic nature; of the transition from parching drought
to tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the.
deep azure of the pure sky, and the first rustling sound of
the long desired etesian winds in the feathered foliage of the
summits of the palms.

It is now time to enter somewhat more deeply into the
subject of the Indian descriptions of nature. "Let us
imagine,^' says Lassen, in his excellent work on Indian
antiquity (^®), " a portion of the Arianic race migrating from
their primitive seats, in the north-west, to India: they
would there find themselves surrounded by scenery alto-
gether new, and by vegetation of a striking and luxuriant
character. The mildness of the climate, the fertihty of the
soil, the profusion of rich gifts which it lavishes almost
spontaneously, would all tend to impart to the new life of
the immigrants a bright and cheerful colouring. The origi-
nally fiine organisation of this race, and their high endow-

38

DESOBIPnONa OF HA^TUBAL SCEHEBY

I

meiita of inteHeci and disposition, the germ of all that the
nations of India have achieved of great or noble, early
rendered the spectacle of the external world productive of a
profound meditation on the forces of nature, which is the
groundwork of that contemplative tendency which we find
intimately interwoven with the earhest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on tlie mental disposition of the
people, has embodied itself most distinctly in their funda-
mental religious tenets, in the recognition of the divine in
nature. The careless ease of outward life likewise favoured
the indulgence of the contemplative tendency. Who could
have less to disturb their meditations on earthly life, the
condition of man after death, and on the divine essence,
than the Indian anchorites, the Brahmins dw'elling in the
forest (^3), whose ancient schools constituted one of the
most peculiar phtenomena of Indian life, and materially
influenced the mental development of the whole race ?"

In referring now, as I did in my public lectures imder the
guidance of my brother and of others conversant with
Sanscrit ht«rature, to particular instances of tlie vivid sense
of natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in the
descriptive jiortions of Indian poetry, I begin with the
Vedas, or sacred writings, which are the earhest monuments
of the civihsation of the East Ariauic nations, and are princi-
pally occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. The
hymus of the E.ig-Veda contain beautiful descriptions of the
blush of early dawn, and the appearance of the " golden-
lianded" sun. The great heroic poems of Ramayana and
Mahabliarata are later than the Vedas, and earlier than the
Puronas ; and hi them the praises of nature arc connected
with a narrative, agreeably to the essential character of epic

BY THE INDIANS. 39

poetry. In the Vedas, it is seldom possible to assign the
particular locality whence the sacred sages derive their inspi-
ration ; in the heroic poems, on the contrary, the descriptions
are mostly individual, and attached to particular localities,
and are animated by that fresher life which is found where
the writer has drawn from impressions of which he was him-
self the recipient. Rama's journey from Ayodhya to the
capital of Dschanaka, his sojourn in the primeval forest, and
the picture of the hermit life of the Panduides, are all richly
coloured.

The name of the great poet Kalidasa, who flourished at
the highly pohshed court of Vikramaditya, contempora-
neously with Virgil and Horace, has obtained an early and
extensive celebrity among the nations of the west : nearer
our own times, the EngUsh and German translations of
Sacontala have further contributed, in a high degree, to the
admiration so largely felt for an author, whose tenderness of
feeling, and rich creative imagination, claun for him a dis-
tinguished place among the poets of all countries {^^). The
charm of his descriptions of nature is seen also in the lovely
drama of ^^ Vikrama and Urvasi,'' in which the king wanders
through the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph
Urvasi; in the poem of ^^The Seasons/' and in '^The
Meghaduta,'' or ^^ Cloud Messenger.'' The last named poem
paints, with admirable truth to nature, the joyful welcome
which, after a long continuance of tropical drought, hails
the first appearance of the rising cloud, which shews that
the looked-for season of rains is at hand. The expres-
sion, '^ truth to nature,^' which I have just employed, can
alone justify me in venturing to recal, in connection with
the Indian poem, a sketch of the commencement of the

DKSCBIFTIOHS OP NATUEAl SOBNEEY

I

rainy season (^') traced by myself, in South America, at a
time when I was wholly imacquainted with Kalidasa's
Meghaduta, even in Chfezy's translation. The obscure
meteorological processes which take place in the atmospbere,
in the formation of vapour, in the shape of the clouds, and
in the luminous electric pbsenomena, are the s^ne in the
tropical regions of both continents ; and idealising art,
whose province it is to form the actual into the ideal image,
will surely lose none of its magic power by the discovery
that the analysing spirit of observation of a later age con-
firms the truth to nature of the older, purely graphical and
poetical representation.

We pass from the East Arians, or the Brabminic Indians,
and their strongly marked sense of picturesque beauty in
nature (^'), to the West Arians, or Persians, who had
snigrated into the northern country of the Zend, and were
originally disposed to combine with the dualistic behef in
Ormuzd and Abrimanes a spiritualised veneration of nature.
"What we term Persian hterature does not reach farl.ber back
than the period of the Sassanides ; the older poetic raemoriala
have perished ; and it was not until the country had been sub-
jugated by the Arabs, and the characteristics of its earher inha-
bitants in great measure obhterated, that it regained a national
literature, under the Samanides, Gaznevides, and Seldschuki.
Theflonrishingperiodofitspoetry, fromFirdnsi to llafizand
Dschami, can hardly be said to have lasted four or five cen-
turies, and extends but htUe beyond the epoch of Vasco de
Gama. The hteratures of Persia and of India are separated
by time as well as by space ; the Persian belonging to the
middle ages, wlule the great literature of India belongs
strictly to antiquity. In the Irauuian higlilands, nature

BY THE PERSIANS. 41

' floea not present the iuxuriance of arborescent vegetation, ot
the admirable variety of form and colour, which adorn the
soil of Hindoatan. The Vindhya chain, which was long the
boundary of the East Arianic nations, ia still within the
torrid zone, while the whole of Persia is situated beyond the
tropics, and its poetic literature even belongs in part to the
northern soil of Balkh and Fergana. The foiir paradisea
celebrated by the Persian poets{^3), were the pleasant valley
of Soghd near Saraarcand, Maschanrnd near Hamadan,
Tcha'abi Bowan near Kal'eh Sofid in Ears, and Ghute the
plain of Damascus. Both Iran and Turan are wanting in
the sylvan scenery and the hermit life of the forest which
influenced so powerfully the imaginations of the Indian
poets. Gardens refreshed by springing fountains, and filled
with rose bushes and fruit trees, could ill replace the wild
and grand scenery of Hindostan. No wonder, therefore,
that the descriptive poetry of Persia has less !ife and fresh-
ness, and is even often tame, and full of artificial ornament.
Since, in the judgment of the Persians, the highest meed of
praise is given to that which we term sprightliness and wit,
our admiration must be limited to the productiveness of
their poets, and to the infinite variety of forms (^*) which
the same materials assume under their hands : we miss
in them depth and eamestuesa of feeling.

In the national epic of Persia, Firdusi's Shahnameh,
the course of the narrative is but rarely interrupted by
descriptions of landscape. The praises of the coast land of
Maziinderan, put into the mouth of a wanderijig bard, and
5 the mildness of its climate, and the vigour of its
tation, appear to me to have much grace and charm,
a high degree of local truth. In the storj-, the king

42 DESCBIPTIOyS OJ XATUXAL SCENEKT

(Kei Kawus) is indaced by the description to undertake an
expedition to the Caspian^ and to attempt a new conquest (^) .
Enweri, Dschelaleddin Smni (who is considered the greatest
mystic poet of the East), Adhad, and the half Indian Feisi,
have written poems on spring, parts of which breathe poetic
life and fireshness, although in other parts our enjoyment is
often unpleasingbr disturbed by petty efforts in plays on words
and artificial comparisons (^). Joseph von Hammer, in
his great work on the histoiy of Persian poetry, remarks of
Sadi, in the Bostan and Gulistan (Fruit and Bose Grardens),
and of Hafiz, whose joyous philosophy of life has been com-
pared with that of Horace, that we find in the first an
ethical teacher, and in the love songs of the second, lyrical
fights of no mean beauty ; but that in both the descriptions
of nature are too often marred and disfigured by turgidity
and false ornament (^7). The favourite subject of Persian
poetrj', the loves of the nightingale and the rose, is weari-
some, from its perpetual recurrence; and the genuine love
of nature is stifled in the East under the conventional
prettinesses of the language of flowers.

When we proceed northwards from the Iraunian highlands
tlirough Turan (in the Zend Tuirja) (^s), into the chain of
the Ural which forms the boundary between Europe and
Asia, we find ourselves in the early seat of the Eiimish races ;
for the Ural is as deserving of the title of the ancient land
of the Fins as the Altai is of that of the Turks. Among
the Fins who have settled fiur to the west in European low-
lands, Elias Lonnrot has collected, from the lips of the
Karelians and the country people of Olonetz, a great
number of Finnish songs, in which Jacob Grimm {^^)
finds, in regard to nature, a tone of emotion and of reverie

BT THS HEBRET9. 43

Mrely met with except in Indian poetry. An old epic
of nearly three thousand lines, which is occupied with
the wars between the Fins and the Lapps, and the for-
tunes and fate of a godlike hero named Vaino, contains a
pleasing description of the rural life of theKns; especially
where the wife of the ironworker, llmarine, sends her flocks
into the forest, with prayers for their safeguard. Few races
present more remarkable gradations in the character of their
minds and the direction of their feelings, as determined by
servitude, by wild and warlike habits, or by persevering
efforts for pohtical freedom, than the race of Fius, with its
subdivisions speaking kindred languages. I allude to the
now peaceful rural population among whom the epic just
mentioned was discovered, — to the Huns, (long confounded
with the Monguls,) who overrun the Boman world, — and
to a great and noble people, the Magyars,

We have seen tliat the vividness of the feeling with which
nature is regarded, and the form in which that feeling mani-
fests itself, are influenced by differences of race, by the par-
ticular character of the country, by the constitution of the
state, and by the tone of religions feehng ; and we have
traced this influence in the nations of Europe, and in those
ivi kindred descent iu Asia (the Indiana and Persians)
Arianic or In do-Germanic origin. Passing irom
ice to the Semitic or Aiamean race, we discover
in the oldest and most venerable memorials iu which the
tflne and tendency of tlieir poetry and imagination are dis-
played, unquestionable evidences of a profound sensibility
to nature.

This feeling manifests itself with grandeur ami animation

pastoral narratives, in hymns and choral songs, in the

idoiir of lyric poetry in the Psalms, and in U\e 3cUo>i\s.

^Wen(

J

DEscRipnoys of hatoral scenery

I

of the prophets and seers_, whose high iuspiratioii, almost
estranged from the past, is wrapped in futurity.

Besides its own inherent greatness and sublimity, Hebrew
poeti^ presents to Jews, to Christians, and even to Maho-
metans, local reminiscences more or less closely entwined
with religious feelings. Tlirough missions, favoured by the
spirit of commerce, and the territorial acquisitions of mari-
time nations, names and descriptions belonging to oriental
localities, preserved to us in the writings of the Old Testa-
ment, have penetrated far into the recesses of the forests of
the new continent, and into the islands of the Pacific.

It is characteristic of Hebrew poetry in reference
to nature, that, as a reflex of monotheism, it always
embraces the whole world in its unity, comprehending the
life of the terrestrial globe as well as the slduing regions of
space. It dwells less on details of phfenomena, and loves
to contemplate great masses. Nature ia pourtrayed, not as
self-subsisting, or glorious in her own beauty, but ever in
relation to a higher, an over-ruhng, a spiritual power. The
Hebrew bard ever sees in her the living expression of the
omnipresence of God in the works of the visible creation.
Thus, the lyrical poetry of tlie Hebrews in its descriptions
of nature is essentially, in its very subject, grand and solemn,
and, when tonching on the earthly condition of man, full of
a yearning pensiveness. It is deserving of notice, that
notwithstanding its grand cbaracter, and even in its highest
lyrical flights elevated by the charm of music, the Hebrew
poetry, unlike that of the Hindoos, scarcely ever appears
unrestrained by law and measure. Devoted to the pure
contemplation of the Divinity, figiu^tive in langu^e, but
clear and simple in thought, it delights in comparisons, which
jiEcui continually and almost rhythmically.

BY THE HEBREWS. 45

As descriptions of natural scenery, the writings of the
Old Testament shew as in a mirror the nature of the
country in which the people of Israel moved and dwelt, with
its alternations of desert, fruitful land, forest, and mountain.
They pourtray the variations of the climate of Palestine, the
succession of the seasons, the pastoral manners of the
people, and their innate disinclination to agriculture. The
epic, or historical and narrative, portions are of the utmost
simplicity, almost more unadorned even than Herodotus;
and from the small alteration which has taken place in the
manners, and in the usages and circumstances of a nomade
life, modem travellers have been enabled to testify unani-
mously to their truth to nature. The Hebrew lyrical
poetry is more adorned, and unfolds rich and animated views
of the life of nature. A single psalm, the 104th, may be
said to present a picture of the entire Cosmos : — "The Lord
covereth himself with light as with a garment. He hath
stretched out the heavens like a canopy. He laid the
foundations of the round earth that it should not be removed
for ever. The waters springing in the mountains descend
to the valleys, unto the places which the Lord hath
appointed for them, that they may never pass the bounds
which He has set them, but may give drink to every beast
of the field. Beside them the birds of the air sing among
the branches. The trees of the Lord are foil of sap, the
cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted, wherein the
birds make their nests, and the fir trees wherein the stork
builds her house.^^ The great and wide sea is also described,
'^ wherein are Uving things innumerable ; there move the
sliips, and there is that leviathan whom Thou hast made to
gport therein.'^ The fruits of the field, the objects of the

k

DESCHIPTIONa OF NiTORAL SCENEIIT

labour of mau, are also introduced ; the com, the cheerful
vine, and the olive garden. Tlie heavenly bodies complete
this picture of nature. " The Lord appointed the moon
for seasons, and the suu tnoweth the term of his course.
He bringeth darkness, and it is night, wherein the wild
beasts roam. The young lions roar after their prey, and
seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth and they get
them away togetlier, and lay them down in their dens :" and
then " man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour
until the evening," "We are astonished to see, within the
compass of a poem of such small dimension, the universe,
the heavens and the earth, thus drawn with a few grand
strokes. The moving life of the elements is here placed in
opposition to the quiet laborious life of man, from the
rising of tie sun, to the evening when his daily work is
done. This contrast, the generality in the conception of
the mutual influence of phEenomena, the glance reverting
to the omnipresent invisible power, which can renew the
face of the earth, or, cause the creature to return again to
the dust, give to the whole a character of solemnity and
sublimity rather than of warmth and softness.

Similar views of the Cosmos present themselves to us
repeatedly in the Psalms ('"), {as in the 65th, v. 7 — 14,
and in the 74th, 15 — 17), and with perhaps most ful-
ness in the ancient, if not premosaic, book of Job, The
meteorological processes takhig place in the canopy of
the clouds, the formation and dissolution of vapour as the
wind changes its direction, the play of colours, the produc-
tion of hail, and the rolling thunder, are described with the
most graphic individuality ; many questions are also pro-
posed, which our modem physical science enables us indeed

BY THK EEBEETS.

47

3 propound more formally, and to clothe in more scientific
language, but not to solve satisfactorily. The book of Job
ia generally regarded as the moat perfect example of Hebrew
poetry; it is no less picturesque in the presentation of single
phfenomena than skilful in the didactic arrangement of the
whole. In all the various modem laugnages into which
this boot has been translated, its imagery, drawn from
eastern nature, leaves on the mind a deep impression.
"The Lord walks on the heights of the sea, on the ridges
of the towering waves heaped up by the storm" (chap, xxxviii.
V. 1 6) . "The morning dawn taies hold of the ends of the earth,
and moulds variously the canopy of clouds, as the hand of man
moulds the ductile clay" (chap xxxviii. v. 13 — 14.) The
habits of animals are depicted, of the wild asa and
the horae, the buflalo, the river horse of the Nile, the
crocodilej the eagle, and the ostrich. We see (chap, xxxvji.
V. 18) during the sultry heat of the south wind, "the
pure ether spread over the thirsty desert like a molten mir-
ror C'^)." Where the gifts of nature are sparingly bestowed,
man's perceptiona are rendered more acute, so that he
watches every variation in the atmosphere around him and
in the clouds above him ; and in the desert, as on the
billows of the ocean, traces back every cliange to the signs
which foretold it. The climate of the arid and rocky
portions of Palestine is particularly suited to give birth to
such observations.

Neither is variety of form wanting in the poetic literatore
of the Hebrews : while from Joshua to Samuel it breathes a
warlike tone, the little book of Iluth presents a natural
picture of the most naive simplicity, and of an inespressible
oharm. Goethe, at the period of his enthusiasm for the East,

k

said of it, that we have nothing so lovely in the whole
range of epic and idyllic poetry. {'^)

Even in later times, in the earliest memorials of the
literature of the Arabians, we discover a faint reflex of that
grandeur of view in the contemplation of nature, which
so early distinguished the Semitic race: I allude to the
picturesque description of the Bedouin life of the deserta,
which the grammarian Asmai has connected with the great
name of Aiitar, and has woven {together with other pre-
mohamedan legends of tiiightly deeds), into a considerable
work. The hero of this romantic tale is the same Antar of
the tribe of Abs, son of the princely chief Sheddad and of a
black slave, whose verses are preserved among the prize
poems, (moaUakat), which are hung up in the Kaaba. The
learned English translator, Terrick Hamilton, has called
attention to the biblical tones in tlie style of Antar. (^3),
Asmai makes the son of the desert travel to Constantinople,
and thus uitroduces a picturesque contrast of Greek culture
with nomadic simplicity. We should be less surprised at
findii^ that natural descriptions of the surface of the Earth
occupy only a very small space in the earliest Arabian
poetry, since, according to the remark of an accomplished
Arabic scholar, my friend Preytag of Bonn, narratives of
deeds of arms, and praises of hospitality and of fidelity in
love, are its principal themes, and since scarcely any, if any,
of its writers were natives of Arabia Felix. The dreary
uniformity of sandy desert-s or grassy plains is ill fitted to
awaken the love of nature, escei>tiug in rare instances and
in minds of a pecuhar cast,

"Where the earth is unadorned by forests, the imagination,
SB we have already remarked, is the more occupied by the

i

BT TOE ABABIAKS. 49

atmospheric pbaiomena of storm, tempest, and long dpsiieil
rain. Among faithful natural pictures of tliia class, I
wouldinstanceparticularlyAntar'aMoailaliat, which describes
the pasture fertilised by rain, and visited by swarms of hum-
ming insects ('*) ; the fine descriptions of storms, both by
Amru'l Kais, and in the 7th booJ; of the celebrated Hnmasa
C^), which are also distinguished by a liigh degree of local
truth; and lastly, the description in theNabegha Dhobjani (^^)
of the swelling of the Euphrates, when its waters roil down
masses of reeds and trunks of trees. The eighth book of
the Hamasa, which is entitled " Travel and Sleepiness,"
naturally attracted my attention: I soon found that the
" sleepiness" (") belongs only to the tirst fragment of the
book, and even there is more excusable, as it is ascribed to a
journey on a camel.

I have endeavoured in this section to unfold in a frag-
lentary manner the different influence which the estemal
world, that is, the aspect of animate and inanimate nature,
has exercised at different epochs, and among different races
and nations, on the inward world of thonght and feeling.
I have tried to accomplish this object by tracing throughout
the history of literature, the particiilar characteristics of the
vind manifestatiou of the feelings of men in regard to nature.
In this, as throughout the whole of the work, my aim has
been to give not so much a complete, as a general, view, by
the selection of such esamplea as should best display the
peculiarities of the various periods and races. I have followed
the Greeks and Eomans to (he gradual extinction of those
feelings which have given to classical antiquity in the West
imperishable lustre; I have traced in the writings of

50

DESCElPnOSB Of NATDSAL aCENEEY.

the Cliristian fathers of the Church, the fiue expression of ii
love of nature nursed in the seclusion of the henmtage.
In considering the Indo- Germanic nations, {the denomination
being here taken in its most restricted sense), I have
psasetl from the poetic works of the Germans in the middle
ages, to those of the bigbly cultivated ancient East Arianic
nations {the Indians) ; and of the less gifted West Arians, (the
inhabitants of ancient Iran) , After a rapid glance at the Celtic
or Gaelic songs, and at a newly discovered Knnish epic, I
have described the rich perception of the life of nature
which, in races of Aramean or Semitic origin, breathes
in the sublime poetry of the Hebrews, and in the writings of
the Arabians. Thus I have traced the reflected image of the
world of phtenomena, as mirrored in the imagination of the
nations of the north and the south-east of Europe, of the
west of Asia, of the Persian plateaus, and of tropical India.
In order to conceive Nature in all her grandeur, it seemed to
me necessary to present her under a two-fold aspect ; first
objectively, as an actual phrcnomenon ; and next as re-
flected in the feelings of mankind.

After the fading of Aramaic, Greek, and Eoman glory — I
might say after the destrnction of the ancient world — we
find in the great and inspired founder of a new world, Dante
Alighieri, scattered passages which manifest the most
profound sensibihfj to the aspect of extenial natnre.
The period at which he hved followed immediately that of
the decline of the minstrelsy of the Saabiau Minnesingers,
on the north side of the Alps, of whom I have already
spoken. Dante, when treating of natural objects, nithdraws
himself for a time from the jwissionate, the subjective, and
the mystic elements of his wide range of ideas. Inimitably

DANTE AND PETRARCH. 51

does he paint, for instance, at the close of the first canto of
the Purgatorio (78), the sweet breath of morning, and the
trembling light on the gently agitated distant mirror of the
sea, (il tremolar de la marina) ; in the fifth canto, the
bursting of the clouds and the swelling of the rivers, which,
after the battle of Campaldino, caused the body of Buon-
conte da Montefeltro to be lost in the Arno (^9) . The en-
trance into the thick grove of the terrestrial paradise reminds
the poet of the phie forest near Eavenna : " la pineta in sul lito
di Chiassi^^ i^), where the early song of birds is heard in
the tall trees. The local truth of this natural picture
contrasts with the description of the river of Hght in the
heavenly paradise, from which " sparks burst forth, sink
amidst the flowers on the banks, and then, as if intoxi-
cated by their perfumes, plunge again into the stream i^^)*'
It seems not impossible that this fiction may have had
for its groundwork the poet's recollection of that peculiar
state of the ocean, in which, during the beating of the waves,
luminous points dash above the surface, and the whole Kquid
plain forms a moving sea of sparkling light. The extraordinary
conciseness of the style of the Divina Commedia augments
the depth and earnestness of the impression produced.

Lingering on Italian ground, but avoiding those
frigid compositions, the pastoral romances, I would next
name the sonnet in which Petrarch describes the impression
which the lovely valley of Vaucluse made on liim when
Laura was no more ; then, the smaller poems of Boiardo,
the friend of Hercules of Este ; and at a later period
some noble stanzas by Vittoria Colonna (^2).

When the sudden intercourse which took place with
Greece in her low state of poUtical depression caused a more

h

62 DEScaipnoss ot natobai scenery.

general reviva] of classical literature, we find, as the first
example among prose writers, a charming description of
nature from the pen of the Iovct of the arts, the counsellor
anil friend of Raphael, Cardinal Bembo. His juvenile work,
entitled jEtna Didogus, gives ns an ajiimated picture of the
geographical distribution of plants on the dechvity of the
mountain) frffln the rich corn fields of Sicily to the snow-
covered margin of the crater. The finished work of his
maturer years, the Historiie Tenets, characterises in a still
more picturesque manner the climate and the vegetation of
the new continent.

At that period every thing concurred to fill the mind at
once with views of the suddeniy eniarged boundaries both
of the earthj and of the powers of man. In auriquity, the
march of the Macedonian army to the Paropamisus, and
to the forest-covered river-vaUeys of Western Asia, left
impressions derived Irom the aspect of a richly adorned
exotic nature, of which the viridness manifested itself whole
centuries afterwards in the works of highly gifted writers;
and now, in like maimer, the western nations were acted
upon a second time, and in a higher degree than by the
crusades, by the discovery of America. The tropical world,
with all the richness and luxuriance of its vegetation in the
plain, with all the gradatiouB of organic life on the declivities
of the Cordilleras, with all the reminiscences of northern
climates in the inhabited plateaus of Mexico, New Grenada,
and Quito, was now first disclosed to the view of Europeans.
Imagination, without wliich no truly great work of man can
be accomplished, gave a peculiar charm to the descriptions
of nature traced by Columbus and Ycspucci. The descrip-
tion of the coast of Brazil, bj the latter, is characterised by

COLUMBL'S. 53

an accurate acquaintance with the poets of ancient and
modern times ; that given by Colambus of the mild sky of
Paria, and of the abundant waters of the Orinoco, ilowing
as he imagines from the east of Paradise, is marked by an
earnestly religious tone of mind, which afterwards, by the
influence of increasing years, atid of the unjust persecutions
which he encountered, became touched with melancholy, and
with a vein of morbid enthusiasm.

In the heroic times of the Portuguese and Casfilian
races, it was not the thirst of gold alone (as has been
asserted, in ignorance of the national character of the period),
but rather a general excitement which led so many to
dare the hazards of distant voyages. In the beginning of
the sixteenth century, the names of Hayti, Cubagua, and
Darien, act^d on the imagination of men a.s in more recent
times, smce Anson and Cook, those of Tiiiian and Tahiti
have done. If the tidings of far distant lands then drew
the youth of the Iberian peninsula, of Maoders, Milan, and
Southern Grermany, under the victorious banners of the
great Emperor, to the ridges of the Andes and to tJie
plains of Uraba and Coro; — in more modern times,
raider the milder influence of a later cultivation, and as the
earth's surface became more generally accessible in all its
parts, the restless longing for distant regions acquired
fresh motives and a new direction. Tlie passionate love for
tiie study of nature which proceeded chiefly from the north,
inflamed the mintls of men; intellectual grandeur of view

I became associated with the enlargement of material know-
ledge ; and the particular poetic sentimental turn belonging
to the period, has embodied itself, since the close of the last
century, in literary works under forma which were before

J

li

54 DEaClUPTIO^^S OF satueal SCESERY.

unknown. If we once more cast our eyes on the period of
those great discoveries which prepared the way for the
modem tendency of which we have been speaking, we mast
in so doing refer preeminently to those descriptions of
nature which have been left us by Columbus liimself. It is
only recently that we have obtained the knowledge of his
own ship's jouroaf, of his letters to the treasurer Sanchez,
to Donna Juana de la Torre governess of the Infivnt D<mi
Juan, and to Queen Isabella. In my critical examination of
the history of the geography of the 15th and lOth centu-
ries (^), I have sought to show with how deep a feeling and
perception of the forms and the beauty of nature the great
discoverer was endowed, and how he described the face of
the earth, and the " new heaven" which opened to his view,
{" viagc nuevo al nucvo cielo i mundo que fasta eatonces
estaba en occulto"), with a beauty and simphcity of ex-
pression which can only be fully appreciated by those who
are familiar with the ancient force of the language as it
existed at the period.

The aspect and physiognomy of the vegetation; the
impenetrable thickete of the forests, "in which one can
hardly distinguish which are the flowers and leaves belonging
to each stem ;" the wild luxuriance which clothed the humid
shores; the rose-coloured flamingoes fishing at the mouth
of the rivers in the early morning, and giving animation to the
landscape ; — attract the attention of the old navigator while
sailing along the coast of Cuba, between the small Lucayan
islands and the Jardinillos, which I also liave visited. Each
newly discovered land appears to him still more beautiful than
those he had before described; lie complains tliat he cannot find
words in which to record tlie sweet imjinessions which he has

COLUMBCS.

Col.

feceived. "Wholly unacquainted with hotany, (although
through the influence of Jewish and Arahian physicians
some superficial knowledge of plants had at that time
extended iuto Spain)^ the simple love of nature leads liim
to discriminate truly betweeii the many strange forms
presented to his view. He already distinguished in Cuba
seven or eight ditferent kinds of palms "more beautiful and
loftier than date-trees," {variedades de palmas superiores a
las nuestras en su belleza y altura) ; he writes to his friend
Anghiera, that he has seen on the same plain palms and
pines, (palmeta and pineta), wonderfully grouped together;
he regards the vegetation presented to his view with a
glance so acute, that he was the first to observe that, on the
mountains of Cibao, there are pines whose fruits are not
fir cones, hat berries like the olives of the Axarafe de
Sevilla ; and, to cite one more and very remarkable example,
Columbus, as I liave ah-eady noticed (^), separated the
us Podocarpus from the family of Abietinesc.
The lovehness of tliis new land," says the discoverer,

far surpasses that of the eiunpiiia de Ck)rdoba. The trees
are all bright with ever- verdant fohage, and perpetually laden
with fruits. The plants on the ground are tail and full of
blossoms. The breezes are mild like those of April in Castille ;
the nighthigales sing more sweetly than I can describe. At
night other small birds sing sweetly, and I also hear
grasshoppers and frogs. Once I came into a deeply

tclosed harbour, and saw higli mountains which no human
tye had seen before, from wluch the lovely waters (lindas
agnas) streamed down. The mountain was covered with
firs, pines, and other trees of very various form, and adorned

ith beautiful flowers. Ascending the river which poured

I

t

Bfl DESCRIPTIONS OP NATKHAL SCENERY.

itself into the bay, I was astonished at the cool shade, the
ciystftl clear water, and the number of singing birds. It
seemed to me as if I could never quit a spot so delightful, —
as if a thousand tongues would fail to describe it, — as if the
spell-bound hand would refuse to write. (Para hacer relacion
a los Kcyes de las cosas que viau, no bastaran mil lenguas a
referillo, ni la mano para lo eseribir, que le parecia qnes-
taba encautado.)" {^)

We here leam from the journal of an unlettered seaman,
tlie power which the beauty of nature, manifested in hra
individual forma, may exert on a susceptible mind.
Feelings ennoble language ; for the prose of the Admiral,
especially when, on his fourth voyage, at the age of 67, he
relates his wonderful dream on the coast of Veragua (^),
is, if not more elotjuent, yet far more moving than the
aUegorical pastoral romance of Boccaccio and the two
Aicadiaa of Sannazaro and of Sydney; than Garcilasso's
SaUcio y Nemoroso; or than the Diana of Jorge de Monte-
mayor. The elegiac idyllic element was unhappily too long
predominant in It^ian and Spanish hteralure ; it required
the fresh and living picture which Cervantes has drawu of
the adventures of tlie Knight of La Mancha, to efface the
Galatea of the same author. The pastoral romance,
however ennobled in the works of these great writers by
beauty of language and tenderness of feeling, is from its
nature, lite the allegorical artitices of the intellect of the
middle ages, cold and wearisome. Individuality of observa-
tion alone leads to truth to nature; in the finest descriptive
stanzas of the " Jerusalem Delivered," impressions derived
from the poet's recollection of the picturesque landscape of
Sorrento have been supposed to be recognised (^'.)

That truth to nature which springs from actual coii-
t^mpIatioD, shines most richly in the great national epic of
Portuguese literature ; it is aa if a perfumed air from Indian
flowers breathed throughout the whole poem, written under
the sky of the tropics, in the rocky grotto near Macao and
in the Moluccas. It is not for me to confirm a bold
sentence of Friedrich Schlegel's, according to which the
Lusiad of Camoens excels Ariosto in colouring and richness
of fancy; (^^) but as an observer of Nature, I may well add
that in the descriptive portion of the Lusiad, the poet's
inspiration, the ornaments of language, and the sweet tones
of melancholy, never impair tlie accuracy of the representa-
tion of physical phfenomena. Rather, as is always the case
when art draws from pure sources, they heighten the living
impressious of grandeur aud of truth in the pictures of
nature. Inimitable are the deseriptions in Camoens of the
never ceasing mutual relations between the air and sea,
between tlie varying form of the clouds above, their meteoro-
logical changes, and the different states of the surface of the
ocean. He shews us this surface at one time, as, «'hen
curled by gentle breezes the short waves glance sparklingly
in the play of the reflected sunbeams; and at another, when
the ships of Coelho' and Paul de Gama, overtaken by a
dreadful tempest, sustain the conflict of the deeply agitated
elements (*^). Camoens is in the most proper sense of the
term, a great sea pmuter. lie had fought at the foot of Atlas
iri the empire of Morocco, in the Red Sea, and in the Persian
Gulf; twice he had sailed round tlie Cape, and tor sixteen years
watched the phtenomena of the ocean on the Chinese njid
Indian shores. He describes the electric fires of St. Elmo,
ftftlie Castor and Pollux of tlie ancient Greek navigators

k

58 DESCIUPTIONS OJ- NiTClUt SCE%'EKV.

" the living light, sacred to the mariner" (^). He paiiits
the danger-thieateuing water-spout in its gradual deve-
lopment; " how the cloud, woven of thin vapour, whiris
round in a circle^ and sending down a slender tube sucks
up the flooil as if athtrst ; and how, n'hen the black cloud
has drunk its fill, the foot of the cone recedes, and flying
back to the sky, restores to the waves, as fresh water, the
salt stream wliich it had drawn from them with a surging
noise" ("'). "Let the book-leanied," says the poet —
and his (aunt might almost as well apply to the present
time — "try to eiplain the wonderfiil thin^ liidden from the
world ; they who, guided by (so-called) science and their own
conceptions only, are so wiUing to pronounce as false, what is
heard from the mouth of the sailor whose only guide is
esperience."

Caraoens shines, however, not only in the description of
single phfenomena, but also where lai^e masses are com-
prehended in one view. The third canto paints with a few
traits the whole of Europe, &om the coldest north, "to the
Lusitanian kingdom, and the strait where Hercules accom-
plished his last labour" (S'J, The manners and state of
civilisation of the different nations are alluded to. From the
Prussians, the Muscovites, and the tribes " que o Rheno
frio lava," he hastens to the glorious fields of Hellas, "que
creastes os peitos eloquentes, e os juizos de alta pliantasia."
In the tenth canto the \'iew becomes still more extended ;
Tlietjs conducts Gania to the sununit of a lofty mountain to
shew him the secrets of the structure of the universe
("machina do mimdo"), and to disclose to him the courses
of the planets, (according to the views ofPtolemy). ("3) It
is a vision in the style of Dante, and as the Earth is the

oentre of motion, we have iu the description of tlie globe,
a review of all the countries then known, and of their
productions. (^) Even the "land of the Holy Cross,"
(Brazil), is named, and the coasts which Magellan discovered
"by the act, but not by the loytdty of a sou of Lusitania."

When 1 before extolled Camocns as especially a mariiie
painter, it was to indicate that the aspect of nature on the
land seems to have attracted him less vividly. Siamondi
has remarked with justice, tha,t the whole ]ioem contains
absolutely no trace of grapliical description of the vegetation
of the tropica, and its peculiar physiognomy and forms.
He only notices the spicea and other productions which have
commercial value. The episode of the magic island {^) does,
indeed, present a charming landscape picture, but, as befits
an " nha de Venus," the vegetation cousista of " fragrant
myrtles, citrons, lemon trees, and pomegranates ;" all
belonging to the climates of South Europe. Iu the
writings of the great discoverer of the new world, we find
far greater delight in the forests of the coasts seen by luni,
and far more attention to the forms of the vegetable
kingdom ; but it should be remarked, that Columbus, writing
the journal of liis voyage, records in it the hving impressions
of each day. The epic of Camoens, on the other hand, is
written to celebrate thegreat achievements of the Portuguese.
To have borrowed from native languages uncouth names of
plants, and to have interwoven them iu the descriptions of
luidscapes forming the background to the actors in liis
narrative, might have appeared but little attractive to the
j>oet accustomed to harmonious sounds.

By the side of tlie knightly form of Camoens has often
I' .been placed the equally romantic one of a Spanish warrior

60 DESCRlFnOSS OF NATUEAL 9CEXERT.

who served under the banners of the great Emperor in Peru
and Cliili, and sang in those distant regions the deeds of
arms in which he had borne a distinguished part. But in
the whole Epic of the Araucana of Don AJonso de Erdlla,
the immediate presence of volcanoes clad with external
snowS] of valleys covered with tropical forests, and of arms
of the sea penetrating far into the land, have scarcely called
forth any description which can be termed graphical. The
excessive praise which Cervuntes bestows on Ercilla, on the
occasion of the ingenious satirical review of Don Quixote's
books, is probably to be attributed only to the vehement
rivalry subsisting at that time between Spanish and Italian
poetryj though it would appear to have misled Voltaire and
several modem critics. The Araucana is, indeed^ a work
imbued with a noble national feeling; and the description
which it contains of the mamiers of a wild race who perish
in fighting for the freedom of their native land, is not
without animation ; but ErcilWs style is heavy, loaded to
excess with proper names, and without any trace of true
poetic inspiration. (*^)

We recognise tliis essential element, however, in several
strophes of the Eomancero Caballeresco (s^) ; we perceive its
presence, mixed with a vein of religious melancholy, in the
writings of Fray Luis de Leon,— as, for example, where he
celebrates the " eternal luminaries (resplandorea eternales)
of the starry heaven" ;— (9b) ana we find it in the great
creations of Caldcron. The most profound critic of the
dramatic hterature of diffej^ut countries, my friend Ludwjs
Tieck, has remarked the frequent occurrence in Calderon
and his cotemporaries of lyrical strains in varieil metres,
oft«n containing dazzlingly beautiful pictures of the ocean, of

CALDERON. SHAKSPEARE,

mounttims, of wooded ^-idleya, and of gardens; hut tliese
pictures are always introduced in allegorical applications,
and are characterised by a species of artificial brilliancy. In
readiag them we feel that we have before us ingenious
descriptions, recuiriDg with only slight variations, and
clothed in well-sounding and harmonious verse ; hut we do
not feel that we breathe the free air of nature ; the reality
of the mountain scene, and the shady valley, are not made
present to our imagination. In Calderon's play of "Life is
EL Dream,'' (la vida es sueno), he makes Prince Sigismund
lament his captivity in a series of gracefully drawn contrasts
with the freedom of all hving nature. He paints the birds,
"wliich fly across the wide sky with rapid wing," the fish,"
which, but just escaped from the sand and shallows where
Ihey were brought to life, seek the wide sea, whose
boundless expanse seems stiH too small for their hold range.
Even the stream meandering among flowers, finds a free
patli tlirough the meadow : " aud I," exclaims Sigismund
despairingly, " who have more life than they, and a spirit
more free, must endure an existence in which I enjoy less
freedom." In a similar manner, too often disfigured by
antitheses, witty comparisons, and artificial turns from the
school of Gongora, Don Fernando speaks to the king of Fez
in the " Steadfast Prince" {9").

I have referred to particular instances, because they show

how iu dramatic poetry, which is chiefly coucemed with

action, passion, and character, "descriptions of natural

_ objects become as it were only mirrors in which the mental

otions of the actors in the scene are reflected. Shak-

re, who amidst the pressure of his animated action has

BTcely ever time aud opportunity to introduce deliberate

I

k

62 DESCKIPTIONS OP NATDltiL SCENERY.

descriptions of natural scenes, does yet so paint them by
occurreuces, by allusions, and by the emotions of the actiiig
person^es, that we seem to see Uiem before our eyeSj and
to live in them. We thus live in the midsummer-night ia
the wood ; and in the latter scenes of the Merchant of
Venice we see the moonshiue brightening the warm summer
night, without direct descriptions. An actual and elaborate
descriptioa of a natural scene occurs, however, in King Lear,
where Edgar, who feigns himself mad, represents to his
blind father, Gloucester, while on the plain, that they are
mounting to the sunuait of Dover Cliff. The picture drawn
of the downward new into the depths below actually turns
one giddy" C"").

If in Shakspeare the inward life of feeling, and the grand
simphcity of the language, animate thus wonderfully the in-
dividual espression of nature, and render her actually present
to our imagination ; in Milton's sublime poem of Paradise
Lost, on the other handj such descriptions are, from the very
nature of the subject, magnificent rather than graphic. All
the riches of imagination and of language are poured forth
in painting the loveliness of Paradise ; but the descrip-
tion of vegetation could not be otherwise than general
and undefined. Tliia is also the case in Thomson's pleasing
didactic poem of The Seasons. Kahdasa's poem on the same
subject, the Bitusauhara, which is more ancient by above
seventeen centuries, is said by critics deeply versed in
Indian hterature to individualise more viviflly the vigorous
nature of the vegetation of the tropics; but it wants the
charm which, in Thomson, arises from the more varied
division of the seasons wliich is proper to the liigfaer
latitudes ; the transition from fruit -bringing autumn to

WOOEllS PaoSE WKTTEES.

winter, anil from winter to reanimatitig spring; and the
pictures afforded ty the varied laborious or pleasurable pur-
suits of men helouging to the different portions of the year.
Arriving at the period nearest to our own time, we find
that, since the middle of the last century, descriptive jirose
has more particularly developed its€ilf,and with peculiar vigour.
Although the study of nature, ealai^ng on every side, has
increased beyond measure the mass of things known to us,
yet amongst the few who are susceptible of the liigher inspi-
ration which this knowledge is capable of affording, the in-
tellectual contemplarion of nature has not sunk oppressed
under the load, but has rather gained a wider comprehen-
siveness and a loftier elevatiou, since a deeper insight has
been obtained into the structure of mountain masses (those
storied cemeteries of perished organic forms), and into the
geographical distribution of plants and animals, and the re-
tatiousliip of different races of men. The first modem
prose writers who liave powerfully contributed to awaken,
through the influence of the imagination, the keen per-
ception of natural beauty, the delight in contact witli
nature, and the desire for distant travel which is their almost
inseparable companion, were in France, Jean Jacques
Ikiusseau, Bnffon, Bernardin de St. -Pierre, and (to name
esceptionally one hving writer), my friend Auguste de Cha-
teaubriand; in the British islands the ingenious Playfair;
and in Germany, George Forster, who was the companion of
Cook on liis second voyage of circumnavigation, and who
WTW gifted both with eloqueuce and with a mind pccuharly
favourable to everj' generalisation in the view of nature.
I must not attempt in these pages to examine the charoc-
stics of these different writers ; or what it is that, in

I

L

64 BESCHrpTioNS or natueal sceneht.

works so extensively known, sometimes lends to their de-
scriptions of scenery sucli grace and chann, or at others
disturbs tlie impressions which the authors desire to awaken ;
but it may be permitted to a traveller who has derived his
knowledge principally from the immediate contemplation
of nature, to introduce here a few detached considerations
respecting a recent, and on the whole Httle cultivated, branch
of literature.

Buffon, with much of grandeur and of gravity, — embracing
simultaneously the structure of the planetary system, the
world' of organic life, Hghtj and magnetism — and far more
profound in his physical investigations than his cotempo-
raries were aware of — when he passes from the description
of the habits of animals to that of the landscape, shews in
his artiiicially-constnicted periods, more rhetorical pomp than
individual truth to nature j rather disposing the mind gene-
rally to the reception of exalted impressions, than taking
hold of it by such visible paintings of the actual life of
nature, as should render her actually present to the imagi-
nation. In perusing even his most justly celebrated efforts
in tliis department, we are made to feel that he has
never quitted middle Europe, and never actually beheld
the tropical world which he engages to describe. What,
however, we particularly miss in the works of this great
writer, is the harmonious connection of the representation
of nature with the espression of awakened emotion ; we miss
in him almost all that floivs from the mysterious analogy
between the movements of the mind and the phseoomenn
perceived by the senses.

Greater depth of feeling, and a fresher spirit of Ufe, breathe
in Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Bemardin de St.-Pierre, and

in Cliateaubriand. If in tlie first-uamed nTiter (whose
principal works were twenty years earlier than Buffon's fan-
ciful Epoques de la NalToie) ('"•) I allude to his fascinating
eloquence, and to the pictaresque deacriptiona of Clarena
and La Meillerie on Lake Lenmn, it ia becauaej in the most
celebrated works of this ardent but httle informed plant-
collector, poetical inspiration shews itself principally in the
inmost pecnliarities of the language^ breaking forth no less
overflowingly, in his prose, than in Klopstock's, Scliiller's,
Goethe's, and Ejtou's imperishable verse. Even where
an author has no purpose in view immediately connected
with the study of nature, our love for that study may still he
enhanced by the magic charm of a poetic representation of
the life of nature, although in regions of the earth already
familiar to us.

In referring to modern prose writers, I dwell with pe-
culiar complacency on that small production of the creative
imagination to which Bemardin de St.-Kerre owes the fairest
portion of his htenuy fame— I mean Paul and Virginia : a
work such as scarcely any other literature can shew. It is
the simple but h'ving picture of an island in the midst of the
tropic seas, in which, sometimes smiled on by serene and
favouring skies, sometimes threatened by the violent conflict
of the elements, two young and graceful forms stand out
picturesquely from the wild luxuriance of the vegetation of
the forest, as from a flowery tapestry. Here, and in the
Chaumi^re Indienne, and even in the Etudes de la Nature,
(whicU are unhappily disfigured by extravagant theories and
erroneous physical views), the aspect of the sea, the grouping
of the clouds, the rusthng of the breeze in the bushes of the
bamboo, and tJie waving of the lofty palms, are painted with

66 DESCaiPTIOSB OP NATUIIAL SCENERY.

uiimitable truth. Bernardin de St.-Piene'a master-work,
Paul and Virginia, accompanied me into the zone to which
it owes its origin. It waa read there for many years by my
dear companion and Mend Bonpland and myseK, and there —
{let this appeal to personal feelings be forgiven) — under the
silent brightuesa of the tropical sky, or when, in the rainy
season on the shores of the Orinoco, the thunder crashed
and the flashing lightning illuminated the forest, we were
deeply impressed and penetrated with the wonderful truth
with wliich this little work paints the power of nature in the
tropical zone in all its peculiarity of character. A similar
firm grasp of special features, mthout impairing the general
impression or depriving the extenial materials of the free
and animating breatL of poetic imagination, cliaracterises in
an even higher degree the ingenious and tender author of
Atala, Ren6, the Marljrs, and the Journey to Greece and
Palestine. Tlie contrasted landscapes of the most varied
portions of the earth's surface are brought together and made
to pass before the mind's eye with wonderfid distinctness
of vision : the serious grandeur of historic remembrancea
could alone have given so much of depth and rc|>08e to the
impressions of a rapid journey.

In our German falberiand, the love of external nature
showed itself but too long, as in Italian and Spanish litera-
ture, under the forms of the idyl, the pastoral romance, and
didactic poems ; tliis was the course followed by the
Pcraian traveller Paul Flemming, Brockcs, Ewald von Kleist,
in whom we recc^mse a mind full of feehng, Hagedoni,
Solomon Gessner, and by one of the greatest naturalists of
all times, Hallcr, whose local descriptions present, however,
better define<! outhues and more objective truth of colour.

TttATELLBHa OV THE 14tH AND 15tH CENTCRIES. 67

At that time the elegiac idyllic element predominated in a
lieavy style of landscape poetry, in which, even in Voss, the
noble and profound classical student of antiquity, the poverty
of the materiab could not be veiled by liHppy and elevated,
as well as highly finished diction. It was not until the
study of the earth's surface gained depth and variety, and
)iatural science, no longer limited to tabular enumerations of
extraordinary occurrences and productions, rose to the great
views of eomparative geography, that this Jinish of language
could become available in aiding to impart life and freshness
to the pictures of distant zones.

The older travellers of the middle ages, such as John
Mandeville (1353), Hans Schiltberger of Munich (14.25),
and Bernliard von Breyttnbach (1486), atiU delight us by
an amiable naivet6, by the freedom with which they write,
and the apparent feeling of security with which they come
before a public who, being wholly unprepared, listen with
the greater curiosity and readiness of belief, because they
have not yet learnt to feel ashamed of being amused or even
astonished. The interest of books of travels was at that
period almost wholly dramatic ; and the indispensable mix-
ture of the marvellous which they so easily and naturally
acquired, gave them also somewhat of an epic colouring.
The manners of the inliabitants of the different countries
are not so much described, as shewn incidentally in the
contact between the travellers and the natives. The vege-
tation is unnamed and unheeded, excepting where a fruit
of particularly pleasant flavour or curious form, or a stem
or leaves of extraordinary dimensions, induce a special notice.
Amongst animals, the kinds wliich they ajc most fond of re-
marking are, first, those which sliew some resemblance to the

I

DESCHimnSS OF NATURAL SCESBRT.

human form, and next those which are most wild and most
formidable to man. The cotemporaries of these travellera
gave the fullest credence to dangers which few among them
had shared; the slowness of navigation, and the absence
of means of communication, caused the Indies, as all tropical
conntries were then called, to appear at an immeasurable
distance. Colnmbns was as vet scarcely justified in saying,
as he did in his letter to Queen Isabella, " the earth is not
very large : it is much leas than people imagine" (ii").

In respect to composition, these almoat-foi^otten books
of travels of the middle ^es had, notwithstanding the poverty
of their materials, great advantages over most of our modera
voyages. They had the unity which every work of art re-
quires : everything was connected with an action, i. e.
subordinated to the journey itself. The interest arose from
the simple, animated, and usually implicitly believed narrative
of difBculties overcome. Christian travellers, wiacquaiuted
with the previous travels of Arabs, Spanish Jews, and
proselytizing Buddhists, always supposed themselves to be
the first to see and describe everything. The remotenesa
and even the dimensions of objects were magnified by the
obscurity which seemed to veil the East and the interior of
Asia. This attractive unity of composition is necessarily
wanting in the greater part of modem travels, and especially
in tliose undertaken for scientific purposes ; in these, what
is done yields precedence to what is observed; the action
almost disappears under the multitude of observations. A
true dramatic interest cau now only be looked for, in
arduous, though perhaps little instructive ascents of moun-
tains, and above all adventurous navigations of untraversed
seas in voyages of discovery properly so called, and in the

MODERN TBAVELLEES. 69

awful solitudes of the Polar regions, where the surrotmding
desolation and the lonely situatioa of the mariuerSj cut off
from all human aid, isolate the picture, and cause it to act
more stirringly on the imaginatiou of the reader. K the
above considerations render it undeniably evident that in
modem books of travels the active element necessarily falls
into the backgroundj affording for the most part merely a
connecting thread whereby the successive observations of
nature or of manners are linked together, yet ample com-
pensation may be derived from the treasures of observation,
from grand \-iews of the universe, and from the laudable
endeavour in each writer to avail himself of the peculiar ad-
vantages which his native language may possess for clear
and animated description. The benefits for which we are
indebted to modem cultivation are the constantly advancing
enlargement of our field of view, the increasing wealth in
ideas and feehiigs, and their active mutual influence. "With-
out leaving our native soil, we may now not only be informed
what is the character and form of the earth's crust in the
most distant zones, and what are the plants and animals
which enliven its surface, but we may also expect to be pre-
sented with such pictures as may produce in ourselves a
vivid participation in a portion at least of those impressions
which in each zone man receives from external nature. To
satisfy these demands, — this requirement, of a species of iu-
tellectual delight unknown to the ancient world, — is one of
the efibrts of modem times ; the effort prospers, and the work
advances, both because it is the common work of all culti-
vated nations, and because the increasing improvement of
the means of ttsusport, both by sea and land, renders the

70

DESCRIPTtONS 0* NATUBAL SCENBaT.

whole earth more accessible, and brings into comparison its
remotest portions.

I have here attempted to indicate, however vaguely, the
manner in which the traveller's power of presenting the resylt
of Ilia opportunities of observation, the infusion of a fresh life
into the descriptive element of hterature, and the variety rf
the views which are continnaUy opening before us on the vast
theatre of the producing and destroying forces, may all tend to
enlarge the scientific study of nature and to incite to its pursuit.
The writer who, in our German literature, has, according to
my feelings, opened the path in tliis direction with the
greatest degree of vigoui and success, was my distinguished
teacher and friend George Forster. Through him has beea
commenced a new era of scientific travelling, having for its
object the comparative knowledge of nations and of nature
in different parts of the earth's surface. Gifted with refined
seathetic feeling, and retaining the fresh and living pictures
with which Tahiti and the other fortunate blauds of the
Pacific had filled his imagination (as in later years that of
Charles I>ajwin) C°^), George Forater was the first grace-
fully and pleaamgly to depict the different gradations cf
vegetation, the relations of climate, and the various articles
of food, iu their bearing on the habits and manners of different
tribes according to their differences of race and of preWoos
habitation. All that can give truth, individuality, and
graphic distinctness to the representation of an exoric nature,
is united in his writings : not only his escclleut account of
the second voyage of Captain Cook, but still more his smaller
works, contain the germ of much which, at a later period,
has been brought to maturity ('"). But, for this noble.

MODERN TBAVELLEES. 71

sensitive, and ever-hopefal spirit, a fortunate and happy life
was not reserved.

If a disparaging sense has sometimes been attached to the
terms ^' descriptive and landscape poetry/' as applied to the
numerous descriptions of natural scenes and objects which in
the most modem times have more especially enriched German,
French, English, and North American literatures, yet such
censure is only properly apphcable to the abuse of the sup-
posed enlargement of the field of art. Versified descriptions
of natural objects, such as at the close of a long and dis-
tinguished literary career were given by Delille, cannot be
regarded, notwithstanding the refinements of language and
of metre expended on them, as the poetry of external nature
in the higher sense of the term : they lack poetic inspiration,
and are therefore strangers on true poetic ground ; they are
cold and meagre, as is aU that glitters with mere outward
ornament. But if what has* been called (as a distinct and
independent form) " descriptive poetry,^' be justly blamed,
such disapprobation cannot assuredly apply to an earnest
endeavour, by the force of language, — by the power of sig-
nificant words, — ^to bring the richer contents of our modem
knowledge of nature before the contemplation of the imagi-
nation as well as of the intellect. Should means be left
unemployed whereby we may have brought home to us not
only the vivid picture of distant zones over which others have
wandered, but also a portion even of the enjoyment afforded
by the immediate contact with nature? The Arabs say
figuratively but truly that the best description is that in which
the ear is transformed into an eye {^^^). It is one of the
evils of the present time that an unfortunate predilection for
an empty species of poetic prose, and a tendency to indulge

DESCEIPTIONS OF NATtlBAL 8CSNEST.

I

ill sentimental effusions, has seized simultaneouply in different
countries on authors otherwise possessed of merit as tra-
vellers, and as writers on subjects of natural history. This
mixture is still more uupleasing, when the style, from the
absence of hterary cultivation, and especially of all true in-
ward spring of emotion, degenerates into rhetorical inflation
and spurious Bentimentality. Descriptions of nature, I
would here repeat, may be sharply defined and scientifically
correct, without being deprived thereby of the viviiying
breath of imagination. The poetic element must be derived
from Et recognition of the links which unite the sensuous
with the intellectual ; from a feeling of the universal extension,
the reciproctd limitation, and the unity of the forces which
constitute the life of Nature. The more sublime the objects,
the more carefuUy must all outward adornment of language
be avoided. The true and proper effect of a picture of
nature depends upon its composition, and the impression
prodnced by it can only be disturbed and marrM by the
intrusions of eiahorate appeals on the pail of its presenter.
He who, famihar with the great works of antiquity, and in
secure possession of the riches of bis native tongue, knows how
to render with simplicity and characteristic truth that which
he has received by his own contemplation, will not fail
in the impression which he desires to convey; and the
risk of failure will be less, as in depicting external nature,
and not hia own frame of mind, he leaves unfettered the
freedom of feelhig in others.

But it is not alone the animated description of those
richly adorned lands of tlie equinoctial zone, in which in-
tensity of light and of humid warmth accelerates and
heightens the development of all organic germs, which has

MODEKN TRAVELLERS. 73

furnished in our days a powerful incentive to the general
study of nature : the secret charm excited by a deep insight
into organic life is not limited to the tropical world; every
region of the earth offers the wonders of progressive forma-
tion and development, and the varied connection of recurring
or slightly deviating types. Everywhere diflused is the
awful domain of those powerful forces, which in the dark
storm clouds that veil the sky, as well as in the delicate
tissues of organic substances, resolve the ancient discord of
the elements into harmonious union. Therefore, wherever
spring unfolds a bud, from the equator to the frigid zone,
our minds may receive and may rejoice in the inspiration of
nature pervading every part of the wide range of creation.
Well may our German fatherland cherish such belief; where
is the more southern nation who would not envy us the
great master of our poetry, through all whose worts there
breathes a profound feeHng of external nature, seon alike in the
Sorrows of Werter, in the Eeminiscences of Italy, in the Meta-
morphoses of Plants, and in his Miscellaneous Poems. Who
has more eloquently excited his cotemporaries to " solve the
sacred enigma of the universe" (" des Weltalls heilige Rath-
sel zu l5sen^^) ; and to renew the ancient alliance which in
the youth of humankind united philosophy, physical science,
and poetry in a common bond ? Who has pointed with
more powerful charm to that land, his intellectual home,
where

Ein sanfter Wind vom blauem Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still, und hoch der Lorbeer steht ?

YOL. n. E

INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF JTATUEE.

— Lanilscape painting — Graphical representation of the physnog-
noniy of plants — Characteristic form and aspect of v^etatiou
in diiferent zones.

As fresh and vivid deacriptions of natural scpues and objects
are suited l-o eohaiice a love for the study of naturcj so also
is landscape painting. Both shew to us the external world
in all its rich variety of forms, and both are capable, in
various degrees, according aa they are more or less happily
conceived, of Unking together the outward and the inward
world. It is the tendency to form such huks which marks
the last and highest aim of representative art; but the
scientific object to which these pages aie devoted, restricts
them to a different p^int of view ; and landscape painting can
be here considered only as it brings before us the charac-
teristic physiognomy of different positions of the earth's
surface, as it increases the longing desire for distant voyages,
and as, in a manner equally instructive and agreeable, it
incites to fuller intercourse witli nature in her freedom,

In classical antiquity, from the pecuhar direction of the
Greek and Eoman mind, Inndscape painting, like the poetic
description of scenery, could scarcely become an indepen-
dent object of art: both were used only as auxiliaries.-
Employed in complete subordination to other objects,

LAW1>SCAPK PAINTINa. 75

■landscape iiainting long served merely as a backgroiuid to
historical compositioaj or as an accidental ornament in the
decoration of painted walla. The epic poet, in a similar
manner, sometimes marked the locality of particular eventii
by a pictureBqne description of the landscape, or, as I might
again term it, of the background, in front of wliich the
acting personages were moving. The history of art teaches
how the subordinate auxiliary gradually became itself a
principal object, until landscape jjainting, separated from
true historical painting, took its place as a distinct form.
"VVhilBt this separation was being graduaJly effected, the
human figures were sometimes inserted as merely secondary
features in a mountainous or woodland scene, a marine or a
garden view. It has been justly remarked, in reference
to the ancients, that not only did painting remain subor-
dinate to sculpture, but more especially, that the feeling
for picturesque beauty of landscape reproduced by the
pencil was not entertained by them at all, hut is wholly of
modem growth.

Graphical indications of the peculiar features of a district
must, however, have existed in the earhest Greek paintings,
if (to cite particular instances) Mandroeles of Samos, as
Herodotus tells usC"^), had a painting made for the great
Persian king of the passage of the army across the Bos-
phorus; or if Polygaotus ('"') painted the destruction of
Troy in the Lesche at Delphi. Among the pictures de-
scribed by the elder Philostratus mention is even made of a
landscape, in which smoke ^'as seen to issue from the siun-
mit of a volcano, and the atieani of lava to pour itself into
the sea. In the very comphcated composition of a view of
seven islands, the most recent commentators think that

LANDSCAPE PAraTINQ

they recognise the representation of a real district; viz, the
araall volcanic group of the ^olian or Lipari islands, north
of Sicily (fs).

Perspective scene painting, which was made to contribute
to the theatrical representation of the master-worts of
jUschylua and Sophocles, gradually extended this depart-
ment of artC"^), by increasing a demand for the illusive
imitation of inanimate objects, such as buildings, trees,
and rocks. In consequence of the improvement which
followed this extension, landscape painting passed with the
Greeks and Eomans from the theatre into halls adorned
with columns, where long surfaces of wall were covered, at
first with more restricted scenes ('^o^^ but afterwards with
extensive views of cities, sea-shores, and wide pastures with
grazing herds of cattle("i). These pleasing decorations
were not, indeed, invented by the Eoman painter, Ludius,
in the Augustan age, but were rendered generally popu-
lar("^) by him, and enhvened by the introduction of small
figures ("^). Almost at the same period, and even half &
century earlier, amongst the Indians, in the briUiant epoch
of Yikramaditya, we find landscape painting referred to as a
much practised art. In the charming drama of " Sacontala,"
the king, Duslunanta, lias the picture of liis beloved shewn
him; but not satisfied with her portrait only, he desires
that " the paintress ahould draw the places which Sacon-
tala most loved :■ — the Maliui river, with a sandbank on
which the red flamingoes are standing; a chain of hills,
which rest against the Himalaya, and gazelles reposing on
the hills." These are no small requisitions : they indicate
a behef, at least, in the possibihty of executing complicated
representations.

OF THE AHCIENTa, 77

In Borne, from the time of the Ceeaars, landscape painting
became a separate branch of art, but so far as we can judge
by what the excavations at llerculanenm, Pompeii^ and
Stabia, have shewn us, the pictures were often mere bird's-
eye views, resembling maps, aud ftimed rather at the repre-
sentation of seaport towns, villas, and artificial gardens,
tJiau of nature ia her freedom. That which the Greeks aud
the Eomans regarded as attractive in a landscape, seems to
have been almost exclusively the agreeably liabitable, and
not what we call the wild and romantic. In their pictures,
the inutation might possess as great a degree of exactness
as could consist with frequent inaccuracy in regard to per-
spective, and with a disposition to conventional arrangement ;
their compositions of the nature of arabesques, to the
use of which the severe Vitruvius was averse, contained
rhythmically recurring and tastefully arranged forms of
plants and animals ; but, to avail myself of an expression of
Otfried Miiller's, " the soul of the landscape did not appear
to the ancients an object for imitative art : their sketches
were conceived sportively, rather than with earnestness and
fJeeling."

The specimens of ancient landscape-painting in the man-
ner of Ludius, which have been brought to light by the
excavations at Pompeii (now happily contiuued), belong
most probably to a single and very Umited epoch (i'^), viz.
from Nero to Titus ; for the towu had been entirely destroyed
by earthquake sixteen years before the catastrophe caused
by the celebrated eruption of Vesuvius.

Prom Constantiue the (ireat to the beginning of the
middle a^, painting, though connected with Christian
subjects, preserved a close alfinity to its earlier character.

78 LANDSCAPE PAINTTUe

An eorire treasury of old memorials is found both in the
miniatures ("^) sulormng su[)erb manascripts still in good
condition, and in the scarcer mosaics of the same period.
Rtimohr mentions a manuscript Psaltefj in the Barberina at
Borne, containing a miniatuie in which. " David is seen play-
ing on the i\tap, seiited in a pleasant grove from amongst the
branches of which nymphs look forth and listen : this personi-
fication marks the antique character of the whole picture."
From the middle of the sixth centmy, when Italy was im-
poverished and in a state of utter political confusion, it was
Byzantine art in the eastern empire which did most to pnserve
the hngeriug echoes and types of a more flourishing period.
Memoriabj such as we have spoken of, form a kind of
transition to the more beautiful creations of the later
middle ages: the fondness for ornamented manuscripts
spread from Greece in the east to the countries of the west
and the north, — into the Frankish moiiarchv, among the
Anglo-Saxons, and into the Netherlands. It is therefore
a fact of no little importance in respect to the history of
modem art, "that the celebrated brothers, Hubert and
John van Eyck, belonged essentially to a school of minia-
ture painters, which, since the second half of the fourteenth
century, had reached a high degree of perfection in Flan-
ders" ("").

It is in the historical paintings of the brothers Van Eyck
that we first meet with a carefnl elaboration of the landscape
portion of the picture. Italy was never seen by either of
them; but the younger brother, John, had enjoyed an op-
portunity of beholding a south European vegetation, having,
in 1428, accompanied the embassy which Philip the
Good, Duke of Burgundy, sent to Lisbon, to prefer his

^ Net

OF the„15tk oemtdby.

Boit to the daughter of King John I. of Portugal. We
possess, in the Berlia Museum, the volets of the magnificent
painting wliich these artists, tlie true founders of the great
Netherlands school of paintiiig, executed for the cathedral

Ghent. On the sides which present the holy hermits
pQgrima, John van Ejck has adorned the landscape
with orange trees, date pahna, and cypresses, which are
marked by an estreme fidelity to nature, and cast over
the other dark niaasos a shade which imparts to them a
grave and elevated character. In viewing this picture, we
feel that the paiuter had himself received the iinpi-cssiou of
a vegetation fanned hy soft and warm hreezea.

The master-works of the hrothers Van Eyck belong to
the first half of the fifteenth century, when oil painting,
though it had only just begun to supersede fresco, had
already attained high technieal perfection. The desire to
produce an animated representation of natural foims was
now awakened; and if we would trace the gradual extension
and heightening of the feeling* connected therewith, we
should reeal how Antonello of Messina, a scholar of the
brothers Van Eyck, transplanted to Venice a fondness for
landscape ; and how, even in I'lorence, the pictures of the
Van Eyck school exerted a similar influence over Domenico
Ghirlandaio, and other masters ("^). At this period, the
efforts of the painters were, for the most part, directed to a
careful, but almost painfully solicitous and minute imitation
of natural forma. The representation of nature first appears
conceived with freedom and with grandeur in the master-
works of Titian, to whom, in this respect also, Ciiorgione
had served as an example. I had the opportunity, during

Ly years, of admuing, at Paris, Titian's painting of the

80 IJNDSCAPE PAINTINa

death of Peter Martyr("s), attacked in a forest bj an Albi-
geiise in the presence of aoother Dominican monk. The
fonn of the forest trees, their foliage, tlie bhie mountainous
distance, the management of the light and the snbdued
tone of colouring, produce an impression of grandeur,
aolannity, and depth of feeling, pervading the whole
composition of the landscape, which is of exceeding sim-
plicity. Titian's feeling of nature was so lively, that not
only in paintings of beautiful women, as in the background
of the Yenus in the Dresden Gallery, but also in those of a
severer class, as in the portrait of the poet Pietro Aretino,
he gives to the landscape or to the sky a character corre-
sponding to that of the subject of the picture. In the
Bolognese school, Annibal Caracci and Domenichino re-
mained faithful to this elevation of style and cliaract«r. If,
however, the sisteenth century was the greatest epoch of
historic painting, the seventeenth is that of laudscape. As
the riches of nature became bett«r known and more care-
fully studied, artistic feeling could extend itself over a wider
and more varied range of subjects; and, at the same time, .
the technical means of representation had also attained a
higher degree of perfection. Meanwhile, the landscape
painter's art becoming more often and more intimately con-
nected and associated with inward tone and feeling, the
tender and mild expression of the beautiful in nature was
enhanced thereby, as well as the belief in the power of the
emotions wliich the external world can awaken within us.
When, conformably to the elevated aim of all art, lliis awaken-
ing power transforms the ai'tual into the ideal, the enjoyment
produced is accom]mnied by emotion; the heart is touched when-
ever welookinto the depths either of natureorof humanity ("").

01» THE i6TH AND 17tH CBNTDUrES.

SI

We find assembledj in the same century, Claude Lor-
raine, the idyllic painter of light and of aerial dis-
tance; Buysdael's dark forest masses and threaten-
ing clouds; Caspar and Nicholas Poussin's heroic forms
of trees; and the faithful and simply natural repre-
sentations of Everdingen, Hobbima, and Cuyp {'^').
This flourishing period in the development of art com-
prised happy imitations of the vegetation of the north of
Europe, of sonthern Italy, and of the Iberian peninsula:
the painters adorned their landscapes with oranges aiut
laurels, with pines and date trees. The date (the only
member of the magnificent family of Palms which the
artists had themselves seen, except the small native
European species, the Chamierops maritima) was usually
represented conventionally, with scaly and aerpentlike
trunts('^'), and long served as the representative of tropi-
cal vegetation generally, — much as Pinus pinea (the stone
pine) is, by a still widely prevaiiing idea, r^arded as exclu-
sively characteristic of Itahan vegetation. The outlines of
lofty mountains were yet but little studied : and natuKdists

Kid landscape painters still regarded the snowy summits,
hieli rise above the green pastures of the lower Alps, as
accessible. The particular cliaracters of masses of rock
ere rarely made objecte of careful imitation, except
here associated with the foaming waterfaU. We may here
remark another instance of the comprehensiveness with
which the varied forms of nature are seized by a free and
artistic spirit. Rubens, wh.j in his great hunting pieces has
tpicted with inimitable truth and animation the wdd
lovements of the beasts of the forest, has also apjireli ended,
I peculiar felicity, the characteristics of the manunate

82 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.

surface of the earth, in the arid desert and rocky plateau
on which the Escurial is built ('=3).

The department of art to which we are now referring
might be expected to advance in variety and exactness bs
the geographical horizon became enlarged, and as voy^es
to distant climates facilitated the perception of the rela-
tive beaatj of different vegetable forms, and their con-
nection in groups of natural families. The discoveries
of Columbus, Vasco dc Gama, and Alvarez Cabral in Cen-
tral America, Southern Asia, and Braail, the extensive com-
merce in spices and drugs carried on by the Spaniards, Por-
tuguese, Italians, Dntch, and Flemings, and the establish-
mentj between 1544 and 1568, of botanic gardens (not
yet however furnished with regular hothouses), at Pisa,
Padua, and Bologna, did indeed afford to painters theopportu-
uity of becoming acquainted with many remarkable exotic pro-
ductions even of the tropical world ; and single fruits, flowers,
and branches, were represented with the utmost fidelity
and grace by John Breughel, whose celebrity had com-
menced before the close of the sLxteenth century; but until
near the middle of the seveHteenth century there were ao
landscapes which reproduced the peculiar aspect of the
torrid zone from actual impressions received by the artist
himself on the spot. The first merit of such representation
probably belongs (as I learn from Waagen), to a painter of
the Netherlands, JVanz Post of Haarlem, who accompanied
Prince Maurice of Nassau to Brazil, where that prince, who
took great interest in tropical productions, was the Stat-
holder for Holland in the conquered Portuguese possessions
from 1637 to 1644, Post made many studies from nature
near Cape St. Augustine, in the bay of All Saints, on the

CaAaACTKEISTIC BEPBE3ENTATION OP TROPICAL SCENEaY. 83

shores of the Rio San Francisco, and on those of the lower
part of the river of the Amazons ('^). Some of these were
rfterwards executed by liimself as pictures, and others were
etched with much spirit. There are preserved in Denmark,
(in a gaUerj of the fine castle at Frederiksborg), some
lai^ oil paintings of great merit belonging to the siune
epoch by the painter Ecthont, who, in 164], was also
in Brazil with Prince Maurice. In these pictures, palms,
papaws (Carica papaya), bananas, and heliconias, are most
characteristically pourtrayed, as are likewise the native
inhabitants, birds of many-coloured plumage, and small
quadrupeds.

KlTiese examples were followed by few artists of merit
BBtil Cook's second voyage of circumnavigation : what
Hodge did for the weateru islands of the Pacific, and our
distingnisiied countryman, Ferdinand Bauer, for New Holland
and Van Diemen Island, has been since done in very recent
times in a mucli grander style, and with a more masterly
hand, for tropical America, by Moritz, Eugendas, Count
Clarac, Ferdinand Beilermann, and Edward Hildebrandt ; and
for many other parts of the earth by Heinrich von Kittlita,
who accompanied the Eussian admiral, Lutke, on his voyage
of circiimuavigation('^5j.

He who with feelings alive to the beauties of nature in
mountain, river, or forest scenery, has himself wandered in
the torrid zone, and beheld the variety and luxuriance of the
vegetation, not merely on the well-cultivated coasts, hut also
on the declivities of the snow-crowned Andes the Hima-
a or the NeOgherries of Mysore, or in the virgin forests
tered by the network of rivers between the Orinoco and
zons, can fee!, — and he alone can fed, — how almost

M

LANDSCAPE PAISTIN6.

inflnite is the field which still remains to be opened to land-
scape painting in the tropical portions of either conti-
nent, and in the islands of Sumatra, BorneOj and the
Philippines ; and how all that this department of art has yet
produced, is not to be compared to the magnitude of the
treasures, of which at some future day it may become pos-
sessed. Why may we not be justified in hoping that land-
scape painting may hereafter bloom with new aud yet un-
known beauty, when highly-gifted artists shall oftener pass
the narrow bounds of the Mediterranean, aud shall seize,
witJi the first freshness of a pure yonthful mind, the living
image of the manifold beauty and grandeur of nature in the
humid mountain valleys of the tropical world ?

Those glorious regions have been hitherto visited cliiefly
by travellers to whom the want of previous artistic train-
ing, and a variety of scientific occupations, dlowed but
little opportunity of attaining perfection in landscajie
painting. But few among them were able, in addition
to the botamcal interest excited by individual forms of
flowers aud leaves, to seize the genera! characteristic impres-
sion of the tropical zone. The artists who accompanied
great expeditions supported at the expense of the states
which sent them forth, were too often chosen as it were by
accident, and were thus fouud to be less prepared than the
occasion demanded ; and perhaps the end of the voyage was
approaching, when even the most talculed among them,
after a long enjoyment of the spectacle of the great scenes of
nature, and many attempts at imitation, were just beginning
to maflt«r a certain degree of technical skill. Moreover, in
voyages of circumnavigation, artists are seldom conducted
into the true forest regions, to the upper portions of the

Off AKAOTERISnC EBPEESBNTATION OP TROPICAL 9i

course of great rivers, or to the summita of the mountain
chains of the interior. It is only hy coloured sketches taken
on the spot, that the artist, inspired by the contemplation of
these distant scenes, can hope to reproduce their character
in paintings executed after hia return. He will be able
to do HO the more perfectly, if he has also aecumulated
a large uumber of separate studies of tops of trees, of
branches clothed with leaves, adorned with blossoms, or laden
vfith fruit, of faUen trunks of trees overgrown with potbos
and orchideffi, of portions of rocis and river banks, as well
as of the surface of tbe ground in the forest, all drawn or
painted directly from nature. An abundance of studies of
this kind, in which the outhnes are well and sharply marked,
will fomish him with materials enabhng him, on his re-
turn, to dispense with the misleading assistance afforded by
plants grown in the conflneinent of hot-houses, or by what
are called botanical drawings.

Great events in the world's history, the independence of
the Spanish and Portuguese America.', and the spread and
increase of intellectual cultivation in India, New Holland,
the Sandwich Islands, and the aoutliern colonies of Africa,
cannot fail to procure, not only for meteorology and other
branches of natural knowledge, but also for landscape paint-
ing, a new and grander developmeut which m^lit not have
been attainable without these local circumstances. In South
America populous cities are situated 13,000 feet above tbe
level of the sea. Li descending from them to the plains,
all climatic gradations of the forms of plants are ofl'ered to
tile eye. What may we not expect from the picturesque
study of nature in such scenes, if after the temnnation of
eiTil discord and the establishment of free institutions,

LAXDscAfB smmsfs.

shall at IcBgth awaken in those elevated

AJl that beloiiga to the expreasiou of humaa eir.otion And
to the beauty of the homau form, baa attained perhaps its
highest perfection in the northern temperate zone, under the
skies of Greece and Italy. By the combined exercise of
imitative art aud of creative imagination, the artist has de-
rived the types of historical painting, at once from the depths
of his own mind, and from the contemplation of other beings
of his OWE race. Landscape painting, though no merely
imitative iirf, has, it may be said, a more material sab-
atratum and a more terrestrial domain ; it requires a greater
mass and variety of direct impressions, which the mind
must receive within itself, fertilize by its own powers,
and reproduce visibly as a free work of art. Heroic land-
scape painting must be a result at once of a deep and
comprehensive reception of the visible spectacle of external
nature, and of this inward process of the mind.

Nature, in every region of the earth, is indeed a reflex of
the whole ; the forms of organised being are repeated every-
where in fresh combinations ; even in the icy north, herbs
covering the earth, lai^e alpiue blossoms, and a serene
azure sky, cheer a portion of the year. Hitherto, land-
scape painting has pursued amongst us her pleasing
task, familiar only with tlie simpler forms of our native

I floras, but not therefore witliout depth of feeling or with-
out the treasures of creative imagination. Even in this
narrower field, highly-gifted painters, the Canicci, Gaspar
Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Ruysdael, have, with magic
power, by the selection of forms of trees and by effects of
light, foimd scope wherein to call forth some of the

I

i

CHAHiCTEEISTIC RKPRE9ENTAT10N OV TROPICAL SCENEET. 87

varied and beautiful productions of creative art. The fame
of these master works can never be impaired by those which
I venture to hope for hereafter, and to wliicli I could not
but point, in order to recal the ancient and deeply-seated
bond wliich unites natural knowledge with poetry and
with artistic feeling; for wc must ever distinguish, in
landscape painting as in every other brancli of art, be-
tween productions derived from direct observation, and
those which sjjring from the depths of inward feeling
and from the power of the idealising mind. The great
and beautiful works which owe their origin to this crea-
tive power of the mind applied to landscape-painting,
belong to the poetry of nature, and like man himself and
the imagination with which he is gifted, are not rivetted to
the soil or confined to any single region. I allude here
more particularly to the gradation in the forms of trees from
Ruy»lael and E verdingcn, through Claude Lorraine to Poussin
and Annibal Caracci. In the great masters of the art we
perceive no trace of local limitation ; but an enlargement of
the visible horinon, and an increased acquaintance with the
nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the luxuriant
ftdness of life in the tropical world, offer the advantage not
only of enricliing the material substratum of landscape paint-
ing, but also of affording a more lively stimulus to less gifted
artists, and of thus heightening their power of production.

I would iiere be permitted to recal some considerations
which I communicated to the public nearly half a century
ago, and which have an intimate connection with the subject
which is at present under notice j they were contained in a
memoir wliich has been but little read, entitled "Ideen zu

I

LANDSCAPE PAlJfTlKO.

eioerPliysiogtiomik derGewac!iBe"{*^) (Ideas towards a pliy-
siogiiomy of plants). When rising from local plienomena
we embrace all nature in one view, we perceive the increase
of warmth from tlie poles to the equator accompanied by the
gradual advance of organic vigour and luxuriance. From
Northern Europe to the beautiful coasts of the Mediterranean
this advance is even less tlian from the Iberian Peninsula,
Southern Italy and Greecej to the tropic zone. The carpet
of flowers and of verdure spread over our bare and naked
earth is unequally woven ; thicker where the sun rises high
in a sky either of a deep azure purity or veiled with Lght
semi-transparent clouds ; and thinner towards the gloomy
north, where returning frosts are often fatal to the opening
buds of spring, or destroy the ripening fruits of autumn.
If in the frigid zone the bark of trees is covered with lichens
or with mosses, in the zone of palms and finely -f rat liered
arborescent ferns, the trunks of Anacardias and of gigantic
species of Ficus are enlivened by Cymbidium and the fragrant
vanilla. The fresh green of the Dracontias, and the deep-cat
leaves of the Pothos, contrast with the many-coloured flowers
of the Orchideee, Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow
flowering Banisterias, entwining the stems of the forest trees,
spread far and wide, and rise high in air ; delicate fiowers
unfold themselves from the roots of the Theobromas, and
from the thick and rough bark of the Crescentias and the
Gustavia. In the midst of this abundance of leaver and
blossoms, this luxuriant growth and profusion of climbing
plants, the naturalist often finds it difficult to discover to
which stem different flowers and leaves belong ; nay, a sin^fle
tree adorned with PauUinias, Bigiionias, and Dendrobium,

k i

CHARiCTEHISTIC ASPECT OF DIPPERRNT ZONKS.

presents a, mass of vegetation and a variety of plants which,
if detached from each other, woiJd cover a considerable space
of ground.

But to each zone of the earth are allotted pecuhar beauties ;
to the tropica, variety and grandeur in the forms of vegeta-
tion ; to the north, the aspect of its meadows and green
[jastures, and the periodic long-desired reawakening of nature
at the first breath of the mild air of spring. As in the
Musaceaj we have the greatest expansion, so in the Casuarinte
aad needle trees we have the greatest contraction of the
leafj vessels. Firs, Thuias, and C}'presses, constitute a
northern form which is extremely rare in the low grounds of
the tropics. Their ever-fresh verdure cheers the winter
landscape; and tells to the inhabitants of the north, that
when snow and ice cover the earth, the inward hfe of plants,
like the Promethean fire, is never extinct upon our planet.

Each zone of vegetation, besides its peculiar beauties, has
also a distuict character, calling forth in us a different order
of impressions. To recal here only forms of our native
cUmates, who does not fee! himself differently affected in the
dw-k shade of the beech or on hills crowned with scattered
firs, and on the open pasture where the wind rustles in the
trembling foliage of the birch? As in different organic
beings we recognise a distinct physiognomy, and as de-
scriptive botany and zoology, in the more restricted sense of
the terms, imply an analysis of peculiarities in the forms of
plants and animals, so is tliere also a certain natural phy-
siognomy belonging exclusively to each region of the earth,
The idea which the artist indicates by the expressions " Swiss
nature," " Italian sky," &c. rests on a partial perception of

il character. The azure of the sky, the form of the

I

90 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.

clonds, the haze resting on the distance, the suoculeucy of
the herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline of the
mountains, ore elements which determine the general im-
pression. It is the province of landscape painting to ap-
prehend these, and to reproduce thera visibly. T!ie artist is
pennitted to analyse the groups, and the enchantment of
nature is resolved under his hands, like the written works
of men {if I may venture on the figurative expression), isto
a few simple characters.

Even in the present imperfect state of our pictorial repre-
sentations of landscape, the engra^^Ilgs which accompany,
and too often only disfigure, our books of travels, have yet
contributed not a httle to our knowledge of the aspect of
distant zones, to the predilection for sxtenaive voyages, and
to the more active study of nature. The improvement in
landscape painting on a scale of large dimensions (as in
decorative or scene painting, in panoramas, dioramas, and
neoramas), has of late yeiirs increased both the generality
and the strength of these impressions, Tiie class of repre-
sentations wliich Vitruvius and the Egyptian Juhus Pollux
satirically described as "rustic adornments of the stage,"
which, in the middle of the sixteenth century, were, by
Serho's arrangement of coulisses, made to increase theatrical
illusion, may now, in Barker'a panoramas, by the aid of
Prevost and Daguerre, be converted into a kind of substitute
for wanderings in various climates. More niay be effected
in this way than by any kind of scene painting ; and this
partly because in a panorama, the spectator, enclosed as in a
magic circle and withdrawn from all disturbing realities,
may the more readily imagine himself surrounded on all sides
by nature in another clime. Impressions are thus produced

i

]

PANORAMAS. 91

which in some cases mingle years afterwards by a wonderful
illusion with the remembrances of natural scenes actually
beheld. Hitherto, panoramas, which are only effective when
they are of large diameter, have been applied chiefly to
views of cities and of inhabited districts, rather than to
scenes in which nature appears decked with her own wild
luxuriance and beauty. Enchanting effects might be ob-
tained by means of characteristic studies sketched on the rug-
ged mountain declivities of the Himalaya and the Cordilleras,
or in the recesses of the river country of India and South
America ; and still more so if these sketches were aided by
photographs, which cannot indeed render the leafy canopy, but
would give the most perfect representation possible of the form
of the giant trunks, and of the mode of ramification characte-
ristic of the different kinds of trees. All the methods to
which I have here alluded are fitted to enhance the love of
the study of nature ; it appears, indeed, to me, that if large
panoramic buildings, containing a succession of such land-
scapes, belonging to different geographical latitudes and dif-
ferent zones of elevation, were erected in our cities, and, like
our museums and galleries of paintings, thrown freely open
to the people, it would be a powerful means of rendering
the sublime grandeur of the creation more widely known and
felt. The comprehension of a natural whole, the feeling of
the unity and harmony of the Cosmos, will become at once
more vivid and more generally diffused, with the multipli-
cation of all modes of bringing the phsenomena of nature
generally before the contemplation of the eye and of the mind.

XKOITEUEinS TO THE STUDY OF KATVBE.

— Cultivatkia of tropical plants — Assemblage of controsfed
fonns — Impression of the general characteristic phjsiog-
nom]' of the vegetation produced by such means.

The effect of landscape painting, notwithstanding the
multiplication of its productions by engravings and by the
modern improvements of lithography, is still both more
limited and less vivid, than the stimulus which results from
tlio impression produced on minds alive to natural beauty
by the direct view of groups of exotic plants in hot-houses
or in the open air. I have already appealed on this subject
to my own youthfiil experience, when the sight of a colossal
dragon tree and of a fan palm in an old tower of the bot^inic
garden at Berlin, implanted in my breast the first germ of
an irrepressible longing for distant travel. Those who are
able to reascend iu memory to that which may have given
the first impulse to their entire course of life, will recognise
this powerful influence of impressions received through the
senses.

I would here distinguish between those plantations which
are best suited to afford us the picturesque impression of
the forms of plants, and those in which they nre arranged
as auxiliaries to botanical studies ; between groups distin-
guished for their grandeur and mass, as clumps of Bananas
and Heliconias alternating with Corypha Palms, Araucarias

CDLTUBB O? CHAKAOTEBtsnC EXOTIC PLANTB.

and Mimosas, and moss-covered trunks from which shoot
Dwcoutias.Fenis with their ddicate foliage, and Orchidete rich
in varied and beautiful flowers, on the one hand ; and on the
other, a number of separate low-growing plants classed and
arranged in rows for the purpose of conveying instruction
in descriptive and systematic botany. In the first case, our
consideration is drawn rather to the luxuriant development
of vegetation in Cecropias, Carolinias, and ligl it -feathered
Bamboos; to the picturesque apposition of grand and noble
forms, such as adorn the banks of the upper Orinoco and tJie
forest shores of the Amazon?, and of the Huallaga described
with such truth to nature by Martius and Edward Poppig ;
to impressions which fill the mind with longing for those
lands where the current of hfe flows in a richer stream, and
of whose glorious beauty a faint but still pleasing image is
now presented to us in our hot-houses, which formerly were
mere hospitals for languishing unhealthy plants.

Landscape painting is, indeed, able to present a richer
and more complete picture of nature than can be obtained
by the most skilful grouping of cultivated plants. Almost
unlimited in regard to space, it can pursue the margin of
the forest until it becomes indistinct from the effect of
aerial perspective; it can pour the mountain torrent from
crag to crag, and spread the deep azure of the tropic sky
above the light tops of the pabns, or the undulating
savannah which bounds the horizon. The illumination and
colouring, which between the tropics are shed over all
terrestrial objects by the hght of the thiuly veiled or perfectly
pure heaven, give to landscape painting, when the pencil
succeeds in imitating this mild effect of light, a peculiar and
mnteriouB power, A deep perception of the essence of the

94 CDUtUEB at CHAAACTEBISnO BXOI3C PLAHT9.

Grmk tragedj led niy brotlier to compare its chorus with
tliejiAy Iff /Ae landscape ('^').

The multiplied means which painting can command for
atimiilating the fancy, and concentrating in a small space the
grandest phffiuomena of sea and land, are indeed denied tn
our plantations in gardens or in hot-houdcs ; but the
infpxiority in general impression is compensnted by the
mastery which the reahty every where exerts over the senses,
"When in the pabn house of Loddiges, or in that of the
Pfauen-insel near Potsdam (a monument of the simple
feeling for nature of our noble departed monarch), we look
down from the high gallery, during a bright noonday
sunshine, upon the abundance of reed-like and arborescent
palms, a complete illusion in respect to the locality in which
we are placed is momentarily produced; we seem to be
actually in the climate of tlie tropics, looking down from the
summit of a hill upon a small tliicket of palms. Tlie aspect
of the deep blue sky, and the impression of a greater
intensity of light, are indeed wanting, but still the illusion is
greater, and the imagination more vividly active, than from
the most perfect painting : we associate with each vegetable
form the wonders of a distant laud; we hear the rustling of
the fen-hke leaves, and see the changing play of light, as,
gently moved by shght currents of air, the waving tops of
the palms come into contact with each other. So great is
the charm wliich reahty can give. Tlie recollection of tlio
needful dc^ee of artificial care bestowed no doubt returns to
disturb the impression ; for a perfectly flourishing condition,
and a state of freedom, are inseparable in the reidm of nature
as elsewhere ; and in the eyes of the earnest and traveUed
botanist, the dried specimen in an herbarium, if actually

J

PARKS AND GARDENS. 95

gathered on the Oordilleras of South America^ or the plains
of India^ often has a greater value than the living plant in an
European hot-house: cultivation effaces somewhat of the
original natural cliaracter ; the constraint which it produces
disturbs the free organic development of the separate parts.
The physiognomic character of plants, and their assemblage
in happily contrasted groups, is not only an incitement to
the study of nature, and itself one of the objects of that study,
but attention to the physiognomy of plants is also of great
importance in landscape gardening — in the art of composing
a garden landscape. I wiU resist the temptation to expatiate
in this closely adjoining field of disquisition, and content
myself with bringing to. the recollection of my readers that,
as in the earUer portion of the present volume, I found
occasion to notice the more frequent manifestation of a deep
feeling for nature among the Semitic, Indian, and Iraunian
nations, so also the earliest ornamental parks mentioned in
history belonged to middle and southern Asia. The gardens
of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos mountains (^^®),
are described by Diodorus, and the fame of them induced
Alexander to turn aside from the direct road, in order to
visit them during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic
horse pastures. The parks of the Persian kings were adorned
with cypresses, of which the form, resembhng obelisks,
recalled the shape of flames of fire, and which, after the
appearance of Zerdusht (Zoroaster), were first planted by
Gushtasp around the sanctuary of the fire temple. It was,
perhaps, thus that the form of the tree led to the fiction of
the Paradisaical origin of cypresses (^^^). The Asiatic
terrestrial paradises {vapahiaoi), were early celebrated in
more western countries {^^^) ; and the worship of trees even

96 CnLTDRB OF CHAHACrTERIBTlC KXOTIC PLANTS,

goes back among the Iraunians to the rules of Horn, called,
in the Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. "ffe
know from Herodotus the dehght wiiich Xerxes took in the
great plane tree in Lydia, on which he bestowed golden
ornaments, and appointed for it a sentinel in the person of
one of the " immortal ten thousand" C^'). The early
veneration of trees was associated, by the moist and refresh-
ing canopy of foliage, with that of sacred fountains. In
similar connection with the early worship of nature, were,
amongst the Hellenic nations, the fame of the great palm
tree of Delos, and of an aged plane tree in Arcadia. The
Buddhists of Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig tree
(the Banyan) of Aimrahdepura, supposed to have sprang
from the brandies of the original tree under which Buddha,
while inhabiting the ancient Magadha, was absorbed in
beatification, or " self-extinction" (nirwana) ('^^). As
single trees thus became objects of veneration from the
beauty of their form, so did also groups of trees, under the
name of " groves of the gods." Pausanias is full of (he
praise of a grove belonging to the temple of Apollo, at
Grynion, in ^ohs C^*) ; and the grove of Colonfe is cele-
brated in the renowned chorus of Sophocles.

The love of nature which showed itself in the selection
and care of these venerated objects of the vegetable kingdom,
manifested itself with yet greater vivacity, and in a more
varied manner, in the horticultural arrangements of the early
civilised nations of Eastern Asia. In the most distant part
of the old continent, the Chinese gardens appear to have
approached most nearly to what we now call English parks.
Under the victorious dynasty of Han, gardens of this class
were extended over circuits of so many mjlw that agriculture

PARKS AND GARDENS. 97

was affected, (i^*) and the people were excited to revolt.
'' "What is it/' says an ancient Qiinese writer, Lieu-tscheu,
that we seek in the pleasures of a garden ? It has always
been agreed that these plantations should make men amends
for living at a distance from what would be their more con-
genial and agreeable dwelling-place, in the midst of nature,
free, and unconstrained. The art of laying out gardens
consists, therefore, in combining cheerfulness of prospect,
luxuriance of growth, shade, retirement, and repose, so
that the rural aspect may produce an illusion. Variety,
which is a chief merit in the natural landscape, must be
sought by the choice of ground with alternation of hill and
dale, flowing streams, and lakes covered with aquatic plants.
Synametry is wearisome ; and a garden where every thing be-
trays constraint and art becomes tedious and distasteful.'^ (^35)
A description which Sir George Staunton has given us of
the great imperial garden of Zhe-hol, (^^ej north of the
Chinese wall, corresponds with these precepts of Lieu-tscheu
— precepts to which our ingenious contemporary, who formed
the beautiful park of Moscow, (^3^) would not refuse his
approbation.

The great descriptive poem, composed in the middle of
the last century by the Emperor Kien-long to celebrate the
former Mantchou imperial residence, Moukden, and the
graves of his ancestors, is also expressive of the most
thorough love of nature sparingly embellished by art. The
royal poet knows how to blend the cheerful images of
fresh and rich meadows, w ood-crowned bills, and peaceful
dwellings of men, all described in a very graphic man-
ner, with the graver image of the tombs of his fore-
fathers. The offerings which he brings to liis deceased

VOL. n. p

98 cnLTtmE or charactebistic exotic plants.

ancestors, according to the rites prescribed by Confucius,
and the pious remembrance of deported monarcha and
warriors, are tlie more special objects of tliis remarkable
poem. A long enomeration of tbe wild plants, and of the
animals which enliven the district, is tedious, us didactic
poetry always is ; but the weaving together the impression
received from the visible landscape (which appears ' only
as the background of the picture,) with the more ele-
vated objects taken from the worltl of ideas, with the
fulfilment of religious rites, and with allusions to great
historical events, gives a peculiar character to the whole
composition. The consecration of mountains, so deeply
rooted among the Cliinese, leads tJie author to introtluce
careful descriptions of the aspect of inanimate nature, to
which the Greeks and the Eomans shewed themselves so little
alive. The forms of the several trees, their mode of growth,
the direction of the branches, and the shape of the leaves,
are dwelt on nith marked predilection. ("®)

As I do not participate in that distaste to Cliinese
literature which is too slowly disappearing amongst us,
and as I have dwelt, perhups, at too much length on the
work of a eotemi>orary of Frederic the Great, it is the more
incumbent on me to go bock to a period seven centuries and
a half earlier, for the purpose of recalhng the poem of " The
Garden," by See-ma-kuang, a celebrated statesman. It is
trne that the pleasure grounds described in this poem are,
in part, overcrowded with numerous buildings, as was the
CHse in the ancient villas of Italy; but the mini.=ter also
describes a hermitage, situated between rocks, and sur-
rcranded by lofty fir trees. Ue i)misea the extensive prospect
over the wide river Kiang, nith its many vessels : " here he

PAEKa AND GARDENS. 99

can receive his friends, listen to tlisir verses, and recite to
tliem his own." (la^) See-ma-kuang wrote in the year 1 086,
when, in Germany, poetry, in the hauds of a rude clergy,
did not even apeak t!io language of t!ie country. At that
period, and, perhaps, five centuries earlier, the inhabitants
of China, Transgangetic India, and Japan, were already
acquainted with a great variety of forms of plants. The
intimate connection maintained between the Buddhistic
monasteries was not without influence in this respect.
Temples, cloisters, and burjing-p laces were surrounded with
gardens, adorned with esotic trees, and with a carpet of
flowers of many forma and colours. The plants of Intha
were early conveyed to China, Corea, and Nipon. Siebold,
whose writings afford a comprehensive view of all that
relates to Japan, was the first to call attention to the cause
of the intCTmisture of the floras of widely-separated Bud-
dhistic countries. {'*")

The rich and increasing variety of characteristic vegetable
forms which, in the present age, are offered both ta scientific
observation and to landscape painting, cannot but afford a -
lively incentive to trace out the sources which have prep^ed
for us tliis more exteoded knowledge and this increased
enjoyment. The enumeration of these sources ia reserved
for the succeeding section of my work, i. e. the history of
the contemplation of the universe. In the section which I
am now closing, I have sought to depict those incentives,
due to the influence eserted ou the intellectual activity
and the feelings of men by the reflected image of the external
world, which, in the progress of modem ciWlisation, have
tended so materially to encourage and viviiy the study of
imture. Notwithstanding a certain degree of arbitrary free-

100 CTJLTUEB OF EXOTIC PLANTS.

dom in the development of the several parts^ primary and
deep-seated laws of organic life bind all animal and v^etable
forms to firmly established and ever recurring types, and de-
termine in each zone the particular character impressed on it,
or the physiognomy of nature. I regard it as one of the
fairest fruits of general European civilisation, that it is now
almost every where possible for men to obtain, — by the
cultivation of exotic plants, by the charm of landscq^e
painting, and by the power of the inspiration of language, —
some part, at least, of that enjoyment of nature, which, when
pursued by long and dangerous journeys through the interior
of continents, is afforded by her immediate contemplation.

HISTOEY OP THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE

Prindptd epochs of the progressive development and esteosion of the
idea of the Cosmos as sa organic whole.

The historj of the physical contemplation of the universe is
the history of the recogoition of nature as a. whole j it is the
recital of the endeavours of man to conceive and compre-
hend the concurrent action of natural forces on the earth
and in the regions of space: it accordingly marks the
epochs of progress in the generalisation of plijsicd views.
It is that part of the history of our world of thougM which
relates to objects perceived by the senses, to the form of
conglomerated matter, and to the forces by which it is per-
vaded.

In the first portion of this work, in the section on the
limitation and scieutiiic treatment of a physical description
of the universe, I have endeavoured to point out the .true
relation which the separate branches of natural knowledge
bear to that description, and to shew that the science of the
Cosmos derives from those separate studies only the mate-
rials for its scientific foundation. ('*') The liistory of the
recognition or knowledge of the universe as a whole, — of
which history I now propose to present the leading ideas,
and which, for the sake of brevity, I here term sometimes
tJie "history of the Cosmos," and sometimes the "history

lOi

BISTOEY OF TfiE PHYSICAL

of the physical contemplatioii of the uTiiTerse," — must not,
therefore, be confounded with the " history of the natural
sciences," aa it is given in several of our best elementary
books of physics, or in those of the morphology of plants
and animals. In order to afford some preliminary notion of
the import and bearing of what is to be here contemplated
B8 historic periods or epochs, it may be usefo] to give
instances, shewing on the one hand what is to be treated
of, and on the other hand what is to be excluded. The
discoveries of the compound microscope, of the telescope,
and of colored polarisation, belong to the history of the
Boience of the Cosmos, — because they have supplied the
means of discovering what is common to aU organic bodies,
of penetrating into the moat distant re^ons of space, and
of distinguishing borrowed or reflected hght from that of
self-luminous bodies, i. e. of determining whether the light
of the sun proceeds from a solid mass, or from a gaseous
envelope; whilst, on the other hand, the relation of the experi-
ments which, from the time of Huygens, have gradually led
to Arago's discovery of colored polarisation, is reserved for
the history of optics. In like manner the development of the
principles according to which the varied mass of vegetable
forms may be arranged in famihes is left to the history of
phytognosy or botany ; whilst what relates to the geography
of plants, or to the insight into the local and climatic distri-
bution of vegetation over the whole globe, on the dry land
and in the aJgEeferous basin of the sea, constitutes an im-
portant section in the history of the physical contemplation
of the universe,

The thoughtful consideration of that which has conducted
men to their present degree of insight into nature as a

CONTEMPLiTION DP THE UNIVERSE. 103

^B COM'

^Ftiiole, is assuredly far from embracing the entire liistory of
human cultivation. Even were we to regard the insight
info the connection of the animating forces of the material
universe as the noblest fruit of tliat cultivation, as tending
towards the loftiest piimacle which the intelligence of man
can attain, jet that which we here propose to indicate would
still be but one portion of a history, of which the scope
aboulJ comprebenj all that marks the progress of different
nations in all directions in which moral, social, or mental
improvement can be attained. Eestrieted to physical asso-
ciations, we neeessatily study but one part of the history of
human knowledge ; we fix our eyes especially on the relation
wliich progressive attainment has borne to the whole which
nature presents to us; we dwell less ou the extension of t}ie
separate branches of knowledge, than on wliat different ages
have furnished either of results capable of general apphca-
tion, or of powerful material aids contributing to the more
exact observation of nature.

We must first of sR distinguish carefnlly and accurately
between early presage and actual knowledge. With in-
creasing cultivation much passca from the former into the
latter by a transition which obscures the history of dis-
coveries. Presage or conjecture is often unconsciously
guided by a meditative combination of what previous investi-
gation has made known, and is raised by it as by an inspir-
ing power. Among the Indians, the Greeks, and in the
middle ages, much was enunciated concerning the connec-
tion of natural phenomena, which, at first unproved, and
mingled with the most unfounded speculations, has at a
later period been confirmed by sure experience, and has
Mace become matter of scientific knowledge. The preseii-

HISTOUY OF THE FHT9ICAI.

tietit imagination, the all -animating activity of spirit, which
lived in Plato, in Columbus, and in Kepler, must not be
reproached as if it had effected notliing in the domain of
science, or as if it tended necessarily to withdraw the mind
from the investigation of the actuaL

Since we have defined the subject before us as the history
of nature as a whole, or of unity in the pheenomena and con-
currence in the action of the forces of the universe, our method
of proceeding must he to select for our notice those subjects
by which the idea of the unity of phfenomeua has been gradu-
ally developed. We distinguish in this respect, 1°, the efforts
ofrcnson to attain theknowledge of natural laws byathought-
ful consideration of natural phainomena; t°, events in the
world's history which Jiave suddenly enlarged the horizon
of observation ; 3°, the discovery of new means of perception
through the senses, whereby observations are varied, multi-
plied, and rendered more accnrate, and men are brought
into closer communication both with terrestrial objects and
with the most distant regions of space. This threefold
view must be our guide in determining the principal epochs
of the history of the science of the Cosmos. Tor the salce
of illustrating what has been said, we wiD again adduce
particular instances, characteristic of the difl'ereut means by
which men have gradually arrived at the intellectual posses-
sion of a large part of the material universe. I take, there-
fore, examples of "the enlarged knowledge of nature,"—
" great events," — and of the "iuveutiou or discovery
new organs."

The " knowledge of nature" in the oldest Greek physics,
WAS derived more from inward contemplation and from the
depths of the mind, than from the observation of plaeno»

M

CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVEHSE. 105

mena. The natural philosophy of the Ionic physiologists
was directed to the primary principle of origin or production,
or to the changes of form, of a single elementary substance.
In the mathematical symbolism of the Pythagoreans, in their
considerations on number and form, there is disclosed, on
the other hand, a philosophy of measure and of harmony.
This Doric Italic school, in seeking every where for nmneri-
cal elements, from a certain predilection for the rektions of
namber which it recognized in space and in time, may be
said to have laid the foundation, in this direction, of the
future progress of our modern experimental sciences. The
history of the contemplation of the universe, in my view,
records not so much the often recurring fluctuations between
truth and error, as the principal epochs of the gradual ap-
proximation towards a just view of terrestrial forces and
of the planetary system. It shews that the Pythagoreans,
according to the report of Philolans of Croton, taught the
progressive movement of the non-rotating earth, or its
revolution around the hearth or focus of the mdverse {the
central fire, Hestia) ; whereas Plato and Aristotle imagined
the earth to have neither a rotatory nor a progressive move-
ment, but to rest imjnoveably in the center. Hicetas of
Syracuse (who is at least more ancient than Theophrastus),
Heraclides Ponticus, and Ecpha]itus, were acquainted wiih
the rotation of the earth around its axis ; but Aristarchus of
Samos, and especially Scleucus the Babylonian who hved a
century and a lialf after Alexander, were the first who knew
that the earth not only rotates, but also at the same time re-
volves around the sun as the center of the whole planetary sys-
tem. And if, iu the middle ages, fanaticism, and the still pre-
vailing influence of the Ptolemaic system, combined to bring

ine HISTORY OF THE PHTSICiL

back a belief in tbe immobility of the earth, and ifj in the
viewofthe AlesandrianCosmaalndicopleuates, its form even
became again that of the disk of Thales, — on the other hand it
should be remembered that a German Cardinal, Nicolaus de
CnsB, almost a century before Copernicus, had the mental free-
dom and the courage to reascribe to our planet both a rotation
round its axis, and a progressive movement round the sun.
After Copernicus, TjchoBrahe's doctrine was a step backwards]
but the retrogression was of short duratiou. "When once a
considerable mass of exact observations had been assembled,
to which Tycho himself largely contributed, the true view of
the structm:e of the universe could not be long repressed.
We have here shewn how the period of fluctuations is espe-
cially one of preseotuneut and speculation.

Next to the " enlarged knowledge of nature," resulting at

once from observation and from ideal combinations, I have

proposed tonotice "great events," by which the horizoa of the

contemplation of the universe has been extended. To thisclass

belong the migration of narions, remarkable voyages, and mili-

tajy expeditions ; these have been instrumental in making

^L known the natural features of the earth's surface, such as

H the form of continents, tlie direction of mountain chmns,

H the relative elevation of high plateaus, and sometimes

^M by the wide range over which they extended, have even

^M provided materials for the establishment of general laws of

^M nature. In these historical considerations, it will not be

^1 necessary to present a connected tissue of events ; it will be

^H sufBcient to notice tliose occurrences which, at each period,

^M have exerted a decisive influeuee on the intellectual efforts

^M of man, and on a more enlarged and extended new of the

^H universe. Such have been, to the nations settled

new of the

II

CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVEESE.

107 ^

basin of the Mediterrauean, the navigation of CoIeeus of Samoa
beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; the expedition of Alesan-
der to Western India ; the empire of the world obtained bj
the Romans; the spread of Arabian cultivation; and the
discovery of the new Continent. I propose not so much to
dwell on the narration of occurrences, as to indicate the
influence which events, — such as voyages of discovery, the
predominance and extension of a highly polished language
possessing a rich literature, or the suddenly acquired
knowledge of the Indo- African monsoons, — have exerted in
developing the idea of the Cosmos,

Having Eunong these heterogeneons examples alluded thus
early to the influence of languages, I would here call atten-
tion generally to their immeasurable importance in two
very different ways. Single languages widely extended
operate as means of communication between distant na-
tions ; — a plurality of languages, by their intercompari-
son, and by the insight obtained into their internal or-
ganisation and their degrees of relationship, operate on
the deeper study of the history of the human race. The
Greek language, and the national life of the Greeks so inti-
mately connected with their language, have exercised a power-
ful influence on aU the nations "with whom they have been
brought in contact. ('*2) The Greek tongue appears in the
int«rior of Asia, through the influence of the Bactrian em-
pire, as the conveyer of knowledge which more than a
thousand years afterwards the Arabs brought back to the
extreme west of Europe, mingled with additions from Indian
sources. The ancient Indian and Malayan languages pro-
moted trade and national intercourse in the south-eastern
itic isluida, and in Madagascar ; and it is even probable

108 HISTORY OF THE FHYSICIL

that through iiitelligciice from the Indian trading stations
of the Banians, they liad a large share in occasioning the
bold enteriirise of Vasco de Gama. The wide predomi-
nance of [jarticular languages, though unfortunately it pre-
pared the early destruction of the displaced idioms, has
contributed beneficially to bring manlcind together ; re-
sembling in this, one of the efi'ects wliicli have followed the
extension of Christianity, and which has also been produced
by the spread of Buddliism.

Languages, compared with each other, and considered as
objects of tlie natural history of the human mind, being di-
vided into families according to the analogy of their internal
structure, have become, (and it is one of the most brilliant ,
results of modem studies in the last sixty or seventy
years), a rich source of historical knowledge. Products of
the mental power, they lead us back, by the fundamental
characters of their organisation, to an obscure and other-
wise unknown distance. The comparative study of lan-
guages shews how races of nations, now separated by wide
regions, are related to each other, and have proceeded from
a common seat ; it discloses the direction and the path of
ancient migrations ; in tracing ont epochs of development,
it recognises in the more or less altered chai'actera of the
language, in the permanency of certain forms, or in the
already advanced departure from them, which portion of the
race has preserved a language nearest to that of their former
common dwelling-place. The long chain of the Indo-
Germanic languages, from the Ganges to the Iberian extre-
mity of Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape, furnishes
a laige field for investigations of tliis nature into Uie first
or most ancient conditions of language. The same histoii-

CONTKMPL4TI0N OP THE UNIVERSE.

cal comparison of languages leads us to trace the native
country of certain productions which, since the earliest
times, have been important objects of trade and barter. We
find that the Sanscrit names of true Indian productions, —
rice, cotton, nard, and sugar, — have passed into the Greek,
and partly even into the Semitic languages. ('*3)

The considerations here indicated, and illustrated by
examples, lead us to regard the comparative study of lan-
guages as an important means towards arriving, through scien-
tific and true philologic investigations, at a generalisation of
views in regard to the relationships of different portions of
the human race, which, it has been conjectured, have ex-
tended themselves by lines radiating from several points.

"We see from what has been said, that the intellectual
aids to the gradual development of the science of the Cos-
mos are of very various kinds ; they include, for example, the
examination of the structure of language, the decipherment
of ancient inscriptions and historical monuments in hiero-
glyphics and arrow-headed characters, and the increased
perfection of mathematics, and especially of that powerful
analytical calculus, which brings within our intellectual
grasp the figure of the earth, the tides of the ocean, and the
regions of space. To these idds we must add, lastly, the
material inventions, which have made for us, as it were,
new organs, heightening the power of the senses, and
bringing men into closer communication with terrestrial
forces, and with distant worids. Noticing here only those
instruments wliich mark great epochs in the history of the
knowledge of nature, we may name the teiescopCj audits too
long delayed combination with instruments for angular
, determinations J — the compound microscope, which affords

V 110
^r us the D

aiSTOET OF THE PHYSICAL

119 the means of following the processes of development in
organisation (the formative activity, the origin of being
or production, as Aristotle finely says) ; the compass, with
the different mechanical contrivances for inveitigating the
earth's magnetism ; the pendulum, employed bs a measure
of time ; the barometer ; the thermometer ; hygrometric and
electrometric apparatus; and the polariscope, in its applica-
tion to the phsenomena of colored polarisation of light,
either of the heavenly bodies or of the illumined atmo-
sphere.

The history of the physical contemplation of the ooiverae,
baaed, as we have seen, on the thonghtful consideration of
natuiaj phasnomeua, on the occurrence of influential events
and on discoveries which have enlarged our sphere of per-
ception, is, however, to be here presented ouly in its lead-
ing features, and in a fragmentary and general manner. I
flatter myseK with the hope, that brevity' in the treatment
may enable the reader more easily to apprehend the spirit in
which an image, so difHcult to be defined, should, at some
future day, be traced. Here, as in the " picture of nature"
contained in the first volume of Cosmos, I aim not at com-
pleteness in the enumeration of separate parts, but at a clear
development of leading ideas, seeking, in the present case,
to indicate some of the paths which may be traversed by the
physical inquirer in historical investigations. I as&mne on
the part of the reader such a knowledge of the diflerent
events, and of their connection and causal relations, as may
render it sufiicient to name them, and to shew the influence
which they have exerted ou the gradually increasing know-
ledge and recognition of nature as a whole. Completeness,
I think it necessary to repeat, is neither attainable, nor is it

CONTEMPLATION OP THB UNITIRSB. Ill

to be rega-ded as the object of such an midertaldnf;. lu
making this aimouncement, for the sake of preserving to my
work on the Cosmos the peculiar character wliich can alone
render its execution possible, I doubtless expose mjself
anew to the strictures of those who dwell less on that which
a book contains, than on that which, according to their indi-
vidual views, ought to be fomid in it. I have purposely
entered far more into detail in the earlier than in the later
portions of liistory. "Where the sources from whence the
materials are to be drawn are less abundant, combination is
less easy, and the opinions propounded may require a fuller
reference to authorities less generaUy known. I have also
freely permitted myself to treat my materials at unequal
length, where the narration of particulars could impart a more
lively interest.

As the recognition of the Cosmos began with intuitive
preseutimeuts, and with only a few actual observations made
on detached portions of the great reaJm of nature, so it
appears to me, that the historical representation of the con-
templation of the universe may fitly proceed first from a
limited portion of the earth's surface. I select for this pur-
pose the basin of the Mediterranean, around which dwelt those
nations from whose knowledge oui western cultivation (the
only one of which the progress has been almost ujiuitcr-
rupted), is immediately derived. We may indicate the princi-
pal streams tlirongh which have flowed the elements of the
civilisation, and of the enlarged views of nature, of western
Europe ; but we cannot trace back these streams to one com-
mon primitive fountain, A deep insight into the forces and
a recognition of the uni^ of nature, does not belong to an
original and so-caUed primitive people, notwithstanding
that such an insight has been attributed at difl'etent periods,

^

112 HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL

and according to different historical views, at one time to a
Semitic race in Nortliera Chaldea, (Arpaxad {^**), the
Arrapachitis of Ptolemy), and at another, to the race of the
Indiana and Iraunians in the ancient land of the Zend ('**),
near the sources of the Osus and the Jaxartes. History, as
founded on testimony, recognises no such primitive people
occupying a primary seat of civilisation, and possessing a
primitive physical science or knowledge of nature, the light
of which was subsequently darkened by the vicious barbarism
of later ages. The student of history has to pierce through
many superimposed strata of mist, composed of symbolical
myths, iu order to arrive at the firm ground beneath, on
which appear the first germs of human civibsation unfolding
according to natural laws. In the early twilight of history,
we perceive several shining points already established as cen-
ters of civibsation, radiating simultaneously towards each
other. Such was Egypt at least five thousand years before
our Era ; ('*^) such also were Babylon, Niniveh, Kasbraeer,
and Iran; such too was Cliina, after the first colony had
migrated from the north-eastern deelivily of the Kuen-lun
into the lower valley of the Hoang-ho. These central
points remind us involuntarily of the larger among the
sparkling fixed stars, those suns of the regions of space, of
which wo know, indeed, the brightness, but, with few ex-
ceptions, C*^) we are not yet acquainted with their relative
distances from our planet.

A supposed primitive physical knowledge made known to
the first race of men — a wisdom or science of nature pos-
sessed by savage nations, and subsequently obscured by
civilisation — can find no place in the history of which we
treat. We meet with such a bebef deeply rooted in the
earUest Indian doctrine of Krislma. ('■*s) " Truth was origi-

CO?n'F,MPLATI0N OF T

113

nally deposited with men, but gradually slumbered and was
forgotten ; the knowledge of it returns hke a recoliection."
We willingly leave it undecided whether the nations which
we now call savage are all in a condition of original natural
rudeness, or whether, as the structure of their languages
often leads ns to conjecture, many of them ace not rather to
be regarded as tribes having lapsed into a savage state, —
fragments remaining from the wreck of a civilisation which
was early lost. Closer commnnication with these so-called
children of nature disdoaes nothing of that superior know-
ledge of terrestrial forces, which the love of the marvellous
has sometimes chosen to ascribe to rude nations. There
rises, indeed, in the bosom of the savage a vague and
awful feeling of the unity of natund forces ; but such a
feelmg has notliing in common with the endeavours to
embrace intellectually the connection of phenomena. True
cosmical views are the results of observation and ideal com-
bination; tliey are the fruit of long-continued contact
between the mind of man and the external world. Nor are
they the work of a single people ; in their formation, mutual
coramonicatioD is required, and great if not general inter-
course between various nations.

As in the considerations on the reSes action of the external
world on the imaginative faculties, which formed the first
portion of the present volume, I gathered, from the general
history of hteralnire, that which relates to the expression of
a virid feeling of nature, so in the " history of the contem-
plation of the universe," I select, &om the history of general
intellectual cultivation, that wliich marks progress in the
recognition of a natural whole. Both these portions,
detached arbitrarily, but according to detcrmiuate

k

m HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL

pmciplesj bear to each other the same relations as do the
subjects of study from wliich tliey are taken. The history
of the intellectual cultivation of maukind includes the history
of the elementary powers of the human mind, and therefore,
also, of the works in which these powers have manifesteil
themselves in the domains of literature and art. In a
similar manner we recognise ia the depth and vividness of
the feeling for nature, which haa been described as differently
manifested at different epochs and among different nations,
influential incitements to a more sedulous regard to phse-
nomena, and to a grave and earnest investigation of their
cosmical connection.

The very variety of the atreanos by which the elements of
the enlarged knowledge of nature have been conveyed, and
spread unequally in the course of time over the earth's
surface, renders it advisable, as I have already remarked, to
begin the history of cosmical contemplation with a single
group of nations, viz. with that from which our present
western scientific cnlture is derived. The mental cultivation
of the Greeks and Romans is, indeed, of very recent
origin compared with that of the Egyptians, the Chinese,
and the Indians : but that which the Greeks and Eomana
received from without, from the east and from the south,
associated with that which they themselves originated or
carried onwards towards perfection, has been handed down
on European ground without interruption, notwithstanding
the constant changes of events, and the admixture of foreign
elements by the arrival of fresh immigrating races.

The countries, on the other hand, in which many depart-
ments of knowledge were cultivated at a much earUer period,
havedther lapsed into a state of barbarism, whereby this know-

CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNITEESE.

ledge has been lost, or, wliUst preserving their ancient civilisa-
tion and firmly established complex civil institutions, as ia the
case with China, thuy have made extremely little progress in
science and in the industrial arts, and have been still more de-
ficient in paiticipation in that intercourse with the rest of the
world, without which general views cannot be fornied. The
cultivated nations of Europe, and their descendants trans-
planted to other continents, have, by the gigantic extension of
their maritime enterprises, made themselves, as it were, at
home simultaneonsly on almost every coast; and those
shores which they do not yet possess they threaten. In their
almost uninterruptedly inherited knowledge, and in their far-
descendei:5aeientificnomencktuTe,we may discover land-marks
in the history of mankind, recalling the various paths or chan-
nels by which important discoveries or inventions, or at least
their germs, have been conveyed to the nations of Europe.
Thus from Eastern Asia has been handed down the know-
ledge of the directive force and dechnation of a freely-sus-
pended magnetic bar; from Phoenicia and Egj-pt, tlie know-
ledge of chemical preparations (as glass, animal and vegeta-
ble colouring substances, and metallic oxides) ; and from
India, the general use oi position in determining the greater
or less value of a few numerical signs.

Since civilisation has left its early seats in the tropical or
sub-tropical zone, it has fixed itself permanently in that
part of the world, of which the most northern portions are
less cold than the same latitudes in Asia and America, I
have abeady shewn how the continent of Euro[)e is indebted
for the mildness of its climate, so favourable to general
civilisation, to its character as a western peninsula of Asia;
to the broken and varied configniation of its coast line.

116 PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIYBBSS.

extolled byStrabo; to its position rdativdy to AMca, a broad
expanse of land within the torrid zone; and to the circnm-
stance that the prevailing winds from the west are warm winds
in winter^ owing to their passing over a wide extent of
ocean. (^^9) The physical constitution of the snz&ce of
Europe has moreover offered fewer impediments to the spread
of civilisation^ than have the long-extended parallel chains of
mountains^ the lofty plateaus^ and the sandy wastes^ which,
in Asia and Africa^ form barriers between different nations
over which it is difficult to pass.

In the enumeration of the leading epochs in the history
of the physical contemplation of the universe^ I propose,
therefore, to dwell first on a small portion of the earth's
surface where intercourse between nations, and the enlarge-
ment of cosmical views which results from such intercourse,
have been most favoured by geographical relations.

I

PAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTOHY OF THE PHYSICAL
COKTEirPLATION OP THE TJKrVERSE.

I.

1^

The Hediterrajiean taken aa the point of departure for the reprc'
sentation of the rektioiia which led to tie gradual eitenaion of
the idea of the Cosmos. — Connection with the earliest Greek
cnltiTation. — Attempts at distant navigation towards the north-
east (the Argonauts) ; towards the south (Ophir) ; aud towards
the west (ColieuB of Samos).

Plato describfis the narrow limits of the Mediterranean in
a manner quite appropriate to enlarged cosmographical
views. He says, inthePlitedo, C^") " we who dwell from the
Phasis to the Pillars of Hercujes, inhabit only a small portion
of the earth, in wliich we have settled round the (interior)
sea, like ants or frogs around a marsh." It is from this
narrow basin, on the miirgin of which Egj'ptian, Phcenician,
aud HeUenic nations flourished and attained a briUioiit
ciTilisation, that the colonisatiou of great territories in Asia
and Africa has proceeded ; aud that those nautical enter-
prises have gone forth, which have lifted the veO from the
whole western hemisphere of the globe.

The present fonn of the Mediterranean shews traces of a
former subdivision into three smaller closed basins, ('S')
The .^gean portion is bounded to the south by a curved line,
which, commencing at the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, is
formed by the islands of Rhodes, Crete, and Cerigo, joining

I

118 raiNCIPiL BPOOHS IN THE HISTOBT OF TBI

the Peloponnesus not far from Cape Malea, More to the
west we have the Ionian Sea, or the Syrtic basin, in which
Malta is sitnated : the western point of Sicfly approaches to
within forty-eight geograpliical miles of the Africau shore ;
and we might almost regard the sudden but transient deva-
tion of the burning island of Ferdinandea (1831), to the
southwest of the Kmestone roclis of Sciacca, as an effort of
nature to reclose the Syrtic basin, by connecting together Cape
Grantola, the Adventure bank (examined by Captain Smith),
theialandofPantellaria, and the African Cape Eon, — and thus
to divide it from the third, the westernmost, or Tyrrhenian
basin. This last receives the influx from the western ocean
through the passage opened between the Pillars of Hercules,
and contains Sardinia and Corsica, the Balearic Islands, and
the small volcanic group of the Spanish Columbratre.

Tlie peculiar form of the Mediterranean was very in-
fluential on the early limitation and later extension of
Phccnician and Grecian voyages of discovery, of which the
latter were long restricted to the jEgean and Syrtic basins.
In the Homeric times, continental Italy was still an
" unknown land." The Phocteans first opened the Tyrrhenian
basin west of Sicily, Mid navigators to Tartessus reached
the Pillars of Hercules. It should not be forgotten that
Carthage was founded near the limits of the Tyrrhenian and
Syrtic basins. The march of events, the direction of nautical
undertalrings, and changes in the possession of the empire
of the sea, reacting on the enlargement of the sphere of
ideas, have all been influenced by the physical configuration
of coasts.

A more richly varied and broken outime gives to the
northern shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over tka

PHI8ICAL COMTEMTLATIOH 07 THE rNlTBRSE.

119 ^1

Bootliern or Ljbiaii shore, wliichj according to StrabOj was
remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas, C^^)
the Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their sinnoua
and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the
neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and
istlmiiises. The configuration of the continent and of the
islands, the latter either severed from the main or voicani-
cally elevated in lines, as if ovej iong fissures, early led to
geognostical views respecting emptions, terrestrial revolu-
tions, and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into those
which were lower. The Euxine, the Dardanelles, the Straits
of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its many islands, were
well fitted to give rise to the view of such a system of
sluices. Tlie Ori)liic Argonaut, who probably wrote in
Christian times, wove antique legends into liis song; he
describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia info
several islands, when "the dark-haired Poseidon, being
wroth with Father Kronion, smote Ljktoniawith the golden
trident." Similar phantasies, which, indeed, may often have
ariseu from imperfect knowledge of geographical circum-
stances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school, where
erudition abounded, and a strong predilection was felt for
antique legends. It is not necessary to determine here
whether tlie myth of the Atlantis broken into fragments,
should lie regarded as a distant and western reflex of that of
Ijjktonia {as I think I have elsewhere shewn to be probable),
or whether, as Otfried Miiller considers, " the destruction of
Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to the iSamothraeian tradition of b
great flood, which had changed the form of that district." ('s*)
But, as has already been often remarked, the circumstances
which have most of all rendered the geographical position

I

120 pitraciPAL EPOCHS m the histoby of the

of the Mediterranean so beneficently favourable to the inter-
course of nations, and tlie progressive extension of the
knowledge of the world, are the neighbourhood of (he
peninsula of Asia Minor, projecting from the eastern conti-
nent; the numerous islands of the iEgean which have
fonned a bridge for the passage of civiliaation ; and the
fissure between Arabia, Egj-pt, and Abyssinia, by which the
great Indian ocean, under the name of the Arabian Gulf
or Eed Sea, advances ao as to be oidy divided by a nar-
row isthmus from the Delta of the Nile, and from the
aouth-eastern coast of the Mediterranean. By means of
these geographical relations, the influence of the sea, aa the
"uniting element," shewed itself in the increasing power of
the Ph<«niciana, and subsequently also in that of the Hellenic
nations, and in the rapid enlargement of the circle of ideas.
Civilisation in its earlier seats, in Egypt, on the Euphrates
and the Tigris, in the Indiaa Peiitaix)tainia, and in China,
had been confined to the rich alluvial lands watered by wide
rivers; but it was otherwise in Phoinicia and iu Hellas.
The early impulse to maritime imdertakings, wliich shewed
itself in the lively and mobile minds of the Greeks and
especialiy of the Ionic branch, found a rich and varied field
in the remarkable forma of the Mediterranean, and in its
position relatively to the oceans to the south and nest,

The Red Sea, formed by tlie entrance of the Indian Ocean
through the Straits of Bab cl Mandeb, belongs to a class of
great physical pliEeuomena which modem geology has made
known to us. The European continent has its princijial
axis in a north-east and south-west line ; but, almost at
right angles to tliis direction, there exists a system of fissures,
which hove given occasion, in some cases, to the entrance

PHYSICAL C0iTEMPL4T10S Of THE DSIVERSB.

181

of the water of the sea, and in others, to the elevation of
parallel ridges of mountains. We may trace this transverse
strike in a south-east and noi-tli-west direction, from the
Indian Ocean to the mouth of the Elbe in northern
Germany; it shews itself in the 'Rud Sea which, in its
southern portion, is bordered on both sides by volcanic
rocks; — in the Persian Gulf, with the lowlantts of the
double river Euphrates and Tigris; — in the Zagros moun-
tain chain in Louristan; — in the mountain chains of
Greece and the neighbouring islands of the Archipelago;
in the Adriatic Sea ; — -and in the Dalmatian limestone Alps.
This intersection C^^) of two systems of geodesic lines,
N.E. — S.W. and S.E. — N.W. {concerning which I believe
the S.E. — N.W. to be the more recent, and that both result
from t!ie direction of deep-seated earthquake movements in
the interior of the globe), has had an important iniluence on
the destinies of men, and in facilitating the interco'nrse
between nations. The relative positions of Eastern Africa,
Arabia, and the peninsula of Hindostan, and their very
unequal heating by the sun's rays at different seasons of iLe
year, produce a regular alternation of currents of air
(Monsoons), {'*') favouring navigation to the Myrrhifera
Regio of the Adramites in Southern Arabia, and to the
Persian Gulf, India, and Ceylon. During the season of
north winds in the Bed Sea (April and May to October),
the soutli-west Monsoon prevails from the eastern shore of
Africa to the coast of Malabar; whilst from October to
April, the north-east Monsoon, which is favourable to the
return, coincides witli the period of southerly winds between
the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and the Isthmus of Suez.

Having thus described the theatre on which the Greek;
■ tol. n. o

188 PBraOIPAI, EPOCHS IN THE BTSTOaT OP THB

might receive from diiferent quarters foreign dements of
mental cultivation and the knowledge of other countries,
I will next notice other nations dwelling near the Me-
diterranean, wlio enjoyed an early and liigh degree of
civilisation — ^the Egyptians, the Phrenicians with their north
and west Afriaia colonies, and the Etruscans. Immigration
and commercial interconrse were powerful agents : the more
OUT historical honKoa has been extended in the most recent
times, as by the discovery of monuments and inscriptions,
and by philosopliical investigations into languages, the
greater we find to have been the influence which, in the
earliest times, the Greets experienced even from the
Euphrates, from Lycia, and through the Phrygians allied to
the Thracian tribes.

Concerning the valley of the Nile, which plays so lai^ n
part inhistoryjIfoUowthelntest investigations of Lepsius,('*^)
and the results of his important expedition which throws light
on the whole of antiquity, in saying that " there exist well-
assured cartouches of kings belonging to the commence-
ment of the fourth dynasty of Manetho, which includes the
builders of the great pyramids of Gizeh (Chephren or Schafrn,
Cheops-Chufu, and Menkera or Mcncheres). Tliis dvnasty
commenced thirty-four centuries before our Christian era,
and twenty-three centuries before the Doric immigration of
the Hciaclides into the Peloponnesus, ("s) The great
stone pyramids of Daschur, a httle to the south of Gizeh
and Sakaia, are considered by Lepsius to have been the
work of the tliird dynasty : there are sculptural inscriptions
on the blocks of which they are composed, but as yet no
Hnga' names have been discovered. The latest dynasty of
the " old kingdom," which terminated at the invasion of (he

J

PHYSICAL CONTEMPiaTION OF THE CNiraKSl. 123

HyksoSj 1200 years before Homer, was the twelfth of
Manetho, to which heioDged Amenemha in. who made the
origmal bhjriuth, and formed Lake Moeris artificiRlly by
excavation and by large dykes of earth to the north and
west. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the " new king-
dom" begins with the eighteenth dynastj (1600 b.c.) The
great Ramses Miamomi (Eamses II.) was the second
monarch of tbe nineteenth dynasty. The representations on
stone which perpetuated the record of his victories were
explained to Gcrmanicus by the priests of Thebes, {i^") He
was known to Herodotus under the name of Seaostris,
probably from a confusion with the almost cfjuslly warlike
and powerful conqueror Seti (Setos), who was the father of
Bamses II,"

I have thought it right to notice these few chronological
points, in order that, where we have solid historical ground,
we may determine approximately the relative antiquity of
great events in Egypt, Pbcenicia, and Greece. As I before
described in a fe^' words the Mediterranean and its geo-
graphical relations, so I have thought it necessary here to
indicate the centuries by which the civilisation of the Valley
of the Xile preceded that of Greece. Without this double
reference to place and time, we cannot, from the very
nature of our mental constitution, form to ourselves any
clear and satisfoetory picture of history.

Civilisatibn,early awakened and arbitrarilymodelledinEgypt
by the mental requirements of the people, by the peculiar
physical constitution of tueir coimtry, and by their hierar-
chical and political institutions, produced there, as everywhere
else on the globe, a tendency to intercourse with foreign na-
tions, and to distant military expeditions and settlements. But

124 PBINCIPAL EPOCHS IK THE HISTOKY OP THE

the records preserved to us by history and by monumental
remains indicate only transilory conquests by land, and bnt
little extensive navigation by the Egyptians themselref.
This civilised nation, so ancient and so powerful, appears to
have done less to produce a permanent influence beyond its
owu borders, than other races less numerous but more active
and mobile. The national cultivation, favourable rather to
the masses than to individuals, was, as it were, geographically
insulated, and remained, therefore, probably unfruitful as
respects the extension of cosraical views, Kamses Miamouu
(from 1388 to 1322 e.g., 600 years, therefore, before tlie
first Olympiad of Corabus) undertook, according to Hero-
dotus, extensive mihtary expeditions into Ethiopia (where
Lepsius considers that Ids most southern works are fo be
found near Mount Barkal) ; through Palestinian Syria ; and
passing from Asia Minor into Europe, to the Scytliians,
Thracians, and Snail)' to Colcliis and the Phasis, on the
banks of which, part of liis army, weary of their wander-
ings, finally settled, Eamses was also the first — so said the
priests — who, with long sliips, subjected to his dominion
the dwellers on the coast of the Erythrean, until at length,
sailing onwards, he arrived at a sea so shallow as to be no
longer navigable. ('®') Diodorus says expressly, that
Sesoosis (the great Ramses) advanced in India beyond the
Ganges, and that be also brought back captives from
Babylon. "Tlie only well-assured fact in relation to the
nautipal pursuits of the native ancient Egj-ptiaus is, that
from the earliest times they navigated not only the Nile, but
also the Arabian Gulf. Tlie famous copper mines near
Wadi Magara, on the peninsula of Sinai, were worked as
early as in the thue of the fourth dynasty, under Cheops-

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP TUB UlSIVERSB. 125

Chuftt. The iuseriptions of Kamamat on the Coaseii road,
which connected the Valley of the Nile with the western
coast of the Bed Sea, reach back as far as the sixth dynasty.
The cana! from Suez was attempted under Ramses the
Great, {'^2} the immcdiafc motive being probably the inter-
course with the Arabian copper district." Greater maritime
enterprises, such even aa the often- con tested, but I think,
not improbable, circumnavigation of Africa imderNechos II.
(611 — 595 B.C.), were entrusted to Phcenician vessels.
Nearly at the same period, but rather earlier, under Nechos's
father, Psammetichus (Psemetek), aJid also somewhat lal«r,
after the close of the civil war under Amasis (Aahmes),
hired Greek troops, by their settlement at Naucratis, laid
the foundation of a permanent foreign commerce, of the in-
troduction of foreign ideas, and of the gradual penetra-
tion of HeUenism into Lower Egyjit. Thus was deposited
a germ of mental freedom, — of a greater iudependeuce of
local influences, — which developed itself with rapidity and
vigour in the new order of tilings which followed the Mace-
donian conquest. The opening of the Egyptian ports under
Psammetichus marks an epoch so much the more important,
since untU that period, Egypt, or at least her northern coast,
liad been as completely closed against all foreigners as Japan
now is. ('«)

Amongst the cultivated nations, not Hellenic, who dwelt
around the Mediterranean in the ancient seats where our
modem knowledge originated, we must place the Phce-
nicians next after the Egyptians. They must be re-
garded as the most active intermediaries and agents in the
connection of nations from the Indian ocean to the west
and north of Europe. Limited in many spheres of intellec-

126

PKISCtPAL EPOCHS IN THE mSTOIfi: OF THE

tual derelopinent, and addicted rather to the mecliftmeal than
to the fine arts, with little of the grnnd and creative genius
of the more thoughtful inhabitants of the "Valley of the Nfle,
the Phamicians, as an adventurous and far ranging com-
mercial people, and by the formation of colonies, one al
which far suqiassed the parent city in political power,
did nevertheless, earlier than all the other nations anr-
rounding the Mediterranean, influence the course and ex-
tension of ideas, and promote riciier and more varied
views of the phj'sical universe. The Phffinicians had Baby-
loniaji weights and measures, ('^^) and, at least after the
Persian dominion, employed for monetary purposes a stamped
metallic currency, which, singularly enough, was not pos-
sessed by the Egy])tians, notwithstanding their advanced
political institutions and skill in the arts. But that by which
the Phcenicians contributed most to the intellectual advance-
ment of the nations with whom they came in contact, was
by the communication of alphabetical writing, of which they
had themselves long made use. Although the whole legen-
dary history of a particular colony, founded in Bteotia by
Cadmus, may remain wrapped in mythologieiJ obscurity,
yet it is not the less certain, that it was through the com-
mercial intercourse of the lonians with the Phoenicians that
the Greeks received the characters of their alphabetical writ-
ing, which were long termed Phceuician signs. ('^^) Accord-
ing to the views which, since ChampoUion's great discovery,
have prevailed more and more respecting the early condi-
tions of the development of alphabetical writing, the
Phoenician, and aU tlie Semitic written characters, thou^
they may have been originally formed from pictorial writing,
are to be regarded as a phonetic alphabet; i. c. as an

PHYSICAL CONTBMPL4TI0M OF THE UKITBESE. 127

alphabet in which the ideal Bigoification of the pictured
aigna is wholly disregarded, and these sigua or characters
are treated exclusively as signs of sound. Such a phonetic
alphabet, being iu its nature and fundamental form a syllabic
alphabet, was suited to satisfy all the requirements of a
graphical represeatation of the phonetic system of a language.
" When tlie Semitic writing," says Lepsius, iu his treatise
on the alphabet, "passed into Europe to I ndo- Germanic
nations, who all shew a much stronger tejidencj to a strict
separation between vowels and consonants (a separation to
which they could not but be led by the much more significant
import of voweb in tJieir languages}, this syllabic alphabet
underwent very important and influential changes." ('^')
Amongst the Greeks, the tendency to do away with the
syllabic character proceeded to its full accomplishmeut.
Tlius not only did tho communication of the Phceuician
signs to almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
to the north-west coast of Africa, facilitate conunercial in-
tercourse and form a common bond between several civihsed
nations, but this system of written characters, generahsed
bj its graphic flexibility, had a yet higher destination.
It became the dejjository of the noblest results attained by
the Hellenic race in the two great spheres of the intellect and
the feelings, by investigating thought and by creative imagina-
tion ; and the medium of transmission tlirough which this im-
perishable benefit has been becjueathed to tlie latest posterity.
Kor is it solely as intermediaries, and by conveying an
impulse to others, that the Phcenicians have enlarged the
elements of cosmical contemplation. They also inde-
pendently, and by their own discoveries, extended the
sphere of knowledge in several directions. Industrial

I

128 FBINCIPAL SF0CR8 IN THE BTSTOKT OP TOS

prosperity, fouiided on extensive maritime commerce, and
on the products of labour and skill iu the manufactures
of Sidon in white and coloured glass, in tissues, and in
purple dyes, led, as every where else, t« advaucea in
mathematicid and cliemical knowledge, and especially iu the
technical arts. " The Sidonians," says Strabo, " are de-
scribed as active investigators in astronomy as well as in
the science of numbers, having been conducted thereto by
arithmetical skill and by the practice of nocturnal naviga-
tion, both of which are indispensable to trade and to mari-
time intercourse." In order to indicate the extent of the
earth's surface &st opened by Phcenician navigation and
the Phcenician caravan trade, we must name the settlements
on the Bythinian coast (Pronectus and Bythinium), which
were probably of very early formation ; the Cyclades and
several islands of the ^gean risited in the Homeric times ;
the south of Spain, from whence silver was obtained (Tar-
tessns and Gades) ; the north of Africa, west of the lesser
Syrtis (Utica, Hadrmnetum, and Carthage); the countries in
the north of Europe, from whence tin ('^S) and amber were
derived i and two tradmg factories ("") in the Persian gulf,
the Baharein islands Tylos and Aradus.

The amber trade, wliich was probably first directed to the
west Cimbriau coasts, {i'') and only subsequently to the
Baltic and the country of the Esthonians, owes its first origin
to the boldness and perseverance of Phcenician coast navi-
In its subsequent extension it offers, in the point
of view of which we are treating, a remarkable instance of the
influence which may be exerted by a predilection for even s
single foreign production, in opening an inland tradebetween
nations, and in makuig known large tracts of country. In

PHYSICS.L CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE, 129

the same way that the Phocsean Massilians brought the
British tia across France to the Itlione, the amber was con-
veyed from people to peojile tlirough Germany, anil by the
Celts on either declivity of the Alps to the Padus, and
through Pannonia to the Borystheiies. It was this inland
traffic which first brought tlie coasts of the northern ocean
into connection with the Euxine and the Adriatic.

Phffinicians from Carthage, and probably from the settle-
ments of Tart£ssu3 and Gadea which were founded two
centuries earHer, visited an important part of the northwest
coastof jVfrica,estendingmuchbeyondCapeBojador; although
the Chretes of Hanno is neither the Chremetes of Aristotle's
Meteorology, nor yet our Gambia. ("^) This was the locality
of the many towns of Tyrians (according to Strabo even as
many as 300,) which were destroyed by Pharusians and
Nigritians. ("3) Among them, Cerne (Dicuil's Gaulea,
according to Letronne) was the principal naval station and
cliief staple for the settlements on the coast. In the west
the Canary islands and the Azores {which latter the son of
Columbus, Don Fernando, considered to be the first Cas-
siterides discovered by the Carthaginians), and in the north
the Orkneys, the Faroe islands, and Iceland, became the in-
termediary stations of transit to the New Continent. They
indicate the two paths by which the European portion of
mankind became acquainted with Central and North America,
ITiis consideration gives to the question of the period when
Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canaries were first known to
the Phffinicians, either of the mother country or of the cities
planted in Iberia and Africa, a great, I might almost say a
nniversalj importance in the history of the world. In a
long protracted chain of events we love to trace the first

130 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OK THE

links. It is probable that, from the foundations of IWtessus
and Utiea by the Phoenicians, fully 2000 years elapsed before
the discovery of America by the northern route, i, e. before
Eric Eauda cfossmI the ocean to Greenland (an event which
was soon followed by voyages to North Carolina), and 2500
years before ita discovery by the south western ron(« taken
by Columbus from a point of departure near the ancient
PhcEnician Gadeira.

In following out that generalisation of ideas which be-
longs to the object of this work, I have here regarded the
discovery of a group of islands situated only 168 geogra-
phical miles from the coast of Afiica, as the first b'nk in a
long series of efl'orts tending in the same direction, and
have not connected it with the poetic fiction, sprung from
the inmost depths of the mind, of the Elysium, the lalanda
of the Blest, placed in the fsff ocean at earth's extremest
bounds, and warmed by the near presence of the disk of the
setting sun. In this remotest distance was placed the seat
of all the charms of life, and of the most precious produc-
tions of the earth ; (i'*) but as the Greeks' knowledge of the
Mediterranean extended, the ideal land, the geographical
mjthus of the Elysium, was moved farther and farther to the
west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. True geographical
knowledge, the diiicoveries of the Phcenicians, — of the epoch
of which we have no certdn information, — did not probably
first originate the mythus of the Fortunate Islands ; but the
application was made afterwards, and the geographical dis-
coveiy did but embody the picture which the imagination
had formed, and of which it became, as it were, the sub-
stratum.

Later writers, such as the unknown compiler of the

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE tJNlVEKSE.

"Collection ofWonderful Narrations," whick was aacribed
to Aristotlej and of whicli Timajus made use, and such
the still more circumstantial Diodoms Siculus, when speak-
ing of lovely islands, which may be supposed to be the
Canaries, allude to the storms wliich may have occa-
sioned their accidental discovery. Phcenician and Cartha-
ginian ships, it is said, sailing to the settlements already
esisting on the Coast of Lybia, were driven out to sea;
the event is placed at the early period of the TjTrhenian
naval power, during the strife between the Tyrrhenian Pe-
lasgians and the Phtenicians. Statins Sebosus and the
Numidiao King Juba first gave names to the different
islands, but uufortunatcly not Punic names, although cer-
tainly according to notices drawn from Punic books. Plu-
tarch having said that SertoriuSj when driven out of Spain,
and after the loss of his fleets thought of taking refuge
"in a group, consisting of only two islands, situated
in the Atlantic, ten thousand stadia to the west of the
mouth of the Betis," he has been supposed to refer to
the two islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, C^^) indi-
cated not obscurely by Phny as Purpuraria;. The strong
current which, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, sets from
north west to south east, may long have prevented the
coast navigators from discovering the islands most distant
from the continent, of wliich only the smaller (Porto Santo)
was found inhabited in the fifteenth century. The curva-
ture of the earth would prevent the summit of the great
volcano of Teneriffe from being seen, even with a strong
refraction, by the Phcenician ships sailing along the coast of
the eontuient ; but it appears from my researches (''''^) that
t might have been diseovereil from the heights near Cape

131 1

ribed II

=\- 1

192 PUISCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTOHT OP THE

Bojador under favourable circumatancea, and especially
during eruptioos, and bj the aid of reflection from an ele-
vated cloud above the volcano. It bas even been asserted
that eruptions of Etna have been seen in recent times from
Mount Taygetos. (i")

In noticing the elements of a more extended knowledge
of the earth, which early flowed in to the Greeks from other
parts of tlie Mediterranean, we liave hitherto followed the
Pbceniciana and Carthaginians in their intercourse with the
nortliern countries from whence tin and amber were derived,
and in their settlements near the tropics on the west coast
of Africa. We have now to speak of a southern navigation
of the same people to far within the torrid zone, four thoa-
sand geographical miles east of Ceme and Hanno'a weatam
horn, in the Prasodic and Indian Seas. Whatever
doubts may remain as to the particular locality of the
distant "gold lands" Ophir and Supara, — whether these
gold lands were on the west coast of the Indian peninsula,
or on the east coast of Africa, — ^it is not the less certain that
this active Semitic race, early acquainted with written cha-
racters, roving extensively over the surface of the earth,
and bringing its various inliabitanfs into relation with each
other, came into contact witli the productions of the most
varied chmates, ranging from the Cassiterides to south of
the Straits of Bab-cI-Mandeb, and far within the region of
the tropics. The Tynan flag waved at the same time in
Britain and in the Indian ocean. The Phffinicians had
formed trading settlements in the most northern part of the
Arabian Gulf, in the harbours of Elath and Ezion Geber, aa
well as in the Persian Gulf at Aradus and T?ylos, where,
according to Strabo, there were temples similar in their

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 133

style of arcliiteeture to those of the Metliterranean. ("s)
The caravan trade which the Phcenicians carried on, in order
to procure spices aod inceiise, was directed by Pahuyra to
Arabia Eehx, and to the Chddeaji or Nahathieic Gerrba, on
the western or Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf.

The expeditions of Hiram and Solomon, conjoint under-
takings of the Tjrians and Israelites, sailed from Ezion
Geber through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to Ophir
(Opheir, Sophir, Sophara, the Sanscrit Supara (i^s) of
Ptolemy). Solomon, who loved magnificence, caused a
fleet to be built in tlie Eed Sea, and Hirmn aupphed him
with PhoEuician mariners well acqumnted with navigation,
and also Tyrian vessels, " ships of Tarshish." C^) The
articles of merchaadise which were brought back from Ophir
were gold, silver, sandal wood {aJgummim), precious stones,
ivory, apes (kophim), and peacocks (thukldim). The names
by which these articles are designated are not Hebrew but
Indian. ('^') The researches of Gesenius, Benfey, and
Lassen, have made it extremely probable that the western
shores of the Indian peninsula were visited by the Phceni-
cians, who, by their colonies in the Persiaa Gulf, and by
their intercourse with the Gerrhana, were early acquainted
with the periodically blowing monsoons. Columbus was
even persuaded that Ophir (the El Dorado of Solomon), and
the mountain Sopora, were a part of Eastern Asia — of the
Chersonesus Aurea of Ptolemy, C^') If it seem difficult to
view "Western India as a country productive in gold, it will
be snfficieiit, without referring to the " gold-seekiug ants,"
or to Ctesias's unmistakable description of a foundry, (in
which, however, aecording to his account, gold and iron
were melted together), C^*) to remember the vicinity of

136 TEISCIPAt. EPOCHS IK THE mSTOBT OV THE

ledge of coimtries and of nations, — we have named the more
ancient seats of civilisation iu Egypt, Phtenicia, and Etmiia;
and have considered the basin of the Mediterranean, in its
peculiarities of form and of geographical position relatively
to other portions of the earth's surface, and in regard to the
influence which these have exerted on commercial inter-
course with the West Coast of Africa, with the North of
Europe, and with the Arabian and Indian Seas. No por-
tion of the earth has been the theatre of more frequent
changes in the possession of power, or of more active and
varied movement under mental influences. The progressive
movement propag'ated itseif widdj and enduringly through
the Greeks and the Eomans, and especially after the
latter had broken the Phceuicio -Carthaginian power. That
which we call the beginning of history, is but the record
of later generations. It is a privilege of the period at
which we hve, that by brilliant advances in the general and
comparative study of languages, by the more careful search
for moimments, and by their more certain interpretation, the
historical investigator finds that his scope of vision enlarges
daily; and penetrating through successive strataj a higher
antiquity begins to reveal itself to his eyes. Besides the
difl'erent cultivated nations of the Mediterranean which we
have named, there are also others shewmg traces of ancient
civilisation, — as in "Western Asia the Phrj'gians and Lycian!,
— and in the extreme west the Turduli and Turdet-ani. ('wj
Strabo says of the latter, " they are the most civilised of all
the Iberians; they have the art of writing, and possess
written books of old memorials, and also poems and laws in
metrical verse, to which they ascribe an age of six thousand
years." I have referred to these particular instances as

PHTSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVEBSB.

indicating how much of ancieut cultivatioiij even in Euro-
pean nations, has disappeared without leaving traces which
we can follow; and for the sake of shewing that the history
of early cosmical views, or of the physical contemplation of
which we treat, is aecessEirily confined within restricted limits.

Beyond the 48th degree of latitude, north of the sea of
Azof and of the Caspian, betweea the Don, the Volga, and
the Jaik, where the latter flows from the southern and auri-
ferous portion of the Ural, Europe and Asia melt as it were
into each other in wide plains or steppes. Herodotus, and
before him Pherecydes of Syros, considered the whole of
Northern Scythian Asia (Siberia), as belonging to Sarmatic
Europe, C^"} and even as forming a part of Europe itself.
Towards the south, Europe and Asia are distinctly separated ;
but the far projecting peninsula of Asia Minor, and the
varied shores and islands of the ^gean Sea, forming, as it
were, a bridge between the two continents, have afforded an
easy transit to races, languages, manners, and civilisation.
Western Asia has been from the earliest times tlie great
highway of nations migrating from the East, as was the
north west of Hellas for the Elyrian races, llie archipelago
of the jEgean, divided under Phtenician, Persian, and Greek
dominion, formed the intermediate IjtiV between the Greek
world and the far East.

"When the Pluygian was incorporated with the Ljdian
and the latter with the Persian empire, the circle of ideas of
the Afdatic and European Greeks was enlarged by the
contact. The Persian sway was extended by the warlike
enterprises of Cambysea and Darius Hystaspes, from Cyrene
and the Nile to the fruitful lands on the Euphrates and the
Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, was emplojcd to

110 PRINOITAL EPOCHS IK THE HISTO&T OT THB

North Eastern part of the Euxine. These Greek coloniea
were far more varied in their political conatitution, and far
more favourable to the progress of intellectual cultivation,
than those of the Phcenicians and Carthaginians in the
jEgean Sea, in Sicily, Iheria, and on the North and West
Coasts of Airica.

The pressing forwards towards the East about twelve
centuries before our era and a century and a half after
Hamses Miamoun (Sesostris), when regarded as an historical
event, is called the " expedition of the Argonauts to Colchia."
The actual reality which, in this narration, ia clothed in a
mythical garb, or mingled with ideal features (o which the
minds of the narrators gave birth, was the fulfilment
of a national desire to open the inhospitable Euxine. The
legend of Prometheus, and the unbinding the chains of the
fire- bringing Titjio on the Caucasus by Herciiles in jour-
neying eastward, — the ascent of lo from the valley of the
Hybrites('98j towards the Caucasus, — and the mythus of
Phrysns and HeUe, — aD point to the same path on which
Phcenician navigators had earlier adventured.

Before the Doric and iEolic migration, the Ba;otian Or-
ohomenus, near the north end of the Lake of Copais, was a
rich commercial city of the Minyans. The Argooautic ex-
pedition, however, began at lolchus, the chief seat of the
ITiessalian Minyans on the Pagastean Gulf. The locality of
the legend, which, as respects the aim and supposed termi-
nation of the enterprise, has at different times uudeigoue
various modifications, {'s^} became attached to the month of
the Phasis (Rion), and to Colchis, a seat of more ancient
civilisation, instead of to the undefined distant land of Ma.
The voyages of the Milesians, and the numerous towns

PHYSICAL COTJTEMPLATIOH OF THE UNIVEE8E. 141

planted by them on the Euxiue, procured a more exact
inowledge of the north and east boundaries of that sea, thus
giving to the geographical portion of the niythus more
definite outlines. An important series of new views began
at the same time to open; the west coast of the neighijour-
ing Caspian had long been tlie only one known, and Heca-
tteus still regarded this western shore (^'*) as that of the
eueiichng eastern ocean ; it was the venerable father of
history who first taught the fact, wliich after him was
again contested for six centuries until the tune of Ptolemy,
that the Caspian Sea is a closed basin, surrounded by
land on every side.

Tn the north east comer of the Black Sea an extensive
field was also opened to ethnology. Men were astonished
at the multiphcitj of languages which they encountered ; (^' }
and the want of skilful interpreters (the first aids and rough
instruments of the comparative study of languages) was
strongly felt. Tlie exchange of commodities led traders be-
yond the Mseotie Gulf (which was supposed to be of far
larger dimensions than it really is), through the steppe
where the horde of the centra! Kirghis now pasture their
herds, — and through a chain of Scythian- Scolotic tribes of
the Argippieans and Isscdones (who I taie to he of Indo-
Gennanic (^^) origin), to the Arimaspes (^^^j d^eUing on
the northern dechvity of the Altai, and possessing much
gold. Here is the ancient " kingdom of the Griffin," the
site of the meteorological mjlhus of the Hyperboreans, [^'^)
which has wandered with Hercules far to the westward.
: may be conjectured that the part of Northeii) Asia
: alluded to (which has again been rendered cele-
r! in our own days by the Siberian gold ^

.act

]4£

PEINOIPAL BVOCHS IN THE HI8T0EY OP THE

I

well as the Isrg^ quantity of gold which, in the time of
Herodotus, had been accumulated among the Massagetae
(a tribe of Gothic descent), became, by means of the inter-
course openei with the Euxine, an important source of
wealth and luxury to the Greeka. I place the locality of
this source between the 53d and 55th degrees of latitude.
The region of auriferous sand, of which the Daradas
(Carders or Derders, mentioned in the Mahabharata, and
in the fragments of Megasthenea,) gave intelHgence to the
travellers, and with which the often repeated fable of the
gigantic ants became connected, owing to the accidental
double meaning of a name, (^o^) belongs to a more southern
latitude 35° or 37°. It would fall (according to which of
two combinations was preferred), either in the Thibetian
high land east of the Bolor chain, between the Himalaya and
Kuen-liin, west of Iskardo ; or north of those mountains, to-
wards the desert of Gobi, which is also described as being rich
in gold by the Chinese traveller and accurate observer Hinen-
thsang, in the beginning of the seventh century of oui era.
How much more accessible to the trade of the MOesian
colonies on the north east of the Euxine, must have been
the gold of the Arimaspes and the Massagette I It has
appeared to me suitable to the subject of the present portion
of my work, to allude thus generally to all that belongs to
an important and still recently operating result of the
opening of the Eusine, and of the first advances of the
Greeks towards the East.

The great eveut, so productive of change, of the Doric
piigration and the return of the Herachdes to the Pelopon-
neaus, falls about a century and a half after the semi-
piythical expedition of the Argonauts, i, e, after the opeuing

JHTSICAl OONTBMPLATION OF THl UNIVEHSE.

148

of the Eimne to Greek navigatiou and eonimerce. Thia
migration, together with the foundation of new states and
new institutions, firat gave rise to the systematic eitabhsh-
ment of colonial cities, which marks an important epoch in
the history of Greece, and which became most influential on
intellectual cultivation based on enlarged views of the
natural world. The more intimate connection of Europe
and Asia was especially dependent on the catabhshment of
colonies ; they formed a chain from Sinope, Dioscurias, and
the Tauiic Panticapteum, to Sagujitum and Gyrene; the
latter founded from the rainless TLera.

By no ancient nation were more numerous, or for the
most part more powerful, colonial cities established ; but
it should also be remarked, that four or five eenturiea
elapsed from the foundation of tbe oldest Julian colonies,
among which Mytilene and Smyrna were chiefly distin-
guished, to the foundation of Syracuae, Croton, and Gyrene.
The Indians and the Malays only attempted the formation
of feeble settlements on the East Coast of Africa, in Soco-
tora fDioscoridea), and in the South Asiatic Archipelago.
The Phosnicians had, it is true, a liighly advanced colonial
system, extending over a still larger space than the Grecian,
stretchiug (although with wide interruptions between the
stations) from the Persian Gdlf to Ceme on the West Coast
of Africa. No mother country has ever foujided a colony
which became at once so powerful in conquest and in com-
merce as Carthage. But Carthage, notwithstanding her
greatness, was far mferior to the Greek colonial cities in all
that belongs to intellectual culture, and to the most noble
and beautiful creations of art.

Let US not forget that there flourished at the same time

14.4

PBraOIPAL KPOOH9 W THB HISTORY OP THB

many populous Greek cities in Asia Minor, on the shores of
the jEgeaa Sea, in Lower Italy, and in Sicily ; tliat Miletra
and MassOia became, like Carthage, the founders of fresh
colonies; that Syracuae, at the summit of its power, fought
ngdnat Atliena, and against the armies of Hannibal and of
Hamilcar ; and that Miletus waa for a long time the firat
commercial city in the world after Tjtc and Carthage.

Whilst a life so rich in intellectual movement and anima-
tion was thus developed externally by the activity of a people
whose internal state was so often violently agitatedj and wliilst
the native cultivation, transplanted to other shores, propa-
gated itself afresh, and prosperity increased, new germa
of mental national development were every where elicited.
Community of language and of worship bound together
the most distant members, and throi^h them the mother
country took part in the wide circle of the life of other
nations. Foreign elements were received into the Greek
world without detracting anything from tha greatness of its
own independent character. No doubt the influence of con-
tact with the East, and with Egypt before it had become
Persian, more than a hundred years before the invasion of
Cambyses, — must have been more permanent in its nature,
then the influence of the settlements of Cecropa from Sais,
of Cadmus from Phceuicia, and of Danaua from Chemmis,
the reality of which has been much contested, and is at least
wrapped in obscurity.

The peculiar characteristics whicli, pervading the whole
organisation of tlie Greek colonies, distinguished them from
all others, and especially from ihe Phcenician, arose from the
distinctness and original diversity of the races into which
the parent nation was divided. In tlie Hellenic colonies,

THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 145

as in all that belonged to ancient Greece, there existed a
mixture of uniting and dissevering forces, which by their
opposition imparted variety of tone, form, and character, not
only to ideas and feelings, but also to poetic and artistic
conceptions, and gave to all that rich luxuriance and fulness
of life, in which apparently hostile forces are resolved, accord-
ing to a higher universal order, into combining harmony.

If Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon were Ionic, Cosj
Bhodes, and Halicamassus Doric, and Croton and Sybaris
Achaian, yet in the midst of all this diversity, and even
where, as in lower Italy, towns founded by different races
stood side by side^ the power of the Homeric songs exer-
cised over all alike its uniting spell. Notwithstanding the
deeply rooted contrasts of manners and of political institu-
tions, and notwithstanding the fluctuations of the latter,
still Greek nationality remained unbroken and undivided,
and the wide range of ideas and of types of art, achieved
by the several races, was regarded as the common property
of the entire united nation.

There still remains to notice, in the present section, the
third point to which I before referred, as having been, con-
currently with the opening of the Euxine, and the establish-
ment of colonies along the margin of the Mediterranean,
influential on the enlargement of physical views. The
foundation of Tartessus and Gades, where a temple was
dedicated to the wandering divinity Melkart (a son of
Baal), and the colony of Utica, more ancient than Carthage,
remind us that Phoenician ships had sailed in the open
ocean for several centuries, when the straits, which Pindar
termed the ^^ (Jadeirian Gate^^ {^^^), were still closed to the
Greeks. As the Milesians in the East, by opening the

VOL. n. H

146 LEADING EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE

Euxine (207)^ laid the groundwork of communications which
led to an active overland commerce with the north of Europe
and Asia, and in much later times with the Oxus and the
Indus, so the Samians (^os) and the Phocseans {^^) were the
first among the Greeks who sought to penetrate to the west
beyond the limits of the Mediterranean.

Colseus of Samos sailed for Egypt, where at that
time an intercourse with the Greeks (which perhaps -was
only the renewal of former communications) had b^on
to take place under Psammetichus ; he was driven by
easterly winds and tempests to the island of Platea, and
thence, Herodotus significantly adds '^not without divine
direction,^^ through the Straits into the ocean. It was not
merely the magnitude of the unexpected gain of a commerce
opened with the Iberian Tartessus, but still more the dis-
covery in space, the entrance into a world before unknown
or thought of only in mythical conjectures, which gave to
this event grandeur and celebrity throughout the Mediter-
ranean, wherever the Greek tongue was understood. Here,
beyond the Pillars of Hercules (earlier called the Pillars of
Briareus, of J^gaeon, and of Cronos), at the western margin
of the Earth, on the way to the Elysian regions and to the
Hesperides, the Greeks first saw the primeval waters of the
all-encircling ocean (wparoc) (^^o), the origin, as they believed,
of all rivers.

On arriving at the Phasis, the explorers of the Euxine
had found that sea terminated by a shore, beyond which a
fabled " Sun lake^' was supposed to exist ; but the Greeks
who reached the Atlantic, on looking southward fix)m
Gadeira and Tartessus, gazed onward into a boundless
region. It was this which, for fifteen hundred yearsj gave

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 147

to the '^gate of the interior sea^^ a peexdiar importance,
Ever stretching forwards towards that which lay beyond,
one maritime people after another, Phoenicians, Greeks,
Arabians, Catalans, Majorcans, frenchmen from Dieppe
and La Eochelle, Genoese, Venetians, Portuguese, and
Spaniards, made successive efforts to penetrate onwards in
the Atlantic Ocean, which was long regarded as a miry,
shallow, misty sea of darkness (mare tenebrosum) ; until, as
it were station by station, by the Canaries and the Azores,
they at last arrived at the New Continent, which, however,
Northmen had already reached at an earlier period and by
another route.

When the expeditions of Alexander were making known
to the Greeks the regions of the East, considerations on
the form of the Earth were leading the great Stagyrite
(211) to the idea of the nearness of India to the Pillars
of Hercules; Strabo even formed the conjecture, that in
the northern hemisphere — perhaps in the parallel which
passes through the Pillars, through the island of Rhodes,
and through Tliinse — '^ there might exist intermediately be-
tween the shores of western Europe and eastern Asia several
other habitable lands" (^^^). The assignment of the
locahty of such lands in the continuation of the length of
the Mediterranean was connected with a grand geographical
view put forward by Eratosthenes and extensively enter-
tained in antiquity, according to which the whole of the
old continent, in its widest extent from west to east, nearly
in the parallel of 36°, would form an almost continuous line
of elevation (213).

But the expedition of Colseus of Samos not only marked
an epoch which offered to the Greek races, and to the

] 48 THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVEBSE.

nations which inherited their civilisation, new prospects and
a new outlet for maritime enterprises, — ^it was also the means
of making known a fact by which the range of physical
ideas was more immediately enlarged. A great natural
phenomenon which, by the periodical upraising of the level
of the sea, renders visible the relations which connect the
Earth with the Moon and the Sun, now first permanently
arrested attention. When seen in the Syrtes of A&ica, this
phenomenon had appeared to the Greeks accidental and
irregular, and had been sometimes even an occasion of danger.
Posidonius now observed the ebb and flood at Ilipa and
Gradeira, and compared his observations with what the
experienced Phoenicians were able to tell him respecting
the influence of the Moon, (^i*)

149

EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY 0¥ THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE
UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER.

II.

Militaiy Expeditions of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great.
— Change in the mutual relations of different parts of the
World. — ^Fusion of the West with the East, by the promotion,
through Greek influence, of a mdon between different nations
from the Nile to the Euphrates, the Jaxartes and the Indus. —
The knowledge of nature possessed by the Greeks suddenly
enlarged, both by direct observation, and by intercourse with
nations addicted to industry and commerce, and possessing an
ancient civilization.

The Macedonian Expeditions under Alexander the Great,
the downfal of the Persian Empire, the beginning of inter-
course with Western India, and the influence of the 116
years^ duration of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, mark one of
the most important epochs of General History; or of that
part of the progressive development of the History of the
Human Eace, which treats of the more intimate communi-
cation and union of the European countries of the West
with South- Western Asia, the Valley of the Nile and Lybia.
The sphere of the development of community of life, or of the
common action and mutual influence of different nations,
was not only immensely enlarged in material space, but it
was also powerfully strengthened, and its moral grandeur
increased, by the constant tendency of tlie unceasing efforts

150 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBt OF THE CONTEUPLATION

of the conqueror towards a blending o£ all tlie different
races, and the formation of a, general unity, under the ani-
mating influences of the Grecian apirit C^*). The founda-
tion of so many new cities at points the selection of which
indicates higher and more general aims, the formation and
arrangement of an independent commnnity for the govern-
ment of those cities, the tenderness of treatment towards
national usages and native worship, all testify that the plan
for a great organic whole WEbS laid. At a later period, as is
always the case, much which may not have been originally
comprehended in the plan, developed itself from the
nature of the relations established. If we remember
that oidy 52 Olympiads elapsed from the battle of the
Granicus to the destructive irruption of the Sacse and
Tochari into Eactria, we ahaU look with admiration on
the permanent influence, and the wonderfully uniting and
combining power of the Greek cultivation thus introduced
from the West; which mingled with Arabian, and with
later Persian and Indian knowledge, exerted its action
until far into the middle ages, bo as to render it often
doubtful what to ascribe to Grecian influence, and what to
the original spirit of invention or discovery of those Asiatic
nations.

All the civil institutions and measures of this daring
conqueror shew that the principle of union and nni^, or
rather a sense of the useful political influence of this
principle, was deeply seated in his mind. Even as applied
to Greece, it had been early impressed upon him by his
great teacher. In the Politics of Aristotle (*'*) we read : —
"The Asiatic nations are not wanting in activity of mind
and skill in art ; yet they live listlessly in subjection and

OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OP ALEXANDEE. 151

servitude, while the Greeks, vigorous and susceptible, living
in freedom and therefore weU governed, mighty if they were
united in one state ^ subdue and rule over all barbarians!^
Thus the Stagirite wrote during his second stay at Athens
(2^7), before Alexander had yet passed the Granicus. These
maxims, however, the Stagirite might elsewhere have
spoken of an unUmited dominion (TzavfiaaCKtla) as unnatural,
doubtless made a more powerful impression on the mind of
the conqueror, than the imaginative accounts of India
given by Ctesias, to which August Wilhelm von Schlegel,
and before him Ste. Croix, attributed so much impor-
tance (218).

The preceding section was devoted to a brief description
of the influence of the sea as the combining and uniting
element ; we have shewn how this influence was extended
by the navigation of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians,
Tyrrhenians, and Tuscans; and how the Greeks, having
their naval power strengthened by numerous colonies,
advanced from the Basin of the Mediterranean towards the
east and the west, by the Argonauts from lolchos and by the
Samian Colseus; and how towards the south the expedi-
tions of Solomon and Hiram passing through the Eed Sea,
visited the distant Gold lands in voyages to Ophir. The
present section will conduct us principally into the interior
of a great continent, on paths opened by land traffic and by
river navigation. In the short interval of twelve years
there followed successively, the expeditions into Western
Asia and Syria, with the battles of the Granicus and of the
passes of the Issus ; the siege and taking of Tyre ; the easy
possession of Egypt ; the Babylonian and Persian campaign,
in which at Arbela (in the plain of Gaugamela) the

hi

152 EPOCHS IN THE HI3TOBY 09 THE CONTEUPLATIOV

world- dominion of the AcIiEcmenidea was annihilated ; the
expedition to Bactria and Sogdiana, hetween the Hindoo
Coosh and the Jasartes (Syr) ; and, lastly, the daring
advance into the country of the five rivera (Pentapotamia) of
Western India. Alexander planted Greek settlements idmost
every where, and diffused Grecian maimera over the immense
region estending from the temple of Ammou in the
Lyhian Oasis, and from Alexandria on the western Delta
of the Nile, to the Northern Alexandria on the Jasartes,
the present Kodjend in Pergana.

Tlie extension of the new field opened to consideration
— and this is the point of riew from which we must
regard the enterprises of the Macedonian conqueror and
the continuance of the Bactrian Empire,- — proceeded from
the large geographical space made known, and the diversitj
of chmates, from - CjTopolis on tlie Jaxartes in the
latitude of Tiilis and Rome, to the eastern Delta of the
Indus, near 'l^a, under the tropic of Cancer. Let us add
the wonderful variety in the character and elevation of
the ground, including rich and fruif ful lands, desert wastes,
and SHOW}- mountains; the novelty and gigantic size of the
productions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; the
aspect and geographical distribution of races of men differ-
ing in colour ; the hving contact with the nations of the
East, highly gifted in some respects, enjoying a dviliza-
tion of high antiquity, with their rehgions myths, their
systems of pliilosophy, their aBtronomical knowledge, and
their astrological phantasies. At no other epoch (with the
exception, eighteen centuries and a half later, of the dis-
covery and opening of tropical America), was there ofi^ered,
at one time and to one fart of the human race, a greater

OF THE UNIVEESE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 153

influx of new views of nature, and more abundant materials
for the foundation of physical geography and comparative
ethnological studies. The vividness of the impression
produced thereby is testified by the whole of western
literature; it is testified even by the doubts (always
attendant on what speaks to our imagination in the
description of scenes of nature), which the accounts of
Megasthenes, Nearchus, Aristobulus, and other followers
of Alexander, raised in the minds of Greek and subsequently
of Roman writers. Those narrators, subject to the colour-
ing and influence of the period in which they lived, and
constantly mixing up facts and individual opinions or con-
jectures, have experienced the changeful fate of all travellers,
from bitter blame at first to subsequent milder criticism
and justification. The latter has especially prevailed in our
days, when a deep study of Sanscrit, a more general
knowledge of native geographical names, Bactrian coins
discovered in Topes, and above all the immediate view of
the country itself and of its organic productions, have
furnished to critics elements which were wanting to the
partial knowledge of Eratosthenes so frequent in censure,
of Strabo, and of Phny (2i9).

If we compare in difference of longitude the length of
the Mediterranean with the distance from west to east
which divides Asia Minor from the shores of the Hyphasis
(Beas), and from the " Altars of Return,^' we perceive that
the geography of the Greeks was doubled in the course
of a few years. In order to indicate more particularly the
character of that which I have termed the rich increase of
materials for physical geography and natural knowledge
obtained by the expeditions of Alexander, I would

h2

154 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLiTION

I
I

I

refer first to the remarkable diversity presented by
the earth's surface, lu the countries which the army
traversed, low lauds, — deserLs devoid of vegetation or salt
steppes, (as on the north of the Asferah chain which is a
continuation of the Tian-schan), — aud the four large, culti-
vated, and rich alluvial districts of the Euplirates, the
Indus, the Oxus, and the Jasartes, — contrasted with
snowy mountains of nearly 20,000 feet of elevation. The
Hindoo Coosb, or Indian Caucasus of the Macedonians, ia
a continuation of the Xnen-lun of North Thibet, and in
its further extension towEuds Herat, on the west of the
transverse north and south chain of Bolor, it divides into two
great chains bounding Kafiriatan (^^*'), the southern of
which is the loftiest and most important. Alexander
passed over the plateau of Bamian, which has more than
8000 feet of elevation, and in which the cave of
Prometheus was supposed to be seen (^^'), gained the
crest of Kohibaba, and passed over Kahura, and along the
course of the Choes to cross the Indus above the preset
Attock. The Hindoo Coosh, crowned with eternal snow,
which, according to Bumes, begins near Bamian at an
elevation of 12,200 Trench feet, must, when compared with
the humbler height of the Taurus to which the Greeks
were accustomed, have given to tliem occasion to recognise
on a more colossal scale the superposition of different
zones of ciirante aud vegetation. That whicli elemen-
tary nature unfolds thus visibly, when presented to the
senses of men produces in susceptible minds & deep and
lasting effect. Strabo gives a higldy graphic description
of the passage over the mountainous land of the Paro-
pnnisudte, where the anny opened for itself with toil

09 THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 155

a passage through the snow, and where all arborescent
vegetation ceases {222).

The dwellers in the west received through the
Macedonian settlements accurate accounts of Indian pro
ductions of nature and of art, of which little more than
the names were previously known by reports derived
either through more ancient commercial connections, or
through Ctesias of Cnidos who had lived for seventeen
years at the Persian court as the physician of Artaxerxes
Mnemon. Such were the watered rice fields, of the
cultivation of which Aristobulus gave a particular account ;
the cotton shrub and the fine tissues and paper (223)
for which it furnished the materials; spices and opium;
wine made from rice, and from the juice of pahns the
Sanscrit name of which, tala, has been preserved by
Arrian (22*) ; sugar from the sugar-cane (225)^ which,
indeed, is often confounded by the Greek and Roman
writers with the Tabaschir of bamboo stems ; wool from
the great Bombax trees {226) . shawls from the wool of the
Thibetian goat ; silken (Seric) tissues (227) . oil of white
sesamum (Sanscrit, tila) ; oil of roses and other perfumes ;
lac (Sanscrit, lakscha, and in the vulgar tongue, lakkha)
(228) ; and, lastly, the hardened Indian wootz steel.

Besides the knowledge of these productions, which
soon became the objects of an extensive commerce,
and of which several were transplanted into Arabia by
the Seleucidse (2^^), the aspect of nature in these richly
adorned subtropical regions procured for the Greeks
enjoyments of a different kind. Gigantic forms of
plants and animals never before seen filled the imagina-
tion with exciting imagery. Writers from whose severe

k

156 EPOCHS IN THE HlSTOBY OF THE CONTEMPLATION

and scieiitific style any degree of inspiration ia 'else-
where entirely absent, become poetical when describing
the habita of the elephant, — the height of the trees,
"to the aummit of which an arrow cannot reach, and
whose leaves are broader tban the shields of infantry," —
the bamboo, a hght, feathery, arborescent grass, " of
which single joints (internodia) served as four-oared
boats,— and the Indian fig-tree, whose pendant branches
take root around the parent stem, wluch attains a diameter
of 28 feet, "forming," as Onesicritus expresses himself
with great truth to nature, " a leafy canopy similar to a
many-pillared tent." The tree-fern, which according to
Taj feebngs is the greatest ornament of the tropics, is
never mentioned by Alexander's companions ('^°) ; but
they speaJt of the magnificent fan-like umbrella palm,
and of the delicate and erer fresh green of the cultivated
banana {^^).

Now for the first time tlie knowledge of a large part of
the eartli's surface was truly opened. The world of objects
came forward with preponderating power to meet that of
subjective creation; and while the Grecian language and
literature, and their fertibsing infiuence on the human mind,
were widely diffused through the medium of Alexander'a
conquests, at the same time scientific observation and the ■
systematic availment of the knowledge obtained, were brought
into clear light by the teaching and example of Aristotle (^").
"We touch here on the happy coincidence by which, at the
very same epoch when there was suddenly offered so im-
mense a supply of new materials of human knowledge,
their co-ordination and intellectual availment were facili-
tated anJ multiplied, through tJie new direction giveu by

OP THE UNIVEESE. CONQUESTS OP ALEXANDER. 157

the Stagirite to the empirical research of facts in the
domain of nature, to the workings of the mind when
plunging into the depths of speculation, and to the for-
mation of a scientific language, by which everything
may be accurately defiiied. Thus Aristotle remains^ for
thousands of years to come, according to Dante^s fine ex-
pression, ^^il maestro di color che sanno'^ (^33),

The beUef in an immediate enrichment of Aristotle's zoo-
logical knowledge by the campaigns of Alexander has been
rendered very uncertain, if not entirely dissipated by re-
cent and very careful researches. The miserable compila-
tion of a life of the Stagirite, which was long ascribed to
Ammonius the son of Hermias, has given rise, among many
other historical errors (^*), to that of the philosopher having
accompanied his pupil at least as far as the banks of the
Nile (^^). The great work on animals appears to have been
of very httle later date than the Meteorologica, and the
latter is shewn by internal evidence (236) to belong either to
the 106th or at the utmost to the 111th Olympiad; there-
fore, either fourteen years before Aristotle came to the court
of Philip, or, at the latest, three years before the passage of
the Granicus. Some particular notices contained in the
nine books of the history of animals, have indeed been
brought forward in opposition to the view here taken of
their early completion : particularly the exact knowledge
which Aristotle appears to have had of the elephant, of the
bearded horse-stag (hippelaphos), of the Bactrian camel
with two humps, of the liippardion supposed to be the
hunting tiger (Gu6pard), and of the Indian bufi'alo which
was first brought to Europe at the time of the Crusades.
It should be remarked, however, that the native place of the

158 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

remarkable large stag with the horse's mane, which Diard
and Duvaucel sent from Eastern India to Cuvier, (and to
which Cuvier gave the name of Cervus aristotelis) is, accord-
ing to the Stagirite's own notice, not the Indian Penta-
potamia traversed by Alexander, but Arachosia, a country
west of Candahar, which together with Gedrosia formed an
ancient Persian Satrapy (237). May not the notices, mostly
so brief, on the forms and habits of the above named ani-
mals, have been derived by Aristotle from information ob-
tained by him, quite independently of the Macedonian
expeditions, from Persia and from Babylon, the centre of
such wddely extended trading intercourse ? It should be
remembered that when preparations by means of alcohol {^^)
were wholly unknown, it was only skins and bones, and not
the soft parts susceptible of dissection, which under any
circumstances could be sent from remote parts of Asia to
Greece. Probable as it is that Aristotle received both from
Philip and Alexander the most Uberal support in the prose-
cution of his studies in physics and in natural history, — in
procuring immense zoological materials from the whole of
Greece and from the Grecian seas, and even in laying the
grounds of a collection of books unique for the period, and
wliich passed afterwards to Theophrastus and subse-
quently to Neleus of Scepsis, — ^yet we must regard the
stories of presents of eight hundred talents, and the " main-
tenance of many thousands of collectors, overseers of fish-
ponds, and bird-keepers^' as exaggerations of alater period (339j^
or as traditions misunderstood by Phny, Athenajus, and-£lian.
The Macedonian expedition, which opened so large and
fair a portion of the earth's surface to a single nation of
such high intellect and cultivation, may therefore be regarded

OF THE UNIVEIISB. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 159

in the strictest sense of the term as a scientific expedition ;
said, indeed, as the first in which a conqueror surrounded
himself with learned men of all departments of knowledge —
naturaUsts, historians, philosophers, and artists. We should
attribute to Aristotle not only that which he himself pro-
duced;— ^he acted also through the intelligent men of
his school who accompanied the army. Amongst these
shone pre-emiuently the near relation of the Stagirite, Callis-
thenes of Olynthus, who, even previous to the Asiatic
campaigns, had been the author of botanical works, and of
a delicate anatomical examination of the eye. The grave
severity of his manners, and the unmeasured freedom of his
language, rendered him hateful both to the flatterers, and to
the monarch himself already fallen from his higher thoughts
and nobler dispositions. CaUisthenes unshrinkingly pre-
ferred Uberty to life ; and when in Bactra he was impUcated,
though guiltless, in the conspiracy of Hermolaus and the
pages, he became the unhappy occasion of Alexander's
exasperation against his former teacher. Theophrastus, the
genuine friend and fellow disciple of CaUisthenes, uprightly
and worthily undertook his defence after his fall. From Aris-
totle we only know that before CaUisthenes' departure, the
Stagirite recommended to him prudence ; and apparently weU
versed in the knowledge of courts by his long sojourn at
that of Philip of Macedon, advised him to " speak with the

Ving as little as possible, and if it must be, always in agree-
ment with him'' (240) .

CaUisthenes, as a phUosopher familiar with the study of
nature before leaving Greece, and supported by chosen men
of the school of Aristotle, directed to higher views the
researches of his companions in the new and wider sphere

ICO EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

of investigation now opened to ttem. It was not onlj the
grander forms of the animal kingdom, the luiuriance of
vegetation, the variations of the surface, and the periodical
swelling of the great rivers which arrested his attention ; —
man and his varieties, with their many gradations of form
and colour, could not but appear in accordance with Aris-
totle's own sajing(^'), aa "the centre and object of the
whole creation, the conscious possessor of thonght derived
from the divine source of thouglit." From the little
that remains to us of the accounts of Onesicritus (much cen-
sured by the ancients), we see that in the Macedonian
expedition great surprise was felt when in advancing far
towards the east, the Indian races spoken of by Herodotus,
"dark coloured and resembling Ethiopians," were indeed
met with ; but the African negro with curly hair, was
not found (**^). Tlie influence of the atmosphere on colour,
and the diflereut effects of dry and humid warmth, were
carefuUy noticed. In the early Homeric times, and for a
long subsequent jieriod, the dependence of the temperature of
the air on latitude was com|)letely overlooked. Eastern and
Western relations determined the whole thermic meteorology
of the Greeks. T!ie parts of the earth towards the sun-rising
were regarded as near to the sun, or "sun lands." "Tlie God
in his course colours the skin of man with a dark sooty
lustre, and parches and curls his hair" (^*3),

The campaigns of Ales'ander first afl'orded an opportunity
of comparing on a large scale the African races, assembled
in Egypt especially, with Arian races beyond the Tigris, and
with the very dark coloured, but not woolly haired, Indian
aborigines. The subdivision of mankind into varieties,
their distribution over the earth's surface, (the result rather

OP THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 161

of historical events than of a long continuance of cli-
matic influences, when the types have been once firmly
established,) and the apparent contradiction between colour
and situation, must have awakened the liveliest interest in
thoughtful observers. We still find in the interior of India
an extensive territory peopled by very dark coloured, almost
black, aboriginal inhabitants, quite distinct from the lighter
coloured and later-immigrating Arian races. To these belong
among the Vindhya nations, the Gondas, the Bhillas (Bheels)
in the forest-covered mountains of Malwa and Guzerat, and
the Kolas of Orissa. The acute Lassen considers it pro-
bable that in the time of Herodotus, the black Asiatic race,
— the * '^ Ethiopians of the sun-rising,^^ resembling the
Lybian Ethiopians in the colour of the skin but not in the
quality of the hau*, — extended much farther towards the
north-west than at present {^^^) . Thus also in the ancient
Egyptian kingdom, the habitations of the true woolly-haired,
often-conquered Negro races extended far into northern
Nubia (245).

The enlargement of the sphere of ideas which arose from
the aspect of many new physical phsenomena, as well as from
contact with difierent races of men and with their civili-
sation and the contrasts which it presented, was unfortu-
nately not accompanied by the fruits of an ethnological
comparison of languages, either philosophical, regard-
ing the fundamental relations of ideas (^46)^ — or simply
historical. What we call classical antiquity was wholly
a stranger to this class of investigations. On the other
hand, the expeditions of Alexander offered to the Greeks
scientific materials taken from the long accumulated
treasures of more anciently cultivated nations. What I

would more especially refer to is the fact that, with an
increased knowledge of tte earth and its productions, we
find bj recent and careful investigations that the Greeks
obtained from Eahjlon an important augmentation of theit
knowledge of the heavens. The conquest of Cyrus had in-
deed already caused the dowufal of the glories of the Astro-
noioical CoOege of priests in the capital of the eastern world :
the terraced pyramid of Belus, {at onee a temple^ a tomb,
and an astronomical observatory whence the nocturnal
hours were proclaimed), had been given over to destruction
by Xerxes, and already lay in ruins when the Macedonians
came. But the very fact of the close sacerdotal caste
being dissolved, and of many astronomical schools having
formed themselves C**'), rendered it possible for Callistheues
to send to Greece, (by the advice of Aristotle according to
Simplicius), observations of stars for a very long period;
Porphyry says for a period of 1903 years before Alexander's
entry into Babylon, 01. 11 2j 3. The oldest Chaldean observa-
tions referred to in the Almagest, (probably the oldest which
Ptolemy found suitable for his objects) go back indeed only
to 721 years before our era, or to the first Messenian "Vfar.
It is certain that " the Chaldeans knew the mean motions
of the moon with an exactness which caused the Greek
astronomers to employ them for the fomidation of the theory
of the moon (^*)." Their planetary observations, to which
they were stimulated by the old love of astrology, appear
also to have been used for the construction of astronomical
tables.

Tliis is not the place to examine how much of the earliest
Pyth^orean views of the true fabric of the heavens, of the
course of the planets, and of that of comets which accord-

OF THE TINIVEESE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 163

ing to ApoUonius Myndius (2*9) return in long regulated
paths^ belonged to the Chaldeans : Strabo calls the '' mathe-
matician Seleucus" a Babylonian, and distinguishes him
fix>m the Erythrean who measured the tide of the sea. (25o)
It is sufficient to remark as highly probable that the
Greek Zodiac is borrowed from the Dodecatemoria of the
Chaldeans, and according to Letronne's important investi-
gations does not go back farther than to the beginning of
the sixth century before our era (^^^).

The immediate results of the contact of the Greeks with
the nations of Indian origin, at the period of the Macedonian
campaigns, are wrapped in much obscurity. In science,
little was probably gained ; as after traversing the kingdom
of Porus, between the cedar fringed (252) Hydaspes (Jelum),
and the Acesines (Tschinab), Alexander only advanced in the
Pentapotamia (the Pantschanada), as far as the Hyphasis, —
below the junction, however, of that river, with its tributary
the Satadru, the Hesidrus of PUny. Distrust of his
soldiers, and uneasiness respecting a dreaded general insur-
rection in the Persian and Syrian provinces, forced the
warrior king, who would fain have advanced to the Ganges,
to the great catastrophe of his return. The countries passed
through by the Macedonians were inhabited by very im-
perfectly civilised races. In the space between the Satadru
and the Yamuna (the region of the Indus and the Ganges),
the sacred Sarasvati, an inconsiderable stream, forms a
classic boundary of the highest antiquity between the ^^pure,
worthy, pious^' worshippers of Brahma on the East, and the
" impure, kingless'^ tribes, not divided into castes, on the
West (^3), Alexander, therefore, did not reach the proper

L

164 EPOCHS m THE HI9TORT OF THE CONTEHPL&TIOir

seat of the higiier Indian civilisatioii. SdeucQs Nicator,
the founder of the great empire of the SeleucidiEj was the
first who ad^-anced from Babvloii towards the Ganges, and
by the repeated missions of Megasthenes to Pataliputra {^*)
connected himself hv political relations with the powerful
Sandracottus (Chandragupta).

Thus first arose an animated and lasting contact with
the civihsed parts of the Madhya-desa { " the central land").
There were indeed in the Pendschab (Pnnjauh, or Pentapo-
tamia) learned Brahmins living as hennits. We do not know,
however, whether those Brahmins and Gymnosophists were
acquainted wi)h the fine Indian system of numbers, in which
a few characters receive their value merely by *' posi-
tion ;" not are we even certain whether at that period the
method of assigning value by position was known even in
the most cultivated parts of India, although it is highly
probable that such was the case. What a revolution would
have been effected in the more rapid development of
mathematical knowledge, and in the facilities of its appli-
cation, if the Brahmin Spiiines (called by the Greeks Calanos]
who accompamed Alexander's army ; — or at a later period,
in the time of Augustus, the Brahmin Bargosa, — before
they voluntarily ascended the funeral pile at Susa and at
Athens, had been able to communicate the knowledge of
the Indian system of numbers to the Greeks, so that
it might have been brought into general use I Tlie acute
and comprehensive researches of Chasles have indeed shewn,
that what is called the method of the Pythagorean Abacus
or Algorismus, as we find it described in Boethius" Geo-
metry, is almost identical with the position -value of the

J

OF THE UNIVEaSB. CONQUESTS OY ALEXANDER. 165

Indian system : but that method, long unfruitftd with the
Greeks and Eomans, first obtained general extension in
the middle ages, especially after the zero sign had super-
seded the vacant space. The most beneficial discoveries
often require centuries for their recognition and completion.

166

EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPIiATION OF THB
UNIVERSE. EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES.

in.

Progress of the contemplation of the Universe under the Ptolemies —
Museum at Serapeum. — ^Peculiar character of the scientific
direction of the period. — ^Encyclopedic learning. — Generalisa-
tion of the views of nature regarding both the earth and the

regions of space.

After the dissolution of the great Macedonian Empire
comprising territories in the three Continents, the germs
wliich the uniting and combining system of the government
of Alexander had deposited in a fruitful soil, began to develop
themselves every where, although with much diversity of
form. In proportion as the national exclusiveness of the
Hellenic character of thought vanished, and its creative
inspiring power was less strikingly characterised by depth
and intensity, increasing progress was made in the
knowledge of the connection of phenomena, by a more
animated and more extensive intercourse between nations^
as well as by a generalisation of the views of Nature based
on argumentative considerations. In the Syrian kingdom^
by the Attalidae of Pergamos, '" and under the Seleucidse
and the Ptolemies, this progress was favoured and promoted
every where and almost at the same time by distinguished
sovereigns. Grecian Egypt enjoyed the advantage of poli-

EPOCH OP THE PTOLEMIES. 167

tical unity, as well as that of geographical position; the
influx of the Red Sea through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb
to Suez and Akaba, (occupying one of the SSE.-NNW.
fissures, of wliich I have elsewhere spoken), {^^), bringing
the traffic and intercourse of the Indian Ocean within a
few miles of the coasts of the Mediterranean.

The kingdom of the Seleucidse did not enjoy the advan-
tages of sea traffic, which the distribution of land and water,
and the configuration of the coast line, offered to that of the
Lagidse ; and its stability was endangered by the divisions
produced by the diversity of the nations of which the different
Satrapies were composed. The intercourse and traffic enjoyed
by the kingdom of the Seleucidae was mostly an inland one,
confined either to the course of rivers, or to caravan tracks,
which braved every natural obstacle, — snowy mountain
chains, lofty plateaus, and deserts. The great caravan
conveying merchandise, of which silk was the most valuable
article, travelled from the interior of Asia, from the high
plain of the Seres north of TJttara-kuru, by the "stone
tower" (256) (probably a fortffied Caravanserai) south of
the sources of the Jaxartes, to the valley of the Oxus, and
to the Caspian and Black Seas. In the kingdom of the
LagidsB, on the other hand, animated as was the river navi-
gation of the Nile, and the communication between its banks
and the artificial roads along the shores of the Eed Sea, the
principal traffic was, nevertheless, in the strictest sense of the
word, a sea traffic. In the grand views formed by Alexander,
the newly founded Egyptian Alexandria in the West, and
the very ancient City of Babylon in the East, were designed
to be the two metropolitan cities of the Macedonian universal
empire; Babylon, however, never in later times fulfilled

16^ BPOCBS Itf THE HISTOTtT 0¥ THE CONTEMPLATION

these expectations; and the flourishing prosperity of Seleucia,
founded bj SeJeiicus Nicator on the lower Tigris, and united
witii the Euplirates by means of canals (2*?), contributed
to its complete decline.

Three get t rulers, the three first Ptolemies, irhose reigns
occupied a wiiole century, by their love of the sciences, by
their brilliant institutions for the promotion of intellectual
cultivation, and by their uninterrupted endeavours to promote
and extend commerce, caused the knowledge of Natui* and
of distant countries to receive a greater and more rapid
increase than had yet been achieved by any single nation.
This treasure of true scieutiflc cultivation passed from the
Greeks settled in Egypt to the Eomans, Even under
Ptolemy PliiladelpSius, hardly half a century after the death
of Alexander, and before the first Punic war had shaken
the aristocratic repubhc of Carthage, Alexandria was the
port of greatest commerce in the world. Tlie nearest and
most commodious route from the basin of the Mediter-
ranean to South Eastern Africa, Arabia and India, was by
Alesandria. The Lagidte availed themselves with unexampled
success of the road which Nature had as it were marked out
for the commerce of the world by the direction of the Red
Sea or Arabian Gulf C^^) ;— a route which wiU never be
fully appreciated until the wildness of Eastern life, and the
jealousies of the Western powers, shall both diminish-
Even when Egypt became a Soman province, it continued
to be the seat of almost boundless riches ; the increasing
luxury of Rome under the Ciesars reacted on the land of
the Nile, and sought the means of its satisfaction principally
in the universal commerce of Alexandria.

The important extension of the knowledge of Nature, aod

iJI

OP THE UNIVERSE. — EPOCH OP THE PTOLEMIES. 169

of different countries under the Lagidse, was derived from
the caravan traffic in the interior of Africa by Cyrene and
the Oases ; from the conquests in Ethiopia and Arabia Fehx
under Ptolemy Euergetes ; and from commerce by sea with
the whole Western Peninsula of India, from the Gulf of
Baiygaza (Guzerat and Cambay), along the coasts of Canara
and Malabar (Malaya-vara, territory of Malaya), to the
Brahminical Sanctuaries of Cape Comorin (Kumari), (2^9)
and to the great Island of Ceylon, (Lanka in the Bama-
yaua, and called by Alexander's cotemporaries Taprobane
by the mutilation of a native name), (^^o) An important
advance in nautical knowledge had previously been obtained,
by the laborious five months^ voyage of Nearchus along the
coasts of Gedrosia and Caramania, between Pattala at the
month of the Indus and the mouths of the Euphrates.

Alexander's companions were not ignorant of the existence
of the periodical winds or monsoons, which favour so
materially the navigation between the East coast of Africa
and the North and West coasts of India. At the end of
ten months, spent by the Macedonians in navigating and
examining the Indus, between Nicea on the Hydaspes and
Pattala, with the view of opening that river to the commerce
of the world, Nearchus hastened at the beginning of October
(OL 113, 3) to sail away from the mouth of the Indus at
Stura., because he knew that his voyage to the Persian Gulf
along a coast running on a parallel of latitude, would be
favoured by the North East and East monsoon. The farther
knowledge acquired by experience of this remarkable local
law of the direction of the wind, subsequently emboldened
navigators saiUng from Ocelis in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb,
to hold a direct course across the open sea to Muziris, the

VOL. II I

170 EMCHS W THB HISEOBT Og TKB CONTEMPLATION

great mart on the Malabar coast (south of Mangaiot),
to whicli inteTDiil ttalEc brought articles of commerce from
the Eastern coast of the Indiaii Peninsula, aud even gold
from the remote Chrj'sa (Borneo ?), The houour of beiug the
first to apply this new system of Indian navigation is ascribed
to an otherwise uniuown mariner, Hippalus ; and even the
precise period at which he lived is doubtful. (^')

Whatever brings nations together, and by rendering large
portions of the Earth more accessible, enlarges the sphere
of men's knowledge, belongs to the history of the contempla-
tion of the Universe. The opening of a water communication
between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by means of
the Nile, holds an important place in tliis respect. At the
part where a slender line of junction baiely unites the two
continents, and which offers the deepest maritime inlets, the
excavation of a canal had been commenced, not indeed by
the great Sesostris (Eamses Miamoun) to whom Aristotle
and Strabo ascribe it, but byNechos (Neku), who, however,
was deterred by oracles given by the priests from prosecuting
the undertaking. Herodotus saw and described a finished
canal wliich entered the Nile somewhere above Bubasds,
and was the work of the Aclifemenian, Darius Hystaspts.
Ptolemy Philadelphus restored this canal wliich had ^Uen
into decay, in so complete a manner, that although (notwith-
standing a skOful arrangement of locks and sluices it was
not navigable at all seasons of the year), it long aided and
greatly promoted traffic with Etliiopia, Arabia, and Tndia,
continuiiig to do so under the Roman sway as late as the
reign of Marcus Aureliu3, and perhaps even as late as
that of Se])timius Severus, a period of four centuries and
a half. With a similar purpose of encouraging inter-
course by means of the Eed Sea, harbour works were sedu-

OF THE UNIVEBSE. — EPOCH OP THE PTOLEMIES. 171

lously carried on at Myos Honnos and Berenice, and were
connected with Coptos by the formation of an excellent
artificial road. (262) All these different enterprises of the
Lagidse, commercial as well as scientific, were based on the
idea of connection and union, on a ceaseless tendency to
embrace a wider whole, remoter distances, larger masses,
more extensive and varied relations, and greater and more
numerous objects of contemplation. This direction of the
Hellenic mind, so fruitful in results, had been long preparing
in silence, and became manifested on a great scale in the
expeditions of Alexander, in his endeavours to blend the
Western and Eastern worlds. In its continued extension
under the Lagidse it characterised the epoch which I here
desire to pourtray, and must be regarded as having effected
an important advance in the progressive recognition and
knowledge of the Universe as a whole.

So far as an abundant supply of objects of direct con-
templation is required for tliis increasing and advancing
knowledge, the frequent intercourse of Egypt with distant
countries, scientific exploring joumies into Ethiopia at the
cost of the Government, {^^) distant ostrich and elephant
hunts, (2^) and menageries of wild and rare beasts in the
" kings^ houses of Bruchium," might act as incitements to
the study of natural history, (^65) and contribute data to
empirical knowledge ; but the peculiar character of the
Ptolemaic epoch, as well as of the whole ^^Alexandrian
School,^^ which, indeed, preserved the same direction until
the third and fourth centuries, manifested itself in a different
path ; it occupied itself less with the immediate observation
of particulars, than with the laborious assemblage of all that
was already obtained, and in the arrangement, comparison.

172 EPOCHS IK THH HTSTORT Off THE OOSTEKl'LATIOK

Biid intellectual froctification of that which had long been
collected. During the long period of many centuries, and
until the powerful genius of Aristotle appeared, natural
phenomena, not regarded as objects of accurate observation,
were subjected in their interpretation to the exclusive sove-
reignty of ideas, and even given over to the sway of vague
presentiments and unstable hypotheses. There was now,
however, manifested a higlier appreciation of empirical know-
ledge. Men examined and sifted what they possessed.
Natural philosophy becoming less bold iti her speculations
and less fanciful in her images, at length approached nearer
to a searching empirical investigation in treading the sure
pnth of induction. A laborious tendency to aceumulBte
materials had enforced the acquisition of a corresponding
amount of technical information ; and although in the
works of distinguished and thoughtful men, an extensive
and varied knowledge preeented valuable results, yet in the
decline of the creative power of the Greek mind this know-
ledge appeared too often to want an animating spirit, and
wore the character of mere erudition, The absence of due
care in respect to composition, as well as want of animation and
grace of style, have also contributed to expose Alexandrian
learning to the severe censure of posterity.

It particularly belongs to these pages to bring forward
that which the epoch of the Ptolemies contributed towards
the contemplation of the physical Universe, whether by the
concurrent action of external relations, by the foundation
and suitable endowment of two great establishments {the
Alexandrian Institurion, and the libraries of Bnichiom
(36fi) and Ehakotis), or by the collegiate assemblage of so
many learned men of active and practical minds. An en-

or THS TINITiaSB. — EPOCH OP THE PTOLEUIES. 173

cycloptedic knowledge was favourable to the companBoa of
tlie results of observation, aiid thus tended to facilitate
generalisations iii the view of Naturi:. The great scientific
Institution which owed its origin to the two first Rolemies,
long maintained amongst other privUeges that of its members
being free to labour in wholly different directions (^*7) ; and
thus, although settled in a foreign country, and siuTonnded
by men of many different races and nations, they preserved
the peculiar Hellenic character of thought, and the acute
Hellenic ingenuity.

In accordance with the spuit and form of the present
historic representation, a few exMnples may suffice to shew
the manner in which, under the protecting influence of the
Ptolemies, observation and experirueut assumed their ap-
propriate places, as the true sources of knowledge re-
specting the heavens and the earth; and how, in the
Alexandrian period, in combination with a diligent ac-
cumulation of the mere materials of knowledge, a happy
tendency to generalisation was also at ail times manifested.
Although the different Greek schools of philosophy trans-
planted to Lower Egypt did not e-scape a certain degree of
Oriental degeneracy, and gave occasion to many mythical iu-
terpretations of Nature and of physicd phenomena, yet in the
Alexandrian school the Platonic doctrines (^^) still remained
as the most secure support of mathematical knowledge.
The progressive advances made in this knowledge embraced
aJinost at the same time pure mathematics, mechanics and
astronomy. In Plato's high esteem for mathematicid de-
velopment of thought, as well as in Aristotle's morphological
views embracing all organic beings, were coutamed the germs
cf all later advances in natural science; they became the

I

I

L

174 EPOC^ EI THE HISTOKT OF THE COOTBMTtlTIOW

gaidiDg stars which conducted the human intellect securely
throngh the mazes of fanaticism in the dark ages; and did
not suffer healthy scientific intellectual power to perish.

Tlie mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes of
Cyrene, the most celebrated of the Alexandrian librarians,
availed himself of the treasures at his command by working
them up into a systematic " universal geography." He freed
geographical description from mythical legends, and, al-
though himself occupied with chronology and history, even
separated from it the historical admixtures by wliich it
had been previously not ungracefully enlivened. Their
absence was satisfactorily supplied by mathematical con-
siderations on the more or less articulated form of continents,
and on their extent; and by geological conjectures on the
connection of chains of mountains, the action of currents,
and the former presence of an aqueous covering over the
surface of lands stiil bearing traces of having been once the
bottom of the sea. Eegarding with favour the oceanic sluice
theory of Strato of Lampsacus, the Alexandrian librarian was
led by the behef of the former swollen state of the Euxine,
the disruption of the Dardanelles, and the consequent opening
of the pillars of Hercules, to the important investigation of
the problem of the equality of level of the " outward sea
encompassing all continents." {'^^) A farther instance of
happy generalisation on the part of Eratosthenes is his Baser-
tion that the whole continent of Asia is traversed in tho
parallel of Rhodes, (the diaphragm of Dicearchus), by a
connected chain of mountains running East and West. (*'")

A lively desire for generalisation, the result of the intel-
lectual movement of the period, also led Eratosthenes to set
on foot the first (Hellenic) measiu'ement of an arc of tlio

OF THE UNIVERSE. — ^EPOCH 0¥ THE PTOLEMIES. 175

Meridian, having its extremities at Alexandria and Syene,
and for its object the approximate determination of the earth^s
circumference. It is not the result that he obtained^ based
as it was upon imperfect data, furnished by pedestrians,
which awakens our interest; it is the endeavour of the
philosopher to rise from the narrow limits of a single country
to the knowledge of the magnitude of the entire globe.

A similar tendency towards generalizatign of view is
manifested in the brilliant advances made in the epoch of
the Ptolemies towards a scientific knowledge of the heavens :
I allude here to the determination of the places of the fixed
stars by the earHest Alexandrian astronomers, Aristyllus
and Timocharis ; — ^to Aristarchus of Samos, the cotempo-
rary of Cleanthes, who, familiar with the old Pythagorean
views, adventured an inquiry into the relations in space of
the whole fabric of the Universe, and who first recognised
the immeasurable distance of the heaven of the fixed stars
from our little planetary system, and even conjectured the
twofold movement of the earth, ^. e. her rotation round her
axis, and her progressive movement around the sun ; — ^to
Seleucus of Erythrea, or of Babylon, (^^i) who, a century
later, sought to support the views of the Samian philoso-
pher (views which we may term Copernican, and which at
that period found Uttle acceptance) ; — and to Hipparchus,
the creator of scientific astronomy, and the greatest of ob-
serving astronomers in all antiquity. Among the Greeks,
Hipparchus was the true and proper author of astronomical
tables, {^'^^) and the discoverer of the precession of the equi-
noxes. His own observations of fixed stars (made at Ehodes,
not at Alexandria), when compared with those of Timo-
cdiaris and Aristyllus, led him (probably without tbv sudden

176 BPOCHB IN THE HraTOB.Y OT THE CONTEMPLiTTON

apparition of anewstar(''"))to this great discovery; to which
the long- continued observation of the heUacal rising of Sirius
ought indeed to have conducted the earlier Egyptians. (*'*)

Another peculiar feature in the proceedings of Hippar-
chus, was his endeavouring to avail himself of celestial phe-
a for determinations of geographical position. Soch
a combination of the study of the heavens and the earth,
the knowledge of the one becoming reHect«d on the other,
served by its uniting tendency to give a lively impulse to
the great idea of the Cosmos. Id a new map of the world,
constructed by Hipparchus, and founded on that of Eratos-
thenes, wherever the application of astronomical observa-
tions was possible, the geographical positions were assigned
by longitudes and latitudes, obtained, the former from lunar
eclipses, and the latter from lengths of the solar shadow
measured by the gnomon. The hydraulic clock of Ctesibius,
an improvement upon the ancient Clepsydra, miglit afford
the means of making more exact measurements of time ;
whilst, for determinations in space, gradually improved
means of angular measurement were offered to the Alesan-
drian astronomers, from the old gnomon and scaphe to the
invention of astrolabes, solstitial armills, and dioptras.
Thus men arrived by successive steps, as if by the acquisi-
tion of new organs, to a more exact knowledge of the
movements of the planetary system. It was only the know-
ledge of the absolute magnitudes, forms, masses, and phy-
sical constitution of the heavenly bodieSj which made no
progress for many centuries.

Not only were several practical astronomers of the Alex-
andrian school themselves distinguished geometricians, but
the epocli of the Ptolemies was moreover the most brilliant

OF THE UNIVEESE. — ^EPOCH OP THE PTOLEMIES. 177

epoch of the cultivation of mathematicai knowledge. There
flourished in the same century Euclid the creator of mathe-
matics as a science, ApoUonius of Perga, and Archimedes,
who visited Egypt and was connected through Conon with
the Alexandrian school. The long path of time which
leads from what is called the geometric analysis of Plato, and
the three conic sections of Mensechmes, (^75) to the age of
Kepler and Tycho, Euler and Clairaut, d^Alembert and
Laplace, is marked by a series of mathematical discoveries,
without which the laws of the motions of the heavenly
bodies, and their mutual relations in space, would never
have been disclosed to mankind. The telescope pierces
space, and brings distant worlds near through our sense of
vision. Mathematical knowledge forms a no less powerful
instrument of another class : ever leading us onward through
the connection of ideas, it conducts us to those distant re-
gions of space, of part of which it has taken secure posses-
sion. In our own times so favoured in the extension of
knowledge, by the appUcation of all the resources afforded
by modem astronomy, a heavenly body has even been
seen by the intellectual eye, and its place, its path, and its
mass pointed out, before a single telescope had been directed
towards it. (^76)

1 i

EPOCHS IX THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATIOy OF THE
lOHAN EMPrEE.

rv.

Roman Czuversal Empire — Infiucacc on Cosmioal Tiews of a great
Political Unioa ot Cooutriea-^Progress of GEOgraphy tLrougli
Conunerce bj Land — Strabo aod Ptolemy — Commeuceineiit of
MaUieniafical Optics aiid Chemistry — Pliny's Attempt at a Pin-
eal Description of tlic Universe — ^Tlie Rise of Christianitj pro-
duces imd tavoars the Feeling of the Unity ot Mankind.

In traciog the inteUectnal piogress of msoikiiid and Hie
gradual extension of cosmical views, the period of tlie Boman
nniversal Empire presents itself as one of the most im-
portaut epochs. We now for the first time find all those
fertile regions of the globe which surround the basin of the
Mediterranean connected in a bond of close political union,
which also comprehended extensive countries to the east-
ward. I may here appropriately notice, {^'') that this
political anion gives to the picture which I endeavour to tracei,
(that of the history of the contemplation of the universe), an
objective unitj of presentation. Our civilization, i. e, the
inteUectnal development of all the nations of the European
Continent, may he regarded as based on that of the
dwellers aroiuid the Mediterranean, and more immediately
on that of the Greeks and the Romans. That which
we term, perhaps too exclusively, classical literature,
has received this denomination through men's recog-
nition of the source from whence our earliest know

msTOET OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE ITNITEESB. 179

ledge has lai^ly Sowed, and wMch gave the first impulse
to a class of ideas and feelings most intimately connected
witli the civilization and iiiteUectnal elevation of a nation
or a race. C'^) We do not by any means regard aa
unimportant the elements of knowledge, which, flowing
through the great current of Greek and Boman cultivation,
were jet derived in a variety of ways from other sources —
from the valley of the Nile, Pho;nicia, the banks of the
Euphrates, and India ; but even for these we are uidebted,
in the first instance, to the Greeks, and to Romans sur-
rounded by Etruscans and Greeks, At how late a period
have the great monnmenta of more anciently civilized
nations been directly examined, interpreted, and arranged
according to their relative antiquity ! It is only within a
very recent period that liieroglyphics and cuneiform io-
scriptions have been read, after liaving been for thousands
of years passed by armies and caravans, who divined
nothing of their import.

From the shores of the Mediterranean, and especially from
its Italic and Hellenic peninsulas, have indeed proceeded
the intellectual character and political institutions of those
nations who now possess the daily increasing treasures of
scientific knowledge and creative artistic activity, which
we would fain regard as imperishable; nations which spread
civilization, and with it, first servitude, and then, involun-
tarily, liberty, over another hemisphere. Yet in modern
Europe too, aa it were by a favour of destmy, unity and
diversity are stiU happily associated. The elements re-
ceived have been various, and no leas various have
been their appropriation and transformation, according
D the sharply contrasted peculiarities, and individual tone

I

180 EPOCHS IN THE FISTORY OF THE DOTTraWPIJlTIOIT

of mind and disposition, of the dilFerent races by which
Europe has been peopletl. Her civilization has been
carried beyond the ocefin to another hemisphere, where the
reflex of tliese coiitrasta is still preserved in colonies and
Bettlemenfs, some of which have fonned, and others it may
be hoped may yet form, powerful free states.

The Eoman state, as a monarchy under the Cffisars, when
considered only in regard to superficial extent, (^'s) was infe-
rior in absolute magaitude to the Chinese empire under the
dynasty of Thsiu and the eastern Han {from 30 years before
to 116 years after tlie commencement of the Christian era) ;
it was inferior in ext«nt to the empire of Ghengis Khan,
and to the present area of the Kussian dominions in Europe
and Asia; hut with the single exception of the Spanish
monarchy at the period when it extended over the New
World, never has there been combined under one sceptre a
greater mass of countries so favom^d in climate, fertility,
and geographical position, as the Eoman empire from Au-
gustus to Constantine.

This empire, stretehing from the western extremity of
Europe to the Euphrates, from Britain and part of Cale-
donia to Getulia and the limits of the Lybian Desert, not
only offered the greatest variety of form of ground, organic
productions, and physical jihenomena, but also presented
mankind in every gradation from cultivation to barbarism, and
from the possession of ancient knowledge and long prac-
tised arts, to the first twiliglit of intellectual awakening.
Distant expeditions to the North and to the South, to the
Amber Coasts, and, (under ^lins Gallus and Balbns) to
Arabia and the Garamantes, were carried out with nnequa!
(ucress. Measurements of the whole empire were begun

Of THE UNIVERSE. — HOMAS EMPIRE. 181

even ander Augustus, by Greek geometersj Zeiiodorus aiid
Polycletus; and itineraries and special topograjiliies were
prepared (as had indeed been done some centuries earlier in
the Chinese empire), for distribution amongst the several
governors of provinces. (^^°) Tliese were the first statistical
works which Europe produced. Many extensive prefec-
tures were traversed by E«man roads, divided into miles ;
and Hadrian even visited the different parts of his empire,
though not without interruption, in an eleveu years' journey,
from the Iberian peninsula to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania,
Thus a large portion of the globe, subject to the RoiOim
dominion, was opened and made traversable ; "pervius orbis,"
as the chorus in Seneca's Medea leas justly prophesies of the
whole earth, (2^^)

We might, perhaps, have expected that during the en-
joyment of long-continued peace, and the union under a
single monarchy of such extensive countries and different
climate?, the facility and frequency with which the provinces
were traversed by civil and military functionaries, often ac-
companied by a numerous train of educated men possessed
of varied information, would have been productive of extra-
ordinary advances, not only in geography, but also in the
knowledge of nature generally, and in the formation of higher
views concerning the connection of phenomena. Such high
expectations were not, however, realised. In the long
period of t!ie undivided Roman empire, occupjing almost
four centuries, there arose as observers of nature only Dios-
corides the Cilician, and Galen of Pergamos. The first of
these, who augmented considerably the number of described
i^tecies of plants, is far inferior to the philosophically com-
buiing Theophrastus J — whereas Galen, who extended his

k.

182 BPOCHS IN THB HISTORT OT THE COMTEMTIATrOS

observations to many genera of animals, by the fineness of
his distinctions, and the comprehensiveness of his physiolo-
gical discoveries, " may be placed very near to Aristotle,
and in most respecta even above him." It is Cnvier who
has pronoanced this judgment, (^*)

By the side of Dioscorides and Galen shines a third and
great name — that of Ptolemy. I do not cite him here as
the author of an astronomical system, or as a geographer ;
but as an experimental physical philosopher, who measured
refractions, and, therefore, as the first founder of an important
part of optical science. His incontestable rights in this
respect were not recognised until very lately. (*^) Important
as were the advances made in the department of organic life,
and in the general views of comparative zootomy, physical
experiments on the passage of rays of hght, at a period five
centuries anterior to tliat of the Arabians, must arrest our
atteution yet more forcibly ; they form, as it wei'e, the first
step iu a newly-opened course, — ^in the vast career of mathe-
matical physics.

The distinguished men whom we have named as shedding
scientific lustre on tlie period of the Roman empire, were all of
Grecian origin ; (the profound arithmetical algebraist Dio-
phantus, (™*) who, however, was still without the ase of
symbols, belonging to a later time.) In the two cliief divi-
sions in respect to intellectual cultivation which the Bomau
empire presents to us, the palm was still witli the Hellenes,
the older and more happily organised nation ; but the gra-
dual dechne of the Eg}'ptian Alexandrian school was followed
by the dispersion of the still remaining, but weakened,
points of light in scientific knowledge and rational investi-
; and it was only at a later period that thej reap*

OF THE UNIVERSE. — YEOMAN EMPIRE. 183

peared in Greece and Asia Minor. As in all unlimited
monarchies of enormous extent, and composed of hetero-
geneous elements, the efforts of the government were prin-
cipally directed to avert by military force, and by the internal
rivalries of a divided administration, impending dismem-
berm^ and dissolution — ^to conceal family discords in the
house of the Caesars by alternate mildness and severity, —
and, under a few nobler rulers, to give to the nations be-
neath their sway the repose which unresisted despotism
can at times afford.

The attainment of the Eoman universal empire was itself
a fruit of the greatness of the Eoman character, of a long
preserved severity of manners, and of an exclusive love of
country, united with high individual feeling ; but after this
universal empire was attained, these noble qualities became
gradually weakened, and were perverted even by the inevi-
table influences which new circumstances called forth. As
the national spirit became extinct, the same deadening effect
e2d«nded to individual life ; pubHcity and individuality, —
the two chief supports of free institutions, — disappeared
at the same time. The eternal city had become the
centre of too great a circle ; the spirit which could per-
manently animate a body so vast, and composed of so
many members, was wanting. Christianity became the
religion of the state when the empire was already shaken
to its foundations ; and the mildness of the new doctrine,
and its beneficent influences, were soon disturbed by the
dogmatic strife of parties. Then also began the " unfor-
tunate contest between knowledge and faith,^^ which, under
various forms, all tending to impede investigation, has been
continued through succeeding centuries.

EPOCHS IS THE HISTORlt OP THE CONTEMPL4TIOK

Althougii, liowever, the vastness of the Eoman empire,
and the institutions which that vastness rendered necessarj^,
were strongly contrasted with tlie independent life of the
small Hellenic repuhhcs, aud tended rather to deaden than
to cherish creative intellectual power amoug its citizens, yet
there resulted from the same cause some pecuhar advantages,
which should be noticed here. A rich accession of ideas
was the fruit of experience aiid varied observation ; the world
of objects was considerably augmented, and the ground was
thus laid for a thoughtful contemplation of natural pheno-
mena at a later epoch. Tbe Eoman empire gave auimatiou
to the intercourse between nations, and extended the Soman
language over the whole of the West, and over a portion of
Northern Africa. In the East, Greek influence survived, as
f naturalised, long after the Bactrian empire had been de-
stroyed under Mithridates I. (thirteen years before the attack
of the Sacie-, or Scj-thians.)

In point of geographical extent, the Eoman language
gained upon the Greek, even before the seat of empire was
transfened to ByKautium. The interpenetration of two
highly-gifted idioms, rich in literary monuments, became a
means of farther blending and uniting different nations and
races, and of increasing civilization and susceptibility to
, culture; it tended, as Pliny says, (^^) "to huma-
nize men, and to give them a common country." However
much the language of the barbarians (the dumb, ayXanriroi, as
Pollux calls them) may have been contemned, yet there
were instances in which the translation of a literary work
from the Punic to the Eoman language was desired by the
public authorities : Mago's Treatise on Agriculture is kuown
to have been translated by the command of the Roman

— ItOMAN EMPIRE. 185

Senate. The Lagidte had previously given examples of a
similar kind.

Whilst the Eoman empire extended westward to the ex-
tremity of the old Continent (at least on the northern side
of the Mediterranean), its eastern limit, under IVajan, who
navigated the Tigris, reached only to the meridian of the
Persian Gulf. It was in this direction that, at the
period we are describing, the greatest intercourse between
different nations took place in a shape very conducive to the
progress of geography, viz. that of commerce by land.
After the falJ of the Greco-Bactrian empire, the rising and
flourisldng power of the Arsacides favoured intercourse with
the Seres ; but to the Eomans this communication was oidy
an indirect one, their immediate contact with the interior of
Asia being impeded by tlie active carrying trade of the Par-
thians. Movements which proceeded from the most distant
parts of Cliina produced sudden and violent, though not per-
manent, changes in the political state of tlie vast range of
country, which extends from the Thian-schan mountaias to
the Kuen-!un, the chain of Northern Thibet. Dniing the
reigns of the Koman emperors Vespasian and Domitian, a
Chinese military expedition overran and oppressed the
Hiungnu country, rendered tributary the httle kingdoms of
Khotan and Kashgar, and carried its victorious arms as far
as the eastern coast of the Caspian. This was the great
expedition led by the military commander Pantschab, under
the Emperor Mingti of the dynasty of the Han. Chinese
writers even ascribe to this adventurous and fortunate leader,
cotemporaneous with Vespasian and Domitian, a grander
plan ; they assert that he designed to attack the empire of the
Romans (Tathsin) ; but that the advice of the Persians in-
duced him to change his purpose (^^^) . Thus there arose con-

k

186 EPOCHS DT THE BISIOET OP TUB OOSTEMPl-iTION

nections betweenthecoastsof the Pacific, the Shensi, aad the
region around the Oxos, in which there had been, from very
early times, an animated traffic with the neighbourhood of the
Black Sea.

The direction in which the great tide of population flowed
in Asia was from east to west, as in the New Continent
from north to south. A century and a iialf before oar era,
near the time of the destruction of Corinth and of Carthage,
the attacks of the Iliunguu (a Turkish tribe confounded by
De Guiguea and Johannes Midler isith the rinnish Huns) on
the fair-haired and blue-eyed, probably Indo- Germanic, race
of the (2^') Yueti (GetEe ?) and Usun, near the Chinese wall,
gave the first impulse to that " migration of nations" which
did not reach the borders of Europe until five centuries
later. Thus the wave of population flowed (or was propa-
gated) from the upper valley of the Hoaugho to the Don
and the Danube ; and in the northern part of the Old Con-
tinent, movements advancing in difTereut directions brou^t
one part of mankind first into hostile collision, and
subsequently into peaceful and commercial contact with
another. Thus we may regard great currents of popula-
tion, moving forward Uke the currents of the ocean
between unmoved masses at rest, as facta of cosmical im-
portance.

Under the reign of the Emperor Claudius, the embassf
of Kachias came from Ceylon, tlu-ough Egypt, to Borne.
Under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (called by the historians
of the dynasty of the Han, Antun), Eoman legates appeared
at the Chinese court, having come by wat^-r by Tuukin, I
here point out the first traces of an ext-eiided intercourse
between tlie Roman Empire and Cliiua and India for this
reason among others, that it is liighly probable that through

O? THE tINIVEHSE. — KOMAX EMPIEE. 187

this intercourse tlie tuowledge of the Greek splicre, the
Greek zodiac, and the astrological planetary week, extended
to the last-named countries in the first centuries of our
era. C'^^) Tlie great Indian mathematicians Warahamihira,
Bramagupta, and perhaps even Aryabhatta, are later tlian the
period of wliich we are treating; (2^") hut it ia also possible
that a partial knowledge of discoveries earUer made, in ways
distinct and apart in India itself and originally belonging
to that anciently civilized nation, may have been conveyed
to the countries of the "West before Diophantus, through the
extensive commercial intercourse which took place under the
Lagidse and the Ctesars, "We do not here undertake to dis-
tinguish accurately what belongs to each nation and to each
epoch J it is enough if we point out the channels which were
opened to the communication and interchange of ideas.

The gigantic works of Strabo and of Ptolemy testify in
the most lively maimer the increase which had taken place
in these channels and in general international intercourse.
Tile ingenious geographer of Amasia had not Hipparchus's
exactness of measurements or the mathematical views of
Ptolemy ; but his work surpasses all the geographical writings
of antiquity both in grandeur of plan and in the variety and
abundance of materials. Strabo, aa he takes pleasure in
teUiug us, had seen with his own eyes a considerable part of
the lloman empire, " from Armenia to the TjTrheuian coasts,
and from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia." After
having completed forty-three hooks of history as a continuation
of Polyhius, he had the courage in the eighty-third year of
his age (^*'') to commence !iis great geographical work.
He reminds his readers " that in his time the power of the
s and of the Parthians had opened the worid evea

I

IS THE HISTOfiY OP THE COSTEMPLATION

e than Aleiaiider'a expeditions, on wLicli Eratosthenea
had rested." The commerce of ludia was no longer in the
hands of the Arabians : Strabo saw in Egypt with surprise
the increased number of ships which sailed direct from Mjos
Hormos to India; {^9') and his imagination led him beyond
India itself to the eastern coasts of Asia. In the parallel
of latitude which passes through the pillars of Hercules and
the Island of EJiodes, and in which Strabo believed that a
connected chain of mountains traversed the old continent m
its greatest breadth, he conjectured the existence of " another
continent" between the western coast of Euro]ie and Asia
He says, (^^2) "it is very possible that there may be, besides
the world which we inhabit, iu the same temperate zone,
about the parallel of Tliiuae (or Athens?) which passea
through the Atlantic Sea, one or more other worlds inhabited
by men different from ourselves." It is surpriaiug that the
attention of Spanish writers in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, who thought that they found everywhere in the
classics traces of a knowledge of the new world, should not
have been attracted by this passage.

"Siuce," as Strabo finely says, "in all works of art
which would represent something great, the object is not the
finish ami completeness of separate parts," so in hb "gigantic
work " it was his wish to fix his attention primarily
on the form of the whole. This predilection for geae-
ralisation has at the same time not prevented him from
briugiug forward a great number of excellent physical ob-
servations, and particularly many conceniing the structure
of the earth, (^ss) Lit,, Posidouius and Polybius, he
discusses the infiuence of the shorter or longer interval
between successive passages of the suu tlirough the zenittl

Oy THE tINlVERSE. — BX)MAN EMPIRE. 1 89

tmder the tropic or the equator upon the maximum of tem-
perature of the air; he treats of the various causes of the
changes which the surface of the earth undergoes ; of the
breaking through of the boundaries of lakes or seas originally
closed ; of the general level of the sea (already recognised
by Archimedes) ; of its currents ; of the eruptions of sub-
marine volcanoes ; of petrifactions of shells, and impressions
of fishes ; and even of the oscillations of the crust of the
earth, which last point especially arrests our attention, as it
has become the nucleus of modem geology. Strabo says
expressly that the alterations of the boundaries between land
and sea are to be attributed to the rising and sinking of the
land rather than to small inundations ; '' that not only
detached masses of rock, or small or large islands, but even
whole continents may be raised up/^ Like Herodotus,
Strabo is also attentive to the descent of nations, and to the
diversities of race in mankind ; he curiously enough calls
man a ^' land and air auimal^^ who '^ requires much light '*
(29*). We find the ethnological distinctions of races most
acutely and accurately marked in the commentaries of Julius
Caesar, as well as in Tacitus's fine eulogium on Agricola.

Unfortunately Strabo^s great work, so rich in facts and in
the cosmical views which we have here referred to, remained
almost unknown in Roman antiquity until the fifth century,
and was not even employed by the all-collecting Pliny.
Towards the end of the middle ages Strabo^s work became
influential on the direction of ideas, though in a less degree
than the more mathematical and more dry and tabular
geography of Claudius Ptolemseus, from which physical views
are almost entirely absent. This latter work became the
guiding clue of all travellers as late as the sixteenth century ;

I

190 EPOC^ TN TH« mSTOEY OF THB OOSTBKPLATTOS

tliey imagined that they recognised in it under difflerent
names whatever new places they discovered. In the same
manner that natural historiaus long attached to new found
plants and animals the m^ks of the classes of Linofeus, so
the earliest maps of the New Continent appeared in the atlas
of Ptolemy wliich Agathodtemon prepared, at the same time
that, in tlie farthest part of Asia, among the highly civilised
Cliinese, the western provinces of the empire (^^) were
already marked in forty -four divisions. The universal
geography of Ptolemy has, indeed, the merit of presenting to
us the whole of the ancient world graphically in outlines,
as well as numerically in positions assigned according ta
longitude, latitude, and length of day; but often as he
afBrms the superiority of astronomical results over itinerary
estimates by land or water, we are unfortunately without
any means of distinguishing among these assigned position^
above 2500 in number, the nature of the foundation on
which each rests, 'or the relative probabdity which may be
ascribed to them according to the itineraries then existing.

Tlie entire ignorance of the polarity of the magnetic needle,
and of the use of the compass, which 1250 years before the
time of Ptolemy, under the Chinese emperor Tschingwang,
had been employed in the construction of "magnetic cars"
fumishmg an index to the road to be followed, rendered
the most detailed itineraries of the Greeks and Bomana
extremely uncertain, from b want of knowledge of the direc-
tion or angle with the meridian. (*^)

In the better knowledge which has recently been ob-
tained of the Indian and ancient Persian (or Zend) lan-
guages, we are struck by the fact that a great part of
the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy may be regarded

OF THE UNIVERSE. — ^ROMAN EMPIRE. 191

as an historic moniunent of the commercial relations
between the West and the most distant regions of southern
and central Asia. (297) One of the most important geographical
results of these relations was the correct opinion of the
insulation of the Caspian Sea, which was restored by Ptolemy
after the contrary error had lasted five hundred years. The
truth on this subject had been recognised both by Herodotus
and by Aristotle, the latter having fortunately written his
Meteorologica before the Asiatic campaigns of Alexander.
The OlbiopoUtes, from whose hps the father of history had
gathered the account which he followed, were familiar with
the northern shores of the Caspian between the Kuma, the
Volga (Rha), and the Jaik (Ural) ; and there was nothing
there which could give them an idea of an outlet to the Icy
Sea. Very different reasons produced the erroneous im-
pression received by the Macedonian army, when, passing
through Hecatompylos (Damaghan), they descended into
the humid forests of Mazanderan, and, at Zadracarta, a Uttle
to the west of the present Asterabad, saw the apparently
boundless expanse of the Caspian in the northern direction.
Plutarch tells us in his Life of Alexander that this sight first
caused the hypothesis that the sea thus seen was a gulf of
the Euxine. (^98) The Macedonian expedition, although
it was upon the whole very favourable to the progress of
geographical knowledge, yet gave rise to particular errors
which long maintained themselves. The Tanais was con-
founded with the Jaxartes (the Araxes of Herodotus), and
the Caucasus with the Paropanisus (the Hindoo Coosh).
Ptolemy, during his residence at Alexandria, was able to
obtain certain accounts from countries inunediately adjoining
he Caspian, (from Albania, Atropatene, and Hyrcania), of the

k

192 ENOCHS IN THE HlSTOllY 0? THE CONTEM PLATIOS

caravan roads of the Aorsi, whose camels Carried Indian and
Babylonian goods to theDon and to the BlaCk Sea(2ss) . if^ con-
trarj to the jaster knowledge of Herodotus, Ptolemy believed
the length of the Caspian to be greatest in the east and west
direction, he may perhaps have been thus misled by some
obscure knowledge of tbe former greater extent of tla
Scythian Gulf (Karabogas) ; and the existence of Lake Aral,
the first decided notice of which we find in a Byzantine au-
thor, Meuander, who wrote a continuation of Agathias, (^'••)
It is to be regretted that Ptolemy, who reclosed tbe
Caspian Sea, (which the hypothesis of four gulfs sup-
posed to be tlie reflections or counterparts of similar ones la
the disk of the moon (^"') had long kept open), did not at
the same time give up the fable of the " unknown southern
land" connecting Cape Prasum with Cattigara and Thinie,
(Sinarum metropolis) ; therefore connecting eastern Africa
with the land of Tsin, or China. This myth, which would make
the Indian Ocean an inland sea, was derived from views
wliicli may be traced back &om Marinus of Tyre to Ilip-
parchus, Seleucus the Babylonian, and even to Aristotle. (™*)
In these cosmical deacriptiona of the progressive advance of
the knowledge and contemplation of the Universe, it is suffi-
cient to recal by a few examples how in successive fluctuations
the already half recognised truth has often been again
obscured. The more the increased extent both of navigadoD
and of traffic by land seemed to render it possible to know
the whole of the earth's surface, the more actively, especially
in the Alexandrian period under the Lagidse, and under the
Roman empire, did the never slumbering Hellenic imagina-
tion seek by ingenioui combinations to blend all previous
conjectures with the newly added stores of actual knowledge,

OF THE UNrVERSE. — ROMAN EMPIRE. 193

and thus to complete at once the yet scarcely sketched map
of the earth.

We have already briefly noticed that Claudius Ptolemseus
by his optical researches (which have been preserved to us,
although in a very incomplete state, by the Arabians) be-
came the founder of a branch of mathematical physics ;
which, indeed, according to Theon of Alexandria, (303)
had already been touched upon, so far as relates to the re-
fraction of rays, in the Catoptrica of Archimedes. It is a
very important step in advance, when physical phenomena,
iastead of being simply observed and compared with each
other, — of which we find memorable examples in Grecian
antiquity in the pseudo- Aristotelian problems, which are full
of matter, and in Roman antiquity in the writings of Seneca, —
are produced at will under altered conditions, and measured.
(3^) The process thus referred to characterises Ptolemv^s
researches on the refraction of rays of light when made to pass
through media of unequal density. He caused the rays to pass
from air into water and glass, and from water into glass, under
different angles of incidence. The results of these ^^ physical
experiments'' were collected by him into tables. Tliis
measurement of a physical phenomenon purposely called
forth, of a natural process not reduced to a movement of
of the waves of hght (Aristotle assumed a movement of the
medium intervening between the eye and the object seen),
is a solitary occurrence in the period of -which we are
treating. {^^^) In the investigation of inorganic nature,
this period offers in addition only a few chemical experiments
by Dioscorides, and, as I have elsewhere observed, the
technical art of collecting fluids when passing over in distilla-

VOL. II. K

194

EPOCHS IS THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEUPLATION

tion. (3"^) As cliemistry only be^s when men have Icamt •'
to employ mineral acids as powerful solventSj and as means of |,
liberating Bubstances, the distillation of sea-water, described t
by Alexander of AphrodisiaSj in the reign of Caracallaj is
deserving of great attention. It indicates the path by wliich
men gradually arrived at the knowledge of the heterogeneity ,^
of substances, their combination in chemical compounds, and ]
their reciprocal attractions or affinities.

We can only cite, as having advanced the knowledge of
oi^anic nature, the anatomist Marinus, Eufus of Ephesus
who dissected apes and distinguished between nerves of
sensation and of motion, and Galen of Pei^amos who eclipses
all other names. The natural history of animals by ^ian of
Prseneste, and the poem treating of fishes written by Oppianus
of Cihcia, do not contain facts based on the author's oira
examination, but only scattered notices derived from otbcr
sources. It is hardly conceivable how the enormous multi-
tude C"^) of rare animals, which, during four centuries, were
massacred in the Koman circus, — elephants, rhinoceroses,
hippopotamuses, elks, lions, tigers, panthers, crocodiles, and
ostriches,— should never have been rendered of any use to
comparative anatomy. Ihavealready spoken of the meritsof
Dioacorides in regard to the knowledge of collected plants:
his works exercised a powerful and long-enduring influence
on the botany aaid pharmacenrical cbemistrj' of the Arabians.
The botanical garden of the Roman physician Antonius
Castor (who lived to upwards of a hundred years of age),
imitated, perhaps, from the botanical gardens of Theo-
plirastus and Mithridates, was probably of no greater sdeii-
tific use than the collection of fossil bones of the Emperor

TUB UNIVEKSE. — ItOJIAN EMPIIIE. 195

ingustus, or the collection of objects of natural history
which has been ascribed on very feeble grounds to Appuleios
of Madaura. p"^)

Before we close the description of what the period of
the Eoman empire contributed towards the advancement
of cosmicaJ knowledge, we have still to mention the grand
undertaking of a description of the Universe which Cains
Plinius Secundus endeavoured to comprise in tldrty-seven
books. In the whole of antiquity nothing similar had been
attempted; and although in the execution of the work
it became a, kind of encyclopssdis of nature and art
(the author in his dedication to Titus not scrupling to
apply to his work the then more noble Greek expression
cyKvK\o-«aiSua) , yet it cannot be denied that, notwithstanding
the want of an internal connection and coherence of parts,
still the whole presents a plan or sketch of a physical
description of the Universe.

The Ilistoria Naturalis of Pliny, — termed Historia Mundi
in the tabular view which forms what is now called the first
book, and in a letter of his nephew's to his friend Maccr
more finely described as a Natune Historia, — embraces the
heavens and the earth, the position and course of the
heavenly bodies, the meteorological processes of the atmo-
sphere, the forms of the earth's surface, and all terrestrial
objects, from the vegetable covering of the land and the
molloscEB of the ocean up to the race of man. Mankind are
considered according to the variety of their mental disposi-
tions and intellectual powers, and to the cultivation and ex-
altation of these as manifested in the noble-st works of art. I
have here named the elements of a general knowledge of nature
wliich lie scattered almost without order in the great work

EPOCHS nr THE HISTOUT OF THE C0NTE3nT.ATIO?f

on the civilization and mental deveJopnicnt of mankind. His
points of connection, however, arc seldom happily chosen
(vii. 24 to 47 ; sxv, 2 ; xxvi. 1 ; xxxv, 2 ; xsxvi, 2 to 4 ;
xxxvii. 1.} The nature of mineral and vegetable sub-
stancea, for example, leads to a fragment of the history of
the plastic arts ; but this fragment has become in the
present state of our knowledge of greater interest and impor-
tance than almost all which we can gather from liis work in
descriptive natural liistory.

The style of Pliny is rather spirited and lively than cha-
racterised by true grandeur; he seldom defines picturesquely;
and we feelj in reading his work, that the author had
derived his impressions from books, and not from the free
aspect of nature herself, allhough he had enjoyed that
aspect in various regions of the earth. A grave and melan-
choly colouring is spread over the whole, and with this
sentimental tone there is blended a degree of bitterness
whenever man and his circumstances and destiny are touched
upon. At such times (almost as in the writings of
Cicero, {^°^) though with less simpbcity of diction), the
view of the great universal whole of the world of nature is
described as reassuring and consolatory.

The conclusion of the Historia Naturalis of Pliny, the
greatest Eoman memorial bequeathed to the literature of
the middle ages, is conceived in the true spirit of a descrip-
tion of the universe. As we now possess it, since 1S31, (3"*)
it contains a cursory view of the comparative natural history
of countries in different aones j and a laudatory description
of Southern Eiu'ope between the natural boundaries of the
Mediterranean and the Aips, and of the serene heaven of

OP THE nNIVERSE. — nOUAN EMPIRE, 199

Hesperia, "where," accordiog to a dogma of the older
Pythagoreans, "the soft and temperate climate had early
hastened the escape of mankind from barbarism."

The influence of the Iloman dominion, as a constant
element of union and fnsion, deserves to be bronght forward,
in a history of t!ie contemplation of the nuiverse, with the
more detail and force, because we can recognise its conse-
qnenccs even at a period when the niiion of the empire had
been loosened, and in part destroyed, by the assaults and
irruptions of the barbarians. Claudian, who, in a late and
troubled age, under Theodosius the Great and liis sons,
came forward with new poetic productiveness in the decliue
of Kterature, still sings, ill too laudatory strains, of the Boman
sovereignty (3") : —

I

n grcmium Tictoa qns Boln recepit,

Quos domuit, neiuque pio longinquu rciiniit.

Hi^DS pacificid debemiiB moribus omnea

Qnod Teluti patriis regioniljus- ntitur iospes" . .

Ontward means of constraint, skilfully disposed civil in-
stitutions, and long-continued habits of servitude, may
indeed produce union, by taking away separate national
existence ; but the feeling of the unity of mankind, of their
common humanity, and of the equal rights of all portions
of the human race, has a nobler origin r it is in the inmost
impulses of the human mind, and in rehgious convictions,
that its foundations are to be sought. Christianity has pre-
eminently contribnted to call forth the idea of the unity of
mankind, and has thereby acted beneficently on the " human-
izing" of nations, in their manners and institutions. Deeply

J

200 CONTEMPLATION OP THE CNIVERSE.

interwoven from the first Tritli Christian doctrines, the idea
of humanity has nevertheless only slowly obtained its just
recognition. At the time when, from political motives, the
new faith was established at Byzantium as the religion of
the state, its adherents were alreadv involved in miserable
party strife, whilst intercourse with distant nations had been
checked, and the foundations of the empire had been shaken
by external assaults. Even the personal freedom of entire
classes of men long found no protection in Christian states,
and even among ecclesiastical proprietors and corporations.
Such unnatural impediments, and many others which still
stand in the way of the intellectual and social advancement
and ennoblement of mankind, will gradually vanish. The
principle of individual and political freedom is rooted in the
indestructible conviction of the equal rights of the whole
human race. Thus, as I have already said in another
j)]ace, (3^2) mankind, as one great brotherhood, advance
together towards the attainment of one common object, the
free development of their moral faculties. This view of
humanity, or at least the tendency towards the formation of
this view, — sometimes checked, sometimes advancing with
powerful and rapid steps, and by no means a discovery of
modern times — by the universality of its direction, belongs
most properly to our subject, as elevating and animating
cosmical life. In depicting a great epoch in the history of
the world, that of the Empire of the Romans and the laws
which they originated, and of the beginning of the Christian
religion, it was fitting that I should, before all things, recal
the maimer in which Christianity enlarged the \iews of man-
kind, and exercised a mild and enduring, although slowly
operating, influence on Intelligence and Civilization.

\

EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE
UNIVEBSE. — ITS ADVANCEMENT BY THE ARABIANS.

V.

Invasion of the Arabians — Aptitude of tliis part of the Semitic
Race for Intellectual Cultivation — Influence of a Foreign Element
on the Development of European Civilization and Culture — Pe-
culiarities of the National Character of the Arabians — ^Attach-
ment to the Study of Nature and its powers — Science of Ma-
teria Medica and Chemistry — ^Extension of Physical Geography
to the Interior of Continents, and Advances in Astronomy and
in the Mathematical ciences.

In my sketch of the history of the physical contemplation of
the universe, I have already enumerated four leading epochs
in the gradual development of the recognition of the universe
as a whole. These included, firstly, the period when the
inhabitants of the coasts of the Mediterranean endeavoured
to penetrate eastward to the Euxine and the Phasis, south-
ward to Ophir and the tropical gold lands, and westward
through the Pillars of Hercules into the ^^ all-surrounding
ocean /^ secondly, the epoch of the Macedonian expeditions
under Alexander the Great; thirdly, the period of the
Lagidae; and fourthly, that of the Roman Empire of the
World. We have now to consider the powerful influence
exercised by the Arabians, whose civilization was a new ele-
ment foreign to that of Europe, — and, six or seven centuries
later, by the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese and
Spaniards, — on the general physical and mathematical know-

k2

I

203 ETOCHS IX THE HISTOET OF THE CONTEMPLATION

ledge of nature, in respect to form and measurement on the
earth and in the r^ons of space, to the heterogeneitj ot
substances, and to the powers or forces resident therein. The
discovery and exploration of the New Continent, with its
lofty CoidOleras and their numerous volcanoes, its elevated
plateaus with successive stages of climate placed one abofe
another, and its various vegetation ranging flirough 1£0
degrees of latitude, mark ineontestably the period in wliich
there was offered to the human mind, in the smallest space
of time, the greatest abundance of new physical peroeptioDS,
Henceforward the exf«iision of cosinical knowledge haa do
longer been connected with political events acting within
definite localities. From that period the human intellect
has brought forth great tilings by \'irtue of its own proper
strength ; and instead of being principally incited thereto by
the influence of estrane.ous events, it now works simul-
taneously in many directions : by new combinations of
thought it creates for itself new organs, wherewith to esamine,
on the one hand, the wide regions of cdestial space, and,oa
the other, the dehcate tissues of aniniHJ and vegetable struc-
ture which form the substratum of life. The whole of the
seventeenth century, brilliantly opened by the great discoveiy
of the telescope and by the more immediate fruits of tliat
discovery, — from Galileo's observations of Jupiter's satellites,
the crescent form of the disk of Venus, and the solar spots,
to Newton's theory of gravitation,— is distinguished as the
most important epoch of a newly created "phyaicd
astronomy." We here find, therefore, once more a mukeA
epoch, charactaised by unity in the endeavours devoted Ul
the observation of the heavens, and to mathematical
search; it forms a well-defined section in the great procesi

OP THE UNIVERSE. — THE AEABIA^S. 203

of intellectual development, wliich since tliat period has
advanced uninterraptedlj' forward.

Nearer to our own time it becomes so much the more
difficult to distinguish particular epochs, as the intellectual ac-
tivity of mankind has moved forward simultaneously in mauy
directions, and as with a new order of social and political
relations a closer bond of union now subsists between the
different sciences. In the separate studies the development
of which belongs to the "history of the physical sciences,"
in chemistry and descriptive botany, it is still qnite possible,
even up to the most recent time, to distinguish insulated
periods in which the greatest advances were made, or in
which new views sudderdy prevailed ; but in the " history of
the contemplation of the universe," — which, aecording to its
essential character, ought to borrow from the history of
separate studies only tliat which relates most immediately to
the extension of the idea of the Cosmos, — connection with
particular epochs becomes unsafe and impraeticable, since
that which we have just termed an iatellectual process of
development supposes an uninterrupted simultaneous ad-
vance in all departments of cosmical knowledge. Having
now arrived at the important point of separation, at which,
after the fall of the Eomaii Empire of the World, there
appears a new and foreign element of cultivation received by
our continent for the first time direct from a tropicd coun-
try, it may be useful to cast a general glance at the path
wliich yet remains to be travelled over.

The Arabians, a primitive Semitic ra^e, partially dispelled
the barbarism wliich for two centuries had overspread the
face of Europe, after it had been shaken to its foundations
by the tempestuous assaults of the nations by whom it was

204 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COKtEMPtATlOJC

overrun. The Arabians not only contributed to preserve
scientific cultivation, by leading men back to the perennial
sources of Greek philosophy, but they also extended that culti-
vation, and opened new paths to the investigation of nature.
The desolation of our continent by the overwhelming torrent
of invading nations commenced in the reign of Valentinian I.,
in the last quarter of the 4th century, when the Huns (of
Finnish not Mongolian origin) crossed the Don, and
oppressed the Alani, and later with the help of these, the
Ostrogoths. Tar off in eastern Asia, the torrent of
migrating nations had been set in motion several centuries
before our era. The first impulse was given, as we
have already said, by the attack of the Hiungnu (a Turk-
ish tribe), on the fair haired and blue-eyed, perhaps Indo-
germanic, population of the Uslin, dwelling adjacent to the
Yueti (Getse ?), in the upper valley of the Hoangho in North-
western China. This desolating torrent, propagated from
the great wall erected against the Hiungnu (214 B.C.) to
the most western parts of Europe, moved through central
Asia north of the chain of the Himalava. These Asiatic
hordes were not animated by any religious zeal before
they came in contact with Europe; it has even been
sho^vn that they were not yet Buddlusts (3^3) when they
arrived as conquerors in Poland and Silesia. Causes of an
entirely difl'erent kind gave to the warlike outbrejdc of a
southern people, the Arabians, a peculiar character.

In the generally compact and imbroken continent of
Asia, (3^*) the almost detached peninsula of Arabia, between
the Eed Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates and the
S}Tian part of the Mediterranean, forms a remarkably dis-
tinct feature. It is the westernmost of the three peninsulas

OF THE UmLVEESfi.— TttE AllABUNS. 205

of southern Asia, and its proximity to Egypt and to a
European sea, render its geographical position a very favour-
able one, both politically and commercially. In the central
parts of the Arabian peninsula lived the population of the
Hedjaz, a noble and powerful race, uninformed but net
rude, imaginative, and yet devoted to the careful observa-
tion of all the phenomena presenting themselves to their
eyes in the open face of nature, on the ever clear vault of
heaven, and on the surface of the earth. After this race
had lived for thousands of years almost without contact with
the rest of the world, and leading for the most part a
nomadic life, they suddenly broke forth, became pohshed
and informed by mental contact with the inhabitants of the
ancient seats of cultivation, and subdued, proselytised, and
ruled over nations from the Pillars of Hercules to the Indus,
as far as the point where the Bolor chain intersects that of
the Hindoo Coosh. Even from the middle of the ninth
century they maintained commercial relations at once with the
northern countries of Europe and with Madagascar, with East
Africa, India and China ; they diffused their language, their
coins, and the Indian system of numbers, and founded a
powerful combination of countries held together by the ties
of a common rehgious faith. It often happened that great
provinces were only temporarily overrun. Tlie swarming
troop, threatened by the natives, encamped, according to a
comparison of their native poets, " like groups of clouds
wliich are soon scattered anew by the wind.^' No national
movement ever offered more animated phenomena ; and the
mind-repressing spirit which appears to be inherent in Islam,
has manifested itself, on the whole, far less under the Ara-
bian empire than among the Turkish races. E^Hgious per-

KPOCaas IN THB KlSrOUI or the COtrfEIIPLiTIOIT

secution was here as elsewhere (among Christian nations
abo), rather the effect of a boundless dogmatising despo-
tism, P'^) than of the original faith and doctrine or of the
rehgioua contemplation of the nation. The severity of the
Koran is principally directed against idolatry, and especially
against the worship of idols by Aramean races,

As the life of nations is determined not only by their
internal mental dispositions, but ako by many external con-
ditions of soil, climate, proximity of the sea, &c., we should
first recal the diversities of form presented by the Arabian
peninsula. Although the first impulse wluch led to the
great changes which the Arabians wrought hi the three
continents proceeded from the Israaelitish Hedjaz, and
owed its principal strength to a sohtary pastoral tribe, yet
the coasts of the other parts nf the peninsula bad for thou-
sands of years enjoyed some portion of intercourse with the
rest of the world. In order to obtain an insight into the
connection and necessary conditions of great and singular
events, we must ascend to the causes which gradually prepared
the way for them.

Towards the south west, near the Erytlircan Sea, ia
situated the fine fruitful and agricultural comitry of the
Joctanides, (^i^) Yemen, the ancient seat of civilization
(Saba). It produces incense (lebonnh of the Hebrewa, per-
haps Boswellia thurifera, Colebr.), (3'') myrrh (a kind of
AmyriSj first exactly described by Ehrenberg), and what is
called the balsam of Mecca (Balsamodeudron gileadense,
Kunth) : all of which formed articles of a considerable trade
with neighbouring nations, and were carried to the Egj*p-
tians, to the Persians and Indians, and to the Greeks and
Bmaana. It was from these productions that the geographical

A

OP THE nNIVEItSE.— THE ARABI4NS.

^■jienomination of Arabia Felix, which we find first employed
• hy Diodonis and Strabo, was given. On the south-east
of the peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, the town of Gerrha,
situated opposite to the Phrenician settlements of Aradus
and Tylua, formed an important mart for the traffic
in Indian goods. Although almost tlie whole of the in-
terior of Arabia may be termed a treeless sandy desert,
yet there are in Oman (between Jailau and Eatna), a whole
chain of oases, watered by subterranean canals; and we
owe to the activity of the meritorious traveller Wellsted, (3'^)
the knowledge of three mountain chains, of which the lof-
tiest summit, Djebel Akhdar, rises, clothed with forests, to
an elevation of more than six thousand feet above the level
of the sea. There are also in the mountain [country of
Yemen, east of Lopeia, and in the littoral chain of Hedjaz
in Asyr, as well as east of Mecca near Tayef, elevated
plains, of which the constantly low temperature was known
to the geographer Edrisi. (^^s)

The same variety of mountain landscape characterises the
peninsula of Sinai, the " copper laod" of the Egyptians of
the "ancient kingdom" (beforethetimeof theHyksos), and
the rocky valleys of Petra. I have already spoken, in a
preceding section, (^™) of the Phtenician trading settlements
ou the most northern part of the Red Sea, and the voyages
to Opiiir of the ships of Hiram and Solomon, which sailed
from Ezion Geber. Arabia, and the adjacent island of
Socotota (the Island of Dioscorides), inhabited by Indian
settlers, were the intermediate links of the traffic of the
world mth India and the east coast of Africa. Tlie produc-
tions of these countries were commoidy confounded with
those of Hadramaut and Yemen. "We read in the prophet

208 EPOCHS IS TKE HISTOBT OP THE COSTEUPLATIOS

laaiab, "they {the ilromedaries of Midian) shall come from
Saba, they shall bring gold and incense." (^^') Petra was
the emporiiun for the valuable goods designed for Tyre
and Sidon, and a principal seat of the once powerful com-
mercial nation of the Nabateans, supposed by the learned
Quatremfire to have had their original dwelling-place in the
Gerrha mountains, near the lower Euphrates. Tins northern
pai-t of Arabia, by its proximity to Egypt, by tlie spreading
of Arabian tribes into the mountains bounding Syria and
Palestine and into the countries near the Euphrates, as well as
by the celebrated caravan road from Damascus thiough Emesa
and Tadioor (Palmyra) to Babylon, had come into indueutial
contact mth other civilised states. Mahomet himself,
sprung from a noble but impoverished family of the tribe of
Koreish, in the course of liis trading occupations, before
lie came tbrward as an inspired prophet and reformer,
had visited the fair of Bosra on the Syrian border, the fair
held iji Hadramaut the land of incense, as well as the twenty
days' fair of Okadh near Mecca, where poets, chiefly Bedoiiins,
assembled for lyrical contests. I allude to these particulars
of the Arabian commerce, and the circumstances theiice
arising, in order to give a more vivid picture of that whi^
prepared great revolutions in the world.

The spreading of the Arabian population towards the
north, reminds us of two events, the cii'cumstances of

I which are indeed veiled in obscurity, but ii'hich atFord
evidence that ages before Mahomet the inhabitants of
the peninsula had mixed in the affairs of the world by
outbreaks to the west and east, towards Egypt and the
Euphrates. The Semitic or Aramaic descent of Ihc Hyksos,
who, under the twelfth dynasty, 2200 years before our era,

i

OF THE UNIVEUSE. — tHE ARABIANS. 209

put an end to the *^ ancient kingdom^^ of Egypt, is now
received by almost all historic investigators. Manetho even
had said, "some maintain that these shepherds were
Arabians.^^ In other sources of historical knowledge they
are called Phoenicians — a name which in antiquity was
extended to the inhabitants of the valley of the Jordan, and
to all the Arabian tribes. The acute Ewald refers particu-
larly to the Amalekites (Amalekalians), who originally dwelt
in Yemen, and then spread themselves by Mecca and Medina
to Canaan and Syria, and are said, in early Arabian historical
works, to have had power over Egypt in the time of
Joseph. (322) 11^ gf;iii must appear remarkable how the noma-
dic tribes of theHyksos should have been able to overthrow the
powerful and well-established " ancient kingdom'^ of Egypt.
Men accustomed to iS^eedom fought with success against men
habituated to a long course of servitude, even though at that
period the victorious Arabian invaders were not, as they sub-
sequently were, animated by religious enthusiasm. Erom fear
of the Assyrians (races of Arpachsad), the Hyksos established
the fortress of Avaris as a place of arms on the eastern branch
of the Nile. Perhaps this circumstance may indicate a suc-
cession of advancing warlike masses, or a movement of nations
directed towards the west. A second event, which occurred
fully 1000 years afterwards, is that which Diodorus (^^s^
relates from Ctesias. Ariseus, a powerful Himyarite prince,
entered into alliance with Ninus on the Tigris, and with
him, defeated the Babylonians, and returned to his home in
gouthem Arabia laden with rich spoils. (^24)

Although, on the whole, the prevaiUng mode of life in
Hedjaz, and that followed by a large and powerful portion
of the people, was a free and pastoral one, yet even then

I

210 ITOCHS IS THE mSTOBT OF THE COSTEMFIATICW

the towns of Meiliua and Mecca (the latter with its highly
ancieat and enigmatical sacred Kaaba) were distinguished
as places of importance visited by foreign nations. In
districts adjacent to the sea, or to the caravan roacb
which act as river vaUies, the complete savage wildness
engendered by entire iusnlation never prevailed. Gibbon,
whose conception of the diiferent circumstances of man-
kind is always so clear, notices the important distinction
to be drawn between the nomadic life of the inhabitants of
the Arabian peninsula, and that of the Scythians described
by Herodotus and Hippocrates ; since among the latter, no
part of the pastoral population ever settled in towns, whereas
in the great Arabian peninsuLa, the inliabitants of the country
have always kept up intercourse with the inliabitanta of the
towns, who they regard as descended from the same originil
race as themselves. (^^) In the Kirghez Steppe, a portion ol
the plains inhabited by the ancient Scythians {Scoloti and
Sacie) and exceeding Germany in superficial extent, (3*) no
town has existed for thousands of yearsj yet at the time of my
Siberian journey, the number of tents (yourtes or kibitkos]
in the three wandering hordes still exceeded 400,000, indi-
cating a nomadic population of two millions. I need not
enter more fully on the influence which sueh differences, in
regard to the greater or less insulation of nomadic life, must
have exercised on the national aptitude for mental cultivation,
even supposing an equality of origuial disposition and
capacity.

In the noble and richly-gifted Arab race, the internal dis-
position and aptitude for mental cultivation concur with the
external circumstances to which I have adverted, — 1 mean the
natural features of the country, and the ancient commercial

or THE 0NIVEE9E, — THE AUABIANS. 211

intercourse of the coasts with highly-ciriUaed i
states, — in explaining how the irruptions intoSjria and Persia,
and at a later period the possession of Egypt, conid have
so rapidly awakened in the conquerors a love for the sciences,
and a disposition to original investigation. "VVe may per-
ceive that, in the wonderful arrangement of the order of the
world, the Christian sect of the Nestorians, who had exerted
a very important influence ou the diffusion of knowledge,
became also of use to the Arabians before the latter came to
the learned and controversial city of Alexandria ; and even
that Nestorian Cl^istianity was enabled to penetrate far into
eastern Asia under the protection of armed Islam. The,
Arabians were first made acquainted with Greek literature
tiirough the Syrians, {'2') a cognate Semitic race, who had
received tliis knowledge hardly a century and a half be-
fore from the Nestorians. Physicians trained in Grecian
establishments of learning, or in the celebrated medical
school founded at Edessa in Mesopotamia by Nestorian
Christians, were living at Mecca in the time of Mahomet,
and connected by family ties with himself and Abu-Bekr.

The school of Edessa, a prototype of the Benedictine
schools of Monte-Cassino and Salerno, awakened a disposition
for the pursuit of natural history, by the investigation of
" healing substances in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms."
"When this school was dissolved from motives of fanaticism
nnder Zeno the Isaurian, the Nestorians were scattered into
Persia, where they soon obtained a political importance, and
founded a new and mucb-frequented mediciual institution
at Chondisapnr, in Khusistan, Tliey succeeded in carrying
both their scientific and literary knowledge and their religion
I as China, imder the djTiasty of the Thang, towards

212 EPOCHS Df THE HIFTOBY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

the middle of the serenth ceiitiin-, 572 rears after Baddhism
Lfil arrived there Erom India.

The 5ced< of western cultivation scattered in Persia by
learned monks, and bv the philosophers of the school of the
later PlatoLists at Athens persecuted by Justinian^ had
exercised a benedcial induence on the Arabians during thdr
Asiatic campaigns. However imperfect the scientific know-
ledge of the Xestorian priests may have been, yet, by its
p'arricular medico-pharmaceutical direction, it was the more
effectual in srimulating a race of men who had long Kved
in the enjoyment of the open face of nature, and preserved a
fresher feeling for every kind of natural contemplation, than
the Greek and Italian inhabitants of cities. That which
gives to the epoch of the Arabians the cosmical importance
which we are endeavouring to illustrate, is very much con-
nected with this feature of the national character. The
Arabians are, we rejDcat, to be regarded as the proper
founders of the physical sciences , in the sense wliich we
are now accustomed to attach to the term.

In the world of ideas, the internal connection and enchain-
ment of all thought renders it indeed always difficidt to
attach an absolute beginning to any particular period of time.
S(}i)arate points of knowledge, as well as processes by which
knowledge may be attained, arc, it is true, to be seen scattered
in rare instances at an earlier period. How wide is the
difference between Dioscorides who separated mercury from
cinnabar and the Arabian chemist Djeber; and between
Ptolemy as an investigator of optics and Alhazen ! But the
foundation of physical studies, and of the natural sciences
themselves, first begins when newly opened paths are pursued
by many at once, although with unequal success. After the

OF THE UNIVERSE. — THE AEABIAXS. 213

simple contemplation of nature, after the observation of such
phenomena on the surface of the earth or in the heavens
as present themselves spontaneously to the eye, comes
investigation, the seeking after that which exists,^ the
measurements of magnitudes and of the duration of motion.
The earliest epoch of such an investigation of nature, chiefly
limited, however, to the organic world, was that of Aristotle.
In the progressive knowledge of physical phenomena, in the
searching out of the powers of nature, there still remains a
third and higher stage, — that of the knowledge of the action
of these powers or forces in producing new forms of matter,
and of the substances themselves wliich are set at hberty in
order to enter into new combinations. The means wliich
lead to this hberation belong to the calling forth at will of
phenomena, or to ^^ experiment."

It is on this last stage, which was almost wholly untrodden
by the ancients, that the Arabians principally distinguished
themselves. Their country enjoys ^throughout the chmate
necessary for the growth of palms, and in its larger portion
possesses a tropical climate, as the tropic of Cancer crosses the
peninsula nearly from Maskat to Mecca j— it is therefore a
part of the world in which the higher vital energy of the
vegetable kingdom offers an abundance of aromas, of
balsamic juices, and of substances injurious as well as
beneficial to man. The attention of the people must have
been early directed to the productions of their native soil, and
to those obtained by commerce from the coasts of Malabar,
Cevlon, and eastern Africa. In these portions of the torrid
zone organic forms are ^^individualised" in the smallest
geographical spaces, each of which offers peculiar productions,
and thus incitements to the intercourse of men with nature

214 EPOCHS IN THE HI9T0EY OV THE COSTEHPUTION

were increased and multiplied. Great desire was felt to
become acquainted with articles so precious and so important
to medicine, industry, and the luxury of the temple and the
palace ; to distinguish them carefully from each other ; and
to find out their native place, which was often artfully con-
cealed from motives of covetousness. Nmnerous caravan
roads, departing from the commercial martj Gerrhii,
on the Persian Gulf, aud from the incense district of
Yemen, traversed the whole interior of Arabia to Phcenicia
and Syria; aud thus the names of these mucli-desired pro-
ductions, aud the interest felt in them, became generally

The science of materia m edica, the foundation of which was
laid in the Alexandrian school by Dioscorides, is, in its seien-
tific form, a creation of the Arabians, who, however, hud
previously access to a rich source of instruction, the
most ancient of aB, that of the Indian physicians. ('^}
The apothecary's art was indeed formed by the Arabians,
and the first official authoritative rules for the prepara-
tion of medicines were taken from them, aud were diffused
through southern Europe by the school of Salerno. Phannacy
and the materia medica, the fii'st requirements of the healing
arti conducted to the studies of botany and chemistiy.
From the confined sphere of utility and of single application,
the study of plants gradually expanded into a wider and freer
field: it examined the structure of organic tissues; the
comiection of this structure with the laws of their develop-
ment; and the laws according to which vegetable forma are
distributed geographically over the earth's surface, according
to differences of cUmate and of elevation-
After the Asiatic conquests, for the maintenance of ii'liich

OF TKE TJNIVEBSE. THE AEASIiXS. 21.

B^dad subsequently became a central point of power and
civiHsatiou, tlie Arabs, in the short space of seventy yearsj
extended their conquests over Egypt, Cjrene, and Carthage,
and through the whole of northern Africa to the farthest
Iberian peninsula. The low state of cultivation of the armed
masses and of their leaders, may indeed render the occurrence
of any outbreak of a rude spirit not altogether improbable.
The tale of the burning of the Alexandrian library by Amru,
40,000 baths being heated for six months by its contents,
rests, however, solely on the testimony of two writers who
lived 5S0 years after the supposed event, {^^^j We need not
here describe how, in more peaceful times, but without
the mental cultivation of the mass of the nation having
attained any free development, in the brilliant epoch of
Al-Mansur, Harun Al-Kaschid, Mamun, and Motasem, the
courts of princes and the pubhc scientific institutions
were able to assemble a considerable number of highly
distinguished men. AV^e cannot attempt in these pages to
characterise the extensive, varied, and unequal Arabic htera-
ture ; or to distinguish that which springs from the hidden
deptlis of the particular organisation of a race and the natural
unfolding of its faculties, from that wliieh is dependent on
external incitements and accidental conditions. The solution
of tills important problem belongs to a different sphere of
ideas. Our historical considerations are limited to a frag-
mentary notice of what the Arabian nation has contributed,
by mathematical and astronomical knowledge, and by the
physical sciences, to the more general coutemphition of the
Universe.

The true results of investigation are indeed here, as else-
wliere in the middle ages, alloyed by alchemy, supposed

216 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

magical arts, and mystic fancies ; but the Arabians, inces-
sant in their own independent endeavours, as well as labo-
rious in appropriating to themselves by translations the
fruits of earlier cultivated generations, have produced much
which is truly their o^vn, and have enlarged the view of
nature. Attention has been justly called p^o) to the dif-
ferent circumstances in respect to cultivation of the invading
and immigrating Germanic and Arabic races. The forma
became civilized after their immigration; the latter brought
with them from their native country not only their religion,
but also a highly polished language, and the tender blos-
soms of a poetry which has not been altogether without
influence on the Proven9al poets and the Minnesingers.

The Arabs possessed quahties wliich fitted them in a
remarkable manner for obtaining influence and dominion
over, and for assimilating and combining different nations,
from the Euphrates to the Guadalquivir, and southward to
the middle of Africa : they possessed a mobility unexampled
in the history of the world ; a disposition, very different
from the repellent Israelitish spirit of separation, to effect a
fusion with the con(|uered nations ; and yet, notwithstanding
perpetual change of place, to preserve unimpaired their own
national character, and the traditional remembrances of their
original home. No nation can shew examples of more
extensive land journics undertaken by individuals, not always
for commercial objects, but also for collecting knowledge :
even the Buddhistic priests from Thibet and China, even Marco
Polo, and the Christian missionaries who were sent to the
Mogul princes, moved over a smaller range of geographical
space. Through the many relations subsisting between
the Arabs and India and China, for their conquests had ex-

F THE TJNIVERSE, — THE ARABIANS. 217

tended niider the Caliphate of the Ommaiades by the end of
the seventh centuiy (^3') to Kaahgar, Caubulj and the
Punjab), important portions of Asiatic knowledge reached
Europe. The acute researches of Eeinaud have shewn how
much may be derived from Arabic sources, for the knowledge
of India. Although the invasion of China by the Moguls for
a time disturbed the communications across the Oxus, (^^')
the Moguls themselves soon became a uniting link to the
Aiabs, who, by their own observations, and by laborious
researches, have illustrated the knowledge of the earth's sui-
&ce from the coasts of the Pacific to those of Western Africa,
and from tlie Pyrenees to Edrisi's marsh-land of Wangara
in the interior of Africa. The geography of Ptolemy was
translated into Arabic, according to FrHhn, by the command
of the Caliph Mamun between 813 and 833; and it is even
not improbable that some fragments of Marinus of Tyre
which have not come down to us may have been used in the
translation. (^^)

Of the long series of distinguished geographers wluch
Arabic literature affords, it is sufficient to name the earliest
and the latest : — El-Istachri, {^^*} and Alhassan {Johannes
1*60 Africanus). At no period before the discoveries of the
Portuguese and Spaniards, did the knowledge of the earth's
surface receive a larger aeccssion. Only fifty years after
the death of Maliomet the Arabs had reached the estreme
western coast of Africa at the harbour of Asfi. Whether,
subsequently, when the adventurers known under the name
of Almagrurin navigated the " mare teuchrosum," the
islands of the Guanches were visited by Arab sliips, aa I long
thought probable, lias recently beeu rendered again doubtful.
The quantity of Arabic coins found buried in the

"OL. II. L

I
I

I

218 EFOCHS IN THE HISTOET OF THE OONTEMPtiTION

cfliintries about the Baltic, and iii the extreme North in
Scandinavia, are not to be attributed to commerce by sea
properly so called) but to the far exteaded inland traffic of
the Arabs. (33^)

Geography did not continue to be restricted to the
enumeration of countries and their boundaries, aud to
positions in latitude aud longitude, {which were multiplied
by Abul-Hassan) ; (337) it led a people familiar with nature to
consider the organic productions of different places, and more
eapeciallj those of the vegetable world. The horror which tie
followers of Islam have for anatomical esaminatious pre-
vented all progress in the natural historj' of animals. Thej
were content with appropriating to themselves by translation
what they could find in Aristotle {^^bj (^d Galen j jet
Avicenna's history of animals, (which is in the Royal Libnuj
at Paris), (^^s) differs from that of Aiistotle. As a botanist
we may name Ibn-Eaithar of Malaga, i^*°) who, from his joumiea
into Greece, Persia, India, and Egj'pt, may also be regarded
as an example of the endeavour to compare by direct observa-
tion the productions of different regions, — of the East and ol
the West. The study of medicines was, however, alway*
the point from which these endeavours proceeded j it was
through it that the Arabs long swayed the schools of
Christendom, and for its improvement and completion
Ibu-Sina (A^icenna), a native of Affschena near Bokhara,
Ibn-Rosdid (Averroes) of Cordova, the younger Serapion of
Syria, anil Mesue of Mnridin on the Euplmites, availed
themselves of all the materials furnished by the Arabiaa
caravan and sea traffic. I have purposely cited these widdy-
separated birth-places of celebrated and learned Arabs, bft*
cause they bring vividly before us the manner in which, by

OP THE UMIYEHSE. — THE AEABIAHS. 219

tlie peculiar disposition of this race of men, natural know-
ledge was spread over & large portion of the earth's surface,
and the circle of ideas enlarged by simultaneous efforts pro-
ceeding from many quarters.

The knowledge possessed by a more anciently cultivated
people, the Indians, was also drawn into the same circle :
BCveral important works, probably those known under the
semifabulous names of Tscharaka and Sasmta, (3*') were
translated from Sanscrit into Arabic. Avicenna, a man of
comprehensive mind, and who has often been compared to
AJbertus Magnus, affords in his Materia Medica a very
striking instance of this influence of Indian Literature, in
showing himself acquainted, as the learned Eojle remarks,
with the Deodara (Cedrus deodvara) (3*3) of the snowy
Himalajan Alps, wliich, in the 11th century, had assuredly
never been visited by any Arabian traveller; he calls it by
its true Sanscrit name, and speaks of it as a lofty species of
juniper, from which oil of turpentine was obtained. The
sons of Averroes lived at the court of the Emperor
Trederic II., the great prince of the house of Hohenstaufl'en,
who was indebted for part of his knowledge of natural his-
tory to communication with learned Arabs and Spanish
Jews, l^*^) The Caliph AbJerrahman established a botanical
garden at Cordova, {^*) and sent travellers into SjTia and
other parts of Asia to collect rare plants. He planted, near
the paiace of Eissafah, the first date tree, which he cele-
brates in strains full of tender regrets and longings for hb
native home, Damascus.

But the most important influence exerted by the Ara-
bians on the general knowledge of nature, was in the pro-
gress of chemistry ; with their labours commenced a new

220 rPOCHS ET THB HISrORT OP THE CONTEMTLATIOS

epoch in that science. Alchemistic and new Platonic fan-
ciPs were, it is true, as nearly allied with their chemistij, as
was astrology with their nstrononiy; hut the demands of
phannacy, and the equally pressing reqoirementa of the
technical arts, led to discoveries which were favoured some-
times by design, and sometimes, through a happy accident^
by metallurgic attempts connect d with alchemy. The
labours of Geber, or rather Djaber (Abu-ifussah-Dsehafar
al-Kufi), and the much latex ones of Razes (Abu-Bekr
Arrasi), have had the most important results. This epoch is
marked by the preparation of sulphuric and nitric acids, (***)
aqua regia, preparations of mercury and other metallie
oxides, and by the knowledge of alcoholic (^*^) process^ of
fermentation. The first foundation and earliest advances of
the science of chemistry are of so much the greater impor-
tance in the histoiy of the contemplation of the universe,
because thereby the heterogeneity of substances, and the
nature of forces or powers not manifested visibly by motion,
were first recognised; and the students of nature, no longff
looking exclusively to the Pythagorean Platonic perfection
of form, perceived that composition was also desen'ing of
regard. Differences of form and differences of coni[)ositioa
stt the elements of all our knowledge of matter; they ore
the abstractions by which, through measurement and aniv-
lysia, we beheve that we can form a conception of the entire
universe.

It would be difiicult to determine at present what portioii
of knowledge the Arabian chemists may have derived, eitba
from their acquaintance with Indian literature (writings
on the Rasayana), (**^) from the primitive technical arts of
the ancient Egj'ptians, from the compiiratively moderA

OV 1>HB ONtVBMF.-

221

alcliemistic rules of the Pseudo-Democritua and tlie Sophist
Synesius, or even from Chinese aourcea thrai^h the raediam
of the Mogols. According to the most recent and very
careful investigations of a celebrated orientalist, K«inaud,
the invention of gunpowder, {^*^] and its application to
projectiles, are not to be ascribeil to the Arabiajis : Hassan
Al-Rammah, who wrote between 1285 and 1295, was not
acquainted with this application ; wliile, as early as the
twelfth century,200 years therefore before Eerthold Schwarz,
a kind of gunpowder was used at Eiammelsherg, in the
Harz, for blasting rocks. The invention of an air thermo-
meter has been ascribed to Avicennii, on the strength of a
Hotice by Sanctorius ; but this notice is very obscure, and
ax. centuries elapsed before Galileo, Cornelius Dreddel, and
the Academia del Cimento, by the establishment of an exact
measore of temperature, created the important means of
penetrating into a world of almost unknown phenomena,
whose regularity and periodicity excite oiir astonishment;
and of recognising the cosmical connection of effects taking
place in the atmosphere, in the superimposed aqueous strata
of the ocean, and in the interior of the earth. Among the
advances which physical science owes to the Arabians, it
will be sufficient to name Alhaaen's work on the refraction
of rays, wliich may indeed have been partially derived from
Ptolemy's optical researches ; and the knowledge juid first
apphcation of the pendulum as a measure of time (3*^) by
the great astronomer Ebn-Junis.

The purity and rarely disturbed transparency of the Arabian
aky had in a peculiar manner drawn the attention of the Arab
race, in their earliest uncultivated state in their native land, to
l^e motions of (he heavenly bodies ; for we find that, besides

L

222 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COKTEMPLiTIOS

tlie worsliip of the plaiiet Jupitet among the Lachmites, the
tribe of the Asedites worshipped the planet Mercury, which,
from its proximity to the aolar orb, is rarelj visible. Notwith-
standing tliis, however, the distinguished scientific activity of
the civilised Arabians in all departments of practical astronomy,
is rather to be ascribed to Chaldean and Indian influences.
Atmospheric conditions can only encour^e and favour such
pursuits where a disposition towards them has been produced
by the original mental endowments of richly gifted races, or
by intercourse with more highly civilised neighbonring na-
tions. How many districts of tropical America, as Cumaua,
Coro, and Payta, where rain never falls, enjoy an atmo.
sphere even more transparent than that of Egypt, Arabia, ot
Bokhara 1 The climate of the tropics, and the eternal se-
renity of the vault of heaven, resplendent with stars and
nebuhe, are indeed never without some influence on the
dispositions of men; but they are fruitful in intellectual
results, and incite the human mind to labour in the deve^
lopment of mathematical ideas, only where an impulse is
given, independently of climate, by other causes belonging
either to the character of the race, or to external circum-
stances ; as, for example, where the exact division of time
becomes an object of social necessity for the satisfaction of
religious or of agricultural requirements. Among calculating
commercial nations like the Phcenicians, and nations like the
Egyjitians and Chaldeans fond of archifeetuie and con-
structions of all kinds, and much accustomed to ground
surveys and measurements, empirical rules of arithmetic
and of geometry were early discovered ; but these can
only prepare the way for the mathematical and astrono-
mical sciences. Nor is it until cultivation has reached a

OF THE OXrVERSB. — THB AKABUSS.

ass

still higher pointj that tlie regularity and subjection to lawa,
which characterise the movements of the heavenly bodiesj are
seen to be, as it were, reflected in terrestrial phucnoiiiena,
and that men seek to discover in these also, to use the
expression of our great poet, the " fised unchanging pole,"
In all climates, the conviction of the regularity of the pla-
netary moYcments, and of their subjection to law and order,
has contributed more than any thing else to lead men to
seek the same subjection to law and order, in the undula-
tions of the aerial ocean, in the oscillations of the sea, in
the periodical march of the magnetic needle, and in the
distribution of vegetable and animal life on the surface of
the globe.

The Arabians were in possession of Indian planetary
tables C^") as early as the end of the eighth century. I
have dready mentioned that the Susruta, the ancient epitome
comprising all the medicinal knowledge of the Indians,
was translated by learned men belonging to the court
of the Cahph Haroun Al-Raschid, — a proof of the early
introduction of Sanscrit literature. The Arabian mathema-
tician Albyrnni went himself to India to study astronomy
there. His writings, which have only very lately become
accessible to as, shew how well he was acquainted with the
country, the traditions, and the extensive knowledge of the
Indians, (^')

But however much the Arabian astronomers may have
owed to earlier civilized nations, and especially to the Indian
and Alexandrian schools, they still must be regarded as
having considerably enlarged th« domain of astronomy, by
their peculiar practical turn of mind, by the great number
the direction of their observations, by their improve-

I

824 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

ments in instraments for anguliir measurements, and by
their zealous endeavours to correct the earlier tables bj
careful comparison with the heavens. Sedillot has recng-
nised in the seventh book of the Almagest of Abul-Wefa
the important inequahty in the moon's motion, which
vanishes at the Syzygies a,nd Quadratures, and has its greatest
value at the Octants, and which under the name of " variation"
has long been regarded as a discovery of Tycho Brahe. (^
Ebn-Juais's observations at Cairo have become particularly
important for the perturbations and secular changes of the
orbits of the two great planets, Jupiter and Saturn. (^]
A measurement of a degree of the meridian, esecuted by the
orders of the Caliph Al-BIamuu in the great plain of
Sindschar between Tadmor and Rakka, by observers whose
names have been preserved to us by Ebn-Junis, is less
important for its result than for the evidence which it affords
of the scientific cultivation of the Arabian race.

We must also attribute to this cultivation, in the Wesl^
the astronomical congress held in Toledo in Christian Spain
under Alphonso of Castile, in whicli the Rabbi Isaac Ebn
Sid Hazan occupied a prominent place; and in the for East,
the Observatory pronded with many instruments estabUshed
by Eschan Holagu, the grandson of Ghengis-khan, on a
mountain near Meragha, in which Nassir-Eddin of Tus in
Khorasan made his observations. These details are deserv-
ing of notice in the history of the contemplation of the
Universe, because they remind ns in a lively manner of what
tlie Arabians have effected in the extension of knowledge
over wide portions of the earth's surface, and in the accu-
mulation of numerical results : results which contributed
materially in the great epoch of Keplet and 'Tycho Brahe tQ

M THB DNIVEH8E. — THE AE4BUNS. 825

the fouiidiition of theoretical astrouomy, and to a correct
view of the motiooa of the iieaveiily bodies in space. The
light kindled ia tlie part of Asia inhabited by Tatar nations
extended in the fifteenth century lo the westward as far as
Sanarcandj where Ulugh Beig a descendant of Timour
estabHshed an astronomical observatorj', and a gjmnaaium
of the class of the Alexandrian Museum, and caused a
star catalogue to be prepared founded entnely on new and
independent observations, (^^)

Besides the tribute of praise which we have here paid to
tlie advances made by the Arabians in the knowledge of
nature, both in the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we Lave
still to allude to the additions which, in the sohtary paths
of the development of ideas, they made to the treasury of
pure mathematical knowledge. According to the most
recent works written in England, France, and Germany {^^^)
on the history of mathematics, the algebra of the Arabians
is to be regarded aa " having originated from the confluence
of two streams which had long flowed independently of
each other, one Indian and one Greek." The compendium
of algebra written by the command of the Cahph Al-Mamun
by the Arabian mathematician Mahommed Ben-Musa (the
Clhowarezmian) ia based, as my deceased learned friend
Friedrich Rosen has shewn, (^s^) not on the works of Diophan-
tns, but on Indian knowledge ; and even as early as under
Almansor at the end of the eighth century Indian astrono-
mers were called to the brilliant court of the Abas-
sides. According to Castri and to Colebrooke, Diophantus
was not translated into Arabic until the end of the («iith
century by Abul-Wefa Buzjaui. The Arabians were in-
debted to the Alexandrian school for that which we mias in

B the old 1

EPOCHS IN THE mSTTORT OP THE CONTEHPLATtON

the old Indian ^gebraists, namely, the establishment of a
conclusion by the saccessive advance frora proposition to
proposition. This fair inheritance, yet Rtrther increased by
their own exertions, passed in the twelfth century from the
Arabs to the European literature of the middle ages through
Johannes Hispalensis and Gerard of Cremona. (^^^) " In the
algebraical works of the Indians we find the general solutioii
of indeterminate eqoations of the first degree, and a far more
highly finished treatment of those of the second d^ree, than
in the writings of the Alexandrian school which have come
down to us; there is therefore no doubt, that if the works
of the Indian writers had been made known to Europeans
two centuries earlier, instead of only in our own time, they
must have aided the development of modern analysis."

The Arabs in Persia and on the Euphrates, as well as in
Arabia, received in the 9th century, the knowledge of the
Indian numerical characters, through channels similar to thoee
which had led to their acquaintance ivith Indian algebra. Per-
sians were employed at that period as revenue collectors on
the Indus ; and the use of Indian numbers became geuoal
amongst the Arab revenue oSicers, and estendetl to Northern
Africa, opposite to the coast of Sicily. Nevertheless, the
profound and important liistorical investigations to which «
distinguished mathematician, M. Chasles, was led, by his
correct interpretation of the so-called Pythagorean table in
the geometry of Boetliius, ^saj render it more than probable
that the Christians in the West were acquainted even eaiher
than the Arabians with the Indian system of numeratioD ;
the use of the nine figures, having their values determined
by position, being known by them under the name of the
syst«m of the Abacus.

J

0¥ THE DSIVEE3E. — THE ARABIANS, 227

l» The present work ia not the place for entering more fuJIy
on this subject, which was treated by me many years ago in
two memoirs presented in 1819 and in 1829 to the Aca-
d6mie des Inscriptions at Paris, and the Akademie der
Wissenschaften at Berlin ; {^^^} but in an liistorical problem,
in which much still remains to be discoveretl) the question
arises, whether the highly ingenious artificial idea of value
by position, which appears both in the Tuscan Abacus and
in the Suan-pan of the interior of Asia, was separately dis-
covered in the East and in the West ; or whether, through
the direction of the commerce of the world under the Lagidie,
it made its way from the western peninsula of India to
Alexandria, and subsequently, iii the renewal of the dreams
of the Pythagoreans, was represented as a discovery of
their founder. We need not dwell on the mere possibility
of ancient relations with which we are entirely unacquainted
having subsisted prior to the 60th Olympiad. Why may
we not suppose that, under a seuse of similar wants, the
same combmations of ideas may have presented themselves
separately to higldy-gifted nations of different races ?

The algebra of the Arabians, including what they had
received from the Greeks and the Indians and what they
had themselves originated, notwithstanding its great defi-
ciency in symbolic notation, exercised a beneficial inflncTiee
during the brilliant period of the Italian mathematicians of the
middle ages ; the Arabians have also the merit of having by
tlieir writings, and by their extensive commercial intercourse,
accelerated the use of the Indian system of numbers from
Bagdad in the East to Cordova in the West. Both cu--
cumstancea contributed powerfully, although in different

^

B^ ^ Knf^ Vest: WiDidm vaa
Hm^id^^^ hm wamkai, Oi* "wc migfat ask vitli
■^il >il»t, iAJ <wM hire Wea ft« atote of oar preseat
■tActid oMirtiM, iff tfce Aide h*d coutmned the
oA^x fnaoHB of sdmce aa Atj vere for a long
poiai, hA IbiI wfmA tfcL—JiM pemanenUv over the
Wot? :blKiAcMt» it qpcara to ■» we can scarcely
ioM Otf Ae Ksoit voold lure besi less fkroorable. It
ntoAe SMoe ooaes wludi kd tu the Koman Tinirersal
anjnic, nun^, to the Boman miad and character and not
to extonal accidents, that ve owe the influeDce of the
Botoans on our cnrQ inatiniti<Hi9> oar laws, our language^
and 001 civilization. ITiroagfi this beneficial influence, and
in coDseqnence of our belonging to a kindred race, we haT*
been enabled to receive the impression of the Grecian mind
and Grecian language; whereas the Arabians only attached
themselves to the sdenlific results of Greek investigation ia
Ufttural liiatory, physics, astronomy, and pure mathematics."
The Arabians, by sedulous care in preserving the purity of
their native idiom, and by the ingenuity of their figunvtivs
modus of speech, knew how to lend to the expression of
tlioir feelings, and to the enunciation of noble and sage

OF THE TJNiyEBS£.^--<rHE ARABIANS. 229

maxiins, the grace of poetic colouring; but judging from
what thqr were under the Abassides^ even if they had bnilt
on the same foundation of classical antiquity with which we
find them fEuniliar^ they yet could never have produced those
works of sublime poetry and creative art which are the
boast of our European cultivation.

S THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OV THE
U^^ VERSE. — OCEANIC DI300TEEIES.

Epoch of the Oceanic Discovcriea — Oponiiig of the Western Hemi-
sphere— Eveats, and Estfinsion of different Branches of Scientific
Knowledge, which prepared the waj for the Oceanic DiscovBrias.
— Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, and Vosco de Gama — America and
the Pacific Ocean — Cahrillo, Sebastian Vizcaino, MendaBa, and
Quiros. — The rich abundance of materiab for tbe foundation of
Phjsical Geograjihj offered to the nations of Europe.

The fifteenth centurj belongs to those rare epochs in the
history of the worid, in which all the efforts of the human
mind are invested with a determinate and common charac-
ter, and manifest an unswerving direction towards a single
object. Tlie unity of these endeavours, the success with
which they were crowned, and the vigour and activity dis-
played by entire uations, give grandeur and enduring splen-
dour to the age of Columbus, of Sebastian Cabot, and of
Vaaco de Giama. Intervening between two different stages
of cultivation, the fifteenth century forms a transition epoch
belonging at once to the middle ages and to the commence-
ment of modem times. It is the epoch of the greatest dis-
coveries in geographical space, comprisuig almost nil degrees
of latitude, and almost every gradation of elevation of the
earth's surface. To the inhabitants of Europe it doubled

OCEANIC DISCOYBEIES.

231 ^^

the works of Creation, while at the same time it offered to
the intellect new and powerful inciteineuta to the imjirove-
ment of the natural sciences in theic physical and mathe-
matical depaftments. (3^')

The world of objects, now as in Alexander's campaigns
but with yet more preponderating power, presented to
the combining miud the separate forms of sensible ob-
jects, and the concurrent action of animating powers or
forces. The scattered images offered to the contemplation
of the senses, notwithstanding their number and diversity,
were gradually fused into a concrete wiiole ; terrestrial nature
was conceived in its generality, no longer according to mere
presentiments or conjectures floating in varying forms before
the eye of iancy, but as a result of actual observation. The
vault of heaven also offered to the jet unarmed eye new
regions, adorned with constellations before unseen. As I
have already remarked, at no period has there been offered
to mankind a greater abuudance of new facts, or fuller ma-
terials for the foundation of comparative physical geography.
I may add, that never were geographical or physical disco-
veries more iidluential on human affairs. A larger field of
view was opened, commerce was stimulated by a great in-
crease in the medium of eschange, as well as by a large
accession to the number of natural productions valued for
use or enjoyment ; above all, there were hiid the fomidatious
of colonies, of a magnitude never before known : and througli
the agency of aU these causes, extraordinary changes were
wrongbt in manners and customs, in the condition of ser-
vitude long experienced by a portion of mankind, and
in thek late awakening to political freedom.

a puticular epoch thus stands out in the histo^

r

832 EPOCHS IN TEE histohy op the contemplation

TION ^^^^

of maiiMnd, as marked by important intellectual
shall iind on examination tliat preparations for this prc^esa
had been made during a long series of antecedent centuries.
It does not appear to belong to the destinies of the human
race that all portions of it should suffer eclipse or obscura-
tion at the same time. A preserving principle maintains
the ever living process of the progress of reason. The
epoch of Coiumbus attained the fulfilment of its objects so
rapidly, because their attainment was the development of
fruitful germs, which had been previously deposited by a
aeries of biglily gifted men, who formed as it were a long
beam of light which we may trace throughout the whole of
what have been called the dark ages. A single century, the
tliirteeiith, shows us Roger Bacon, Nicolaus Scotus, Albertoa
Magnus, and Vincentios of Beauvais. The subsei^nent more
general awakening of mental activity soon bore fruit in the
extension of geographical knowledge. When, in 1625,
Diego Eibero returned from the geographico-astronomical
congress wliich was held at the Puente de Caya near Yelves,
for the termination of differences respecting the boundariea
of the two great empires of the Portuguese and Spanish
monarchies, the outlines of the New Continent had already
been traced from Terra del Fuego to the coasts of Labra*
dor. On the western side, opposite to Asia, the advances
were naturally less rapid ; yet in 1543 Rodriguez Csbrillo
bad already penetrated north of Monterey ; and after this
great and adventurous navigator bad met his death off
New California, in the Channel of Santa Barbara, the pilot
Bartholomew Feneto still led the expedition as far as the
degree of latitude, where Vancouver's Ca]>e Oxford ia
situated. The emulative activity of the Spaniards, English,

I

J

TH8 BirrVEiaE.— OCEANIC DlaCOVEKIES. 238

and Portuguese, was then so great, that half a century suf-
ficed to determine the outline or tlie general direction of the
coasts of the "Western Contineat.

Although the acquaintance of the nations of Europe with
the western hemisphere is the leading subject to which thia
section is devoted, and around which are grouped the nu-
merons results which flow from it of jiister and grander
views of the Universe, yet we must draw a strongly marked
line of separation between the first discovery of America
In its more northern portions, which is certainly to be
ascribed to the NortJunen, and the re-discovery of the same
Continent in its tropical portions. Whilst the Caliphate
of Bagdad still flourished under the Abassides, andwliile the
Samanidea whose reign was so favourable to poetry bore sway iu
PersiB,America was discovered in the year 1000, by anorthem
route, aa far south as 41^° north latitude, by Leif, the son of
Eric the Eed. (3^*) The first but accidental step towards this
discovery was made from Norway, In the second half of the
ninth century, Naddod, having sailed for the Fiiroe Islands,
which had previously been visited from Ireland, was driven
by storms to Iceland, and the first jVormau settlement waa
established there by Ingolf, in 875. Greenland, the eastern
peninsula of a land wliich is everywhere separated by the
sea from America proper, was early seeji, (^^^) but was first
peopled from Iceland a hundred years later, in 983, The
colonization of Iceland, which had been first called by Nad-
dod, Snowland (Snjoland), now conducted, in asonth-westerly
direction, passing by Greenland, to the New Continent.

The Fiiroe Islands and Iceland must be regarded as in-
termediate stations, and as points of departure for enter-
prises to Scandinavian America. In a similar manner the

234 UPOCHS m ras msmM op tbs oo:<tei[flitio!( or

settlement of the Tyriima at Cartli^e had dded them to
reach the Straits of G^adei^a and the port of Tarteaaus, and
Tartessns itself conducted this enterprising race from station
to station to Cerne, the Gaulcoa (ship island) of the Car-
thagioians, (^^)

Notwithstanding the proximity of the opposite coast of
Labrador (Helluland it miklaor the great), 125 years elapsed
from the first settlement of Northmen in Iceland, to Leif 3
great discovery of ^Vmerica; so small were the means wliich,
in tliis remote and desoiate part of the globe, a noble, ener-
getic, but not wealthy race, were able to devote to naval en-
terprises. The line of coast called Yinland, from wild
vines which were fonnd there by the German Tyrker,
charmed its discoverers by the fertility of its soil and the
mildness of its climate, compared with Iceland and Green-
land. The tract which received from Loif the name of
Vinland it goda (Vinland the good), comprised the [coast
line between Boston and New York ; therefore parts of the
present states of Massachnsetts, Rhode Island, and Connec-
ticut, between the parallels of Civita Vecchia aud Terracina,
but wliich corresponded there to mean annual temperatures
of 51-8° and b7-Z° of Tahr. ('"s) This was the principal set-
tlement of the Northmen. The colonists had frequently to
contend with a very warlike tribe of Esquimaux, then ex-
tending much farther to the south, under the name of Skrfi-
linger. The first bishop of Greenland, Eric Upsi, an Icelan-
der, undertook, in 1131, a Christian mission to Vinland ; and
the name of the colonised country has even been metvrith in
old national songs of the natives of the Fiiroe Islands, ('^)

'ITie activity, courage, and cnter^jrising spirit of the ad-
venturers from Iceland and Greenland, is manifested by the

THE ON1VBB8E. — OCEAWIC DI8COVBHIES. 235

fact, tliat af6er tliey had settled themselves so far south as
41J° N. latitude, they prosecuted their researches to the
latitude of 72° 56' oq the east coast of Baffin's Bay; where, on
one of the Womeu's Islands, (^^') north-west of the present
most northern Danish settlement of Upernavik, they set op
three stone pillars marking the limit of their discoveries.
The Runic inscription on the stone discovered there in the
antnmn of 1824, contains, according to Bask and Finn
Magnusen, the date 1135, From this eastern coast of
Baffin's Bay tlie colonists very regularly visited Lancaster
Sound, and a part of Barroi/s Strait, for purposes of
fishing, more than six centuries before the adventuroM
voj-age of Parry. The locality of the fishery is very dis-
tinctly described, and priests from Greenland from the
bishopric of Gardar conducted the first voyage of discovery
(12C6). This north-westernmost summer station is called
the Krotsfjardar-IIeide. Mention is made of the drift-
wood (doubtless from Siberia) which was collected there,
and of the abundance of whales, seals, walruses, and sea-
bears. (369)

Our accounts of the communications of the extreme
north of Em^jpe, and of Iceland and Greenland, with the
American Continent properly so called, only extend to the
middle of the lith century. In 13i7, a ship was sent from
Greenland to MarUand (Nova Scotia), to bring building
timber and other necessary articles. In returning from
Markl&nd the ship was driven by tempests and forced to
take refuge in Straumfiord, in the West of Iceland, This
is the latest notice having reference to America, preserved
to na in ancient Scandinainan writings. {^^^)
pi have hitherto kept strictly on historic ground. By the

i

EPOCHS m THE HI8T0BT OF THK CONTEMPLATION OF

criticfl] and higUj praiseworthy laboiira of CliriBtian Bofu,
and of the Royal Society established at CopeQhagen for the
study of northern antiqnitieSj the Sagas and original
sources of information respecting the voyages of the North-
men to Hclluland (Newfoundland), to Markland, the mouth
of the St. Lawrence, and Nova Scotia, and to Vinland
(Massachusetts), have been severally printed, and satisfac-
torily commented on. {^'">) The duration of the voyage,
the course, and the times of sunrise and sunset, aie aU
expressly given.

Tliere is less certainty respecting the traces which have
been supposed to be found of a discovery of America from
Ireland previous to the year 1000. The Skriilinger related
to the Northmen settled in Vinland, that farther to the
south, beyond Chesapeake Bay, there were " white men,
wearing long white garments, who carried before them polea
with pieces of cloth fastened to them, and who called with
aloud voice," This account was interpreted by the ChristiBn
Northmen to indicate processions, with banners and singing.
In the oldest Sagas, in the historical narratives of Thorium
Karlsefne, and the Icelandic Ijandnama-books, these sou-
thern coasts between Virginia and Florida are designated by
the name of White Men's Land. They are also called
Qretit Ireland (Irland it mikla), and it is assertetl that Ihey
were peopled from Ireland. According to testimonies
which go back as far as 1061, before Leif discovered Vin-
land, probably about the year 982, Ari Marsson, of the
powerful Icelandic family of Ulf the squint-eyed, on a
voyage from Iceland to the southward, was driven by
storms to the coast of White Men's Land, and was there
baptized a Christian j and not being permitted to go away.

THE UNIVERSE. — OCKASIC DISCOVEEIE9. 237

waa recognised tliere by men from there Orkney Islands and
Iceland. {"")

Some northern antiquaries are of oiiinion that as in the
oldest Icelandic documents the first inhabitants of the island
are called " West men who arrived by sea," {and settled
themselves at PapyH on the south-east coast and on the
adjacent small island of Papar), Iceland must have been
first peopled not directly from Europe, but from Virginia
and Carolina, that is to say from Irland it mikla or White
Men's land, which had received its inhabitants from Ireland
at a still carher period. The important treatise entitled " de
Mensuru Orbis Terra;" by the Irish monk Dicuil, which was
written in 825, being 38 years before Iceland was discovered
by Northman Naddod, does not, however, confirm this opinion.

Christian anchorites in the north of Europe, and Buddhist
monks in the interior of Asia, have explored and opened to
civilisation regions wliich were supposed to be inaccessible.
The desire of estending religious dogmas has led sometimes
to warlike enterprises, and sometimes has prepared the way
to peaceful ideas and to commercial relations. In the first
half of the middle ages geography was advanced by enter-
prises dictated by the religious zeal, strongly contrasted
with the indilTerence of the polytheist Greeks and Romans,
of Christians, Buddliists, and Mahometans. Letronne, in
his commentwy on Dicuil, has with much ingenuity and
acutcness made it appear probable that after the Irish
inissionaries were expcUed from the Faroe Islands by the
Nortlunen, they began about the year 793 to visit Iceland.
When the Northmen first landed in Iceland they found
there Irish books. Mass bells, and other objects which had
been left behind by earlier visitors called Papar : these pajwe

I

238 BP0CH8 IS THE HISTOET OF THE CONTGMPLATIOX OP

(fathers) were the clerici of Dicuil. {'^^) If then,
may suppose from the testimony here referred to, these
ohjecta belonged to Irish monks (papar) who had come fcom
the Faroe Islands, why should they have been termed in the
native Sagas, " West men" (Vestmeii), " who had come over
tlie sea from the westward" (kommir til vestan ran haf) ?
All that relates to the supposed voyage of the Gaelic chieftain
Madoc the son of Owen Gwyneth, is as yet veiled in pro-
found obscurity : the supposed race of Celto-Amcricana,
which credulous travellers thought they had discovered in
eoveral parts of the United States, is gradually disappeariug
since the introduction of strict ethnologii'al comparison,
founded not on accidental resemblances of words, but on
organic structure and grammatical forms. (3'^)

Tliat this first discoveiy of America in or before the
eleventh centiiry was not productive of a great and per-
manent eidargenacnt of the physical contemplation of tlie
Universe, as was the re-discovery of the same continent by
Columbus at the close of the fifteeuth century, is an almost
necessary consequence of the uncultivated condition of the
race by whom the first discovery was made, and of the nature
of the regions to which it remained limited. The Scandi-
navians were not prepared by any scientific knowledge to
explore the lands in which they settled farther than apiieared
necessary for the supply of their most immediate wants.
Greenland and Iceland, which must be regarded as the true
mother countries of those 7iew colonics, are regions in which
man has to cope with all the difficulties and hardships of an
inhospitable chmafe. Tlie wonderfully organised Icelandic
Free State did, indeed, preserve its independence for Uiree
centuries and a half, until the destruction of civil freedois,

THE trmVERSE, OCEANIC DISCOVERIEI

and the subjection of tbe country to tiie Norwegian king,
Haco YI. The flower of the Icelandic literature, the
historical writings, the collection of Sagas and of the songs
of the Edda, belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
It is a remarkable phenomenon in tbe liistory of the intel-
lectual cultivation of nations, that when the national treasures
of t!ie oldest documents belougiug to the North of Europe
were placed in jeopardy by the unquiet state of their own
country, they should ha\ e been con% eved to Iceland and there
carefully presen'ed, and thus retcued for posterity, Tliis
rescue, tbe remote consequence of Ingolf's first settlement
in Iceland in 875, became, Anndat the undefined and
misty forms of the Scanduiavian world of mytlis and of
figurative cosmogouiei, an e\ent of much injportance in
respect to the fruits of the poetical and imaginative faculties
of naen ; it was only natural Icnowledge which gained no
enlargement. Travellers from Iceland visited the learned
institutions of Germany and Italy; but the discoveries made
from Greenland towards the south, and the inconsiderable
intercourse maintained with Vinland, the vegetation of
which did not present any striking peculiarity of cha-
racter, had so bltie power to divert settlers and mariners
from their wboUy European interest, that no tidings of these
newly settled countnes spread among the cultivated nations
of Southern Europe. Even in Iceland itself no notice
respecting them appears to have reached the ears of the
great Genoese navigator. Iceland and Grecidand had then
been already separated fi'om each other for more than two
centuries, as in 1201 Greeidand had lost its republican
constitution, and as a possession of the crown of Norway
had been formally interdicted from all intercourse with

840 EPOCHS in THE HISTOET OP THE COHTBMPtATION Of

foreigners, and even with Iceland. In a now very rare work
of Colmnbua " on the Pive Habitable Zones of the Earth,"
he mentions having visited Iceland in the month of Febmarj
1477, and adds that "the sea was not then covered witli
ice, (^^*) and that the country was visited by many traders
from Bristol." If he had heard there of the former coloni-
sation on an opposite coast of an extensive connected terri-
tory—of Helluland it mikla, of Marldand, and of " the good
Vinlaud" — and had connected this knowledge of a neigh-
bouring continent with the projects with which he had
already been occupied since 1470 and 1473,^ — his visit to
Thule (Iceland) would no doubt have been snore spoken of
in the celebrated lawsuit respecting the merit of the first
discovery, which was not concluded until 1517 ; for t^
BUspicious Fiscal even mentions a chart (mappa mundo)
which Martin AJonso Pinzon had seen at Home, on which
the New Continent was said to have been laid down. If
Columbus had designed te seek for a land of which he had
obtained information in Icelaid, he would certainly not
have steered a south-westerly course from the Canaries in
his first voyage of discovery. Between Bergen and Green-
land, however, commercial relations still subsisted in 14S4,
seven years aftffl- Columbus's voyage fa Iceland.

Very different from the first discovery of the new con-
tinent in the eleventh century, in its results on the history
of the world, and in ita influence on the enlargement
of the physical contemplation of the Universe, was the
le-discovery of Amerioi, — the discovery of its tropical
lands, — by Columbus. Although in conducting his great
enterprise he had by no means in view the discovery of a
new part of the world; although it is even certain that

THE UNIVEKSE. OCEANIC DISCOYBEIEa, 241

both Colurabua and Amerigo Vespucci (lied in the firm per-
suasion (37S) that, the lands which thej had aeeJi were
merely portious of Eastern Asia, jet his voyage has all the
character of the execution of a plan founded on scientific
combinations. Tke expedition steered confidently onward
to the west through the gate whic;h the Tynans aud Colsens
of Samos had opened, tlu-ough the " immeasurable sea of
darkness" (mare tenebrosum) of the Arabian geographers j
they pressed forwards towards an object o( which they
thought they knew the distance: the mariners were not
accidentaDy driven by tempests, as were Naddod and Gardar
to Iceland, and Gunnbiom the son of Ulf Kraka to Green-
land, nor were the discoverers conducted onward by inter-
vening stations. The great Nuremberg cosmographer,
Martin Beliaim, who accompanied the Portuguese Diego
Cam on his important expeditions to the west coast of
Africa, bved four years (1486-1490) at the Azores ; hut it
was not from these islands, situated at -fths of the distance
of the Iberian coast from that of Pensylvania, tJiat America
was discovered. The determined purpose of the act is
finely celebrated in the stanzas of Tasso.- He sings of that
which Hercules dared not attempt : —

Mon 090 di tentnr I'alto Oceano

Stgob le mete, e'n troppo breri chioetrl

L'arilii rlEtrinse ieW ingegno umapo

Tempo vcrri the fian d'Ercole i segni

FbvoIs vile ui naviganti industri

Un nom dclla Ligmia bttS. ardimenlo

All' mcognito corso dapuisi in prima

Tasso, xv. 8t. 33, 30 and 81.

And yet all that the great Portuguese historical writer
John Barros, (^76) whose first decade appeared in 1552, has
VOL. II. m;

84B EPOCHS IN THfl HI8TOBT OF THB COWTEMPLATION OP

to say of this " uom della Liguria," is, that he was a vain
and fantastic talker : (homem fallador e glorioso em
raostrar suas habilidades e mais fantastico, e de imaginaijoeB
com sua Hha Cypango.) It is thus that, tluoughout all
ages and ail degrees of civilization yet attained, national <
aniiDosity has endeavoured to obscure the brightness of glo-
rious nmaes.

In the history of the contemplation of the Universe, the ■
discovery of tropical America by Christopher Columbus, I
Alonso de Hojeda, and Alvarez, Cabral, must not be regarded
as an isolated event. Its influence on the extension of phy-
sical knowledge, and on the enrichment of the world of
ideas, cannot be justly apprehended, without easring a brief
glance on the preceding centuries, which separate the age of
the great nautical enterprises from the period when the
scientific cultivation of the Arabians flourished. That whici
gave to the era of Columbus its distinctive chiffacter, as a
series of uninterrupted and successfol exertions for the
attainment of iiew geographical discoveries or of an enlarged
knowledge of the earth's surface, was prepared beforehand,
slowly, and in various ways. It was so prepared by a sn
number of courageous men, who roused themselves at once
to general freedom of independent thought, and to the in-
vestigation of particular natural pha:nomena ; — by the in-
fluence escrted on the most profound springs of intellec-
taal life by the renewed acquaintance fonned in Italy
with the works of Greek and Roman literature; — by lie
discovery of an art which lends to thought at once wings
for rapid transmission and indefinitely multipHett means
preservation; — and by the more extensive knowledge of
Eastern Asia, which travelling merchants, and the nionka

THB TTSIVEESE. — OCEANIC DISCOVEEIES. 243

who had been sent as ambassadors to the Mogul princes,
circukted amongst those oatioiis of south-western Europe
who were most disposed to distant commerce and inter-
course, and most eagerly desirous of discovering a shorter
route to the Spice Islands. The fdfihneut of the wishes
which all fhese causes contributed to excite was in tlie most
important degree facilitated towards the close of the 15th
century, by advances in the art of navigation, the gradual
improvement of nautical instruments, maguetical as well as
astronomical ; and finally, by the introduction of new me-
thods of determining the ship's place, and by the more
general use of the cphemerides of the sun and moon pre-
pared by Itegiomontanus.

Without entering into details in the liistory of the
sciences which do not belong to the preseut work, we must
cite among those who bad prepared the way for the epoch of
Columbus and Gama, tliree great names, Albertus Magnus,
Koger Bacon, and Vincent of Beauvaia. I have given these
three in the order of time, — but the name of most importance,
' aud which belongs to the most comprehensive genius, is
unquestionably that of Koger Bacon, a Franciscan monk of
Dchester, who studied in Oxford and in Puns. All three
were in advance of their age, aud acted powerfully upon it.
In the long aud for the most part unfruitful contests of
dialeclic speculations, and of the logical dogmatism of a
philosophy which has been designated by the vague and
equivocal term of scholastic, we camiot overlook the advan-
tage derived from what might he called the after -action of
the influence of the Arabians. The peculiarity of their
national character, described in the preceding section, and
their attachment to the contemplation and study of nature,

I

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244 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COytEMPLATIOTT OV

had procured for the newly translated writings of Aristotle
an est«i)sive receptionj which was intimately connected with
the predilection for the experimental sciences, and highly
conducive to the gradual establishment of a basis on which
they might hereafter be solidly built. Until the end of the
twelfth and the cammencement of the thirteenth centuries,
misunderstood doctrines of the Platonic philosophy pre-
vailed in the schools. The l^'athers of the Church (3'^} had
thought they discovered iu them types of their own religions
contemplations. Many of the sjinbolising physical fancies
of the TimEEus were accepted with enthusiasm ; and thus
confused and erroneous ideas respecting the Cosmos, of
which the Alexandrian mathematical school had long since
shown the groundlessness, were revived by Christian antho-
rity. Thus the predominance of the Platonic philosophy,
or, to speak more correctly, of the new modifications of Fla-
tonism, was propagated under varying forms from Augustine
to Alcuin, John Scotus, and Bernard of Chartres, (^'^)

When, on the other hand, the Aristotelian philosophy
gained the ascendancy, it influenced the minds of its students
at once towards the researches of speculative philosophy, and
tlie philosophical elaboration of natural knowledge by way of
experiment. Of these two directions the first might appev
to be but httle connected with the object of the present worl j
yet it must not be left without allusion, because, in the middle
of the period of dialectic scholastics, it tended to incite a few
noble and highly gifted minds to the exercise of free and inde-
pendent thought, ui the most different departments of know-
ledge. An enlarged physical contemplation of the universe not
only requires a rich abundance of observations to afford a sati^
factory basis for the generalisation of ideas; but also a pre-

THB DKIVBKSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 215

paratorj invifjoratiiig traitiiug of meu's mindsj anil tliis, ei3 well
as for other and more obvious reasons, in order that in the
often awakened contest between knowledge and faith, they
might not be deterred by threatening forma, which even in
modem times have been onwiseiy regarded as forbidding
access to certain departments of experimental science.

When toacliing on intellectual devolopment, we may not
separate the animating inflnencea of the eonciouanesa of man's
jnst privilege of intellectual freedom, and the long unsatisfied
desire of wider fields of knowledge, embracing the more distant
regions of the surface of the earth. A. series of such inde-
pendent thinkers might be named, beginning in the middle
ages with Duns Scotus, WiUiani of Occam, Nicholas of Cusa,
and continued through Ramus, Campanella and Giordano
Bruno to Descartes. (^'9}

The apparently impassable "gulf between thinking and
being, thought and actual esistence ; — the relation between
the mind which recognises and the object recognised" divided
the Dialecticians into the two celebrated schools of the
BeaEsts and tlie Nominalists. The almost forgotten con-
tests of these schools of the micldle ages are here referred to,
because they exerted a material influence on the final
establishment of the basis of the experimental sciences.
After many fluctuations iu the success of the two parties, the
victory finally remained in the lith and 15th centuries with
the Nominalists, who allow to external nature only a sub-
jective existence iu the human mind. From their greater
aversion to empty abstractions they first urged the necessity
of experience, and the propriety of augmenting the bases
of knowledge, or recognition through the medium of the
Thus, this direction of men's thoughts was of

pr

^B S46 EPOC

^V least indin

I

I

E HISTOEY OP THE CONTEMPLATION 07

least indirectly inflaentia! on the cultivation of experimental
natural knowledge ; but even where the views of the Beatista
were atiU exclusively prevalent, acquaintance with Arabian
literature had fostered a love for natural knowledge, and
aided it to assert its place successfully, amidst the exclusively
abaorbuig teudeoey of theological studies. Thus, we see
that in the different periods of the middle ages, to which too
great a unity of character is perhaps usually ascribed, the
way for the great work of discoveries over the surfece of the
earth, and for their successful emplo}'ment in the enlarge-
ment of the circle of cosmical ideas, was gradually prepared
through wholly difl'erent trams of thought, the one purely
ideal and the other empirical.

Natural knowledge was intimately connected among the
learned Arabians with the study of medicines and with
philosophy; and in the Christian middle ages with philo-
sophy and with dogmatic theological studies. The latter
^1 from their tendency to claim exclusive dominion repressed
^M empirical investigation in physics, organic morphology, and
^M astronomy, which indeed was for the most part allied to
^M astrology. The study of the works of the an-embracing
^m mind of Aristotle, which had been brought in by Arabs and
^M Jewish Eabbis, (^^o) had tended to produce a philosophical
^1 fasion of different branches of study j and thus Ibu-Sinfl
^M (Avicenna) and Ibn-Roschd (Averroes), Alhertus Magnus
^M and Eoger Bacon, passed as the representatives of all hunmn
^M knowledge possessed by their age. We may hence estimate
^1 the fame which in the middle ages surrounded the names of
^1 these eminent men.

^M Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstadt,

^B must be cited as himself an observer in the domain of

THE TJUrVEEBE. OCEASIC DiaOOVERIES.

analytical chemistry. Hie hopes were indeed directed to
the transmutation of metals; but in seeting the fulfilment
of these hopea, he not only materially improved the practical
mampulation and treatment of oreSj but also gained additional
insight into the general mode of operation of the chemical
forces of nature. His works contain some exceedingly acute
detached remarks on the organic structure and physiology
of plants. He was acquainted with the sleep of plants,
with the periodical opening and closing of blossoms, with
the diminution of sap during evaporation from the cuticle
of the leaves, and with the influence of the distribution
of the bundles of vessels on the indentations of the leaves.
He wrote a commentary upon the whole of Aristotle's works
on physics and natural history, following, however, in the
history of animals, only the Latin trojislation of Micliael
Scot from the Arabic. (^^') A work of Albertus Magnus
bearing the title of Liber Cosmographicua de Katura
Locorum is a species of physical geography. I liave
found in it considerations on the dependence of tempera-
ture concurrently on latitude and elevation, and on the effect
of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays in heating
the ground, which have excited my surprise. He owes
perhaps Ms having been celebrated by Dante, less to himself
than to his beloved scholar Thomas Aquinas, who he took
ftith him from Cologne to Paris in 1245, and brought back
to Germany in 1248.

Queati, che m' e a destra pii) vicino,
Frate e mncstco Ihmmi ; ei esso Alberto
E' di Cologna, ed lo Thomaa d' Aqniiio.

li. PiRiDISO, X. 07—30.

I all that relates immediately to the extension of the

248 BPOCaS IN TEH HI3T0EY OF tSE OOlfXBHPtAilOS OV

natural sciences, to their mathematical foundation, and to
the intentional prodnction of phenomena in the way rf
experiment^ Albert von Bollstadt or Albertus Magnus, the
cotemporary of lioger Bacon, holds the foremost place in
the middle ages. These two men occupy between than
almost the entire thirteenth century; but to Boger Bacon
belongs the praise, that the influence exerted by him on thft
form and treatment of the study of nature was more bene-
ficial and more permanent in its operation, than the several
discoveries which have been with more or less correctness
ascribed to him. Awaiened himself to independent thought,
he condemned strongly the blind faith in the authorities of
the schools; yet far from being indifferent to the investiga-
tion of Grecian antiquity, he at the same time appreciated
and vidned a thorough study of that language, {^^^) the ap-
plication of mathematics, and the " Scientia esperimentalis,"
to which last he devoted a particular section of the Opus
Majua. {^^^) Protected and favoured by one pope
(Clement IV.), and accused of magic and imprisoned bj
two others (Nicholas III. and TV.), he experienced the
alternations of fortune to which in all ages great minds
have frequently been subject. He was acquainted with
Ptolemy's Optics, (^^) and with the Almagest. As, Hke
the Arabians, he always calls Hipparchua Abraxis, we inij
infer that he too only made use of a Latin translation
derived from the Arabic. Next to hia chemical experiments
on combustible explosive mixtures, hia theoretico-optical
works on perspective, and on the position of the focus in
concave mirrors, are the most important. His Opus MaJM,
which is full of thought, contains proposals and plans of
possible execution, but no clear traces of success in opttcsl

THB"DiilVBRSE. — OCEANIC DI3C0VEKIES. 249

discoveries. Nor are we to ascribe to him profound jnatlie-
matical knowledge. His characteristic is rather a certain
liveliness of imagination, which the impression of so raaiiy
great and unexplained natural plienomenaj the long and
painful search for the solution of mysterious problems,
had raised to a degree of morbid iutensity among those
of the meditcval monks whose minds were directed to
the study of philosophy. The difficulties which, before the
invention of printing, the expense of copyists opposed to
the assemblage of many separate manuscripts, produced in
tiie middle ages, when after the thirteenth century the circle
of ideas began to enlarge, a great predilection for Encyclo-
pffidic works. These works arc deserving of particular
attention in this place, because thej led to the generalisation
of views.' There appeared in succession, one work being in
great measure founded on its predecessors, the twenty
books de rerum natura of Thomas Cantipratensis, Professor
at Louvain in 1230 ; the mirror of nature (Speculum naturale)
which Vincent of Beauvaia (Bellovacensis) wrote for St
Lewis and his consort Margaret of Provence in 1250; the
"book of nature" of Conrad of Meygenberg, a priest at
Eegensburg in 13i9; and the "picture of the world"
(Imago Mundi) of Cardinal Petrus de AlKaco, Bishop of
Cambray, in 1110. Tliese Encyclopfcdias were the precur-
sors of the great Margarita philosophica of Father Eeiseh,
the first edition of which appeared in 14S6, and which for
half a century promoted in a remarkable maimer the
Krtension of knowledge. We must here dwell a little more
particularly on the Imago Mundi of Cardinal Alliacua
(Kerre d'Ailly). I have shewn elsewhere that tliis work
«u more influential on the discovery of America, than was

250 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF

the correspondence with the learned riorentine Toscanelli
(3*6). All that Columbus knew of Greek and Eomaii
writers, aU the pass^es of Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca, on
the nearness of Eastern Asia to the pilla-s of Hercules,
which, as his son Don remtmdo tells ua, were what princi-
pally incited hia father to the discoveiy of Indian lands,
(autoridad de los escritores para mover al Almirante a'
descubrir las Indias) were derived by the Admiral from the
writings of Alliacua. Columbus carried these writings
with liiTTi on his voyages ; for, in a letter written to the
Spanish raonarchs in October 1498 from Hayti, he translates
word for word a passage from the Cardinal's treatise, " de
quantitate terra habitabilis," by wMcli he had been pro-
foundly impressed, lie probably did not know that Alliacus
had on his part transcribed word for word from another earlier
book, Eoger Bacon'a Opus Majus, (^^) Singular period,
when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes
(Avenryz), Eadraa and Seneca, on the small extent of the
ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land,
afforded to monarcha guarantees for the safety and expedi-
ency of costly enterprises I

I have noticed the ajipearance, at the close of the
thirteenth century, of a decided predilection for the studj
of the powers or foreea of nature, and of a progressively
increasing philosophical tendency in the form assumed by thai
study, in its establishment on a scientific experimentai
basis. It still remains to give a brief description of the
influence which, from the end of the fourteenth century, the
awakening attention to classical Uterature exercised on the
deepest springs of the intellectual life of nations, and thus
l^on the general contemplation of the Universe. The

THE DHIVEBSE. OCBABIO DISCOVEBIES. 251

individual intellectuiil character of a few highly gifted men
had contribated to the augineEtation of the riches of the
world of ideas. The susceptibility to a more free intel-
lectual development existed at the period when Grecian
literature, favoured by many apparently accidental relations,
oppressed and driven from its ancient seats, sought a more
secure resting-place in western lauds. The Arabians in
their classical studies had remained strangers to all that
belongs to the uispiration of language. Those studies were
limited to a very small number of ancient writers ; and in
accordance with the strong national predilection for tlie
pursuit of natm^l knowledge, were principally directed to
Aristotle's books of Physics, Ptolemy's Almagest, the bo-
tany and chemistry of Dioscorides, and the cosmologieal
phantasies of Plato, The dialectics of Aristotle were
associated by the Arabians with physical, as they were by
the earlier portion of the Christian middle ages with
theological, studies. In both cases, men borrowed from the
ancients what they judged available for particular applica-
tions; but they were far indeed from apprehending ihe
genius of Greece as a whole, from penetrating the organic
structure of its language, from delighting in its poetic
creations, and from searching out its admirable treasures
in the fields of oratory and historical writing.

Almost two centuries before Petrarch and Boccaccio,
John of Salisbury and the platonising Abelard had exercised
a beneficial influence in reference to actjuaiutance with some
of the works of classical antiquity. Both felt the beauty
and the charm of writings in which nature and mind,
freedom and subjection to measure, order, and harmony, are

J

L

252 EPOCHS DJ THB HISTORY 0? THE CONTEMPLATIOlfffl

ever found conjoined; but the influence of the fflathetic
feeling thus awakened in tliem vanished mthout leaving
farther traces ; and the praise of having prepared in Italy
a permanent resting place for the esiled Grecian Muses,
of having laboured most powerfully for the restoration of
classical literature, belongs to two poets intimately linked
with each other in the bonds of iriendahip — Petrarch and
Boccaccio. They had both received lessons from a Odabrian
monk named Earlaam, who had long Uved in Greece enjoying
the favour of the Emperor Andronicns. C^') They first com-
menced the careful collection of Soman and Grecian manu-
scripts ; and even an historical eye for the comparison of
languages had been awakened in Petrarch, p^^) whose
philological acuteness seemed to tend towards a more
general contemplation of the Universe. Emanuel Chryso-
loras, who was sent as ambassador from Greece to Italy and
to England in 1391, Cardinal Bessarion of Trebizond,
Gemiatus Pletho, aid the Athenian, Demetrius Chalcondylas,
to whom is owing the first printed edition of Homer, (***)
were all important agents in promoting acquaintance wi^
Grecian Hterature. All these came from Greece before tic
eventful taking of Constantinople on the 29th of May, 1453;
it was only Constantino Lascaris, whose ancestors had once sal
on the throne of the eastern empire, who came later to Italv ;
he brought with him a precious collection of Greek manu-
scripts, which is now buried in the seldom-used library of the
Escurial, [^^°) The first Greek book was printed only fourteen
years before the discovery of America, although the art of print-
ing was discovered (probably simultaneously, and quite inde-
pendently (381) by Guttenberg in Strasburg and MayenCt,

E tKlTEESB, OCEANIC DISCOVEEIES. 253

and by Lorenz Jansson Koster in Haarlem), between 1436
aiid 1439, or in the fortunate epoch of the first immigration
of learned Greeks into Italy.

Two centuries before the fountains of Grecian literature
were open to the nations of the west, and a quarter of a
century before the birth of Dante, who formed one of the
great epochs in the history of the inteUectual cultivation of
southern Europe, events were taking place in the interior of
Asia, as well as in the East of Africa, which, by extending
commercial intercourse, accelerated the arrival of the period
of the cireumnayigation of Africa and of the expedition of
Columbus. The armies of the Moguls in the course of twenty-
six years spread the terror of their name from Pekiu and the
Chinese wall as far as Cracow and Leignitz, and produced a
feeling of alarm tliroughout Christendom, A number of able
monks were sent both in a rehgioua and diplomatic capacity ;
— Jo!m de Piano Carpini and Kicolas Ascelui to Batu Khan,
and Ruisbroeck (Eubmquis) to Mangu Kban to Karakomm.
The last named of these missionaries has left ua some acute
and important remarks on the geographical extension of
different families of nations and of languages in the middle
of tlie thirteenth century. He was the first to recognize
that the Huns, the Bashkirs (inhabitants of Paskatir, Basch-
gird of Ibn-Fozlan), and the Hungarians, were of Finnish
or Uraban race ; and he found Gothic tribes, stiQ preserving
their language, in the strong holds of the Crimea, {^s')
The accounts giveu by Rubruquis of the immeasurable
riches of Eastern Asia excited the cupidity of two
powerful maritime nations of Italy, the Venetians and the
Genoese. Rubruquis knew "the silver walls and goldai
towers of Quinsay," though he does not name that great

254 KPOCSS IN THE HiaTOIlV OP THE CONTEMPLATION OF

commercial city, (the present Hangtcheufu), which twenty-
five years later actiuired such celebrity through the accounts
of the greatest of land traPcUera, Marco Polo (^93), Truth
and naive error are curiously intermingled in the accounts
given by Rubruquia of Ms travela, and preserved to us by
Eogcr Bacon. "Near Cathay, which is bounded by the
Eastern Ocean," he describes a happy land "vrhcre men
and women arriving from other countries cease to grow
old" (^^*). Still more credulous than the monk of Brabant,
and for that reason much more extensively read, was the
Enghsh kiught, Sir John Mandeville. Ke describes India
and China, Ceylon and Sumatra. The variety and personal
interest of his narrative have, (Uke the itineraries of Balducci
Pegoletti, and the narrative of Kuy Gonzalez de Clavijo),
contributed not a httle to increase the disposition towards
intercourse with distant countriea.

It has been often and with singular decision asserted, that
the excellent work of the truth-loviug Marco PolOj and par-
ticularly the knowledge wliich he gave of the Chinese ports
and of the Indian arcliipelago, had great influence on Co-
lumbus, and that he even had a copy of Marco Polo's travels
with him on his first voyage of discovery. {^^) I have
shown that both Columbus himself, and his son Fernando,
apeak of ^neaa Sylvius's (Pope Pius 11.) geography of
Asia, but never name Marco Polo or Mandeville. What
they knew of Quinsay, Zaitun, Mango and Zipangu, may
have been gained, without any immediate acquaintance with
chapters 68 and 77 of the second book of Marco Polo, from
the celebrated letter of Toscanelli, in 1474, ou the lacihty
of reoclung Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the acoouiU
of Nicolo de Conti, who travelled for 35 years through

J

n

THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DiaCOVEEIES. 855 |

India and Soutliera China. The oldest printed edition of !

Marco Polo's travels is a Gennan translation made in 1477,
and this certainly wonld not have been intelligible to Co-
lumbus and Toscanclli. The poaaibility of Columbus having
seen a manuscript written by the Venetian traveller between
the years 1471 and 1492, in wliichhe was occupied with the
project of sailing "to the East by the West" (buacar el
levaute por el ponieate, pasar a donde nacen las especerias,
navegando al occidente), cannot certaiidy be denied ; (^^)
but if so, why, in the letter whicli he wrote to the raonarcha
from Jamaica, June 7, 1503, — in which he describes the ]

ooast of Vcragua as a part of the Asiatic Ciguare, and hopes ,

to see borses with golden trappings, — does not he refer to '|

tbe Zipangu of Marco Polo rather than to that of Papa Pio ? I

At the period when the extension of the great Mogul
empire from the Pacific ia the Volga rendered the interior |

of Asia accessible, the maritime nations of Europe acquired '

a knowledge of Cathay and Zipangu (China and Japan), 1

through the diplomatic missions of the monks, and through
mercantile enterprises conducted by means of land jour-
uiea. Ey an equally remarkable coucateimtion of cir-
cumstances and events, the mission of Pedro de Covilham
and Alonso de Payva, sent in 1487 by King John II.
to seek for " the African Prester John," prepared the way,
not indeed for Bartholomew Diaz, but for Vasco de Gama.
Confiding in reports brought by Indian and Arabian pilots
lo Calicut, Goa, and Aden, as well as to Sofala on the east
coast of Africa, Covilham sent word to King John, by two
Jews from Cairo, that if the Portuguese prosecuted their
voyages of discovery on the western coast of Africa towards
the aouthj they would arrive at the extremity of that couti-

ATiosr^^^^

256 EPOCHS Df THE HISTORT OP THE CONTEMFLATIOSr'

neat ; ftom whence the navigation to the Moon Island {the
Magastar of Polo), to Zanzibar, and to Sofaln rich in gold,
would be found extremely easy. Long before these tidings
reached Lisbon, however, it had been known there that
Bartholomew Diaz had not only discovered the Cape of Good
Hope (Cabo Tormentoso), but had already sailed round it,
though only for a very short distance. (^9') Accounts of
the Indian and Arabian trading stations on the eastern coast
of Africa, and of the configuration of the southern extremity
of the continent, may, indeed. Lave reached Venice very early
in the middle ages, through Egypt, Abyssinia, and Arabia.
The triangular form of Africa is distinctly laid down in the
planisphere of Sanuto p^^) aa early aa 1306 ; in the Genoese
Portulauo della Mediceo-Laurenziaua of 1351 discovered
by Count BaldeUi, and in the map of the world by Ira
Mauro. It is fitting that the history of the contemplation
of the Universe should indicate by a passing allusion the
epochs when the general form of the great continental
masses was first recognised.

Whilst the gradually advancing knowledge of geographicai
relations led men to thint of new and shorter maritime
routes, the means of improving practical navigation by the
application of mathematics and astronomy, by the invention
of new measuring instruments, and by the more skilflU u»
of the magnetic forces, were aho rapidly increasing, It is
highly probable that Europe owes the adaptation of the
directing powers of the magnet to the purposes of navigation
— or the use of the mariner's compass^to the Arabians, and
that they ag^u were indebted for it to the Cliinese. In i
Cliinese work, (the historic Szuld of Szumathaian, a writer
belonging to tlie first half of the second century before our

THE xraiVERaE. — OCBAiriC DISCOVBBIBS.

257 ^l

era), mentiou is made o£ "magnetic cars" given, more than
900 years before, by the emperor Tschingwang of the old
dynasty of the Tscheu to the ambassadors from Tunkin and
Cocbin China, that they might not miss their way on their
homeward journey by land. In Hiutachin's dictionary
Schnewen, WTitten in the third century under the dynasty
of the Han, a description is given of the manner in which
the property of pointing with one extremity to the south is
commimicated to an iron bar : navigation being then most
usually directed to the south, the end of the magnet wliich
pointed southwards was the one always referred to. A
century later, tmder the dynasty of the Tsin, Chinese ships
used the south magnetic direction to guide their course in
the open sea, and these ships carried the knowledge of the
compass to India, and from thence to the east coast of Africa.
The Arabic terms zophron and apLron (for south and north)
(3BB) which Vincent of Beauvais in his mirror of nature
gives to the two ends of the magnetic needle, shew (as do
the many Arabic names of stars which we still employ) the
channel through wbicli tiie nations of the West received
much of their knowledge. In Clunstian Europe the use of
the compass is first mentioned as a perfectly familiar subject
in the pohtico-satirical poem called " La Bible," written by
Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of
Palestine by Jacob of Titry, Bishop o£ Ptolemais, between
1204 and 1215. Dante (Parad. xii. 29) alludes in a com-
parison to the "needle which points to the star."

The discovery of the mariner's compass was long nscrihed
to Havio Gioja of Positano, a place not far from the beauti-
ful ^Vinalfi, which its widely extended maritime laws rendered
so celebrated ; perhaps he may have made (1302) some

I

I

258 EPOCHS IN THE HI9T0IIY OS THE CONTEMPLITIOM OP

improvement in its construction. That the compass was
ased in European seaa much earKer than the beginning of
the fourteenth century ia proved by a, nautical treatise of
Baymond LuDy of Majorca, the highly ingenious and
eccentric man whose doctrines inspired Giordano Bruno with
enthusiasm when a boy, {*"'>) and who waa at once a philo-
sophical systematiser, a practical chemist, a christian teacher,
and a person skilled in navigation. He says in his book
entitled " Fenix de las maravillBS del otbe," written in 1286,
that mariners made use in his time of "measuring instru-
ments, of sea charts, and of magnetic needles." (^<") The
early voyages of the Catalans to the north coast of Scotland
and to the west coast of tropical Africa, {Don Jayme Ferrer,
in the month of August 1346, leached the mouth of the
Hio de Ouro), and the discovery of the Azores (the Bracis
Islands of Picigano's map of the world in 1367) by the
Normans, remind us that the open western ocean was navi-
gated long before Columbus. That navigation of the high
seas which, under the Roman empire, had been ventured
upon in the Indian Ocean between Ocelis and the coast of
Malabar in reliance upon the regularity of the periodical
direction of the winds, (*°^) was here perfonned under the
guidance of the magnetic needle.

The application of astronomy to navigation was prepared
by the inSuence which, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, was exerted, in Italy by Andalone del Nero and
Joim Bianchini who corrected the Alphousine aatronomieal
tables, and in Germany by Nicoiaus of Cusa, (*"') Geoi^ von
Peuerbach, and Eegiomonianus. Astrolabes capable of being
used at sea for the determination of time, and of geographical
l^tudes by meridimi altitudes, underwent gradual improve-

«4

THE UNIVKttSB, — OCEANIC DISCOVEBIES. 869

raeiit from the inatmmeTita used bythe pOota of Majorca de-
scribed hy Eaymond Lully (*"*) in 1295j in liis " Arte de
Navegar," to tliat which Martin Behaim made in 1484 at
Lisbon, and which was perhaps only a simplification of the
metcorcscope of his friend Eegiomontaiius, When the Infante
Henry (Hake of "Viseo) the great enconrager of navigation,
and himself a navigator, founded a Echool of pilots at Sagres,
Maestro Jayme of Majorca was named its director. Martin
Behaim was desired by king John II. of Portugal to compute
tables for the sun's declination, and to instruct pilots to
" navigate by the altitudes of the sun and stars." "Whether
the log line, which makes it possible to estimate the length
of the course passed over, wliilst the direction is given by the
compass, was known as early as the end of the fifteenth
century, cannot be determined, but it is certain that Pigafetta,
a companion of Magellan, speaks of the log (la catena a
poppa) as of a long known means of measnruag the distance
passed over. {*°^)

The infiuenc^i of Arabian civilisation on Spanish and
Portuguese navigation, through the astronomical schools of
Cordova, Seville, and Granada, is not to be overlooked : the
large instruments of Cairo and Bagdad were imitated on a
small scale for maritime use. The names were also tnma-
ferred ; the " aatrolabon" which Martin Behaim attached to
the main mast belongs originally to Ilipparchua. When
Vasco de Gama landed on the east coast of Africa, he
found the Indian pilots at Melinda actjnainted with
the use of astrolabes and cross stafTs. (w^) Thus, by
intercommunication consequent on more extended inter-
course between nations, as well as by original inven-
1, aod by the mutual luda to advancement furnished by

matbematical and aatxonoinical koowledge, every tiling was
graduallj prepared for the great geographical achievements,
which liave distinguished the close of the fifteenth and the
early portion of the sisteenth centuries, or the thirty years
from 1493 to 1522, namely,— the discovery of tropical
America, the rapid determiuation of its form, the passage
round the southern point of Africa to India, and the first
circumnavigation of the globe. Men's minds were also
stimulated and rendered more acute to receive the immense
accession of new phenomena, to work out the results of what
was thus obtained, and by their comparison to render them
available for the formation of higher and more genera] views
of the physical Universe.

It will saffice to allude here to a few only of the princip^
elements of these liigher views, which were capable of con-
ducting men to a farttier insight into the connection of the
phenomena of the globe. In a careful study of the original
works of the earhest historians of the Conqnista, we oftai
discover with aatonishmeEt iu the Spanish writers of tlie
sixteenth century the germ of important physical troths.
At the sight of a continent in the wide waste of waters far
removed from other lands, many of the important questions
which occupy ua in the present day presented themselves M
the awakened curiosity both of the first voyagers and of thoffl
who collected their narrations; — questions respecting lb*
unity of the human race, and its deviations from a common
normal type ; — the migrations of nations, and the rdationsliip
of languages which often shew greater differences in their
radical words than in their flexions or grammatical forms,—
the possibility of the migration of particular species of piuil^
IT animals ; — the cause of the trade winds, and of the constant

J

THE TmiTEESB. — OCEANIC DISCO VZIUES,

currents of the ocean; — the regular decrease of temperature
on the declivities of the Cordilleras, and in successive strata
of water in descending in the depths of the ocean ; — and on
the reciprocal operation upon each other of the different vol-
canoes forming chains, and their influence on the frequency of
earthquakes as well as on the extent of the circles of commotion.
The groundwork of what we now term physical geography,
(ahstracting from it matliematical considerations,) is found
in the Jesuit Joseph Acosta's " Historia natural y moral de
las Inihas," as well as in the wort hy Gonzalo Hernandez de
Oviedo, which appeared only tn'enty years after the death
of Columbus. Never, since the comiDencement of civil
society, was there an epoch in which the sphere of ideas as
regards the external world and geographical relations was so
suddenly and wonderfully enlarged, or in which the desire
of observing nature under difl'erent latitudes and ht different
elevations above the level of the sea, and of multiplying the
means hy which her secrets might be interrogated, was more
keenly felt.

It has, perhaps, as I have elsewhere remarked, (*"') been
erroneously supposed, that the value of these great discoveries,
each of which in tuni promoted others, — of these twofold
conquests in the physical and in the intellectual world, — was
not felt until its recognition in our own days, when the
history of the intellectual cultivation of mankind is made a
subject of philosophic study. Such a supposition is
refuted by the writings of the cotemporaries of Columbus.
The feehngs of tlie most talented ainoiig them anticipated
the influence which the events of the latter part of the fif-
teenth century would exert on mankind. Peter Martyr de
AngUiera (*osj says, in his letters written in 1493 and 1494,

I

I

E70CHS TS THE HISTORT OF THE OONTBIfPTATION UF

"Evcrj day brings to us new wonders from a new world,
from those western antipodes which a certain Genoese
(Christophorus quidam vir Ligur) has discovered. Sent by
our monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, he could with diffi-
culty obtain three ships, since what he SEiid waa regarded as
fabulous. Our friend Poraponius Lietus" (one of the most
distinguished promoters of classical literature, and perse-
cuted at Eome on account of his religious opinions), " could
hardly refrain from tears of joy, when I gave Mm the first
tidings of an event so unbopcd for." Anghicra, from whom
these words are taken, was a higbly intelligent and distin-
guished statesman at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic
and Charles Y., was once sent as ambassador to Egypt, and
was a personal friend of Columbus, Amerigo A'^espucei, Se-
bastian Cabot, and Cortes. His long life comprised the
discovery of the westernmost of the Azores (Corvo), and the
expeditions of Diaz, Columbus, Gama, and Magellan. Pope
Leo X, "continued to a very late hour in the night" read-
ing to his sister and the cardinals, Anghiera's Oceaniea.
Anghiera says, " henceforward I would not willingly leave
Spain again, for I am here at the fountain-head of the tid-
ings from the newly discovered lands, and T may hope, as
the historian of such great events, to obtain for my name
some fame with posterity. (*fs) Thus vividly did cotempo-
raries fed the splendour of events, of which the remem-
brance will survive tlirough all ages.

Columbus, in sailing westward of the meridian of tl»
Azores, through an entirely unexplored sea, and employing
the newly-improved astrolabe for the determinBtioii of his
position, sought the east of Asia by the western route, not
as an adventurer, but according to a preconceived and

TEE mnVEBSX. — OCEANIC DISCOVEEIBS. 263

steadfastly pursued plan. He had indeed on board, tlie sea-
chart which the Fiorentine phyaician and astronomer, Tos-
caneili, had sent to liim in 1477, and which fifty -three years
after his death was still in the possession of Bartholomew
delasCasas. According to the manuscript history of las Caaas
wliich I have examined, this was the Cvirta de Marcar, (■*'")
which the Admiral shewed, on the 25th of September, 1492,
to Martin Alonso Pinzon, and on which several out-lying
islands were drawn. But if Columbus had only followed
the chart of his counsellor Toscanelli, he would have held a
more northern course, and have kept along a parallel of
latitude from Lisbon ; instead of this, in the hope of reaching
Zipangu (Japan) more quickly, he sailed for half the distance
in the latitude of Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, and
subsequently diminishing his latitude, found himself on the
7th of October 1492, in 254°- Uneasy at not having jet
discoYcred the coasts of Zipangu, which according to his
reckoning he should have met \-nth two hundred and sixteen
nautical miles more to the East, he, after a long debate, gave
way to the commander of the Caravel Pinta, Martin Alonso
Pinzon, (one of the three rich and influential brothers who
were hostile to Columbus), and steered towards the south-
west. The course thus altered, led on the 12th of October,
to the discovery of Guanahani.

We must here pause a while, in order to notice a very
remarkable instance of the wonderful enchainment and
connection, wliich huks small and apparently trivial occur-
rences witli great events affecting the world's destiny.
Washington Irving has justly stated, that if Columbus, resist-
ing the counsel of Martin Alonso Pinzon, had continued to sail
on tovarde the west, he would have entered the iraim cuireiit

SPOOBS IK THE HISIOST OF THB ODNTEUPIATTOK Of

of the Gulf stream, have reached Flcirida, and thence perhaps
have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia ; a circum-
stance of immeasurable importoJice, since it might have given
the present United States of America a Roman Catholic Spanish
populatioD, instead of a later BJTi\Tiig Protestant English one.
"It is," said Pinzon to the Admiralj "as if something whis-
pered to my heart {cl corazon me da) that we must change
our com^e." He even maintained in the celebrated lawsuit
{1513-1515), wliich he conclucted against the heirs (rf
Columbus, that on this account the discovery of Amerira
was due to him only. But Pinzon owed in fact this
suggestion, or what " his licart whispered to him," as an old
sailor from Moguer related in the same lawsuit, to the fligU
of a flock of parrots which he saw flying in the evening
towards the southwest for the purpose, as he might suppose
of sleeping among trees or bushes on shore. Never hicl
the flight of birds more important consequences. It saj
be said to have detennined the first settlements on the ne*
Continent, and its distribution between the Latin and
Germanic races (*").

The march of great events, hke the sequence of natural
phenomena, is regulated by laws of which a few only bk
known to us. The fleet which King Emanuel of Portugal sent
under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to India, \sj
the route discovered by Gama, was driven out of its eouw
to the coast of Brazil, on tlie twenty-second of April, 1500.
Prom the zeal which, from the time of the enterprise of
Diaz (1487), the Portuguese shewed for saihng round the
Cape of Good Hope, accidents similar to those which ll*
currents of the ocean occasioned to the sliips of Cabnlj
could hardly have failed to occur. Thus the Africw

J

THE CNtVEaSE. — OCEAWIC DISCOVEEIES. 365

discoveries would liave led to that of Ajiierica south of
the equator ; and Robertson was justified in describing it i\s
in the destiny of mantind, that before the end of the fliteenth
century the new continent should be blown to European
navigators.

Amongst the characteristic quahties possessed by Chris-
topher Columbus, we must especially distinguish the pene-
trating glance and keen sagacity with whicli, though without
learned or scientific culture, and without acquired knowledge
in physics or in natural history, he could seize and combine
the various phenomena of the external world. On arriving
" in a new world and under a new heaven," (*'*) he noticed
carefully the form of the land, the physiognomy of the
vegetation, the habits of the aoimala, the distribution of
heat, and the variations of the earth's magnetism. The old
navigator, wiiilst endeavouring to find the spices of India,
and the rhubarb (ruibarba) which had already acquired so
much celebnty through Arabian and Jewish physicians, and
through the reports of Kubniqnis and the Itahan travellers,
examined very closely the roots, fruits, and form of the leaves
of the plants which fell under liis observation. In this
portion of our work, where we desire to recal the influence
which the great epoch of nautical enterprizes and discoveries
exercised on the enlargement of men's views of nature, our
descriptions will become more animated by being attached
to the iudividuahty of a great man, In the journal of liis
voyage and in his accounts, which were published for the
first time between 18£5 and 1SS9, we find allusions to
almost all the subjects to which eclcutific activity was after-
wards directed in the latter half of the fifteenth ^nd th@
lie of the sixteenth centuries.

TOL. II. S

ft

2C6 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBT OP THE COKTESIPLiTIOX OP

It ia sufficient to recal in a general manner, all tliat the ,
geography of the western hemisphere gaiueii from the period, ii
when, at his country seat, Per9a Na\Til, on the beautiful b^ i
of Sagres, the Infaute Dom Henry the Navigator sketched )m '
first plan of discovery, to tlie epoch of the South Sea expedi» ,
tions of Gaetano and Cabriilo. The daring enterprizes of the
Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the English, testify how
powerfully the desire for the great and boundless in geogra.
phical space had made iteelf felt, suddenly opening as it
were a new sense. The advances in the art of navigation,
and the apphcation of astronomical methods to the correction
of a ship's reckoning, favoured the efforts which gave to this
age its peculiar character, and disclosed to men the true
featares of the globe which tliey inhabit. The discovery of
the mainland of tropical America, which took place on the li*
of August, 1498, was seventeen months later than CBbot"!
arrival off the Labrador coast of North America, Columbm
first saw the Terra 6rma of South America, not as has been
hitherto believed on the mountainous coast of Paria, but in^
Delta of the Orinoco east of Cano Macareo, {*'^) Sebasliin
Cabot (*'*) landed on the 24th of June, 1497, on the co«t
of Labrador between 56° and 58° of latitude. I hat
shewn above that this inhospitable coast had been visited
five centuries earlier by the Icelander Leif Eriksou.

Columbus on his third voyage set more value on tlw
pearls of the islands of Mai^tita and Cnbagua, than on the
discovery of the Terra firma; as he was persuaded until Ht
death, that, in liis first voyage when at Cuba in Novembef
1492, he had already touched a part of the coutiMUl
of Asia. {*'*) Prom hence {as liis son Don Pemando,
and Ids friend the Cura de los Palacios, relate,) if he bod

THB PNIVEttgE. — OCEASTC DISCOVERIES. 267

had sufficient provisions, his design would have been to
have continued his navigation towards the west, and to have
returned to Spain, (*'^) either by water, passing by Cejlon
(Taprobane) and " rodeando toda la tierra de los Negros," or
by land, by Jerusalem and Jaffa, Such were the projcets
which Columbus cherished in 1494, proposing to himself
the circumnavigation of the globe, four years before Vasco
de Gama, and twenty-seven years before Magellan and Sebas-
tian de Elcano. The preparations for Cabof a second voj^age,
ill which he penetrated among masses of ice as far as 67^**
North latitude, seeking a North- West passage to Cathay
(China), led him to think of a voyage to the North pole, (a
lo del polo aretico), to be made at some future period. (*")
Tiie more it became gradually recognised, that the newly-dis-
covered lands formed a connected continent stretcliing unin-
terruptedly &om Labrador to the promontory of Paria, — and
even asthe celebrated lately-discovered map of JuandelaCoEa
(1500) shewed, far bejond the equator into the Southern
hemisphere, — the more ardent became tJie desire to find a
passage to the westward, either in the North or in the
South. Nest to the rediscovery of the American continent,
and the conviction of its extension in the direction of the
meridian from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn (discovered by
Garcia Jofre de Loaysa,) {*'^) the knowledge of the South
Sea or the Pacidc Ocean, which bathes the "Western coasts of
America, was the most important cosmical occurrence in the
great epoch which we are now describing.

Ten years before Balboa obtained the first sight of the
South Sea, from the summit of the Sierra de Quarequa on
tile isthmus of Panama, Columbus in sailing along the coast
of Veragua, ha<l already received distinct accounts of a sea

268 ItFOCHB lU THE HISTORT OF THS CONTEMPLATION OT

to the westward of that land, "which would conduct in lesa
thaii nine days' voyage to the Cheraoiiesus aurea of Ptolemy,
and to the mouth of the Ganges." In the same Carta
rarissima which contains the beautiful and highly poetic
narration of a dream, the Admiral says that at the part near
the Eio del Belen " the two opposite coasts of Veragua are
situated relatively to each other lite Tortosa near the
Mediteranean and Fueuterrabia in Biscay, or like Tenioe
and Pisa." This southern or western sea, the great Pacific
ocean, was at that time still regarded as only a coutinuation
of the Sinus Magnus (jnyas kdXitdc) of Ptolemy, beyond
which lay the golden Cheisonesus, whilst Cattigara and the
laud of the Sime (Thinse) was supposed to form its eastern
shore. The fanciful hypothesis of Hipparchus, accordi^
to which tliis eastern coast of the great Gulf, or Sinus
Magnus, joined itself on to a part of the continent of Airioi
advancing far to the East, (*'9) (thus making the Indian ocean
a closed inland sea,) was happily litUe regarded hi the middle
ages, notwithstanding their attachment to the opinious of
Ptolemy; it would doubtless have exercised an unfavourable
influence on the direction of the great nautical enterprizes
of the age.

The discovery and navigation of the Pacific, mark an epoch
BO much the more important in reference to the recognition
of great cosmicat relations, as it was by their means, and
scarcely therefore three centuries and a half ago, that nc4
only the western coast of America and the eastern coast of
Asia were first known, bnt also, what is of much greater
importance, on account of the meteorological restdls
which follow from it, that the prevailing highly erroneoiu
views resjiecting the relative areas of land and water upon

THE USIVKBae. — OCEANIC DISCOTXBIBB.

the surface of the globe, were first dispelled. The relative
magnitude and distribution of these areas are most in-
fluential conditions in determining the quantity of moisture
contained in the air, the variations of atmospheric pressure,
the degree of vigour and luxuriance of vegetation, the more
or less extensive distribution of particular kinds of animals,
and many other great and general physical phenomena. The,
larger extent of fluid surface {in the proportion of 2^ to 1),
does indeed restrict the habitable range for the settlements of
man, and for the nourishment of the greater number of
mammalia, birds, and reptiles; but it is nevertheless, under
the present laws which govern organised beings, a beneficent
arrangement and necessary condition for the preservation
and well being of all the living inhabitants of contiiienta.

"When at the end of the fifteenth century there arose an
earnest and pressing desire to find the shortest way to the
Asiatic spice lands, — and when the idea of reacliing the East,
by sailing to the West, germinated almost simultaneously in
the miuds of two men of Italy, the navigator Columbus,
and the physician and astronomer Paul Toscanelli, — (*^) it
was generally believed, in conformity with the opinion put
forward by Ptolemy in the Almagest, that the old continent
from the western coast of the Iberian peninsula to the
meridian of the easternmost Since, occupied a space of 180°;
or in other words, that it extended from East to West,
over aji entire half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a
long series of erroneous inferences, esfended this space to
240°, making the desired eastern coast of Asia advance as far
as the meridian of San Diego in New California. Columbus
hojjed therefore that he would only Jiave to sail over 120",
instead of the 211° which the rich trading city of Quinsay,
for example, is actually situated to the westward of the

J

270 EPOCHS IN THE HlfffOUY OP THE COSTEMPLATlO-in

extremity of the Iberian peniDsula. Toscanellij in his
correspondence with the Admiral, diminished the breadth of
the ocean in a manner still more singular and more favour*
able to liis plana. He made the distance by sea from
Portugal to Cliina only 52° of longitudej leaving, according
to the ancient sajingofEsdras, six-sevenths of the ewth dry.
ColumbnSj in a letter wliich he addressed to Queen Isabella
from Hayti immediat^ily after the accomplishment of his
third voyage, sliewed liimself the more inclined towards this
iiew, because it was the same which had been defended by
the man whom he regarded as the highest authority, Cardinil
d'Ailly, ill his " Imago Mundi." (*^')

Six years after Balboa sword in hand and advancing up
to Ids knees in the waves had claimed possession of the
entire South Sea for Castille, and two years after his head
had fallen by the hand of the executioner in the revolt
against the tyrannical Pedrarias Davila, (*^2) Hagellsn
appeared in Ibe Pacific {27 November ] 520), and navigated
the wide ocean for more than ten thousand geograpb'ail
miles ; by a Bingular fatality seeing only, before discovering
the Marianas, (liis Islas de los Ladrones or de las Telas
Latinas), and the Philippines, two small uninhabited islands
{the Desventuradas or Unfortunate islands), one of wliicli.if
we might trust his journal and ship's reckoning, would be
to the East of the Low Islands, and the other a little to tll8
South West of the Archipelago of Mendana. {*^) Sebasliea
de Elcano, affer the raurdtrofMi^llan in the island of Zeboi
completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in the ah^
Victoria, and received for liia armorial bearings a terrestrial
globe, with the glorious inscription : "Primus circumdediati
me," He entered the harbour of San Lucar in Septeinbs
1522; and before an entire year had elapsed, we find the

B DKTVBBSB, — OCEANIC DI3COVfRIE3. 271

Emperor Charles urging, iu a letter to Hernando Cortes,
the discovery of ei passage "which sliould shorten the dis-
tonce to tlie spice lands by two-thirds." The expedition of
Alvaro de Saavedra was sent from a, harbour of the province
of Zacatula on the west coast of Mexico, to the Moluccas ;
and in 1527, Hernando Cortes wrote, from tlie newly
conquered Mexican capital of Tenociitilan, "to the kings
of Zebu and Tidor in the Asiatic Archipelago." So rapid
was the enlargement of the geograpliical horizon, and with
it the desire for an extensive and animated intercourse with
remote nations.

Subsequently the conqueror of New Spain went himself
in search of discoveries in the Pacific, and of a uorth-easteru
passage from thence to Europe. Men could not accustom
themselves to the idea that the coatinent really extended
uninterruptedly from such high southern to high northern
latitudes. When the report came from the coast of
California that the expedition of Cortes had perished, the
wife of the great warrior Juana de Zufiiga, the beautiful
daughter of the C-onde de Aguilar, had two ships prepared
in order to seek for more certain tidings. {*^*) In 1541
California was already known as an arid peninsula without
wood, although this was again forgotten iu the 1 7th century.
We can discover in the accounts wliich we now possess of
Balboa, Pedrarias Davila, and Hernando Cortes, that at that
period men hoped to discover in the South Sea, as a part of
the Indian ocean, groups of "islands rich in gold, precious
stones, spices, and pearls." Excited fancy impelled men to
great ent^rprizcs; and the hardihood of these, whether
snccessful or unfortunate, reacted on the imagination and
med it still more powerfully. Thus, at this extraordinary

272 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE COSfTEMPLATIOS OP

period of the Conquista, (a period when men's beads were
dizzy with strenuous etforts, heroic achievementsj deeds of
violence, and discoveries by sea and land), notwithstanding
the entire absence of political freedom, many circumstances
conspired to favour individual development, and to cause
some more highly gifted minds to attain to much that was
noble. They err who regard the Conqnistadores as led only
by a thirst for gold, or even escliisively by religious
fanaticism. Dangers always exalt the poetry of life j and
moreover, the powerful age which we here seek to depict in
regMd to its inflnence cm the development of cosmical ideas,
gave to all enterprizes, as well as to the impressions of nature
offered by distant voyages, the charm of novelty and snrprisi^
which begins to be wanting to onr present more learned age in
the many regions of the eart.h which are now open to hs. It
was not only a hemisphere, but almost two-thirds of the
surface of the globe, which was then still an unknown
and uuexplored world; as unseen as that half of the
moon's disk which the laws of gravitation withdraw for
ever from the view of the inhabitants of the earth. Our
more deejily investigating age finds, in the increasing
riches of ideas, a compensation for the lessening of that
surprise, which the novelty of great and imposing natural
phenomena once called forth; but this is a compensation
not to the multitude, but to the small number of physicists
acquainted with the state of science, — and to them it is
ample. To tbem the increasing insight into the silent
operation of the powers of nature; — whether in electro-
magnetism, or in the polarisation of light, in the inflnence
of diathermai substances, or in tiie physiological phenomena
of liraig organised beings, offers a world of wonders

E. — OCEANIC DI3COVETIIES. 273

gradually nnveiling itself, and of which we liave yet scarcely
reached the threshold I

The Sandwich Islands, New Guinea, and some parts
of New Holland, were all discovered in the first half of
the 16th century. (^''S) These discoveries prepared the way
for those of Gabrilio, Sebastian Vizcaino, Mendafia, {*^) and
Quiros, whose " Sagittaria" is Tahiti, and his " Archipelago
del Espiritu Santo" the New Hebrides of Cook. Quiros was
accompanied by the bold navigator who afterwards gave bis
name to Torres Straits. The Pacific no longer appeared as
it had done to Magellan a desert waste; it was now
enlivened by islands, which indeed for want of exact astrono-
mical determinations of position, strayed to and fro on the
map like floating lands. The Pacific long continued the
exclusive theatre of the enterprises of the Spaniards and
Portuguese. The important South Indian Malayan Archi-
pelago, obscurely described by Ptolemy, Cosmas, and Polo,
began lo shew itself with more definite outlines after
Albuquerque had established himself in Malacca in 1511,
and after the voyage of Anthony Ahreu. It is the especial
merit of the classical Portuguese historian Barros, a cotem-
porary of Magellan and of Caiaoens, to have apprehended
the pecuharitiea of the physical and ethnical character of the
Archipelago in so lively a manner, that he first proposed to
distinguish Australian Polynesia as a fifth part of the globe.
It was when the Dutch power acquired the ascendancy in
the MoUuecas, that this portion of the globe began to emerge
from obscurity, and to become known to geographers j (^^')
and then also began the great epoch of Abel Tasman. We do
not propose to ourselves to give the history of the several geo-
grspbical discoveries, but merely to lecal by a passing allusion
n2 '

274 EPOCHS IS THE UISTORi; Olf THE COSTBMPLATIOJf OP

the leading occurrences, by whichj in ft short space of time,
and in close and connected succession, in obedience to the
suddenly a walicned desire to searcli out the wide, the unknown
and the distant, two-thirda of the earth's surface were laid
open.

Together m'th this eidarged and increasing geographical
knowledge nf land and sea^ there arose also a more enlarged
insight into the existence and the laws of tlio powers or
forces of nature, — the distribution of heat over the surface
of the earth, — the abundance of oi^nic forms, and the
limits of their distribution. The progress which different
branches of science had mode during the course of the
middle ages, (which, as regards acieuce, have been loo little
esteemed,) accelerated the just apprehensicm and thoughtfrl
comparison of the mibouuded wealth of physical phenomena,
which was now presented at one time t-o observation.
Tlie impressions produced on men's minds were so much
the more profound, and the more fitted to incite to the
investigation of cosmical laws, as before the middle of the
16th century, the western nations of Europe bad already
explored the new continent, in the neighbourhood of the
coasts at least, in the most different degrees of latitude; and
because it was here that they first became acquainted with
the true equatorial zone, where, moreover, the remarkable
conformation of the earth's surface presented to their vie*
in close approximation, a.t varying degrees of elevation,
the most striking contrasts of vegetation and of climate.
If I here find myself again induced to allude to the
peculiar privileges of these regions, in the inspiring iuflaence
belonging to a land of lofty mountains in the equinoctial
zone, I must plead once more as my justification that, (o

1

THE UNIVEBSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVEEIES. 275 1

their inhabitants alone is it given, to behold at once all the (

stars of heaven, aod almost all the families of forms of tlie |

vegetable world; — but to beliold is not necessarily to •

observe, viz. to compare, and to combine. 1

Although ill Columbus, as I tliiuk I have shewn in
another work, notwithatandiug the entire absence of any pre- '

limiuary knowledge of natural history, the mere contact with |

great natural phenomena, developed in a remarkable and
varied manner the [lerceptions and facnities required for 1

accurate observation, yet we must by no means assume a |

similar development iu those who composed the rude and I

warlike mass of the Couquistadores. Tliat which Europe i

nnquestionahly owes to the discovery of America, — in the
gradual enrichment of the physical knowledge of the con- |

atitution of the atmosphere, and its eil'ects on human orga- ■,

DJzation, — the distribntiou of climates on tlie declivities of J

the Cordilleras, — the elevation of the snow Jane in different (!e- J

grecs of ktitude in the two hemispheres, — the arrangement of S

volcanoes in chains, — the circumscribed area of the circle of i

commotion in earthquakes, — the laws of magnetism, — the ,

direction of the currents of the ocean, — and the gradations of
new forms of plants and aiumals, — it owes to a different aiid |

more peaceful class of travellers, and to a small number of
distinguished men among municipal functionaries, ecclesias-
tics, and physicians. These men dwelling in old Indian
towns, some of which are upwards of twelve thousand feet
above the level of the sea, could observe with their own eyes,
and could test and combine that which others had seen, with
the superior advantage of long residence; and could collect,
describe, and send to their European friends, the natuial
piodncliona of the country. It is aufKcient here to

276 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOHY of tee COSTEMPLATiaS 07

name Gomara, Oviedo, Acosta and Hernandez. Colmnbiu

brought home from his first voyage some natural prodnc-
lions, — fruits and skins of animals. In a letter written
from Segovia (August 1494), Queen Isabella requests the
Admiral to coutinue Ids collections, and particularly def^ires
"all birds belonging to the shores and the woods of
oonntries having a different climat* and seasons." From the
game west coast of Africa, from which, almost 2000 years
earlier, Hanno brought "tanned skins of wild women," (the
skins of the great Gorilla ape), to be suspended in a temple, —
Martin Behaim's friend Cadamosto, brought to the In&nte
Henry the Navigator, black elephant's hair a palm and a half
long. Hernandez, the surgeon of Philip II., and sent by that
monarch to Mexico, to have all the most remarkable objects
of the vegetable and animal kingdoms in that country
represented by fine drawings, was able to augment his
collections by copies of several very carefully executed
pictures of specimens of natural history, which had been
painted by command of a king of Tezcuco, Nezahualcoyotl,
(■i^^) half a centtHy before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Hernandez also availed himself of a collection of medicinal
plants, wliich he found stiil growing in the ancient Mexican
garden of Huaxtcpec. Owing to its proximit}' to a newly
established Spanish hospital, {*^^) this garden had not been
laid waste by the ConquiHtadores. Almost at the same time,
the fossil bones of Mastodons found on the plateaus of
Mexico, New Granada, and Peru, which afterwards became
of so much importance, in reference to the theory of the
successive elevation of different cliains of mountains, were
collected and described. The uMnes of Giauts' bones,
and Giants' fields (Campos de Gigaates), shew how

'1

THE U.VIVER3E. — OCEAHIO DISCOVERIES. 277

fanciful were the mterpretatioiis first attached to these
remains.

During tbis active period, the enlargement of cosmical views
was promoted bj the immediate contact of numerous bodies
of Europeans, not only with the free aspect and grand features
of nature in the mountains and plains of America, but also
(in conseijuence of the successful navigation of Vasco de
Gama) with the eastern coast of Africa, and with India. As
early as the commencement of the sixteenth century, a
Portuguese physician, Garcia de Orta, to whom the Muse
of Camoeos has paid a patriotic tribute of praise, established,
on the present site of Bombay, and under the auspices of the
noble Martin Alfonso de Sousa, a botanic garden in which he
cultivated the medicinal plants of the vicinity. The impulse
to direct and independent observation was now every where
awakened, whilst the cosmographic writings of the middle
ages were rather compilations, reproducing the opinions of
classical antiquity, than the results of personal observation.
Two of the greatest men of the sixteenth century, Conrad
Gesner and Andreas Cffisalpinus, honourably opened a new
path in zoology and botany.

In order to afford a more Uvelj idea of the early influence
which the oceanic discoveries exercised on the enlargement
of physicjil and astro -nautical knowledge, I will call attention
at the close of this description to some bright points of hght
which we see already glimmering in the writings of Colurabna,
Their first feeble ray is the more deserving of careful regard
because they contained the germ of general cosmical views,
T pass over the proofs of the results here presented to my
readers, because I have already given them in detail in an
eariier work, entitled " Qritical examiuarion of the historic de-

[

27S

E HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OF

velopment of the geographical knowledge of the new world, and
of nautical astronomy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."
In order, however, to avoid its being supposed .that I have
unduly mingled modem physical views with the remarks
of Columbus, I will commence with the literal translation
of a portion of a letter written by the Admiral in October
1498 from Hayti.

" Each time that I sail from Spain to the Indies, I fiud
as soon as I arrive a hundred nautical miles to the west of
the Azores, an extraordinary alteration in the movement of
the heavenly bodies, in the temperature of the air, and in
the character of the ocean. I have observed these alterations
with particular eare, and have recognised that the needle of
the mariner's compass (agujaa de marear), the declination of
which had been to the north-east, now turned to the north-
west; and when I had passed this line (raya), as if I had
passed the ridge of a hill (como quien traspone una cuesta),
I found the sea covered with such a mass of weed resembling
small branches of pine trees with fruits like pistachio nuts,
that we were led to expect there would not be sufficient
water, and that the ships would run upon a shoal. Before
we had arrived at this line no trace of such sea-weed was to
be seen. AJso at this boundary line (a hundred miles west
of the Azores) the sea becomes at once still and calm, scarcely
ever agitated by a breeze. As I came down fiom the Canaij
Islands to the parallel of Sierra Leune I had to sustain a
terrible heat, but as soon as we had passed bej'ond the
above-mentioned line (west of the meridian of the Azores)
the climate altered, the air became temperate, and the
freshness mcreased the farther we advanced."

This passage, which is elucidated by several others in

THB IJNIYEItSB. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES, 279

1

the writings of Columbus, contains views of (
graphyj remarks on the influence of geographical longitude, !

on the declination of the magnetic needle, on the inflection |

of the isothermal liiiea between the west coast of the old !

and tlie east coast of the new Continent, on the situation of J

the great Sargasso bank in the basin of the Atlantic, and ou |

the relations of this part of the ocean to the atmosphere |j

above it. Erroneous observations {*^°) in the neighbourhood j

of the Azores on the position of the Pole star had misled |

Columbus as early as the period of his first voyage, from the |

deficiency of his mathematical knowledge, to entertain the |

belief of an irregularity in the spherical form of the earth.
According to his view, the earth was protuberant in the
western hemisphere, so that the ships gradually arrived !

nearer to the sky on approaching the Hue (raya) where the j

lUE^etic needle points to the true north ; and this elevation i

he supposed to be the cause of the cooler temperature. The i

solemn reception of the Admiral at Barcelona took place in \

April T493, and on the 4th of May of the same year Pope J

Alexander YI. signed the celebrated bull which " establishes I

for ever" the demarcation line (*^^) between the Spanish and J

Portuguese [Kissessions at a hundred miles westward of the '

Azores. K we bear in mind that Columbus, immediately
after his return from his first voyage of discovery, purposed
to go himself to Komc, in order, as he said, "to report to
the Pope all that he had discovered," and if we remember
the im[K>rtauce which the cotemporaries of Columbus attached
to the line of no variation, it may be admitted that there
are grounds for a siiggeation first put forward by myself,
that at the moment of liis highest court favour Columbos

-f»i-"P

r ' I " ' -^ V

faA ■BBOVBcn a 'uU
A* «f bnrii^ hj his
^■e«f weaterir dedim-
f ton llrtfai^^a Ae fint impdaelo

art twi^atiH AK^Arfa&edTsoEpadEd
fHrt csK^to As Mia Md sodA geo-
i odf ksK ktB iKogBsed, ercB vjfli

d in the tvelftii centniy
Bat it is Bot improbable
thrt tte Anb^ cv Ac Q— Jaa wiio vrae in contitct with
Vmitwn watiam frm lOM to 1270, in ^tading the nae of
dmne orliafian eamxpaests,max tiso baxe called attentitHi,
eren at liat eadr penod, to the drcom^tsiice of magn^
needles pointing in difeoit puts of the world to the north-
eut or to the north-west, as to a long-known phenomeoim.
We know positively bom the Chinese Pcnthsaoyati, wbidi
wu written nnder the dj-nasty of the Song [*^^) betvecB
lUl and 1117, that the manner of measuring the amannt
of westerly declination bad been then long understood.

THE TTNIVE28E. — OCEASIO DMOOVEEIEa,

That which belongs to Columbus is uot the first observation
of the existeuce of the variation (which, for example, is noted
iu the map of Andrea Bianco in 1436), but the remark
which he made on tlie 13th of September, 1493, tliat "Z^°
east of the Island of Corvo the magnetic variation changes,
passing from N.E, to N.W."

This discovery of a "magnetic line without declination"
marks a memorable era in nautical astronomy. It has been
celebrated with just praise by Oviedo, Las Casas and Herrera.
Those who with Livio Sanuto would attribute it to the
famous navigator Sebastian Cabot, forget that the first
voyage of the latter, made at the cost of some merchants of
Bristol, and distinguished by its attaiuiug the American
continent, took place five years later than Columbus's first
voj^e of discovery. But not only has Columbus the merit
of having discovered the part of the Atlantic in which at that
period the geographic and magnetic meridians coincided;
he also made at the same time the ingenious and thoughtful
remark, that the magnetic variation might serve to determine
the ship's position in respect to longitude. In the journal
of the second voyage (April H96) we find him really in-
ferring his position from the observed declination. The
difficulties which oppose this method of determining the
longitude, (more especially in a part of the globe where the
magnetic hues of declination are so much curved that they
do not follow the direction of the meridian, but correspond
even with the iiarallels of latitude for considerable distances),
were at that period sfiJl unknonTi. Magnctical and astrono-
mical methods were anxiously sought after, in order to deter-
mine, both on land and sea, the points intersected by the ideally
constituted line of demarcation. Neither the state of science

r

I

882 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOllY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP

nor that of the imperfect instruments employed at sea in 1 49^),
whether for measuring angles or time, were competent to tlie
practical solution of so difficult a problem. Under these
eircnm stances. Pope Alexander VI., in preanmptuously
dividing half the globe between two powerful states, rendered
without knowing it an essential service to nautical astroiioniy
and to the physical science of terrestrial magnetism. The
great maritime powers were from that time continuailj
solicited to entertain innumerable impracticable proposals.
Sebastian Cabot, as we learn from his friend Eichard Eden,
atill boasted on his death !>ed that there had been " divindj
revealed to him an iiifalhble method of finding the longitude."
Tliia revelation was no other than his firm behef that the
magnetic dechnation changed rapidly and regularly with
the meridian. The cosmographer Alouso de Santa Craz,
one of the instructors of Charles V., undertook, the drawing
up of the first general " "Variation Chart", (*33) although,
indeed, from very imperfect observationSj as early as 1530,
or a century and a half before Halley.

The " movement" of the mt^etic hues, the first recogni-
tion of which is usually ascribed to Gasseudi, was not even
yet conjectured by Wilham Gilbert ; but at an earlier period,
Acosta, "from the information of Portuguese navigators,"
assumed four hues of no decHnatiou upon the surface of the
globe, (***) Hardly had the inchnometer, or dipping needle,
been invented iai England by Eobert Norman, in 1576,
than Gilbert boasted that, by means of this instrument, he
could determine the position of a ship in a dark and starless
night (aere caliglnoso). {*^) From my oftTi observatioua
in the Pacific, I shewed soon after my return to Europe
that, in certain parts of the earth, and under particular local

THB nSlVEESE. — OCEANIC DI9C0VEEIBS. ZoO

circntnstanees, for example on the coasts of Peru iii the
season of constant fogs (gania), the latitude might be de-
termined from the inclination of the magnetic needle with
sufficient accuracy for the purposes of navigation. I have
dwelt so long on these details, with the view of shewing
that aJl the points with which we are now occupied, in re-
ference to an important cosmical subject (with the esception
of the measurement of the intensity of the magnetic force,
and of the horary variations of the declination), were already
spoken of in the 16th century. In the remarkable map of
America appended to the Eoman edition of tlie Geography
of Ptolemy in 1508, we find to the north of Gruentlant
(Greenland) a part of Asia represented, and "the magnetic
pole" marked as an insular mountain. Martin Cortez, in
the Breve Compendio de la Sphera (1545), and Livio Sa-
mito, in the Geographia di Tolomeo (1588), place it more
to the souih. Sanuto entertamed a prejudice which, strange
to say, has existed e\en in later times, that a mau who
should be so fortunate as to reach the magnetic pole (il
calamitico), would expenenee there "alconmiracoloso atu-
pendo effetto."

In the department of tlie distribution of temperature and
meteorology, attention was already directed, at the end of the
15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, to the decrease of
temperature {^^sj -with increasing western longitude, (the in-
flection of the isothermal lines) j to the law of rotation of the
winds (*3') generalized by Francis Bacon ; to the diminution
of atmospheric moisture and of the quantity of rain, caused
by the destmction of forests ; (*^^) and to the decrease of tem-
perature with increasing elevation above the level of the sea,

r

.TlOliO^^

2S4 BPOCKS IS THE HISTORlt OP THE CONTEMPLATIOIJ

and the lower limit of perpetuiil snow. Tlmt this limit is " a
function of the geographical latitude" was first recognised bj
Petrns Martyr Anghieia in 1510. Alouao de Hojeda and
Amerigo Vespucci had seen the snowy mountains of Santa
Marte (tierras nevadas de Citarma) as early as 1500; Rodrigo
Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa examined them more closely
in 150 J ; but it was not until the accounts of the expedi-
tion of Colmenares, which the pilot Juan Vespucci, nephew
of Amerigo, communicaied to his patron and friend
Anghiera, that the "tropical snow region" seen on the
mounta h f the Caribbean sea acquired a great,

and it D 1 b da cosmical, signification. The lower
limit of p rp t ! n v was now brought into connection
with th g ral It ons of the decrease of temperature
and the d y f hmatea. Herodotus, in discussing the

causes of the rising of the Nile (ii, 22), had positively de-
nied tlie existence of snowy mountains south of the tropic
of Cancer. Alexander's expeditions, indeed, conducted the
Greeks to the Nevados of the Hindoo Coosh (opt/ ayaywpa) ■
but these are situated between 34° and 36° of nortli latitude.
The only notice with which I am acquainted of " snow in
the equatorial zone," prior to the discovery of America and
the year 1500, is one which has been very httle attended to
by men of science, and wliich ia contained in the celebrated
inscription of Adulis, which Niebuhr considers to be later
than Juba and than Augustus. The recognition of the
dependence of the lower limit of perpetual snow on the
latitude of the place, (*^^) and the first insight into the hiwot
the decrease of temperature in an ascending vertical line,
and the consequent gradual lowering, from the equator

THE UNIVEHSB.^-OCEATJIC DI9C0VEH1ES.

towards the poles, of a stratum of air of equal coolness,
mark uo imimportaflt era in the history of our physical
knowledge.

If this knowledge was favoured by observations which
were accidental and wholly unscientific in their origin, the
age which we are describing lost on the other hand, by an
unfortunate combination of circumstances, a great advantage
which it might have received from a purely scientific im-
pulse. Tiie greatest physicist of the 15th century, who
combined distinguisbed mathemafical knowledge with the
most admirable and profound insight into nature, Leonardo
da Vinci, was the cotemporary of Columbus, and died three
years after him. This great artist had occupied himself in
meteorology, as well as in hydraulics and optics. His in-
fluence on tlie age in wMch he lived was exercised through
the great works of painting which he created, and by his elo-
quent discourse, but not by his writings. If the physical views
of Leonardo da Vinci had not remained buried in liis ma-
nuscripts, the field of observation which the new world
ofi'ered would have been already cultivated scientifically in
many of its parts before the great epoch of GaUieo, Pascal,
and Huygens. Like Francis Bacon, and a full century
before him, he regarded induction as the only sure method
in natural science ; " dobbiamo comminciare dall' esperienza,
e per mezzp di questa scoprirne la ragione." {**")

As, notwithstanding the want of measuring instruments,
climatic relations in the tropical mountainous regions, the
distribution of temperature, the extremes of atmospheric
dryness and humidity, and the frequency of electric explo-
sions, were often spoken of in the commentaries on the first
md journeys; so also the mariners very early embraced

EPOCHS IN THE HlaTOILY 0

E COSTEJtPLATIOS 07

I

just views in regard to the direction and rapidity of cur-
rents, which, like rivers of variable breadth, traverse the
Atlantic Ocean. The projier " equatorial current," lie
movement of the waters between the tropics, was first de-
scribed by Columbus. " The waters move con los cielos (or
liie the vault of heaven) from east to west," Even the
direction of separate floathig masses of sea-weed confirmed
this belief. (**') A light pan of wrought iron, which
he found in the hands of the natives of the island of Gna-
da]oupe, led Columbus to conjecture that it might be of
European origin, belonging to a shipwrecked vessel
which the equatorial current might have brought from
the Iberian to the American coasts. In his geognostical
fancies he regarded the existence of the series of the
smaller West India Islands, as well as the peculiar form
of the larger islands, (the couicidence of the direc-
tion of their coast with the parallels of latitude,) as caused
by the long-continued action of the movement of the sea
within the trojrics from east to west.

When on his fourth and last voyage the Admiral dis-
covered the north and south direction of the coaat of
America, from Cape Gracias a Dios to the Laguna de
Chiriqui, he felt the action of the strong current wliich sets
to the N. and N.N.W., and results from the impinging of the
equatorial current against the opposing line of coast. Ang-
liiera survived Columbus long enough to be aware of the
deflection of the waters of the Atlantic in its whole course,
to recognise the rotation round the Gulf of Mexico, and
the propagation of this movement to the Tierra de los
Bacallaos {Newfoundland), and the mouth of the St. Law-
rence. I have shewn circumstantially in another place, how

THE TTNIVBR3I1. — OCEANIC DISCOTBIlLBa, 287

laucli tlie expeditioD of Ponce de Leon, in 1512, contri-
buted to the formation of more accurate opinions, and have
noticed that, in a memoir written by Sir Unmphry Gilbert
between 1567 and 1576, the movement of the waters of the
Atlantic, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Banks of
Newfonndland, was treated according to views wliich agree
almost entirely with those of my excellent deceased friendj
Major Rennell.

The knowledge of the oceanic currents was accompanied
by that of the great banks of sea-weed {Fucus oatans), the
" oceanic meadows" which offer the remarkable spectacle of
the accumulation of a " social plant" over a suri'ace almost
seven times greater than that of France. The " great Fucus
bank," the proper " Mar de Sargasso," extends between 19°
and 34° of north latitude. Its principal axis is about 7°
west of the Island of Corvo. The " lesser Facus bank" is
situated in the space between the Bermudas and the
Bahamas. Winds and partial currents affect in different
years the position and extent of these Atlantic sea-weed
meadows, for the first description of which we are indebted to
Columbus, No other sea in either hemisphere shews an as-
semblage of social plants, on a similar scale of magnitude. (**")

But the important epoch of the great geographical
discoveries, besides suddenly laying open an unknown
hemisphere of the terrestrial globe, also enlarged the view of
the regions of space, or to speak more distinctly, of the
visible celestial vault. As man, to quote a fine expression
of GarcOaso de la Vega, " in wandering to distant lands,
sees earth and stars change together, (**^)" so the advance
to the equator, on both sides of Africa, and in the western
hemisphere beyond the southern extremity of America, offered

8B8 EPOCHS TN THE HI9T0KT OP THE OONTEMPLATION OP

to tlie navigators and land travellera of the period of wliieh
we are treating, the magiiilicent spectacle of the soutliera
constellations, longer and more frequently than could have
been the case in the time of Hirani or of the Ptole-
mies, or under the Roman Empire, or in the course of
the commerce of the Arabians in the Red Sea, and in the
Indian Ocean between the Straits of Bab-el-Maudeb and
the western peninsula of India. Amerigo Vespucci, iu bis
letters, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, Pigafetta who accompanied
Magellan anti Elcano, ss well as Andrea Corsali in hia
voyage to Cocliiu, in Eastern India, in the beginnlug of tie
16th century, have given ua a record of the vivid impressions
produced by the earliest coutemplation of the southern
heavens beyond the feet of the Centaur, and the fine
constellation of the Ship. Amerigo, who had more literary ac-
quirement than the others, but who was also more inclined toa
vain-glorious display, praises not unpleasingly the brightness,
the picturesque beauty, and the novel aspect of the coustella-
tions wliich ciicle round the southern pole, of which the
more immediate vicinity ia poor in stars. He affirms in bis
letter to Pierfrancesco de Medici, that on his third voyage
he occupied himself carefully with observing the soutbein
constellations, measuring the polar distance of the principfll
amongst them, and makuig drawings of them. What he
communicates on the subject does not indeed lead us greallv
to regret the loss of his measurements.

I find the first description of the enigmatical black
patches, (Coalbags) given by Anghiera in lolO. Thcj hud
been remarked as early as 1499 by the companions of
Vicente Taiiez Pinzon, on the expedition which went from
Palos and took ])ossession of the BraziHan Cape St

THH CVIVEBSE. — BOEAinC DISOOVEKISS.

Augustine. {***) The Caiiopo fosco (Cauopus niger) of Ame-
rigo, is probably one of these " coal bag3." The acute Acosta
compares it to the darkened, portion of the moon's disk in
partial eclipses, aad appears to ascribe it to a void in space, or
to the absence of stars. Eigaud has shewn how the mention
of the " coal bags," of which Acosta expressly says that they
are visible in Peru but not in Europe, and that they move
like other stajs round the South Pole, has been mistaken by
a celebrated astronomer for the first notice of spots iij the
sun. {■'+5J Tlie knowledge of the two Magellanic clouds
has been erroneously ascribed to Pigafetta; I find that
Anghiera, from the observations of Portuguese navigators,
mentions these clouda eight years before the completion of
Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe : he compares
their mild brightness with that of the Milky Way. The larger
of these two clouds, however, appears not to have escaped the
clear sight of the Arabians, It was ver}' probably the Wliite
Ok "el Bakar" of their southern sky; the " white patch," of
which the astronomer Abdurrahman Sofi says that it cannot
be seen in Bagdad, or in the North of Arabia, but is seen
IQ. the Tehama, and in the parallel of the Straits of Bab-el-
Mandeb. Under the Lagidte and subsequently, Greeks and
Bomans had passed over those regions without noticing, or
at least without mentioning in any writing which has come
down to us, this luminous cloud, which yet, in the latitude
of between 11° and 12° N., rose in the time of Ptolemy 3°
above the horizon, and in that of Abdurralimann {1000 a.d.),
more than 4°. (**^} The meridian altitude of the middle
of the Nubecula Major may be now about 5° at Aden. It
usually happens that mariners first distinctly recognise the
Magellanic clouds in much more southerly latitudes, viz.
VOL. 11. 0

E HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION 0?

near the equator, or even south of it; but tlie reason of this
is to be ascribed to atmospheric differences, and to the
presence of vapours near the horizon reflecting white light.
In the interior of southern Arabia, the azure of the ce-
lestial vault, and the great dryness of the atmosphere, must
have favoured the recognition of the Magellanic cloude.
The probahility that such was the case is shewn by exam-
ples of the visibility of comets' tails in clear daylight between
the tropics, and even in more southern latitudes.

The arrangement of the stars near the southern pole into
new constellations belongs to the ] 7th century. "What the
Dutch navigators, Petrus Theodori of Embden, and Fre-
deric Houtman, who (15fi6 — 1599) was a prisoner to the
king of Bantam and Atsehin, in Java and Sumatra, had ob-
served with imperfect instruments, was laid don'n in the
celestial charts of Hondius Bleaw (Jansonius Ctesins] and
Bayer.

The more unequal distribution of the masses of hght
gives to that zone of the southern heavens, between the pa-
rallels of 50° and 80° which is so rich in crowded nebulte
and clusters of stars, a peculiar, and one might almost say a
picturesque character ; a charm arising from the grouping
of the stars of the first and second magnitude, and from the
intervention of regions which, to the naked eye, appear dail
and desert. These singular contrasts, — the Milky "Way,
which at several parts of its course shews a greatly increased
brilliancy, — the insulated, revolving, rounded Mf^Uanic
clouds, — and the " coal bags," of which the largest is so
near to a fine constellation, — increase the variety of this na-
tural picture, and rivet the attention of susceptible spec-
tators to pariicular regions in the southern celestial hemis-

THB UNIVERSE. — OCEASIC DI9C0TEHIES. 291

pliere. Htligious associations have given to one of these
legionSj — that of the Southt;rn Cross, — a pecuhar interest
to Christian navigators, travelleis, and missionaries, in the
tropical and southern seas, and in hoth the Indies. The four
principal stars of which the Cross is comjiosed were regarded,
in the Aknagest, and in the age of Hadrian and Antoninus
Pius, as part of the constellation of the Centaur. (**') The
form of the Southern Cross is so striking, aud so remarkably
individualised and detached, — as is the case of the Greater
and Lesser Bear, the Scorpion, Cassiopea, the Eagle, and the
Dolphin, — that it is almost surprising that those four stars
should not liave been earlier separated from the large ancient
consteUation of the Centaur ; it is, indeed, the more surpris-
ing, because the Persian Kazwini and other Maliometan
astronomers were at pains to make out crosses from stars in
the Doiphin and Dragon. Whether the courtly flattery of
the Alexandrian learned men, who transformed Canopus
into a " Ptolemreon," also applied the stars of our present
Southern Cross to the giorificatiou of Augustus, by forming
them into a "CEesaristhronon" {**^) which was never visible
in Italy, remains somewhat uncertain. In the time of
Claudius Ptolemseus, the tine star at the foot of the Southern
Cross had stiU an altitude of 6° 10' at its meridian passage
at Alexandria; whilst, at the present day, it culminates
several degrees below the horizon of that place. At this
time (1S47), in order to see a Cmcis at an altitude of
6" 10', and taking refraction into account, we must be 10°
to the south of Aleiandria, or in 21° 43' of N. lat. The
Christian anchorites in the Thebais may still have seeu' the
a at an altitude of 10° in the fourth century. I doubt,

292 EPOCHS m thb histoet ok the co*tbhplation o?

however, whether it received its name from them ; for Daole,
in the celebrated passage of the Piirgatorio —
" lo mi volai a man deslra, e poai menle

All' altro polo, e lidi quatlro atclle

N'on viale mai fuor tk' alia prima gente :"

and Amerigo Vespucci, — who, at the aspect of the southern
firmament in his third voyage, first recalled these lines, and
evea boasted that "he now beheld in hia own person the
four stars never before seen save by the first haman pair,"—
were still unacquainted with the denomination of " Southeni
Cross." Vespucci says simply, that the four stars form a
rhomboidal figure (una mandorla) ; and this remark belongs
to the year 1501. As sea voyages round the Cape of
Good Hope and in the Pacific Ocean, by the routes which
Gaina and Magellan had opened, multiplied, and as Christian
missionaries pressed forward into the newly discovered tro-
pical lands of America, the fame of this constellation in-
creased more and more. I find it first mentioned as a
" wondrous cross (croce niaravighosa), more glorious than
all the constellations of the entire heavens," by the Floren-
tine Andrea Corsali (1517), and afterwards, in 1520, bj
Pigafetta. Tlie Florentine extols Dante's " prophetic
spirit," — as if the great poet had not possessed as much eru-
dition as creative genius, — as if he had not seen Arabian
celestial globes, and held communication with many oriental
traveller? fromPisa (**h). That in the Spanish settlements in
tropical America, the first settlers were accustomed to infer
the hour of the night from the inclined or perpendicidar
position of the Southern Cross, as is still done, was alread;f
remarked by Acosta in his " Historia natural v moral de lu
Indias." («»)

THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DiSCOVEBIES, 293

By the precession of the equinoxes the aspect of the
starry heavens from every point erf the earth's surface is
constantly changing. The earlier inhabitants of our high
northern latitudes might see magnificent southern constella^
tions rise to their vieWj which, now long unseen, will not
reappear for thousands of years. Li the time of Columbus,
Canopus was already fuUy 1° 20' below the horizon at To-
ledo {lat. 39° 54') ; it is now about the same quantity above
the horizon at Cadiz. For Berlin and the northern lati-
tudes the stars of the Southern Cross, as well as a and pCea-
tauri, are receding more and more ; whilst the Magellanic
clouds slowly approach our latituiies. Canopus has had its
greatest northerly approximation during the thousand years
which have closed, and is now moving {though, on account
of its proximity to the south pole of the ecliptic, with ex-
treme slowness) progressively to the south. The Southern
Cross began to be invisible in 52^° north latitude, 2900
years before the Christian era. According to Galle it might
previously have reached, in that latitude, an altitude of
more than 10°; and when it vanished from the horizon of
the countries adjoining the Baltic, the gi-eat Pyramid of
Cheops had already been standing in Egypt for five centu-
riea. The pastoral nation of the Hyksos made their inva-
sion 700 years later. Former times seem to draw sensibly
nearer to us, when we connect their measurement with me-
morable occurrences.

The esteiision of a knowledge of the celestial spaces, — a
knowledge, however, limited to their outward aspect, — was
Bccompaaied by advances iu nautical astronomy ; that is to
say, in the improvement of all the methods of determiiuiig
a ship's place, or its geographical latitude and longitude.

ATION OP \

894 EPOCHS I?r THE HISTOEY OP THE CONTEMPLATION

All that in the course of time lias contributed to favour
these advances in the art of navigation; — the compass, and
the more correct knowledge of the magnetic declination,—
the measurement of a ship's waj by the more exact appara-
tus of the log, — the me of chronometers and of lunar dis-
tances,—the better construction of vessels, — the substitu-
tion of another propelling force for the force of the wind, —
and in all respects, the skilful application of astronomy to a
ship's reckoning, — must be regOTdetl as powerful means o(
throwing open ail parts of the earth's surface, of accelerating
the animating intercourse of nations with each other, aod
of advancing the investigation of cosmicat relations. Taking
this as our point of view, we would here recal the fact that
as early as the middle of the 18th century " nautical instru-
ments were in use for determining time by the altitudes of
stars" in the vessels of the Catalans and of the Island of
Majorca; and that the astrolabe described by Biiymond
Lully, in his Arte de Navegar, is almost two centuries older
than tliat of Martin Behaim. The importance of astrono-
mical methods was so vividly recognised in Portugal, that
about the year 1484 Behaim was named president of a
Junta de Mathematicos, "who were to compute tables of
the sun's deehnation," and, as Barros says, (^*') to teach
pilots the " maneira de navegar per altiu^ do sol." The
navigation " by the meridian altitudes of the sun" was
already at that period clearly distinguished from the naviga-
tion by determinations of longitude, or "por laalturadd
este-oeste ." (*s^)

The desirability of fixing the locality of the Papal line of
demarcation, for the sake of settling the boundary be-
tween the claims of the Spaidsh and Portuguese croflns in

THB rmVEESB. OCEUHC DISCOVEHIES. 295

ihe newly discovered Brazils and in the South Indian
Islands, augmented the anxiety for the discovery of practi-
cal methods for finding the longitude. It was felt how
rarely the ancient imperfect Hipparehian method by lunar
eclipses could be appbed, and the use of lunar distances was
already recommendedj in 1514, by the Nuremberg astrono-
mer Johann Werner, and soon afterwards by Orontius
Pinseus and Gemma Erisins. Unfortunately this method
long continued impracticable, until, after many vain attempts
with tbe instruments of Peter Apianus (Bienewitz) aad
Alonso de Santa Cruz, the mirror sextant was invented in
1700 by Newton, and brought into use among mariners by
Hadleyiul731.

The influence of the Arabian astronomers was also opera-
tive, in and through Spain, on the progress of nautical
astronomy. Many modes were, indeed, tried for determining
the longitude, which did not succeed ; but the failure was less
often attributed, at the time, to the imperfection of the
observation, than to errors of the press in the astronomical
ephemerides of Eegiomontanus, The Portuguese even sus-
pected the results of the astronomical data of the Spaniards,
whose tables were supposed to have been falsified from poli-
tical motives. (*^3) The suddenly awakened sense of the
want of those means which nautical astronomy, theoreticaUy
at least, promised, shews itself in a particularly vivid man-
lier in the natrativea of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Piga-
fetta, and Andrea de San Martin the celebrated pilot of
Magellan's expedition, who was in possession of lluy Falero's
method of finding the longitude. Oppositions of planets,
occultations of stars, difl'erences of altitude between the
Moon and Jupiter, and changes of the Moon's declination.

296 EPOCHS ET THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP

«ere all tried with more or less success. We have observa-
tions of conjunction by Columbus, in the night of the 13t!i
of January, 149-3, from H&iti. The necessity of giiTng to
each great expedition a well-instructed astronomer, in addi-
tion to the naya] officers, was so generally felt, that Queen
Isabella wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493,
that "altliongh he had shewn in liis enterprises that he
knew more than any other mortal man ((jue ninguno de los
nacidos), yet she advised him to take with bim Fray Antonio
de Marchena, as a learned and skilful man in the know-
ledge of the stars." Columbus sajs, in the description of
his fourth voyage ; " there is but one infallible method of
keeping a ship's reckoning, namely, the astronomical one.
Those who understand it may be content. What it yields
is like a ' vision profetica.' (*^*) Our ignorant pilots, when
they have lost sight of the coast for many days, know not
where they are ; they would not be able to lind again the
lands which I have discovered. To navigate requires ' com-
pas y arte,' the compass, and the knowledge or art of the

I have given these characteristic details, because thej
bring more sensibly before us the manner in which nautical
astronomy, the powerful instrument of rendering navigation
secure and certain and thereby facihtating access to all
regions of the globe, received its first development in the
epoch of which we are treating ; and how, in tlie general
movement of men's minds, there was an early recognition
of the possibility of methods, wliich had to await for their
extensive practical application the improvement of time-
keepers and of instruments for measuring angles, as well as

Tect solar and lunar tables. If the character of an age

THE tISIVEBSE. — 0CE4NIC DISCOVEOIES. 297

be " the mauifestation of the hiimfin mitid in a defiiiite-
epoch of time," the age of Columbus, and of the great nau-
tical discoveries, whilst augmenting in an unexpected man-
ner the objects of knowledge and contemplation, also opened
to succeeding centuries a new and higher range of attain-
ment. It is the peculiarity of great discoveries at once to
extend the fieltl of our comiuests, and our prospect into new
regions which yet remain to be conquered. Weak spirits in
every age believe complacently tKat mankind have reached
the highest point of their intellectual progress; forgetful
that through the intimate mutual relation of all naturid
phffinomena, in proportion as we advance, the field to be
travelled over obtams a wider extension, — that it is bounded
by an horizon which recedes coiitiuuaUj before the march
of the espiorer,

"Where, in the history of nations, can we point to an
epoch similar to that in which events so fruitful in conse-
quences, as the discovery and first colonisation of America,
the navigation to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and
Magellan's first circumnavigatioii of tlie globe, coincided
with the highest and most flourishing period of art, with
the attainment' of intellectual and religious liberty, and with
the sudden enlargement of the knowledge of the heavens
and of the earth ? Such an epoch owes bnt a vejy small
portion of its grandeur to the distance from which we re-
gard it, or to the circumstance that it comes before us only
in historical remembrance, unobscured by the disturbijig
actuality of the present. Bnt here too, as in all terrestrial
tilings, the period of greatest brilliaucy is closely associated
with events which call forth emotions of the deepest sorrow.
.Jhe progress of cosmical knowledge was purchased by ail
o 2

29b EPOCHS IN THE HISTOlir OP THE CONTEliPLATION OF

the violeucc and all the horrors which conquerors^ the so-
cftlleJ extenders of civihsation, spread over the earth. Yet
it would be an indiscreet and rash boldness wliich, in the
iaterrupted history of the development of humanity, should
venture to decide dogmatically on the balance of good or
ill. It is not for men to pronounce judgment on events
which, slowly prepared in the womb of time, belong but
partially to the age in which we place them.

The first discovery of the middle and southern parts of
the United States of America by the Scandinavians abnost
coincides in point of time with the appearance and myste-
rious arrival of Manco Capac in the higlilands of Peru ; it
preceded by almost 200 years the arrivsd of the Aztecs in
the valley of Mexico. Tlie foundation of the principal city,
Tenochtitian, dates fully 325 years later. If these coloniza-
tions by Northmen had been more permanent in their
results, — if they had been fostered and protected by a power-
fid and politically united mother country, — the advancing
Germanic race would have still found many wandering
tribes of hunters, {*^^) where the Spatiish conquerors Csnnd
settled agriculturists.

The period of the conquista, the end of 'the ISth and
beginning of the 16th centuries, is marked by a wondednl
coincidence of great events in the political and moral life of
the nations of Europe, In the same month in whi^
lleman Cortes, after the battle of Otumba, advanced to be-
siege Mexico, Martin Luther burnt the papal bull at "Wit-
tenberg, and laid the foundation of the Reformation, which
promised to the mind of man freedom and progress in almost
untried paths. (**^) Somewhat earlier, those long buried
glorious monuments of ancient Grecian art, the Ltiocoon,

THB UKITEBSE. — OCEASIC DiaCOVEJtlES.

299

the Torso, the Belvedere Apollo, aud the Medicean Veims
had beeii dieelosed. Michael Aiigelo, Leonardo da Vinci,
Titian, and Eaphael flourished in Italy, and Holbein and
Albert Durer in our Germaa country. In the year in which
Columbns died, fourteen years srfter the discovery of the
new continent, the order of the universe was discovered,
though not publicly announced, by Copernicus.

Tbe consideration of the importance of the discovery of
Americj^ and of the first European settlements therein,
touches on other fields of thought besides those to which these
pages ore especially devoted ; it would include all those intel-
lectual and moral influences, which the sudden enlargement
of the entire mass of ideas exercised on the improvement of
the social state. We teeal only by a passing allusion, bow,
since that great era, a new activity of thought and feeling,
courageous wishes, and hopes hard to relinquish, have gra-
dually pervaded all classes of civil society ; — how the scanti-
ness of the population of one hemisphere of the globe,
especially on the coasts opposite to Europe, favoured the
settlement of colonies, wliich by their extent and position have
been transformed into independent states, unrestricted in
the choice of free forms of government, — and how, lastly, the
religious Seformation, the pi'ecnrsor of great pohtical revo-
lutions, passed tlirongh the difl'erent phases of its develop-
ment ia a region which became the refuge of all religions
opinions, and of the most different views in Divine things.
The boldness of the Genoese navigator is the first link in
the immeasurable chain of these fate-fraught events ; and it
waa accident, and not fraud or strife, {*^'} which deprived
the continent of America of his name. The new world.

300 HI8T0BT OP THE CONTEMPLATIOIf OP THE XJNIVEBSE.

brought during the last half century' continually nearer to
Europe by commercial intercourse^ and by the improvement
of navigation^ has exercised an important influence on the
political institutions^ (^^^) and on the ideas and tendencies
of those nations who dwell on the eastern shore of the con-
stantly narrowing valley of the Atlantic Ocean*

EPOCHS m THE HISTOaY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF mi!
DNIVEHSE. — DiaCOVEEIES IN THE CELEaTIAL SPACES,

VII.

Great Diacoveries ia Space bj the application of the Teleaoope. —
The great Epoch of Astronomy and Mathematica from GaJilco
and Kepler to Newton imd Leibnitz. — Laws of the Planetary
Motions, and general Theory of Grayitation.

Ik attemptiag to recount the most distinctly marked pe-
riods and gradations of the development of cosraical con-
templation, we have in the last section enJeavoured to
depict the epoch, in which one hemisphere of the globe first
became known to the cultivated nations inhabiting the
other. The epoch of the most extensive discoveries upon
the surface of our planet was immediately succeeded by
man's first taking possession of a considerable part of the
celestial spaces by the telescope. The application of a
newly formed organ, of an instrument of space-penetrating
power, called forth a new world of ideas. Now begnn a
brilliant age of astronomy and mathematics ; and in the
latter the long series of profound investigators, leading to
the "all-transforming" Leonard Euler, the year of whose
biith (1707) is so near the year of Jacob Bernouilli's death,
A few names may suffice to recal the giant strides with
which the human mind advanced in the 17th eenturj', less
from any outward incitements than from its own indepen-
dent energies, and especially in the development of mathe-

J

302 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOST COf TH8 CQSTSTtVlA'naS 07

inatical thought. The laws that regulate the fall of bodies,
and the pliiuetary motioiis, were recognised ; the pressure of
the atmosphere, the propagation of light, and its refraction and
polarisfttion, were investigated. Mathematico-pliysic^ science
was created, and established on firm foundations. The in-
vention of the infinitesimal calculus marks the close of the
century ; and, reinforced bj its aid, the human intellect has
been enabled, in the succeeding hundred and fifty years, to
attempt successfully the solution of problems presented by
the jierturbstions of the heavenly bodies, by the polarisation
and interference of the wa.ves of light, by radiant heat, by
the electro -magnetic re-entering currents, by Wbrating chords
and surfaces, by the capillary attraction of tubes of small
diameter, and by so many other natural phenomena.

In this world of thought the work proceeds uninter-
ruptedly, and its difl'erent portions lend to each other mu-
tual sup[)ort. No earber fruitful germ is stifled. "We see
increase, simultaneously, the abundance of materials, the
strict accuracy of methods, and the perfection of instruments.
I propose to hmit myself principally to the consideratioii of
the 17th century, the age of Kepler, Galileo, and Bacon, of
l^cbo Brahe, Descartes, and Huygens, of Fermai, Xewton,
and Leibnitz. What tbey have done is so genentllyknovii,
that shght indications will suffice to point out through viat
put of their achievements they have more especiallv contri-
buted to the enlargement of cosmical iiews.

We have already shewn (***) how, by the disconn d
tdescopic vision, there was lent to the ere, — the agm tt
tile sensuous contemplation of the visible universe, — > ponr
of which we are yet iai &om ha^'ing reached the Umi^ hA
of which the first feeble commencement (magni^ii^ buAr

THB mnVSBBC. — DIS00VEKIE8 IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES.

as much as 32 times in liuear dimension), {*^) sufficed
penetrate into cosmical depths before unkuown. The exact
knowledge of many keaveulj bodies belonging to our solar
system, the unchanging laws according lo which they re-
volve in their orbits, and the perfected insight into the true
structure of the uuiverse, are the characteristics of the
epoch which we liere attempt to describe. The results
which this age produced have defined the leading outlines of
the picture of nature or sketch of the Cosmos, and have added
an intelligent recognition of the contents of the celesti^
spaces, — at least in the well-understood arrangement of one
planetary group, — to the earher explored contents of terres-
trial space. Seeking to iix attention on general views, I
here name only the most important objects of the astrono-
mical labours of the 17th century; and would point to their
influence in inciting at once to great and unexpected mathe-
matical discoveries, and to a more comprehensive and
grander contemplation of the material universe.

I have already remarked, that the age of Columbus, Gama,
and Magellan, the age of nautical discoveries, coincided with
other great and deeply influential events, with the awaken-
ing of religious liberty of thought, with the development of
art, and with the promulgation of the Copemican system of
the universe. Nicholas Copernicus (in two still existing
letters he calls himself Kopernik) had already attained liis
21at year, and had observed with the astronomer Albert
Brudzewski, at Cracow, when Columbus discovered America.
ilardly a year after the death of the great discoverer, Coper-
nicus having returned to Cracow from a six years' residence
at Padun, Bologna, and Rome, we find him occupied with an
entire revolutioii in the astronomical view of the universe.

;o3 ^n

to
act
'lar I

S04 BP0CH3 IN THE

? THE COSTEMPLATIOS Of

Bj the favour of his uncle, Lucas "Waisselrode von Allen, (^*')
Bishop of Ermland, he was named, in 1510, Canon at
Frauenburg, where he was engaged for thirty- three years in
the completion of his work "De Revolutionibua Orbium
Cffilestium." The first printed copy was brought to him
when in immediate preparation for death, and when hii
strength of body and mind were failing : he saw it and
touched it; but temporal things were no farther heeded,
and he died, not, as Gassendi says, a few hours, (*8^) but
some days afterwards, on the 24th of May, 15i3. Two
years previously, an important part of his doctrine had been
made known in print, by a letter from one of his most
zealous pupils and adherents, Joachim Rhreticus, to Jotrntiii
Schoner, Professor at Nuremberg. Ytt it was not the pro-
mulgation of the Coperuican theory, the renewed doctrine
of the solar orb forming the centre of our system, which
led, somewhat more than half a centnry after its first ap-
pearance, to the brilhant discoveries in space which mark
the beginning of the 17th century : — these discoveries were
the result of an invention BJ^cidentally made, — that of the
Telescope. Tlirough them the doctrine of Copernicus was
perfected and enlarged. His fundamental views, confirmed
and extended by the results of physical astronomy (by the
newly discovered system of the satellites of Jupiter, and
by the phases of Venus), — pointed out to theoretical
astronomy the paths which must conduct to the sore at-
tainment of lier aims, and incited to the solution of pro-
blems which required that the analytical calculus should be
carried to still higher degrees of perfection. As George
Peuerbach and Kegiomontanus (Johann Miiller, of Konigs-
berg, in Tranconia), exerted a beneficial influence on Coper-

THB tlNIVERaB. — D18C0VEKIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 305

nicus and his scholars, Elueticus, Eeinhoid, and Mostlin, so
also did these {though divided from them by a longer inter-
val of time) exert a similar influence on the labours of
Kepler, Gahleo, and Xewton. This is the comiecting link
which, in the enchainment of ideas, unites the 16th and
17th centuries, and requires that, in describing the en-
larged astronomical views of the later of these two periods,
■we should allude to the incitements which descended to it
from the former.

An erroneous, and unhappily still recently prevailing
opinion, C^^) regards Copernicus as having, through
timidity and fear of priestly persecution, represented the
earth's planetary movement, and the sun's position in tlie
eentre of the whole planetary system, as a mere "hypo-
thesis," which fulfilled the astronomical object of subjecting
the orbits of the heavenly bodies to convenient calculation,
" but which need not he regarded as true, or even as
probable." These singular words {*"} are indeed found
in the anonymous preface placed at the commencement
of Coperuicus's work, and entitled " De Hypothesihus
hujns operia;" but they do not belong to Copernicus,
and are in direct contradiction to his dedication to the
Pope, Paul III. The author of this preliminary notice
was, as Gassendi says most distinctly in Ids life of Copemi-
cns, a mathematician named Andreas Osiander, then living
at Nuremberg, who, conjointly with Schoner, superintended
the printing of the book " De Revolutionibus," and who,
although he does not make express mention of any rehgious
scruples, would appear to have tliought it advisable to tenn
the new views an hypothesis, and not, like Copernicus, a
demonstrated truth. The founder of our present system of

I

I

IN THE HISTOay OP THE COKTEMPLATION OF

the universe (the most important parts of tliat systenij t!ie
grandest traits in the picture of the universe, unquestionahlj
belong to him) was no less distinguished by the courage
and conildence with which he propounded it, than by his
knowledge. He was in a high degree deserving o£ the fine
enlogium of Kepler, who, speaking of him in the introduc-
tion to the Erudolphiue Tables, says, " vir fuit masimo in-
genio, et quod in hoc esercitio (in combating prejudices)
magni momrati est, aniiiio liber." Copernicus, in his de-
dication to the Pope, does not hesitate to term the generally
received opinion of the immobihty and central position oE
the earth au " absurd acroaraa," and to expose the stupidity
of those who adhere to so erroneous a belief. " If," said
he, "any empty babbler (^araioXoTot), ignorant of mathe-
matical knowledge, should yet rashly pronounce sentence
upon his work, by wresting for that purpose some passage
from Holy Scripture (propter ahquem locum scripturffi male
ad auum propositum detortum), he should despise so pre-
Bumptuous an assault. It was, indeed, generally known
that the celebrated Lactantius (who could not, it is true, be
reckoned among mathematicians), had spoken very child-
ishly (pueriliter) of the form of the earth, deriding those
who hold it to be spherical. On mathematical subjects oue
must write for mathematicians only. In order to shew-tbat,
deeply penetrated with the truth of his results, he had no
cause to feoi any condemnation, he addressed himself, from
a remote comer of the world, to the supreme visible head of
the Church, that he might protect him from the tooth of
slander; adding, that the Church would, moreover, be
advantaged by his investigations on the length of the year
and the movements of the moon." In regard to this last

THE TJNIVEIISB, — ^DI9C0VERIEa TS THE CELESTIAL SPACES. S07

remark it may be noticed, that astrology, and amendmenta
in the Ctdendar, were long chiefly efficacioua in obtaining for
astronomy the protection of secular or ecclesiastical power ;
as chemistry and botany were long regarded solely aa sub-
servient to medicinal knowledge.

The free and powerful language employed by Copemicas,
the evident outpouring of deep internal conviction, suffi-
ciently refutes the assertion, that the system which bears his
immortal name was proposed as an hypothesis convenient
to calculating astronomers, but which might very well be
without foundation. " By no other arrangement," he ex-
claims, with inspired enthusiasm, " have I been able to dis-
cover so admirable a symmetry of the universe, so harmo-
nious a combination of orbits, than by placing the light of
the world (lucenjam mundi), the sun, as on a kingly throne,
in the midst of the beautiful temple of nature, guiding
from thence the entire famdy of circum-revolving planets
(circumagentem gubernans astrorumfamiliam)." [*^^) Even
the idea of universal gravitatiou or attraction {appetentia
qusedam naturalis partibus iiidita) towards the centre of the
world (centrum muadi), the sun, inferred from the force of
gravity in spherical bodies, appears to have floated before
the mind of this great man, as is shewn by a remarkable
passage C^^) in the 9th chapter of the 1st book of the
" Revolutions,"

tn passing in review the difi'erent stages of tiie develop-
ment of cosmical contemplations, we discover from the
earliest times more or less obscure antiei|)ations of the
attraction of masses, and of centrifugal forces. Jacobi, in his
investigations on the mathematical knowledge of the Greeks,
(which are unfortunately still in manuscript), dwells with

S07 ]

308 GPOOHS JS TBS HISTOKT Of THE CONTBH7LATIOS G

^L astro

■

■ to til

justice on "the deep consideration of Nature by Anax^oras,
from whom we hear, not without astomshment, that the
moon(**^) if its force of rotation ceased would fall to the earth
as a stoue discharged from a sliiig." I have dreadj, in mj first
volume, when treating of the fall of aerohtes, (*^^) noticed
similar expressions of the Clazomenian, and of Diogenes of
ApoUonia, respecting the " cessation or interruption of the
force of rotation." Of the attracting force which the centre
of the earth exerts on all heavy masses removed from it,
Flato had a clearer idea ttau Aristotle ; who was, indeed,
like Hipparchus, acquainted with the acceleration of bodies
in falling, but who did not correctly apprehend its cause.
In Plato, and according to Democritus, attraction is
limited to bodies which have affinity with each other ; or in
other words, to the tending together of homogeneous ele-
mentary substances. (*^) But at a later period, probably in
the 6th century, the Alexandrian John Pliiloponus, a pupd of
Ammonius Hermete, ascribes the movements of cosmical bo-
dies to a primitive impulse, and combines with this idea that
of the fall of bodies, or the tendency of all substances, heavy
or Hght, to come to the ground. {*'") But the idea which
Copernicus divined, and which Kepler enunciated more
clearly in his fine work " de Stella Martis," even applying
it (*^^) to tile ebb and flood of the Ocean, we find invested
with new life, and rendered more fruitful {1666 and 167i)
by the sagacity of the ingenious Robert Hooke. The
Newtonian theory of gravitation came next, and presented
the grand means of transforming the whole of physical
astronomy into a system of celestial mechanics. (*'^}

Copernicus, as we perceive not only from hia dedication
to the Pope, but also from several passages in the book

THE TTHIVBHSB, — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAI, SPACES. 309

itself, was tolerably well accquainted with the representation 3
which the ancients formed to themselves of the structure of
the Universe. In the period before Hipparchua, he however
only names Ilicetas of Syracuse, (whom he always calls
Nicetas), Philolaus the Pythagorean, the Timffiua of Plato,
EcphantuSj Heraelides of Pontus, and the great geometer
Apollonius of Perga. Of the two mathematicians who
came nearest to his system, Aristarchns of Saraos, and
Seleucus the Babylonian, {■•'*) he only names the first
without farther notice, and does not meutiou the second at
all. It has often been said tliat Copernicus was not
accquainted with the opinion of Aristarclius of Samos,
relative to the central |K>sition of the Sun and the planetary
character of the Earth, because the " Arenariua," and all
the works of Archimedes, were only pnbhshed a year after
his death, a full century after the invention of the art of
printing; but ui saying this, it is forgotten that, in the
dedication to Pope Paul III., Copernicus quotes a long
passage on Philolaus, Ecphantus, and Herachdea of Pontus,
from Plutarch's work "on the opinions of Philosophers"
(iii. 13), and that he might have read in the same work
(ii. 24), that Aristarchus of Saraos regarded the Sun as one
of the fixed stars. Among all the opinions of the Ancients,
the greatest influence on the direction and gradual develop.
ment of the views of Copernicus, would appear, from Gus-
sendi's statements, to have been exercised by a passE^e in the
encyclopffidic work of Martianus Mineus Capella of Madaura,
written in a semi-barbarous language, and by the System of
the World of Apollonius of Perga. According to the system
described by Martianus Mineus, which has been confidently
ascribed (*^*) sometimes to the Egyptians, and sometimes

810

15 THE HISTOKY OF THE COSTEMPLiTlOIf OF

to the Chaldeans, the Earth rests immoveably in the centre,
uid the Sun levolves round it as a planet, while Mercury
Mid Venua accompany, and revolve round the Sun aa his
satellites. Such a view of the structure of the Universe
might tend to prepare the way foe that of the Sun's central
force. There is nothing either in the Almagest, or in the
writings of the Ancients generally, or iu the work of
Copernicus " de Revolutionibus," to justify Gassendi'a
decided assertion as to the perfect similarity of the System
of Tvcho Brahe with that of Apollonius of Perga. After
Bockh's complete investigation, nothing more need he said
respectJDg the confusion of the System of Copernicus with
that of the Pjiihagorean Philolaus, in whiclt the non-rotating
Earth (the Antichton or opposite earth is not itself a planet,
but only the opposite hegiisiihere of our planet,) moves, as
well as the sun, round the " hearth of the world," the central
fire or flame of life of the entire planetary system.

Tlie scientific revolution commenced by Coperuicua had
the rare good fortune {setting aside a brief retrograde
movement in TvtIio Brahe's hypothesis), of proceeding
uninterruptedly forward to i\s object, — the discovery of
the true structure of the universe. The rich supply of
exact observations which were furnished by Ty*''"' Brahe
self, the zealous opponent of Copeniicua, laid the
foundation of the discovery of those unchanging laws of
the planetary movements, which prepared for Kepler im-
perishable fame, aud which, when interpreted by Newtfm,
and shewn by him to be theoretically necessary, were
transferred to the bright domain of thought, and became
the " intelligent recognition of nature." It has been
ingeniously said, (*'*) though perhaps with too feeble an

THE CNIVS&SB. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELBSnAL SPACES, Sll

appreciation of the free, great, and indepemieiit spirit
which conceived the theory of gravitation, " Kepler wrote a
book of laws, Newton the spirit of the taws."

The figurative poetic myths of the Pythagorean and
Platonic pictures of the universe, {*^^) variable as the
imagination from which thej had their birth, still found
a partial reflex m Kepler; they warmed aaJ cheered liis
often saddened spirits, but they did not divert him from
the earnest path which he steadfastly pursued, and of which
he reached the goal, {"''} It years before Ids death, on the
memorable night of the 15th of May, 1618, Copernicus
bad afforded a sufficient explanation of the apparent
revolution of the heaven of the fixed stars, by the diurnal
rotation of the Earth around her axis; and by the annual
movement round the sun, had given an equally perfect
solution of the most striking naovements of the planets
(their retrogressions and stationary appearances), — and had
thus found the true cause of what is called the " second
iuequahty of the planets/' The first inequaHty, the noUr
uniform movement of the planets in their orbits, he left
unexplained. True to the ancient Pythagorean principle of
the inherent perfection of circular movements, Copcmicua, in
his structure of the universe, needed to add to the " CKcen-
tric" circles having unoccupied centres, some of the epicycles
of Apollonius of Pergn. Bold as was the path struck out,
men could not free themselves at once from all earUer views.

The equal distance at which the fixed stars continue from
each other, whilst the whole heavenly vault moves from East
to West, had led to the representation of a firmament, —
a solid crystal sphere, — in wliicb Anaximenes, {who was
perhaps not much later than Pj-thagoras), imagined the stars

I

2 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COSTEMPLATION Of

to be fastened as if nailed. (*'») Gemimia the Rhodian, a
cotemporary of Cicero's, doubted the constellations baflg
all iu the same plane ; some, he thoi^ht, were higher and
some lower, Tliis manner of representing the heaven of tbe
fixed stars was transferred to the planets ; and thus arose
the theory of tbe eseentric intercalated spheres of Eudoxui",
Menaechmus, aaid Aristotle who invented retrograding
spheres. After a century, the acute mind of ApoUonios
the theory of epicycles, — a construction which
adapted itself more easily to the representation and calcola-
tion of the motions of the planets, — to supersede the soUd
spheres. Whether, as Ideler believes, it was not until after
the eatabbshment of the Alexandrian Musenm, that philoso-
phers began to regard " a free movement of the planet? in
space as possible," — whether previously to that period tlie
intercalated transparent spheres, (27 according to Eudosus,
55 according to Aristotle), as well as the epicycles which
passed from Hipparchus and Ptolemy to tbe middle age",
were generally regariied, not as actual solid substances
having material thickness, but simply as ideal abstractions,—
I refrain here from any attempt to decide historically,
greatly as I incbne to tJie latter view.

It is more certain, that in the middle of the 16th eentnrj,
when the theory of the 77 homocentric spheres of the learned
Polyhistor, Girolamo Fracastoro, was received with applause,
and when, subsequently, the opponents of Copernicus sought
for every means of supporting the system of Ptolemy, — the
representation of the existence of aohd spheres, drdo
and epicycles, which had been particularly favoured by tha
fathers of the Church, was still extremely prevalent. Tyeha
Brahe expressly boasts, that by ids considerations on tbo

THK UNIVEBaB.— -DISCOVEKIEg IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 313

paths of comets, lie first demonstrated the impossibility of
solid spheres, and thus shattered the whole artificial fabric.
He filled the free CL'lestial spaces with air, aud even believed
that the " resisting medium," made to vibrate by the revolv-
ing heaveidy bodies, might produce sounds. The unpoetic
Itothmann thought it incumbent upon bim to refute this re-
newal of the Pj't.hagorean myth of the music of the spheres.
The great discovery of Kejiler, that all the planets move
round the sun in ellipses, and that the sun is placed in one of
the foci of these eUipses, finally freed the original Copemican
system from the excentric circles, and from all epicycles, (^'^J
The planetary fabric of the universe now appeared objectively,
and as it were architecturally, in its simple grandeur; but the
play and connection of indwelling, impelling and maintaining
forces, were first unveiled by Isaac Newton. In the history of
the gradual development of human knowledge, we have already
often remarked the appearance, within short intervals of time,
of important though seemingly accidental discoveries, and
of great minils clustered as it were together; and we see
this phenomenon repeated in the most striking manner in
the first ten years of the 17t!i century. Tycho Brahe, the
founder of modern practical astronomy, Kepler, Galileo,
and Francis Bacon, were coteiaporaries. All, except Tycho,
were cotemporaneous in their in aturcr years «-ith the labours
of Descartes and Permat. The fnu'lamental traits of Bacon's
Instauratio M^na appeared in the English language as
early as 1605, fifteen years before the Novum Organon.
The invention of the telescope, and the greatest discoveries
in phyfical as'ronomy, (Jupiter's satellites, the solar spots.
the phases of Vcuus, and the wonderful form of Saturn),
fall between the years 1609 and 1612. Kepler's specula-
VOL. U. S

S a THE HISTORY OF TBB CONTEMPLATION OE

tiona on the elliptic orbit of Mars (*^'') were began in ] 601,
and gave occasion to the "AstroDomia nova sen Physics
ccdestis" completed eight jears later. " By the study of the
orbit of the planet Mars/' writes Kepler, "we must arrive
at the knowledge of the mysteries of astronomy, or we raust
remain ever ignorant of them. By resolutely continned laboar
1 liflve succeeded in subjecting the inequalities of the motion
of Mars to a natural law." The generahzation of the same
thought conducted Kepler to the great truths and cosmical
conjectures which he presented ten years later in his
"Harmonicea Mundi" (iibri quinque). " I believe," he
writes, in a letter to the Danish astronomer Longomontanus,
" that astronomy and physics are so closely connected, that
neither can he perfected without the other." The results
of hia investigations on the structure of the eye and the
theory of vision appeared in the " Paralipomena ad "Vitd-
liouem," in 1604, and the "Dioptrica," (*8') in 1611. Thus
rapid, in regard both to the most important objects in the
phenomena of the celestial spaces, and to the mode of ap-
prehending these objects through the invention of new
organs, was the extension of knowledge in the short interval
of the first ten or twelve years of the ceutuiv, wliich opened
with Galileo and Kepler, and closed with Newton and
Leibnitz.

The accidental discovery of the space-penetrating power
of the telescope was first made in Holland, probably as
early as the close of 1608. According to the latest do-
cumentary investigations, (*82) this great invention may be
claimed by Hans Lijipershey, a native of Wesel, and spec-
tacle-maker at Middelburg, — Jaeob Adriansz, also called
Metius, who is said to have made burning-glasses of ice, —

TirE TJNTVERSE. — DISCOVBKIES IK THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 315

and ZacSiarias JanscD. The first named of these three
parties is always called Laprey in the important letter of the
Dutch ambassador Borcel to the physician Borelli, the
author of the memoir "Devero telescopiiinventore." (1655.)
If the priority were to be determined by the precise times
when the offers were made to the States General, it would
belong to Hans Lippershej, who offered to the Govern-
ment, on the 2d of October, 1608, three instruments "with
which one can see to a distance." The offer of Metiua ia
dated the 1 7th of October of the same year; but he says
expressly in Ilia petition, that " through meditation and in-
dustry he had constructed such instruments for two years."
Zacharias Jansen (who, like Lippershey, was a spectacle-
maker at Middelburg), together with his father Hans Jan-
aen, invented the compound microscope, the eye-piece of
wliich is a concave lens, towards the end of the 16th cen-
tury (probably about 1590), but discovered the telescope
only in 1610, as the ambassador Bored testifies. Jansen
and his friends directed the telescope towards remote ter-
restrial, but not towards celestial objects. Tlie inappre-
ciable importance and magnitude of the influence exerted by
the microscope in communicating a more profound know-
ledge of alt Clonic objects in respect to the conformation
and movements of their parts, and by the telescope in the
sudden opening of regions of cosmical space before un-
known, required this detailed reference to the history of
their discovery.

Wheo the news of the recent Dutch invention, or of the
discovery of telescopic vision, leached Venice, Galileo was
accidentally present; he at once divined what were the

ree I

the I

the I

I

316 KF0CB9 IN THE HI8T0RT OF THE CONTEMPt.ATION O?

essential conditions of the construction, and immediately
completed a telescope at Padua for his own use. He di-
rected it first to the mountains of the moon, and shewed the
method of measuring their heights ; attributing, like Leo-
nardo da Vinci and Moetlinj the ashy coloured light of the
moon to the light of the sun reflected back upon her from
the earth. He examined with small magnifying powers the
group of the Pleiades, the cluster of stars in Cancerj the
Milky "W'ny, and the group of stars in tlie head of Orion.
Then followed in quick succession the great discoveries of
the four satellites of Jupiter, — the two "handles" of Sa-
turn, or his surrounding ring imperfectly seen so that its
tnie character was not at once recognised, — the solar spots, —
and the crescent form of Venus.

The satelKtes or moons of Jupiter, (the first of all the
secondary planets of which the telescope disclosed the exist-
ence), were discovered, as it would appear, almost simulta-
neously, and quit« independently, on the 29th of December,
1609, by Simon Marius, at Ansbach; and on the 7th of
January, 1610, by Galileo, at Padua. In the publication
of this discovery, Galileo, by the Nuncina Sidereua {1610),
preceded the Mundus Jovialis of Simon Marius (1614). {***}
Simon Marius wished to call Jupiter's satellites Siders
Brandenhurgica ; Galileo proposed Sidera Cosmica or Medi-
eea, of which names the last was most approved at Florence,
The collective name was not, however, sufficient to meet the
love of flattery ; and the satelhtes, instead of being desig-
nated as they are by us, by numbers, ha\Tng been called by
Simon Marius, lo, "Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, — Ga-
lileo substituted for these mythological personages (lir

*i

THE tFNI VERSE, — DISCOVEKIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 317

names of the members of tlie family of the Medicean riiliiig
house, Cathariua, Maria, Cosimo the elder, and Cosimo the
younger.

The knowledge of Jupiter's satellites and of the phases
of Venus was most influential in confirming and extenthug
the Copemicau system. Tlie Htfcle world composed of the
planet Jupiter and his sateUites {Mundus Jovialis) offered
to the intellectual eye a perfect image of the great solar and
planetary system. It was recognised tliat the sa(«Uites of
Jupiter obeyed the laws discovered by Kepler, and, in the
first piace, that the squares of their periods of revolution
were in the ratio of the cubes of their mean diatancea from
the central planet. Tbis led Kepler, in the Harmonice
Mundi, to exclaim with the confidence and courage which
belongs to intellectual freedom, addressing himself to those
whose voices bore sway beyond the Alps ; — "Eighty years (*^^)
have elapsed, durmg which tlie Copernicau doctrine of the
motion of the earth aud the immobihty of the sun has been
taught unhindered, because it was held permissible to dispute
concerning natural things, and to throw light upon the
works of God; and now, when new documents have been
discovered for the proof of this doctrine, documents which
were unknown to the (ecclesiastical) judges, the promulga-
tion of the true system of the fabric of the universe is by
you prohibited!" This prohibition or ban, — a consequence
of the ancient feud between ecclesiastical authorities aud
natural science, — had been already experienced by Kepler
even in Protestant Germany, (*«&)

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites marks a memorable
epoch in the history of astronomy, and in the permanent

ibUshment of the principles upon which it is founded. (**')

J17 "

318 EPOCHS IN TffE HISTOET OP THE COSTEMPLATION tW

Tlie occultations of the satellites, or their entrance into the
shadow of Jnpiter, led to the knowledge of the velocity of
light (1675), and through tiiis, in 1727, to the explanation
of the " aberration -ellipse" of the fised stars, in which the
orbit of the earth, in her anonal revolution round the sun,
is, as it were, reflected on the celestial vault. These disco-
veries of Komer's and Bradley's have jnstly heen termed the
"key-stone of the Copemican system;" the visible demon-
stration of the earth's movement of translation.

The importance of the occultations of Jupiter's satellites
for geographical determinations of longitude on land was
early perceived by GJaUleo fSept, 1612). He proposed this
method of determining longitudes, first to the Court of
Spain (1616), and subsequently to the States General of
Holland ; he proposed it, indeed, as a method available at
sea, (*88) apparently little aware of the insuperable difficul-
ties which oppose its practical application on the unstable
ocean. He wished either to go himself, or to send his son
Viceiizio, to Spain, with a hundred telescopes which he
should prepare; rec[uiriQg for recompense "una Croce di
8, Jago," and an annual pension of 4000 crowns; a small
sum, he says, as at first, in Cardinal Borgia's house, he had
been led to expect 6000 ducats a year.

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites was soon after fol-
lowed by the observation of Saturn as a triple star, — " pln-
neta tergerainus." As early as November 1610, Galileo
wrote to Kepler that "Saturn consists of ttiree heavenly
bodies in contact with each other." In this observation
there was the germ of the discovery of Saturn's ring. He-
veiius described, in 1656, the variations in the form of
Saturn, the unequal opening of the " handles," and their

J

THH DHTYERSS. — ^DISCOVERIES IS THE CELEaXIAL SPACES. 319

J entire disappearance. But the merit of having
explained scientifically all the phjenomena of the ring of
Saturn taken as one, belongs to Huygens (1655), who, accord-
ing to the mistrustful manner of the time, and like Gahleo,
concealed his discovery in an anagram, consisting in this
case of 88 letters. It was Dominic Cassini who first saw
the black stripes in the ring (1684), and recognised its
division into at least two concentric rings. I have here
brought together the information gained in the course of a
century respecting the most wonderful and least anticipated
of all the forms of celestial bodies with which we are yet
acquainted ; a form which has led to ingenious conjectures
respecting the original mode of formation of the planets
and satellites.

The spots on the sun were first observed through tele-"
scopes by John Fabricins of East Friesland, and by
Gralileo either at Padua or at Venice. In the publication
of the discovery, Eahricius (June, 1611) was certainly a
year in advance of Galileo (first letter to the burgomaster
Marcus Welser, May 4, 1612.) The first observations of
Fabricius appear, by Arago's careful researches, (*^5) to have
been made in March 1611, or, according to Sir David
Brewster, even at the close of the preceding year ; wliile
Christopher Scheiner does not hiraseif refer hia observa-
tions to an earlier period than April 16II, and probably
did not begin to occupy himself in earnest with the solar
spots until the month of October of the same year. Re-
specting Galileo we have only obscure and discordant
information. He was ac(|uainted with the solar spots in
April 1611, for he shewed them publicly at Rome, in the
garden of the Cardinal Bandini, on tlie Quirinal, in April

noN OP I

5acli attri-

820 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY O? THE CONTEMPLATION

and May of that year. Harriot, to whom Baron Zacli a
butes tlie discovery of the solar spots (16tli Jan. 1610!)
did indeed see three of them on the 8th of December, 1610 ,
and marked their position in a register of observations ; but
he was not aware that they were solar spots, as Flamstead,
on the aSd of December, 1690, and Tobias Mayer, on the
25th of September, 1756, did not recognise Urajius as a
planet when seen in their telescopes. Harriot first reec^-
nised them as solar spots Dec, 1, 1611, five months after
Fabricius had published his discovery. Galileo remarked
thus early, that the solar spots, "of which many are lai^er
than the Mcilitcrranean, and even than Africa and Asia,"
occupy a distinct none ia the sun's disk. He noticed that
the same s^wts sometimes returned, and was persuaded that
they belonged to the sun itself. The differences in their
dimensions at the centre of the disk, and when near disap-
pearing at the margin, particularly arrested his attention ;
but I do not find, in the remarkable second letter to Marcus
Welser (Aug. 14, 1612), anything that could be interpreted
to indicate that he had observed the inequality of the ashy
coloured border at the two sides of the black nucleus when
approaching the limb of the sun (Alexander Wilson's fine
remark in 1773 !} The Canon Tarde, in 1620, and Mala-
pertus, in 1633, ascribed all obscurations of the sun to
small revolving cosmical bodies which intercepted his light,
and to wliich the names of Borbonia and Austriaca Sidera
were given. (*bo) Fabricius recognised, like Galileo, that the
spots belong to the sun itself; (*^') he also saw that spots
which he had observed disappeared and returned again j and
these phtenomena taught him the rotation of the sun, which
Kepler had conjectured before the discovery of the spots.

1

THE nWIVEBSB. — DIBCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 321

The most exact determinatioTis of the period of rotation
were made by the dihgent Scheiner (1630). Since the
strongest light which man has yet been able to produce,
Drummond's incandescent lime, appears of an inky black
when projected upon the sun'a disk, we need not wonder that
Gahleo, who doubtless first described the great solar facula:,
should have considered the light of the nuclei of the solar
spots to be more intense than that of the full moon, or of
the atmosphere near the solar disk. {*^^) Tancies respect-
ing the many envelopes of air, cloud, and hght surrounding
Uie black earth-like nucleus of the sun, may be found in
the writings of Cardinal Nieolaus of Cuss, in the middle of
the 15th century. (*^)

The cycle of admirable discoveries which scarcely occupied
two years, and in which the immortal name of the Florentine
shines foremost, was completed by the observation of the phases
of Venus. As early as 1 6 1 0 Galiteo saw the sickle or crescent-
form of the planet, and, according to a practice already
alluded to, concealed the important discovery in an anagram,
which Kepler recals in the preface to his Dioptrica. He
aaya also, in a letter to Benedetto Costelli (Dec. 30, 1610),
that he thinks he has recognised changes in the enlightened
disk of Mars, notwithstanding the small power of his tele-
scope. The discovery of the moon-like crescent shape of
Venus was the triumph of the Copemican system. The j

necessity of the existence of these phases could certainly not
have escaped the founder of that system; he discusses in
detail, in the tenth chapter of his first book, the doubts
which the later adlicrents of the Platonic opinions had
raised against the Ptolemaic system on account of the
^^ooou's phases. But in the development of liis own system j

I

338 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOttY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP

lie makes no particulai remiirk respecting the phases of
VeiiuSj as in Thomas Smith's Optics he is stated to have
doue.

Tliese enlargements of cosmical knowledge, (the descrip-
tion of which cannot be kept entirely free from the ujihappy
contests respecting claims of priority in discovery), like all
tiiat belongs to physical astronomy, excited more general
interest than might otherwise have been the case, from the
invention of the telescope {160S) having occurred at a
period when popular attention had been roused by three
great and surprising events in the regions of sjiaee : I allude
to the sudden appearance and extinction of three new stars;
one in Cassiopea in 1572, one in Cyguusin 1600, and one in
the foot of Ophiuchus in 1604. All these surpassed in bright-
ness stars of the lirst magnitude; and that wliicli Kepler
observed in Cyguus continued to ahine in the vault of
heaven for twenty-one years, through the whole period of
Galileo's discoveries. Almost three centuries and a half
have since elapsed, and no new star of the first or second mag-
nitude has subsequently appeared ; for the remarkable cos-
mical event witnessed by Sir John Herschel in the southern
hemisphere in 1837, {***) was a great increase of luminoua
intensity in a long known star of the second magnitude
(ij Argus), wldcli had not until then been seen to be of
variable brightness. The writings of Kepler, and the sen-
sation pi-oduced at the present time by the apirearanee of
comets visible to the naked eye, enable us to comprehend
how powerfully the three new stars which appeared between
1572 and 1604 arrested curiosity — how much they increased
the interest felt in astronomical discoveries, and what h
stimulus they afforded to imaginative combinations. Strik-

a UHITBIISB. — DI8C0VEBIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. -.

ing terrestrial natural events, such aa earthquakes in coun-
tries where they are rarely felt, the outbreak of volcanoes
after long periods of repose, the rushing sound of aerolites
which traverse our atmosphere and become suddenly heated
in it, awaken for a time a lively interest in problems whicli
appear even more mysterious to persons in general than to
dogmatising pliilosophers.

In the foregoing remarks on the influence exerted by the
direct visible contemplation of particular heavenly bodies, I
have named Kepler more particularly, for the sake of re-
calling how, in this great, richly gifted, and extraordinary
man, the love for imaginative combinations was united wit'i
a remarkable talent lor observation, a grave and severe
method of induction, a courageous and almost unexampled
perseverance in calculation, and a depth of mathematical
thought which, displayed in his Stereometria doliorum, exer-
cised a happy influence on Fermat, and through him on the
invention of tlie infinitesimal calculus. (*^^) Tlie possessor
of such a mind (***) was pre-eminently suited, by the richness
and mobility of his ideas, and even by the boldness of the
cosmological speculations which he haaarded, to promote
and animate the movement which carried the 17tli century
uninterruptedly forward towards the attaiiunent of its exalted
object, the enlarged contemplation of the universe. The
many comets visible to the naked eye from 1577 to th^
appearance of Halle/s comet in 1607 (eight in number),
and the apparition, almost within tlie same period, of Ihe
three new stars already spoken of, led to speculations in
which these heavenly bodies were viewed as originating from,
or being formed out of, a eosmical vapour filling the regions
of space. Kepler, like Tycho Brahe, believed the new stars

324 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP

to have been coudeiised from this vapour, and redissolved
into it &gain. (''*') In his " new and strange discourse
on long-haired stars," he represented comets also (to which,
before the actual investigation of the elliptic orbits of the
planets, he attributed a rectilinear not a closed or re-entering
path), as formed from the "celesti^ air." He even added,
ill accordance with the old fancies of spontaneous genera-
tion, that comets were formed " like the herbs which grow
without seed from the earth, and as fishes are produced
from salt waf«r by geiieratio spontanea."

More happy in his other cosmical anticipations, Kepler
adventured the folio tting propositions:— That the fixed stars
are all suns like our own, surrounded by planetary systems;
tliat OUT Bun is enveloped in an atmosphere which shews
itself Qs a white corona in total solar eclipses ; that the
situation of our sun in the great island of the universe
to which it belongs is in the centre of the crowded ring of
stars which forms the Milky Way ; {*s^) that the sun ro-
tates round its axis as do the planets and the fixed stars
(tliis was before the di^cove^y of the solar spots) ; that
satellites, like those which Galileo had discovered revolving
round Jupiter, would be discovered round Saturn {and round
Mars) ; and that in tlie much too large inten'al (*M) be-
tween Mars and Jupiter, where we are now acquainted witli
seven asteroids, (and also between Venus and Mercury),
there moved planets, which their small size rendered invi-
sible to the naked eye. Anticipatory annunciations of Una
nature — felicitous eonjecturea, which have been for the most
part realised by subsequent discoveries — excited general
interest; wliile none of Kepler's cotemporaries, not even
Galileo, paid any just tribute of praise to the discovery of

J

THE UNIVERSE. DISCOYEHTES IN THE CELEaTI4L SPACES. 325

the three laws which, siiice Newton and the promulgation
of the theory of gravitation, have immortalised the name of
Kepler. {^'"') Coamical speculations, even such as are not
founded on observation, hut only on faint analogies, then,
as is still often the case, arrested attention more tlian the
most important results of " calculating astronomy."

Having thus described the important discoveries which,
iu so small a cycle of years, etdiirged the knowledge of the
regions of space, I have still to recal the advances in physi-
cal asirouomy which marked the second half of the great
century of which we are treating. The imprjvement of
telescopes occasioned the discovery of the sateUites of
Saturn. Huygens, with an object-glass polished by himself,
first discovered one of them (the sixth), on the 25th of
March, 1C55, forty-five years after the discovery of Jupiter's
satellites. From a prejudice which Huygens shared with
several astronomers of the period, that the number of satel-
htes or secondary planets could not exceed that of the
larger or primary planets, (*'•') he did not seek to discover
any more of the sateUites of Saturn. Four of them, Sidera
Lodovicea, were discovered by Dominic Cassini: theseveuth,
or outermost, which has great alternations of brightness, in
1671 ; the fifth in 1672 ; and the third and fourth in 1684,
with an object-glass of Campani's having a focal length of
100 — 136 feet. The two innermost, or the first and second
sateUites, were discovered more than a century later (17 88
uud 1789), by William Ilerschel with his culossal telescope,
Tlie second sateUite ofi'ers the remarkable phsenomenoo of
performing ita revolution round the principal planet in less
than one of our days.

iSoon after Huygens' discovery of a satellite of Saturn.

d

BPOOHS IN THE HISTORT OF THB CONTBUPLATIOX OP

Childrey {1658—1661) discovered the Zodiacal Light, of
which, however, the true relationa iii space were first deler-
mined by Domiaic Cassiui in 1683. Cassini regarded it
not as a port of tiie solar atmospherej but, like Schubert,
Laplace, and Poisson, as a detached separately revolving
nebulous ring. {*<*''} Next to the demonstration of the
existence of secondary planets or sateUitea, and of the de-
tached and concentrically divided ring of Saturn, the dikM-
very of the probable existence of the nebulous ring of the
Zodiacal Light unquestionably constitutes one of the grand-
eat eiilargements in our view of the planetary system, which
at first appeared so simple. In our own days the closely
interwoven orbits of the aioail planets between Mars and
Jupiter, the comets of short period which remain within our
system (the first of which was shewn to be such by Encke),
and the showers of shooting stars occurring on particular
days (if we may regard these bodies as small cosmical
masses moving witli planetary velocity), have enriched the
view of our solar system with new and wonderfully varied
objects of contemplation.

In the first part of the period of whicli we are treating,
in the age of Kepler and Galileo, great additions were also
made to the view of the contents of space, or of the dis-
tribution of the material creation beyond the outermost
planetary orbit, and beyond the path of any comet. In the
same period (157^^1604) in which three new stars of the
first magnitude appeared in Cassiopea, Cygnus, and Ophiu-
chuH, David Fabricius, Protestant minister of Oslell in East
I'riealand (the father of the discoverer of the solar spots),
in 1596, and Johann Bayer, at Augsburg, in 1603, re-
marked in the neck of Cetus a star wliich disappeared

THH USIVEEBB. — DI8C0VBEIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 327

again, the varying brightness of which, however, as Arago
haa shewu in an important memoir ou the history of astro-
nomical discovery, (^*'*) was first recognised by Johannes
Phocylides Holwardii, professor at Eraneker, in 1638 and
1639. Other phfenomena of the same class were observed
in the 1 itter half oi the 17 th century ; stars of periodically
variable bnlliancy were discovered in the head of Meduaa,
in Hjdra, and in Cygnns. In the memoir of Arago in
1842 abo\e referred to, it is very ingeniously shewn, how
exact observations of the change of light of Algol might lead
directly to the determination of the velocity of the light of
that star,

The use of the telescope now stimulated astronomers to
the observation of another class of phffinomena, some of
which could not escape the notice even of the unassisted eye.
Simon Mariua described the nebula in Andromeda in 1G12,
and in 1S56 Hnygens drew a sketch of the nebula in the
sword of Orion. These two nebulue may serve as types of
different states of condeusalion, more or less advanced, of
the nebulous coamical matter. Marius, in comparing the
nebula of Andromeda with the hght of a taper seen through
a aemi-transparent substance, indicates very appropriately
the diU'erenec between it and the groups or clusters of stars
examined by Gahieo in the Pleiades and in Cancer. Aa
early as the commencement of the 16th century, Spanish
and Portuguese Jiavigators, though without the advantage
of telescopic vision, had observed and admired the two Ma-
gellanic luminous clouds which revolve round the southern
pole, and of wliich one, as we have already remarked, was
known as the " wliite patch," or " white ox," of t!ie Per-
sian astronomer Ahdnrrahmau Sod, in the middle of the

27 "

328 EPOCHS ra thb jostobt 07 the contehfl&tion uv

10th century. Galileo, in the Nuncius Siderius, employs the
appellations " stellE nebuloste," and " nebiilosas," to de-
note clusters of starsj which, as he expresses it, like " areoUe
sparsim per Eethera subfuigent." As he bestowed no parti-
cular attention on the nebula of Auilromeda, which is risibie
to the naked eye but has not yet shewn any stars even
under the highest magnifying powers, he regarded all nebu-
lous apjjearinces, all his nebulosie, as being like the Milky
Way, masses of light formed of closely crowded stars. He
did not distinguish between nebula and star, as Huygena
did in the case of the nebula of Orion. Such were the first
commencements of the great works on nebulse, which have
so honourably occupied the first astronomers of our age in
both hemisplieres.
^_ Although the 17th century owed its chief splendour, at

^H its commencement, to the sudden enlargement by Galileo

^H and Eeplei of the knowledge of the celestial spaces, anil,

^H at its close, to Newton and Leibnitz's advances in pure
^H mathematical knowledge, jet it was not without a beneficial
^H influence on the greater part of the physical problems in
^H which we are engaged at the present day. In order not

^H to depart from the character of this history of the coutem-

^B plation of the universe, I merely mention the works which

^H exercised a direct and essential influence on general or cosmi-

^H eal views of nature. In reference to Light, Heat, and Mag-

^H netism, we must name flrst lluygens, Galileo, and Gilbert.
^H When lluygens was occupied with the double refrattiou of
^H light in crystals of Iceland spar, 1. e. with the separation of
^H the pencils of hght into two parts, he also discovered, in
^1 1678, that kind of polarisation of light which bears Mj

^^k name. More than a century elapsed before the discovery ui

J

THE UmVBESK. DISCOVEltlEa IS THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 329

this insulated phfenoraeiion (which was not published until
1690, within five years of Huygeos' death) was followed
by the great discoveries of Mains, Arago, Fresnel,
Brewst«r (^'") and Biot. Malus, in 1808, discovered po-
larisation by reflection from polished surfaces; and Arago,
in 1811, discovered coloured polarisation. A world of
wonders —of variously modified waves of light gifted with
new properties, was now opened. A ray of light which
reaches our eyes from the legiona of space, from a heavenly
body many millions of miles distant, when received in Arago's
polariscope, tells as it were of itself whether it is reflected or
refracted, whether it emanates from a solid, a fluid, or a
gaseous body, {^'^^) and even announces its degree of inten-
sity. Advancing in this path, which takes us back through
Huygeiis to the 17th century, we are instructed respecting
the constitution of the solar orb and its enveloiies, — the
reflected or the proper light of the tails of comets and of the
Zodiacal Light, — the optical properties of our atmosphere,
and the position of the four neutraJ points of polarisation, (***)
which Arago, Babmet, and Brewster discovered. Thus man
makes for himself, as it were, new organs, which, when
skilfully used, open to him new views of nature.

We should next name, by the side of the polarisation of
light, the most striking of all the phseaomena of optics — the
phEenomenon of "interferences," faint indications of which
were also observed iu the 17th century, though without any
understanding of their causal conditions, by Grimaldi, in
1665, and by Hooke. (^''') Our own time is indebted for the
discovery of these conditions, and the clear recognition of
the laws accordbg to which raya of light (unpolarised),
1 they proceed from one and the same source, but with a

330 EPOCHS IS THE HISTOaY OP TUE COSTEMPIATIOX 0¥

different length of path, destroy each other and produce
darkness, t« the acute and suceessfud penetratioQ of Thomas
Young. The laws of the interference of polarised hght
were discovered in 1816, by Arago and Presnel. The
theory of undulations, advanced by Huygens and Hooke,
and defended by Euler, at last found a flrm basis.

But if the latter half of the 17th century was distin-
guished by an important enlargement of optical knowledge,
in the attainment of an insight into the nature of double re-
fraction, it has been invested with a fat higher splendour by
Newton's experimental researches, and by Olaua Homer's dis-
covery (in 1675} of the measurable velocity of light ; a dis-
covery which enabled Bradley, half a century later (in 172S),
to regard the variation which he found in the apparent place
of tlie stars as a consequence of tlie movement of the earth
in her orbit combuied with the propagation of light. New-
ton's Optics appeared in 1704, not being published in
English for personal reasons until two years after Hooke's
death; but this magnificent work maybe regarded as be-
longing to the 17th century, for we are assured that, even
previously to the years 1666 and 1667, its great author was
in possession C"^) of the essential points of his optical dis-
coveries, of his theory of gravitation, and of the method of

Jn order not to break the links of the common bond
which unites the general "primitive phasnomena of matter,"
I place here, immediately after the above brief notice of
Huygens, Grimaldi, and Newton, considerations on terres-
trial magnetism and atmospheric temperature, — so far ii
least as tlie foundations of these studies were established iu
the century which it is tlie object of this section to describcH

THE TnUVKHSE. — ^DISCOVERIES IS THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 331

The most ingenious and important work on electric and
magnetic forcea, William Gilbert's Physiologia nova de Mag-
nete, of which I have already several times liad occasion to
speak, (509) was published in 1600. Gilbert, whose saga-
cious miiid was so highly admired by Galileo, (5'*') antici-
pated by his conjectures much of our present knowledge.
He regarded magnetism and electiicity as two emanations of
one fundamental force pervading ail matter, and there-
fore treated of both at once. Such obscure anticipations,
founded on analogies of the attracting power of the Heraclean
magnetic stone on iron, and of amber (when animated, as
Pliiiy says, with a soul by warmth and friction) ou dry straws,
have been common to all periods, and even to the most dif-
ferent races ; for they were shared by the followers of the
Ionic philosophy of nature, and by Chinese physicists. (*")
"William Gilbert regarded the eart-h itself as a magnet, and
the lines of equal deehnation and inclination as having their
inflections determined by distribution of mass, or by the
form of continents and tlie extent of the deep intervening
oceanic basins. It is difficult to reconcile the periodic
variation which characterises the three elementary forma of
the magnetic phienomeua (the isoclinal, isogenic, and iso--
dynamic Unes) with this rigid system of distribution of force
and mass, unless we imagine the attractive force of the ma-
terial particles modified by simQarly periodical variations iu
the interior of the globe.

In Gilbert's theory, as in gravitation, tlie quantity of
material particles only is estimated, without regard to the
specific heterogeneity of substances. This circumstance
gave to his work, iu the period of Galileo and Kepler, a
cliaiacter of eosmical grandeur. By the unexpected disco-

832 EPOCHS ly thb histort or the oontehplatioit or

very of " totatiou-maguetism" by Ar.igo (1825), it haa been
practically proved that all kinds of matter are susceptible of
magnetism ; and Faraday's latest researches on diamagnetic
substances have, under particuloi couditions of " asial ot
equatorial direction," and of solid, fluid, or gaseous in-
active conditions of the bodies, confirmed this importanl
result. Gilbert had so clear aa idea of the imparting of
the telluric magnetic force, that he abeady ascribed the
magnetic state of iron bars in the crosses on old church
towers or steeples to this circumstauce. (^'^)

In the 17 th century, by the increasing activity of navi-
gation to the higher latitudes, and by the improvement of
magnetic instruments, to which, since 1576, the dipping
needle or inclinatoriura, constructed by Robert Norman of
Katchffe, had been added, a general knowledge of the pro-
gressive motion of a part of the magnetic curves — t. e. of
the lines of no variation — was first obtained. The position
of the magnetic equator (or hae of no inclination), wliich
was long beUeved to he identical with the gec^taphical
equator, was uot examined. Observations of inclination
were made only in a few of the principal cities of western
and soutlieru Europe : the intensity of the earth's magnetic
force, which varies both with place and with time, was indeed
attempted to he measured by Graham in London, in 1 7 23,
hy the oscillations of a magnetic needle ; but after the &iliin
of Borda's endeavour on his last voyage to the Caimries in
1776, it was Lamanon who, in 1785, in the expedition of
La Perouse, first succeeded in comparing the intensity in
different regions of the earth.

Edmund IlaUey, availing himseK of a great mass of ex-
isting observatioiis of declination, of very unequal value (by

THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVEKIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 333

BaiEn, Hudson, James Hall, and Schouten), sketched, in
1683, Ms theory of four magnetic poles or points of at-
traction, and of the periodical movement of the magnetic
lines of no variation. In order to test tliis theory, and to
render it more perfect by the aid of new and more exact
observations, he was permitted by the Enghsh Government
to make (1698 — 1703) three voyages in the Atlantic Ocean,
in a ship of which he was given the command. On one of
these voyages he proceeded as far as 52° south latitude.
This midertaking forms an epoch in the history of terres-
trial magnetism, A general " variation chart," or a chart
on which the pouits at which the navigator had found the
same amount of declination were connected by curved lines,
was its result, Kever before, I believe, did any Govern-
ment equip a naval expedition for an object, wliich, whilst
its attainment promised considerable advantages for prac-
tical navigation, yet so properly deserved to be entitled
scientific or physico -mathematical.

As no phenomenon can be examined by an attentive in-
vestigator without being considered in its relation to others,
HaJley, as soon as he returned from his voyages, hazarded
the conjecture that the Aurora Borealis is a magnetic
phsenomenon. I have remarked, in the picture of nature
contained in the first volimie of this work, that Faraday's
brilliant discovery of the evolution of Hglit by m^netism
has raised this hypothesis, enounced in 1714, to the rank of
an experimental certainty.

But if the laws of terrestrial magnetism are to be tho-
roughly sought out, — that is to say, if they are to be inves-
tigated in the great cycle of the periodical movement in
geographical space of the three classes of magnetic curves, —

I

384 ETooBs m the history of the contempiation or

it ia not sufficient that the diumalj regular, or disturbed
march of the needle should be observed at the magnetio
stations, which, since 1828, have begun to cover a consi-
derable portion of the earth's surface, both in northern ami
southern latitudes; ("3) it wonld also be requisite to send'
four times in each century an expedition of three ships,
which should have to examine, as nearly as possible at the'
same time, the state of magnetism over all the accessible
parts of the globe which are covered by the ocean. The
magnetic equator, or the line where the inclination is 0,
must not merely be inferred from the geographical positions
of its nodes (or intersections with the geographical equa-
tor), but the course of the ship should be made to varj
continually, in accordance with the observations of inclina-
tion, so as never to quit the line forming the m^netic
equator at that time. Land expeditions should be com-
bined with the undertaiing, in order, where masses of
land cannot be entirely traversed, to determine exactly at
what points of the coast the magnetic lines (and espe-
cially the lines of no variation) enter. The two isolated
"closed systems" or ovals, in eastern Asia, and in tlie
Pacific in the meridian of the Marquesas, (^'*) may, in
their movements and gradual changes of form, be deserv-
ing of particular attention. Since the memorable antarclac
exiiedition of Sir James Clark Eoss (1839—1843), pro-
vided with excellent instnunents, has thrown a great light
over the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, and
determined empirically the place of the magnetic south
pole, and since my honoured friend Priedrich Gauss his
succeeded in estabhshing the first generd theory of ter-
restrial magnetism, we need not abandon the hope ttuit

THE UniVEBSE. — HISCOTEBIBS IK THE CBLESnAL SPACES. 3S5

the many wants of science aud of navigation will some
day be satisfied by the execution of this plan so often de-
sired by me. May the year 1850 deserve to be marked
as the first normal epoch in which the materials of a "mag-
netic map of the world" shaU be assembled ; and may per-
manent scientific institutions impose on themselves the
duty of reminding, every quarter of a century, a Govern-
ment favourable to the prosperity and progress of naviga-
tion, of the importance of an undertaking the great cos-
mieal value of which is attached to long-continued repe-
titions ! (^'* ''".)

The invention of instruments for measuring temperature
{Galileo's thermoscopes (*'5) of 1593 and 1602 were de-
pendent concurrently on changes of temperature and on
variations in the pressure of the estenial air) first gave
rise to the idea of investigating the modifications of the
atmosphere by a series of connected and successive obser-
vations. We learn from the Diario of the Academia del
Cimento, — which, during the short continuance of its acti-
vity, exercised so happy an influence on the disposition
for experiments and researches on a systematic plan, — that,
as early aa 1641, observations of temperature were made
five times a day at many stations, (5'^) with spirit ther-
mometers similar to our own ; at Florence, at the Convent
degh Angeh, in the plains of Lombardy, in the mountains
near Pistoia, and even in the elevated plain of Innspruck.
The Grand Duke Ferdinand II, charged the monks of many
convents in his states with this task, {^i^) The tempe-
ratures of mineral springs were also determined, giving
occasion to many questions respecting the temperature of
the earth. As all telluric natural phtenomena, i. e. all the

336 XFOCHS IN THE HISTORY 07 THE CONTBKPLATIOK OV

alterations which terrestrial matter undei^oes^ are con-
nected with modifications of heat^ lights and electricity^
either in repose or moving in currents^ — and as the pheeno-
mena of temperature operating by expansion are most acces-
sible to visible perception and cognizance^ it follows fhst,
as I have elsewhere observed^ the invention and improve^
ment of thermometric instroments marks an important epoch
in the progress of the general knowledge of nature. The
field of api^ication of the thermometer^ and the condusioiis
founded on its indications, are commensurate with the
domain of those forces or powers of nature which exert their
dominion alike in the aerial ocean, on the dry land, in
the superimposed aqueous strata of the sea, and in inoi^anic
substances, as well as in the chemical and vital processes of
organic tissues.

More than a century previous to Schede's extensive
labours, the action of radiant heat was also investigated by
the Jlorentine members of the Academia del Cimento, hs
remarkable experiments made with concave mirrors, towards
which, non-luminous heated bodies, and masses of ice of
500 lbs. in weight, radiated actually and apparently. (**®)
Mariotte, at the close of the 1 7th century, investigated the
relations of radiant heat in its passage through glass plates.
I have here recalled these detached experiments, because,
since that period, the doctrine of the " radiation of heat** has
thrown considerable light on the cooling of the ground, tiie
origin of dew, and many general climatic modifications, and
through Melloni's admirable sagacity, has even conducted
to the contrasted diathermism of rock salt and alum.

With investigations on the variations of atmospheric
temperature, coincident with changes of latitude, season and

THE CKTVEEaB. — IlISCOTBRtES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 337

elevation, were soon associated others respecting the varia-
tions of pressure, and of the quantity of vapoui in the
ntmosphere ; as well as respecting the often observed
periodical succession of the winds, or the "law of rotation"
of the wind. Galileo's just views of atmospheric pressure
conducted Tonicelli, a year after the death of his great
teacher, to the construction of the barometer. That the
column of mercury in the Torricellian tnbe stood higher
at the foot of a tower or of a hill, than on its summit, would
appear to have been first remarked at Pisa, by Claudio
Berigunrdi; {^'^) and was observed five years later in
France by Perrier, who, at the request of his brother-in-law,
Pascal, ascended the Puy de Dome, a mountain 840 French
feet higher than "Vesuvius. The idea of employing the
barometer for the measnrement of heights now presented
itself readily ; it may possibly have been first awakened in
Pascal's mind by a letter from Descartes. {^™) It is
nnnecessai^' to explain at length all that the barometer
employed as a hypsometric instrument for the determiJiation
of difTerences of elevation upon the surface of the earth, and
as a meterological instrument for investigating the influence
of currents of air, has contributed to the extension of
physical geography and meteorological knowledge. The
foundations of the theory of the currents of the atmosphere
were laid before the close of the 17th century. Bacon in
1644, in his celebrated "Historianaturahs et experi men talis
de vcniis," (5^') had the merit of considering the direction
of winds in connection with temperature and aqueous
precipitations ; but un mathematically denying the truth of
the Copemican system, he reasoned on the possibility "that

r VOL. n. Q

I

I

MS BPOCHS IS THE HISTORY OF THB POSTHHTPLiTTOS" O

OUT atmosphere may turu daily routiti the Earth like the
heavens, and may thus occasion the East wind."

Hooke's comprehensive genius acted here also as the
restorer of hght and order. {*'*) He recognised the influence
if the Earth's rotation, as well as the existence of upper and
lower currents of warm and cold air, passing from the
equator to the poles, and returning from the poles to the
equator. GalQeo, in his last Dialogo, had indeed also
considered the trade winds as a result of the Earth's rotatjon j
but he ascribed the remaining behind of the particles of air
within the tropics to a vapoiirless purity of the air in those
regions. {^^) Hooke's juster \'iew was not revived until
the 18th century, when it was again put forward by Halley,
and explained more circumslantially and satisfactorily in
regard to the operation of the velocity of rotation proper to
each parallel of latitude. HaQey had been previously led
by his long sojonm in the torrid zone to pnblisli an excellent
work on the geographical extension of the trade winds and
monsoons. It is surprising that in his magnetic expeditions
he makes no mention of the " Inw of the winds" — bo
io^rtaut for the whole of meteorology, — as its general
features had been recognised by Bacon, and by Johannes
Christian Sturm of Hippolstein, who, according to Brewster,
(5MJ y/^ the true discoverer of the differential thermometer.

Li the brilliant period of the foundation of " mathematical
natural philosophy," attempts to investigate the moistufe of
the atmosphere in its connection with variations of temperi-
tore, and with the direction of the wind, were not wanting.
TTie Academia del Cimento conceived the happy idea of
determining the quantity of vapour by evaporation and

^

THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVBEIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. S30

precipitation. The oldest Florentine hygrometer was accord-
ingly a condensation hygrometer, an apparatus in which the
qnantity of precipitated water which ran off was determined
by its weight. (^^) To this condensation hygrometer, which,
aided by the ideas of Le Roy, has gradually led in our own
days to the esact psychrometric methods of Dalton, Daniell,
and Auguste, there were added, according to the example
previously set by Leonardo da Vinci, (^^^) the absorption
hygrometers made of animal or vegetable substances, of
Sautori (lfi25), TorricelU (1626), and Molinenx. Catgut,
and the beards of a wild oat, were used almost at the aame
time. Instruments of this kind, founded on the absorption
of the aqueous vapour contained in the atmosphere by organic
substances, were provided with indexes and counterpoises,
and were very similar in construction to Saussure's and
Deluc's hair and whalebone liygrometers ; but the instru-
ments of the 17th century were deficient in the determina-
tion of fixed dry and wet points, so necessary for the
comparison and understanding of the results. This desi-
deratum was at last sapphed by Renault, but without
reference to the variation which might be occasioned by time
in the susceptibility of the hygrometric substances employed.
Piotet, (5^') however, found that the hair of a Ouanche
mummy from Teneriffe, which might be a thousand years
old, employed in a Saussure's hygrometer, still possessed a
satisfactory degree of sensibility.

Electric action was recognised by "WiUiara Gilbert as
the operation of a natural force or power allied to magnetism.
The book in which this view was first enounced, and even
io which the terms "electric force," "electric emanations,"

34:0 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF

and " electric attraction" (S"^) were first employed, is llic
work to which I have already so often referred, published
in 1600, and entitled "Physiol(^ of Magnets, and of Ihe
Earth as a great Magnet" (de magno raagnete t«llure}.
" The faculty of attracting, when rubbed, light substances,
whatever may be their nature, does not," says Gilbert,
" belong exclusively to amber, which is a condensed earth-
juice thrown up by the waves of the sea, and in which flying
insects, ants, and worms, are inclosed as in perpetual tombs,
{ffiternis sepulchris) . The attracting power belongs to a whole
class of very dilferent substances ; such as glass, sulphur,
sealing wax and all resins, rock crystal, and all kinds of
precious stones, alum and rock salt." The strengfh of the
electricity excited was measured by Gilbert by means of an
iron ]ieedle (not very small), moving freely on a point (ver-
sorium electricnm) : very similar to the apparatus employed
by Haiiy and by Brewster, in trying the electricity excited
in different minerds by warmth and friction.

Gilbert says farther on, that " friction is found to produce
more effect in dry than in damp air, and that rubbing with
silt is most advantageous. The terrestrial globe is held
together as by an electric force (?) (Globus telluris per«
electrice coiigrcgatur et coha;ret) ; for the electric action
tends to produce the cohesion of matter (motns electrieas
est motns coacervationis materiffi)." In these obscure
axioms is expressed the view of a teUnrie electricity, — tlw
manifestation of a force like magnetism belonging to mailer
as such. Notliitig was yet said of repulsion, or of ^e
difference between itisulators and condactors.

The ingenious discoverer of the air-pump, CHto

THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 341

,341 ™

Guerike, was the first who observed more than mere pheno-
mena of attraction. In iiis experiments, made with a
nibbed cake of sulphur, he recognised phenomena of
repulsion, which aftfirwardH led to a knowledge of the laws
of the aphere of action and of the distribution of electricity.
He heaid the first sound and saw the first hght in ari;ificially
elicited electricity. In an experiment made by Newton in
1675, the first traces of the "electric charge" in a rubbed
plate of glass were seen. (^^^) We have liere souglit out
only the first germs of the science of electricity^ winch, in
its great and singularly retarded development, has not only
become one of the most important parte of meteorology,
but also, since we have learned that magnetism is one of the
manifold forms in which electricity discloses itself, has
cleared op to us so much belonging to the internal operation
of terrestrial powers or forces.

Although AVall in 1708, Stephen Gray in 1734, and
NoUet, conjectured the identity of friction electricity and of
lightning, yet the experimental certainty was first attained
about the middle of the IStli century by the auccessfiJ
endeavours of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin. From
this epoch the electric process passed from the domain of
speculative physics to that of the cosmical contemplation of
nature — from the chamber of the student to the open field.
The doctrine of electricity, like that of optics and of mag-
netism, has had long periods of exceedingly slow development,
until in these three branches the labours of Franklin and
Volta, Tliomas Young and Malus, Oersted and Faraday,
aroused their cotemporaries to an admirable activity. The
progress of human knowledge is generally connected with such
jjtcmations of slumber and of suddenly awakened activity.

I

8*e BPOCHa ra thb rasKfflT <» the oomtbjjplation op

Bnt if, as we have already remarked, by the invention of
appropriate although still very imperfect physical instm-
nients, and by the sagacity of Galileo, Torricelli, and the
members of the Academia del Cimeirto, the relations of
temperature, the variations of the atmospheric pressure, and
the quantity of vapour in the air, be(;ame objects of imme-
diate research; on the other hand, all that regards the
chemical composition of the atmosphere remained wrapped
in obscurity. The foundations of " pneumatic ehemistry"
were indeed laid by Johann Baptist, Van Helmontand Jean
Bey, in the first half, — and by Hooke, Mayow, Boyle, and
the dogmatising Becher in the latter half of the 17th
century ; but however striking was the correct apprehension
of particular and important phenomena, yet the insight into
their conneclion was wanting. The old belief in the
eiementarj' simphcity of the air which acts in conibnstioji,
in the oxydation of metals, and in respiration, formed an
obstacle difficult to be overcome.

The inflammable or light-extinguishing kinds of gas oc-
curring in caves and mines (tte " spiritus letales" of Pliny),
and the escape of these gases in the shape of bubbles in marshes
and mineral springs, had already arrested the attention of the
Erfurt Benedictine monk Basilius Valentinus, who probably
belonged to the close of the 15th centurj^, and of Libavius,
an admirer of Paracelsus, in 1612. Comparisons were drawn
between what vas accidentallj remarked in alchemistic labo-
ratories, and what was seen to have been prepared in the great
laboratories of nature, especially in the interior of the earth.
Mining operations in beds rich in ore, (particularly such as
contained pyrites which become heated bv oxydation and
itact electricity), led to anticipations of the chemicsl

TKE LNIVERSE. — DISOOVXKIES lH Tfl£ CELB9T1AL Sf AC£S. 343

relations between luetals, acids, and the air which gained
access from without. Paracelsus, whose fancies belong lo
the epoch of the first conquests in Amcricflj already remarked
tlie disengagement of gas when iron was dissolved iii sul-
phuric acid. A'ait Helmont, who iirst made use of the
word " gas," distinguishes gases from atmospheric air, and
also, on account of thcdr non-condensabihty, from vapours.
He regards the clouds as vapoursj wliich, when the sky is
very clear, are changed into gas "by cold and by the
influence of the heavenly bodies," Gas, he says, caji only
become water when it Iws previously been retrausforined
into vapour. These views of meteorological processes be-
longed to the first half of tlie 17th century. Van Helmont
was not yet acquainted ivith the simple means of receiving
and separating hia " Gas sjlvestre," (under which name he
included aU uninfiammabic gases different from pure atmo-
spheric air, and incapable of supporting flame and respira-
tion) ; yet lie made a light burn in a vessel having its moutJi
in water, and remarked that as the flame went out, the water
entered, and the " volume of air" diminished. "Van Hel-
mont also sought to demonstrate by determinations of weigjit,
(which we find already in Cardanus), that all the solid parts
of plants are formed from water.

The mediieval alchemistic opinions of the composition of
metals, and of their combustion in air whereby their bril-
liancy was destroyed, incited to the examination of what took
place d'lring the process, and of the changes undergone by
the metals themselves, and by tbe air in contact witli them.
Cardanus had already become aware in 1553 of the increase
of weight that takes place during the oxidatiou of lead, and,
quite in the spirit of the phlogistic hypothesis, had ascribe<1

344 KPOOHS IS TUB mSTOBT OV 1BE CONT^fPIAnON OT

it to the escape of a " celestial fiery substance" causing levity ;
but it was not until eighty years afterwards, that Jean Rey, an
exceedingly skilful experimenter at Bergerac, who had es-
amined with great accuracy the increase of weight during the
calcination of lead, tin and antimony, enounced the important
result that the increase of weight was to be attributed to the
accession of air to the metallic calx, saying, " Je responds
et soustieus gloriensement que ce surcroit de poids vient
de I'air qui dans le vase a 6st6 espessi." (s'")

Men had now entered on the path which was to conduct
to the chemistry of our days, and through it to the knowledge
of a great cosmical phenomenon, the connection between the
oxygen of the atmosphere and the life of plants. But the
combination of ideas which next presented itself to distin-
guished men was of a singularly comphcated nature. Towards
the end of the 17th century there arose,- — obscurely with
Hooke iu his Micrograpbia (1665), and more distinctly with
Mayow{1669,) andWilha (1671), — a belief in the existence
of nitro-aerial particles, (spiritus nitro-aereus, pabulum uitro-
sum), — identical with those which are fixed in saltpetre, —
contained in the air and constituting the necessary condition
of combustion. " It was stated that the extinction of flame
in a close space does not take place from the air being over-
saturated with vapours proceeding from the burning body,
but that this extinction is a consequence of the entire ab-
sorption of the nitro-aerial particles {"spiritus nitro-aereus")
which the air at first contained." The suddenly increased
glow when melting saltpetre (emitting oxygen) is strewed
upon the coals, and the exudation of saltpetre on clay walls
in contact with the atmosphere, appear to have conduced to
this opinion. According to Mayow^ the respiration in

THE DNIVEIlfiB. — DISCOVBEIES IN THE CFLESTIAL SPACES. 346

aiiiinals, of whicli the production of animal heat, and the
converaioii of black into red blood are the result, the
processes of combustion and the calcination of metals, ure
all dependent on these nitro-aeriid particles of the atmosphere-,
in the antiphlogistic chemistry, they play nearly the part of
oxygen. The cautiously doubting Robert Boyle recognised
that the presence of a certain constituent of atmospheric air
is necessary to the process of combustion ; but he remained
uncertain as to its nitrous nature.

Oxygen was to Hooke and Mayow an ideal object or a
fiction of the imagination. The acute chemist and vegetable
physiologist Plales, in 1727, first saw oxygen escape as gas
in large quantities from the lead wliicli he calcined under
an intense heat. He saw the gas escape, but without ex-
amining its nature or remarking the viviibess of the flame
occasioned by it. ilales did not divine the importance of
the substance which he had produced. The vivid evolution
of light in bodies burning in oxygen gas, and its properties,
were discovered, sis many beh'eve quite independently, ('^')
—by Priestley in 1772-1774, by Scheele in 1774-1775, and
by Lavoisier and Trudaine in 1775.

The com men cements of pneumatic chemistry have been
touched upon in tliese pages iii their historic connection,
Ijecause, like the feeble beginnings of electric science, tliey
prepared the way ibr the enlarged views, which the succeed-
ing century lias betm able to form of the constitution of the
atmosphere and of its meteorologicid varialions. The idea
of specifically-distiDct gases «*as never perfectly clear to
those who in the seventeenth century produced those gasi's.
Men began again to attribute the difference between
qo^pheric air and the irrcspirable, light -ei^tinguishing, or
a 2

EFOCH8 m TBE BISTOBT OF 'FBC COm'EICFI.&'nON 0?

inflammable gnses, exclusiveij to the admistuie of certain
vapours. Black and Cavendish first shewed in 1766 that
carbonic acid (fixed air) and hydrogen {combustible air) are
apecificallj distinct aeriform fluids. So long had the ancient
belief in the elementary simpHcitj of the atmosphere impeded
the progress of knowledge. The final investigation of the
chemical composition of the atmosphere, by a most accurate
determination of the quantitative relations of its constituent
parts by Boussingault and Dumus, is one of the brilliant
points of modem meteorology.

The extension of physical and themical knowledge, which
has been here described in a fragmentary manner, conld not
remain without influence on the early progress of Geolt^.
A great part of the geological questiona with the solution of
which our age is occupied, were stirred by a man of the
most comprehensive knowledge, the great Danish anatomic
Nicolaus Steno (Stenson) in the service of the Grand Dute
of Tuscany, by an English physician Martin Lister, and by
" Newton's worthy rival," (^^^) Robert Hooke. Stciio's
merits in respect to the superposition of rocks have been de-
veloped by me more fully in another work, (^^^) Previouslv
to this period, and towards the end of the fifteenth centur,
LeouBrdo da Vinci, probably in laying out the can^ in
Lombardy which cut through alluvium and tertiary strata,—
I'racastoro in 1517, on the occasion of seeing rocky strsta
containing fossil fish accidentally uncovered at Monte Bolca
near Verona, — and Berna'd Palissy in his investigation?
respecting fountains, — had recognised the traces of a former
oceanic world of animal life. Leonardo, as if with the pre-
sentiment of a more philosophical division of animal fcmns,
terms the shells " animali die hauno I'ossa di fuori." Steno,

TUB UNIVSRSB. — DtgCOVBKIBS 1:4 THE OELKSTIAL SPACES. 347

in his work on the siibatancea contained in rocks, (de
Solido intra Solidum naturaliter eoutento) (1669), distin-
guishes " rocky strata (primitive?), liardened before the
existence of plants and animals, and, therefore, never con-
taining organic remains, from sedimentary strata (turhidi
maris sediments sibi invicem imposita), whicli alternate witti
each other and cover those other strata first spoken of. All
deposited strata cont^uning fossils were originally horizontal.
Their inclination lias arisen partly from the outbreak of sub-
ten-anean vapours wliieh the central heat (ignis in medio
terras) produces, and partly by the giving way of lower sup-
porting strata. (^^*) The valleys are the result of the falling
in, consequent on the removal of support."

Steno's theory of the formatiou of valleys is tliat of Deluc,
whereas Leonardo da Yinci, (^^^) like Cuvier, considers the
valleys as formed by the action of running water. In the
geoli^ical character of the ground in Tuscany, Steno thought
he recognised revolutions which must be attributed to six
great natural epochs, (sex sunt distinctte Etruriie facies, ex
prsesenti iacie Etrurije collepta;) : at six recurring periods
the sea had broken in, aad after continuing for a long time
to cover tlie interior of the countjyi hml withdrawn again
ivithin its ancient limits. Steno did not, however, regard
all petrifactions as bebnging to the sea ; he distinguishes
between pelagic and fresh-water petrifactions. ScOla, in
1670, gave drawings of the petrifactions or fossils of
Calabria and Malta : our great zoologist and anatomist
Johannes Miiller has recognised among tlie latter the oldest
drawing of the teeth of the gigantic Hydrarchus of Alabama
((he Zeugiodon Cetoides of Owen), a mammal of the great

*7 "

order of the CetnceBe : (S'^) the crown of these teeth is
formed like those of seals.

Lister, as earlj as 1G78, made the important statement,
that each kiud of rock is characterised by its own fossils,
and that " the species of Miirex, TeUina and IVochus, whicit
are found in the qnarries of Northamptonshire, do, indeed,
resemble those of the present sea, but when closely examined
are found to differ from them." " They are," he said,
"specifically different." (^') In the then imperfect state of
descriptive morphology, strict proofs of the justness of these
grand anticipations or conjectures could not indeed be given.
We here point out an early dawning and soon extinguished
light, anterior to the great paleontological labours of Cuvier
and Alexander Brougniart wliich have given a new form (o
the geology of the sedimentary formations. (*^^) Lister,
attentive to the regular succession of strata in England, was
the first who felt the want of geological maps. Although
these phenomena in their connexion with ancient inundations
(single or re[>eated) attracted interest and attention, and,
mingling together belief and knowledge, produced in
England the " systems" of Ilay, "Woodward, Burnet, and
Whiston, yet, from the entire want of minernlogical dis-
tinction of the constituent parts of compound rocks, all that
relates to the crystalline sind massive eruptive rocks and
theii transformations remained unstudied. Notwitlistanding
the assumption of a, central heat in the globe, etothquakes,
thermal springs, and volcanic eruptions, were not regarded
08 the results of the reaction of the planet against its
external crust, but were ascribed to such small local cause*,
as, for example, the spontaneous combustion of beds of

I'HK rSlVBRSB. — maCOVKRIESltJ THE CELESTUL SPACES. 349

pjrites. Even experiments made in sport by Lemerj in the
year 1700 eserted a long-continued inflaencc on volcanir
theories, although these might have been raised to more
general views by the imaginative Protogiea of Leibnitz
(1680).

The Protogfea, which is sometimes more poetic than the |

many metrieal attempts of the same philosopher which have
recently been brought to light, (^^^) teaches the scorifi-
catioD of the cavernous, glowing, and once sell'-lumiuoua
crust of the earth;— the gradual coohng of the heat-
radiating surface enveloped in vapours ; — the condensa-
tion, and precipitation into water, of the gradually cooled
atmosphere of vapour; — the lowering of the sea by the
sinking of its waters into internal hollows in t!ie ftirth ; —
and finally the falling ui of these caves or hollows causing
the incHnation of the strata, Tlie physical part of these
wild fancies offers some traits which, to the adherents of our i

modem and every way more advanced geological science,
will not appear altogether deserving of rejection. Such are,
the transference of heat in the interior of the globe, and
the cooling by radiation from the surface ; the existence of
an atmosphere of vapour; the pressure exerted by these
vapours upon the strata during their consohdatioii ; and the
double origin of the masses as either fused and solidified or
precipitated from the waters. The typical character and
mineral differences of rocks, /. s. the associations of cer-
tain substances, chiefly ciystalliiie, recurrmg in the most
distant regions of the eartJi, are as httle spoken of in the
Profcogcea as iu Hooke's geoguoslical views. In the lost
named writer, also, physical speculations on the operation
of subterranean forces in earthquakes, in the sudden eleva- j

r
I

I

350 EPOCHS IN THE HlSTOttli Of THE CONTEMPLATION OF

tioD of the bottom of the sea and of ooast districts, and iu
the funimtion of mountains and islands, predominate. The ,
nature of the organic remains of the ancient world even led J
Hooke to form a conjecture that the Temperate Zone must j
once have enjoyed the temperatine of a tropical climate. |

We have still to speak of the greatest of all geognostical !
phenomena, the Mathematical Fignie of the Earth, iu j
which we recognise as iu a mirror the primitive condition of |
fluidity of the rotating mass, and its solidification into the |
present form of the terrestrial spheroid. The figure of the
earth was sketched theoretically in its general outlines
at the end of the seventeenth century, although the
numerical ratio of the polar and equatorial diameters was
not assigned with accuracy. Picard's measurement of a
degree, esecnted with measuring instruments which he had
himself improved (1670), is the more deserving of r^anl, I,
because it first induced Sewton to resume with renewed zeel ,!
the theory of gravitation, which he had already discovereii |
in 1666 and had subsequently neglected : it ofi'ered to tb»I 1
profound and successful investigator, the means of demon- I
strating the maimer in which the attraction of the eartli I
maintained in her orbit the moon impelled onward by th* ■
centrifugal force. T!ie much earlier recognised fact of the
flattening of the poles of Jupiter (5*oj im^^ n Jg supposeri, i
led Newton to reflect on tlie cause of such a departure from I
sphericity. The experiments on the length of the seconds'
pendulum made at Cayenne by Richer in 1673, and on the '
west coast of Africa by Varin, had bran preceded by others
less decisive (^■") made in London, Lyons, and Bologna,
including a difTcrence of 7° of latitude. The decrease of
ip^vity from the pole to the equator, which had long beoi n

THE OmrBBSB. — DTSCOVEEIES DJ THE CELESTIAL SFACEH. 851

denied even by Picard, was now generally adnaitted. Newton
recogniaeti the compression of the earth at the poles as n
result of its rotation : lie even veotnred, upon tlie assump-
tion of homogeneity of mass, to assign the amount of the
compression. It remained for the comparison of degrees
measured in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under
the equator, near the North Pole, and in the temperate zones
gf both hemispheres, to furnish a more correct deduction of
the mean compression, or tlie true figure of the earth. As
has already been remarked in the Picture of Nature in the
first volume of the present work, ("^) the existence of the
compression announces of itself wliat may be termed the
most ancient geognosticai event, viz. the state of general
fluidity of the planet, and its progressive solidification.

We commenced the description of the great epoch of
Galileo and Kepler, Newton and Leibnitz, with the dis-
coveries made in the celestial spaces by the aid of the newly
invented teioscope ; we terminate it with the figure of the
earth as then recognised from theoretical considerations.
" Newton attained to the explanation of the system of the
Universe, because he succeeded in discovering the force (**^)
of whose operation the Keplerian laws are the necessary
couseciuences, and which could not but correspond to the
plieuomena, since those laws corresponded to and foretold
them." The discovery of such a force, the existence of
which Newton has developed in his immortal work, the
Principia, (which may be regarded as a general theory of
Nature), was almost simultaneous with that of the In-
finitesimal Calculus, wliich opened the way to new mathe-
matical discoveries. The work of the intellect shews itself
I its most exalted grandeur, where, instead of requiring

in its most e

I.

352 HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVEBSE.

the aid of outward material means, it receives its light
exclusively from the pure abstraction of the mathematical
development of thought. There dwells a powerful charm,
deeply felt and acknowledged in all antiquity, in the con-
templation of mathematical truths ; in the eternal relations
of time and space, as they disclose themselves in harmonics,
numbers, and lines. (5**) The improvement of an in-
tellectual instrument of research — analysis, has powerfully
promoted and advanced that mutual fructification of ideas,
which is no less important than their abundant production.
It has opened to us new regions of measureless extent in
the physical contemplation of the Universe both in its
terrestrial and celestial spheres, in the tidal fluctuations of
the Ocean, as well as in tlie periodic perturbations of the
planets.

^

RETROSPECT OF THE PEiyCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE
CO.NTEJIPLATION OF THE TTNlVEEaE.

Retrospective View of the Epochs or Periods which have been
successively considered. — Iiifluence of External Events on the
Development of the Recognition of the Universe as a. Whole, —
Wide and varied Scope and close mutaal Connexion of the
Scientific Endeavours of modem times. — Tlie History of the
Physical Sciences gradnallj becomes ooineident with that of the
Cosmos.

I APPROACH the termiuatioiiof acompvehciisiveand hazardous
tindertaking. More than two thousand years have. been,
passed in review, from the earliest state of inteilectunl culti-
vation among the nations who dwelt round the basin of the
Mediterranean and in the fertile river districts of Western
Asia, to a period the views and feelings of which ])ass by
almost imperceptible shades into those of our own age. I
have sought to present the history of the gradually developed
knowledge and recognition of the Universe as a whole, in
seven distinctly marked sections, or as it were in a series of
as many distinct pictures. "Whether any measure of success
has attended this attempt to maintain iu their due subor-
dination the mass of accumulated materials, to seize the
character of the leading epochs, aud to mark the paths in
shich ideas and civilisation have been conducted onwards.

354

RETitOaPBOr OP THB FRINOIPAL SPOOKS

ciiiiiiot be determinecl by him wliOj with a just mistrust of
his remaining powers, knows only that the type of so great
an undertaking lias floated in clear, though general, outlines
before liis mental eve.

In the early part of the section occupied by the epoch of
the Arabians, in beginning to describe the powerful influence
exerted by the blending of a foreign element with Enropean
civilisation, I determined the period from which the liistorj' ut
the Cosmos becomes coincident with that of the physical sci-
ences. According to my conception, an historical view of tbe
gradual extension of natural knowledge, both in its terrestrial
ajid celestial spheres,i9 connected with definite epochs, orwifb
certain events which have exerted a powerful intellectual inliii-
ence within definite geographicaJ limits, and which impart to
those epochs their peculiar cliaracter and colouriug. Such were
the enterprises which conducted the Greeks into the Eniine,
and led them to anticipate the existence of another sea shore
beyond the Phnsis, — the expeditions to the tropical Iwida
which furnished gold and incense ; — the passage throngli
the Western Straits into the Atlantic Ocean, and the opening
of that great maritime; highway of nations on which were
discovered at widely separated intervals of time, Ceme aiiJ
the Hesperidea, the Northern Tin and Amber Islands, tlie
Volcanic Azores, and the New Continent of Columbus south
of the ancient Scandinavian settlements. The movements
which proceeded from t!ie basin of the Mediterranean, and
from tbe northern estremity of the neighbouring Arabian
Gulf, and the voyages to the Euxiiie and to Ophir, are
followed in my liistoric description by the military expedi-
tions of the Macedonian conqueror, and his att-empt to fuse
together the nations of the West and of the East, — by tbe

IN THB COSTEMPUTION OF THE DNIVKRSE. 355

operaliou of the Indian maritime commerce, autl (rf thi
Alexandrian Institute under the Ijagida;; — by the Bom
UniveraaJ Empire under the Csesara ; — and by the epoch
the Arabians, from whose attachment to the study of nature
and of her powers, and especially to astronomical and
mathematical knowledge, and to practical chemistry, great
benefits were derived. The series of external events which
suddenly enlarged the intellectual horizon, sttmnlating men
to the research of physical laws, and animating thcin to the
endeavour to rise to the ultimate apprehension of the
Universe aa a Whole, closed, according to my view, witli
those geograpliical discoveries, — the greatest ever achieved, —
which placed the nations of the Old Continent in possession
of an entire terrestrial hemisphere tiU then concealed. From
thenceforward, as we have already remarked, tlie human
intellect produces great results, no longer from the incite-
ment of external events, but through the operation of its
own internal power ; and this simultaneously in all directions.
Nevertheless, amongst the instruments wliicli men formed
for themselves, constituting as it were new organs augment-
ing their powers of sensuous perception, there was one
which acted like a great and sudden event. By the space-
penetrating power of the telescope, a considerable portion of
the heavens was explored as it were at once ; the number of
known celestial bodies was increased, and their form and
orbits began to be determined. Mankind now first entered
on the possession of the "celestial sphere" of the Cosmos,
It appeared possible to found a seventh section of the liistoiy
of the physical contemplation of the Universe, on the
importance of these occurrences, and on the unity of the

55 ■

he I

an 1

ire I

J

RETROSPECT OF THE PaiNCIPAL KPOCBS

radeavours wliicli tlie employment of the telescope (-ftlled
fortli. If wc compare with the discovery of this optical
instrument, another great discovery belonging to a very
recent period, — that of the voltaic pile,— and the influence
which it has exercised on the ingenious electro- chemical
theory, — on the productioji of the metals of the earths and
alkalies, — and on the long soaght discovery of electro-
magnetism; — we arrive at a series of phenomena called
forth at will, which in many directions enter deeply into
the knowledge of the dominion of the powers of nature ; but
which may rather seem to form a section in the history of
the Physical Sciences, than to belong directly to the liistory
of the eontemphition of the Cosmos. The multiplied con-
nections which link together the different branches of oiir
modern science, render it more diffieult to distinguish and
circumscribe them. We have eveti seen, most recently,
electro-magaetism acting upon the direction of the polarised
ray of light, and prodncing modifications like chemical
mixtures. "Wliere, tlunngh the mental labours of the age,
the progressive development of knowledge is so rapid, it is
no less dangerous to attempt to lay a daring hand on thf
intellectual process, and to paint that wliich is incessantiv
advancing as if the goat were already attained, than it is
for one sensible of his own limited powers, to venture to
pronounce on the relative importance of the honourable effcirte
of those still hviug or recently departed.

In the liistorical considerations, describing the earlier
germs of our natural knowledge, I have, in almost all cases,
indicated the latest degree of development to which thty
have attained. The third and last portion of my work is

THE UKIVEfiSE. 357

designed to furnish towirds the elucidation of the gpiieral
picture of nature, contained in the first volumCj those
results of observation on wlueh the present state of our
scientific opinions is principally founded Much, which
according to other views than mine of the composition of a
book of nature may have appeared wanting, will there
find its place. Excited by the brilliancy of new discoveries,
and fed with hopes of which the delusiveness is often not
discovered till late, every age dreams that it has approached
near to the culminating point of the knowledge and compre-
hension of nature. I doubt whether upon serious reflection
such a bchef will really appear to enhance the enjoyment of
the present. A more animating conviction, and one more
suitable to the idea of the destinies of our race, is, that the
possessions yet achieved are hut a very inconsiderable
portion of those which, in the advance of activity and of
general cultivation, mankind in their freedom will attain in
succeeding nges. In the unfailing connection and coarse of
events, every successful investigation becomes a step to the
attainment of something beyond.

That which has especially promoted the progress of
knowledge in the 19th century, and has formed t!ie chief
character of the age, is the general and highly useful endea-
vour, not to limit our regards to that which has b<;en just
achieved, but to test rigidly by weight and measure all earlier
as well as more recent acquisitions ; to distinguish between
mere inferences from analogies, and certain knowledge ;
and to subject to the same severe critical method all depart-
ments of knowledge, physical astronomy, the study of the
telluric powers or forces of nature, geology, and the study of

SthS BBTttOSPBOr OF THE PEINOIPAL JCPOCHB

antiquity. Tlie generality of this method of critdcisin lias
eapecially contributed to shew on each occasion the houn-
dariea of the several sciences, and to discover the weakneja
of certain systems, in which unfounded opinions or con-
jectures assume the place of facts, and symbolising myths
present themselves as grave theories. Vagueness of lan-
guage, and the transference of the nomenclature of ODe
science to another, have conducted to erroneous views and
delusive anaJogies. Tlie progress of zoology was long
endangered by its being believed that, in the lower classes
of animals, all the vital actions must be attached to organs
similar in form to those of the highest classes; aud the
knowledge of ihe development of vegetation in what have
been called the Cryptogamic Cormophytes {mosses, liver-
worts, ferns and lycopodiums), or in the still lower Thallo-
phytes (sea weeds, lichens and fungi) has been still more
obscured, by the expectation of finding everywhere analo-
gies to the sexual propagation of the animal kingdom. ("*)
If art and poetry, dwelling within the magic circle of lie
imagination, belong rather to the inner powers of the mind, —
the extension of knowledge, on the other liand, rests by
preference on contact with the external world; and this
contact becomes closer and more varied as the iiitercourse-
between different nations increases. The creation of new
organs or instruments of observation augments the intd-
lectual, and often also the physical powers of man. More
rapid than light, the closed electric current now carries
thought and vnll to the remotest distance. Forces, wliose
silent operation in elementary nature, as well as in the
delicate cells of organic tissues, stiU escapes the cogiaxaact

J

IN THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 359

of our senses, will one day become known to us ; and called
into the service of man, and awakened by him to a higher
degree of activity, will be included in a series of indefinite
extent, through the medium of which, the subjection of the
different domains of nature, and the more vivid understanding
of the Universe as a Whole, are brought continually nearer.

NOTES.

0) p. 4.— Kosraos, Bd. i. S. BO (EngUsh edition, Vol. i. p. 43).
0 p. 5. — See my Relation hlBtoriqae du Tojage ani Eegions equin. T. i.
p. 308.

Pi p. B.— Dttnte. Purg. L 25—28 :

" Coder parera 11 del di lor HaioiaBlle :
0 uetteulrioDsl ledovo eito,
Pqi che piivatfl se' di mirar qoelle,"
{') p. 6.— S«hiUer'8 5iiimntUi:hB Werke, 1826, Bd. xviii. S. 231. 473, IBO,
and 486 ; Gervinis, neuere Geech. dec poet. Katiooal-IJUcratur dec Deul-
chen, 1340, Bd. i. S. 133 ; Adolph Better im ChBriiJcs, Th. i. S. 219.
Compare theriwith Edward Mijller iiber Sopholdeisclis NalunuiBcliflnnng,
uad die tiefe Nnturempfindnng der GriecLen, 1843, S. 10 nnd 28.

('} p. 7- — SchnnasE, Geschichte der bildenden Kanate bei den Alten, Bd.
ii. 1843, S. 128—138.

(*) p. 8. — Pint, de El. apud Delphoa, o. 9. Compare on a passage of
ApoUonius Dyscolus of Alexandria (Mirab. Hist. c. 40), Ot&ied Muller'a
last work, Geuh. der griech. Litterator, Bd. i. 1645, S. SI.

(J) p. 8.— Hcsiodi Opera et Dies, t. BOS, 561 ; Giittling, in Hes. Carm.
IdSl, p. lii. : Una, Gach. der bellenisciien Diehtknnst, Th. i. 1885, S. 337 ;
Bemhardy, Gmndrisa der griech. Litteratur, Th. ii. S. 1T6 ; Gottfried Her-
mann (Opngcula, Vol. vi. p. 239) remarks, that Hesiod'a picturesque deecrip-
tioQ of wiuler has all the indications of greal antiquity.

(») p. 8.— lies. Theog. v. 283—264. May not the name of the Nereid
a (Od. iL 32S ; 11. iviii. 48) express the pboepboric flafbisg of the siu-

L VOL. II. a

11

NOTES.

ue, Moipn, eiprea^ea tbc epsikling dog-il

face of tlie sea, ta t)

C) p. E. — Compsre JacobB, Xelcn nnd Kmiat der Alten, i. Abtb. i. S. viL

(loj p. 9._lliBB, rili. 655—659; iv. 453—456; n, 115— 1B9. Com-
pare oIbo the accomnkted bat animated dEscriptiuDs taken from tlie uanul
m'orld irrliioh precede the renew of the amif, ii. 458 — 176.

(") p. 10.— Od. ni. 431— 445; vi. 290; ii. 115— 199. Compare the
" verdatit oversbadowing grove" nenr Cidjrpeo'e cave, " where an immortal
might linger with admiration, and gaze with cordis! delight," v. 55 — 73 ; the
Iceakeis at the Pheneiira Islands, v. 400—442 ; and the gardejis of Alrinoa
vii. 113—130. On the Tcnud dithyramhiis of Pindar, ice Biickh, Pindari
0|iera, T, !i. P. ii. p. 575-579.

(") p. 11.— (Ed. Kolon, T. 609 — 719. Amongst description
JiaJosiug a deep feeling for nature, I would instance those of Cithreron,
in the Bacchic of Enripides, V. 1D45, when the mesaengei' emerges fr
vallej- of AsopOB (sec Icake, Northern Greece, Vol ii. p. 370) ; of the
in the Delphic toUcj', iu the Ion of Kuripides, v. 83 ; and the pic!
gboraj colonra, of the aspect of the Mcred Deloa, " snrroundcd bj Uoyering
BC«-gnl!9, and scourged hj the stonn; naves" in CaSimiKibaB, in tb« Hjmi.
on DeloB, v. 11.

(1^ p. 11.- According to Stmbo (lih. viii. p. 366, Caranb.), whni b
es the tragedian of giving to Elia a boundaij geographiealiy ineorrtcl.
This fine passage of EurijHdes is from the Crcsphontes. The description of
the cicellence of the country of Measenia is closely connected with tlie Oft-
sition of poUtieol cireumstances (the division of tlie tetritorf among the
Hcraclidcs). Here, Iherefore, as Biickh has well remarked, the description if
is eannecled with hmnan affairs.

(") p. 13.— Meleagri Reliqniic, ed. Maneo, p. G. Compare Jacobs, Lebca
una Kunst dw Alton, Bd. i. Ahlh. i. S. ly. ; Abth. ii. S. 150—190. Zmo-
hetti, in the middle of the eighteenth eeotory, supposed himself the Gnt
diaeoverei uf Meteager's poem on the Spring (Mel. Gadorcui in Ver IdylliiHi.
1769, p. 6). See Brunckii Anal. T. iii. p. 106. There are two fine syinn
poems by Marianos in the Anlhol. Gneca, ii. 511 and 513. Meleaper'i
poetry ii strongly eontraated with the praises of spring in the Ecloguta of
EimoiDB, a sophist and teacher of rhetoric in Athens under Julian. Tlie
style of HimcriuB is generally ornate and cold, but in particular puts, uJ
e«pedally in his form of description, he sometimes comes very near the modcra
cr of contemplating the miivcrae. Himerii Sophists Ecloga: rt Dcdi-

NOTES. m

imtioneB, ed. Wemsdorf, 1T90 (Oratio iii. 3—6, and ui. 5). The magniA-
cent otnation of Conatsntiaople could not inspire the sophiats (Orat. vil. 5 — 7i
and )^. 3 — 8) . The psuBagea of Noiinua referred to m the tcit arc found in
Dionja. ed. Petri Cuntei, 1610, Lib. ii. p. 70 ; ri, p, 199 ; iiiii. p. IB and
819 ; nvi. p. 694, Compare also Ouwaroff, NoDnoa von PanopoliB, der
Dictter, 1817, S. 3, Ifi und 31.

C*) p. 13.— ^iani Var. Hist. Et Fragm. lib. i^ cap. i. p. 139, Knhn.
Compare A. Buttmann, Quicst, de SicfESrcho, Naumh. 1833, p. 33, sad
Geogr. gr. min. td. Gail. Vol. ii p. 1*0—145. We find in the tragic poet
Clueremon, a remarkable love of nature, and especially a fondness for llowera.
which Sir William Jones has noticed as rescnihling that of the Indian poets ;
aeo WelcVer, grieeJiische Tragodien, Abth. iil S. 1088,

{") p. 14.— Longi Paatoralia (Daphnis et Chloe, ed. Seiler, 1843), Lib. i.
9; iii. 12; and iv. 1—3; p. 03, 125, and 137. See Villeniiun sur lea
romans grecs, in his Melange: de Litttmture, T. ii. p. 435—448, where
Longtis is compared with Bemardin do St.- Pierre.

C) p. 14.— Psendo-Aristot. de Mundo, c. 3, 14— BD, p. 393, Bekker.

(f) p. 14.— Sea Stahr'a Ariatoleles bfi den R<imem, 1884, S. 173—177 ;
and Osann, Beitrage zur griech. und riini, Litteratui^eschichte, Bd, i. 1836,
S. 165—192. Stahr conjectures (S. 173), as does Henmann, that the pre-
Bcnt Greek is an altered version of the Latin teit of Appuloiua. The latter
ssja diatinrtlj' (De Mundo, p. 350, Bip.), " that ia the composition of his
work he has kept iii view Aristotle and Thcophrastos."

('") p. 14. — Osann, Beitrage lur griech. und roin. LittBtaturgesehiohte,
Bd, i S, 194—386.

(") p. 14, — Cicero de Natura Dcormn, ii. 37 ; a passt^, in whieh Seitus
£mpiricu3 (Adversus Fhfsieos, Lib. ii. 33, p. 554, Fabr.j adduces an expree-
aion of Arietotte's to the same efl'ect, deservea the more attention, betwise he
has allndcd a aliort time hefhre (ii. 20) to another lost work, on divination
and dreams.

P) p. 15. — "AHatotelca flmnen orationia anrenm fundens" (Gc. Acad.
Quicst. ii. cap. 38.) (Coniiiare Stahr, in Aristotdia, Th. ii. S. 161^ and in
Ariatoteles hei den Biimem, S. 53.)

C) p. Ifl. — Menandri Rhetorls Comment, de Eneomiia, ex rec. Heeren,
1785, } i. cap. S, p. 38 and 39. The severe critie temu the didactic poem
on Nature a " frigid" (ijivxpiriftr) composition, in which the forces oC nature
are brought forward diverted of their personBlily ! Apollo is light, Hera the
le of the phenomena of tlie atmosphere, and Jove it heat. Plutarch a!w

IV

KOTBS.

I

ridicnlcs the Eo-cslled poema of nature, which have only the mere eitemil
fbnn of poetry (De And. Poet. p. 27, Steph.) The St^rite (Da Poet. c. i.)
coDsidcra EmpEdnclca rather a phydologiat than a poet, hariog nothing in
TOOinion with Homer, except the measure in whirh Ma verses are written.

P") p, 16, — " It may seem strange to endeavour to connect poetry, whicSl
rejoices always in variety, form, and colour, with those ideas whidi are most
simple and a!>slrn9c ; but it is not the less correct. Poetry, science, philo-
(ophy, and history, are not ia themselves, and essentially, divided from each
Dther 1 they arc united, either where man's partienlar stage of progress places
him m a statE of nnify, or when! the tme poetic mood restores him to such a
state (Wilhelm vou Humboldt, gesammeite Werke, Bd. i. S. 98—102.
CoiBpare also Bemhardy, riim. Littemtur, S. 315 — 218, and Frieihok
Schlegel's sammtliche Werke, Bd. i. S. 108—110. Cicero (ad Qtunt.
^'Btrcm, ti. 11) indeed Bscrihcsto Luerctins, nho Virgil, Ovid, and QoiuUHin,
here praised so highly, luora art than ereative talent (ingcniom).

(") p. 17.— Lucret, IJb. v. V. 930—1155.

P) p, 17,— Plato, Pbffidr. p. 330; CicCTo de L^. i. 8. 15, ii. 2, 1—8,
ii. 3, 0 (rampare Wagner, Comment Perp. in Ge. de Leg. 1B04. p. B) ;
Cic. de Oratore, i. 7, 23 (p. 16 Eneudt).

(™) p. 17-- See the eicdlcnt work of Rudolph Abeken, Hedor et Iha
Gymnasinni at Osnahriick, published in 1835, under the title of Cieera in
seinea Briefcn, S. 431—434. The valuable addition relative to Cicero'i
birthplace is by H. Aheien, the learned nephew of the author, «he im
formerly chaplain to the Prussian embassy at Borne, and is non taking part
iu the important Egyptian eipedition of Lepsius. Respecting the place of
Cicero's birth, see also Valery, Voy. hist, en Itahe, T. iii. p. 431.

ffl p. 18.— Cic. Ep. ad Attienm, lii. B and 13.

P) p. 19.— The passages &om Virgil adduced by Malle-Bmn (Annalei dei
Voyages, T. iii. 1808, p. 235—266) as being actual local deacriptions, merely
shew that the poet was acquainted with the prodaclions of different countries :
that he knew the saffron of Mount Tmolus, the ineense of the Sabeans, ths
true names of several small rivers, aud even the mcphitic vapours vrbicb rise
from a caveru in the Apennines near Amsanctus.

n !■■ 19.- Vijg, Georg. i. 856—302, iii. 3*9-380 ; Ma. iii, 191— Sll.
iv. 215—251. iv. 523-538, iii. 684—689.

C°) p. 20.— Kosmoa, Bd. i. S. 353 and 453 (Enghsh eJH. VoL i. p. SSO
and 434). As separate pictures of natural scenes, compare Ovid, Met. i,
BB8— 576, iii. 15B— 161, iii, 407—113, rii. 180— 18B, xv. 298— SHi

NOTES.

Trial. lib. i. El. 3, 60, Lib. iii. El. 4, 49, El. 12. 15. Ei Ponlo, Lib. iii.
Eji. 7—9- Ross has remarked, as being one of tbe rarely occurring inslancts
of individual pivtvircs relating to a deteniuiiat« locality, the pleading descrip-
ttoQ of a fountaiti on Monnt Hymettos, beginniiig, " Est prope purpnreos
tollea Borentis Hjmett!" (Ovid ie Arte Am. iii. 887). The poet ia describing;
the fonnlaiu of Kallia, celebrated in antiquity, and consecrated to Aphrodite,
which isanes forth on the western side of Hyraettus, whicli is otherwise very
deficient in waters (see Ross, Letter to ProCesaor Vuros, in the griech.
medicin. Zeilschrilt, June IS 37.)

I?>) p. 20.— "nhimus. ed. Voss, 1811, Eleg. lib. i. 6, 21—34; Lib. ii. 1.
37— Bfl-

fB) p. 20.— Luoan, Phara. iii. 40O— 4Ba (Vol. i. p. 374—384, Weber.)

P^ p. 20.— Kosmoa, Bd. i. S. 298 (English edit. Vol i. p. 273).

I?*) p, 21,— Idem. S. 455 (English edit. p. 438). The poem of Lodlins,
entitled .Etna, is very probably part of a longer poem on the cEmarkable
natural objects of tbe island of Sirily, and ia ascribed by Wemsdorf to
Comelins ScTenis. I would refer to some passages deserving of particular
atleutioat to tbe pruaea of genertd knowledge of nature considered as "the
fruiU of the mind," v. 270-280; the lava currents, v. 360—370 and
474 — 615 ; the eruptions of water at the foot of the volcano (P) v. 393 ; the
formation of pnmioe, v. 42S (p. ivi. — n. 32, 42, 46, 60, and OS, ed. Jacob.
1826).

(s») p. 21.— Decii Magni Ansonii Moaella, v. 180—199 (p. IS and 44,
BScking.) Consult also v. 85-150 (p. 0-12). tbe notice of tbo fish of the
Moselle, which is not unimportant as regards natural Matory, and has been
made ase of bj Valenciennea ; and a pendant to Oppian (Bemhardy, griech.
Litt. Th, ii. S. 1049). The Orthinogonia and ThEriaca of finiliua Maccr of
Veroiia, which were imitated from the worka of the Colopboniao Nieander,
and which have not come down to us, also belonged to the same diy didactic
clagB of poems trcatibg of natural pnxluctions. A natural description of the
south coaet of Gaul, coutAiued in a poem by Claudius Rutiliua Numalianna, a
statesman under Honorius, is more attractive than the Itlasella of Ausonins,
Ratilius, driven from Rome by the irruption of the Barbarians, is returning to
his estates in Qaid. Unfortunately wo posaoas only a fragment of tbo second
book of the poem which gives a narrative of bis travels ; and lliia loaves off
at the quarries of Carrara, Vide Rutilii Cluudii Numatiani de Reditu sno (e
Bona in Galliam Nocboueaacm) hbri duo, rec. A.W. Zumpt, 1840. p. iv. 31,

BodaiS (nitli n fine map by Kiqwrt) ; Wenisdorf, Poela; Lat. Min. T. t, P.
i. p. 123.

(») p. aa.— Tbo. Ann. ii. 23, 24 ; Hist. v. 8. Ths onlj ftagment wiiieh
we poaseas of the heroic poem in which Pedo AibinoTanaa, the fiiend o£ Otid,
gitng the eipioils of Germaoicus, Khicb was preserved by the rhetor Smcci
fSnasor. i. p. 11, Bipunt.), aW deaeribes the unfortunate naTigation on Ihe
Amyn (Fed. Albinoy. Elegiie, Amst. 1703, p. 172). Seneca cousidCTS this
dracription of the stormy aea more pictnresqne than any thing which the
fioniBn poets had produced; remarking, honerer, " I^tini dec lamatores in
DCemi dcaeriptioue non ninua vigucrunt ; nam ant tnmide »

(=?) p. 22.— Cnrt. in Alei. Magno, vi. 16 (see Droysen. Gjsch. Aleiandcrs
dea Groasen, 1333, S. 2Q6). lu Lucius AnuieuB Scueca (QoGcst. Natur. lAh,
iu. c. 27—30, p. 677— fi86, ed. Lips. 1741), we find a remarkable descrip-
tion of the destruction of numkind, ouce pure, bat sabscqnently defiled by ain,

by an almost nniversal deluge. " Cnra fatalia dies diluvii veuerit, bil

pcracto edtio generis bumana rastiuctisqne parkier feris in qiuinun bominei
ingenia transiersut." Cuiupare llie deseriptiou of chaotic tenestrinl revolu-
tions in the Bhi^vata-Purana, Book iii. e. 17 (Bnmouf, T. i. p. 441).

n p. 33.— Pliii. Epirt. ii. 17, v. 0, a. 7 ; PHn. Hist. Nat. lii. 6 1 Hirt,
GE9ch. der Bauk-nnst bei den Alten, Bd. it. S. 241, 2^1, and 376. The villa
Ifiurentiua of the younger Ftioy was situated near the present Torre di
Palano, in the coast valley of La Palombara, east of Ostia (aee Viagpo ii
Ostia a la Tilla di Pliuio. 1S02, p. 0 ; and Lc Lanrentia, par Handekonrt,
1838, p. 62.) A deep feeling for natiiro breaks forth m the few lines writlra
by Fliny from Lanrentiniun to MLnutiua Fundnnus: "Mecmn lantum et cum
libellis loqnor. Beclsni einccramque vilant ! dulce otium honestumque ! 0
mare, o littos, venun secretmnque (irBuo'ciai') I quam mults iaveuHis, qwm
mnlta dictatisi" (i. 9.) Hirt was persuaded that the be^uning in Italy,
in the 15th and Ifith centaries, of the artificial etyle of gardening, whidi bti
long been termed the French style, and coutrasted vrith the freer landictjie
gardening of the Eogliah, is to be attributed to the desire of imitating what
the youngs' Fliny had described in his letters (GeaeMchte der Bootanst bd
den Alien, Th. ii. S. SfiS).

(») p. 34.— FUn. Epist. iii. 19 ; viii. 16.

{") p. 24.— Suet, iu Julio CEesarc, cap, 56. Tho lost poem of C«ih
(Iter.) described the journey to Spain, when ha led hja army to hia lost miH- '
luty exploit lium Hume to CurJuva, by land, In twenty-four days, acconliiig

to Suetoains, or iu twentj-aeven dujs according to Strabo and Appiaa ; the
remainB gf Pompey's party, defeated in Africa, having assembled in Span.
— .ffl p. ai.— Sa. Ital. Pnnica, Ijb. iii. V. 477-
V (•} p. 21.— Idem. Lib, iv. V. 348 ; Ws. viii. V, 399.

C^ p. 25. — See, nn elegiac poetiy, NicoL Bach, in the allg. SchiJ.Zeitnng,
1829. Abth. ii. No. 134, S. 1097.

<*•) p. 2e.— Minncii Fclida Octarius, Ei rec. Gron. Rotcrod. 17*3, cap. 2
and 3 (p. 13—28), cap. 16—18 (p. 131—171).

C) p. 26.— On Uie Death of NaucratiuB. about the year 3B7, see Basilii
Jlagni 0pp. omnia, ed. Par. 1730, T. iii. p. ilv. The Jewish Esaeues, two
centurica before the Christian era, led an anchoritie life on the western Ebomi
of llie Dead Sea, " in iulercourae with nature." Pliuy says of them (v. 15),
" mira gens, soda palmamm." The TbenipeDteB dwelt originaUj monj in
conventual cammunitics, in a pleasant district near Lake Mceria (Keander,
allg. Geschichte der chrisU. Religion mid Kirche, Bd. i. Abth. i. 1842, S.
73 and 103.)

{") p. 28.— Basilii M. Epiat. liv. p. 93, Ep. ccnaii. p. 889. On the
beantirul letter Ia Gregory of Nazianzmn, and on the poetic tone of mind of
Sunt Basil, sec Villemain de l'Eloqucnc« chretienne dans le quatiieme Si^le,
in his Melai^ca hisloriques et litterairca, T. iii. p. 320-325, The ItIb, oh
the banks of which the femily of the great Basil ha^ ancient posaessiona in
land, rises in Armenia, flows through Poutiis, and, after mingling with the
waters of the Lycus, pours itself into the Black Sea.

C') p. 38. — Gregorins of Nazianium was not, however, ao much charmed

, with the description of the hermitage on the banlts of the Iris, but that be

preferred Ariaains,in the Tiberina Kc^o, though termed, vrilh dissatisfaction,

by his friend an impure fiapaSpor. See Basilii Ep, ii. p. 70 ; and the Vita

Saneti Has., p. ilvi., and lii. in the edition of 1730.

i^ p. 28. — Basilii Ilomil. in HeIa^m. vi,, and iv. B (Baa, Opp. omnia, cd.
Old. Gander, 1839, T. i. p. 54 and 70). Compare therewith the cipression
of profound mclaneholy in the beantifiJ poem of Gregory of Nazianzum, enti-
tled. " On the Nature of Man." (Gregor. Nni. Opp. omnia, ed. Par. 1611,
T. ii. Carm. liu. p, 83).

(•) p. 20.- The quotation from Gregory of Nyssa given in the teit, «m-
siate of separate fragments closely translated. Tliey will be found in S. Gre-
goriiKynemOpp.ed.Par. 1615, T.i, p. 49 C, p. 589 D, p. 310 C, p. 780 C^
T. ii. p. 860 B, p, 619 B, p. 619 D, p. 324 D. " Be thon gentle towards
le emotions of mclandioly," says Tbalsssiua, in aphoristic sayings, which

VIU NOTES.

were aJmireJ by hia contemporaries. (Biblioth. Pntrtun, cd. Far. 1824, T, ii.
p. 1180 C.)

U^ p. 29 —Sec Joannis Onj-soslQini 0pp. omnia, Par. 1838 (8vo.) T, ii.
p, 687 A, T, ii. p. 821 A, and 851 E, T, i. p. 79. Ccmpara also Joannii
Plilopoai, ID mp i. Gencscoa do crcationo Mnndi, lihri scptem, Viennffi AoBtr.
IflSD, p. 192, 236, and S73 ; and also Georgii Fiaiia Mnndi opificlam, ed.
lB9fl, V. 367—375, 600, B33, and 1348. The vforks of Basil and of
GrFgot7 of Nazianzum early arrested my attention aAer I began to coDeet
deBcriptiuns of nature ; but I nm indebted for all the excellent (Gennui)
translations &om Gregory of Nyssa, Cbrysoatom, and TbaJasaiiu, to my old
and alwaja kind colleagne and &ieud, M, Hase, Member of the Institnle,
and CaoMrvator of the Bibliotbeqne da Roi, at Paris.

(") p. 30. — On the Concilinm Tnronense, nuder Pope Alexander III., Bee
Ziegelbauer, Hist. Bei litter, ordinis S. Benedidi, T. ii. p. 248, at. 1754; on
IbeConndlatParisofiaOQ, and theBoll ofGrcgnr;!!. of tbeftariaSl.sec
Jourdain, Becherches crit. sni les traductiaUB d'Arislote, 1819, p. 204 — 206.
Heavy penances were attached to the reading of the pbpical booliB o( im-
totle. In the Concilium Lateranenae of 1139 (Sacror. Concil. nota ndlectia,
ed. Ven. 1776, T. iii. p. 528), monks were forbidden (o es»cise the art of
medicine. Consult also the learned and interesting nritiug of the you^
Wol^ang Ton Gbthe, entitled, " dci Mensch und die elementarische Natnr,"
1844, S. 10.

{^ p. 33.^Fried, Schlcgel, uber nordische DicWkaast, in his sammllichtn
Werken, Bd. i. S. 71 and BO. I may cite farther, from the very early time
of Charlemagne, the poetic description of the Thiergarten at Aii, enchiaing ,
both woods and meadows, which is giren in the life of the great emperor,
written by Angilbcrlus, Abbot of St. TUques, (See Perti, Monum. Vol. i.
p. 393—403).

n p. 33.— See, in Gerrinos's Geschiehte der deulschea Litt., BJ. i. S,
354 — 331, the comparison of the two epics, tlic poem nf the Kiebelungcn,
(describing the vengeance of Chriemhild, the wife of Siegfried), and that of
Gndrun, the dangbter of King Hetel.

(") p. 34.— On IJie romantic destcription of the grotto of the lovera. in the
Tristan of Golt&ied of Straebiirg, see Gervinua, in the work above referred to,
Bd. i. S. 450.

(") p. 35,— Vridanlica Beschcidcnheit, by Wilhelm Grimm, 1834, S. SO,
and 12S. AU that refers lo the Gcnnan Volka-cpoa and the Minneaingen
(from p. 33 to p. 3S) is token bam a letter of WUhclni Grimm to mpelf

S0TE3.

(Opt. 1843). In B veij olJ Anglo-Smon poem on tlie nanica of llie Runes,
wiiich was first published by Hickea, there is the Mowing pleaaing deftcrip.
tion of the birch free: — "Beorc ia beaetifUl in its branches: ila leafy top
rqsllcs inveetly, mored to Bud fro by the nil." The greeting of the light of
day ia simple and noble : — " The mc&senger of the Lord, dear to man, the
gluriona light of God, bringing gladnesa and confidence to rioh and poor,
beneflcent to all!" See alio Wilhehn Grimm, iiber deutsche Runen, 1821,
S. 94, 225, and 234.

n p. SB.— Jacob Grimm, in Hranhart Fuchs, 1834, S. cciciv. [Compare
also Christian lessen, in his indischer Alterlhumskunde, Bd. i. 1B43,
S. 296.)

(") p. 37- — On " the non-genuineness of the Ossianit songs, and of Mac-
pherson'a Oaaian in particular," see ■ memoir br the ingenious translfltresa of
the Volispoesie of Serria (die Unachtheit der Liedtr Osaian's und dca Mac-
pherson 'schen Osaian'a inabcaoudere, von Talvj, 1840), The firat publication
of Ossian by Macphetson was in I7C0. The Fingalian songs on;, indeeti,
heard in the Scottish Higblanda, aa well aa in Irekud, hut they have been
carriEd (o Scotland from Ireland, according to O'Reilly and Dmmmoiid.

(") p. 37.— lassen, ind. All«rthumskniide, Bd. i. S. 412— 41S.

C) p. 38. — Respecting the Indian forest-hermits, Vanapreafiie (Sylvicolie)
and Sram9ni (a name which haa been altered into Sarmani and Garmani), see
lAssen, " de nomiuibua qoibua vetcribos appcllantur Indonun philosophi."
in the Rhein. Mnscum fiir Philologie, 1833, S. 178—180, Wiliehn Grimm
thinka he recognisea something of Indian colonring in the description of the
nu^c forest in the "Song of Alexander," composed more thaii 1300 years
ago by a priest, named Lambrecht, in immeditUe imitation of a i'renc.'h origi-
niL The hero comes to a irood, where maidens, adorned with supernatural
charms, spring Irom large flowers, and be remains Kith them so long that
both flowers and maidens fade away. (Compare Gcrvinna, Bd. i. 8. 282, and
Massimmu'i Denkmaler, Bd. i. S. 16.) These are the same as the maidens of
Edris's oriental magic Island of Vacvac, called, in the Latin version of
Masodi, Chothbeddin jiuellas vasvakieDscs. (Iliunboldt, Riamen crit. de 1b
Geographie, T. i. p. B3.)

(^ p. 39. — Kalidnsa lived at the court of Viknmaditya, abont 6S yean
before our era. It is highty probable Ih&t the age of the two great heruic
poema, Ramayaaa and Mahabbarata, is much earlier than that of the appear-
ance of Buddha, or mnch earlier than the middle of the sixth eenlnry before
oar era. (Burnout Bhagavata-Purana, T. i. p. cii. and cuiii. ; Ijassen,
a 2

k

X , NOTES.

iad. Alterlhamslnuide, Bd. i. S. 356 and 4Q2.) George Farster, bj the
transktioQ of Sacoataln, i.t. by hia tafltefal prewntatioQ id a Gfinami garb
of an English version hj Sir William Jones (1T91), contribotixl gKSHj to
the enthuHssm for Indum poetry, wliich then first ^wed itself in Germiinf.
I tako pleasure la recalling two fine di^ticha of Gotlie's, whicli appeared in
17«a:—

" Willst du die Bluthe des iriihen, die Friiehte des spiiteren Jolirea,

Willst du Has reizt und entziickt, villst Aa, was siitligt nnd nalirt,

WillBt du den Uimmel, die Erde mlt einem Nanien hegrcifen ;

Neun' id) Sahontala, Dieh, und so ist allea gesagL."

The most recent German Iran^tion of this Indian drama is that of Olto

Bohtlingk (Bonn, 1843), from the important original lert found hy Bmck-

C) p. 40. — Hnmboldt, on steppes and diaerb (ueber Steppea and Wuates),
in Hid Anaiehten der Nstur, 2(e Ausgahe, 1826, Bd. i. S. 33—37.

1^ p. 40. — In order to reader more complete the small portion of the teil
which belongs to Indian literature, and to enable me to point ont, as in
Rrcck and Roman literature, (ho several works leferred to, I Kill here intro-
dnce some mannscript notices, kindly commnnicatiid to me hy a dialjngniihcil
and philosophical scholar thoronghly versed in Indian poetry, Hetr Theodor
Goldstiickcr:—

" Among all the inflnenees whicli have affected the inteHectnal developmMil
of the Indian nation, the first and most important appears to mo lo have bera
that raerciaed by the rich aspect of natnre in the country inhabited by than,
A profound loTe of nature has lieen at all times a flmdnmental character of
the Indian mind. In reference to the manner in which this fading hog mani-
feated itself, three gnccessive ejmchfl may be pointed ont, each of which bas ■
'determinate character, of which the foundations were deeply lud in the mcdc
of lilfe and tendencies of the people. A few eiomples may thus be aulBrioil
to indicat* the activity of tha Indian imagiuatioji. The Vcdas mark the Snl
epoch of the oipreaaion of a vivid fjechng for nature ; we would refer id the
Bigveda to the sublimn and simple dcacriptiona of the dawn of day (Rigveda-
SanhitS, ed. Rosen, 1838, Hynm. ilvi. p. 88; Hymn, riviii. p, 82 ; Hynw.
xeii. p, 184; Hymn, cjiii, p. 233: see also Hofer. Ind. Gedichte, 1S41,
Icaei. S. 3,) and of the "golden-handed sun," (Rigveda-Sanhitl, Hymn.
iiii. p. 31; Hymn, mv, p. B5). The veaeration of nature, eonnedcd
here, u in other nations, with an eariy stage of their religious bolief, has in
the Vedas a pcculioily detcruiluate direction, being alu'aya conceived in the

XI

most intimale cooucutiDQ nith the cifcraal and internal life of msn. The
second epodi is very different : in it » popoJar mythology was formed, having
for its objeet to mould the eanl«uta of the Vedas into a shape more easily
camprchcnsibic by an age akeady iar removed in character from that nliich
had given them birth, and to intcrHeave them «ith historieol events to which
a mythical charactEr is given. To this second epoch belong the two ^;reat
hemic poems, the lUnmjana and the Hahabharuta ; tbe latter had also the
additional object of rendering the Brahmins tbc most inSnential of the foin;
ancient Indian caatee. The liamayEUia is the older and more beautiful |K>cm
of the two: it ia more rich in Dotuial feeling, and has kept more strictly on
poetic ground, not having been coQatraiocd (u take up elements alien and
almost hostile to poetry. In both poems, nature no loi^r constitutes, aa in
the Vedas, the entire picture, bat only a portion of it. There are two points
whidi essentially distinguish the eonception of nature at the period of the
heroic poema from that which the Vedas present, independently of the wide
ditfcrcnce between the ^nguage of adoration and that of narrative. One of
LhciC points is the localising of the description. According to 'Wilhelm von
Schlcgcl, the Erst book of the Ramayaaa, or Bolakauda, and the second book,
or Ayodhyakajida, are eiamples : see also Lassen, Ind. Alteithnmskunde,
Bd. L S. 482, on the difierences hetnreen these two epics. Narrative, nhe-
ther historical, legendary, or fabulous, leads to the specification of parlicnlar
loeslities, rather than to general descriptions. These early epic pueta, whether
Valmiki, who sings the eiploits of Rama, or the anlhors of the Mohabharata,
named collectively, by tradition, Vyasa, all show tbemsclx'ea transjMrted, and
•a it were overpowered, by emotions connected with eitemal nnfiirc. Kama's
journey from Ayodbya to Dschauaka's capital; hia life in the (brest ; his ei-
pedition to Lanka (Ceylon), where dwelt the savage Ravana, the robber of
his bride, Sita i and the hermit Hfe of the Paudnidca ; all furnish to the poet
the opportunity of following the bent of the Indian mind, and of blendiu|:,
with the relation of heroic deeds, the rich imagcty of tropical nature. (Rama-
yena, ed. Scldegel, lib. i. cap. 26, v. 13—15 : lib. ii, cap. 50, v. B— 11 ; Com-
pare Nalua, eil. Bopp, 1832, Gca. ni. V. 1—10.) The other point in which
the second epoch differs from that of the Ycdas in regard to eiternal nature,
is closely connected with the Urat, and ecoaists in tbe greater richness of ma-
terials employed, comprehending the whole of nature, — the heavens and the
earth, with the world of plants and of aninulsin all their luiuriance and variety,
anil viewed in their influence on the mind and feelings of men. In the third
epoch of poetic blcralurc (if we except the Puianas, nliich have a pikilitiilnr

XII

NOTSS.

utijvct,) extcriuJ nnture exarciacs an uiidiTideii sovereignty, but the disetiptivc
portiun \t based on more sdeuti£c uid more local obsen'atiaa. Ainoug the
great poems belougiug to thin epoch is the Bhstti~kllv]ra (or fihatti's poem),
wliicii, like the Kamnj-nna, has for its snhject tbi; ciploitB snii sdventiiref of
Rama, and In which flue deacriptione of a forest lif^ ilnriTg banisiuneut, of the
KB and of its besatifnl shores, and of the breaking of the day in Cejlon
(Lanks), oeciir successively. (Bbatti-k&vya, ed. Calc. P. i. canto vii. p. iSt ;
euto X. p. Tlo -, canto li. p. Sll. Comparo also S^^liiitE, Prof. lu Biele-
feld, fliiif Gesuuge dea Bhatti-kftvya, 1S3T, S. 1— IB.) I wonld alw nCa lo
am agreeable description of the differeut periods of the day in Maglu's
SisupDlabdha, and Lo the ^aischada-Iscbmita of Sri Horecba. lu the tut-
named poem, however, iu the story of Nalns and Biuoayanti, the expreauoa
of the feeling for eiterual nature paa^s into a vague eiaggorilioa, which
coutntsts nith the noble simplicity of the Bamayaoa, nheie ViavamitrB laiit
his pupil to the shores of the Sona. (Sisupakdha, ed. Calc. p. 298 and 372;
compare Sehiilz, fiiuf Gea. des Bhatti-klvya, S, 25 — S8 ; NBischadB-Udunit*.
ed. Calc. P. 1, v. 77—128 ; EamayaDa, ed. Sehlegel, lib. 1, cap. 35, v.
15 — IS.) Xalidasa, the celebrated author of Sacoulala, represonts, nitb a
master's baud, the iuSuenee nliicb the aspect of nature eiercises on the minds
and feelinga of lovers. The forest sceue pourtrayed by him iu the dram* of
Viloama aud Urvaai is one of the Sneat poetic crestions of any period.
(Vikraniorv-asi, ed. Cale. 1830, p. 71 1 see the EugUsh translation in Wilson's
Select Specimeus of the Theatre of tho Hindus, Cale. 1B27, Vol. ii. p. 83.)
In the poem of "The Seasons," 1 would porticukrly refer to the rainy seawn
and to that of spring (Ititusanhara, ed. Bohleu, ISiO, p, U— 18, and
37—45, S. 80—88, aud S. 107—11*, of Boblen's translation). In the
" Cloud Messenger," also by Kalidasa, the influence of ettemiU nature On
hninan fceUng is also the leading aubject of the composition. THs poem
(the Mcghaduta, or Chiud Messenger, which has heon edited by GildemaBtcr
and truaslatcd both by Wilson and hy Cbezy) describes (he grief of tn cdto
on the moantain Bainagin, longing foe the preseuce of liis beloved (Rnn
whom he is separated : he oiitreata a passing cloud to convey to her tidings
of bis sorrows ; he describes lu the clood the path which it must putsnc, and
[mnta UkC landscape as reflected in a wind i^tated with deep emotion.
Among the treasures which the Indian poetry of the third period owe* to the
influence of nalnre on the nationnl mind, the Gitagovinda of Dschayadev*
deserves the highest praise. (Riickert, in the Zeltschrifl fitr die Kunde des
.MorgeiiUmdes, Bd. i. 1837, S. 123-173 ; Gitagovinda Juyadcvir poetic

yOTES. XI 11

indici drama Ijricum, ed. Ckr. lassen, 1830.) We possess a mostisriy matri-
cal tranalation ot this poem by Riickert, which ia one of the most pleasing
and at the same time one of the most ditEcdt in the vrholc of Indian lilf ra-
tnre. The translation renders the spirit of the original wifh admirable fide-
litj, and prcacnts a conception of nature the intimate truth of whieh animates
every part of this great composition.

(^ p. 41.— Journal of the Royal Geogr, Soc. of London, Vol. i. 1841,
p. 2—3 ; Ruckert, Makamcn Hariri's, S. 261.

C*) p. 41.^G(ithe im Commentac zum west-iistlieiien Divan; Bd. ri.
1828, S. 73, 78, and 111. of his works.

<") p. 42.— Vide lo Livre des Rois, pubUe' par Julea Mohl, T. i. 1888.
p. 487.

(") p. 42. — Jos. von Hammer, Geseh. der schoncn Rcdckunste Persiena,
1818, S. 98 (Ewhadcddin Enweri, who Uved in the 12th eentury, in whose
poem on the Schedseliai some have discovered a remarkable allusion to the
mutnil attnction of the heavenly bodies; S. 183 (Dsehelaleddiii Rumi, the
mystic) ; S. 2S9 [Dschclaleddin AhdadJ ; S. 403 (Feisi, who came forward
at the court of Akbar ae a defender of the religion of Brahms, and in whose
Ghaiula there breathes an Indian tenderness of feeling.

("l p. 42.—" Night comes on when the mk-boLtle of heaven is over-
turned,^' is the tasteless cspr^ssion of Chodschah Abdullah Wassaf, a poet,
Aha has, however, the merit of haviag been the first to describe the great
aslronomiml observatory of Mcragha, with its lofty gnomon. Hilali, of Asler-
abad, makes the disk of the moon glow with heat, and calls the evening dew
"tbc sweat of the moon." (Jos. von Hammer, S. 247 and 371.)

(*) p. 42, — Tuiija or Turan are uamea of which the derivation is still
undiscovered. Biimouf (Yacna, T. i. p. 427 — 130) has acutely called atten-
tion in reference to them to the Bactrion Satrapy of Turina or Turiva men-
tioned in Strubo [xi. 11, 3, pag. 517. lat.) : Su Tbeil and Gruskard, however,
Th. ii. S. 4)0) propose to read Tapyria,

(•) p. 43. — Uebcr ein fiuuischcs Epos, Jacob Grimm, 1845, S. 3.

P) p. 46. — 1 have followed in the Psalms the eieelleut translation of
Moses Mendelsohn (see his Gesammelte Schriflen, Bd. vi. S. 220, 238, ami
280). Noble after-echoes of the ancient Hebrew poetry are found in the
lltb century in the hymns of the Sjianish synagogue |)OGt, Salomo ben Jehn-
dah Gabirol : they also contain a poetic paraphrase of the pseudo-Aristoleliail
book, De Muudo. Vide die religiiise Pocsie der Juden iu SpuiicD, by
Slichael Sachs, 1845, S. 7, 317, and 229. Skclchea drjvra from nature, and

XIV NOTES.

hill of ri^nr and ^randenr, are ftnmd in the nritings of Mose ben JaVob ben
Emu (S, 09. 77, snd 28a).

C) p, 47. — I hnve taken the passages in the book of Job from the tnuu-
Intion and BipoBilion ol' L'mbrcit (1SS4), S. Eiii.— ilii. and 390—311.
(Consult gencnill} Geaeuius, Geschicbtc der hebr. Sprachc und Schrift, S. 33 ;
Bud Jubi autiqiUEsLmJ carmims hebr. nalnra atque Firtales, ed. ngen, p. 28.)
The longest and most characteristic descriptiou of an animal which ire meet
witi in the book of Job, is timt of the crocodile {il. 25— ili. 26), snd j« il
oontuuA one of the flvidencca of the writer having been (lipiaplf a aative of
Palestine, Umbreit, S. ili. & 308. As Ibc river-horse of the Nile and the
crocodile nerc formerif toond througbont the whole Delta of the Nile, it is
not surprising that the knowledge of aoimals of sach strange and pecoliir
form should have spread into the uBighbouring connlrj of Palestine.

(") p. 48.— Gijthe im Conunentar jnm west-ostlichcu Divan, S. 8.

(") p. 48.— Antar, a Bcdouiu romance, tranaUled tcom Ibo Arabic if
Terriok Hamilton, Vol. i. p. isvi. ; Hammer, m the Wiener Jahrbuchem ir
Lillcratur, BJ, vi. 181B, S. 229 ; Roscnmiillcr, in tie Charakteren der Tor-
nehnuten Dicbtcr atler Nationem, Bd. v. (1798) S. 251.

IJ*j p. 49.— Antora mm schol. Sunsenii, ed, Menil. 1816, v. IE.

C) p. 49.— Ammllieisi MoaUBkal, ed. G. G. Henstcnbeis, 1828; Ha.
inosa, ed. Freytag, P. i. 1828, lib. vii. p. 785. See also in Ihe plcaiing
work, entitled, " Amrilkaii, the Poet and King," translated b; Tr. Biickert,
184S, pp. 29 and 62, nhero southern showers are twice described with et-
eaeding truth to nature. The rof el poet visited the court of the Empenir
Justinian several years before the birth of Mtdionuned, for the pnrpou cf
obtnming aasiitance against his enemies. See lo Diwan d'Amro Ikais, ac-
compague d'una Iraducttou par le Baron MieGiickin de Slane, 1837, p. Ill,

(^) p. 49. — Nabeghah Shubjaui, in Silvestre de Sacy'a Chrestom. Itaie,
180S, T. iii. p. 47. On the early Arabian literatoro generally, see 'Wel'a
Poet, LitteratoF der Araber lor Mohammed, 1837, S. 15 sud 90, ai utell u
Freyteg'e Daratellung der arabischeu Verakanst, 1830, S. 872 — SQ2. 1
ma; soon eipeft a truly fine and complete version at the Arabian poetry cd
nected with nature in the wiitings of Huuasa £rum our great poet fViedrick
RQckcrt,

<P) p. 40.— Hamaaio Carmina, ed. Freytag, P. i. 1B28, p. 788. " I
finishes," it is said in page T90, " the chapter on travel and slecpincH."

p*) p. 51.— Donle, Purgatorio, canlo 1. v, 115;
" V allsi viutL'vu r ura wattutina

NOTES. XV

Che fugia innanzij ea che di lontano

Conobbi il tremolar de la marina"

?»)' p. W.— Puig. canto v., v. 109—127 :

" Ben sai come nell' aer si raocoglie

Quell' mnido yapor, che in acqna riede,

Tosto che sale, dove '1 freddo il coglie"

(*) p. 51. — Purg. canto xxviii. v. 1 — 24.
^®*) p. 51. — ^Parad. canto m. v. 61 — 69 :

" E vidi lume in fonna di riviera

Fulvido di fulgore intra duo rive

Dipinte di mirabil pnmavera.

Di tal finmana uscian &ville vive,
E d' ogni parte si mettean ne' fiori,
Quasi rubin, che oro circonscriTe.

Poi como inebriate dagli odori,
Riprofondavan se nel miro gurge,
E s' una entrava, un' altra n* uscia fiiori."
I do not refer to the Canzones of the Vita Nuova, because the comparisons
and images which they contain do not belong to the purely natural range of
terrestrial phsenomena.

(^ p. 61. — ^I would recal Boiardo's sonnet commencing,
** Ombrosa selya, che il mio duolo ascolti,"
and the fine stanzas of Yittoria Colonna, which begin,

*' Qnando miro la terra omata e bella,
Di miUe vaghi ed odorati fiori."
A beautiful and very characteristic natural description of the country seat of
fVaeastoro on the hill of Incassi (Mons Caphius), near Verona, is given by
that distinguished doctor in medicine, mathematician, and poet, in his " Nau-
gerius de poetica dialogus" (Hieron. Fracastorii 0pp. 1591, P. i. p. 321-*
826). See also in a didactic poem, lib. ii. v. 208—219 (0pp. p. 636), the
pleasing passage on the culture of the lemon in Italy. I miss. with astonish-
ment any expression of feeling connected with the aspect of natiure in the
letters of Petrarch, either when, in 1345, (three years, therefore, before the
death of Laura), he attempted the ascent of Mont Ventour from Vauduse,
hoping and longing to behold from its summit a part of his native land ; or,
when he visited the gulf of Baia;, or the banks of the Rhine to Cologne.
Ilis mind was occupied by the classical remembrances of Cicero and the

r

XVI K0TE9.

Roman poets, or by the emotiuns ofhiB aacetic melHacbolj, rather tliaD bj
lurraundiiig nature. (Vid. PelraTchs Epist, de rehiu fnmiliarihus, lib. iv. 1 ;
V. 3 md it pag. 119, 156, sad Ifll, ed. Lugdun. IGOl). 1 Bnil, howecer,
BQ ejoeeding^y picturesque description of u gnat leinpest which Petraidi
observed debt Naples in 1313 (Hb. v, B, p, 16B) : hnt it is n solitary instMire.

C) p. 54, — Humboldt, Einmen critique de ITiistoire de [a Geographie dn
nonveau Continent, T. iii, p. 227—348.

(*■) p. 55,— Koemos, Bd. i. S. 296 and 46B (English trnnsbtion, lat. i.
pp. 272 and 447).

(■) p. 56. — Jouroalof ColnrabusonluB firet Tojiige (Oct. 29, 1493; Not,
25—29; Bee. 7— Ifl; Sfc.21); shohis letter to Dofia Maria dc Guxman, una
del Prioripe D. Jnsn, Dec. 1500, in Navarrele, Colefrion detos Viagts qae
hicit'ron por mar las Espaholes, T. i. p. 43, 05, 73, B2, S2, IDO, end 2GI1.

(*) p. 56.— Navnm-te, Colewion de loa Viages, T. i. p. 803—804 (CirW
del Almirante a los Reyes escrita en Jamaica a 7 de Julio, 1503); IlaniUiIdf,
Eiemen irit. T. iu. p, 231—236.

(W) p. 66.— Tasso, canto xri. slanze 9-16.

n p. 57.— See Friedrich Schlcgers sammll. Wcrti, Bd. ii. S. 96; and
ou the disturbing mythologieni dualism, and the misture of antique GJ)!e with
Christian contemplations, see Bd. i. S. 54, Camociis has tried, in ata
whicli have not been sniBcicntly attended to (82—84), to jnstify this mytho-
logical duahsm, Trthja avows, in a somewhat naive manner, but in \f
which are a noble flight of poetry, " that she herself, Saturn, Jupiter, and all
the host of gods, arc X'ain fables, bom tu mortals by blind delonon.
Boring only to embelltsh the poet's eui^ — " A Sanda Providenm que tm
Jopiter aqui ^ representa."

p°) p. 57. — Oa Lnsiadas de Camocs, canto l. est. 19 ; canto vi. wt. 71 — 82.
See also the comparison in the fine description of a tempest raging in ■ Imttt,
canto i. est. 85.

P") p. 58. — The fire of St. Elmo ; " 0 lume vivo qne ■ maritima genie
por santo, em tempo de tormenta" (Canto v. est. IS). One flame, the IlelrM
of the Greek mariners, bringa misfortune (Plin. ii. 37) ; two flune^ Cuttr
and PoUui, appearing with a rustUng sound, "like the fluttering wingj gf
birds," ore good omena (Stob. Eclog. Ph;s. i. p. 514 ; Seneca, Nat. Qioert. ,
i. 1), On the eminently grapliiiL'al character of Comoena' dewniptiuni
nitnre, and the peculiar mannur iu which their subjcela are brought aa it wi
visibly before the mind's eye, see the great Pai-is edition of 1318, m tluTij*
de Camoea, by Dum Jozc Jleria ile Soma. p. eii.

{") p. BS. — Compsre the waterapout ill Cantu V. rat. 19 — 32, with t!iE also
highlj poetic and Imthfid dtscriplioD of lucrctiua, yi. 423 — 113. On the
frtah ivat«r, which, toivanlB the close uf the ];jh«tionienon, falls apparently from
the upper part of the Dolumu of water, ate Ogden on Walersponts (from Ob-
secvatjons made iu 1830, during a voj-age Ikim Havannah to Norfolk], in
Silliraan's American Journal of Science, Vol. xm. 183B, p. 354—260.

n p. 58.— Canto iii. e»t. 7—21, of the (eit of Camocua in the edilio
princeps of 1572, which has boeu given afresh in the escellent and splendid
edition of Dom Joze Maria de Souza-Botelho (Paris, 1818). In the Gennan
quotations 1 have oeually foUowcd the translation of Donner (1833). The
principal aim of the Lusisd of Camoena is thn honour and glory of his nation.
Vp'ould it not be a monument, weE worthy of his fiune, if a hall were constructed
in Lisbon, after the nohie ciamplcs of the halls of Schiltcc and Giithe in the
Grand Ducal palace of Weimar, and if the twelve grand compositions of my
deceased friend Gerard, which adorn the Souza edition, were csecuted in
large dimensions, in fresco, on wdl lit wcjls p The dream of the king Dom
Manoel, in which the rivers Indos and Ganges appear to him, the Giant
Adamastor hovering over the Cape of Good Elope (" £u eon aquclle ocenlta e
grande Csho, et quern ehamais viis uutrus Tormentorio"), the murder of Jgnea
de Castre, and the lovely llha de Venna, would all have the finest efTect.

P') p. B8. — Canto s. est. 79—90. Camoens, like Vespncei, lenus the
part of the heavens nearest to the sonthem pole, poor in stars (Canto v. est. 14).
He is also acquainted with the ice of the southern aeas (Canto v. cat. 21).
I**} p. 69.— Canto I. eat. 91-141.

(") p. 59.— Canto a. est. 51—63. (Conaull Lndwig Kriegl!, Schriften
tur allgemciueu Erdkunde, 1840, S. 338.) The whole llha de Venus is an
allegorical fable, as is clearly indicated in Est. 89 ; but tbe beginning of ths
rebtioQ of Dom Manocl's dream depicts an Indian mountain and forest dis-
trict (Canto iv. est. 70).

C) p. 00. — Fondness for the old literature of Spain, and for the enchanting
region in which the Araocana of Alonso dc ^reilla y Zufiiga was composed,
has led mc to read conscientiously through tie whole of this poem of 22000
lines on two occasions, oocc in rem, and again very recently in Paris, when,
by the kindness of a learned traveller, M. Ternnu! Compaus, I received a very
icaroe book, printed in 1596, at Lima, and containing the nineteen cantos of
the Arauco dooiado compueaCo por el Licenciado Pedro de Ofia natural de los
InCuitcs de Engol en Chile. Of tbe epic poem of Ercilla, in which Voltaire
sees an Iliad, and Sismondi a neK3pa|>er In rhjiiie, the first filteou cantos were

xrm NOTES.

noipoaed betireeii 1335 wd 1363, and were pnUuhedin loSO; tie lata
cuUs wne bat printed in 1390, only ax jesra before t!ie miserahk poem rf
Pedn Ae Ona, which bean Ihe !&mc title ns one of the nuatcr works of Lope
de Vegs, in vhidi the Qicique Csapoliuan is the priueipuL peraonage. Ercilla
ii uute and Ime-luaited ; cspecisJl}' in those parts of his com]>ositioa vbich
he KTDle in the field, mostl; on bark of trees and 'l'''!' fit beasts for want of
paper. The description of his poiertr, and of the ingratitude which he tTjxS
rienced at the conrt of King Philip, is eitnunely touching pariicakHf at tlM
close of the 37th canto :

" CUmas paasc, mnd^ caustelsdonee,

Golfos inavcgablcs navcgando,

Esleadicado Scaor, voeatm corona

Hasla hi aiutral frtgida lona."
"Tkcflowecof raj life is past; late instructed, I will renounce earthtjdiii^
weep, and no longer eiiig." The natural descriptions of the garden of Ihe
sorcerer, of the Ifimpcst raised by Eponamou, and of the ocean (F. i. p. SO,
136, and 1?3 ; P. iL p. 130 and ISl, b the edition of 1733), bte cold lad
lifeless : gmgiaphieal rt^sters of words are accumulated in aoch muiner,
that, in Canto uviL, tweu^-seveu proper names follow each other in immediatt
sui!ees3ian in a single atsnia of eight lines. Part II. of the AraoraoA i> not
bj Ercilla, but is a eoatiunation, in twenty cantos, by Diego de Sontislem
Osorio, appended t« the thirty-seven cantos of Ercilla.

("') p. 60. — In the Romancera dc Romances caballeresco e Mstoricos ordt-
iiado, por D. Augustin Duran, P. i. p. 1S9, and P. ii. p. 337, tee tht Bn
Btropbca commonciog "Yba declinando el dia" — " Sb ciirao y ligeros horai" —
pnd on the flight of King Roileriok, beginning
" Quando las pintodas avcs

Ateuta esucba lo9 rios."

<!^ p. 60. — Fray Luis de Leon, Obras proptiss j tradaociones, dodiodas t
Son Pedro Portocarero, 16S1, p. 120: Noche screna. A deep fiseliug tf
natore also reveals itself at times in the aneiant mystic poetry of the Spuiudi
(Pray Luis de Granada, Santa Teresa de Jeans, Halan de Cbaide) ; but Oa
natural pictures are usually only the eiternal veil, symbulisiug ideal conlaB'
platious,

(") p. Bl.— Calderon,
Spanish fleet. Act i. see

in the " Steadhst Frinee :" on the approodi of th>
e 1 J uid on the sovereiga^ of the wild boiaU h

the furoat, Act iii

NOTES.

' C") p. 62. — Tlo passagei ia the tent relating to Culileron and Sliabspewe,
which arc dijtinguialiQd by marks of <iuotation, bte taken from unpublished
letters, addressed to mjself, bj Ludwig Tieck.

('•") p. 66.— The works referroi to were published in the following order
of time : — Jean Jacques Buusseau, Nouvelle Helotse, 17SQ ; BuSbu, Epoques
de la Nature, 1778, but hia Histoire natuitlle, 1749—1767 ; Bemardin de
St-Pierre. Etudes de k Nature. 1784, Paul et Viipnie, 178S, ChanmiSre
Indienne, 1791 ; George Porster, Reiac nach der Siidsee, 1777, Kleine
Schrirteti, 1794, More than half a centurj' before the publluatiou of the
Nonrelle Heloise, Madame de Sevignc bad nlready mauITcatcd, in her charming
Letters, a vivid sense of natural beauty, sucli as can rarely be traced in the age
of Looifl XTV. See the fine natural descriptiona in the letters of April 20,
May 31, August 15, September 16, and November fl, 1871, and October 83
and December 28, 1889 (Auhenas, Hist, de Madame de Se'vigne', 1842, p.
201 and 427), 1 have referred in the tait to lie old Qennan poet, Paul
Flemming, who, from 1633 to 1639, accompanied Adam Olearius on his
journeys to Muscovy and to Persia, because, according to (he authority of my
IHend Vamliagen von Euse (Biograpliische Denkw. Bd, iv. S. 4, 79, andlZB),
" Flemmlng's compositions are charaelerieed by a fresii and healthful vigonr,"
and because his images drawn from external nature are tender and full of
life.

O p, 68.— Letter of the Admiral from JamiBca, Jnly 7, 1603; "El
mimdo es poco ; digo qne cl mundo no ea tan grands eomo dite el vulgo"
(Nsvarrete, Ckileccion de Yiages esp. T. i. p. 300).

(■"^ p, 70,— See Jonmal and Remarks, hj Charles Darwin, 1 832—1836,
in the Narrati^'e of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, Vol. iii, p,
479 — Jr90, where an eiecedingly beanfiful description of 'HJiiti is given,

('**) p. 70, — On George Forster's merit as a man and a writer, see Ger-
vinus, Gcseh, der poet. National-Litteratur der Denlachen, Th, v. S. 390-392.

("") p. 71.— Freytsg'9t)arstellungderarBbischenVerBkanst,18aO, S. 402.

(i"i) p. 7B.— Herod, iv. 8S.

(W) p. 75.— A portion of the woris of Polygnotus and Mikon (the paint-
ing of the battle of Marathon in the Poliile at Athens) might still be seen,
according to tbe testimony of Himerius, at the end of the fuiulh century (of
onr era), or 850 yrars after their eiecution (Lclronne, Lettrea lur la Peintwe
historiquc iDurnle, 1835, p. 203 and 453).

("^ p, 76.— PhilostiTitorum Imngioes, ed, Jaioha et Welcker, 1825. p. 79
Doth the learned editors defcud, against former suspieioni, the

xix I

Lshed I

XX NOTES.

BUthentk'ity of the dfacrijition oC tho paintinga in Ike micieut Neopolitu
Pinacothek (Jacoha, p. irii. and ilvi.; Welckcr, p. Iv. and ilvi.). OOriai
Mallet sapposes that PLUortrtttus's pictnre of the islanils (ii. IT), bs wcI
that of the marsh diatnot (i. 9), of the Bosphorua, and of the fiahermiMi (i. li
and 13), had amch resemblance in their mBonei of reprEsentatiou to the mn
of Pslestrina, Plato, iu the mtruduciury jiart of Critias (p. 107)i menlions
landscape painting as reprcaeuling mumiUine, rivers, aai foresti.

i"") p. 70. — Porticularly through Agatharcus, or at least aceording to tho
ndes laid down by him. Atiatot. Poet. iv. 16 1 Vitrov. Inh. v. cap. 7, lA.
vii. in Pncf. (cd. Aims Mariniui, 1836, T. i. p. 392, T. ii. p. 68) ; canpin
Letroune's work, before oiled, p. 271 — 280.

('") p. 76.— On " Objeetfl of Rhopogr^hia," vide Welcker ad Philostr.
Imag. p. 397.

('") p. 7fi.— Vitrnv. Lib. vii. ra^. 6 (T. ii. p. 81).

C") p. 70.— Hirt, Gesch. der bildenden Kunste boi den Alien, 18S3, S.
332; Letronue, p. 263 and *68.

('"} p. 78. — Lndina cjni primu8(?) jnsfituit amffinisfflmam parietam [Hctil-
ram (PUn. axv. 10). The topiaria opera of PHnj, and variitatcs topiorwn
of Vitruvius, Wfre snmll landacape decoiative paindnga. The pumge of
Kalidasa la in the 6th act of Sacontala.

('") p. 77.— Otiried Mullet, Aichiologie der Knnst, 1830, S. GOfl. Bmiag
before ^ken iu the text of the paintings found in Pompeii and HercnlanenB
as being but little alhed to nature in her freedom, I must here notice aonia
eieeptions, nhieh may be cooaidcted strictly as landscapes in the modem
sense of the word. See Piltute d' Ercohuio, Vol. ii. tab. 45, Vol. iii. tah.
iS ; and, aa hackgromids in chatming historical eompositiona, lab. 61, Bi, and
63, Vol. iv. I do not refer to the remarkable reptesenlation in the Monnmcnti
dell' lostituto di Cotiiapondenza Archeulogica, Vol iii. tab. 9, because itl
genuine antiquity is cousidered doubtful by an atclueolDgist of wnck acTunco,
Raoul Rochette.

C") p. 77. — Agfflnfit the supposition maintained hy Du Thcil (Voyage en
Italie, par I'Ahbc Barthclemy, p. 2S4) of Pompeii liaving atJU misted in
splendour under Adrian, and not liaving been completely destroyed nntil the
end of the fifth centurj', see Adolph von Hoff, Geschicbt£ der Vetandeningeil
der Erdoberflache, Th. ii. 1824, S. 105—199.

("^ p. 78.— See Waagen, Kunstwerkc und Kiinsller in EngUnd nnd Pari^
Th. iii. 1839, S. 195—201 ; and potticnlarly 8. 217-324, whrae ho dc«t)1>M
the celebrated Psalter of the Paris Biblioth^uc (of the tenth ccnluiy), whici

MOTES. xa

Ehens how long thfl " antique mode of compoaiticm" muuimned ibmlf in Con.
Etuitinople. I was indebted, at the time of mf pnlilic leotures ill ISSS, to
the kind and valuable cununuiiications of tliis profound eonnoiseeuir of art
(Professor Waagcn, Director of the Gallery of Paintings of mj native city),
for interesting notices on the history of art after lh« time of the Roman
empire. What T afterwards wrote on the gradual development of landscape
painting, 1 communicated in the winter of 1835, in Dresden, to the distin-
guished and lamented author of the Italienischca Forschnngen, Baron von
Romohr; and 1 received from him a great oumher of historical iUnatratione,
which he gave me penniasiou to publish entire iu case the form of my work
should pennit.

{"^ p. 78.— Waagen, in the work above referred to, Th. i, 1837, S. 59 i
Th. iii. 1B39. S. 352—359.

C'*l p. 79. — " Ah'eady Pinturicchio painted rich and weU-composed land-
scapea in the Belvidcre of the Vatican as independent decorations. He
influenced Raphael, in vthose paintinp maaj lamUeape peculiaritiej cannot be
tracai to Ptragino. In PinturiocMo and hia trienda we also already And those
siugular pointed forms of mountains which, in jour lectures, you were inclined
tfl derive from the Tyrolese dolomitic eones, which Leopold von Bueh has
rendered so celebrsled, and by which travelling artists migbt have become
impressed in the transit between Italy and Germany. 1 rather believe that
these conical forms in the earliest Italian laudacapes must be regarded either
as very old conventiona] mountain forms, in antique bas-reheis and mosaic
works, or as unskiUully foreekortened views of Soracte and similarly isohited
monntains in the Campagna of Rome" (&om a letter addressed to me by Cad
Friedrich von Rnmohr, in October 1833). To indicate mora precisely the
conical and pointed mountains whicii are herd in question, I recal the (anciful
laodaCBpe which forms the background in Leonardo da Vinci's oniversally
admired picture of Mona Lisa (the wife of Pranceaco del Giocondo) . Among
the artists of the Flemish schoot, who more particularly formed landscape
into a separate branch, we should name further Patenicr's successor, Hcnj de
Bles, named Civetta from his animal monogmm, and subsequently the
brothers Matthew and Paul Bril, who, dnriog their sojoom in Rome, produced
a strong impression in iavour of this pailiciikr branch of art. In Germany,
Albrethl Alldorfer, Durer's scholar, practised landscape painting even somS'
what earlier and more successfully than Patonier.

(' ") p. 80.— Painted for the chureh of San Giovanni e Paolo at Venice.

j"^ p. 81.— Wilhehn vou Hmnboldt. gesammeMe Werke, Bd. iv, S. 87.

I

XXU KOIES.

Compare alra, ou (he dilTcrciit grsdations of the life of nnturc, and on tite

of mind snd feeling anakened hj landBCBpe, Cuus, in hla interesting leltcn

on hindscspe painting (Briefcn iilKr die Londsciiaflnialem, 1831, S. 4a).

C^) p. 81. — Wb find conoenlrated in the eeventeentii century the wocki ol
Johann Ilrenghel, 1569—1623 ; Rubens, 15TT— 1640 ; Domeoichiiud
1581—1611 ; Philippe de Chanipeigne, 1602—1074 ; Nicolaa Ponsaa,
1B94— 16B5; Caspar Poussin (Dughet). 1613—1675; Clflude tormn^
IflOO— 1682; Albert Cnyp, 1606— 1672; Jan Both, 1610— 16B0; Salvalw
EOM, 1615—1673; Everdingen. 1631— 167B ; Nicokna Berghem, 1624—
1888; Swanevelt, 1620— lOSO ; BnyBdael, 1635-1681; Minderiio*
Hobhsma, Jan Wjiiants, Adrieen van dcVddc, 1630— 1C72 ; Carl Diijaniin,
1644—1637.

("=} p. 81.— An old picture of Cima da Conegliano, of the school of Be
(Dresdner Gidlcrie, 1835, No. 40), has some eitraordinarilj fanciful repn
(atians of date pafana with a knob in the middle of the leafy crown.
("^ p. 82.— Dresdner Qallerie, No. 917.
(■") p. 83.— Fiani Post, or Poost, was bom at Harlem, in 1620, mS died
there in 1680. Ilia brother likeniee aecompanied Count Maurice of NaasaH
m arehilect. Of the [uiutLiLge, some representing tlie faouks of the Amaionl
ut to be seen in the picture galiery at Schlcisheim, and othoE at Berhi^
Ranover, and Prague. The engravinga (in BarliluB, Eciae dca Prinien Mori
von Naaaan, and in tie royal eoHectiun of copperplate prinla at Berlin) et
dence a iine sense of natural charHcler in the Conn of the coast, the shape and
nature of t!ic ground, and the usp cct of t^etation, as displayed in musan^
cactusea, palms, different species uf fieus with board-like excrescences at
toot of the stem, rhizophoras, &nd arborescent grasses. The picturcfqM
Braiilinn series of views termuuites singularly enough with a German towsl <t
pineasters smronnding the castle of Dillenburg (Plate !v.) The remark in
kit (p. 82), on the tnfuenee Tihich (he cstabhsluneut of botanic gardens
Upper Italy, towards the middle of the siitcenth century, cay have dBniiel
ou the knowledge of the physiogniimy of tropical forms of vcgelstion, ioduect
me to recal in this note tluit, in the thirteenth century, AJbertus Magnus, nbo
was equaUy active and infloential in promoting natural knowlcdgs and U»
Btndy of the Aristotelian philosophy, possessed a hothouse in the oonvei
the Domioicaiis at Cotoguo. This celebrated man, nhu had alrauly M«
under the suspicion of soreciy on accoimt of his speaking machiiie, entertaiogj
the King of the Romans, Wilhelm of Holland, on the Sth of January-, 1349, ia
aloigeqiaeeia the coDt'ent-garden, nhere he kept up an agreeable wumUi, la

NOTES, XXlll

preaerved fruit trees nnd plants in flower throughont tic winter, Wefind the
acconnt of this banqnet emggerated into a tale of wonder in the Chronica
Joannia de Beka, wiitt«n in the middle of the I4l!i century (Btka et Heda it
Ejiiiaiiiis Ijllr^'ectenis, lecogn. nb Am. Buchelio, 1643, p. 79; Jonrdun,
Keeherches mtiqaes «ni I'Age des Tradnctiona d'Aristote, 1819, p. 331:
Buhle, GeMi. der Philosopliie, Th. v. S. 298). Althongh aomo remains dis-
covered in the eieatationa st Pompeii shew that the aiicienla mode use of
pgnca of glass, yet nothing has yet been foiuid to indieate the uae of gkss or
forcing housea in ancient horticnltnre. The condnction of heat by the cal-
daria in balha might have led to an arrangement of artiflciallj wanned pkcea
for growing or forcing plants ; but the aliaitness of (he Greek and Italian
winters no doubt rendered such arnmgeoieuts less necessary. The Adonis
gardens (nrirai ASur^Sai), ao indicatire of the mfaning of the festival of
Adonia, eunsisted, according to Boekh, of plants in small pots, which vrere
no doubt intended to represent the garden nhere Aphrodite and Adonis met.
Adonis was tie symbol of tic qnickly fading flower of youth — of all that
flonrishca luiuriantlj and perisies rapidly ; and the festivals which bore liii
name, the celebration of which was accompanied by the kmcntations of
women, were amongst those in which the ancients had reference to the dec^
of nature, I have apoten in the text of huthouM plants as contrasted with
those which grow nsturaUyj the ancients used the term "Adonis-gardens"
proverbially, to express something which had sprung up rapidly, but gave no
Jffomise of full maturity or substantial duration. The plants, which were not
many coloured flowers, but lettuce, fennel, barley, and wheat, were not fcreed
in winter, but in simmier, being made to grow by artificial means in an nn-
n«ially short apace of time, viz, in eight days, Creuzcr (Symbolik und
Hfthologie, 1841, Th, ii, S, 427, 430, 479, and 481) supposes that Iha
growth of the plants of the Adonis garden was accelerated by the appiication
both of rtrong natural and artificial heat in the room in which they were
placed. The garden of the Dominican convent at Cologne rccals the Green-
land (?) convent of St, Thomas, where the garden was kept free from snow
during the winter, being eonstantiv wormed bv nalnral hot springs, as is told
by the brothers Zeui, in the account of tieir travels (1388—1404), the
geographical locality of which is however very problematical, (Compare
Znrls, Viaggiatori Venerioni Tup 63—69 anil Humboldt, Examea
ehtique de I'Hist, dc la Gcogmphie, T ii p 127 ) Regular hothouses seem
to bive been of veiy late mtroduction m our botanic gardens, Itipe pine-
apples were first obtained at the end of the scvontcealh century (Beckmann,

XXIV NUTBS.

Geschichte der Erfindungen, Bd. iv. S. SS7) ; and Luuucua cvrn asserts, in
the Mtua Cliffortiana florena Hariecampi, Hint the Brut baoaaa whicli floncred
in Europe was at Vlena*, in the garden of Prince Eugene, in 1731.

(I") p. 83. — These ricHs of tropical vegetation, illmtrative ot the " phj-
EJognomj of plants," form, in the Koyal Mnaenm at Berlin {in the depadmEat
of miniatures, drawings, and engravings), a treasure ot art wbieh, fbi
pecnliarily and picturesqae varietur, is as }'et without a parallel in anj otha
collection. The sheets edited bj the Baron von Kitllitj ore entitled, " Y^e-
tations Ansichten der Kustenlonder nud Inscin dca stiUen Oceana, anfgenom-
men 1837— 1839 auf dcr Entdeckungs-reisc der kais, mss. Corvette Senjawie,
(Siegen, 1811). There is also great truth U> nature in tho drawinga of Cad
Bodmer, nhich are engraved in a masterly manner, aad iUaatrste the great
wort of the travels of Prince Maiimilian lu Wied in the inferior of North

(1=^ p. 88.— Humboldt, Anaicbten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 1S2B, B
S. T,\6, 21, 36, and 42. Compare also two very instnietive memoirs, Friedridi
von Martins, Physioaomie des Pflanzeureichea in Brasilien, ISM. and U, vob
Olfera, allgemeine Cebeiaicht von Brasihcn, in Feldnera Beisen, 18SS, B
S. 18—23.

<"') p. 94.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his Briefwcchsel mit Schiller,
1830, S. 470.

(■28) p. 95.— Diodor. ii. 13. He however gives to the celebrated gardcni
of Semiramifi a circumference of only twelve stadia. The district near Iht
pass of Bagistanos is still called the " bow or eireuit ot the garden" — Tauk-i-
bostan (Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Grossen, 1833, S. 553).

('") P' ^^- — ^ "■* Sebahnanieh of rirdi;si it ie said, " a alendia' cyprr«,
sprung from Paradise, did Zcrduaht plant before the gate of Iho temple of fire"
(at Kisbmeer in Khorasan). " He had writteu on the tall cypress tree,
Guslitasp had embraced the true faith, that the slender tree was a testimony
thereof, and that thus did God eitend lighleousness. When many yean had
passed over, the tall cypress beeanie so large that the bunter^s eord cooJd not
go round its circumference. When its top was furnished with manybruche^

he encompassed it with a palace of pure i^old and mused it (a be

abroad in the world. Where ja there on the earth a cypress lile tllal tt
Kisbmeer? God scut it me from Paradise, and said. Bow thyself from thi
to Paradise." (When the Caliph Motewekkil bad the sacred cypreises J
the Magians cut down, this one was said to be 1150 years old.) CVimpUf
■Vuller's Fragmente iiber die Keligion dca Zoroaster, 1831, S. 71 and JUi

NOTES. XXV

snJ EittCT, Erdknnde, Th. vi., 1. S, 243. The crpresa (in Arabic arar wood,
in PeraiiiQ serw kohi) appcara to be origLuaily a unlive of tbe mountains o{
Busih, west of Herat (ride Geogmpbie d'Edriai, tradnit par Jaubert, 1838,
T. i. p. 464],

t^ p. 9B.— AnhiU. Tat. i. 25; Loiigns, Past. iv. p. 108, Sclrafflf,
" Gesenius (Thea. Lingme Hcbr. T. ii. p. 1124) suggests, vety juetly, the view
that the word Paradise belonged origiDBlly to the ancient Pcraan language,
but that il9 u«e has been loet iu the modem Persian, I'^rdusi, although hia
onn name was taken from it, usually employs only the word behischt ; the
andeut Persiaa origin of the word ia, honever, eipresslj witnessed by PoHni,
in the OnomBst. a, 3, and by Xeuopbon, '(Eeon. 1, 13, ajid 21 ; Anab. i. Z,
1, and i 4, 10; Cjrop. i. 4, 5. In the sense of ' picBBure-garden' or
'garden,' the word was probably tnmsllirred from the Persian into the
Hebrew (parJea, Cant. iv. 13 ; Kebein. ii. 8 ; and Ecd. ii. 5), into the Arabic
{firdma, plur. faradisu, compare AlcDran, uiii. 11, and Luc. 23, 43), into
VbK Syrian and Armenian {paries, vide Ciakcink, DizionBrio Armeno, 1837>
p. 1104 : and Schroder, Ties, Liug. Armen. 1711, prtef. p. 5G). The deriva-
tion of the Persian word Irom the Sanscrit (pradSsa or parad^ta, rareuit, or
district, or foreign land), noticed by Bqnfey (Griech.Wurzelleiikon, Bd. i. 1889,
S. 138), and previously by Bohlen and Geaenius, suits perfectly well in form,
but only indiffcrentlj in sense." — Buschmann.

(_'") p. 96.— Herod, rii. 31 (betwcan Kallatebtn and Sardes).

{•^ p. 96.- Hitler, Erdkunde, Th. iv. 2. S. 337, 251, and 681 ; laasen,
indisehe Alterthiunskunde, Bd, i. S. 260.

('^ p. 96. — Pansanins, i. 21, fl. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, iu
Mcuraii 0pp. ex receosione Joann. Lami, Vol. i. Ilorent. 17B3, p. 777—844,

(■") p. B7. — Notice historiquc sur les Jwdina des Chinois, in tbo Mcmoirea
concemaat Ics Chinois, T. riu. p. 309.

{«) p. 97.— Idem, p, 318—320.

('*) p. 97,— Sir George Staunton, Aceonnt of the Embassy of the Earl of
Macartney <o China, VoL ii. p. 24B.

("0 p, "7. — Furat V. Piickler-Mnskan, Andeutungen uher Landachails-
g&rtnerei, 1831. See also his Pietnrcsque Descriptions of the Old and New
English Parks, as well as that of the Egyptian Garden of Schufara.

(™) p. 98. — Eloge de la Villo do Moukden, Poeme eomposi par I'Einpe-
renr Kicn-long, Iroduit par Ic P. Amiot, 17J0, p. 18, 22—25, 37, 83-88,
73—87, 104, and 120,

d^ p. so.- Hteioirea coneemuit lea CMnoia, T. ii. p. 643—650,

XZVl

SOTBB.

Q*) p. 99.— Ph. Fr. Ton Sieboia, Kniidttmdige NaBiilijst van j^tokIic ea
duDEeeche Pluiiteii, l^'ll, p. 4. How great a diflereuce betweea the varietf
of v^ifitabU fonna cultivated (br w Many centuriea past in Eastern Asia, and
the comparative povert; of the list given bj ColnmeUa, in Poem de Cnlta
Hortorum (v. 95—105, 174—176, 255-371, 295— 30B), and to whicli Ite
cclebraled gorlsud-veaven of Athens were confined ! It was not until llie
time nf Che Ptolemies, that in Egypt, and particularly in AJeiandria, some-
what greater paina were taken by tiie more skilful gardeners to obtiun variety,
particularly for winter laJtivation. (Compare Athen, v. p, 198.)

(»■) p. 101.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 50—57 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 43—31).

('«) p. 107.— Niehuhr, rcim. Geachichte, Tb. i. S. 69; Dcoysen, Geach,
der Bildung des hellenistischen Slaateosystems, 1S43, S. 31—34, 667—
£73 ; Fried. Cramer de stndiis qme veteres ad alianun gentium enntuleriat
UnguBB, 1844, p. 2—13.

C") p. 100, — In Sanscrit, rice is vHii, cotton Itarpdia, mgar 'tarkara,
and Hard sanarlia; vide Lb£9cu, indische Altexthmuskuude, Bd. i. 1S43, S.
£45, 260, 210, 2S9, and 538. On 'sartara and iaada (wheiice our augu-
candy), sec my Frolegoraena dc distributione geographica plontanun, 1817,
p. Sll : — " CoufadissB vidcntur veteres aacchaium verura cnia Tebaachiro
BambBsiD, tnin quia ntraque in anrndinibua inveniuntnr, turn Eliam qnia voi
uDScradana schartara, quco liodie (ut pers, ichaiar et Mndost. scAniiir) pro
saeeharo nostra adhibetor, obaervaule Boppio, ci anctoiitato AmarasinhE,
proprie nil dolcii (madu) aignificat, sed qnicqnid lapidosum et areuaeeiun at,
ao vcl ealculnm vesicie. Verisimile igitur, vocem scharkara initio dumtaiat
tebaaeMmm (soccar mombu) indicasse, postenus in saecharum nostrum hnmi-
lioris anmdiuis (ikschu, luindek^'hn, kaoda) ei similitudiue oipcctoa tnn^-
tam esse. Votl Bainbusie ei maiubu dcrivatur ; ex kanda noatratinju vocea
candia zuckerkaud. In tebaschiro agnoscitur Fersanim schir, h, c Iw^
Banscr. kschiram." The Siuiscrii name fur (Abaschii (scs lassen, Bd. L S.
ill—ZHjatiiaHie/ilra, baik milk; milk from the bark (/rate*). Com-
pare also Pott, Kurdische Studien iu der Zdtschrift fiir die Kunde ia Uor-
genlandea, Bd. vii. S. 163—166, and the aUe disouaaion by Carl Rilter, in
hui Erdkuiide von Asien, Bd. vi. 2. S. 232-237.

p«) p. 113.— Ewald, Geschichte des Volkea Israel, Bd. i. 1843, S. 338—
834 i Lassen, ind. Alterthuniskmide, Bd. t. S. 52S. Compare Ilodiget, in
the Zeitschrifi filr die Kundc des Itlorgeiilandes, fi. iij. S. 4, on (
and Kurds, wbioli latter Slrabo tenna Ayrfi.

('^) p. 112. — Bordj, tha waterabed of Ormnzd, nwtlf where tb d

NOTES. XIVII

of the Thian-schon (or hcBven moBnlainB), at its western tenmiiolion, abnta
against the Boloc (Belnr-tagli), or rather interaects it, iindn the name of tho
Asterah chniii, rorth of the highlEind of Pamer (Upa-Mera, or conntr; ohote
Mern). Cumpare Biiraouf, Commenliure but le Yacna, T. i, p. 330, and
Addit. p. clmT. with Hnmboldt, Asie centrale. T. i. p. 163, T. iL pp. 16,
377. and 390.

0*] p. Iia. — Chronological daU (or Egypt :—" Menes, 3900 B.C. at
leaat, aud probably tolerably exact; — commeneement of the 4th dynasty
(compriBiDg the Pyramid bnilders, Chephren-Sehafra, Cheops-Chufu, and
Mykerinos or Memkera), 3430 ;— invasian of the Hjksos nnder the Uth
dynafltj, to whinh belongs Amcnemha 111. the builder of the original Laby-
rinth, 3300. A thoraand years at least before Mene?, and probably still
more, must be allowed for the gradual growth of a eivilisation which had
reached its completion, and had iu part become fixed, at leaat B430 years be-
fore our era."— (Lcpsiua, in seTeral letters to myself, in March 1846, after
his return from his memorable eipadition.) Compare also Bmiscn's consi-
deralioiia un the commencement of t'niversal History, (which, strictly speak-
ing, docs not inclnde the earliest history of mankind), in his ingenious and
learned work, J]gypteuB Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1845, Ist book, S.
11 — 13. The history and regular chronology of the Chinese go hack to
2400, and even to 3700, before onr era, much beyond Ju lo Iloang-ty.
lliere are many literary monnments of the 13th century B.C.; and in the
13lh, Thachcu-li records the meaauremcut of the length ot the Bolstitial sha-
dow by Tscheu-knng, in the town of Lo-yang, Eouth of the Yellow River,
which is so ciBct that Laplace found it quite accordant with the theory of the
alteration of the obliquity of the ecliptic, which was only proponndcd at the
dose of the last ceutury ; so that there can he no suspicion of a fditiaiu
measurement obtained by calcnlaling baclt. See Edunard Biot snr la Const!-
tution pohtiqne de la Chine an l^eme silcle avsut notre rre (1S4S), pp. S
and B. The bxiildiug of Tyre and of the original temple of Melkarth, the
Tjrian Hcreules, would reach back to 2760 years before our era, actording
to the account wMch Herodotus received from lie prieata (II. 44). Compare
alio Heeren, Ideen (iher PoKtik nnd Verkehr der Volker, Th. i. 3, 1821,
8. IS. Simplicim, from a notice transmitted by Porphyry, estimatca the
piity of Babylonian astronomical obscrvadons which were known to Aris-
al lfl03 years before Aleianiler the Great i and the pmtound and cautions
nologiat Ideler considerE this datum by no means improbable. Compare

{'") p. 00.— P> ^ i. S. OTT; Ou Al)hsiidlraigeu der Bet-

chineewho Pliiil ,^'^217; md BocWi, mctvol. Untoraunhnngtii

of vegctabio fr ^i'jit»- 1^38, S. 36. It is a question still wrapped

the cginpM- .^^ "f-'am is tistoiic ground in India eailier thun 1200

Hortonu' > .^^ Chrouiolea of Kaslimeer (Radjataraogini, trad, psr

alehn' ^ ■^^^toea (Indicn, cd. ScliWBQbeci, 1816, p. 60) rectons

lime ,■■ -^^luries ffom Manu to Chsadragiipta, for 1B3 kings of Ite

wt ■ y*\^frJAA; and the aBtrDDomcr Aryabliatta places Uie lieginniug of

T jif^iffSlOS B.C. ClfiSMii. ind. Allerthninsk. Bd. i. S. 473, 605,

^ '*7il0)- ^oc tlic porpoK of rcadcring the aiunben contained in Ihii

'^'gdi •ignificant in raspect to the history of driliOTtioii, it maj not be

^j^ lo reral, that tlia destruction of Troy is placed 1181 — Homer

'Z^a ^^'^ — ^d Cadmus the Milesian, the first hislDrical writer aniDng the

gMh, SSI years before uur era. Thts compariiioii of epochs Bhews how

iigggiiall)' Iho desire for an eiaet record of ercnta and enlerprisea made itself

jdt among the nations meet highly sosceptiblc of coltoret it reminds ns in-

tolantatily of the sentence which Plato, in the Tinupoa, places in the mmlQi

of the priests of Sais ; " O Solon, Solon ! you Greeks slUl remWD eva cbil-

; nowhere in Ilellos is fliere an aged man. Your souls are ever yootfa-

fbl ; you have in them no knowledge of antiquity, uo ascient laith, no wiadom

grown hoar by age."

0«) p. 112.— Compare Kosmoa, Bd. i. S, 93 and 160 (Engl. ed. Vol. i.
p. 79 and lU).

P*) p. 113.— Wilhcbn von Humboldt iibcr eine Episode des Maha-Bba-
rata, in his Geaammellen Werlten, Bd. i. S. 73.

(■*) p. 116.— Kosmoa, Bd. i. S, 309 and 3B1 (Eng. ed. Vol. i. p. 283 and
323) ; Asie ccntrah!, T. iii. p. 21 and 113.

(I") p. 117.- Plain, Phttdo, png. 109, B. [compare Herod, ii. 81). Ow-
mcdes also depressed the surface of the earth in the middle to receive the
Mediterranean (Voss, tril. Blatter, Bd. ii. 1828, S. Ill and 150).

0") p. 117. — I first developed this idea in mj Rel. hist, dn vnyage am
r^ons ^uinoxiales. T. iii. p. iil36 ; and in the Examon (rit. de I'hiit. do 1*
gcogr.au IBime lieclo, T. i. p. 36 — 38. Compare also Otfried Miiller. in
tlie Gotlingtscben gelebrten Anzeigea, 163S, Bd. i. S. 37S. The western-
most haain, to which 1 apply the general name of Tjrriienian, incloda, ac-
cording lo Strabo, tho Iberiaii, Ligiu'lan, and Sardinian seas. The SyrtM
bnsin, east of Sicily, includes the Ausonian or Sicnlion. the Lybian, and tba
Toiiian seat. The Mothem and tooth-ireitero part of the Mpm h* wm

KOTES.

) caUed Cretic, SoToiiic, and Mfrhiic.

Mundo, eap, iii. (pag, 393, Bekk.) relalea mcrelfto
coaata of the Mediterranean, and its effect oa the inlli

("^ p, 118.— Koamos, Bd. i. S. 253 and iU (Engl. ed. Vol. i. p. 331
and 435}.

0^ p, 119.— Humboldt, Asie centnde, T. i. p. fl7. The two wmarlahlc
poflsages of Strabo are the following ; — " Eratosttcnca names three, and Foly-
bina fire points of prtgeding kad in nhick Europe terminates. The peoln-
Bulaa named b}r Eratostheuea are, first, the one which extends to the pillars
of Hercules, to which Iberia belongs; neit, that which terminates at the
Sicilian straits, on wMch is Italy ; and thirdlj', that wbicl eitonda to Malea,
and eout^DS all tbe nations between the Adriatic, the Endne, and the
Tanais." — (Lib. ii. p. 109.) " Vic begin with Europe because it is of irregn-
lai form, and is the part of tiui world most favonraUe to the ennoblement
of men and of citizens. It is every nbere habitable, except some lands near
the Tan^, which are desert on account of the cold."— (Lib. ii. pag. 12G.)

(>") p. 119.— Ukert, Geogr. der Gciechen nud Romer, Th. i. Abth. 2,
S. 3*5-348, and Th. ii. Abth. 1, 3. 194 ; Johannes v. Miiller, Werke, Bd.
i.S.38; IIumboldt,Eiamencritique, T. i. pp. 112andl71i Otfried Miiller,
Minyer, S. 64 ; and the same in a critical notice (only too kind) of my me-
moir on the Mytlue Get^raphy of the Greeks (Golt. gcfehrte Aniagen, 1838,
Bd. i. S. 373 and 383). I eiprcsaed myself generally thus ; — "Eusoulevant
des questions qui ol&iraient d^'a de Timportance daos I'iaterSt des etodea
philologiqaes, je n'ai pu gagner sur moi de passer entierement sous silence ce
qni appartient moins ii la description du nionde reel qu'au cycle dc la geogra-
phie mytbiqac. U en eat de Teapuce comme do lems ; on ne sauroit trailer
lliisCuire sous un point de vue pMlosophique, en eusevelissant dans ud oubli
ali«olu les terns bcroiquea. Les mythes dea peuples, m^es a I'histoire et & la
gfiographie, ue aont paa ea ealier du doma-me du monde iilial. Si 1b vague
est UD dc leura traits dlstinctils, si le symbole y couvre la l^alilu d'un voile
pins on moiiiB i^pais, lea mythes intunement ii& cntr'eux, n'en revelenl paa
moijua la souche antique des premiers aperquB da cosmographie et de phy-
nqne. Lea faits de rhistoire et de la geographie primitives ne sent pas seide-
ment d'ingrnieusei fictions, les opinions qu'an a'est form^ snr Ic monde
red a'y rcfletent." The great investigator of antiqnity, whom I have named,
whose eai'ly death on the liuil of Greece, to which he dcvclod such profound
and varied research, baa been universally lamented, thought, on the contrary,
D the poetic idea of the eutb, tuuh u it appeals in Greek poetry, the

n Arialot. de I

form of Ihe \

M resulta of actual Dpt»=«.

,-■ niarvelloai, with a lahiJoua v^-

lEcuJariy the cb

I, ou the contnry, seek the Imca of Ibe

. '^u iileni presuppoaitiODB and rEquirementH)!

■•/iiei guDgrapkical kuawlet^e bas onl;; grudTuU;

^■yi^^ [Sere has often naulled the intereating pbenoiae-

of a fane; warking oudei the guidann

'j5^o2aioBt imperfeptibly into teai conntriea, aud »dl-

Jp^^liSie gec^raplij. We may infer from these cousideni-

, 'tj^V*"™ "^ '''B imflgination, either mjtiinil or arrajed la

^ deloiig, in their proper groundwork, to an ideal world, and

J^jg^ coDiiQxion with ttie octml extension of the knowledge of the

v'i of navigation bejond the pillara of Heccnles." The opinion ei-

>^^ine in the Frencti work was more aeuordaut Viith the earlier views

/^ Mijlier, for iu the Prolegomenon ta eiuer wissrnBchaftlichen My-

^^ S. 08 aud 109, }io said very diitinctly, that, "in rajthicnl narra-

^^ what ia done and what is imagined, the real and the ideal, are mn>t

jf^ eloself Gombined with earh other." Compare also, on the Atiantie anil

Jf Jlonia, Martin, Etudes sur le Timeo de Piston, T. i. p. 293—320.)

('») p. 120.— Nasos by Ernst Cmtius, 1846. S. 11 ; Droyien, GeKhielile
del Bildnng dee bcUcaistischen Staateu systems, 1S43, 8. 1 — 9.

('") p. 121.— Leopold yon Buck nbcr die geoguoBtiiohen Systanie Toa
Deutschkud, S. li. ; Humholdt, Aaie ceutrale, T. i. p, 284—286.
(iK'J p. 121.— Koamos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 461).
C*) p. 122, — All relating to Egyptian chronology aud history (from p.
1S2 to p. 125), which ia distingciabed hy marke of quotation, rests on mann-
acript cnmmuaicatiooB received &om my friend Froftissor Lepsiua, in Man^
164e.

C") p. 122. — With Otfned Multer, I place the Done immigration into
the PelapDnnesua 328 years before the firat Olympiad (Doner, Abth. ii. S.
43fi.)

(>^ p. 123.— Tae. Anna], ii. Sl>. In the Pap^'rua of Sallier (Csmpotnv
da Sesoatris), ChampoUion found the names of the Javani or Jooni and llie
Loki (loaians and Lyeians?). Compare Bunseu, ..Egypten, Buch i. S. 00.

O p. 124.— Herod, ii. 102 and 103 i Diod. Sio. L 55 and 58. Of the
memoriul pillars (stehc) or lokena Oif victory which Bamses Miamoan set up
in the couatriea which he traveiaed, three are eipreasly named by Herodgtw

HS) — "one ifl Palestinian Sjria, naH two ia Ionia — on tlie pftaaaga from

in territorj to Plioiaca, and from that of Sardis to Smjma." A

which the name of Eainaes presenla itself several times,

K found in Syria, near Iha Lycus, not lar from Beirnt (BerytuB), bb

I as anolJieT ruder one in the vaUey of Karabel, near Nymphio, and,
^BCcording to Lcpiu3, on the way from the Ephesian territory to PlmcicB.
Lepsias, in the Ann. deil' Institnl archeoL Tul. i. 18S8, p. IS ; and in hii
letter from Smyrna, Deo, 1815, published in the arulmologiseiien Zeitung,
M»i 1B4S, No. 41, S, 271—380. Kiepert, in idem, 1843, No, 3, S. 35.
The DOW rapidly advancing discaverica in archsology and phonetic languagea
will hereafter decide whether, sa Hecren beUeveB (Geachichle der Stsaten dsi
Alterthoms, 1828, S. 76), the great conqnEror penetrated aa far as Persia and
Hindoslan, "as Western Asia did not theu as yet cuutoin any great empire"
(the hnilding of Assyrian Kineveh is plaeed only in 1330 B.C.). Strabo (lib.
xn. p. TOO) spealis of a memorial pillar of Sesostris near the Strait of Ceire,
DOH called Bab-el-Mondeb. It is, however, also lery probable, that in "the
oli kingdom," above 900 years before Eamsea Aliamoun, I^yptian Idnga
may bate made similar military eipeditions into Asia. It was under the
Fharaoh. Setoa 11. the second Buccessor of the great Ramses Miamoun, aud
belonging to the 19th dynasty, that Klosea went Dut of Bgypt, accordir^ to
Lepsiua about 1300 yeore before our era.

C") p. 125. — According to Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny ; but not accocd-
ing to Herodotus. See Letronne, in the Bevna des deui Mondos, 1811, T.
HviL p. 219 ; and Droyaen, Bildung des hrllenist, Staalensyatems, S. 73S,

("°) p. 125. — To the important opinions of Rcnnell, Heeren, and Sprengel,
which are favonrahle to the reality of the circumnavigation o( Lybia, we must
now add that of a profound pbflologiat, Eticnno QnatremSre [Memoires de
I'Acad. des Inscriptions, T. iv. P. 2, 1845, p. 380—388). The moat Con-
vincing Bi^ument for the truth of the account given by Herodotus (iv. 12)
appears to lae to be the observation which seems to him so incredible, viz.
"that those who sailed round Lybia, in sailing from East to west, had had the
■an on their rii/A! Amid." In the MeditErranesn, in sailing Cram eM to
wcat, the sun at noon was always seen to the left only. It would acem as if
B more accorate Imowledge of the possibility of ench a narigation had eristed
in Egypt previous to the lime of Neku II. (Ncchoa), na Herodotus makes him
distinctly command the Phceiiicions " to make their return to Egypt by the
Pillars of Herculea." It is singular that Str^iho, who (lib. ii. p. fl8), discusui

rt nek length the attempted d

juvigation of Eudoiua of Cyxieui under

UXU SOT£S.

Clmpntra, and mentions frigmeDts of a ship from Gadeira fonnd on tbc
EUuopiaa (castetnl coast, declares tbo acconnU given of earlier circumnavig^
lions BctuaUy accoDiplished to to Bergaii fables (lib. ii. p. 100) ; bnt he hj
no means denies the possibility of the rarcunmavigatiaa Itself (lib. i. p. 38), ~
and afSims tliat from the east to the west there is but little remaiaing wanting
to its completiuu (lib. i. p. 5). Strabo did uut ut all concur in the eitraordi-
larj isthmu.<i-hfpatlieei9 of Hipparchus and Mariaua of Tjrc, according to
which !Eas(flm Africa joined on to the aonth-eaat eod of Aaia, making tlie ^
Indian Ocean a Mediterraneau Sea (Humboldt, Esameu crit. de I'Uist. de
ia Geographic, T. i. p. 130—112, 145, 101. and 229 i T. ii. p. 370—373)-
Strabo quotes Ucrodotna, bat doea act name Nechos, whose eipedition he
altogether coufouudi with one directed by Darius round Sunthem Persia and
Arabia (Herod, iv, 44). Gosselin hsa even proposetl, with too great boldness,
to change the reading from Darius to Nechos. A eounterpai't for the horses'
head of the ship of Gadeira, which Eudoius is and to have eibibited in ■
market <place in Egypt, mHy he fouad ia the remains of a ship of the Red Sea,
brought to tie coast of Creto bj westerly currents, according to the aeconnt
of a very tnetworthy Arabian historian (Maaodi, in tie Mora^j-al-diebeb,
QoatieiiiirB, p. 389, and Eeinaud, Relation dcs Voyages dans I'lnde, 1845,
T. i. p. xri, andT. ii. p. 46).

(W) p. 123.— Diod.Ub. i. cap. G7, 10; HHtodotna, ii, 151, ITS, and IBS.
Ob the probability of intercourse between Egypt and Greece befiinv the time
of Faammeticbus, see the iogeoious observBtions of Ludwig Ross, in ndle-
uika, Bd. i. 1S46, S, v. and i, " In the times itnmedialcly preceding Psam-
metiehus," says the Iftst named writer, " tbere was in both countries a period
of inteinal disorilBT, which coidd not but entoU a dttuinutiDa ami putial
interrnptiOD of intercourse.
I ('**) p. 128.— Bockh, metroiogisdie Untersuchangen Qber Gevtiohle,
MunzCiisse und Maasc des Altcrthums in ibrom Zuaammenhang, 183B, S. 12

(™) p. 128.— See tbo passages collected in Otfried Miiller'a Minjer. S.
115, and in hig Dorier, Abtb. i. S. 129i Fraaz, Elementa Epigreplufu
Grteoe, 1340, p. 13, 32, and 34.

('") p. 127-~Lepsius, in his im|)ortnnt memoir, iiber die Anordnuog uad
Verwaadtschafl des semitischen, indischen, alt-persisclien, alt-tcgypliwjieii
and Bthiopischen Alphabets, ISSn, S. 23, 28 und ST ; Gesenius, Seriptmic
FbiEiiiciie Monnmenta, 1837, p. IT.

C^ p. 128.— Strabo, lib. »

>. 757.

NOTES. HXIU

0") p. 12S.— Il ig euiet to determine the locality of tho " laud ot tin"
(BritAiu uid the Scill; Talanda) 'Hbti tkat of tbe "amber coast ;" for it
ucma to me very improbablG ttiut tbe old Grecic deaomiuBtioa naaeettgoi,
whicb was in uae even in lliE Homeric times, a to be derived from > stsuni-
ferons moiuitBia in the Bonth-west of SpniD, called Maant Casiius, and whicb
Arienus, who waa well acquunted with tbe cmintrj-, placed between Gaddir
•ud the nioiith of a Bmitll southem Iberas (Dkert, Geogr. der GriEcben mid
Homer, Tlieil ii, Abth. i. S. *79)- KasaiteroB ia the ancient Indian SanBotit
word kastira. Zinn in German, den in Icelandic, (in in English^ and lenn in
Swedish, is in the Malay and J«vancse language, timab ; a aimilaritj of souuJ
which reminds us of that of tbe old German word |leii£nia (tho name given
to transparent amber) to the modern "glas," glass. The namra of artidea of
commeree pass &om nation to nation, and become adopted into tbe most
Afferent langnages (see above, p. 109, and Kotn 143.) Throi^h the inter-
conrse which, the PbiEnicians, by means of their factories in tbe Persian Gulf,
maintjuncd with the east coast of India, (he Sanscrit work kastira, eipressing
1 most Qseful prodnct of further India, and still eiisliiig among the old
Aramuc idioms in the Arabian word kasilir, became Imowu to the Greeks
even before Albion and the British CassiteriJes had been ibitcd (Aug. 'Wilh.
V. Schlcgel, in the indischcn BibUotbek, Bd, ii, S, 393^ Benfcy, Indica, S.
307 J Pott, ctymol. Forscbungcn, Tk ii. S. 4U ; Lassen, indische Alter-
thumskunde, Bd. i. S. 239). A name oitcu becomes an historical monument,
and the etymological analysis of languages, which is sometimes ignoraotly
derided, is not without its &uit. Tlie ancients were also acquainted wKh the
eiistencc of tin (one of the rarest metals oq the globe) in tbe country of the
Artabci and the Callaici, in the nortb-weat part of the Iberiiu continent
(Straho, lib. iii. p. 147 ; Flin. luiv. c. IG) ; nearer of access, therefore, for
navigators from the Mediterranean than the Casaltiirides ((Estrymaidea of
Avienua). When I was in Galicia, in 179Q, before embarkiog for the
Canaries, mining operations were still carried on, on a very poor scale, in tho
granitic monntaina (see my Bel. hist. T. i. p. 51 and 53). The occurrenec of
tin in this locality is of some geological importance, on acconnt of the former
connection of GaUcia, tbe peninsula of Brittany, and CoruwalL

('^ p. 128.— Etienne Quatrcmcre, TA&m. de I'Acad. des Inwript. T. it.
P. ii. 1845, p. 363—370,

(>") p. 128.— The early eipreeacd opinion (Heinzcn's neuea Kieliachei
Haguin, Tb. ii. IT8T, S. 339; Sprcngel, Gesch. der geogr. Eatdeckaiigui,
1702; 8. Blj Vott, kril. I!lS,lter, Bd. ii, S. 3B2— 403) is now gtuuBg

Wt2 1%

I

I

SSxiv NOTES,

ground, that the nmber »bb braitglit ii/ ita, it first only l>om tbe u'eal Cita-
brian «oH»t, nnd that it reaEhed the Mediterrnneau cbieRy by btnd, being
brought ncroaa the inltneaiug countries bj mesne of inland tralBc and barter.
The most thurough and acute invcsti^tiun of this nl^ect ii contained iii
micrf B memoir iibei du Electntm, in der ^itsclirilt fiir Aiterthnmaivisten-
Bchaft, Jahr. 1838, No. B2— 5B. (Compare with it the same aulhor'a Qeo-
graphie der Oriechea uad Bamer, Th. ii. Ablh. ii. 1882, S. 26—86, Th. iii.
i. 1843, S. ae, 175, 182, SeO, and 3*B.) The JlaaMlianl, "ho, acconting to
Heeren, penetrated, after tlie Fhccniciane, u br as the BaJtio, under F^heu,
hard); went beyond the moutha of the Weser and the Elbe. The tiaba
islands (Gleaaaris, also called AuslraDia) are ])lai-ed by Fliny (iv. 16) de-
cidedly west of the Cimbrian prumontory in the Geraian Sea : and the con-
nection with the eipeilitiuii of Germanieus snfGdeutly shews that an island iu
the Baltic is not meant. MoreoTer, the efftcta of the ebb and Baud tides in
tJie estuaries nhich throw up nmber, where, according to the eipreasion oF
Serviua, " mare viciesim turn aecedit, turn renedit," suits the ooaats between
the Ilelder and the Cimhrioa peninsula, but does not *nit the Baltic, in which
TimHMis plaoes the island of Baltia (PUn. imii. 2]. Abalus, a day's jDamej
from an EEatuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurische Nehruug, On the
voyage of Fytheas to the west Bkores of Jutland, and on the ainbci trade
along the whole coast of Skagen, as far as the fiEtherlands, ne alsu
Werlauff, Vidrag til dea oordiecke Bavhaudels Historic (Copenh. 1835),
Tacitns, not Pliny, is the first writer acquainted with the glessnm oT tbt
shores of the Baltic, in the land of the £styans [.Sstuomm geutiuui) Mid the
Vencdi, concerning whom the great ethnologist Schaffirik (elawiache Alta-
thiimer, Tb. i. S. 151— 165), is nncertain whether they weiii SlaTouians or
Oermaus. The more active direct connection with the Samlaud const of the
Baltic, and with the .Sstjana b; means of the overhmd route through
Pannonia, by Camuntum, which wa* opened by a Roman Vnight undor Nere.
appears tu me la have belouged to the later times of tie Roman Cieaars
fVoigt, Gesch, Preuuen's, Bd. i. S. 8a.) The relations between the Prussian
coaata and the Greek coloniaa on the Black Sea are evideuced by fine coins,
struck probably before the SSth Olympiad, which have been recently foond in
the Nets district (Lewezow, iu deo Abhandl, der fieri. Akad. der Wisa. wi
dem Jahr 1833, S. ISl— SS-t). No doubt the amber straoded or buried on
coasts (Plin. njvii. cap. 2),— Ihe electron, the aim alouf of the leiy ancienl
mythiu of the Eridaims,— came to the south, both by land and by sea, frmn
very different districts. The " amber dug uf at two places is Scylhia dm

NOTES. 3t!tXV

in part ytrj dark coloured." Amber is still collecfed near Ksltschedaiuk,
not iar from Kameask. on tlie Ural ; fr^ments imbedded in lignitB were
given to us iu Kotharinenburg. See G-. Rose, Reiso nach dem Ural, Bd. i.
S. 481 i and Sir Roderick Murchiaon, in the Geology of Rama, Vol. i. p.
386. The fossil wood wliicli often aurrounde tie amber hid early attracted
the sttentioQ of the unoients. This resin, whicli was at that time so highly
valued, was ascribed to the black poplar (according to the Chian Scymnus, v.
396, p. 3B7, LetroDiie), or to a tree of the cedar or pine kind [according to
Milhridatda, in Plin. siivii. cap. 2 and 3). Tho recent esccllent investiga-
tions of Prof. Goppert, at Breslau, hava shewn that the conjecture of the
Roman collector waa ibe more correct. Keiipecting the fossil amber tree
(Pinilea succiniler) belonging to aa earlier vegetation, compare Kosmos, Bd. i,
S. 298 (Eiig!. edit. Vol. i. p. 373) and Bereudt, organiache Reste im Bem-
itein, Bd. i. Abth. i. 1845, S. B9.

('") p. 139.— Respecting the Chremetes, see Ariatot, Meteor. Ub. i. p. 3fi0,
Bekk. ; and respecting the sonlhem stars, of which Hanno makes mention in
hi» ship's journal, seo my Rel. Hist. t. i. p. 173 ; and Eiaraen Crit. de la
Geogr. t. i. p. 39, ISO, and 288 ; t. iii. p. 135. (Gosselln Rccherches am
la G6)gr. System, des Anciens, t. i. p. 94 ond 38 ; TJkert, Th. i. S. 81.60.)

C") p. lag.— Straho, lib. xvii. p. 836. The deatmction of Phcenician
colonies by Nigritians (lib. ii. p. 131) appeara to indicate a very soutiem
locality ; more so, perhaps, than the crouodiles and elephants mentioned by
Hanno, as both these were certainly found north of the desert of Sahara, in
Maumsia, and in the whole western comitfy near tlie chain of Mount Atlas,
as is plain from Stralio, lib, ivii. p. 82T ; .Xlian de Nat. Auim. vii. 3 ; Plin.
V. 1, and from many occurrences in the wara betweca Rome and Carthage,
On tlus important subject, aa reapects tha geography of animals, sec Cnrier,
Ossemens fossiles, 3 ed, t. i. p, 71 ; and Quutremiire's vcork, already cited
(Mem, de I'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. iv, p. 2, 184,5), p, 391—894.)

C") p, I30.-Herod. iii. 106.

C^ p. 131.— In another work (Eiamen Crit. t, i. p. 130—139; t, ii.
p. 158 and lea ; t. iii. p, 137—140] I have treated in detail thia oRen con-
tested subject, as well as the passages of Diodorus (v, Ifl and 30), and of tlie
Pseudo-Aristflt. [Mirab. Auscult. cap. Isixv. p, 172, Bekk.) Tho eompila-
tioD of the Mirab. Auscult. appears to bo older than the end of the first Funic
war, as in cap. cv. p. 21 1, It describes Sardinia aa under the dominion of the
Carthaginians. It is ulso remarkable, that the wood-clothed island men-
d iu this work ia said to be uuinhabiletl, not therefore peopled with

XXXVI K01S8.

Gotnchea. Guauches inlinbited the nhole group o( tbe Csoar; Islands, bal
not the island oF Madein, in nhich no inhnbikiuts neie {band either hif John
GoDzidics aud Tristan Vb2 in 151S, or at an earlier psriod hj Kobert ^Iwham
and kana Dorset (supposing tbeir roiuantic slorj to he historicaJlj true.)
Heereu applies the description of Diodonis to Madoira only, yet he thinks
that in the occoiuit u! Festns Avicnna (v. 164), so conversant with Pnnic
writiogs, he can rect^nisc the frcqaent Tolcaaic eartbqualLEs of the Peak of
Teacriffe. (ViJ« l"* I^ee" i^li" Politik uud Hundel, Tii. II. Abth. 1, 182B,
S. 106.) From the gcographiciil connection, the deBcriplion of Avienua ap-
pears to me to refer to a more northern locality, perhaps ci-en to the Kronic
sett. (Eiamen Crit. t. iii. p. 138.) Ammianns SlareeUinus (uii. 15), also
notices the Punic sources ishich Juba used. Respecting tlis probahili(j of
the Semitic origiu of the name of the Caoarj' Islands (the dog idands of
Pliny'a latin etymology !), sec Credner's bibhsche Voratellnng vom Paradieae,
in nlgen's Zeitschr. fiir die historiache Tlieologie, Bd. vi. 1836, S. 166 — 186.
All tliat has heen nntlen liom the most ancient times to the middle ages,
respecting the Canary lalaods, has heen reccotly hrought together in the
fullest mamier by Joaquim Jose da Custa dc Macedo, in a work entitled,
JMcmoiia cm qno sc pretende ptoTar qno os Anibes uAn conheceifto as Cana-
rias antes dos Portoguezes, 1844. Where history, so far as it is founded on
certain and distiuctly expressed testlmouy is silent, there remain only diffe-
rent degrees of probabiHty ) bnt an absolute denial of every fact m the
world's history of which the evidence is not perfectly distioct, appears la me
no happy application of phUologic and historic criticism. The many indica-
tions which have come down to us from antiquity, and careful considerations
of the geographical relations of pmiimity to ancieut undoubted aettlement* on
the African coast, lead me to believe that the Canary group was known to the
PhajuiciauB, Carthaginiiuis, Greeks and Komans, and perhaps even to the
Etruscans,

('"^ p. 131. — Compare the calculations in my Eel. Hiat, I. i. p. 1*0 and
£87. The Peak of Teneriffe is distant B° 49' o! arc from the nearest paintof
the Afiican coast. Assuming a mean refraction of 003, the smnmit of the
Peak may therefore be aeen from a height of SOS loiset, and thus from the
MontaSas Negras, not far from Cape Bqjador. In this calculation the deta-
tiou of the Peol^ above the level of the sea has been taken at 1904 toisea. It
has been recently determined trigonometrically by Caplaiu Vidal at 1940
toises, and baroraetricidly by Messrs. Coupvent and Dutnoiilin (D'L'rvillt,
VoTage au Pule Sud, Hist. t. i. IS13, p. SI and 3S) U 1900 tuises. But

I

NOTES. XIlXVU

Lanoerote, with s Foicano, la Coronn, of 300 toiaea elevation (Leap, v, Baeb,
CoDarieche Luela, S, 101), and ForUreDtura, are niach Dearer to Itie main-
laad than Teneriffe ; the dislBEce of the firat-aamed island being 1° 15', and
tliat of the scrond 1° 2'.

("?) p. 132.— Roas only mentiona this asserfion as a report. (Uclleuiliu,
Bd. L S. 11.) May the supposed ohserTatiou have rested on a mere illuaion ?
If we take the elevation of Etna above the sea at 1701 toiaea (lat. 37° 45'.
long, front Furis 13° 41'), and that of the place of observation, on the
Tajgetos (the Elias Mountain), at 1336 toiaea (lot. 36° B7', long, from Paria
S0° 1'), and the diatance between the two at 353 geogmphleal mites, we have
for the iioint abore Etna, receiving ligtt from it, and being visible on
TaygeCos (or for the eloud perpendicnkrly above the luminous colnmn of
smoke, and reflecting its light), an elevation of 7612 toiacs, or 4i times
greater tlian that of Etna. But if, as aiy friend Frofcaaor IIne):e has re-
marked, ne might assume the reflecting surface to be that of a cloud placed
nearly intermediately between Etna and Taygetoa, tlien ita height above the
sea would only require to be 2BS toiaes.

{'^) p, 133.— Strabo, lib. ivi. p. 767, Casanb. According to Polybius,
both the Euiinc and the Adriatic could be seen Irom the Aimou moujitains ;
Strabo was alreaily aware of the inadmtaaibllity of such a supposition (lib. vii.
p. 313.) Compare Seyinnus, p. D3.

(''■') p. 133.— On the synonjmes of Ophir, ace my Eiamen Crit. do I'Hiat.
da la Geographie, t. ii. p. 43. Ptolemy, in lib. vi, cop. ?, p. 156, apeaka of a
Eiappliara, metropolis of Arablu ; and in lib. vii. cup. 1, p. 163, of Suiiara, in
the Gulf of C^amboja [Barigazenus aiuua, according to Hesychius), " a coontcy
rich in gold" ! Supara signifles in Indian, fur shorn (Schunufer.) (Tjiaseu,
Diss. d« Tapobmne, p. 18. iudische Aitersthumkunde, Bd. i. S. 107 ; Kdl,
Prafesior in Dorpat, iiber die Iliram-Salomonische, Schiflahrt nach Ophir
nnd Taraie, S. 40—45 )

("^ p. 133.— Whether ahipa of Tai'ahiEh mean ocean ships, or whether,
*i Michaelia contends, they have their name from the Fhtinidau Tarsna, in
Cilieia? see Keil, S. 7, 15—23. and 71—81.

("") p. 133.— Gcaeniua, Theaaurua Linpiffi Hebr. t. i. p. Ill ; and the
urae in the Eucycl. of Erseh and Gruber, Sect. Ill, Tb. iv. S. 401 ; Idsscn,
ind. Alterthumskundc, Bd. i. S. 53S ; llcuuiud. Relation dea Voyagea fails |iar
lea knha dans I'lnJc et en CHnjs, t. i. 1845, p, aviii. llie learned Qontre-
nicre, who, in a very recently published treatise (M£m. de I'Acad. dea In-
iptionl, t. IV, pt. 2, 1S15, p. 34B~402), ^n eonaiden, with Hccren,

I
I

SXXTlil NOTM.

Ophir to be the «ast coaat of Africa, explains the thukkiim (IhutkijTim) to
mesa Dot peacocka, but p&rj-ols, or Guinen-fowla (p. S^S.) Respet-tiag 8o«d-
torn, compare Boblen, dns nlte ImUen, Th. ii. S. 139. witb Beufe/, Indien,
S. 80—83. Solala is desmbed sa a country rich in gold bj Edrisi (in
Amod^e Janbert's lianalatioD, t. i. p. 67), and aQbBeqnEntly by the Portngnese,
after Gama'a voyagH of diBrorery (Banos, Deo. I. Uv. I. cap, i ; P, ii. p. 375 ;
Kiilb, OescMchte der Eotdecknags msen, Th. i. 1841, S. 236.) I have caDed
etteation Fleewhere to the riieumBtonce that Edrisi, to the middle of ths 1 Slh
century, spealts of the employmeEt of quickailver in the gnidwnshidgs made
by tlie oegFoeB in this country, aa a long known practice. Bemembcring the
great frequency of the interchange of r and 1, ire find the name of the aeX
African Sofala pccfccUy Eqiiiyali.Tit to that of Sophara, which is used in the
Septuagint, with several other forms, for the Ophir of Solomon's and Hinuu'a
fieet. Ptolamy aJso, aa liaa been noticed above (Note 179), speaks of K Sap-
phara, in Arabia (Hitter, Asieu, Bd. viii. lS4fl, S. 252), and a Sapara in India.
Tko aignificant Sanaerit namca of the mother Country had been repeated, or,
as it were, reflected on neigbbooriug or opposite coaata : we Gnd similar re-
lations in the preacaf day ia the Spanish and English Americas. The rangs
of the trade to Ophir might thua, according lo my view, bn erteuded ovct- a
wide apace, just as a Phceciciau voyage Co Tarteasus might inclnde touching
at Cyrene and Carthage, Gadeira and Cerne ; and one to the Cassiteridei
might embrace the Artahrian, Bcitiah, and East Cimbrian coasts. It is,
however, remarkable, that vre do not find incense, spicea, and sUk and cotton
cloth, named among the wares from Ophir, together with ivory, apes, and
peacocka. The latter are eieloaivcly Indian, although, from their gradual
extension to the weatward, they wcrq often called by the Greeks " McdUa
and Persian birds :" the Samians ecen aopposed tbem t« have been originaUj
belonging to Samos, on Account of the peacocks kept by the prleata in lit
aanctuary of Hera. ^Vom a passsgc in Euatathius (Comm. in Hud. t. ir.
p. 225, ed. Lips. I8S7), on the saurcilnesa of peacocks iu Ijbya, it ItM been
imdaly inferred that the toui abo belonged to Africa.

(«i) p. 999.— See Columbna on Ophir, aud d Monte Sopora, "iridek
Solomou'a fleet could only reach iu three years," in Navsrrele, viages y ixtn-
brimientoa que hieierun los EspcBnlea, t. i. p. 103. The great itisemaa
Bays elaevthere, still in the hope of reaching Ophir, "the eiceflenca mi
power of the gold of Ophir are indescribable ; he who poascsaca il ilot» whil
he wills in this world ; nay, it even avails him to draw souls from parglloiT
to paradise" (" Uega k que echa laa animas ol paraiso.")— Carta del AhmnnM

NOTES.

XXXIX

cscrita eu la Jamiioa, 1503 ; NavBrretc, t. i. p. 309, Compare my Einmen
Critique, t. i, p. 70, and 109 ; t, ii. p. 38 — 14, and on tlie proper duiatioB
<rftEie Tarshiih rofage, Eeil, S. 106.

("«) p, 133.— aediD Coidii Opernm K Iq le d F 1 B h 1824,
rap. iv. and lii. p. 248, 271, and 300. But th ace I 1) 1 d by tie
physician at the Persian court from nat sonrcs and th ref t altoge-
ther to be ryected, relate to diatricfs in lb. rtli f I di and fron these
the gold or the Darodas must have com to Ablura, (b m th T th Indus,
and tde coast of Mstabar, by many ir uit is ro tes (C mpare y Aae
Centrale, t. i. p. 137, and Lasaen, ind. Alt rth ni k d Bd S 6 ) Is it
not probable that the wonderful story repeated hj Cl«8iBfi f Id pring,
at the bottom of which malleable iron w f dh thfldgldhadrun
off, was baaed on a miannderstood aeeomit of a fonndry P The raulten iron
oai taken for gold from its colour ; and when the yellow colour had diaap-
peared in cooling, the blaek mass of iron vras found underneath.

('1) p. 134.— Aristot. Mirab. Ausciilt. cap. 8fi and 111, p. 175 and 226,
Bekk.

P») p. 135.— Die Etrusker, by Olfried iliiller, Abth, ii S. 350 ; Niabohr,
RomiBchB GGacbicbtc, Th. ii. S. 380.

(™) p. 135. — A story was formerly repealed in Geniianj after Father
Angela Cortcnoiis, that tho tomb of tha hero of Claeinni, lars Folsena,
deacribed by Varro, omainented K-ith a bronze hat and bronze pendent chains,
iras an ap[)aTatuB for atmospherical electricity, or for conducting lightning ;
(as were, according to Michaelis, the metal poiuta on Solomon's temple;)
hut the tale obtained currency at a time wien men were much incUned to
attribule to ancient nations the remains of a anpematurally rercaled primiliTe
knowledge which was soon after □hscnrcd. Tbemosl important BncientuotieB
of the relations betHeeo lightmng and condncting nielals (a fact not dii&cnll '
of discovery), etill appears to me to be that of Ctcaias (Indies, cap 4, p 169,
ed. Lioui p. 248, ed. Bscbr). He had possessed two iron eworda, preaenle
from the king Artaienca Mncmon, and irom bis mother Parrsalis, nhich.
when planted in the earth, averted clouds, hsQ, and strokes of bghtning Ho
had himself seen the operation, for the kin^ bad twice made the upenment
bdbre bit eyes." The eiact attention ]>aid by the Etruscans t^ the meteoro-
logical proccsaes of the atmosphere in all that deviated from the ordinary
course of pbcnoioena, makes it ctrtainly to he limentcdthat nothing has come
down to us from their Fnlp;ural books. The epochs of the appearance of great
BOmeti, of the fall of meteoric itones, and of siiDwers of falling stars, would

si NOTES.

no donlit hnve been found recordeil in tliem, as in the more andent Ctiiueia
annuls, of which Edoaard Biot has made nsc. Creuzer {S^rmbDlik and M;-
thologie dcr Bllen Volker, Th. iiL 1843, S. 659) tma attempted to show, Ihal
the balurnl features of Etruria may bave influeuFcd Qie pccaliar turn of mind
of its inhabitants. A " sailing forth" of the lightning, which is sscrihed lo
Fromctheus, reminds us of the pretended " drawii^ down" of lightning bf the
:^Llgurstore«. This operation consisted in a mere ouujmfttion, and ma; well
half e been of no more efficacy than the akinndd ass's head, which, in the Etrua-
au ritos, was considered n prEserrative Irom danger in tliunder Btonns.

C*) p. 135.— Otfr. MliUer. Etroster, AbtL il S. 162 to 178. lu the
very complicated Etruscan augoral theory, a distinction nss made betneen
the " soft reminding lightnings eent by Jupiter from his own perfect pooer,
and the violent eloctrieal eqilosions oc chaslflning thunderbolts nbieh be might
only send coDStitutionally after consnttation with the other twelve guds."
(Seneca, Nat. Quiest. ii. p. 41.)

P^ p. 135.— Joh. Ljdna de Ostentis, ed. Ease, p. IS in prafat.

(^ p. 136.— Slrabo, lib. iii. p. 189, Caaaub. Compare Wilhelm von
Eomboldt, uber die Urbewohner Hispanicns, 1831, S. 133 and 131— ISe.
M. de Sanlcy has been receutly engaged, witli sncccaa, in deciphering the
Iberian alphabet ; the ingenious discoverer of cuneiform writing, Grotefeud,
the Phrygian; and Sit Charles FeUowes, the Lycian alphabet. (Compare
Rdsi, HcIlenika,Bd.i. S. 16.)

(1^ p. 137.— Herod, iv, 43 (Schweighauaer ad Herod. T. t. p. 204).
Compare Humboldt, Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 64 and 577.

("') p. 13S. — On the most proEtable ctymoli^ of Kaspapynia of Uecalaiu
(Fn^m. ed. Klausen, No. 17B, v. 94), and KaspalyroB of Herodohia (iii. 10!,
and iv. 44), see my Asie centrole, T. i. p. 101—104.

("^ p. 138.— Psemeiek and Achmes. Seo ahore, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 159
(Bngl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 13B).

C") p. 138. — Droysen, GEsehichte der Bildung dea hellenisliKhen
Staateneystems, 164S, S. 33.

O p. 138.— See above, Kosmoa, Bd. ii. S. 10 (Engl. ed. Vol, ii. p. 10),

C") P' 1<)B- — Volker, Mythische Geographic dec Gricchca and Bomer,
Tb. i. 1832, S. 1 — 10; Klausea, iiber die Wnnderungea det lo nnd da
Hcrakles, in Miebuhr und Brandis rheinischen Musccn fiir Philologl^
Geschichte undgriech. Pbilcsopbic, Jahrg. iii. lS2g, S. 393-323.

(>•<) p. 139.— Ju the mythos of Aboris (Herod, iv. 36), the nun doe* net
tnvel through the air on an arrow, but carric* (he amiw " which Pyth^om

KOTGS. Xli

gaxc bim (Iambi, ie Vila Fytbug. xiii. p. 194, KieeeliDg), in ordei' that it
migiit be oscfiil to him in all iMlcuItlca diuing long wauderingB." Creuzer,
Sjinbolik, Til. ii. 1841, S. 660— 6G4. On the repeatedly disaiipearing and
reappearing ArimaBpitm bard, Arieteas of ProcuuDesuE, vide Herod, iv. 13—16,
("^ p. 139.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 38, Caaaub.

C") p. 140, — Probably the Yalley of the Don or of t!ie Kaban ; compare
my Asie Cenlrale, T. ii, p, 164. Pherecydas uys eipresely (IJiigm, 3? ei
Schol. ApolloD. ii. 1214), that the Caucasus humcd, and therefore Typhon
fled to Italy ; from which Klaasen, in the noik above referred to (S. 2D8),
Bjplains tbo ideal relation of tha " fire lindler" {irvpx'itus), Prometheus, to
the burning mountain. Although the geological constitution of the Cancaaus,
which bos been very recently well esaniined by Abich, and its conneetion with
tlte volcanie cliain of the Thiun-ach^, In the interior of Asia (whiidi eonnectioa
has, I think, b«en shown by me in my Aaie Centrale, T. ii. p. 55 — 69), mndec
it by no means improbable that very early traditions may have preserved
rentiniecenece of great volcanic eruptions -, jet it Is rather to he assumed, that
the Greeks may liave been led to the hypothesis of the " bnrning" by ctynio-
logical ciicnmstanccs. On the Sanscrit etymologies of Graucasm (Glansherg ?)
(or aiiining raonnlain), see Bohlen's and liumout's statements, in my Aeie
Centrale, T, i, p. 109,

('") p. 140.— Oticied Miiller, Minyer, 3. S47.3S4, and 274. Homerwaa
not Bcquainted with the Pbaais, or with Cololiia, or witli the pillars of Hercules ;
but Hesiod names the Phasis. The mythical narrations concerning the return
of the Argonauts by the Phasis iulo the Eastern Ocean, aod the " double"
Triton lake, formed dlher by the pretended bifareafioa of the later, or by
volcanic earthquakes (Asie Centrale, T, i. p, 179, T, iii, p. 135—137 ; Otfr.
Miiller, Mioyer, S, 357), are particularly important towards a knowledge of
the earliest views entertained regarding the form of the continents. The
geogTBphicsl fancies of Peiaaudroa, Timogetns, and Apollonius of Rbodee,
were prop^ted until late in the middle i^es, operating sometimes U
bewildering and deterring obstacles, and sonielimes as sdmnlating iocitementa
to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity upon hitcr times, when men
were almost more led by opiniuus than by actual obaervationa, has not boea
hitherto sufficiently regarded in the history of geography. The olgeet of the
notes to Cosmos is not merely to present bibliogmphioal sources firom the
literature of different nations, for the elucidation or illuslratioa of stnlementB
contained in the teit, but I have also desired to deposit in thoo notes,
rmit greater freedom, such abundant msteriols for reflection as I

xlii

S0TE9.

I

bate bi'cii able to gnthei Iraia my gnn experience, and from laag-CQQtinae^
literary atudiea.

P") p. 141.— Hemtcei fragm. ed. Klausen, p. 3% B3. 98, aud 119. Sm
ibo my inveatigations on the hlstoiy of the geography uf the Caspian Sea,
&om Herodotn! down to tho Arabioa El-Istmhri, Edrisi, and Ibn-el-Vonii,
on the aea of Aral, uid on the hiloicstion of the Oios and tlie Arues, in mj
Aaie Centrale, T. ii. p. 182—207.

p") p. 141. — Cramer de Stndiis quie ireteres ad nliaram gcntiiuQ contnlerint
lingnas, 1814, p. Sand 17. The ancieat Colchiana appear to have been identical
with the tiibe of Loii (Lazi, geutesColchomm, Pliii.vi.4; the Anfbinf Bjmn-
tine writers) ; Bee Valer (Profesaor in Komii), der Ai^nautetuug aua dea
Qaellen dai^esteUt, 1845, Heft i. S. 24 ; Heft ii. S. 4B, S7, and 103. In
the Caacasna, the names AlaJii (Alanethi fbr tie land of tho Alani), Ossi, as
DBS, may stiE be heatd. According to the inveatigationa commenced with
philoaophic aad linguistic acomen iu the vaUeys of the Caucasns by GSeorgi
Rose, the language spoken by the Lazi wonld appear to contain roiaiune of the
ancient Colchinn idiom. The Iberian and Grasic group of laogiugea iaelndei
Laiian, Georgian, Soanian, and Miugreiian, all belonging to the tamCly of tho
Indo-Gcrmanic languagea. The language a( the Ossntea is nearer to tfal
Gothic thaa to the Lithuanian.

P) p. 141.— On the relationship of the Scythians (Scolotea or Sa«e),
Alani, Goths, Massa-Gelffi, and the Yueti of the Chlneao hifltorians, see Kl^
roth, in the commentary to the Voyage dn Comte Potnofci. T. i. p. 12B, M
well as my Aaie Centrale, T. i. p. 400; T. ii. p. 252. Procopins htnualt
B«ya lery diatinctly (De Beflo Gothico, iy. 5 ad. Bonn, 1883, Vol. ii. p. 4780
that the Goths vrere formerly called Scythians. The identity of the Gete ui
the Gutha haa been ahewn by Jacob Grimm in his reoently-puUidtei
worlt, iiber Jomandes, 1S4S, S. 21. Niebuhr believed (see hia Unl«mHthan-
gea fiber die G«ten ond Sannaten, in hia Hoinen histor. und pbilolc^iaohen
SohriRen, Itc Sammluug, 1828, S. 332. 364, and 3B5,) tbal the Scylhianl
of Herodotoa belong to the family of the Mongolian tribes ; bnl this opinina
hae the less probability, since theae tribes, partly under Iho yolto of th« Chi-
nese, and partly under that of the Haltas or Kirghia (X-tpx't of Menandtf)
still lived far in the oast of Aaia round Lote Baikal in the Ij^nning of tha
13th century. Herodotua diatiiigniahes, moreover, the bnld-headed Ar^p-
pfeans (iv. 23) from the Scythians ; aud if the first-nnmod aro said to be
■' flat-nosed," Ihcy have at the sanne time "a long chin," whieh, aooordiug to
ly experience, is by ao means a physioguomic characteristic of the f

or othor Mongoliau races, bnt rather characterises the blonje (Gerraauising ?)
Ouaun and Tingling, to whom the Chinese hiatoriaua attribute " long horse

P") p. 141. — On the dwelling-place of the Aiimaapes and the gold trade
of north-weatera Asia in tie time of Herodotus, see my Afiie Ceutrtde, T. i.
p. 3S9— 407.

C") p. 141. — "Lea Hjperhoreens soot un mjthe meteorologique. le
Tent dea monlagnes (B'OrcBs) sort dcs Monte Bliipecns. An Adk de ces
monls. duit regner uu air calme, on cliniat heureux, comme sur les sumioets
dpins dans In pnrtie qui dcpasse let nnageSi. Ce sout la iea premiers Bper9ii9
d'line physique qui ciplique la distribution de ta chaleiir et la dilTerence des
dimnts par des causes locales, par la direction des rents qui domiueat, par la
pmiimite dn soleil, par ractioa d'ua priucipe humide on sslin. La conse-
qnence de ces idcea sjitematiqufa etait one certaino independence qu'oa sup-
pogait eiitro lea oUmata et la latitude des lieui ; ausai le mjthe dea Hyper-
bor^ene lie par son origine an calte dorien et primitivemEnt boreal d'Apnlloa,
a pn Be deplucer du nord vers I'ouest, eu suivaat Hercule dans ses courBca am
■ourcee de I'lster, il llle d'Erythia et aux Jaidins dea Hesperides. Les Rhipeg,
OD Monta Rhiperaa, sont ansai un nom aignifieatif meteorologique : ee >oat
lea montagnes de " rimpnlsion," ou du souffle glneo ((Uini) calles d'oi so de-
cbi^ent le; tempetes borealea" (Aeie Centr. T. i. p. S9g and 403).

P*) p. 142. — In Hindostaaee, as Wilford has already remarlied, there are
two nerds which might easily be confounded ; one of which, Ischiilntl, a large
black kiud of nnt (whence the diminutive tschiuuti, tachinti, the small com-
mon ant) ; the etlier tachitft. a spotted kind of panther, the little hnnting
leopard (cheetah ; the Felis jubata, Schrch) . The latter word (tachitft) ia the
Sanscrit word tschittH, aigni^ing variegated or apotted, aa is shewn by the
Bengalee name for the animal (tsehilfibitgh and IschitihAgh, from hiigh, Sanscrit
wytgiua, tiger.) — Boschmann. A passage has been recently discovered in
the Mahabharala (ii. 1800) ia which Uiere is qocstioa of the ant-gold.
" WiUo inteiiil (Jonm of the Asiat. Sec. vii. 1843, p. 143,) mentionom fieri
etiam in Indicis litleris hestiamm aurura cfiodientium, qoa^, quum terram
effodiaut, eodeni nomine (pipilica) atqne formicas Indi nuncapant." Compani
Schwauheek, in Mcgasth; Indicis, 184S, p. 73. I have been straek by
seeing that in the basDltic districts of the McJiicaa highlands the ants
carry lo their heaps shinlug grains of hyalite, which I could collect out of
the nnt-hilla.

(")p.U5.— StrBho,Uhiii.p.l72(Bokli,Piiid.Fragm.T.lB6). Thevoyaga

I

NOTES.

M u })b«d in OL 31, Mroriing to Otfr. MoUer {Pmle^.
euclufttidiai M)lkDlii{^) ; and in OL 3a, i, or the jtv
a Iftreooe'i iuratigituiii (Eseai sur les ideea eoniM-
gnphiqna qiu »e retUchml in uMa d'Atlu, p. 9}. The epoch is, honcrlt,
dqiendEnt cd the fofuiditioa of Cfrene, wbich Otfr. Mullei places be-

i. 63): fori
o Lvbia was stiil nc-
78, lud that of Gada

s (Strabo, lib. ii

tween OL 35 and 37 (Minjer, S. ZH, Prolegoi
tnne of Cobras (Bmid. it. 153^, the vsy from lliera
kaown. Zumpt places the fauodanon of Carthage in i
in 1100 B.C.

(*J p. 146. — According lo lia maun* of the andi
1S6, 1 reckon (as indeed phftical and getdo^eal viewB reqnirc) the obole
Eniine, (ogether with the Mieatis. u forming part of the oommon basiu of
the great "Inleriur Sea."

P») p. 146.— Berod. it. 152.

(^ p. 140. — Herod. . 1G3, where cveatheducorayof Tartaasns it atbi-
boted to the PhocKsns ; bnt accoi'dii^ to likert (Ge<^. der Gciech^i md
Bomer, Th.1. i.S. 40), the commereial entecpriM of the l^iocaani waa Kfentj
jcara later than Cohens of Samui.

C"^ p. 146.— AiKOrding to a Augment of Fhatoriniu, the words (wcfoni,
and therefore aytiy also) are not Greek, but are borrowed fram the biA*-
nans (Spohn de Nicephor. Blemm. daobus opBuolis, 1S18, p. 23). M;
brother thought that the^ were connected with the Sanscrit toots q^ib aai
ogh (see my Eiamen critique de Thtst. de la Geogr. T. L p. 33 and 183).

I?") p. 147.— Aristot. de Ccrio, ii. 14 (p. 298. b, Bekk.) ; Meteor, ii. t
(p. 362, Bekk.) Compare m; Examen critique, T. 1. p. 123—130. Seaeca
ventures to sav (Nat. Qoiest. in prcefat. 11), conlemod eniioBiu gpMtter
domicilii (lerrs) sogustiu. Quantum enim est quod ab nltimia Uttoriblt
HiipanitE naqne ad Indns jacet ? Faansamomm diemm spatium, ai namB
tuns Tent4ta implevit (Eiamen ehdqu^ T. L p. IBS).

P") p. 147.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 65 and 118, Cajwb. fEiomcn critiqne. T. i.
p. 163.)

0^ p. 147. — In the Diaphragms (the dividing line of the Earth) t(
Dicearchus, the elcration passes through the Taunta, the chains of Dcmanad
and Hiudoo-koosh, the Kuen-lun of Korthem Thibet, and Ihe popetnailf
inow-clad cloud mountains of the Cbinise provinces, Sse-tschuau and Kuang«.
See m; orographic rcEearchrs on these lines ofetevalion in mj Aua Ccatnl^
T. i. p. 104—114, 118—164; T. ii. p. 413 and 438.

("*) p. 148.— Strabo, Ub. iii. p. 1T3 (Eiamen

NOTES. xIt

P'*) p. 150.— Droysen, Gesch. Aleiandcre des Grossen, S. B*4 ; tie iime
in Ilia Gescli. del Sildung dee telieuiatischen SUateasj'stciDg, S. 23—34,
588—502, 748—753.

P'S) p. 150.— Aristot. PoUt. VII. vii. p. 1327, Bekker. (Compare also
III. iri., and the remarkable passage of EratosthEDes in Slrabo, lib. i. p. OS
ilnd 97, Casanb.)

<!"') p. 151.— Stsbr. Aristotelia, Th. ii. S. IH.

f) p. 151. — Sle. Croii, Eiamen critiqne dea ListorienB d'Aleiandre,
p. 731. (Sthlegel, Ind. Bibliotliek, Bd, i. S. 150.)

P") p. 153. — Compare Schwanbcck " lie fide Mepsthenis et prelio," in
hie edition of that writer, p. 5B— 77. Megastbeaca often visited Palibotlir*.
ihc court of the King of Magadha. He was fiilJy initiated in the syatem o(
Indian chronology, and relates "how, in the past, Iho A.U had three tiraea
come to &eedom ; hew three ages of the world had run their course, and in
hie own time the fourth liad begun." (Lassen, indiscbe Altertbumskande,
Bd. i. S. 510.} The Uesiodic 8actriue of four ages of the world, conneoted
wiib four great elementary destraetioiis, which together occupy a period of
18038 years, eiistcd also among tic Meiieans. (Humboldt, Vues de Cor-
dilleres et Monnmens despcuplea indiginea dc TAmcrique, T. ii. p. 119—129.)
In modern times a remarkable proof of the accuracy of Megasthenes has been
afforded by the study of tlie Rigvcda and the Mahabliarata. Consult what
Megastiience says respecting " the land of the long-lising happy pcrBoas" in
the eitreme north of India, — the land of Uttara.kum (probably north of
KashmecT, towards Belurtagh), which, according to his Grecian siewa, he oon-
oects with the supposed " thousand years of life of the Hypeiborcans." (Ibb-
sen, in the Zeilschrift Tur die kunde dea Moi^enlandes, Bd. ii. S. 02.) We
may notice, in connection wilii this, a tradition mentioned in Ctesias, of a
»acred place in the Northern Desert. (Ind. cap. fiii. ed. Baehr, p. 319 and
ES5.) Cte^ae has been long too little esteemed -. the martichoras mentioned
by Aristotle (Hist, de Animal. II. iii. ( 10 ; T. i. p. 51, Schneider), the grit-
fin, half eagle half lion, the kartazonon spoken of by £lisn, and a one-honied
wild ass, arc indeed referred to by him as real animals ; but this wae not an
invention of his own, but arose, as Hccren and Cuvier have remarked, from
his taking pictured forms of symlwlicol animals, seen on Persian inonmncnta.
Tor the representation of etrange beasts still lii-iug in India. The acute
Guignaul has, however, noticed that there ii much difficulty in identifying tha
martichorae with PersepoUtau symbols, (Cienzer, Beligiona de TAntiquite ;
notee et jdairciaaements, p. 720.)

NOfsa.

to Gorsini). ind wliich U not to be confannded with tlist whicli Heir tod
Bognalawiln hu named the comet of Anstntle (seen wben Aeleus vaa Arehm,
01. 101,4; Aiistot. Meteor, lib. i. cap. G, 10; vol. i. p. 39S, IMer; and
■uppoHd (0 be identical vrith tbe comeU of 1095 sud 1843 ?) ; and also the
mention of the destruFtion of the temple at Ephesm, as wfU sb of > Innu
Tunbo'T, gees on tno occssinDi in the conrse of fifty jeara. (Compare Schneidci
ad Ajielot. Hist- dc AnimalibiiA, Vol. i. p. il. ilii. ciiL and en. ; Jdder >d
Arirtot, Meteor. VoLI. p.i. ; and Humboldt, AsieCant. T. ii. p. IfiS.) Ife
know that the " HIstorr of Animals," woswHttea later than tbe "Meteorolo-
gica," since tbe lesl'nauied woili aDndes to the former a soon to titUow,
(Metmr. i. 1, 3; and iv. IB, 13.)

C^) p. 153. — The five finimals named in the tent, and isp«nsll; tlw
hippelaphiu (horse-stag with a long raanc), the hippardion, the Bactiiu
camel, and the bnfiaJo, are addored by Cuvier as proofs of the Uislotia
Animalinm having been written bj Aristotle ot a later period. (Hilt, ia
Sdeuces Kat. T. i. p. 154.) Coirier, in the fonrth i-olnme of the Rechercbn
IDT lea Ossemeiu fosses, 18S3, p. 40-43 and p. 50S, distinguishes bctwrcs
two Aaistic stags with mnnci, which he cnlla Cermi hippolaphna and Cerroj
arielotGlis. At first he regarded the Cenos hippelaplins, of whieh he bad seen
a living eiample, and of "bicb Diard had sent him stiiui and aiillera from
Smnatro, as Aristotle's hippelaphns from Aracbosia, (Hist, de AuimaL, ii. 2.
i 3, aad4, T.i, p. 43-44, Schneider): SDbsequentlyhcjndgcd that a stag's head
sent to him from Bengal bj Dnvaucel, and tbe drawing of the entire large
animal, agreed still better with the Stagirite's description of the hippel^fans ;
and tliis stag, whirli is indigenons in the monntiuna of Sylhet in Bengal, in
Nepaul, and in the connlrj' east of the Indns, then recejvul the name ot
C'orvna aristotelis. If, in the same chapter in which Aristotle treat*
generally of animals with manes, be namca together with the borae-stag
(EqaicervTis), the Indian Gnepard or hunting tiger (FeliBJnbata). Sdineider
(T. iii. p, 66) considers the reading vapSuir to be preferable to that of n
imptiar, Tbe latter reading, as Pallas also thinks, (Spieileg. Zoo), fair. i.
p. 4], wonld he best interpreted to mean the giraffe. If Aristotle had himself
Bsen the Guepard, and not merely heard it described, how can we suppose
that he would have failed to notice non-retractile claws in a feline animal ?
It is eqnnlly surprising how Aristotle, who is always so accunite, if, ai
Augoat Wilhehn von Schlegel mainlainB, he had a menngerie near hii
residence at Athens, and bad himself dissected an elephant which bad bean
ttkoL it Arbeit, eould b}yB tailed l« describe a arniU openii^ neat tka tWiplM

NOTES.

of the depLant, whii;Ii, at certain efasoQa partiimlarly, Kcretea n strong
gmelling fluid, oRea alluded to b;^ the ladiaa poets. (Schlegel'a ladische
Bililiotbek, Bd. i. S. 163-168.) 1 notice tJijs apparcntlj trilijog circ
thus particularly, hecause tliis Email aperture was made known hy occonnla
givea bj Mcgaathenes, to whom, noverthelcsa, no one would be led to
attribute anatomical knowledge. (Strabo, lib. rt, p. T04 and 705, Cosanb.)
I do not find in the different zoological norka of Aiistotje which have eonie
down to UB anything which necessanl; impliES hia having iiad the oppartnnity
of observing livingelephanta, or of hia hating dissected a dead one. Although
it is most probable that the Historia Animalium was completed before
Aleiander'a campaigns in Asia Minor, ;et it is undonblcdl; ^ii«iii/« that the
work may, as Stahr supposes (Aristotelia, Th. ii. S. 98), have continued to
receive additions until the end of the Author's life, 01. 114, 3, three years
after the death of Aloauder hut du^ct evidence of snch being the ease is
irontmg. The correspondence ot Anstatle which we possess is not genuine,
(Stahr, Th. i. S, 194—208 Th n S IbB 234), and Schneider aajs very
conGdeotly, (Hiat de Ammal Tip 40) hoc cnim tanquom certisaimmn
aumere milii licebit acnptaa comitnm Alciandii uotitias post mortem demum
regis fnissc vnlgalas

0™) p. 158. — I have ahewn elsenhere that although the decomposition of
sulphnjet of mercury bj distillation is described in Dioscoriiles, (Mat. Med,
V, 110, p. 667, Saracen) yet the hrat dcaenpLon of the distillation of a fluid,
{the distillation of fresh water from sea water), is to he found in the Com-
mentary of Aleiandor of Aphrodisias to AjlatoUe de Meteorol, ; see my
Eiaroen critique de Thistoiro de la Ge'ographie, T. ii, p, 308-316, and Jaannis
(Philoponi) Grammatici in llbro de Generat, et Aleiandri Apbrod, in Me-
teorol. Comm. Tenet. 1527, p. 97, b. Aleiander of Aphrodlsks in Cam,
the learned commentator of the Meteoroli^ca of Aristotle, Lved under the
reigns of Septimius Sevema and Caracalla; and although ia his writings
eheinicul apparatuses are called \viKa ogyaiia, yet a pass^e in Plutarch (de
Iside et Osir, e. 33), proves that the word Chemie, applied by the Greeks to
the Egyptian art, is not to be derived from x«d, (lioefer, Ilistoire de la
Chimie. T, i. p, 91, IDS and 219, T. ii. p, lOU),

^) p. 158.— Compare Saiute-Croii, Eiamtn des historiens d'Aleiandre,
1810. p, 207, and Cuvier, Hiatoire des Sciences naturellea, T, i, p, 137, with
Schneider ad Aristot. de Histori& AnimaHum, T, i, p, 43-46, and Stahr,
Aristoteho, Th. i. S. 116-118. If the fransmiasiou of specimens from Egypt
■ad the interior of Aua appears according to these autharitiea to be very

-^TOIh n. c

strong I

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f^ p.l60^An«i>LP(CtL8.MaBt]

{*^ f. 160.— Stnbo, lih. tt. p. 690 ud 6B5. Herod, m. 101.

C°f p. 160.— ThaiE^jvTliea^clca<rfElnr£i; mKooiKH, Bd.L&3B0
11^491, (Eii^tnui.ToLi. p. 3a3iod note 437). Kartiuru cDtntiw wen
plKxd to the Wot, md SDDl^eni coflntriet to Uk Esd. Coiuull r5l(icr nber
Homeriiebe Geogr^diie and Wcbfauide, S. 43 and S7. The indefinitencu,
evta St lliat paiod, of Uie imd India, ai eooBeeted with gfographiral pcaition,
with the compldioii of the inhibilanta, and with predoos natoral prodactiaiH,
aiDlnbaCed la the extenaon of theie meteondogical hjpotheso, foe it •*>
gitea si oaee lo Weatera Arabia, to the eoantries b«twe«i Cef Ion and the
month of the Indus, to Tro^odytu: Ethii^na, and to the Alricaa mjnb and
eumamon lands aoiitb of Cape Aroroala, (Hnmboldl, Eumai crit. T. ii. p. 36).

<*«) p. ISl.— Lafien ind. AlterLhinmkmide, Bd. i. S. 369, 37^375, S7&
■nd SSB ; Hitler, Asten, Bd. if. 1, S. 446.

(^} p. 161. — The geographical disttibatioD of mantind ia not mrae de-
terminable in entire cODliaeote b; degree* of latitude than that of p]anta and
aiiiDul*. llic aiiom propoDnded b; Ftoteoiy, |Gei^. lib. cap. 9), that
north of the pbtbUeI of Agisjmba neither elephanta, rhinoceKieea. nor aegroa
are la be met nith, ii entirely nufonnded. (Eismen critique, T. L p. 39.)
The doctiinc of the uniTeml inSnence of soil and fliniale on the iateUootul
capacitiGi and diapotitioni, and on the cdiiliratioD of manldDd, w

NOTES. Jl

the Alexaudriaa school of Ammonlua Sakkas, and especiallj to Longiniu.
See Proelna, Comment, in Tim. p, 50.

P*) p. 161. — See Geoi:^. Cartius, die SpracliverglEieliimg in ilirem Ver-
bsltmaa znr claBsichen PhfltJogie, 1843, S. 5-7, and the eamc autlior's IJildung
der Tempom und Modi, 1846, S. 8-B. {Compare dso Pott'a Article entitled
IndoF^ermanischer Spradutamm in tlie Allgem, Gncjklupadie of Ersch and
Goiber. Sect. ii. Th. iriii. S. 1-113.) Investigations on language in general,
OS touehing upon the fundamental relatiotia of thonght, ore, hoirerer, to be
found in Aristotle, where he dcvriopa tie connection of rategories with
grammatical rdutions. See the luminous statement of this comparison in
Adolf Treudelenburg'a histor, Beitragen zui' Philosophie, 1346, Th. i. S.
23—38.

fW) p. 163.— The achoola of the Orcbenes and Voraipencs (Strabo, lib. "
ivi. p. 739). In (his passage, in con junction Kith the Chtildeati bi
four Chaldean mathematicians ore cited by nune. '
of the greater bistoricMl importance, because Ptolem; alnaj-s designates tllB
observers of the heavenly bodies by the collective name of XnXBnioi, aa if the
Babylonish observationa were only made " collegiatelj" (Idcler, Handbucli der
Chronologie, M. i. 1835, S. 196).

(^ p. 163.- Idder. Handbncb der Chronologie, Bd. i. S. 302, 20fl, and
318. AVhen doubts are raised respecting the fact of Calliathenes having sent
astronomical observations from Babylon to Greece, on the ground of " no
trace of these observations of a Chaldean priestly oaale being found in the
writings of AriatoUe," (Delambre, Hist, de TABtron. anc. T. J, p. 308), it ia
forgotten (bat Aristotle, where he speaks (De Ccelo, lib. ii. cap. 12], of anoccnl-
tation of Mars by the moon observed by himself, expressly adds, Ibat " similar
ohservaUons Eiad been made for many years on the olhur planets by the Bgyp-
tians and the Babylonians, many of which have come to onr tno« ledge." On
the probable use of astronomical tables by the Chaldeans, see Chaslca, in the
Comptes rendus de I'Aeademic dea Sciences. T. iiiii. 1846, p, 853—854.

(»•) p. 163.— Seneca, Nat. Qutest. vii. 17.

0*^ p. 163.— Compare Strabo, Ub, sri. p. 739, with lib. iii. p. 174.

{?") p. 163.— These inveatlgationa belong to the year 1834 (see Guignant,
Beli^ons de I' Antiquity, oiivrage traduit de I'Allemand de F. Cremer, T. i.
P. 2, p. 938). See farther, Letronne, in the Journal dea Savnns, 1839, p.
33S and W3 ; aa well aa the Analyse critique des Representations zodiacalea
en Egypte, 1846, p. 15 and 34. (Comjiare with these Ideler iiber den Ur-

O ^ les-— TV I

^L bBH. Td. L iL SSI, ■ote4]

fi ithi III ill III Hiimiiilliiriiiirti mniiTljiinin [Tit^.il

OnwEh tbc Ue or Ik AllOK idcT of KakMs. iqpEcd tk «'

tke fled of NcKdoi (Bbw*' Tnnd^ TsL i. p. B»).

eadvkai oltai ■ dieiBkfis^Ha of Ibt^ Ce£t, MLnaE^ to Dr. 9

rtoB Kicncc ba snhipplf bren dcprind. bjr hii dralk OB a Ud rf Mfl% J

lA^ MounpuijiDg Flincc WiUanu of Prasa.

P) p. 163.— Unen, in his PenUpUmii* iii£c^ p. !5, 29, 57 — S8, ni
77 : ind iIki in his mAitiitrti AUatbamskande, Bd. L S. 91. Bctwnn tb«
Sanmti, U tbc Dcstk-wal of Delhi, md tlie fiicIl; I
atictcd, wrording to Horn's code of Ims, Bnhnmuta, a pristJ; duttkt
of Bnhma, (ateblisbed bj (be godi IheniEdica ; on the otLer bmnd, ii
iDore ntenirre seme of tbe word, ArTSiarta, the knd of tbe woitbj, agni
in the uiiiml Indian gei^rapbj, Ibe Khole couatr; cut of the Indoi,
betKeen the Uimalajt snd the Vindhra chain ; to thi sontb of wUch tltt
sadml non-.A-risn sborigiiul population roramenres. Midbjm-Den, the co-
Iral land refemd to in Eosnuis, Bd. i. S. 15 (English tnns. Vol. i. p. 14),
»sa onij ■ portion of ArfiVHrta. Compare mj Arie ceotiale, T. i. p. iOi,
■nd Lauen, ind. Alterthomsk. Bd. i. S. 5, 10, and 33. The andenl I
free ststes, the counlrii^ of the Idnglesa, (coDdenmed by the ortbodoi a
port*), were rilnaled helween the Hjdraotes and the Hjphaaii. i. t. tht plt-
MDt Ran and tbe Bens.

C") p. 1&4. — M^aathenes, Indies, ed. Sehinnbeck, 1S46, p. 17.

("^ p. 167.— See aboce, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 1S5 (Eugiiah trans. Vol, fi.
p. 121).

(?") p. 167.— Compare m; geogmphical reaearchcs, Aaie eenttale, T. i,
p. 14B. and 151— 157-, T. ii. p. 179.

(W) p. 168.— Plin. vi. 26(?).

(^ p. 16B. — Drojsen, Gesch.. des heUeaistiselien Staatenajstenu, S. 7*''

(^ p. 169.- Compurc Ijascn, indische Allerthnmskunde, Bd. i. S. IW,
153, and 15S.

(*<°) p. 169.— "MotiJsted from TUmbapanni. This Pali form aanndi in
Sanscrit T&mraparnl. The Greek Taprobane gitea half the Sanscrit (Ttanlmk
Tapto), and half the Pali" (Lnesen, indische Alteithnmskojide, S.

NOTES. liii

pare lasBCn, Diss, de Taprobane iiisiJs, p, 10). The Laccadiv-es (kike for
Idksclia, Bud dive for dwlpa, one hundred thousand islands), oe well as the
Maldives (Mniajadiba, t. s. islands of Malabar), were loiown to Aieiondriau
nacigators.

P") p. 170. — Hippdus 19 supposed to hnve lived no earlier than the reign
of the Emperor Claudius ; hut this is improbable, eien thongh mider the
first Lagidfe great part of the Indian products weit only purchased in Arabian
markets. The south-west mooBooa was ilaelf called Hippalns, and a portion
of the Er^threan or Lidiau Ocean is also called the Sea of Hjppalus, Ld;roiine,
in the Journal des Savans, 1818, p. 405 ; lUinand, Belation des Voyages dans
I'Inde, T. !, p. sii.

(^ p. 171. — See th^ researches of Letronne, on the conBtrmtion of the
canal between the Nile and the Bed Sea &am Neku to the Caliph Omar, or
an interral of more than 1300 jebtb, in tho Revue des deui Mondes, T. xivii.
1S41, p. 215—235. Compare also Letronne, de la Civilisation egj^itienne
depuia Paammiticliua jusqu'i la eonqudte d'Aleiandre, 1845, p. Ifi — 19,

p*^ p. 171. — Meteorological speenJalions on the distant causes of the
BWelhng of the Nile gave occasion to some of these journiea ; Philadclphns, as
Strabo ejprcsBes it (lib. jtvii. p, 789 and 71)0), "continually eeeking new
diveraions and interests out of ciu^iosily and hodilf ncakucss."

P") p. 171- — Two hunting inscriptions, one of which "principally records
the elephant hunts of Ptolemy Pbiladelphus," were discovered and copied by
Lepsius from the colossi of Abusimbel (Ipsambnl). (Compare, on this subject,
Strabo, lib. ii-i. p. 769 and 770 ; .Elian, De Nat. Anim. iij, 34, and ivii. 8 ;
Athemcus, v. p. 196.) Although, according to the "Periplus maris Ery-
thnei," Indian ivory was an article of eiport froni Barygaia, yet, according
to the notices of Cosmas, ivory was also exported from Ethiopia to the
western peninsula of India. Since aocient times, elepbanta have withdrawn
more to the south in eaaterp Alrica also. According to the testimony of
Folybius (v. 81), when African and Indian elephants encountered each other
an flehls of battle, the sight, the Emell, and the cries of the larger and
stronger Indian elephants drove the African ones to flight. The latter were
oever employed as war elephants in siu;h large numbers as wers used in
Auatic ejpeditioiis, where Chandragiipta had assembled 0000, the powerful
king of the Piasii 6000, and Akbor as many (Lassen, ind. Alterthnmskimdc,
Bd. i. S. 305—307).

C') p. 171. — Atheu. liv. p. S54; compare Parthey, das aleiaudrioischc
. illiKmn, einePreiBschrift, S. 55, and 171.

Bv NOTES.

(™) p. 172.— The library it Brudiinni wbs the more ancient; it km
destrdjred in the buraing of the fleet imdEr Julius Cacur. The lihraiy tt
Ehakotia mndc part of the "Serapenm," where it was combiued with tha
muKnin. B; the HbecBhtj of Antuuiiius, the coUection of books at Pei^sinoi
ma incoipaiuted with the librarj' of Khskotis.

(*^ p. 173.— Yflchemt, Hiatoiro critique de I'Ecole d'Aleiimdrie, 1MB,
T. i. p. y. and 103. We find maeb Esidence in nntiquitj, that the institut*
of Aleiandria, like bU aFsdemicai corporatioas, together nilli much good
arising from the concurrence of man^ workers, and &ajn the power of obUia-
ing materiat nide, had also aome disudrantageans naironing and restiaiuing
infiuence. Hadrian made ht9 tutor, Vestimia, High Frirst of Aleiondria, and
at the aauic time Head of (ha Mnsenni (or Fceaident of the Academi)
(XetiDuue, Seeherches poor scirir a THitLoire de I'Egjrple peudiut la domi-
nation de9 Crrec9 et dcs RomainB, 1823, p. 251).

<=^ p. 173.— Fries, Gesehiehte der PhiloBophie, Bd. ii. S. 5.; and tfie
laiae authur'a LdirbueJi der Naiuxldire, Th. i. S. 42. Compare also Conei-
Jerations on the Influence wliich Plata eiercised on the Foiuidation of th»
Eiperiincntnl Sciences bj Die application of Mathematics, in Braadi)^ Gb. '
achichte der griechiaeh-riiniischen PhilOBopbie, Th. ii. Abth. i. S. 876.

(^ p. 174. — On the phjaicul and geognastical D^ioua of Hiatoetfaene^
see Stmbn, hb. i. p. 49—56, lib. ii. p. 108.

(<^ p. 174.— 'Strabo, lib. li. p. 519^ Agathem. in Hudson, Geogr. Gnet.
Mia. Vol. ii. p. 4. On the correctness of the grand orographic views of
EratoBtheoes, see joj Asie eenlrak, T. i. p. 1(14—150, 198, 208— SS7,
413 — 415, T. ii. p. 367, and 414 — 135 j and Uliomen critique de I'Hiat. de
)a Ge(^. T. i. p. 152 — 1S4. I have pnrpoacly c^cd Eraloslhenes' luvasnre-
inent of a degree the first Eelhnic one, ae a Tny ancient Chaldean determi-
nation of the magnitude of a degree in csjuels' paces is not improbable. Sen
Cbnalca, Recberches snr rAEtrcnomie indieane et cbalJeenae, in the Comptet
tcndna de I'Aead. dcs Sciences, T, jiiji. 1846, p. 851,

P") p. 176.— The latter appellation appears to me the mora correol, **
Stiabo, hb. xi\. p. 739, cites "Sdencus of Selencia, aiooug several tery
honoorable men, as a Chaldean wedl acqmuuted with the hesTculy bodies."
Probabl; Selencia on the Tigris, a flourishiug commercial cit;, is here raesni.
It is indeed singolar, that the same Strabo speakb of a Selencus as u end
observer of the ebb and flood, calliug him also a Batijlonian (lib. i. p. 6), mil
labsaquentlj (lib. iii. p. 174), perhaps from carclesanoaa, an Er)-thn«a.
(Compare Stobans, Eel, phys, p. 440.) ^^^^1

P^ p. 17B.— Hder, HandboDh der Oironologie, Bd, i. S. 212 and 339.

(^ p. 176.— Ddamhre, Histoiro dc rABtronomic Ducieime, T. i. p. 290.

P") p. 17G-— Bokl iia eiamiued in lis Philolaos, S. 118, whether the
Pfthagoreaiis were early ftcquaintcd, througt Egyptian soureea, Willi tliB ptE-
cessioii, under the name oftke motion uf the heaven of the died stars. Letronne
(Obsa^atione 9ur les Bqiresentations zodiacales qui nous reslent ds I'ADti-
qoit^ 1821, p, 83) and Ideler (Handbuck dcr ChronoL Bd. i S. 193) vindi-
cate HipparchuB'a eiclnsive clam to tliia diacovery.

P") p. 177.— Ideler on Eudoiua, S. 33.

P") p. 177.— The phmet diaeovered by Le Yerrier.

C^ p. 177.— Compare Koamoa, Bd. iL 3. Ill, 140. 149 and 170 (Engl,
trana. Vol. ii. p. 106, 111, 114, and 14B).

P) p. 179.— Wilhelm von HumlwWt iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i. S.

C") p. 130. — The Bupertdal eitent of the floman Empire under Augustus
(aooording to Ihe bonudaries assumed hj Heuren, in his Geschichte der Staateu
dea Alleitlrama, S. 403 — i70) has been cdculated by Profeaaor Bcrghaus, the
author of (he cscdlcnt Physical Atlaa, at ralhet more than 100000 (German)
geogmpMcal square milea. Tliia is about a quarter greater than the alentof
ISOOOOO square milea oaaigned by Gibbon, iu his History of the DecUne and
FaO of the Kumim Empure, Vol. i. Chap. i. p. 39, but nbich he indeed says
must be token aa a very unccrlsm estimate.

p*^ p. 181.— Veget. de Be HCl. iu. 6.

P") p. 181. — Act, ii. \. 871, in tie celebrated prophecy whieh, from the
time of Columbna' son, was interpreted to relate to the diacoTery of America.

(^ p. 182.— Cuvier, Hiat, dea Sciencea natureOes, T. i. p. 312—328.

(^ p. 182.— Liber Pthoh^meideOpticiaaiveAapeetibusi the rare manu-
script of the Eoyal Library at Paria (No, 7310), was eiamined by me on the
occasion of discovenng a remarkable passage on the refraetion of raja in
Seitus Em[iiricns (adversus Astrologos, lib, v. p. 351, Fabr.) The eitracta
which I made from the Parisian raannseript in 1811 (therefore before
Delambrc and Ventori) are given in the introduction to my Reeueil d'Obaer-
vationa aiitronomiqucs, T. i. p. Isv. — III. The Greek original has not come
down to 03 ; we hnvc only a Latin translation of two Arabic manuaeripta of
Plolemj'a Ojitics, The Latin translator gnvcs his name as Amiracua Euge-
nins, Sieulus. Compare Venturi, Comraent, sopra la Storia e le Teorie
dell' Otlien, Bologna, 1814, p. 237i Delambrc, Hist, de TAstrononiie au-
j, 1817, T. i. p. 51, and T. ii. p. 410^33.

("^ p. ISi. — LMnaae dusx. from l]ic fonalical murder of the dHngbter
■f Ttcaa td H imAim. Ait the miKli contested period of Dio^ihantaa cannot

bB hKr tk^ tke j«r 189 ^ni IVDrizine grtcque des Zodiaquea preteodtu
^Oltio^ 1837. t^ H).

^) p. 18*. — nk btfficMl influeore of the eilenaion of a language wai
'( pn»c Gf Ilslj ; " onminm terraram alomiia esdem
t DcDin dFTla, ijiue spuria congr^aret imperia, ntnsqiie
^ et tot popolonun diswdc^ fensqiie lin^naa Bcnnooja commciceo
DOBtnknil, oaQa^niK, H iumjaiia/em jL^jrhh dartt, breriterque nna canc-
lifSB gcatiiini in toto nrte pMiu Grret" (PHd. Hist. nat. iii. 5).

(•^ p. ISe.— Cl■pnl(I^ Tihlmiu historiqne de I'AeiE, 1838, p. 6B— 67.
^) p. 186. — To Oua bir-hurcd, hln&*yed, ludo-gennanic, Gothic, or
Arian taee of ajtan Arix, belong the Uaiin, "nngling, Hatis, aud great Yuoli.
He 1^ an calkd bv (he Chines xriters a Tbibettan Nomnde rare, who,
300 jcan bc&n oar era. miEiated betKeen liie npper eonrw of the Hoang-ha
Kid the WBOwj maanloiu of NasfdiaiL I here reeal thu deacent, as the Seici
analsodesaibed is "nitilis mmis et casrolds oculis" (eompiire TJIiert, Geogr.
ia Giicdk. nnd Romer, Th. ii i. Ablh. ii. 1S13, S. 375). We owe to the
TOaiAtm of Abel Rcmnat and Khproth, wtiieh arc among the bnUinnt his-
tmtcal dUcoToies of oar age, the tnonledse of (beae lair-hau^ races, whieh.
in tlie moEt easton part of Asia, gave the first impulse to what hta been
called "the great migratioD of nattona."

(^ p. 167- — letronae, in the Observations crit. et srcbeol. snr he
lUpreaentations lodiacales de rAntiqaite, 1824, p. 99, as well as in hii liter
■ VDi^ Sot rOrigine gracqoe des Zodiaqnet pretendus ^-ptieog, 1H37, p. 97.
P^ p. 187.— The EOUnd investigator, Colebraoke, places Warabamihira in
the fifth, Brahmignpta at the end of the siitb ccntuiy, and Aiyahbatta rather
undecidedly betweoi 200 and 400 of onr era. (Compare Holtimana uber
den griechischen Urspmng dei indisclien Thierkreises, 1841, S. 23.)

P") p. 187. — On the reasons on which the assertion in the teit of the a-
oeefngl; late commencement of Strabo's work rests, see Groslnird's Gcmm
translation, 1S31, Tk L S. i™.

P) p, 188.— Strabo, lib. i. p. U; lib. ii. p. 118; lib. iri. p. 781; lib,
mi. p. 798 and 81B.

(™) p. 188. — Couipnre the two passages of Strabo, lib. i. p. 65, and US.
ii. p. lis (Humboldt, Eiamcn critiqne de I'Hist. dc la Gfograpbie, T. i. p.
]d3 — 154). In the important new edition of Strabo published by Guitn
Kramer, ISll, Th. i. p. 100, " the parallel of Athens 19 rend instead of iha

NOTES. Ivii

paniUol uf Thine, as if TiiinEe had fint boon named in the Pieudo-Aman, in
the Periplas Maria Rubri." Dodwell places tbe writing of the Periplus nnder
Marcus Anreliua and Lucius Verus, but according to Letronne it waa written
under Septimiua Sevcrua and Caracolla. Althoi^h in Atc passages in Strabo
all onr monnscnpts read Thinte, yei Ub. ii. p. IS, 86, S7, and above all 83,
in which Eratosthenes himself is namcil, are decisive iii favoiu- of the parallel
of Athens and Rhodes. Athena and Rhodes were thus eonfoimded, as old
geograpbers made the peninsula of Attica eit^nd too far towards the south.
It would also !>ppenr inrprisiug, supposii^ the usual reading 6irav kukKbs
Co be the correct one. that a particular paraUel, the Diaphragm of Biccarchns,
should be called aiter a place so little known as Sinie (Tsin). HowcTer,
Cosmaa Intiicopieustes connects his Tiinilza (Tbinee) with the chain of moun-
tains which divides Persia and the Romani land d th wh 1 bab t hi
norld into two parts, adding the rema k bl b rv ti th t tl d

ing to the "belief of the Indian plul pb nd B ahm C mpar

Cosmaa, m Montfaucoo, Collect, nov P Imm T p 13 and mj A
<!entrale,T.i, p. iiiii. 120-129, and 1P4— 203 T p *13 Th P d
Arrian, Agathcmcros, acoording to th 1 ar d m est gal t F tea

Franz, and Cosmas, decidedly ascribe CtbmtphsfthSce ry

northern latitude, nearly in the parallel f Rhodes and Ath n « b reaa
Ptolemy, misled by tbe accounts of mar peaks sol ly fa Thmie three

degrees sonf b of the equator (Geogr. i 1 , ) I uspe t th 1 Th im merely
meant, generaUy, a Chiuese emporium, a harbour in tbe laud of Tsin ; and
tbat therefore one Thinie fTzinitza) ma; have been intended north of the
equator, and another south of tho equator.

P") p. 18B.— Strabo, hb. i. p. 49—60, lib. ii. p. B6 ond 97, b"b. vi. p.
ST7 ; lib. ivii. p. S30. On the eleratian of islands, and of tbe continent, see
particularly lib. i. p. 51, 54, and 69. Tbe old Eleat Xenopbanes was led, by
the numeroua fossil marine prodactiona found at a distance &am the sea, to
GOndnde that " the present dry ground had been r^sed from tbe bottom of the
■ca" (Origen, PhiioBOphumena, cap. 4). Appuleius, in the time of Antoninus,
eoHeoted fosals from the Qietnhan (Maiiritanian) mountains, and ascribed
them to tbe Hood of Deucalion, considering it to hare been uniTcrsal. Pro-
fcBBOr Franz, by means of veiy careful investigation, has refuted Beckmann's
and Cuvier'a belief, that Appuleius possessed a collection of specimens of
natnral history (Beekmann'e Geach. der ErSndmigen, Bd. ii. S. 370 ; and
Curier's Hist, des Sciences naturellcs).

(»*) p. 180.— airabo, Ub. xvii. p. 810.

(™) p. IBO.— Carl Ritter, Aeiea, Th. y. S. 560.

P^ p. I'JO.^ — See a coUeotiQii of the most atriking instances of Greek ani
Boman ercars, in reapcct to the directiDOS of iliffereat cliauiB of mnoatHiiig,
in the iiitroductioa to m; Aac centn^e, T. i, p. luvii.— il. Must saUafic-
Wtj invcitigatioDS, respecting the nnccrtaint; of the namericd bases nf
Ptolemy's positions, arc to be foand in a treatise of Dkert, ia the BbeiuischEn
HoBeoin Sii Philologie, Jahrg. vi. 1S38, S. 311—324.

i^) p. IDl.—Fur eianiplcB of Zend and Sauscrit nords uhich hare been
prcacned to ns in Ptolum)''! Gcngraphj, sec Lassen, Diss, de Taprobane
insula, p. 6, 0, and 17 ; linmoufs Comment, siir le Yatna, T. i. p. sclii. — en,
and clini.^ — clinv. ; and my Eiamea crit. de VHint. de la Geogr. T. i. p.
45—49. In few caws Plolemj givea both the Sanacrit names and their sig.
niScatiuns, as for the island of Java "barley island," la^aSiau, d tnuuufu
Kfi^s niirgi, Ptol. vii. 2 (WiUialm v. Homboldt ilber die Kani-Sprache, fid.
i. S, 60-83). Tho two-stalted barley (Hordenm distielion) is^ aciording la
BuschmAnn, still tenneii in the prindpa! Indian languages (Hindustanee,
Bengalee and Nepaulese, Mabrntta, Cingalese, and the language of Gnzciat),
as well OB in Persian and Maiay, yaia, djav, or djau, and in the langnage of
Oiisaa, yaa. (Compare the Indian versions of the Bible in the passage Johu
vi. 9 and 13 1 and Ainalie, Materia Medica of Hindostan, Madras, ISIS, p.
217.)

("^ p. 191.— See my Eiamen crit. de I'Hist. do la Gcographie, T. ii. p.
147—188.

P") p. 102.- Strabo, lib. li. p. B06.

(^ p. 192. — Mcnander de Lcgationibus BBrbaromm ad RomMiOB, et
Bomanoram ad Gontes, s rec. Bekteri et Nieiiuhr, 1829, p. 300, 619, G£3,
agd S2S.

^) p. 192.— ^Platarch de Facie in Orbo LoDEe, p. 631, 19 (eompate my
Eiamen crit. T. i. p, 145 — 191). I have met, among highly-informed Per-
sians, nith a repetition of the hypotiiesis of Ageeianai, according to wliich, tbs
msika on the lunar surface, in wliich Pluljirch (p. 935, 4) thongbt he nn
"a peenliar kind of shining mountains" (F volcanoes), icere merely Ihe
reflected images of terrestrial lands, seas, and isthmuses. My Persian bieads
said, " what thcj shew us through telescopes on the surface of the moon in
only the reflecttd images of onr own countries."

(™) p. 1B2.— Plolem. lib. iv. cap, 9 ; lib. vii. cap, 3 and 5. Compare
Lcfroime, in the Journal des Savans, 1B31, p. 476—480, and S4S— 555 ;
Hmnbaldt, Eiamen erit, T. i. p. 144, 101, and 329 ; T. u. p. 370—373.

NOTES. Ih

P") p. 193.— relamlire,Hiflt.derA3tFonomiettnraenne,T.i.p.liv,;T.ii.
p. ESI. Theon never makes any mention of Ptolemy's Optics, although he
lived folly two ceatimea niter him.

(*•') p. 193. — la reading ancient works on physios, it is often difflcnlt tu
dcoidfl whether a particnlar result followed from a phonomenon purposely
called forth, or accidentally observed. IVlien Aristotle (De CaJo, iv. i) treatu
of the weight of the atmosphere, which, however, Ideler appears to deaj bis
having done (Meteorologia Vetemm Graecorum et RomauonuD, p. 23), he
says dislinctly that a " bladder when blown ont is heavier than an empty
bladder." Tlie espcrimenf, if adaally tried, must have been made with con-
denied air.

(^} p. 193.— Aristat. de Anim, ii, 7; Biese, die Philoaophie des Ariatot,
Bd. ii. S. U7.

(**} p. 191. — Joannia (Philoponi) Grammatici in Libr. de Generat, and
Alelaadri Aphrodis. in MeteuroL Comment. (Venet. 1527,) p. 97, b. Cora-
pare my Esomen critique, T. ii. p. 306—312.

(^ p. 194.— The Nnmidian Metellua had 1*2 elephants kiUed in the
circus. In the games given by Fampey, 600 Uona and 406 panthers were
shewn. Augnatns sacrificed S500 wild beasts in the festivities which he gave
to the people ; and a tender husband laments that he conld not celebrate the
day of his wife's death by a sangninary ^ajlintorial fight atVoiona, "because
contrary winds detained in port the paa.thera which had been bonght in
Africa" I (Plin. Epist. vi. 34.)

P») p. 195.— Compare Note 393. Yet Appuleius, as Cuvier (wsb (His*,
dea Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 387), was the first to describe accurately Iha
bony hook in the aecoud and third stomach of the Ajdysite.

{*") p. 198. — "Est eiiim animorum ingeuiommque naturalo quoddam
quasi pabulum consideralio coutemplatioque naturie. Erigimur, elatiorca
fieri videmur, hnmana dcsplcimus, cogitantesque eupera alque codeatia kecc
nostra, ut eiigua et minima, Eontemnimus" (Cio. Acad. ii. 41).

(^ p, 198.— PUn. lura. 13 (ed. SiHig. T. v. 1836, p. 320). All ear-
lier editions terminated with the words "HiBpaniamquacanqua amhita roari."
The oonclnsion of the work was discovered in tH31 iu a Bamherg Codei, by
Ilerr ludwig v. Jan, Professor nt Schweiufurt,

P") p. 1B9. — Ckudian in secundum copaulatnm Stiliehonia, v. IBO — ISB.

(W) p. 200.— Koamoa, Bd. i. S. 385 and 493, Bd. ii. S, 23 (Eng. trana.

Vol. I p. 856, and note 413, Vol, ii. p. 25). Coiiiimre uho WilliBlm vuu

I Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Sprache. M. l S. uxviii.

bt sons.

C") p. 204.— If, as hB» oft«n bean said, Charles Martell'a i-ictorj at Tonra
prcFUded middle Europe agBinst the MuasiilmaQ invaaion, it caannt he
nunlaidcJ witli »qnsl justice that it was tlie cetrtat of the Mogola after the
battle of Liegnilz, which, prevented BuddUsm from penetrating to llm Iianls
of the Elhe ond the Rhine. Tlie battle nbieh wbh fought in the plain of
Wahlslatt, near Liegnitz, and in wliidi Diike Hffluy the Pions fell hecoieallj,
nas fought on the 0th of April, 1241, font j'eara after the Asiatic hordes
under Batu, the grandson of GhengLs Khan, had snbjected the Eaptachak and
Russia. But the first infrodnotion. of Buddhism among the Mogola took
plaee in tbo year 1S47, when, at Lesi^-tscheu, in the Chinese province of
Schensi, the sii-k Mot^olian Prince Goilan sent for the Sokja Pandita, >
Thibetan areh-priest, to cnre and convert him (Klaproth, in a manoscript frag-
ment " iiher die Verhreitung des B nddhismns im ostlicben nnd nordliche n
Asieu"). It should also be remarlied, that the Moguls IisTe never otscs-
pied thcmselrcB with the conversion of conquered nations.

C*) p. 201.— KosmoB, Bd. i. S. 308 and 471 (English trans, VoL i. p.
333, and nuts 342).

(*") p. 206. — Hence the contrast between the tyrannical measnreB of
Hotewekkel, the tenth Ctili[ih of the house of the Abassides. against Jem
and Christians (Joseph von Hammer iiher die Landi^rverwaltung nnter dem
Chnlifete, 1835, S. 27, B5, and 117), and the mild tolerance of wiser raias
in Spain (Conde, Hist, de la Dominacion da los Arabes en Espafla, T. i.
1820, p. 67). It should also he remembered, that Omar, after the taking of
Jerusalem, permitted every rite of Christian worship, and ooncliided an agroi-
mcnt vdth the Patriarch very lavourable to the Christiana (FondgmheD des
Orients, Bd, v. S. 68).

P'^ p. 206. — "There is a tradition of abraueh of the Hebrcire having mi-
grated to southern Arabia, nntler the name of Jokthan (Oachthan). before the
time of Abraham, and of having foncdcil there nourishing kingdoms" {Enid,
Geschiehte dcs Volkcs Israel, Bd. i. S. 337 and 450).

f") p. aOG.— The tree which furnishes the "incense of Iladranuat,"
celebrated from the earliest times, has not yet been discovered and delenoiaed
by any botanist, not even bj tbo laborious and far-searching Ehrcnberg ; it ii
entirely wanting in the ishmd of Socotora. An article resdubling tliil
incense is found iu India, and particularly in Bundelcund; and is an ol^ect of
considerable crport from the port of Bombay, to China, This Indian
kind of incense is obtained, according to Colcbrooke [Asiatic Reseorehea, Vol,
ii. p. 377). &om a plant made known by Roihurgh, Boswellia tborilen or

KOTES. Ixi

lerriitn, of Kunth's fiimily of Burscfaretc. Ab from the Ttry ancient eoiiuner-
dal connectioaa bctneeu the ooBsts of aonthern Aisbiu nud western India
(Gildemeister, Srriftoruin Arabatn Locl ie rebua Indicia, [i. 35) it might he
donbted whether the Xiflacoi of Thcophrastn9, {the Thus of the Romana), be-
longed arigiuHll; to the Arabian peninauls, Lassen's remarli (indische Alter-
Uitunskimde, Bd. i. S. SS6), that incenBe is chUf^ " j'awaoa, Javanese, i. e.
Awbianj in Amara-Koscha itself," apparently implying that it is brought to
India from Arabia, biKomes very iinportaut. It is called in Amara-Koscha,
"turuachka', piodaka", aihlil, (three names signifying incense), jllwanS" (Amara-
Icoclia, publ. par .A.. Loiseleur Sealongchamps, P. i. 1S39, p. 150). Sioscoridin
distingniahcs Arabian from Indian incense. Carl Bitter, in his eicellenl
monograph on the kinds of incense (Aiien, Bd. viii. Ahlh. i. S. 356—372).
remarka very Justly, that, from the sirailBrity of climate, thia speojea of plant
(BnaneUia tliurifera) may well ettead over a region reaching from India,
thjQugh the south of Perata, to Arabia. The American incense (OUbauoiu
americnnum of ouj- Pharmaeopceia) is ohtniueil from Icioa gujauensis, Aubl.
and tcica tacamahaca, which Bonpland and my^lf found growing abundantly
in the vast grassy plains (Llanos) of Calaboso in South America. Icica, like
BoawclUa, belongs to the family of Buraeraceic. The red pine (PInus abies,
Linn.) produces the common incense of our churches. The plant nhich bcara
myrrh, and which Bruce thought be bad seen (Ainslie, Materia Medica of
Hindoatan, Ttladrns, ISIS, p. SQ) has been discovered near el-Gisan in
Anbia, by Bhrenberg, and has been described, from the apecimeus collected
by him, under the name of Balsamodendrou myrrhs, by Nees von Eaenbeck.
Balsamodcndron kotaf of Knnth, an Amyris of Forekll, was long erro-
neously snppDsed to be the true myrrh tree.

(^ p. 207.— Wellsted, Travels in Arabis, 1838, Vol. i. p. 272—280.

n p. 207.— Jomard, Etndes g&^r. et hist. lui I'Arabie, 1839, p. 14
Uid32.

(*=°) p. 207.— KosmoB, Bd. ii. S. 167 (EngHah trans. VoL ii. p. 133.)

(™) p, 208.— Isaiah, li. 8.

p°) p. 209.~Ewaid, Geacb. des Volkea Israel, Bd. i. S. 300 and IBO ;
Bunacn, jEgypten, Bnch iii. S. 10 and 32. The traditions of Medes and
Persiana in norlbcm A&ica indicate very ancient migretioos to tho westward.
They have been connected with the variously related myth of Hercules, and
the Pbo;nician Melkarth. (Compare Sallust, Bellum Jugnrtb. cap. IS, drawn
from Punic writings, by Hicmpaal; and PUny, v. 8.) Strabo even calls the

Mi 1T0TB8.

MauruBiniis (inhabitaQts of Maaritania) " Indians who had coma with Her-

p^ p. 209.— Diod. Sic. lib. ii. rap. Z and 3.

p") p. 200. — CtesiEe Cnidii Opraom reliquJEB, ed. Baehr., Fragmeuta
ABsynacD, p. 421 ; and Carl MiiUer, in Diudorf 'b editiun af Herodotus, Far.
1841. p. 13—15.

(^) p. 210.— Gibbon, Hist, of the Dedine and Fall of the Eoman Empire,
Vol. ii. chap. 1. p. 200, Leips. 1829.

(^ p. 210.— Hronboldl;, Asie centr. T. ii. p. 138.

(^) p. 211. — Joiirdain, Hecbecclies iritiq^uea aur I'Age des Tradaetiom
d'Aiistote, 1819, p. 81 and 67.

C^ p. B14. — HcBpecting the knowledge which fha Aiahiaas derired fram
theHindooa, in the studjoftho materia medico, sea Wilson's important iSviati-
gtdions, in the Oriental Maj;azine of CaJcuttn, 1833, Feb. and M&rch ; and
(hoae of Rojlo, in his Esaa; on the Antiqaity of Hindoo Medicine, 1S37, p.
ES — 5B, 64 — -63, 73, and 93. Compare an account of Arabic pharmacentio
mitings, translated from. Hindastanee, in AinsHc (Sladras edition), p. 289.

p^ p. 21S.— Gibbon, Vol, ii, chap, Ii, p, 8B3 ; Hceren, Gesch, dst
Studioma der chssiscben Litterstnr, Bd. i. 1737, S. 44 and 72 ; Sacy, Abd-
JdlaUf, p. 240 ; Parthe;, das alemndriniachc Mosenm, 1838, S. lOS,

(^ p. 216.— Heinrich Ritter, Geach. der chrisUichcn FMIosopMe, Tli, iiL
1814, S. 669—676,

P") 'p. 217.— The learned Orientalist, Reinaud, in three Uto writings
which shew how mnch may still be derired thim Arabic and Permn, aa wdl
oi ChinesE sources ; l^agmeots arabcB ct peraans ia^dits lelatifs fi I'lnde an-
t&iem^meut an llemo Siede de I'Ere thre'tienne, 1815, p, a. — zzim. i
Relation des Vor[^;Ba faits par les Arabos el lea PereanB dans I'lnde el t h
Chine dans le S^me Siede do notrc Ere, 1S45, T. i. p. ilvj.
et hilt, enr I'lndc d'apr^s lea EcriTaina arabes, persans et chiuois,
ment au milien dn onziemo Siocle de I'Ere chretienne, 1846, p. 0. Tta
is based on the far less complete trcaliaa of the AVbt
cieunea Itelationa dca Indes, et de la Chine, de dm
" 171s. The Arabic manuscript contains only «w
notice of a voyage, vii. that of the merchant Soleiinan, who embarked on Ik*
Persian Gidf in the jcar 8d1 ; to which ia added, what Ahu-Zeyd-Haaaan, rf
Syraf in Farsiatan, who had never travellod lo India or Clina, could km
from olher well-inlonned merchants.

■ccond of Ihcso m
Benaudot, enlitlci
Voyageurs mahoc

SOTSS. hiii

(™) p, 217-— KeiQiud et Fav^ da Fen gregeoia, 1845, p. 200.

P") p. 217. — Ukert, iiber Marinna Tyriua imd Ptolemniia, die Ge^^mpheo,
in the Rheiniaeben Muaenm fdr PhUologie, 1831), S. 32fl— 332; Gilde-
meister de rsbua iDdiqia, Pare 1. 1838, p. 120 ; kae centrole, T. iL p. 131.

O p. 317.— The ■' Orienlal Geography of ELn-IIoultal," which Sic
William Ouseley published in London in 1800, is that of Abn-Iahak el-
lataclui, and, as Frahn has shewn (Ibn Tozlan, p. ii. cui. and 260—283),
is half a century older thaa Ebn-Haukd. The maps which accompany the
" Booh of Climates" of the year U20, and of which there is a fine nmnuacript
eopy in the library of Gotbn, have been very useful fa me in what I have
written on the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral (Aaie cenfrsle, T. ii. p.
192 — 196]. We now poaseaa an edition of Istachri, tmd a German trauala-
tion; (Liber Climatmn, ad similitudincm codicia Gothaai deliaeaaduni, cut.
J. H. MoEillcr, Goth. 1839; Din Buch der Liiuder, translated from the
Arabic by A, D, Motdtmann, Hamb. 1843).

P') p. 217.— Com]>BrB Joaq^uim Joae da Coata de Mceedo, Memoria em
goe ae prclende provar (jue oa Arabes nKo coubccer&o 13 Canarias antes das
Portnguezes, Liaboa, 1841, p. 88-99, 305-227, with Humboldt, Eiamen
crit. de I'Hifit. de la Go'ngraphie, T. ii. p. 187—111.

(™} p. 218. — Leopold von Ledebur, ubcr die in den baltischen Landetn
gefundenen ZcL^issc eines Haudela-Verkekra mit dem Orient ini Zeit der
ar»biachea Weltherrachaft, 1840, S. 8 and 7S.

fW) p. 2)8.— The detenninationa of longitude which Abul-Hasaan Ali of
Morocco, an ostrunomer of the 13tb century, has incorporateil nith his work
on the astronomical instrumcnta of the Araba, are all computed &om the
firat meridian of Arin. M. Sc'dillut Sla Srst directed the attention of geo-
graphers to this meridian ; it baa also been an object of earefal research tu
myself, becauae Columbus, Leing as alirays goided by Cardinal d'Ailly's
Imago Muniii, ia his phantasies rcapceting the difference of form which ha
snppasca between the eusteru and western hemisphere, speaks of an Isla de
Arin : centra de el hemispberio del qual habla Tolomeo y quea dcbaxo la
linea cquinoiial cntro el Sino Arahico f aquel de Persia. (Compare J. J.
SediDut, Traite des Inatrnmcns asteonomiquca dea Aisbcs, pnhl. par L. Am.
Sidillot, T. i. 1834, p. 312—318, T. ii, 1835, prefect, with Humboldt's
Examen crit. de I'Hist. de !a Ge'ogr. T. iii. p. 64, and Aaie ceatrale, T. ilL p.
69y — ego, w)ierc will be found the data which I derived &om the Mappa
Mnndi of Alliacus of 1410, in the " Alphonaino Tables," 1483, and in
Hadrignaco's Itinerariutn PortugaUensium, 1508. It is singnlac that Gdrisi

NOTBB.

appcikrs to know Qothing of Khobbet Alia (Cuncadora, more properly KAnk-
der]. Sedillot fils (In the Memoire aiu' les S7atemeB geographiques des Grecs
et ies AnibcB, 1843, p. 20 — 25) places the meridian ot Ann in the gronp of
the AKons ; whereas the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Beinaud (Mo-
moire ear I'lnde anterieorement an Heme Siccle de I'Ere chretienne, d'apres
lea Ecrivains arabcs et persans, p. 20—24), assomcB " Arin to have been a
name originatiiig b; coufusiDii with Azyn, Oieio, and Odj^, an old
Beat ot (ulttvatiou : according to Bumoof, Ui^ijajani in Malwa Of^rri
of Ptolemy ; snd that this Ozeae ia in the meridian of Lanka, and that in
later times Aria was believed to be au island on tbc coast of Zangnebar, per-
haps Eira'iivoi' of Ptolemy." Compare also Am, Sedillot, Mem. snr lea Tostr.
aation. des Arabes, 1841, p. IS,

C*) p. 218. — The Caliph Al-Mamnn cauaed many valnable Greek manu-
Bcripts to be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Sjria, and Bgini^ ^"^ to
be translated direct from Greek into Arabic, the earher Arabic Terwm*
having long been founded on Syrian translationa (Joncdain, Rcchorches crit.
BUT I'Age ct 9ur I'Origino dea Traductions latinea d'Aristote, 1819, p. 86. 88,
and 226). Al-Mamnn's eserlions have resened much which, withont tiie
Arabians, would have been lost to tis. A similar service has been rendered by
Armenian translatiooa, as Nenraano of Munich has first ehewn. Unhappily
a notice by the historian Geuzi of Bagdad, preserved to lis by the celebrated
geographer Leo Afrieauas, in a memoir entitled " !De Viris inter Araba
illoBtribus," gires reason to believe, that at Bagdad itself many Greek
originab, supposed to be nseless, were burnt ; but no doubt this passage doa
not relate to important manuscripts already translated. It is capable of more
inlcrprelations than one, as has been shena by Bemhardy (Grondriu der
griechen Litteratur, Th. i. S, 489), in opposition to Heoren'a Gesohichte der
claaaischen IJtieratnr, Bd. i. S. ISo. The Arabic translations of Ariitotle
have often been made nseJiil in esecuting Latin ones (e. g. tbo ei^t books of
Phyaes, and the History of Animals) ; but the lai^r and better part of lie
latin translations bave been made direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Rech.
crit. BUT I'Age dea Traductions d'Aristule, p. 230—238). We may TcoogniK
an allnaian to the sarao twofold source in the memorable letter which tbe
Emperor Frederick IT. of Uohenstanfen sent with tranalalLons of Aristotle
to his universities, and especially to that ot Boli^ain 1282. This letter conlaiiu
the erpreasion of noble sentiments, and shews that it was not only the love
of natural history which taught Frederick II. to appreciate the philosophicii
nlue of tlie " CompilatiDuea variaa qna sb Arietotele aliisque philoaophLi

J

NOTES. IxV

Bub GncciB Arabicisque Vocabulia Antiqnitna editte suiit." lie writes ; "We
have from aur earliCBt jouth dcaired a closer acqutunlance with ieiencc,
although the auxa of guvernment have withdtawti us therefi'ODi. As fur aa
WB coold, we deligliteil in spending our lime in the careful reading of cicelJent
worts, to the end that the mind might he Enlightnucd and strengtlieQed by
exercises, without which tho life of man is wantiDg both In rule and in fi'ee-
dom (at animm clarbs vigeat ioatnimcntum in acquisitione scientio;, sine qua
mortalium vita uon regitur Uberalitcr). Libroa ipsos buuqaam prcemium
amici Gicaaria gratulaatur accipitc, ct iptos antiquis philosophomm operibus,
qm Tocis veetne ministerio reviviscuut, aggregoules in euditorio veGtro." ....
(Compare Jonrdain, p. 169 — 178, and Fricdrich von Baumer'a excellent
Geachicbte der Uohenslaufen, Bd. iii. 1841, S. 413.) The Arabs formed a
uniting link between imcient and modern science : without their lave of
translation, succeeding i^s would have lost great part of that which the
Greeks had either formed themaelyca, or derived from other nations. It ia in
this point of view that the anhjects which have been touched upon, thongh
seemingly purely linguistic, have a general cosnucal interest.

(™) p. 218.— Michael Scot s trnnslitum of Aristotle's Hiflloria Anima-
lium, and a similar work hj Avicenna Ol^nuacnpt No 6493 in the Paris
Library), are spokeu of by Jourdam Traduct ons d Anstoto p 15o — 138,
and by Schneider, Aduot. ad Anstotel s de Ammal bus Hist lib ix cap. 15.
?«) p. 218.— On Ibn-Baithar, see Sprengel Cesch der Armejknnde, Tb.
ii. 1823, S. 468 ; and Royle on the Ant qmtv of H ndoo Medicine, p. 28.
We possess, since 1840, a German tianslat on of Ihn Baithar under the title
Grosse Zusammenstcllung iiher die Kiafte der bekanntcn e nfacheu Hed- nnd
Nahinngs-mittcl, translated from tho Arab by J v boufheimer S vols.

("') p. 219.— Koyle, p. 35—65. Suanita, sou of Tievamitra, is consi-
dered by Wilson to have been a cotemp mry of Kama W e have a Sanscrit
edition of his works (The Sns'mta, or System of Medicine taught by Dhnn-
wantari, and composed by his disciple Sua'ruta, cd. by Sri Madhnsudana
Gupta, Vol. i. ii. Calcutta, 1835, 1836], and a Latin translation (Sns'mtss
Ayurvedas, id est MeiHcina: Syatema a vcnerablli D'havantare demonstratum,
a Suaruta discipulo composilum, nunc pr. ex Snnskrita iu Latinnm Bcrmanem
vertit Franc. Hcaslcr, 3 vob, Eriaiiga?. 1844, 1847.

(^ p. ai9.— Aviccuna Bays, " Deiudar (Deodar), of the gonuE 'abhel
(jonipenu) ; also an Indian pine which yields a peculiar milk, syr deiudar
(ftnid tnrpentiae)."
C") p. £19. — Spanish Jews from Cordova carried the leisoDs of Aviceium

to Moatpi^llicr, and contributed in n principal ilcgrec to the establisIimeoC of
its celcbrotEd medical school, belonging to the 13tli centuiy, which wai
modelled according ta Arabian patterns (Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences nntomlles,
T. I. p. 38!).

^) p. 219. — Respecting the gardens of the palace of Riseafah, wMch was
built by Abdurrahman Ibn-Moawijeb, see History of the Muliammfdan
Dynaatiea in Spain, eitracted Crom Ahmed Ibn Mohammed Al.Makkari, b;
Paseual de Gayangos, Vol. i. 1840. p. 209—311. En m Hoerta plaato el
Bey Abdiirrahman una palma que era entonces (ToS) uuica, y de ella proce-
di&on todas las que hay en EspaHt. Le vista del aibol acrecentaba maa que
temphiba su meloacolia" (Antouio Coude, Hiat. dc la Dominacioii de loi
Aj:BbcB en Espaiia, T. i. p. 169).

P") p. B20. — The preparation of nitric acid and aqna tegia by I)jaber
(viliOBe proper name was Abu-Klusrah-Dechafar] k more than 500 yealt
anterior to Albertus Magnus and Rajraond Lully, and almost 700 years an-
terior to the Erfurt Monk, Baailins Valentinna. Nevertielesa, tlie discovery
of those decomposing {dissolving) acids, which eoustitnles an epoch in
chemical koowledge, was long ascribed to the three last named Europeans.

P*°) p. 220, — Respecting the mlea given by Eazea for the vinous fennen-
tation of amylum and sugar, and for the distillation of alcohol, aeo HSfe,
Hist, de la Chiuie, T. i. p. 325. Although Alexander of AphrodimM
(Joannia Philopcni Gfammatici in Lihr. de Qeeeratione et laterita Comm.
Venet, 1B37, p. ST), properly speaking, only describes circnmstantially distil-
latioD bom aea-walcr, yet he also indicatea tJiat wine may also be distilled.
This is the more remarkable, became AnBtofle had put forward (Meteorol. ii.
S, p. 35B, Bekker) the erroneous opinion, that in uatnral evaporation CrtA
water only rose irom wine, as from the salt water of the sea.

p*') p. 230. — The cbemiatrj of the Indians, comprising alchemiatio Mts,
ia called ras&yana (rasa, jaice or fimd, also quieksilver ; and iyana, mudi or
proceeding), and forms, according to Wilson, the seventh divi^on of the Ayur-
veda, the " science of life, or of the prolongation of life" (Roylc, Hindoo
Medicine, p. 39 — IS). The Indians have been aequmntcd from the eartieit times
[Boyle, p, 131) with the applicatioa of mordants in calico or cotton priutiag.
an Egyptian art wMch we find moat clearly described in Pliny, lih.uxr.isp. 11,
No. 150. The name "chemistry" indicatea literally "Egyytiau art," Uieait
ofthe black bmd; for Plutarch (de laide et Oeir, cap. 33) knew that the E^yp-
called their country Xq^m, &om the black earth. The inseription on
the Boselta aloae has Chmi. I Cud the word chemie, as applied to the dt-

J

KOTEs. kvii

compiMiiig art, £c£t in the deerenB of Diocletian ag^nst " fke old mitiiigi of
the Egyptiims wMch treat of tbS ' chemie' of gold aud silver (ntpi xtl*^'
offfvpov KOI xguirav)." CompfliE mj Eiamen erit. de VHibl. da la Qeogta-
phie ct de TAstroDamie nautlqae, T. ii. p. 314,

P") p. 221. — Ecinaud et Favo dn Feu gregeois, dea Teas de Guerre, et
lies Origiuea de la Poudie e, C^on, in tlieir Higtoire de rArtillerie, T. i.
1845, p. 80— S7, 201. and 211; Piobert, Traits d'ArtilleriB, 183B, p. 26;
Beckmanii, Tcchnologie, S. 342.

(^) p. 221.— Laplace, Precis de I'HiBt. de rAatronomie, 1821, p. 60;
and Sedillot, Memoire aiir les Instrumeaa astr. dea Atafaea, 1841, p. 44. Abo
Ttomas Yonaf} (Leeturea on Natnral Philosophy and Ihe Mccliaiiical Aite,
1807, Vol i. p. 191) doea not clonbt that Ehn-Jnnis, at the end of the tenth
ceatuTj, apphed the pendulum to the meaauremcat of time, hot he aacribes
the tirst combmatiou of the pendulum with wheel-TCorli to Sanctoiins, in
1612 (44 jears before Huygheiia). Respecting the very skilfully mode tima-
piecD which Baa among the prcaenls which Haroua Al-Easchid, or rather the
Caliph Abdotluh, sent, two ceaturiea before, from Persia to Charlemagne at
Ais-Ia-Ckapellc, Eginhard aaje diatinctl;, that it naa moved bj water (hoio-
bginm ei aurithalco arte meohanica mirifite compoaitnm, in qno dnodccim
borsruni eurana ad Clepsidram vertehatur) ; Einhardl Annalea, in Pertz'a
MOQumenta Germanise llistoriea Scriptormn, T. i. 182G, p. 13S. Compare
H. Mutiua, de Germanorum Orifpuc, Geatis, &c. Chronic, lib. viii. p. 57, in
Pistorii Germonioorum Soriptorum, T. iL Francof. Ia84; Souquet, Recueil
des Hiatoriena dos Gaulea, T. v, p. 333 and 3B4. Tlie hours were mailed
b; the soand of the fall of small balla, aa well aa hj the coming forth of small
horsemen H'um aa many opening doora. The manner in ytlltih the water
acted in such timepieojs Duiy indeed iiave been very diS'ereut among the
Chaldeans, who " weighed time" (determined it by the weight of fluids), and
among the Greeks and the Indiana in Clepsydraa ; for the hydraulic elock-
woric of Cteaibins, under Ptolemj Buo^elea II. which gave the civil hottra
thronghont the year at Aleiandria, according to Ideler was never known
nnder the commoo denomination of K\r<jiatpa (Ideler'a Handbuch dcr Chro-
nologic, 1825, Bd. i. S. 231). According to Vitnivius's description (lib. ii.
cap. 4), it was a real astronomical clock, a "horologium si aqua," a vaj
oomplicatei! "machiua hydraulica," working by mcana of toothed wheels
(vereatilia tympani donticuli ffqualca alius ahum impcllcntes) . It is thus not
improbable, that the Arabians, acqnaiiited with the aeeounta of improved me-
al coastraetioiLa under the Roman Empire, succeeded in making an

hviii

W0TJB8.

bfdnulic clock nith wheel-work (tympana quie uonnulli rotas Bpjidkut,
Grffici sutein ir(piTpiix<t> ViLruvius, i. 4). Leibnitz (ADtmles Imperii Ocn-
deLtis BranaTicensia, ed. Perts, T. i. 1843, p. 247) eipressaa his admiratipn
of the tMDstructiait of the cluck of IlBraun Al-Raschid (Abd-AUatif, trad, pai
Silvestre de Sacy, p. B78). A much mom remarkiible piece of skilfnl nork
wu that which the Sultan BCQt from Egypt, in 1233, to the Emperor
Frederic II. It was a large tcut, in which the sou and moon were made to
move by mectanism, bo ss to rise and set, uid to sliew the hoars of the daj
and of the night at correet intervala of time. In the Annalea Goddridi
Monachi S. Fantaleonia apud Coluuiiun Agrippinnm, it is described as " ten-
loriim], in quo imaginca solia el lunra attificialitcr inol^e cnraam suam cettia
at debitna spaciis pemgranl, et horaa diei ct aoctie iufallibiliter indicant
(Freheri Rcrum GcrmanieBram Scriptorcs, T. i. Argenlor. 1717, p. 398).
The monk Oodefridus, or whoever else may have trented of those years in the
Bhrooicle which waa, pcrhn|i3, writtfln by many different authors for the con-
vent of St. Pautaleon at Cologne (see Uiiiimer, Fontes Kemm Germmiicanmi,
Bd. ii. 1845, S. ixiir.— mvii.), lived in tho time of the great Emperor
Frederic II. tmnself. The emperor had thia cnrions nork, the value of which
waa estimated at 2DD00 marks, preserved at Vennaimn, nith otJier treaaorcs
(Fried, von Ramncr, Gesch. dcr Hohenslauteu, Bd. iii. S. 430). That the
whole teut was given a movement like thnt of the vnult of heaven, aa baa
often been asserted, appears to me veiy improbafale. The Chronica Monas-
t«ii Hirsaugienue, edited by Trithemius, eontaius srareoly any thing more
than n mere repetition of the passage in the Annates Godefridi, withont gifing
an; information about the mechanicnl coustjmctioa (Jofa. Tritheom Opera
Hiatorica, P. ii. Francof. 1601, p. 180). Belnand aaya that the movement
waa effected "par des resaocts cnchfe" (Eitraita dea Hiatoriens Arabcs relalifs
aoi Gnenea dea Croisadcs, 1S2Q, p. 4S5).

n p. 223.— On the Indian tables which Alphaxari and Alkoresmi transbted
into Arabic, see Chaales, Kecherehes sur rAstronomio indicane, in the COmpla
nndna dea Stances de I'Acad. des Sdencca, T. xiiii. 1646, p. 34S~-850.
The substitution of the sine for the are, which is nsaally ascribed to Albat^-
□ius, in the beginning of the tenth cetiturj', also belongs originally to the
Indians : tables of sines are to be fomid in the Surya-Siddliantn.

(■") p. 223.— Reinoud, Frogracnts Arabca relatilk a I'ludo, p. xii. — xrii.

98 — 128, and ea[jecinlly 135 — 160. Albiruni'a proper nnme waa Abul-Ryhau.

He wai a native of Byrun in the valley uf the Indus, was a fHeod o(

t Alieeiui^ ftud lived with him at the Arabian academy which had been Hinned

NOTES. box

ill CliFiremi, His sojourn in India, and the wriling of Ma history of ludiB
(Tarikhi-Hind), the must rem^rknble fragments, of wliicli linve been made
known by ReinBud, faeLjpg to the jean 1030 — 1033.

^ p. 324.— Se'dmot, Materiaui pour actvir a I'HiBtoire comparee des
Sciences malheniatiques chez ies Grecs et lea Orientaui, T. i. p. 50 — 8U ; the
same, in the Comples reodus de I'Acad. des Sciences, T. ii. 1836, p. 202, T.
ivii. 1843, p. 163—173, T. ij. 1845, p. 1308. M. Biot niBinlaina, in
opposition to this opiniun, that the fine -discovery of 'rrcko Brabe hj an
means belongs to Abul-Wefa ; that the ktlei was acquainted, not uitli the
"tariatiod," but only with the second part of tie "evcction" (Journal des
Savans, 1813. p. 613—532, 608-626. 71B— 737 ; 1845, p. 146-186;
and Comptes reudns, T. ii. 1815, p. 131&— 1323).

(^) p. 334.— Laplaee, Expos, du Systeroe du Monde, Note 5, p. 407.

P") p. 225.— On the cbseryatory of Mentha, see Delambre, Histoire de
rAfltronomie dn Moyen Age, p. 198 — 203 ; and Am. S^dillot, Mem. snr Ies In-
strumena arahea, 1841, p. 201 — 205, where the gnomon is described with a
circular opening. On the pecnliarities of the star catalogue of Ulngh Brig,
see 3, J. S^dillul, Traite des Instruments astronomiques des Araiies, 1834,
p. 4.

O p. 223.— Colebrooke, Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration from
the Sanscrit of Brahmegnpls and BhascoTB, Lond. 131T. Chasles, Aper^u
bistorinne »ur I'Origine et le Develuppemcnt des Mcthodes en Geometric,
1837, p. 416— 502; Nesaelmana, Versnch einer kritischen Geschiclite der
Algebra, Th. i. S. 80—61, 273—270, 302—306.

P**) p. 223. — Algebra of Mohammed Ben-Musa, edited and tranalated by
F. Rosen, 1831, p. 8, 73, mid 196— 19B. The mathematical knowledge of
India was extended to China about the year T20 ; but tliis was at a period
when many Arabians were already settled in Canton and other Chinese cities.
Beinaud, Delation des Voyages fails par Ies Arabes dans i'lnde et k la Chine,
T. i. p. 109 ; T. ii. p. 36.

(»') p. 228.— Chasles, Histoire de I'Algibre, in (he Comptes rendus,
T. liii. 1841, p. 497—624, 601—626 ; compare also Libri, in tie same,
p. B59— 563.

(™) p. 226, — Chasles, Apflr5u hislorique des M^thodes en G^ometrie,
183T, p. 464 — 472. The same, in the Comptea rendus do I'Acad. des
Seienccs, T, viii. 1839, p. 78 ; T. a. 1889, p. 449 ; T. ivi. 1843, p. ISO—
173, and 218-240; T. ivii. 1843, p. 143—15*.

(^ p. 227.— Humboldt, Qher die l«i TerBchiedenan V65kem ublichen

NOTBS.

SfiUme Ton ZahlteicTitn and iiber dm Urspnmg Afs SIcllEnwtrtbca in den
indiachen Zahlen, in Crelle's Journal iiir die tdne nnd BBgewandte Mathemalik,
Bd. IT. (1829), S. 206—231 ; compare also mj Eiamen crit. de I'Hist. dc la
G&graphiti T, W. p. 273. The simple relation of ILe dilierent methods
ffhich nation^ to whom the Indian arithmetic by position was unknomt, em-
flojed for aprcBsing the muhipUec of the fundamental group, containa, I
beliBTt^ ths explsnation of the gradoal rise or origin of tOie Indian sjBtem.
If ire express the Dumber 356S, either perpendieulurlj' or horizontally, by means
of " indicators, " wlitcb correspond to the different dirisiona of the Abaens,
(thus, M C X ?' "* ^^"'^ easily perceive that the gronp-signs (]VI C X I)
eonld bo left out. Bnt our Indian numbers are uo other than these indicators :
they an the multiplieis of the different groups. We en also reminded of tbit
designation (solely by means of indicators) by the aneieat Indian Snanpan (the
reckouii^ machine which the Moguls introduced into Russia), vihich has
snccessive rows or wires representing the thousands, hundreds, tens, and units.
These rows would present, in the nwnerical eiample just cited, 3, B, 6, and 8
balls. Id the Snanpan, uo gronp-sign ia visible : the gronp-ugns are Ihe
positions themsclTcs ; and these positions (rows or wires) tie occupied by
units (3, 5, 6, and S) as multipliers or indicators. In both ways, whether
by the written or by the palpable arithmetic, we arrive at position-vnlne, and
at 1^ simple use of nine nnmbcre. If a row is empty, the place will bo on-
fiUed in writing. If a group (a member of the progression) is wautiiig, the
TBCuity is grsphically filled by the aymbol of racuity (sfinya, ^fron, tzitphra).
In the " Method of Eutodna," I fmd, in the group of the myriads, the first
trace of the eiponential system of the Greeks so important fbr Ihe East :
M", M^, M'', designal* 10000, 20O00, 30000. Thnt whioh is here applied
only to the myriads extends among the Chinese and Japanese, who derived
tiieir instruction liom the Chinese 200 years before the Christian Era, to all
themiiltiplicrsof thegroops. In theGobar, the Arabian " dust nriting," (di*-
Dovered by my deceased friend and teacher, Silvestre de Sooy, in a maouBcript
in the hbraiy of the old Abbey of St. Germain des Fria,) the group^gns wt
paints — therefore, noughts or ciphers; for in India, Thibet, and Persia,
aonghts and points are idcTiticol. Id the Gobar, 3' is 30 ; 1" is 400; and
flV is 6000. ,ThoIndiannmnbcra,aad the kDowlcdgi of the value of position,
must be more modem than the separation of the Indians and the Aiians ; tut
the Zend cation only used the far less convenient Pehlvi numben. 1
opinion that the Indian notation has undergone snccessivc impiovcnw
me to derive particubr support from the Tamul i

NOTES. Ixxi

preBBca uiiils bj nine characters, and all otlCT Tallies liy gronp-aigns for 10,
100, and 1000, having multipliers added to the left. I drair the eame infer-
ence &um the tlDgular apiB/ioi (vSikoi in a scholium of the monk Neophjftaa,
discovered by Prof. Brandis in the library of Paris, and kiiidlj TOmmunicatrt
to me for pubheation. Ths nine characlers of Neophytoa are, with Ihe ei-
eeption uf the 4, quite simikr to the present Persian ; bnt these nine nniti are
raised to 10, 100, 1000 times their value by writing one, two, or tirea
cipiiers (o) above them ; as 2 for twenty, 2- 1 for twenty-four, 5 for five hnn-
dred, and 3 6 for three hundred and sii. If wa suppose points to be used
rnfll*ad of ciphers, we have the Arabic dust writing, Gobar. As my brother
Wdhelm von Humboldt has often remurked of the Sanscrit, that it is verj in-
appropriately designated by the terms "Indian" and "ancient Indian"
language, since there are in Che Indian peninsula several veiy ancient lan-
guages not at aO derived from the Sanscrit, — so the eipression Indian, nr
ancient Indian, system of notation is also vagae, both in respect to the form
of the characters and also to the spirit of the method, which latter sometimes
consists in simple jmta-position, sometimes in the use of Coefficients and
Indicators, and sometimes in proper " position-value." Even the esistenee
of the dpher, or character for 0, is not a necessary condition of the simplo
porition.Talue in Indian notation, as the scholium of Neophytos shews. The
Indians who speak the Tamnl language lave numerical characters whieh
appear to differ from their alphabetic eharaders. The Z and the S hare a
feint rescmHance to the 2 and the 5 of the Devanagari figimis, (Rob. Anderson,
Rudiments of Tamnl Grammar, 1821, p. 1S5) ; and yet an accnrale com-
parison shews that the Tamd numerical characters are derived from the
Tamnl alphabetical writing. Still more different from tho Scvanagari fignret
are. according to Carey, the Cingalese, la the latter, and in the Tamul, we
End neither position-value nor Bcro sign, hut symbols for tens, hundreds, tai
thousojids. The Cingalese work, like the Bomaus, by juita-positiaD ; the
Taimils by coefficients. Ftolemy, in his Almagest and in his Geography,
uses the present zero sign to represent the descending or negative scale in
degrees and minutes. The zero sign is, consequently, of more ancient use in
the West than the epoch of the invasion of tho Arabs. (See my work above
cited, and the memoir printed in Crdle's Mathematical Journal, S. 215, 319,
223, and 2ST.)

(~^ p. 228.— Wilhehn von Humboldt, iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i,
S. ccbii. Compare also the eicetlent description of the Arabians, in Herder'l
Ueea znr Oesch. der Meuscheit, Uouk xii. 4 and B.

Humboidt, Eu

t. Ae I'Hist. Ae U GeaglO'

I

m H !31--a>i«i»
plde, T. i. p. \w. vid lii.

(^ p. 233. — Puts of AmeriFS were seen, but not landed on, 14 jean
bdbcF Lot Eucfcasoii, in llic loysge nhich Bjanie Herjulfsou asdertoali &om
GiceBkad to I]k wuthirard in 9S6. He first saw tlie imti at tItG island u[
Kutucket, ■ ie^ree soutb of Boston ; tbea ia Nova Scotia ; and, last!/, in
Kntfbiuulknd, which ns Eubwquentlj called " Litla Helluluid," but aerer
" Vinbuid." The gnlt wliidi divides Kowfouodknd from the moutli of the
great riTer St. I«wmii:e bis called by the aarthmen settled in Iceland and
GiHolaud, HatUand GulC See Cnroli Chmtiiiii RoQi, Antiqiutates Ame-
Tieuue, 1S*S. p. 4, 421, 133, and 463.

C^ p. 333. — Gunnbjora was wrecked, in 87(1 or 877, on the rocks sub-
■eqoeat!; call^ h; his name, which were latel; rediscorered h; Captain
Graah. II waa Giuuib)om uho first saw the cast const of Greenland, but
wilhont landin; upon it. (Bnfii, Aoliquit. Amer. p. 11, 03, and 304.)

0«) p. 3S4.— Koanos, Bd. ii. S. IBS (Engl, trans. Vol ii. p. 139).

C"! p. S34. — These mean annnal temperatures of the cost coast of America,
belwcea the parallela ot 42° 25' and 41° 15', correspond in Europe to the
latitudes of Berlin and Paris, places sitnuted 8° or 10° more to the north.
Horoover, on this coast the decrease of mean annual temperature from lower
to higher latitudes is so rapid that, iu the intcrt'ol of lalitude betweeu Boston
and Philndelphia, which is £°41', an increase of a degree of latitnde cor-
respuuds to a decrease in the mean annnal leniperstarB of almost 2° of Iha
Centigrsdc Ibeimomelec; nhcreas, in the European sjttem of iiothennll
lines, tba same difference of latitude, accoi'ding to m; researches, ban^ cor-
reiponds to a decrease of half a degree ot temperature, (Aaie centrales T. tii.
p. 227).

(^) p. S34, — See Cannen Fairijicum in quo Vinlandiie mentio fit, (Bifa,
Antiqnit. Amer. p. 320 and 332).

^) p. 235.^The Kunic slonc was placed on the hi^est paint at tlM
Island of Kingiktorsoak " on the Saturday before the day of vietorjr," i. t.
before the Slst of April, a great Heathen festival of the ancient Scandinariuu,
which, at their reception of Christianity, was converted into a Chiilliin
festival. Rafn, Antiqnit. Amer. p. 347 — 353. On the doubts which Biyn-
julfsen, Mohnike, aad Xlaprotli have expressed respecting the Runio nambo^
see my Eiamen crit. T. ii. p. 87—101 ; yet, from other indiotaoaa, Brjn-
jnl&cn and Gmah regard the important monument on the Women's tilaniU
<aa well as the Runic inscriptioDB found at Igalikko and EgcgeJt, lat. 60* &1'

N0TS3.

«nd 60° CC, Bad the ruins of bidldinga at Upernavick, lat. 73° 50', as belonging
decided); to the lllh and 12tb ceDtimea.

("^ p. 335.— Rafii, Antiqnit. Amer. p. 20, 274, and 415^18 (Wiliielmi
iiher Island, Hvitramannnland, QreeaJaiid, and Vinland, S. 117 — 121). Ac-
cording to s very ancient Saga, the most nortbem part of the cast coast of
Greenland was also visited in 1194, under the name of STalbard, at a part
which eorresponda to Scoceshj'a land, near the point where my frieud,
then Captain Sabine, made his peadnlnni observations, and where I possess a
very dreaij cape, in 73° Iff (Rain, Antiqnit. Amer. p. 303, and Aperfu de
I'ancienne Gcographie des Regions arctiqnea de TAmerique, 1847, p. B.)

(*■) p. 235.~Wilhehni, work above quoted, S. 226 ; Bafu, Antiqnit. Amer.
p. 2Q1 and 453. The settlemeutB on the west eoast of Greenland, which,
nntil the middle of the 14th eenturj, were in a veiy flourishing condition,
underwent a gradual decsy, from the ruinona operation of commercial mono-
poly, troia the attacks of Esgnimaus (Skridinger), the black death which,
according fo Hecker, desolated the North daring the years 1817 to 1351, asd
(he invasion of a hostile fleet from some unknown quarter. At the present
tiove, credit is no longer given to the meteorological myth of a sndden altera-
tion of climate, and of the formation of an icy barrier, which had for its imme-
diate consequence the entire separation of the colonies established In Green-
land from their mother country. As these colonies were only on the more
temperate district of the nest coast of Greenland, it cannot he true that a
bishop of Skalholt, in 1S40, saw, an the east coast of Greenland, beyond the
icy barrier, " shepherds feeding their flocks." The accumulation of masses
of ice on the east coast opposite to Iceland depends on the configuration of
the land, the neigbhoorhood of a chain of mountains having glaciei'a and
mnning parallel to the hne of coast, and on the direction of marbe cnnents.
This state of things did not take its origin from the close of the 14th or the
beginning of the 15th centuries. As Sir .lohE Barrow has very justly shewn,
it has been subject to many accidental alterations, partienlarly in the years
1815 — 1817. (See Barrow, Voj'^eB of Discovery within the Arctic Regions,
1816, p. 2—6;. Pope Nicholas V. named a bishop for Greenland as late as
1448,

(^) p. S3A. — The principal soorecs of information are the historic narra-
tians of Eric the Bed, Thor£uu Karlsefue, and Suurre Thorbrandsson, pro-
bably committed to writing as early as the 12th century in Greenland itself,
and partly by descendants of settlers bom ia Vinland (lialii, Antiqnit. Amer.
p. viL av. and ivi.) The care with which getieological tables were kept mu
VOL. II. d

texiV NOTES.

so greet, tknt that of ThorRnn Karlsebc, nhoee soa Snorrc Tbarbmaduon
was born in America, hu bccD brought dnnii fiom 1007 to ISll.

("'') p. 237. — -Hvitramannnland, the Innd of the while men. Compare
the original Bgnrcca of infpnnatipn, in Rafo, Antiquit. Amer. p. 203 — 206,211,
446—451 ; and Willielrai fiber Wand, Hsitramannaland, Ac S. 7a — 81.

(^ p. 238.— Letronne, ReohercbeB g^ogr. et orit. Bar le Livrt de "Men-
nin Orbia Terra," composed en Irlande, par Diciiil, 1811, p. 129 — 146,
Compare my Eiomea mt. de I'Hisl. de la Geogr. T. li. p. 87 — 91.

(*") p. 23S.— I hate appended to the moth book of nty trasels (ReUtfoii
hiatoriqne, T. ill. 1835, p. 159) a collection of the slorida which have bwo
told from the time of Raleigh, of nativca of Virginia speaking pure Celtic ; of
the Gaelic salutation, hao, liut, iach, liaTJng been lieard there; of Oweu Cha-
pelain, in 1669, saving himself from the hands of the Toacaroraa, who were
abont to Bcaip him, " by addressing (hem in his natise Gaelic." These Tos-
caroraa of North Carolina are now, however, diatinctly recognised bj lingnijlio
investigations, as an Iroqnoia tribe. See Albert Gallatin on Indian Trib«»,
in the Arehteoli^ca Americans, Voil. it. 1836, p, 33 and 57. A conaiderable
collection of Tusearora words is giv-en h; Catlio, one of the most meelknt
obserrera of manners who at anj time sojourned amongat the aborigines of
America. He, however, is often inclined to regard the rather fair and often
bine-eyed nation of the Tuscaroras as a miied race, descended from ancient
Welsh and from the original inhabitants of the American continent. Set lut
Letters and Notes on the Mannera, Cnstoms, and Condition of the North
American Indiana, 1841, Vol. i. p. 207; Vol. ii. p. 359 and 262—285.
Another collection of Toscarora words is to he found in my brother's manu-
script notes respecting langoage, in the Royal Library at Berlin. "Commehi
stTDctnre des idioms americains psrait singnlierement bizarre aoi diffcrens
penples qui parlcut les langnes modemeE de i'Eorope occidentale, et se laisRnI
bcilement tromper par de fbrtuites analogic de queiqnea sons, les theolo^ens
ont cm g^neralement j voir de I'hehreu, les colons espapnols du basque, les

u fran;tus du gallois, de I'iriandais ou dn bas-brclon

fai rencontre an jour, enr lea c6te« du Perou, nn officier de la marine eaptg-
nol et an balciuier anglais, dont Wa pretendait avoir enlendu purler batqne
it. Tahiti, et I'aulre gale-irla[idais aiix ilea Sandnich" (Humboldt, Voyage aut
He'giouB ^qainojtialcs, Hclat. hist. T. iii. 1825, p. IGO). Although, howeva,
in of language has yet been proved, I by no mcaiis wish to deny
that the Basqoes and the nations of Celtic origin Inhabiting Ireland and
Wales, who were early engaged in fisheries on the most remote coaila, were

NOTES. IxXV

tlie CDOstimt rivals of the Soandinavians iu the northern parts of the Atlantic,
aud even tliat the Irish preceded the Scaudinaviims in the FiiroB Islands anil
in Iceland. It ia mnch to he desired that in our days, when a healthy epirit
of criticism, severe but not contemptuous, prevails, the old investigations of
PdkcI and Richard Hakluyt (Voyages and Navigations, Vol, iii, p. 4] might
be resumed iu England, end also in Ireland itself. Are there grQuuda for the
statement that fifteen years before Columbos's discovery, the icanderings of
Madoc were celebrated in the poems of tha Welsh hard Meredith ? I do not
parlicipale in the rejecting spirit which has hut too often thrown popular
traditions into obscurity ; I incline far more to the firm persuasion that, by
greater diligence aud perseverance, many of tho historical problems which
relate to the charts of the early part of the middle ages, — to the striking agree-
ment in religions traditions, manner of dividing time, and works of art iu
America and Eastern Asia; — to the migrations of the Mexican nations, — to
tho ancient centres of dawning civilization in Aztlan, Quivira^ and Upper
Louisiana, as well as in the elevated table lands of Cnndinamarca and Peru, —
will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts which have been hitherto
entirely nnknown to us. See my Eiamea crit. de I'liist. de la .Geugr. du
Kouvean Continent, T. ii, p. lia— 149.

P') p. 240. — Whereas this circnmstance of the alisence of iee in Febmsry
1477 has been adduced as a proof that Colnmbns's Island of Thule could not
ha Iceland, Finn Magnuscn found, in ancient historical sources, that up tc
March 1477 the northern part of Iceland had no snon, and that in Febmary
of (he same year the southern coast was freo from ice (Eiatnen cnt T. i. p.
105 ; T. V. p. 213). It is very romarkaWe, that Columbus, m the same
"Tratado de las ciuco zonas hatiitables," mentions a more sonthem island,
Ffislanda; a name which plays a great part in the traiels ol the brothers
Zeni (138S — 1404) which are mostly regarded as (abuloua, but which is
wanting in the ma]>s of An<lrcafiianco (1436), and in that of Fra Mann
(1157— U70). [Compare Eiamen crit. T. ii, p, 114—136.) Columbus
flinnot have been acquainted with the travels of the Fratelli Zeni, as they
even remained unknown to the Venetian family until the year 1G58, in which
Marcoliui lirst published them, 52 years after the death of the great admiral.
Whence was the admiral's acquaintance with the name Frislanda F

P") p, 241. — See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy
documents, for Columbus in the Eiamen crit, T. iv. p. 233, £50, and 261,
and for Vespucci. T, v. p. Ig2— 1B5. Columbus was so full of the idea of
Cuba being put of the Dontmeut of Aaia, and even th« wuth part of Cathay

luvi varxa.

(the province of Mango), that on the 12th of Jane, M94, lie canMd the
whole crew9 of his squndrona (about 80 sailors) to avrear that tbej were coa-
rinoed ho might go (iom Cuba to Spaia bj land ("que eala, tieiTa de CdIs
faesE U tierra finnc nl romienzo de ]s» Indiaa y fin ii qnien en estas partei
qiiiaicre teolr de EspaSs por tierra.") ; and that "if an; nho now snore il
should at any future day assert the contrary, they would incur the pnniih-
nieut of peijnry, in rccpiving oue hundred stripes, and having the tongne torn
out." (See Infonnacinn dd Eacribano pnbUco Fernando Perez de Lunn, in
Navarrete, Viagea y Deacubrimienlos de los Espaflolca, T. ii. p. 143 — 119.)
"When Columbus was approaching the island of Cuba on hia first eijiedilion,
he thought himself oppasite the Chinese commercial cities of Zaiton and
Quinsaj (" y ts cierto, dice d AJniiraiitcs ipiesta es la lierra finne j que estoy,
dice fl, ante Zayto y Guinaaj"). Ha deaigna to deliver the letters of the
Catholic jnonarchs to the Great Mogn! Khan (Gran Can) in Cathay ; and
having thna discharged the mission entrusted lo him, to letum immediately
to Spain (but hy aea). Sabeeqnontly ha aenda on shore a haptiaed Jen, Luii
de Tones, because he underatanda Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, which
are langaages in use in Asiatic trading cities. (See Colnuibus's Journal of
his Voyage, 1493, in Navwreta, Viages y Descubrim, T. i, p. 37, ii, and 4B.)
As late as 1533, the Aatronomcr Schoner mainUins the whole of the so-
c^ed New World to be a part of Asia (supcrioria Tudiai), and the city of
Weiico (Temistifaii) conquered !iy Cortes to be no other than the Chinese
commercial city of Quinsiij, ao immoderately entolled by Marco Polo. (See
Joanois Schoncri Carlostadii Opusculum geographicnni, Norimb, 1533, Para
ii. cap. 1-20.)

(^') p. 211 .—Da Asia de JoKo de Barros e de Diogo de Coulo, Dec. L lir.
ill, cap. 11 (Parte i. Lisboa, IT?;-*, p. 250).

(^ p. 241. — Jourddn, Eech. crit. sur lea Tradnctions d'Arialote, p. 230,
234, and 421 — 423 ; Letronne, des Opinions coamographiquea dea P^s
de I'Eglise, rapproctces dca Doctrines phJIosophiquea de la GrecB, in the Bevne
des deur Mondes, 1831, T. i. p. 633.

p^ p. 241. — Friedrich ron Raumer iiber die Pbiloaophie dea dn-iieliiitai
Jahrhanderts, in his Hist. Tasclieubueh, 1S40, S. 468. On the incliuatioa
towards Platonisn in the middle ages, and on the contests of the schools, Me
Heinrich Hitter, Gesch. dcr chriatl. PhiloBophie, Th, ii. S. 150; Th. liL
S, 131—160, and 331—417.

p^ p. 34B,— Cousin, Cours de I'Hiat. de U Philosophie, T. i. 1839. p.
S60uid389 — iSO; Fragmens de Philosophie eutesienne, p, 8~I2 ud

>fOTBS. IXKVU

403. CoiBpurc also the recent ingenioiis votk of Chriatian Borthotmest, ,
eatMed Jordnno Bruno, 1847. T. i. p. 308 ; T. ii. p. 409^18.

(^ p. 340.— Jouniaiu sue lea Trad. d'Ariatote, p. 336 ; and Jliehae
Sachs, die religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien, 1845, S. 180 — £00.

l*') p. 247. — The greater sharo of merit in regard to tbo history of ani-
maJG belongs to Ihe Em[«nir Frederic 11. luportatit ladepeadeut ohserve-
tlona oD tlie intcnial slruotare of birds are duo to him. (Sm Schaeider, in
Reliqna Libromm Frcderici II. Imperatoris de Arte venandi cnin Ayibna, T.
i. 17S8, in the Pre&ce.J Cuviei also calk this prince the " first iodepeadeat
and original loologiat of the acholastic Middle Agea." For Albert MBgnne'e
correct view of the distribution of heat over the surface of tlie globe, onder
different latitudes and at ditferent seasons, see his Liber cosmograpliicus de
Natura Locorum, Argent. 1515. fol. 11 b and 23 A (Esamen orit. T. i. p.
54 — 53). In hia o»n observationa, however, AJheilua Magnus unhappily
oflen ahena the uncritical spiiit of his age. He thinl:9 he IcDona " that rye
changea on a good soil into wbeat ; that from a beech wood which has been
cot down, b^ means of the decayed matter a birch wood wQl sprinf; np ; and
that from oak branches stuck into the csrth riuea mise." (Compare alu
Blmst tlejer iibcr die Botanik dea 13len Jahrhnnderts, in the Linna^ BiL i.
1836, S. 719.)

("^ p. 248. — So many passages of the Opus majos shew the respect wlioli
Roger Bacon paid to Grecian anliqnity, tliat. as Jourdain has already remarked
(p. 129), we can only intfirpret the wish eiprcssed by him in a letter to Pope
Clement VI. " lo bum the works of Aiialatle, in order to stop the proiiaga-
tlon of error among the seLools," as referring to the bad Latin translations
from the Arabic

(^ p. 248. — " Scientia eiperlmentalis a Tulgo ftudcntium penitns igno-
rata ; duo tamen sunt modi cognosccndi, scilicet per argumeutum et eiperi-
sntiom (the ideal path, and the path of experiment). Sine eipcrientia nihil
anfficienter sciri potest. Argumentum coucludit. Bed non certifioat, neqne re-
moret dubitatioDem ; ut quic^cat animus in iutuita Tcritatis, nisi eam inve-
niat via eipcrienlifB" {Opus Sl^na, Pars vi. cap. 1). I have collected all the
peuages relating fa Roger Bacon's physical knowledge, and to his proposals
for invention and discovery, in the Eiamcn crit. de I'llist. de la Gcogr. T. ii.
p. 295 — 299. Compare also Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
Vol. ii. p. 323-837.

{») p. 248.— See Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 228 (Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p, 183). I
Bnd Ptolemy'a OpUes quoted in the Opus Mqjus (ed. Jebb, Land. 1733), p.

I
I

79, 3S8, md 404. Il hte been jnatt? dented O^ilde, Geachtuhte dcr Opiik,
Th. i. S. 63 — 96), that knowledge denied from AUuzed, of tbe mignifTiug
pcMET of iCgiDeDts of spheres, nctuall; led Bacoa to constmct epecUctca ; that
inientioD appears either to hate heea kaown as eoHj as 1299, or to belong
to the Flairntine Saliino degli Anuati, nho was bnried, in 1317. in tbe
Chnnb of Santa Maria Maggiorc at FlnrcDce. If Roger Bacon, wbo eom-
pleted hii Opus MaJDS in 1267, speaks of iastrameQte by means of wbich
small letters appear large, "utiles senibus babentibus oculos debilcs," his
words, and the practically eironeons considerations wbieb he sabjoins, ehen
that he omnot bimself have executed Ihe plan wbidi floated before his miud

1*») p.a50.~-See mj Ejamen crit. T. [, p. Bl, 6*— 70, 96—108; T. ii.
p. S49. " II eiiste Busa de Pierre d'Ailly, que Don Itttiando Colon nomme
tonjoara Pedro de Helico, cinq m^oires dc Concordantia Aslrooamtte cum
Theologis. Qs rapellent qnelqnes esssis trea modemea do Geologie hebciis-
ante publics 100 ans aprea Se cardinal."

P") p. 250. — Compare Colombua's letter (Nararrcte, Vinges y Deacabti-
mientoa, T. i. p. 2i4) nith Ibe Imago MmuU of Cardinal d'AiUj, cap. 8, and
R(^r Bacon's Opus M^jns, p. 1S3.

fW) p. 252.— Hecren, Geach. der claasifichen LitterBtur, Bd. i. S. BS-^-
£90.

(^ p. asa.— Klaproth, Mcmoires relatifs k I'Asie, T. iii. p. 118.

f») p. 352.— Tbe HorentinH edition of Homer of 1488; bnt the firet
printed Greek book was the grammar of Conslontine Lascaria, in 1476.

P«^ p. 25B.— Villemain, MoIangEB bigtoriquea et Kltcraires, T. ii. p. 135.

("') p. 253. — The result of the investigations of tlie librarian Ludwig
Wacblcr, at Breslnn (see his GescMchte der Litleratnr, 1833, Th. i. S. 13—
33). Printing without moveable types does not go buck, eren in China,
beyond the beginning of the tenth rentury of our era. The first fonr books
of CoafociUB were printed, according to Klnproth, in tbo prorincc of Sint-
ichuen, between 890 and 925 ; and the description of the technical manipoJa-
tion of the Chinese printing press might have been read in western countries
as eaHy as 1310, in Baschtd-eddiu's Persian history of the rnlera of Cslhay.
According to the most recent results of the important researchea of Stanitlas
Julien, howerer, an ironsmith in China itself would seem to have ttsed more-
able types, made of burnt clay, between the ycais 1041 and 1048 A J), ur
almost 400 years before Guttenberg. This ii the bvention of the Pi-schJug,
1. however, remmncd withont application.

N0TE3. Ixxix

1^ p. 35^.— See the prooft, in my Eiamen rait. T. ii. p. SIS— 820,
Josafnt Boi'baro (1436) and Ghialin von BuabEck (1555) still found, between
Tana (Asof), Cd^ and iht Erdil (the Volga), Alani aad Gothic tribes epeak-
ii^ German (Ramusio, delle Navigutloui et Viaggi, Vol. ii. p. 92 b and 9S a).
Koger Bacon nlways terms Rnbraquis onl; fralcc Willielmos, quem dominua
fiei I^ancite misit ad Turtaros.

P°^ p. 251. — The great and fine work of Marco Polo (II Milione di MssBec
Marco Folo), sa ne possess it in the correct edition of Cunnt BaldeUi, i» in-
correctly called "Travels" ; it is fur the most part a descriptive, one might
■a; a statistical, work ; in which it is difficnJt to distingnish what the traveller
saw himself what be learned from others, and what he derived li;om topogra-
phip descriptions, in which tie Chinese literature is so rich, and which might
be aeocssible to him through his Persian interpreters. The striking resemblance
between the naiTatice of the travels of Hiuan-tlisang, the BuddhUtic pilgiim of
the seventh eentuiy, and that which JTareo Polo found in 1377 {respecting the
Pamir- Highland), early drew my whole attention. Jacquet, who an early de-
cease withdrewfrom the inveBtigation of Asiatic languages, and who, UkeKlaprotli
and myself was long occupied with the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me,
a short time before his death, " Je suis frappe comme vona de la forme de re-
daction litteiwe du Milione. Le fond apparlieDt saus donte a rohservaiion
directe et pcrsonnelle du voy^eur, m^ il a probablement employe des <locu-
inents qui lui ont cte communiques soit ofGciellement, soit en particulier.
Bien des choses paraissent avoir etc emprunt^ea a dea livres Chiuois et Mou-
goU, bien que ces iaBucnces sur la composition du Milione soient difQcilce a
recormaltre dans les traductions eneccssives snr lesquelles Polo aura £:>nde ses
eitrsjta." Whilst our modern IrBvellets ace only loo well pleased lo occupy
Ihcir readers with their own persons, Marco Polo takes no less pains to blend
his own observations with the oiSeiEd data communicated to him ; of whicli,
as governor of tlio city of Yangui, he might have many. (See my Asie cen-
tralc, T. ii. p. 305.) The compiling method of the illustrians traveller also
helps lo eipluin the possibility of his dictating his book while confined in the
prison at Genoa, in 12^5, to his feUow-prisoner and &iend Messcr HnstigieJo
of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before hini. (Compare Marsdcu,
Travels of Marco Polo, p. miiL)

(*i) p. 251.— Purchas, Pilgrims, Part iii. ch. 28 and 50 (p. 23 and 24).

^) p. 264.— Nsvnn'ele, Coleceion de Ins Viagea y Descabriroientos que
faicieron poc mar los Espafioles, T. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History
of tbc Life and Vojages of Christopher Columbns, 1828. Vol iv. p. 297.

UXX NOTES.

(») p. 255.— Eiamen crit, de I'Hifit. de la Gc'og. T. i. p. 63 and 215,
T. ii. p. 350. Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, p. Uii. In. and lnv. The
first German Nuremberg version of 1477, (daa pach dcs cdcin Riltcra nfl
londtfartra Marclio Polo) appeared in print in Columbna's lifclime ; tte EtbI
latin tranalaCiod la 1190, and the first IlaUan and Portagnese tlsnalatiani in
1496 sod 1503.

P") p. 25<].— Barros, Dec. i. lir. iii. csp. 4, p. 190, ssfB eipicssif tbat
" Barthiddinea Dial, e m de soa companMa per causa dos perigos, e tonneD-
tas, que «m o dabrar delle poasaTBin, Ihe pnCTram noma Tocmeatoao." The
merit of firat doubling tbe Cape docs not licrefore beioog, as nsoallj stated,
to Vasco de Giima. Diaz was at the Cape in Maj 14S7, almost therefore at
the some time that Pedro de Cai^Umm and Alooso de Pajra of Baredona
arrived from their expedition. In December of the suae jeor (148T)i Diaz
brought himself to Portugal the news of his important diacoveiy.

C*) p. 236. — The planisphere of Sanulo, wlio calls himself " Marimii
Sannto dictusTonelliis de Tencciis," belongs to the worli. Secrets fidclium
Crods. " Mariuus prScha adroitemeut nue eroisade dang I'interft da com-
merce, Toulant d^truire In prosp^ts de TEgypte, et diiigcr toutea lea mar-
chandiscs de I'lnde par Bagdad, BasBora et Taiiris ^ebriz), i, KaSi, Tua
(.\zDw), et am cfltea asiatiques de la Mediteiran^. Contemporain et com-
patnoto de Folo, dent il d'b pas connu le Milione, Sannto a'cleve 1 de
grandes vues de politique commereiale. C'cat Ic Rayual da mo/en-lge,
mains I'incredulitc d'un abbe philoeoplie dn ISme si^ole." — (Examen eril.
T. i. p. 331, 833—318.) The Cape of Good Hope is called Capo di Disk
on the map of Fra Mcuro, which was compiled bctiveen 1157 and 1469 : see
the learned memoir of Cardinal Zncla, entitled, U Mappamondo di Fra
Manro Camaldolesi, 1806, { 31.

(^ p. 257.— Avron or avr (aur) ia a less-used term for North, emplojfa
instead of the more ordinary "schemfLl" ; tlie Arabic Zohron or Zohr, from which
Klaproth erroaeoualj endeavours to derive the Spanish anr and Portugnege snl
{which is, without doubt, hke our Siid, a true Germaoio word), doe* not pro-
perly belong to the particular deuominalioQ of the quarter indicated ; it aig-
uifies only the time of high noon ; South is dschcollb. Respecting the earl]'
knowledge of the Chinese of the south pointing of the magnetic needle, see
Klaproth's important investigations in his Lettre k M. A. de Humboldt, anr
rinvention de la lioussole, 1S31, p. 41, 45, BO, 66. 79 and 90; and the
Memoir of Ainni of Nice, which appeared ia 1805, entitled, I

rOrigine de la Boussole, p. 35 and 65 — 68. Navertete, in his D

JTOTBS. Isxii

historico sobre los progrosos del Arte At Navcgar en EBpafln, 1802, p. 28,
recals s remarkable paas^ in the SpBnish Leyes de laa Partidaa (II. tit. ii,
ley 18) of the middle of the 13th century ;— " The needle which guides the
maiiner in the dark night, and shows him how to direct Ma course hath in
good and in bad neatJier, is the intermediary (medianEra) between the load-
stone (la piedni) and the North star" See the poasage in Las siete

Fartidas del eabio Re; Don Alonso el IX. (according to the usual manner of
connting the Xtb.) Madrid, 1839, T. i. p, 473.

C"") p. 258. — Jordanu Bruno, pat Christian Bartholmeaa, 1817, T. ii.
p. 181—187.

(*") p. 258.~Tcuiaa lu9 mariantea iuEtnimeuto, cartn, compos y agnja."
— Salazar, Liacurso sobre los progreaoa de la Hjdrografia eo EapaOa, 1809,
p. 7.

(*°) p. 268,— Kosmoa, Bd. ii. S. 203 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 169.)

{•"} p. 2B8. — Respecting Cubs (Nicolaus of Cnsa, properly of Cnei on the
Moselle), see a1)ove, Kosmoa, BO. ii. S. 140 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. lOS) ; and
Clemens' treatise, fiber Giordano Brimo and Nicolans de Cusa, S. 97, where
there is given an important fragment, written by Cnsa's own hand, and dia.
oovered only three years ago, rcspcctiug a Uireefold movement of the earth.
(Compare also Chnsles, Aper;na aur I'origiae dee methodca en Geometric.
1807, p. B29.)

(**) p. 250.^Navarrele, Lisserlaeion histuriea sobre la parte que lutieron
los Esponolcs en laa gnerras de Ultramar u de las Cruzados, 1818, p. 100;
and EiamCQ crit. T. J, p. 574 — 277. An important improvement in obscr-
laUon by means of the pliunb-line has been otlribuled to Georg fou Peucr-
bach, the teacher of Rcgiomontaniis. But the use of the plumb-line had
long been known to the Arabs, as we learn by Abiil- Hassan- Ali'a compendiouE
dcwnption of sslronomical instrumeLita, written in the 13tb century -, Seilil-
lot, Traite des instrumcna astronomiqiica Ses Arnbea, 183B, p, 378 ; 1841,
p. 205.

(*■) p. 2o9. — In all the Viritin^ ou the art of navigation which I huve
eiamined, I find the erroneous opinion that the Log, for the measurement of
[he distance passed over, haa only been in use since the end of the llilli or
the beginning of the 17th century, lu the Encyclopiedia Brilannica (7th
odiliou, 1843), Vol. liii, p. 418, it is atiU said: " The author of the device
for meas'uring the ship's way ia not known, and no mention of it ocenrs till
the year 1607, in an East India voyage, published by Purchas," This year
is alio named as the eitrcme limit in nil earlier and later dictiunariei. —

1

Ixx^ii

NOTE9.

(Gahler, Bd. vi. ]83l, S, 430.) II is onlj Navarrete, iu the Dissertadon

•obce lg< progreaoB del Arte de Navegar, 1802, who pliipes the use ot the
log-line in English Bhip in the year 1577. — (Diiflot de Mo&aa, Naticc bio-
grophiqne anr Mendoza et Navarrete, 18*5, p. 84.) Suhsequcntly he afflnni
ia another place (Colereiou de los Viagra de Ids Eapafloles, T. iv. 1837, P- ST),
that " in Tklagclhm'a time the ship's speed vras only estimated hj the eye (a
ojo), until in the Iflth rentnry the corredera (the log) naa devised." The
measnreoicDt of the dielance sailed over by means of heaviitg the log, although
this means iniist in itself be termed imperfect, has become ot each great im-
portance towuda a knonledge of the velointy and direction of oceanic
currents, that I have been led to maltc it an oljoct of careful nrsearcli. I
give here the prineipal resulU Hbieb are contained in the 6tb and stiD nnpnlj-
lisbed volume of mj Eiamen critique de I'histoire do la Qeogrophic et dea
progres de rAstronomie uantique. The Romans, in the time of the repnbUc,
had in their ships apparatus for measoring the distaace passed over, consiit-
iug ot wheek fom' feet high provided with paddles placed ontsidc the ship,
JuBt as ill oiir gteamhosls, and as in the apptiratus for propelling vessels whirh
Blareo de Gsraybad proposed in 1543 at Barcelona fo the Emperor Charles V.
— (ArsgOj Anniuure du Bureau des Longitudra, 1639, p. 152.) The ancient
Roman way-measurer (ratio a mtyorihus tradifa, qua in via rhoda sedentes
vel marl navigantes scire possumiie quot millia uumoro itineris fecerimns] is
described in detail by Vitvuvius (lib. i. cap. 14), the credit of wliuse Angnaluu
age has indeed been recently much shaken by C. Sclnlti and Oaann. By
meaaa of three toothed ii heels acting on each other, and hy the falling of
small round stones from a Hbccl-case (loculameotum) having only a single
hole, the number of revolutions of t ho out«ide wheels which dipped in the sea,
and the number of miles passed throngh in (he day's courtc, were given.
Whether these hodometers were much used in the Mediterranean, " as they
might afford both use and pleasure," Vitnivius does not say. In the biogra-
phy of tlie Emperor Pertinai hy Juhus Capitoliuus, mention is made of the
purchase of the effects left by the Emperor Commodus, among which wis a
travelling carriage provided with a similar hodoractric apparatus. — {Cup. 6 ia
Hist, Auguatfe Script, ed, Lugd. Bat. 1B71, T. i. 654.) The wheels give at
once " the measure of the distance passed over and the duration of the jour-
ney" ia hours. A much more perfect hodometer used both on the vrater and
on land has been described hy Hero of Alexandria, the pupil of Ctcaibins, iii
his Greek stHI inedited manuscript on the Dioptra.— (Sec Vcntnri, Coromcnl.
Bopra la Storia dell' Ottica, Bologna, 1814, T. I p. 134—130.) Wa find

N0TE3. Ixxsiii

nothing on the subject we are' eonsidering, in the litersture of the middle
ages, until we come lo the period of several "Wks of Nautical luBtrnction,"
written or printed In quick succcaaion by Antonio Pigafctta (Trattato di Nnvi-
gaiione, probably before 1530); Francisco lUero (1535, a brother of tlie
astronomer Kuy Falero, who was to have aeeompanied Magellan ou his voy-
age round the worid, and left behind him a R^iimicoto para observar la loii-
gitud eJi la mar) ; Pedro de Medina of Seville (Arte de Navegar, 1B45) ; Mar-
tin Cortes of Biijalaroi (BrevE Compendio 8e la esfera y de la arte do navegnr,
1551) ; and Andres Garcia de Cespetlea (Regimiento de NHvigDcion y Hidro-
gn&a, 1606). From almost alt these ivorka, some of which have bH^omc
eitremely rare, as weU as from the Sniaa de Gtografia which Martin Fer-
nandez de Enciao had published in 1519, we recognise most distinctly that
navigators were tauf^ht to estimate the " distance sailed over" in Spanish and
Portngncsc ships, not by any distinct measurement, bnt only by estimation nr
apprcciBtion by the eye, according to certain established principles, Medina
eaya (Ubro iii. cap. 11 and 13), "to know the coone of the ship as to the
length of ^stance passed over, the pilot mast set down in hia register how
much distance she has made according to bours (i. e. gniding himself by the
hourglass, " ampolieta,") and for this be must loiow that the moat a ship
advances in an hour is four miles, and with, feebler breezes three, or only two."
Cospedes (R^imiento, p. 99 and 156) calls this mode of proceeding "ecbar
punto par &utasia." This bnlasia, as Eueiso justly remarks, depends, if
gi'eat errors are to be avoided, on the pilot's knowledge of the qualities of bis
ship ; OS the whole, however, every one nho has been long at sea will have
remarked with surprise, when the waves are not very high, how nearly the mtre
estimation of the ship's vehwity accords with the subsequent result obtained by
the log. Some Spanish pilots call the old, and it must be admitted hazardous,
method oF mere estimation (cuenta de estima), sarcaiticaJly, and certainly very
incorrectly, " la eorredera de los Holaudeaes, corredern de los perezosos." In
Columbus's ship's jonnial, fre^nent reforence is made to the contest wilb Alooso
Pinion as to tba distance passed over since their departure from Palos. The
hour or sandglasses, ampolletas, which they made use of, ran out in half on
hour, so that the interval of a day and night was reckoned at 48 ampollelai.
In this important journal of Colnmbiis, it is said (fur EHmple on t!ie 23d of
January, 1193) : " Andaba 8 milks por bora hasta pasailas 5 ampoUctas, y
3 antes que comeuiase la guardia, que cran S ampollefas." — (Navarrcl*, T. i,
p, 143,) The Log (la eorredera) ia never mentioned. Are we to Bs«uine
a was acquainlvd with and employed it, but thai, bdng a

IXXXIT NOTES.

ilnadj in very {cencral use, liG did uot tliink it ncceasary to nama it ? in tlie
nine vtj thnt Marco Folo does not meatiou tea, ac the great wall oE Chins.
Such ID asjumplion appcnra to mo lerj improbable, even if there neie oa
otLer r«aMHi, became I find in the prapmalB made bj the pilot Don Jajme
Feirer, 1495, tot the taact eiaminatioii of the position of the Papal line of
demarcalion, that, whm it i» question of this dctenninatioQ of tlie distance
tailed oyer, the ^peal is made only to the accordant Bentence (juirio) of
iO very experienced mariners (qae apnuten en en carta de 6 en 6 boras el
eamino qtie la nno fus 9^;ua su juicio.) If the log had been iu nse, no doubt
Fener irould have prescribed how often it ahoulJ be hors. 1 find the finl
application of the log in a passage of Figafetta'a Jonciia] of IVfagellaa's Toyage
of cirramaavigatiaQ, which long lay buried among the manuacripte in lit
Ambroaian Librai; at Milan, It is said in it, that, in tho month of January
ISSl, vrheu Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, " Sccondo la misnn
che facevamo del viaggio colla calena a poppa, nui percorrevamo da 60 io 10
leghe al gioruo."^ — (Amoretti, Primo Viaggio inlomo al Globo tenacqneo,
nesia I4avigazione blta dal Cavaliero Anloaio FigafElta sulja aqnadra del dp.
^agaglinnis, 1800. p. 46.) What can this arnngemcnt of a ch^ at the
hinder part of the ship (catena a. poppa), " which we nsed throughoat the
entire voyage to messarc the way," have been other than an apparatna simikr
to onr log ? The "running out" !og-liae divided into knots, the log-ship, and the
half-mioute or log-glBsses arc not mentioned ; but this silence need not sur-
prise U9 in speaking of a long-hnown matter. In the part of the Tratlato di
Navigaxione of the Cavaliere Pigafiitta given by Amoretti in oitracts, amouat-
ing indeed only to 10 pages, the " catena dclla poppa" is not again mentiooed,

(™) p. B59.— Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. p. 320.

(W) p. 281.— Eiamcn crit. T. i. p. 3—6 and 390.

(*") p. B62. — Compare Opus Epistolarum Petri Martyris Anglerii Medio-
lancnaia, 1670, ep. cixi. and clii. " Pne Icetitia prostlisso te, viique i
lachrymis pTic goudio tcmperasse quando litecas adspeiisti meaa, quibus de
antipodiam orhe, lateuti hactenus, tc certiorem feci, mi snavissime Fomponi.
insinnasti. Ex tuia ipse Uteris coUigo, quid seoseria. Seneisti autem, tan-
tique rem fecisti, quanti viriun sunmia doctrina inaignitum decnit. Quia nun-
qae cibns sublimibns pnestari potest iugeniis tsto enavior F qaod condimen-
turn gratius? i. me fiicio conjcctuxam. Beari aentio spiritos meoa. quando
aecitoB allDquoc prndentes ali^nos ex his qoi ab ea redeunt proviuda (Hispa-
iHola insula.") The expression, " Christophorus quidam Colonus," rcminda
01^ I will not lay of Ulb too often and unjustly quoted " neacto quis Flntar-

N0TK3. IXXST

ehns" of Aulas Gellius (KdcI. AtticiE, xi. 16), fant of tlie "quodiim Comelio
scribeote," ia the answer of the Idug Theodoric to the prince of the ^Ijans.
who was to be informed respecting tlie true oiigin of ambei Irom the Gem.
op. 4S, of Tacitus.

(*") p. 2C2. — Opns Epislol. No. cccoKnvii. nod dliii. An eitraordinnrj
peraos, Ilieraiipma Cudanns, a fantastic enthusiast and at the same time an
aenle mathematician, also culls attention in hia ^' ph^ical problems" to how
much of the knowlci^e uf the earth consisted in feets to the observation of
which one man has M. Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun. 1663, T, ii. Prubl. p.
S30aud659; " at nunc ^uibna te landibos afferam Cbristophore Columhi,
nqn fainilite tanlnm, nqn Genuensis nrtis, non Italia; Provincisi, Eon Enropee
partis orbia solum, scd bnmaot generis decus." In eompariug the " pra-
hlemn" of Cardanus with those of the later Aristotelian school, amiilat the
confusiou and tho feebleness of the physical ciplonatioDa Trhich prevail
almost equally lu both collections, I remark iu Cardanus a cireumstancc
which appeai'd to lue characteristic of the sadden enlargement of geograph;
at that epoch ; namclj', that the greater part of his problems relate to compa-
ratiTC meteorology, I allude to the considerations on the warm insular cli-
mate of England in coutrast with the winter at Milan ; — on the dependence
of hail on electric explosions; — on the cause and direction of oceanic cur-
rents ; — on the maxima of Btmospbenc beat and cold not arriving imtil after
the anmmer and winter solsticia ; — on the elevation of the region of snow
nnder 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 bent differ only in name, and are in themselves inseparable." Car-
dani Ojip. T. i. de vita propria, p. *0 ; T. ii. Probi. 521, 630—632, 653 and
713; T. iii.de snbliHtale. p. 417.

{*^ p. 2G3.— See my Eiamen crit. T. ii. p, 210— 2i9. According to
the monnscript, Historia general de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 12, "la csrta de
marear que Maestro Paula Heieo (Toscanelli) enviii a Colon" was in the
hands of Bartholomc de las Casas when he wrote his work. Columhua's
■hip's journal, of which we possess an extract (Nevarrete, T. i. p. 13), does
not quite agree with the relation which I find in a monoscript written by I.as
Casas, which was kindly communicated to me by M. Temaui-Cumpons.
The ship's jnnnuU says, " Iba bablando el Almlnintc (martes 25 de Setiembre,
1492) con Martin AIooso Piuzon, capitan dc la otra cnrabcla Piuta, sohra
nna carta que le habia oaviodo trea dias hacia a la cncabchl, dundc legun

n

.fill arte Mlafwi^ I

Ac i^i* ^Kfc ke ^poted lo Gad, w

HBMLT.Lri3St-»9*ad2S2, T.m.;.

.by
«>d I

iU>

Av'i pi|Aial ^ oRoi podiei] dcao^
U BLi.S.U— S7(ED^e£tT<iLiLp.

^ IB Ik Bditiaii kk), du
■ GatiBtat. T. iL p. T02; nd

)^ I HBt ^Ifc 1^^ •( SrtHlin b^ IS31. p. 53— «1 ;

fii« ^ JK— la > f«t tf CMbIb'( )o«m1 (Xor. 1, U93) wUdi hw

L,_Il_imi ■liifii ill mil "Tkan 6aCd>) oppoate tnd Dear

MMckfM; fiw^ ^l» tad 0»wT, Mmob PbIol. iL TilM Grtt
C^- -|Tiiwiiili."^ii J " -^--- '- •-—-f-'-^ " = f •• -'
^^m, Mto STL Tfe ^nc U«w* tte nodi, whid Celnmbts m U>
„„^ T„y ,^■^^llll M ^sMat ndoB pal of tke eoak at Dd^
^^^^_^^^M^HC,Mlk»<<fcewkreabicrred, on the iattaraj nf
^,^ ^j^^MjM^rfftelMtmftheOMoaniidCiipePMi*; nc
B^M a*. T.ir. f. M>— K<l A^Um (^iri. dinn. cd. Amst. 1879,

KOTBS. Ixxxvii

p. 96) writes, " Patat (Colonus) r^onea has (Parisg) essa Cubee contigaae et
sdlucreDles : ita quod ntra^iue siiit ludiie GongetidiB contiuens ipsutu . . . ."

O P- 2B7,— See the important mimiiacript of Aiidres Bemaldez, Cora de
la Vi31a de los Fnhcios (HistorU do Iqb Iteyes Catholicos, cap. 123). This
liistor; comprises the years 1488 to 1513. Bemaldei had received Culnmbus,
ill li9B, on liis reluni from his second vo-yage, into liis house. By tlic par-
ticular kindness of M. Ternani-Compans, to whom the Historj' of the Con-
quiata owca many important eluddationB, I was enabled to make a free use,
in Dec. 1S38, at Paris, of Vols manuscript, which was in the possession
of my distinguished friend the historiogcapbcr, Bon Jum Bautista Mulloz
(Compare Fern. Colon, Vida del Atmirante, cap. 5S].

(^'^ p. 207.— Eiamen crit. T. ill. p. 241—248.

(*") p. 268. — Cape Horn was diacovered in February lo2fi, by Francisco
de Hoces, in the eipcditiuu of the Commendador Garcia dc Loajsa, nhicb,
following that of Magellan, was destined for the Moluccas. Whilst Loaysa
sailed through the Straits of Magellan, Hoces, with his Caiavel, the San
Lesmea, was separated from the flotilla, and driven as far as 6B° S. latitude.
" Dijeron los del bnqne que les paiccia que era alii acabamiento de lierra"
(JJaTarrctfl, Vi^ea de loa Espanoles, T. v. p. 28 and 40* — 188). Fleurieu
maintaiua that Hoces only saw lie Cabo del buen Succesao, west of Staten-
1 jlanJ. Such a strange uBccrtointy reBpecting the form of the land prevailed
anew tonards the end of the 16th century, that fbe onthor of the Arauoana
(Canto i. Oct. 9) could believe that the Magellanic straits had closed by an
earthquake, and by the raising of the bottom of the sea ; and, on the other
hand, Acosta (Bistoria natund y moral de las ladias, lib, iii. cap. 10) took
the Terra del Fuego for the heginiung of a great south pohir land, (Compare
also Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 62 and 124 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 60 and Note 06.)

('") p. 268. — The question, whether the isthmuB-hypotliiflis, according
to which Cape Frasum, on the east of Africa, joined on to an east Asiatic
isthmus fromThinB!, is to bn traced back to Marians of Tyre, or to Hipparchns,
or to the Babylonian Selcueus, or rather to Aristotle de Ccclo (ii. 11), hna
been treated by me in detail in another work (Eiamen crit. T. i. p. 114, ISl,
and 329 ; T. ii. p. 370—372).

(•^ p. 269. — Paolo ToBcanelli was so much distinguished as an astronomer,
that Behaim's teacher, Regiomoataaus, dedicated to hira, in 14G3, his work
" Dc Quadratnra Circali," directed against the Cardinal Nicolans de Cusa.
lie coaatmcted the great guDmon in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at
Florence, and died in 1483, at the nge of S5, without having lived long

I

Ixxxviii NOTES.

eoongh to eqjo; the tidinga of the diticorery of the Cape of Good Hope bji
Diu, and ttst of the tropical part of Ihc naw continent by Columhna.

(*") p. 270. — As the old continent, from lie western eitreroity of the
Iboriiu peniiiaiik to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130° of longi-
tude, there remain shoot £S0° na the space which Columbus shonld bare had
to Inverse to reach Cathay (China) ; bat less if he only proposed to reach
Zipangi (Japan). This difiirence of 230° which I have taken, ia between the
Portuguese Cape St. Vincent (11° 20' W. of Paris), and the far projecting
part of the Chinese coast near the tben so cclchrated port of Qoinaay, so often
named hy Colmoboa and Toscanelli (lat. 30' 28', long. 117° 47' E. of Para),
{SynonjTdes for ftiiinsay in the prorince of Tschekiang are Kanfu, Hang-
tschcufu, Kingszu.) The genera] commerce in the eaat of Asia was sharctl, in
the 13th century, between Quinsay and Zailun (Pinghai orTaenthnng) oppo.
aito to the island of Formosa (then Tnng&n) in 35" B' N, lat. [see Klaproth,
Tableau hist, de I'Aaie, p. 22?). The distance of Cape 8[, Vincent tmm
Zipangi (Niphon) ia 22° of longitude less than &om Quinsay, or abont 209^
instead of 230° 53'. It is a striking drcumstsnce that, through accidental
oompenaatioDS, the oldest statements, those of Eratosthenes, and Strabo (lib.
i. p. 64), come within 10° of the nhove mentioned resnlt of 129° for the
difference of longitnde a! the o«ou)i«T). Strabo, in the very place where he
allades to the posdble eiialence of two great habitable contineuta in the
northern hemisphere, says that our oiKBu/iir^ in the parallel of Thiuce (Athena,
ace Eosmos, Bd. ii. 9. 223 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. ISg) takes more than one-
Uiird of the earth's circumference. Marinna of Tyre, being misled by the
length of the time occupied in the navigation from Myos Ilonnas to India,
by the erraueously assnmed direction of the greater axis of the Caspian from
east to west, and by the over estimation of the length of the ronlc by land to
the country of the Seres, gave to the old continent a breadth of 226° instead
of 129°, thus advancing the Chinese coast to the Sandwich Islands. Colnmbus
nitnrally preferred this result to that of Ptolemy, according to which Quinsay
should have been found in the meridian of the eastern part of the archipelago
of the Carolinas. Ptolemy, in the Almagest (ii. I), places the coast of the
SinteatlSO°; and in his Geography (lib. i. cap. 12), at 1771°. As Columbus
estimated the navigation &Dm Iberia to the Sinea at 120°, and Tuscanclli even
at only 52°, they might both, estimating the length of the Medilerraoean at
about 40°, have naturally called the apparently so hazardous enterpnst only
a "brevisaimo comluQ." Martin Beh^m, also, ou hia "world apple" (the
celebrated globe which he finished in 1102, and which is still kept ii

NOTES. Ixxxix

Bebaim hooae at Nuremberg), placn the cotiBt of Cliina (or the tliroue al tha
king of Msngo, Ciunbaln, and Calhaj) only 100° west of llie Azores, i. e. at
BehaiiQ lived four jdbts at Fayal, and pmbublj counted tbe dialancB from
that point, 119° 10' west of Cape St, Viacent." Colomhua maa probably
acquainted with Bebaim at LisboH, where they both lived from 1 480 to 1484
(see mj Eiamcn crit. de I'lIiBt. de la Ge'ograpliie, T. ii. p. 357—369). The
many wholly crtoncoas □timbers which are to he foojid in all the wntinga on
the discovery of jVmerica, and the then snpposed eitent of Eastern Asia, have
indaccd mc U> comparo moi'e closely the opinions of the middle sgc9 Wtlh
those of classical antiquity.

O P- 270.— The eastern part of the PaciGc was first narigaled by while
men in a boat, when Alonso Mortia de Dan Benito, (who had seen the sea
horizon with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on the 25th September, 1513, Irom the
httle Sierra dc Quarequa], descended a few days afterwards to the Golfo de
San Mignel, before Balboa went through the ceremony of taking possession
of the ocean! Seven mouths prcvionsly Balbua had announced to his court
that the South Sea, of vihith he had heard from the natives, was very easy to
navigate : " mar mny mansa y que nunea anda brava como la mar de nuestra
banda" (dc las Antilloa). The name Oceano Pacifico, however, was, as Kga-
fetta lella oa, first given by Magellan to the Mar del Sur (Balboa's name).
In August 1519 {before Magellan's eipcdition), the Spanish gorenmienl,
which was not wanting in watchfulness aud activity, had given secret orders,
in November 1514, to Pedrarlus Uavila, Govemar of the province of Castilla
del Oro (the northwestemmost of South America), and to the great navigator
Juan Uiaz de Sobs ; — to the first to have tour caravels built in the Golfo de
San Mignel "to make discoveries in the newly discovered South Sea" ; and
to the second, to seek for an opening ("ubertura do la tierra") from the
eastern coast of America, with the view of arriving at the back ("a' aspel-
das") of the new country, i. e, of the sea-surrounded western portion of
Castilia del Oro. The eipcdition of Solis [October 1515 to August 1616)
led him far to the south, and to the discovery of the Rio de la Plata, which
was long called the Hio de Solis. (Compare, respecting the little knovm first
discovery of the Pacific, Petnu Martyr, E|ii9t. dil. p. 200, with the docu-
ments of 1513 — 1515 inNavarrete, T.iii. p. 134 and 357; also my Diamen
crit. T. i. p. 320 and 350.)

(*") p. 270. — Respecting the gcograpliical psilion of the Deaventuradls
(SauPablo, Ut. 1G1°S. lung., 135}° west of Paris; Isia de Tibim>nes, lat.
101° S-. long- 145'" W.), see my Eiamon crit. T. i. p, 288; and Nwarreto,

iroras.

T. ir. p. lii. 52, 216, nnd 207. The great opui-h oF geugmpMisl dianivmei
gave Dccasioti to nmn<^ such iUiutrious heraldic hearings as that mcutioiicd ia
Ihe teit ; (the lerreBtrinl globe, with the iiiBeription " Plimns circumdedisti
me," to Sebastian de Elcaito and his de&cendaats] . The nrma which, ai early
u May 1493, were given to Columbus, " para subUmorla" with poaterit;,
contain the first map ut Ameriea — s range of islands in front o( a gulf
(Ovicdo, Hist, general de laa ladias, ed. de 1547, lib. ii. cap. 7, ful. 10a;
Navarreto, T. ii. p. 37 ; Esamen crit. T. iv, p. 236). The Emperor Char!e>
V. gaie to Diego de Ordaz, who boasted of having ascended Iho volcano of
Orizaba, the drawing of that conical moiiiituin^ and to the hislonan Oriedo,
irtm reaideil aojntemiptedly for 34 years (from 1513 to 1547) in tropical
America, the fonr stars of the southern cross, as armorial beariDgs (Oviedo,
lib. ii. cap. 11, fol. 16b).

{**) p. 271. — See my Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle
Bspagne, T. ii. 1S27, p. 259 ; and Frescott, History of the Coaquest of
Meiico (New Yorli, 1843), VoL iii. p. 371 and 336.

(^ p. 273.— Gietano discovered one of Die Sandivich Islands in 1542.
Respecting the voyage of Don Joigo de Menezca (1526), and that of Aliaro
de Saavodra (IS2B), to the Hhos dc Papuas, see Barros da Asia, Dec. iv. liv.
i, cap. IB, and Navanetc, T. v. p. 125. The " Hydrography" of Joh. Roti
(1542), which h preserved in the British Mueeum, and has been eiamined
by the learned Dalrymple, contains outlines of New Holland ; as doea also the
collection of maps of Jean Valard of Dieppe (1 S32), for the first knowledge
of which we are indebted (o M. Caquebert Monbret.

("") p. 273. — After the death of Mendaila, the command of the eipedition,
which did not fenninat* nntil 1596, was undertaken in the South Sea by fail
wife, DuAa Isabela Baretos, a woman of distinguished personal coBrage, and
great mental endowments [Essai poht. snr la Nonv, Espagne, X. ir. p. 111.)
Quires practised distillation of fresh &om salt water on a eonsidorable scale
in his ship, and his example was follovreil in several instances (Navarrete,
T. i. p. Uii.) The entire operaliuD, as 1 have elsewhere proved, on Ihe tetti-
mony of Alexander of Aphrodisias, was known as early as the third cenlnir
of oiu- era, although not then practised in ships.

l*^) p. 273. — Sec the excellent work of Professor Jleinicke at Premlio,
entitled, "Das Feslland anstralicn, eine geogr. Monographic," 1937, Th. L
S. 2—10.

(™) p. 276.— Thia king died in the time of the Meucan king Aiyacall,
who reigned irom 1464 to 1477. The learned native Medcon hialoHu,

Feniaado do Alta Iitlibochitl, whose niimuscript chronicle of the Chichi-
meqiies, which I saw, in 1803, in the palace o! the Viceroy of Meiico, and
whici Mr. Preacott has made such happj ose of in his work (Conqnest of
Mesico, Vol. i. p. Bl, 173, and 206 ; Vol. iii. p. 112). waa a descendant of
the poet king Nezahnaleoyoll. The Altec name of the listorian, Fernando de
Alifa, siguifies Vanilla fiiced. M. Ternaux-ConipanB, in 1810, prinl«d a
French translation of this mannacript in Paris. The notieo of tlie long ele-
phant's hair nhicli Cadamosto eollccted, in to he foimd in Bamnsio, Vol. i. p.
109, and in Gryuieas, cap. 43, p. 33.

m p. 277.— CUrigero, Storia aotica del Messioo (Ceseua, 1780) T. ii. p.
153. The accordant testimonies of Heman Cortes, in hia reports to the
Emperor Charles V., of Bemai Diaz, Gomara, Oviedo, and HcrnaDdea, leave
no doubt that at the time of the conqnest of Montezuma's empire, there were
in no part of Europe menageries and hotanic gardens (collections of living
animals and plants) which could be compared to those of Haaxlcpec, Chapol-
lapec, Islflpalopnn, and Teicuco (Prescott, Vol. i. p. 178 i Vol. ii. p. BB and
117; Vol. iii. p. 42). Reaperiing the earlj attention stated in the teit to
have keen paid to the fossil hones in the American "fields of giants," see
Garcilaso, lib. ii. cap. 9 ; Acosta, lib. it. cap. SO ; and Hernandez (ed. of
1B50). T. i. cap. 33, p. 105.

O P' ^79, — Observations de Christophe Colomb snr le Passage de In
Polaire par le Mcridieu, in my Kelation hist. T. t, ji. 506, and in the Eiamen
crit. T. iii. p. 17—20, 41— Bl, and 50—61. (Compare also Navarrele, b
Columbus's Journal of 16 to 30 Sept. 1493, p. 9, 15, and 354.)

e^') p. 282.— Respecting the singnlar differences of the Bula de coneeBion
a los Rejcs Calholicos de las Indias dcscubiertas ; que se desembieren of 3
Mb;, 1403, and tbe Bula de Aleiandro VI. subre la partlciun del ucenno ef
May 4, 1403 (elucidated in the Bula de eslension of the 25th of September,
1493), see Esomen crit. T. iii. p. 52—54. Very different from this line
of demarcation is that settled In. the Capitulacion de la Farticion del Mar
Oceano entre los Reyes Catholicos y Don Jnan, Rey de Portugal, of the 7th
June, 1494, 370 leguas (17i to an equatorial degree) west of the Cape Verd
Islands. (Compare Navaireto, Coleccion de los Viages y Descuhr. de los Esp.
T. ii. p. 28—35, 116—143, and 404 ; T. W. p. 65 and 2B2). This last
noined line, which led to the sale of the Moluccas (de el Maluco) to Portugal,
1629, for the snm of 350000 gold ducats, bad no connection with magnetjcal
or meleorulogieal faucies. The papal lines, of demarcation, however, deserve
Diore careful consideration in the pieaeut work, because, as 1 have mentioned

ZCll

MOTM.

in tha Uit, thiy exercieeJ great influence on the endearoura ta iinprofc
nmticsl oatrononij, and especial!)' tLe methods of finding the longitude. It
ii »lso vcrj deserving of notice, that tlic capitulation of Jnne 7, 1194, afibris
the first example of a proposal to Iti. a meridian in a permanent manner hf
marks graven in rucks, or by Uie erection of towers. It is commaadcd, " qne
M bags algiina scOal u torre" wherever the dividing meridian, in its course
from pole to pole, whether in the eastern or the "-estem hemisphere, inter-
sects an i^and or a continent. In continents, the raja was to be marked, at
jicoper intervals, h; a series of 9uch marks or (oners ; which would, indeed,
hare been no small undertaking.

(*••) p. 280. — It is a remarkable fact, Ihat the earliest classical Writer oa
terrestrial magnetism. William Gilbert, who we cannot suppose to have had
any knowledge of Chinese Uterature, yet regards the mariner's compass as a
Chinese invention, which bad been brought to Europe by Marco Polo.
"Ilia quidem pyiide nihil nnquam humanis eicogitatnm artibus hmnano
gcneri profuisse magia, constat. Scientia nantlete pyiiduhe tradncta videtor
in Italiam per Panlum Veuctnm, qui circa annum mccli. apsd Chinas artem
pyiidis didicit" (Guilielmi Gilbert! Colccstrensis, Medici Landinensia, de
Magnete Phjsiologia nova, Lond, 1600, p. 4). There are, however, no
grounds for the snppsition that the compass Has introduced by Uurco Polo,
whose travels nerc from 1271 to 1205, and who therefore relumed to Italy
alter the niaiiner'B compass had been spoken of by Guyot de Provlns in bis
poem, aa well as by Jacques do Vitvy and Dante, as a long known instrument.
Before Marco Polo set out on hia travels in the middle of lie 13th century,
Caliilans and Basques already made use of the compass (see Raymond Loily,
m the treatise De Contemplatioue, vrritlen to 1372).

(*^ p. 283. — For the aneedote respecting Sebastian Cabot, see Biddle'i
Memoirs of that celehrated navigator : a work writteu with a good hiatoricat
and critical spirit (p. 222). "We know," sap Biddle, "with certainty
neither the date of the death nor the burying pUce of the great navigator
who gave to Great Bnlain almost an entire rantincnt, and without whom (is
without Sir Waller Haleigh), the English language would perhaps not have
been spoken hy many millionB who now inhabit America." Respecting the
materials from which the variatLon-chart of Alonzo de Santa Cmz waa com-
piled, as well as respecting the variation-compass, of which the construction
waa already snch as to pcnuit altitudes of the sun to be taken at the sane
time, SCO Navarrele, Noticia biografica del Cosmografo Alooso de Santa Cnu.
p. 3— 8. The first Tariation-compasa was constructed before 1525, by an

KOTES. xcm

ingeniona npotkecarj of SctUIe, Felipe Guillen. So carneat were the en-
deavours to leara more exactly tlio direction of tbe curves of majnelic deeli-
nation, that in 1585 Juan Jojme aaUed with Francisco Gali from Manfla to
Acapulco for the sole purpose of trying in the Pacific a declination instrument
Khich he had invcuted. See m; Essai politique sur la Noarelle Espagne, T.
iv. p. 110.

(*^) p. 233.— Acosto, Hiat. natnra! de Ibb Indioa, lib. I. cap. I?. Theaa
four mngnctic liaes of no Turititioa led Hallej , b; the eontests betvreeD Beniy
Bond and Bcckborrow, to the theorj of four magnetic poles.

(») p. 283.— Gilbert do Magncte Phjsiologia noin, lib, v. cap. 8, p. 300.

O P- 2S3.— Id the temperate and cohl zones, the infleiioa of the iso.
Ibennal lines is general between the west coast of Europe and tbe east coait
of America, bat within the tropics the isothermal lines run almost paiutlel to
the equator ; and in the hastj eonclusions iuto which Columbus sufitred him.
self to be led, no account vas taken of the difference between sea and land
climatea, or betweea east aail west coasts, or of the infiuence of winds, — as
in tbe one of winds blowing over Afiica. Compare the remarkable eouside-
rations 00 climates which are brought together in the Vida del Aloiiroate
(cap. 86). The early conjecture of Columbus respecting the curvature of the
isothermal lines in the Atlantic Ocean was well founded, if we limit it to ths
eitia-lropicol (temperate and &^gid) zones.

("') p. 283. — An observation of Columbus (Vida del Almirante, cap. SEj
Eaunen crit. T. iv. p. 263 ; Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. note
388).

C^ p. 283.— ThE admiral, sajs Peroando Colon (Vida del Aim. cap. fiS)
aacnbed the many refreshing falls of rain, which cooled the air whilst he was
■uling along the coast of Jamaica, to the extent and denseness of the forests
which clothe the mountains. He takes this opportunitj of remarking, in his
abip's journal, that " formerly there was as much tain in Madeira, the Cana-
ries, and the Aiorca ; but since the trees which shaded the ground have been
cut down, rain has become much more rare." Tliis warning has remained
almost Dnhecded for three eentiuica and a half.

(«) p. 281.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 355 and 182 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 327,
and note 400) ; Eiamen crit. T. iv. p. 394 ; Aaie centrale, T. iii. p. 233. The
inscriplion of Adulis, which ii almost fifteen hnndred years older than
Anghiera, speaks of "Ahyssiuiaa snow in which a man may sink up to the

sciv Nona.

C^ p. E8S, — Lmoordu da Vinci tafSTerjfindjofthiepraceeding, "qnalo
i il metliado da osaervu'u dcUr ricerca de' feDomeiii dells natiira." See Vni-
tliri, Bsai stir lis Ouvragts physico-matbtmatiqaeB dc lAiaud da Vitioi, 1797,
p. 31 ; Amonlti, Memoiie itoriclie 91) k Vita di Lionardu da Vinci, MUino,
1304, p. 113 (in his e^Iion of the Trattato deUa FittOTB, T. miii. of Ihe
CUxid ItalliBi) ; Vihrtea, FhiloB. a! tbe Inductive Sciencea, 1840, Vol. ii.
p. 868—370 1 Brewster, Life of Nevrton, p. 332. Most of Leonardo da
Vium'i phjaical works belong to the jear 1498.

(***) p. iSG. — The great attention paid bj the early navigators to natnrat
pheDomciui may be hcd in the oldest Spanish acconnts. Diego de Lepe, for
ciamjde, (as we leani from a witncsa in tlie lan-snit against the hein of
Columblu.) by nuHuiB of a vcasel provided with valves, which did not open
nnlit it had reached the bottom, fonnd that at a dielance &om the month of
the Orinoco, a stratum of frcsb nator of fl fathoma depth Ooned aver the rait
water (Navarrcle, Viagea y DcMubrim. T. iij. p. 549). Columbus, on the
«outh of the coast of Cuba, took up miUc-while <ca-n^ter ("white as if meal
had bran mixed wtUi it") to be carriiul to Spain in bottles (Vida del Almi-
nute, p. S6). I n'lB myself at the same spots, for the purpose of determining
longitudes, and was surprised that tlie lailh-ntiilG diacolooration of sea-nater,
■0 common on shoals, should have appeared to tbo i^ipcrieueed admiral a new
and oncipeoted phcnoniEnoB. In what relates to the gulf-stream itself, which
must be regarded as an important -cosmical phenomenon, vsrioaa effects pro-
duced by it had been observed, long before the discovery of America, by the
■ea washing on shore at the Canaries and thn Azores sterna of bamboo*, truolu
of pines, corpses of foreign aspect from the AnlUlea, and even living racD in
cnnocs "which could not sink." But all this was then attributed solely to
tlio strength of westerly tempests <Vida del Almiranlc, cap. 8 ; Herteta, Deo.
i. lib. i. cop. 2, lib. in. cap. 13) ; there was as yet no recognition of tha
motement of the waters which is independent of the direction of the wind,
vii. the reluming stream of the ooeanio current, which brings evcij
year tropieal fruits from the Weat India Islands to the coasts of Ireland and
Morway. Compare the Memoir of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, On the Posabilitr
of a North-west Passage to Cathay, in Hahluyt, Navigations and Voyages,
ToL iii. p- 14 ; Herrera, Dec. i. lib. ii. cap. 13 ; and Eiamen crit. T, ii. p.
347—257, T. iii. p. 99—108.

(■™) p. 287.— EiBinen orit. T. iii. p. 3fi and Ca— 89 1 Koimos, Bd. i. S,
328 and 330 (Engl. cd. Vol. i. p. 301 and 303).

NOTES. sev

(■"') p. 287. — Alonso dc Eroilla lias imitatc?d the passage of Garcilaso in
theArauconat " Climos piieh, mude conetelacioDes ;" see Kosmo;, fi<l. ii.
S. 131, Arnn. 63 (Eugl. cd. Vol. ii. note 62).

("*) p. 2S0.— Pet. Hart. Ocean. Dec. I. lib. ii. p, 96 ; EiBmcn crit.
T. iv. p. 221 and 317.

(*^) p. 2B3.— Acoeta, Hiat. natural Ac las Indias, lib. i. cap. 2 ; Rigand,
Account of Harriot's Astron, Papers, 1833, p. 37.

(•«] p. 289.— Pigftfelta, Prinio Viaggio inilonio al Globo terracqneo, pnbbl.
da C. Amoretti, 1800, p. 46 ; Kamusio, Vol. i. p. 3o5r; Petr, Mart. Ocean.
Dec. m. lib. i. p. 217. (From the eventa to which Anghiera refers, Dec. II.
lib. I. p. 204, and Dee. HI. lib. i. p. 232, the passage of ihe Occanica
which apcats of Oic Magellanic cloods must have been written between 1B14
and 1616.) Andrea Conali (RainDsio, Vol. i. p. 177) also dcscrihea in a let-
ter lo Giuliauo de Medici the mOTCDieut of tranalation of " duo nngoletCe di
ragioneyol grandczza." The star wliich he represents between Nnbecula
major and minor appears to me to be fl Hjdrte (Eismen crit. T. v. p. 234—
238). Respecting Petnis Theodor of Emdcn and Houtman, the pnpil of the
mithematiciau Planciua, see an luatorieal article hj Olfaers, in SehnmBcber's
Jahrhnch fur 1840, S. 249.

P*^) p. 291. — Compare the researches of Delambre and Encke nith Tdeler,
Ursprong in Stemnainen, S. xlii. 263 and 277 ; also my Examen crit.
T. iv. p. 318—324 ; T. v. p. 17—19, 30 and 230—234.

("") p. 291.— Hin. ii. 70; Ideler, Stemnamen, S. 260 and 393.

(™) p. 292.- 1 have atlempted in another place to dispel the donbts
which several distinguished conmientators of Dante Lave eipreseediu modern
times respecting the "<)aattro stelle." To take this problem in all its com-
pleteness, we must compare the passage, "lo mi voiai," &c. (Pni^t. I. t.
22—34) with other paasagea ;— Pu:^. I. v. 87 ; Vlll, v. S3— 93 ; XXIX,
V, 121: XXX. v. 97; XXXI. v. 106; and Inf. XSVI. v, 117 and 127.
The Milanese astronomer, De Ccsaria, considers the three "feeelle" ("Di
che 'I polo di ipik tutto quanto arde," and which set when the tour atara □(
the Crass riae,) to be Canopua, Achcmar and Fomalhaut. I have attempted
to aoIvB the difflcultie* by the following conaidcrationa : — " Le mjeticiBrae
philoflophiqae et religieui qui p^uetre et viviQe I'immense compoaltion du
Dante, assigne k tons lea ohjela, a, cote de leur eiietence reellc ou mat^elle,
ane eiistence ideale. C'est comme denx. mondes, dont I'un est le reflet de
Taulre. Lo groupe dea quatrea Aoilca xcpresenle, dani I'ordro moral, les
vertut earilituiletf laprodenco, la justice, la force et la temperance; ellei

XCVl KOTES.

mjritent pour lelnlc nom tic 'eainUs lumicn^a, fiiA janfi).' Lab trois ^toilu '
' qui fckireat 1e pate' leprGBCntent let verlia i/iMogalet, U fai, I'eipersiiOD f
et la tharile. LeapmnierBde ccstitrea nous Hvcltat eiU'iii£Di(s Icnr dDuUs ,'
nature; iia chBuUnt: 'In nous Bommes dca n^phts, duis le del nun i
•ommes dea etoilea; Noi ita qui IHit/e, e nel del temo »lelU.' Duu li
Terre de la turtle, le PBradiB lerreeire, sept Djmphes se trouveut reimies : Ik
cercAio /efacfran di it claiialro Is tette Afx/e. Cent la Teanion des vertu
caTdiuales at theologalea. Sonl ces formes myatiqaes, lea objets reels dl
finnuuent, Suign^ lee uns dee nutrea, d'npres lea loia ^temelles de b
SUeaniqiit cilate, se reeouuaisseut i peine. Le ntonile ideal est one libn
er&tion de I'amc, le pioduit de I'lnspiratiaii poetiqiie." (Eiiuaea cril. T. ir.
p. 324—332.)

{*") p. 292. — Aeoata, lib. i. cap. 5. Compare mj RiUtion historiqna,
T. i. p. 209. Aa the stars a and y of the Southern Cross have almost the
fiune ri^t aaoeDsion, the Crosa appears perpendleular when passiog the meri-
dian; but the natives too often foi^t that (hia ecleatial timepiece marlis Ihi
hour each daf 3' 5fi" earlier. I hul indebted for all the ealeulationa reaped-
tBg the viaibilitj of eoDthcm stars in the northern lalltudea to the Had cam.
IS of Dr. Galle, by whom the planet ot Le Verrier was Erst disco.
Tercd in the heavens. " The oncertointy of the calculation according to
which the atar a of the SDuthem Cross, taking lelraction into occonnt, vould
have begun lu be invisible in 63° 25' N. lat. in the jear 290O before the
Christian era, may possibly amuunl to more than 100 years, and according to
t formula of calculation could not altogether he removed, as tbe
proper motion of the Hied stars cmuiot well be aasumed to bo oniform for snch
long iulervals. The proper motion of a Cmeis is about { of a second amiu-
ally, chiefly in right DBcension. The uncertainty produced by neglecting tUi
may be presumed not to eiceed the above- mentioned limit.

(«i) p. 204.— Barroa da Asia, Dee. I. Uv. IV. cap. 2 (1778), p. 382.
("^ p. 394. — Navnrrete, Colecdon de los Viagea y Descubrimienlos que
hici^u por mar los Espflotea, T. iv. p, iiiii. (in the CJottcia biogmfica dc
Fernando de Magallanes).
(«) p. 295.— Barroa, Decad. III. Parte ii. p. 050 and 658—662.
(**) p. 29fl.— The queen writes to Colnmbns : " Noaolros mismua y no
otro alguDO, habemos liato algo del libro qne dos dejoetea (a journal of hii
voyage in which the distrustful navigator had omitted all nomerJeal data ot
degrees of latitude and of diatances) : quanto mas eo e»Xo platicamoa y tumn.
cosa La seido esle neguciu vu onestro y que habeia tabids
[ica 9C pcnso qne pndiera saber ningnno de los nacidM.

NOTES, SCVU

Nos parece que seria biea que lleiasedes con vos du buen EBtroldgo, j noa
paresds que seria bDcno para csto Fray Aalonio de MarclieUB porque es bueit
Eitrologo J sieiDpre nos parecio que bc -confonnnba con vucatro parecer,"
Respecting this Mercliena, who is identical with Fraj Juan Perez, the Giiar-
dian of the Convent de la Rabida nbere Columbus in hia poverty in 1184r
" asked Ihe mouks far bread and water lur his child," see Navarrete, T. ii.
p. 110 ; T. iii, p. 58T and 603 (Munoi, Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, lib. if.
{ 24). — Columbus, in a letter to the ChristianisBimos Monarcas from Jamaica,
July T, 1503, calls the astronomical Epihemeridts "una viaon profetiea"
(NsTarrete, T. i. p, SOR), The Portuguese aatrDuomer Buy Falero, a natirc
of Cnbills, Darned by Charles V. 1519, Cahallaro de la Orden de Santiago,
at the tamt time as Magellan, performed an imparlant part in the prepara-
tiona tor Magellan's vojaite of circmnuaYigation. He had prepared ciprcssly
for him a treatise on determinations of longitude, of which the great historiau
BarroB possessed some chaplers in manuscript (Eiamen crit, T. i. p. 276 aud
302; T.iv. p. 315): probably the same nhicb in 1535 were printed at
Serille by John Eiomberger. IS'svarrele (Obra postuma sobre la Hist, de la
Naulica y de las ciendaa matematicas, 1816, p. 147) could not find lbs book
even iu Spain. Respecting the four methods of fiading the longitude nhich
Falero had received from the suggestions of his "Demonio familiar," sec
Herrera, Dec. 11. lib. ii. cap. 19; and Navarrete, T. v. p. Invii. Snbse-
qnently the coamOBrapher Alonaa de Santa Croi, the same who (like Ihu
apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen, 1525) attempted to determine the longi-
tude by means of the variation of the compass-needle, made impraelicabte
proposals for aceompliahing the same object by the convejanee of time ; but
his chronomclera were sand-and-water timepieces, wheelirorks moved by
weights, and even " niuki saturated with oil," which bnml ont in very eqnal
ilcrvils of time I Pigafells (TreDsunta del Trattato di Ksvigozione, p. 219)

renommeuds altitudes of the moon on the meridian.

V espBcci

■peaking of the method of determinio^ longitnde by luuaiB, says with great
nuveti and trulb, that its advaolages arise from the " corso pin It^or de la
luBn" (CaBovai, Vioggi, p. 57).

(**) p. 2t9S.— The American race, nhich is tha lame from 65° N. lul. to
&S° S. Ut., did not pass from the life of hunters to that of cultivaton of the
tdH through the intermediate gradation of a pastoral life. This circumstance
is the mure remarkable, because the bison, cDOimons herds of which roanl
over the country, is snsceptible of domestication, and yields much milk. Little
■t(«ntiou bos Ihkq paid to ui account given in GoioBia (Hist. geo. de las

VOL. II. e

I

KCTOl S0TE8.

liidi&B, cap. 314), af a tribe linng in the Ifllb century la the north-weat of
Meiiro in about 40° N, lat., whose greiiteBt ricbea consUtcd in Iienla oE talacd
bixms thiiejHi con uim gibtt). From IheM animab the nBtirra dcriyed male-
ritls for clothing, food, nnd ilrink, probably the blood, (Preacott, Conquest uf
Mexico, Vol. iii. p. 41G) ; foe the dielite to milk, or at least its non ase, ap-
pears, before the amvul of EuropeniiE, to have been common lo all the iiatiru
of the New Continent, as well as to the inhabitants of Chios and Cocbiu-
cbiua. It is tme (hat there were from the earliest times in the mauDtainoui^
parts of Quito, Ppm, and Chili, herds of domesticalcd Umas ; bnt these herds
vere ja the possession of oations who led a <ietlled life, and were eng^ed ie
Iho ciJtivation of the soil ; in the C'ordiUe raa of Sonth America there irece
no "paslond nations," and no such thing as a " pastoral Ufe." What are
the " tame deer," near the Fuota de St. Helena, irhich I Bnd spoken of in
HeiTera (Dec. O. lib. i, cap. B, T. i. p. 471 , ed. Ambetea, 1738) ? These
deei' are said to hare yielded mill: and cheese : " Ciervoa que dan leche j
qucsoy sc erian en caaal" From what source is this notice derived P It
may have arisen from a confusion with the lunaa (which have neither horna
nor antlers) of the cool mountainous region,— of which Garcilaso afflnns
(hat in Peru, and especially on the plalean of Collao, they were used for
plonghiug (Comment, reales, P. I. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 133). (Compare also
Pedro de Cie?a de Leon, Chronica del Peru, Sci-iila, 1553, c^. 110, p. 264.)
The employment of lamas for the piougli would honever appear to hare been
a rare eieeption, and a merely local custom. In general the want of domralic
animals was a eharnctcristio of the American race, and had a profbtmd influ-
ence on family life.

(*") p. 2B8. — On the hopes which in the ejecution of his great and free-
minded work, Luther placed espeeinlly on the yoanger generation, lit yonlh
of Germany, see the remarkable expressions in a letter of Jone 1518 (Ne»n-
der de Vicelio, p. 7)-

("') p. 2BB.— I have shewn elsowbere how a knowledge of the period at
which Vespucci was named Piloto mayor would alone he sufficient to rtfble
(he accusation, first brought against him in 1533 by the astronomer Schoner
of Nuremlierg, of having astutely inserted the words " Teim di Amerigo" in
charts which he altered. The high esteem and respect which the Spanish
court paid to the hydrographical and astronomical knowledge of Amerigo
Vespucci, arc clearly mnuifealcd iu the instructions (Real titulo con exl«MH
facallades) which were given to him when, on the !2d of March, 1608, he
IS appointed Filolo mayor (Navairele, T. iii. p. !97 — 303). He «•■{

NOTES. scut

st the head of a trne Deposifo hTdmgrafico^ and was to prepare for the Ca«»
dc Conlratikcioii in Serille, [tlie rantnL point of all Oceanic dlacoveries,) a
general deftcriptloa of coasta and raster of positions, in which all uevr disco-
veries lere to be entered every year. Bnt the name of " Amerid lerra" had
been proponed for the New Continent aa early as 1S07, by a person whoso
eiislence even naa assuredly unknown io Vespucci, the geographer Waldsee-
mliUer (MartinnB Hylscomylos) of Freibai^ in the Breisgan, the direotor of
a printing eatablishmeot at St.^Dic in Lorraine, in a small work entitled,
" Coamognphicc Introduclio, insnper quatnoc Ameiici Vcspncii Navi^tiones
(tmpr. in oppido S. Deoduti, 1507). Ringmann, profeasoc of coamograpby at
Basle, (better known under the name of Phllesins,) Hylacotnylns and Grego-
Hua Reiscli, wbn published the " Margarita philosopbica," were firm friendg.
In the last-named work there is a treatiae by Eylaconijlits on architeclnre
and perepcctive written in 1B09 {Eiamen erit. T. iv. p. 113). Laurenllus
Fbrisins of Metz, a friend of Hylacomylas. and like him patronised by lbs Duke
Renatns of Lorraine who corresponded by letter with Vespucci, speaks in the
Straehnrg edition of Plolemy, 1522, of Hylacomylus as deceased. The map of
the New Continent drawn by Hylacomylns and contained in this edition pre-
sents the first instance of the name of America " in Ihe editions of Ptolemy's
Geography:" but in the meanwhUe, according to my investigations, there had
appeared two years earlier a Map of the World by Pctrne Apianus, which was
inserted in Camer's edition of Sohnus, andn second time in the Vadion edition
of Mela, and which, like more modem Chinese maps, represents the Isthmus
of Panama broken through (Ejamen erit. T. iv. p. 99—121 ; T. y. p. IBS —
178). It is a RTcat error to regard the map of 1527 now in Weimar, ob-
tained from the Ebner library at Nuremberg, and the map of 1520 of Diego
Bibero, engraved by Gliesefeld, as the oldest maps of the New Continent (Eia-
men erit. T. ii. p. 184 ; T. iS. p. 191). Vespucci had visited the coasts of
Sooth America in 119B (a year atta Cohunfaus's third voyage) in the cipe-
dition of Alonso de Ilojeda, in company with Jnan dc la Cosa, whose map,
drawn at the Puerto de Santa Maria in 15 00 fully sii years before Colum-
bus's death, was first bronght to light by myself. Veapncci couid not even
have had any motive for feigning a voyage in 1497, for he, as well as Colnm-
bat, nas firmly persuaded until bis death, that his discoveries were a part of
Eastern Asia. (Compare the letter of Columbus, February 1502, (o Pope
Alexander VI., and another, July 1503, toQucen Isabella, Navarrele, T. i.
p. 304, T. ii. p. 280, and Veapncci's tetlar lo Pier Francesco de' Medid in
BMdini's Vita e lettere di Amerigo Veapucd, p, S6 and SO.) Pedro ds Le>

C MOIXB.

ilesma, Cciliimhus'a pilot in his third voyags, itiU cajs in 1513, in the law.
suit iguiiiit the heiii, that Paris is coDsidered a part uf Asia, " la tiem
flrme que dicwe que ea de Aiifli" NavarelB, T. iii. p. S39. The frequent
lue of BucL peripkniBes as Mando nuovo, alter Orbis, Colomis novi Orbta
repertor, do not contiadiet this, aa thej onlj dBoote regions doI before area,
ud we nwd jogt in the same moTinPi by Strabo, Mela, Tertullian, Isidore of
Stnlle, and Cadamosto (Eiaaien erit. T. i. p. 118; T. v. p. 182—184),
For marc thaDaOjcarsBfterthe death of Vespucd, nhieh took place in ]S1£,
Rod indeed until the calumniDus slateniCDtB of SchoDei in the Opnscnlnm
Geographicnm, 1S33, and of Serret in the Ljoiia edition oE Ftolemf's Geo-
graphy in 1533, we find no trace of any accusation against the FlorentiM
navigator. Columbns himself a year before liia death Epeaks of Vespucci in
termB of uoqaalified esteem; lie calls bim " muctio hoinbre de bien," —
" worthy of all iajnGdoncc," and " always inclined to render me aertice"
(Carta a mi miiy csra Sjo D. Diego, in Natarretc, T, 1. p. 351). The same
goodwill towards VeBpacd is displuyed by Fernando Colon, who wrote the life
of hie father in 1&36 in Seville four years before his death, and who with
Juan Vespucci, a nephew of Amerigo's, was present at the astronomical junta
of Badajoz, andat the proceedings respecting the poSBCsaion of (he Moluccas;
— by Petrus Martyr de Angbiera, the personal friend of the Admind, and
whose eorreapondenee goes down to 1525 ; — by OvieJo. who seeks for ctcij
thing whieh can lessen the fame of Columhns ; — by Bamasio ;— and by the
great historian Gnicciardini. If Amerigo had intentionally falsified thedatei
of bis voyages, be would have broagbt them into Dgreement with each other,
and not have made the first vojiage lermtnate live months after the commeKc-
ment of the Kcond. The confiision of dulcs in the numerous versions of hii
voyages, is not to ho attributed to him, as be did not himself publish any of
these aecoiints ; such mistakes and confusion of Ggurcs are moreover of veij
freqnent oiicuirence in writings printed in the Ifitb century. Oviedo had
been present, as one of the queen's pages, at the audience at which Ferdinand
and Isahella received Columbus with much pomp on bis return trora Ma fini
voyage uf diiscovery. Oviedo priuted three times that this audience took
place in the year 1466, and even that America nea discovrred in 1401.
Gomara liad the same printed uut in figures hut in words, and placed tbe dil-
covery of tbe Terra llrma of America in 149T, precisely therefore In. the year
Eo critical to Araerijo Venpncci's rapnlalion (Eiameu erit. T. ». p. 196 — 20S.
The entire gnillleraness of the Florentine navigator, who never altempUd la
■ttodi his name to the New Continent, hot nho bad the miafbrtune t]

NOTES.

nlloquence in the accounts addressed to the GunfalioDrre Picro Soderiui, tu Pier
Francesco de' Afedici, and to Duke Kenatos II. of Loiiaine, la ieaw upon
himself the attention of posterity more tbaa he deserved, is laoEt decisively
fLewa hj the lansuit which the Secri autJioritiea condncted from 1503 to
1527 i^inst tlie heirs of Columhus, for the purpose of withdiamng from
them the rights and privileges whiuh hid heeu ceded by the crawa to the
Admiral in 1492. Ameriga entered the service of the state as 1*110(0 mayor
in the same year that the lun-sait was commenced. He lived at Seville doriug
four years of its proceedings, in whieh it was to he decided what parts of tha
New Continent were first seen by Columbus. The most miserable repart«
(bund a hearing, and were made matter of nccusatiou by the fiscal ; witnesses
were sought for at St, Domingo and all the Spanish ports, at Kloguer, Falos
and Seville, and all this under the eyes of Amerigo Vespucci aod his nephew
Juan. The Mandas Novua, printed hj Johann Otracr at Aagshurg, 1504, —
the Raccoltadi Viecnia {Mondo novo e paesi oovamente retrovati da Albcrico
Vespmio noreatino, of Aleasandro Zutzi, 1507,) usually attributed to Fra-
conzio (U Montalboddo, — and the Unatuor Navigatioocs of Martin Wi^dsee-
miiller (Hytacomylus) had already appeared ; since 1320 maps were eiCant
havingin them the name of America, whieh had been proposed by llylacomjlns
in 1507, and praised by Joachim Vadius in a left» addressed to iludaljihaa
Agricola (ram Vieuua in 1513 ; ami yet (he person to whom eitensively cir-
culated writiaga in Germany, Franco, and Italy, attributed the discovery in
1497 of the Terra firraa of Pnria, was orither cited by the fiscal as a witness
in the proceedings whieb had begun in 150S, and were continued for llf years,
nor was heaven ipokeo of as opposed to Columbus, or as having preceded
Mm. Why, after the deaUi of Amerigo Vespacci {iM Feb. 1513 in Seville)
waa not his nephew Juan Vespucci called iipouto give evidence, (as were Mar-
tin Alonao and Vicente YnAet Pinion, Juonde laCusaand Alonsode Hojala,)
that he might testify that the coast of Paria, to which great value was at-
tached not as "part of the munland of .Asia," but on nccnuutof the produc-
tive pearl fishery in its vicinity, tad been already landed on before Coiurnljiu,
btton August (I49S) l>y Ameriga!* The diartf^rd of ihia most important tes-
timony would be in«t|ilicable if Amerigo Vespacci had ever boasted of having
made a voyage of discoveiy in 14S7, or if any serious v^ue had at that lime
been attached tu the confuted dales and minprinta of the " Qiiatuor Naviga-
tioues." The different parts of the great and still unprinted worh of a friend
of Culombua, Fra Bartbolome de las Casai (the llistoria geoeml de las In-
iiiui, were m we Loan with eeitaiuty written at very diSerent periodt. It

eu

SOTBB.

^K or to t)

«u not Dommenced uutil 1537, IB jeara after the death or AjnErigo, and
wt* completed ia 1 550, 7 jean bctoro the destti of the aged author in hie 92d
JOT, Piwee and bitter censoie are mi ngled iu il id an eitrsordinaiy muiiiei'.
We tee that dialike and susjndon ODgmeDtetl progresnvely aa the fame of the
tlarentine navi^tor spread. Tn the pitfoce (Prologo) vihich naa nritten
firet, Lu Casas saya, " Amerigo relatea what he did iu two voyages to our
ladies, but he appean to me to have passed over inanif ciicomstsaces in silence,
nhethei advisedly (a aaviendus) or becaase he did not attend to tliem ; bis
has led some to altrihnte to him that which is due to others, and which ought
not lo be taken from them," The sentence pronoimced in the 1st book (diap.
140) is still equally moderate: "Here I moat notice the injostice towards
the Admiral which appears to hare been committod by Amerigo, oc perhaps by
those who printed (los que imprimi^roi^ his Quatitar Nangatioues. To him
aloue, without naming any other, the discover}' of the coatiaenl is attributed.
He is also said to have placed in maps the name of America, thereby sinfully
bihag towards the Admiral. As Amerigo was cloqoent, and an iJegant
writer (era latino y etoqucatc), he makes himself appear ia the letter to
King Renatus like Ihe leader of Hojcda'B cipedition : yet he was only one ef
the pilots, although experienced in seaoianship and ieamed in coamograpliy
(hombre entendidu en las cosoa de la mar y dooto en ooemographia) .... In
the world the belief prevails that he was the first at the mun land. IT he
purposely gave currency to this belief, it was great wickedness ; and if it was
not really intentionally done, yet it looks hfco it (clara pawie la falsedad ! y
si fue dc indoltria hecha, maldad grande fne ; y ya que no lo fuese, al mcaos

parezclo) Amerigo is rcprc^nted as having sailed in the year 7 (1197) ;

which seems indeed to have been only an error of the pen and not an iiila-
tional false statement (pareza aver avido yerro de pendola y no joalida), be.
cause he is made to have returned at the end of IS months. llie /areigH
mriters call the country America. It ought to be Coluroha." TIds passage
shews clearly Chat up to that time Los Casas hod not accl;sed Aiocrigo of
having himself brought the naine America iulo nsage. He says, " an
tornado los escriptores eitraugeros dc nonibrar la nuestra 'nem firms Ajuerics,
como si America solo y no otro can cl y antes que todos la oviera dewubicr-
to." Farther on in the work, lili. i. cap. 164—189, and lib. ii. cap. i,
Lolent animosity breaks out : nothing is now attributed lo erroneoas dates,
to the partiality of foreigners fur Amerigo ; all is intentional deceit of
which Amerigo himself ia guilty (" de industria lo hiao . . . persisliii en cl
de fslsedad astil danimente conveccido"), Bartholomj de la>

MOTES. CUl

Cisaa labours alao in two paaaages to shew more pBrticuk/lj that Amerigo
iu Jiia Bcconalj faUified Uie true BuccesaioD of tke occnrreaces of his £rst two
voyages, placing in the first voji^ many thiags wliicb belonged to the secoiiil,
and vice versl It is etiaaj^e ttial the accuser does not seem to have felt huvr
much the weight of his accu^atiaiia is cJioriinLshed by what he himself says of the
opposite opinion, uid of the indilFereace of the person who would have been most
interested in attacking Vespucci, if he had believed him goilt; and adverse to bin
father aud himself. " I eanuot but wonder," says Las Caaas (cap, 1G4), " that
Heruandu Colon, a clear-sighted man, who as I certainty know had in his hands
Amerigo's BCconnte of his travels, should uot have remarked in them any deceit
or iujuatice towards the Admiral." Having had a few mouths ago a fresh
opportunity of cianiiniQg ihc rare manuscript of Barlbolome de las Caaas, I
have beeu led to embody iu this long uote nhat I Iiad uot already employed
in 1833 in my Eiamen critii|ne, T, v. p. 17B — 217. The conviction which
I then expressed, in the same volume, p. 21T and 2S4, has rDmained mi-
ahaken. " Quand la de'nominatiou d'un grand continent, generaleraent
adoptee e( cousacree par t'usage de plusieurs eiedes, se presente comme uii
nonnmeut de riqjasticB dee liommes, il est uaturel (I'&ttribuer d'abord la
canee de cette injustice k celui qui scmblait Ic plus interresse k la commettre.
L'etude des docnmens a prouve qu'aucnu fait certaia n'appuie cette sapposition,
et quo 1b nom i'Jmerigue a pria uaissance dana uu pays oloigno (en France
et en Allemagne), par UB concours d'ineidcus qui paniisseut ccarter jusqu'au
aoup^n d'une influence de la part de Vcspucc. C'eet ]k que s'arrete la cri-
tique historique. Le cluunp sans homes dcs causes iaeoanuet ou dcs combi-
naiaone morales }>iujtJ/«, o'cet pas du domaine de I'histuire positive. Unc
homme qui pendHut unc longue carriere a joui de I'estime des plus illnstre de
aea contemporuns, s'est elcve, par des connaissances en astronomic nantiqne,
distinguees pour le temps oii il vivait, a un emploi bouorable. Le concomrs
dg oimoustancfs fortuites lui a donne une celebrity dent le poids, pendant
trius sieeles, a pcae sur sa meiuoire, en fournissant des motifs puur avilii son
carwlsre. Une telle position est bleu rare dans rhistoire des infortunes bu-
mainee : c'est reiempled'nue detrissure morale croissant avec I'lllustratiou
du nom. L voJait la peine de seruter ce qui, dans ce melange de suceJa i:t
d'kdversites, appartieut au navigateur m£me, am hazards de la redaotiun pre-
cipilee de aei ecrits, ou n de nialadroits et dangerenx amis." Even Copemleue
eootributed lo this dangerous celebrity ; For lie uhio ascribes the discovery of
tbe new part of the globe to Vespucci. In discussing the "eeutrum gravi-
latii" and "centrum magnitudinis" of the eontineut, he adds; " magis id

1

I

nit eUnun. li addentur in

Principibii* repertie

pr»fecto, qDcm, ob tncompcrtmii qua adhuc magnitndtnem, slterain arbcm

terraruia pntsnt." (Nirolu Copeniici de Revolutioitibus orbiiim mleatiom,

Ubrisei, 1543, p. 2 b.)

{•^ r- 300.— Compare my Einmen orit. de I'Hist. is la Geographie, T.
in. p. 1S4— ISS, and 235—337.

(*^ p. 302.— Compare Koamos, Bd. i, S. 88 (Eogl. traoB. Vol. i. p. 73.)

(*°') p. 803. — " The telescopes which G^ileo constructed himself, andothen
■rhidi he naed for obsening Jupjtec'a satellites, the phases of Vcnns, and the
tolu spots, magnified 4, 7, and 3S times in linear diiuensioDs, nircr more."
(-\ngo, in the Annnaire du Burean des LoDgitudes pour I'lia 1842, p. S6S).

(•") p. 3M.— Westphal, in his Biography of Copernicus (1S22, 8, 33),
dedicated to the great aftroDomer of Konigsberg, Bessei, tike Gaseendi, calls
the BialiDp of Elrmlaad Lacas Watzelrodt von Allen. Aecording to ciplans-
tio^LS vurj recently obtained, and for whidi I am indebted to the learned hii-
lorian of Pruaaia, ArchiT-Diredor Voigt, the family of the mother of
Coponicns ia odlEd in original documcntg ^Vdasclrodt, Weiaselrut. Weiie-
brodt, and most a^uollj WDisselrcNlc. His mother wpa undoubtedly of
German descent, and the family of W^sselrode, nho nere ongiually diatinct
from that of Ton Allen, nhicb had llonriahed at Thorn from the bq;iaDin£ of
the ISth centazj, probably took the name of toq Alien iu addition to their
otia, through adoption or connection. Sniudccki and Czynski (Kopemik
et SC3 Travaai, 18i7, p. 2S) call the mother of the great Copernicus Barbara
Waaaelrodc, married, in 1464, at Thorn, to his father, whoie family they
bring from Bohemia. The name of the astroDomcr, nho Gassendi deaigaites
as Tonueus Borussus, is nrittcL by Westphal and Czynslu, Koperoik, uud by
Kizyziaaonski, Eopiruig. In a letter of the Bishop of Enolaod, Martin
Cromer of Beilsberg, dated Xov. 21, IGSO, it is said, "Cmn Jo. (Niecdani)
Co]>emicns riiens ornamento fuerit, atque etiam nnac post fata sit, DOn
solum hutc ecclesis, venmi etiam toti Fcussioi patriffi bus, iniqaum eaae pnlc^
eum poet obitum carcre honore sepnlchri aive monnmenti."

("^ p. 304, — Thus Gasseadi, iu Nicotai Copcmici Vita, appended to hi*
biography of Tycho (Tychoais Brahei Vita, 1656, Hagic-Comitum, p. 380:
"eodem die et horia non moltis priusquam animam cfflaret." It ia oalf
Schubert, in his Astronomy, Th. i. S. lib, and Bohert Small, in the TBj
inatmctive Accoimt of the Astronomical Discoseriea of Kepler, 1804, p. t
who stale that CopenuDoi died "a tet days after the appearance of hii

J

NOTES. CV

work." This is slao the opinion of the Archiv-LirMlor Voigt at Konigsber^ ;
hecanse in n idler nhich George Donoer, Cmon of Ermlanii, wrote to the
Dnfce of Prussia after tire death of Coperuicue, it is said, that " the estimable
sod worthy Doctor TJicuiaua Koppcrniclc sent farlh bis work, like the ^neet
sou; of the swan, a short time before hia departure from this life of sarrowB."
Accordiug to the ordiimrilj received opiaion OVestpha], Nikoiaas KoperLikus,
182^, S. 73 and S2), the work was begun in 1507, and ia 1S30 was idreadjr
10 Sei completed th&t only a few correvtions were Babsequently added. The
publication was hastened by a letter from Cardinal Schonherg, written Irom
Rome in 1536. The cerdinal wishes (o bave the niannscnpt copied and scot
to him by Theodor von Reden. Copernicus himself, in his dedicatiou lu
Pope Paal 111. says, that the peiTonuance of the work has lingered on into
the " qnaituni novenninm." It we remember how much time was required
for printing a work of 400 pages, and that the great man ihed in May 1543,
we may presume that the dediention »as not written in the last named year ;
which, reckoning backwards 3fi years, would not give us a later hot an earlier
year than 1 507- — Herr Voigt doubts nfiether the aqueduct and hydrnuiic
woriis at Frauenburg, generally ascribed to Cnporuicus, were really esceuted
according to his designs. He finds that so late as 1571, a eontraet wos
coiicluded between the Chapter and the "skilful Master Valentine Zendel at
Breslan," to bring the water to Franenhnj^, from the mQl-ponds lo the
honaes of the Canons. Nothing is said of any previous water-works, and
therefore the csisting ones cannot have been commenced until 28 years after
the death of Copernicus.

('*') p. 305. — Delambre, Hiatoire de 1' Astronomic moderue, T. i. p. 140.
C"") p. 304.— "Neqne euim iiecesse est, eas hy[Kitheses esse veral, imo ne
verisimiles quidcm, scd sufficit hoc unum, si ealculum observationibus rou-
gcnentem eihibeant," says the preface of Osiander. " The bishop of Culm,
Tidemaua Giae, a native of Dantiig, who bad for years urged Coperuicns lu
publish his work, at last received the manuscript, with permissLon to have it
printed at his free pleasore. He sent it first lo llhfeticua. Professor at Wit-
tenberg, who had reeenUy been living for a luug time with hia tescher at
Fraueuhurg. Rhicticus regarded Niuemburg as the most BDilable place for
the pablicotiou, and cntnisted the superintendence of the printing to the
Professor Schoner and Ajidreos Osiander" (Gassendi, Vila Copemici, p, 311)).
Ilie eulagium pronounced on the work at the close of the pre&ce would
BulEce to shew, without the tipreSB testimony of GasEBudi, that the preface
u by auother baud. Also on the title of the Gnt edition (that of Nnrem-

berg, 1513), Oaiuider bns made use of ati expression whidi is always carefullf
■raided in Copemicus's own writing : " motos Btdterum noTis msaps sr
Mdroiribilibas hypotheaibua oranti," iogrtber with the very nngentie aditioii,
" igitur, studiosG lector, erne, tcgc, fruere." la the second Stie edition of
1S86, wbioh I have very carefully oompsred with the first Nuremberg edition,
Ihure is no longer mention in the title of the book of the " fldmirabl* bypo-
thesia;" but Osiander's " PrDS&tiuDCula de Hypothesibns bujus Operis," is
Ga9sendi eidls the interpolated preface, is preMrved. It b also evident that
OsiBudcr, tvitboat naming Mmaelf, meant to ehen that the ptsbtioDcala was
by a different hand IVom the work itself, as he designaien the dedication to
Paul III. OS the "Pnetatio Authoria." The first edition has only 15)0
Leaves ; the second has 213, on aceoaat of the added Narratio Prima of the
astrouomcr George Joachim Rhjctieiu, and a letter directed to Schouer, whi^
B3 1 have remarked la the teit, being printed in ]511 by the intervention of
the mathcinalician Gasasris of Rmle, gave to the learned world t^ first cor-
rect knowledge of the Co[iemican system. Rha^ticna bai given np his pro-
fessorship at Wittenberg for the soke of enjoying the inBtmetiona of Copemicns
at Fmuenbei^ itself. (Compare, on these suhjects, Gsasendi, p. 31Q — 319.)
The eiplanstion of what Osiander was indneed to add from timidity, is given
by Gassendi : " Andreas porro Osiander fiiit, qui noa modo operarum inspector
(the superintendent of the printiug) fiiit. Bed Pnefatiuncnlain qnoque ad
lectorem (tacito licet nomine) de Hypothesibus operia adhibuit. ^us in i%
consilinm fuit, ut, tametii Copernicus Motmn Terra: habnisset, non solum pro
Hypothcsi, aed pro veio etiam placitn ; ipse tamen ad rem, ob illoa, qui heine
oficnderentnr, lenicndam, eiuusatum eum laceret, quasi talem Motuin non pro
dogmate, aed pro Hypothcsi mera nssumpaiseet."

(*•) p. 307. — " ftnia euim in hoc pnlcherrimo teinplo lampadem banc in
alio Tel meliori loco poneret, quam unde totum simul posait illuminarc? Si-
qiiideia non inepte qnidam lucernam mnndi, alii uientcm, alii reotorem Toesnt.
TrimegUtns viaJbilcm Deutu, SophocUa Etectra intnentem omnia. Ita pro-
fecto tanquum in solio rcgali Sol rcaldena circomageotem gnbemal aslroram
femiliam : Tcllus quoquc minime frandatBr limari minlaterio, aed ut Aritlo-
teles dc mimalibua ait, maiimam Luna cnm terra cognationem habet, Con-
ccplt interea a Sole terra, et impregnatur amino parto. Invenimns igitar sub
luic ordinatione admlrandam mundi syounetriam ac ccrtum harmooiK nexum
motoa ct Diagnitndinia orbiiun ; qualia alio modo reperiri non potest (Nicol.
Coperu. de Ecvol. Orbinm C<eleatiiun, lib. i, cap. 10, p, 9 h). In this poi-
•agfl, which is not without poetic grace and elevation of style, we recognise.

NOTES. CVU

WKua the case with all the tstraDomera of tholTth ccntury.trMes of longand
intimutc acqiiaiiitaDc^e with claasical antiqnit;. Copeniicus had ia his mmd
Cic. Somn. Scip. c. 4 ; Plin. ii. 4 \ anil Mcrcnr. Triameg. lib. v. {ei. Cracov.
1S86), p. 195 and £01. The allosioa to the Electro of Sophoolce ia ohBcurc,
IS the sua ia not termed im; ichere " oll-seeiug," ae it is ia the llinri
and the Odjesey, and also in the ChcEphpne of lEschjlus (v. 980), which jet
Copernicus noold not iirohably have called Electra. According to Biickh's
conjecture, thu sUuaiou is to be aacribed to a vague remembrance of verse
8fl9 of Sophocles' CE<Upua Coloneus. It » singular that quite lately, in an
otherwise inatrncti™ memoir (Ciynsld, Kopernik et ses Tnivani, 18t7, p.
103), the Electra of the tragedian is confounded with "electric currents."
The piuBsge of CopcniicuB quoted above is thns translated : " Si on prend le
■oleil pour le flambesn lie TuaiFers, pour son uue, poor son guide, si Trime-
giatc Ic Homme uu Dicu, ai Sophocle 1« troit nne puissance elcctriqno <jui aniine
et coutempte TeuBemble de la creation.". . . .

(*«) p. 307, — " Pluribua ergo eiiatentibua centris, de ccnlro quoquc ranndi
ttan temere qiiis dubitabit, an videlicet fuerit ietud graritatis lerreme, au aliud.
Equidem existimo, grtmlalem nou alind ease, qnaiQ appetenliam quandam
DitDralem paitibna iaditama divina providcntia opiicia uuiversormn, utiti luji-
latem integritalemquo auam seae coDferant in fonntuo globi coetuntes. Unani
affectionem credibile est ctiam Soli, Luotc, cutErisque errontium fulgoribu*
ioeHC, lit qua elllcacia in en qua ae reprKsentant rolnnditato permaneant, qutv
oihilominuB miiltis modis auos etSciunt drcuilus. Si igitnr et terra fsciat alios,
ut pote secundum centrum (mondi), neeesse eril eoa ease qui similiter eitriu-
secua in mullia nppareut, in quibiis inveniniua annuiun citcuitum. — Ipse
deniquc Sot medimn mundi putabitur possidere, qaee omnia ratio ordinls, quo
iUa aibi invicem snccedunt, et mundi totios barmonia noa docot, ai moda rem
ipmtn ambubna (at lyuot) ocnlia inepiciamus" [Cojiern, de Kevol. Orb. CoJ.
lib. i. cap. e, p. 7, b).

(W) p. 30e.— Pint, de Facie in Orbe LnnH!, p. 923, c (compare Ideler,
Heleorologis Veterum Gnecorum el Komanonim, 1S3£, p. 6). In the pas-
aage of Plutarch, AnalagorBa ia nut named j but that the latter ajqilied the
aame tbeorf of " faUing if the force of rotation interuiitted" to all the material
oclcitial bodies, we learn from Diog. Laert. ii. IS, and the mnu; pasaagia
which 1 haiE coUecled (Kosmoa, Ud. i. S. 139, 397, 401, and 40B; Engl,
trsna. Vol. i. p. lB3-124,PJot«ifl2, 69, B8). Compare also Ariatot. do Cccio,
ii. 1, p. 284, a 24, Bekker and ■ remarkable passage of SimpUdua.p. 491, b,
in (lie Sehulis, aocordiog to the editioa of tha Berlin Aoademj, where Ihe

\

cvm

nous.

" not blling of heavenly faodiea" is spoken of "vhen tbe force of rotation
predominates over the proper falling force or downnard attractian." We
may connect nith these ideas, Kbich. alio partiallj belong to Empcdocles and
Democritna as well as to Auaiagoiaa, the initance adduced bjr Simplicios, (I. e.)
" that water in a pbiul is not spilt when the phial is SHung rooDd with s
morelnent of rotatiun more ra[>id than the dovuward movemeDt of the
waltr" (ntt m to itaru tou uSbtoi rfagai).

(*^ p. 308.— Kosraos, BJ. i. S. 130 and 408 ; Engl, trans, p. 134 and
note SB. (Comparii Letnmnc, dca Opinions cosmograpbiquea dea Peres de
I'Eglise, in the Rcme des deui Mundes, 1S34, T. i. p. 621.)

(«') p. 308.— For all that relBtes to attractiDn, gtavity, and the M of
bodies, as r^rded m Butiqiutj, see a collection of passngea from the aodents,
made with great industiy and discrimination, by Th. Henri Martin, Etodes
sur le Timee de Platon, 1011, T. ij. p. 272— 280, and 341.

(*<■") p. 808. — Job. Philoponua de Creatione Mandi, lib. i. cap. 12.

C') p. 308. — He nflerwards gave up the eon-ect opinioa (Brewster, Mar-
tyrs of Science, 1346, p. Sll] ; bat that Uiere dwells iu the oentral body of
the plauelaiy system, the Snn, a poner which governs the mommentB of th*
plaads, and that this solar force decreases either as the square of the distance
or in direct ratio, was expressed by Kepler, in the Hnnnonice Mundi, com-
pleted in 1618.

(<«) p. 30S.— Kosmoa, Bd. i. S, 30 and 58 (Engl, trans. VoL i. p. 31
and S2.)

1^ p. 309.— KosraoB, Bii. ii. S. 139 and 209 (Eng. trans. Vol. u. p. lOS
Olid 175). The scattered passages in the work of Copernicus, relating to the
jlnle-Iiippai'ctiian ^stem of the etructure of the universe, ciclnsivc of the
dedication, are the following :— lib, i. cap. 5 and 10 ; lib. v. cap. 1 and 3 (ed.
princ. 1543, p. 8, b; 7, b; 8, b; 133, b; 141 and 141, b; 17B and IBl,
b). Evenr where Coperuicne shews a predilection fur, and a veiy accurate ae-
quaiiifance with, the views Entertained by tlie Pjlhagoreana, or which to
speak more circmnspectly, were attril)uted U
For pjample, as we see by the beginning of the dedication
with the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus ; which, indeed, shews that the mys-
tery louing Italic school only designed to communicate their opinioua to
friends, "as had at first been the purpose of Copernicus likewise." The
period to which Lysis belonged is somewhat uncertain -,
tennai an inuncdiate disciple nf Pjtiiogoros himself, s

e probability, a teacher of Epaminondas (Bockb, Philolaoi, S. 8— IJ).

NOTES. CIX

The letitT of Ly^h to Hipporchus (an old PythBgorem, who had disclosed
the Di^ielcries of the aect), ie, like to nnny other writings, a forgery of later
timea, Copprnieni had iirobably become acquainted with it from lie collec-
tion of Aldos MaDutius, Epbtolm direnonim PhilDEophorum (Itomic, 14»4),
or from a Latin trasshition by Cardinal Bessarion (Venet. IfilR). In the
prohibitioD of Copemicim' work, Db Bevidiitioaibus, in the Ikmaus decree of
the Congregazione dell' lutUce of the 5th of March, IGIC, the new system of
Ihc nniverse is eipresslj deaignatad aa " falsa ilia doctrina PjWi^orica, Di-
viuie ScriptiirK omoino ediertans." The important [laBsage oa AriBtarchna
of Samoa, of which I have spoken in tbe text, is in the Arenarius, p. H^ of
the Paris edition of Archimedes of 1(115 hy David HivBllus, But the cditio
princep is the Basle edilion of 1544, apud Jo. Hcrvagium. The passage in
the Arenarius says very distinctly, that " Aristarchns had confuted the Aetro-
nonicrs who imagined the earth to be immoTcablc in the centre of the imi-
vcTse : that this centre fas occupied by the sun, which was immoFEabie, like
other stars, while the earth revolved round it." Coperuicns, in his wort,
twiee names Aristarchue, p. 6E> b and 70, but without any allusion to hia
system. Idcler, in Wulf and Buitmaon's Mnscum del Alterthuma-Wissen-
schafl (Bd. ii. 1808, S. 452), asks whether Copernicus was acquainted with
Nicolans too Cuss's Work, Do Doeta Ignarautia. The first Paris edilion of it
was indeed published in 1514, and the expression, "jam nobis mauifestum
est lerram in veritate moveri," from a plalonisiag cardinal, might have been
expected to make some impression oa the Canon of Fcauenberg (Whewell.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 348] ; but a fragment of
Cnsn's writing discovered very recently {1S43) in the library of the Hospital
at Cues, sufEciently proves, as docs the work De Venntiono Sapienti«,
cap. 2S, that Cnaa imagined the earth not to move round the sun, but to
move together with it, though more slowly, " round the constantly changing
pole of the universe" (Clemens, in Giordano Bruno, and Nicol. von Cusa,
1817,3.97—100).

(*') p. 309.— See the profound treatment of this inbject in Martin, FJuiea
snr Timet, T. ii. p. Ill (Cosmographie des Egyptiens), and p. 1S9— 133
(Antec^euts du Systeme de Copemic). The statement of this learned phi-
lologist, according (o which the original system uf Pythagoras himself
diSered from that of Phitolaos, and placed the earth at reel in (he centre,
does not appear to me quito convincing (T. ii. p. 103 and 107). Respecting
the remarkable statement of Gaasendi mentioned in the text, of the simi-
larity of Ihc systems of Tjoho Brahe and ApoUonina of Pergu, I here add

ox BOTES.

turtlier ei|iUaitian. In Gaisendi's biogrspbiEB, be njt, " Uagnam imprimu
ntionem hibait Coperaicua duaruni opinionum afflainm, qminiiD nmun Mar-
tiaoo CapcUoi, ilUiam ApoUoniaPergieo ittribnit. — ipollaniiu Solem del^t,
circa quom, nt Mntniin, non modo Meroorins et Venas, ramm etiam Mars,
Jupiter, Saturani anas obirant paiodoa, dum Sol inUrim, ati et Luns, cirai
Terram. ut circa cenlrum.qaod fgrct affliarum muniligne centmin, movereatnr.
ijnic dsiaccpe qaoqnc opinio Tychotiis propemodoui fnit. Kationem Butem
magnam haiura opinionum Copemicns Ikabuit, quod ntroqno erimie Mermiii
Bc Venerig circDitianeg reprtuseatoret, Eiiiiuct)ue causam retrogradationnm,
dircctioaam, Btatianam in iia appfti'cntiunt cxprimEret ^ posterior (Fergsi)
qooiiae in tribua pinnetis snpcrioribos pncstaret" (Gaseeodi, Tychanis Brahei
Vita, p. 206). M; friend tbe aBtranomer Galle, Iroio nhom I aon^t infor-
mation, like mjeeir finds nothing H'hich loaM jiutily GaaseDdi's decided
atatcment. He writes to mc, " In the passages nhich you lefer to in
FLolem^'a Almagest (in the commciicenicut of Book Xlt.), uid in tbe worka
of Ooperaicus (lib. v. cap. 3, p. 141, a; cep. 35, p. 179, a and b; cap. S6,
p. ISl, b), there is only question of eiplaining Ibe retrogressions nnd sta-
tionsrj appcamneeB of the planets, io which there is indeed s rererence to
ApuUonius'a assumption of the revolution of tlie planeta round the ann (and
Ckipemicos himself mentions eipreasly' the aasamptioD nf the eerth'!i standing
still) i but it doEs not appear possible to determine where he obtained what
he supposes to hnvc teen deriTcJ from Apollonina. I can only therefore
conjectnrc, that some late writer gave a system attributed to ApoUonius of
PergB which resembled that of Tycho ; although I do not find, even in
Coperuicos, any clear eijKHition of siuch a system, or any quotations of andeitt
passages rcapocting it. If the sonrco from whence the complete Tychonic
view is attribnted to Apolloniua should be merely lib. XII. of the Almag3t,
we may consider that Gasseiidi weut too hi in his suppositious, and that the
ease resembled that uf tbe phases of Mercury and Venus, which Copcmieu*
spolie of indeed (lib. i. cap, 10, p. 7, b, and 8, n], but without decidedlj
applying them to his system. Apollonina, perhapa, in a similar mauiier mot
bare treated laathematically the eiplanation uf the letrogressions of Ihc
planets under the assumption of a revolution round the sun, Hithout subjoin-
ing any thing decided and general as to the truth of this aasomptioa. The
difference of the Apollonian syalem described by Gassendi from that of lycho
would only be, that the latter ciplained the inequalities of the movemEnls
as well. Tbo remark of Robart Small, that the fundamental idea of Ihc
lychonioji system was by no means, n itnuuter to (he mind of Copemirui,

NOTES.

bat haJ rather served Uim as a point of transition to his own sjalein, appears
to me well foanded."

(*!'*) p. 310.— Schubfirt. Astronomie, Th. i. S. 124. Whewell baa gimi,
in the Philoaophy of the Indnclwe Sdcaees, Vol. ii. p. 283, an Inductive
Table of Aslronomy, whicli preaents an ciFee{lingl; good and complete tabular
view of the astronomical eonlemplation of tlie structure of the nniverse,
&nm the earliest times to Newton's system of gravitation.

(^ p. 311.— Plato incline, in the Pliednis, to the ayatem of PhQolans;
bnt in the Timicus, to that nhich represents the earth as immoveable in the
centre, subsequently called the Hipparchian or the Ptolemaic system (Buckh,
de Platontro Syat^mate dctestinm Glohonun, et de vera indole Aatranomis
Philolaiece, p. isvi. — mrii. ; also the same author in the Phdolaoa, S. 104^
108. Compare also Fries, Gcachichte der PMlosophie, Bd. i. S. 326—347, with
Martin's Etndes snr Tim^e, T. ii. p. B4— 92). The aatronomical vision in
which the stmcture of the universe ia veiled, at the end of the Book of the
Bepnbllc, reminds one at once of the planetary systems of intercalated splietcs,
■nd of the concord of tones (the music of the spheres) — "the voiceaofthe
Sirens winging their flight with the revolving orbs." (See, on thediscoverj ot
the true system of the universe, the fine and comprehensive work of Apett,
Ipochen der Qeidt. der Hcnacheit, Bd. i. 1S45, S. 30E — 30G and 379—
445.)

(^ p. 311.— Kepler, Harraonioes, Muudi libri qninque, 1(119, p. 180.
"On the 8th of March, 1618, Kepler, after many unsucctssful attempts,
came npon (he thought of comparing the squares of the times of reiolution
of the ]ilanets with the cubes of the meau distances ; hut he made aa error of
eilcniation, and rt^ected the idea. On the loth of May, 1618, he came back
npon it, and calculated correctly. The third Kcplerian law was now disco-
Teted," This discovery, and those related to it, coincide with the distressing
period when this great mnn, eiposed from early childhood to the hudest
strokes of fate, was labouring, in a trial for witchcraft which lasted ail years,
[o save his aged mother, 70 years old, accused of poison-miting, incapacity of
shedding tears, nnd sorcery, from the torture and the stake. The aaspirion
waa strengthened by her own son, the wicked Christopher Kepler a worker
in tin, being his mother's accuser ; and by her having been bi-ought np by an
aunt who woa burnt at Weil aa a witch. See an eiojedingly interesting
work, bnt little known in foreign eountries, drawn from newly discovered
inamucripts by Baron von Breitacbwert, entitled, " iTohann Keppler's Leben
nnd Wirt^," lit31, S. 12, 97—147, and IQG. According to this work.

aad into

6w™,«d of

of tbe lciialiid^bheiaiU(irtit,kM

of tke artk (De Berolirt. Qrii. Od.
BbL L of^ 11, tnpiex boIh tdkn). Ik tke annl icmlidiom lamd the
t&e puaOe&asa of the mt&'s axb k miiitiinril m nwifimnity with the
oi iacrtia, vitAoot the ^p&cadoa of a " cncreciiiig^ ^icy^de.

i,^> p. 31-1. — ^Ddanbre, ^A. de FAstiDDDaiie aadame, T. iL p. 381.

v^ p. 31-k — See Sir Dvfid Biewsler's j«%ment on K^ler's optial
wwks, m the " Umrn of Socnee^" 1S46, p. 17^—182. (Compare WOde,
Goeh. aer Opdk, 1^4S, Th. L S. 1S2— 210.) If the kw of the lefraetion
of njs of light bekiicEi to the Leyda Professor WiQebroid Sndliiis (162«).
who at hb decease kft it bdiind hioi buried in his pi^as, oa the other hand
the poUicatioa of the law in a truooometrical fonn was first made hj Det-
cartes. See Brewitcr, in the North British Review, YoL Tii p. 207 ; VTilde,
Gesch. der Optik, Th. L S. 227.

(^ p. 314. — Compare two excdleat memoirs on the diaoovoy of the
telescope, by Prolieasor Moll of Utredkt, in the Joomal of the Royal Institn-
tion, 1831, Vol. i. p. 319, and by Wilde at Berlin, in his Gesch. der Optik,
1838, Th. L S. 138—172. The work of Moll, written in the Dutch laa-
gnage, is entitled, " Geschiedkondig Ondenoek naar de eerste Uitfinders der
Verokykers, nit de Aantekenningen van wyle den HoogL Tan Swinden zamen-
gesteld door G. Moll," Amsterdam, 1S31. Olbers has given an extract from
this interesting treatise in Schamacher's Jahrbach fiir 1843, S. 56—65. The

NOTES. CXIU

optical instrumenta which Priaea Maarice of Nassau and the Arcldulie Albert
had from Janee n (the Archduke gave bis to Coruelius Drehbel), were, (as is evi-
dent from the letter of the luubasaador Boreel, who had bcca often iu Jansen's
house when a child, and at a later period saw the instruuientB iu the shop,)
microscopa 18 inches long, " through which small ohjecta, when one looked
down at them froiu abore, appeared wonderfullj raaguified." — The eonfouon
between the microscope aud the tckdcupe ban coutributed to obscure the bis-
toTj of the invention ot both instruments. The letter of Bored (Paris,
1653), nbova alluded to, notnnthatsnding the authority of 'firaboalhi, render!
it improbable that the first iuveution of the compound microscope belonged to
Cialilco, Compare, oa this obscure history of optical inventions, Vinccniio
Antiaori, iuthESaegidiNatnrali Esperieoiefatte iiell' AecadEmiadel Cimento,
1841, p. 23—26. Even Hujgena, who was bom scarcely twenty-five
Tears after the supposed date of the invention of the telescope, did not
ventnre to decide with certainty res|)ecting the name uf the first iuventor
(Opera reliqna, 1728, Vol. ii. p. 125). According to the researches wbidi
Van Sninden and lIoU have made in ArcMvcs. not onlj was Lippcrsbey, as
early as the 2d of Oduber, 160S, iu possession of a telescope made by him-
self, bnt the French Ambaifsador at the Hague, President Jeannin, wrote, on
the 2Slh of Dcieinber of the tame year, to Sully, "tbat he was iu treaty
with the Middleburg spectacle-maker for a telescope which he wished to send
to the king" (Ilenry IV.) Simon iTarius (Mayer of Gunzeubauaen, one o f
the two independent discoverers of Jupiter'^s satellltea) even relates tbat his
friend Fuchs of BJmbacb, Privy CoancLllor of the Margrave of Ansbach, whs
offered a telescope for sale in the aulumu of lOOS st Frank rurt-ou-Maine,
by a Belgian. Telescopes were made in Iiondon tn Pcbruary 1610, or a year
after Galileo bad completed his telescope (Bigsud on Harrtot's Papers, 1B33,
p, 23, 26, and 16). ITiey were at first called oylinders. Porta, the inventor
of the camera obscura, as well as, at earlier periods, Fracastoro the eotempo-
rarj of Culumbua, Copernicus, and Cardanna, had merely spoken of the pos-
sibihly " of sedug every thing larger and nearer" by lookiug through coovet
and concave glasses placed on each other (duo speeiUa ocularis alterum alteri
superpoeita) ; but we cannot ascribe to them (he invention of the telescope
(Tiraboschi, Storia dclbi Letter, ital. T. li. p. 46? ; Wilde, Gesch. der Optik,
Th. i. S. 121). Spectacles had been known in Haarlem since the bi^nniug
of the 14tb cenlury ; and an epitaph in the Church of Marin Slaggiore at
Florence names as the inventor (invenlore degli oochiali) Snlvino degli Arraati,
decesaed in 131T. Scpamle and apparently authentic notices of the

I

•pwticlcs by aged petsoni occur even u earlr ns 1299 sad 1305. The paa-
I of Roger ItacoD relate to the magiii^nDg power of Bphencal segmciiU
of glua. See Wilde, Geuh. der Optik, Th. 1. S. US— SSj mi abave, cole
SS4.

C") p. 31S. — In like manner, the above named physieian and matliemati-
eian of the MarfpDVate of Ansbach, Simon Mariua, ai eart; tta 1608, after
reociiing a dE^criplion ot tLe aclian of a Dutcli telescope, is believed to bave
conBtrncted one himself. On Galileo's earliest obaervation of the moun-
liius in the mouu, referred to in the text, compare Nelli Vila di Galilei, Vol.
i. p. 200— 20e 1 Galilei Opere, 1744, T. ii. p. AO, 403, and (Lettera al Padre
CrUtoCirD Grienber]^, ia Uaterin delle jMontnoaiti della Luna) p. 409 — 124.
Galileo found in the moon some ciriialar districts, Eorrounded ou ereiy tide
by mountains, like the fonn of Bohemia. " Eimdem facit wpectnm luna
locna quidnm, ac faeeret in ten-is regio consimilis BoemiEC, si monlibui
altissimis, inque peripheriam pcrfecti circuli dispoditis occluderetur uadique"
(T. ii. p. S). The mcojarcmenta of the altitadea of the mountaiaa were made
by the method of Che taogeut of (he solar ray. Galileo, as Hels'etios still
later, me&iured the distauce of the summit of the mount^us from the boundary
of the illnmiaatcii portion, at the moment when the mountain summit tint
ctnght the solar ray. I find no observation of the lengths of the shadows of
the mountaina. He found Iho summits " inoiroi miglia quuttro" in height,
ind "mueh higher than our terrestrial monntaina." The comparison i>
carious, because, according to Biccioli, veiy exaggerated ideas of the height
of our mountains then prevailed ; aud one of the principal or moat celebrated
amongst them, the Peak of Tencrifle, was first measured with some di^rec of
exactness, trigonumetricall}', by Feuillee, in 17:^4. Galileo, Lice all other
observers up to the end of the 18th century, believed in the etiatence of many
seat in the moon, and of a lunar stmusphcre.

(*^) p. 316.— I again find occasion (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 434 ; EngL tiaua.
Vol. i. note 15Q) to recal here the propoaitiou laid down bj Arago. " U a'j •
qa'uue maniere ratioaelle et juste d'ecrire I'histoire des sciences, o'est de
s'appuyer exdusivemcut eur des pubhcations ayant date certune; hora de la,
lout est confusion et obscurite." The siugiilarly delayed pnblicalioD of the
Fraakischen luilender'a oder der Practica (161S), and of the aatruiiomicjilly
important memoir entitled " Muiidua Jovillls anno 1609 delectus ope per-
spicilli Belgici (Feb. iril4)," may iudeeil have given occasiDn to the suspicion
that Marius liad derived inforniation front the Nimoiaa Siderwu of Galileo,
^dedication of which baara dftte in Match IBIO, or even from earlier com-

NOTES. CXT

19 by letter, Galileo, eicited by Ihe not forgotteu law-auit against
Bttlthasar Bapra, calls Ilim a pupil of the Mariua, " usurpatore del Sistema di
GioFc"; Galileo even repruachea the heretical proteBtantflstrononiEr of Gunzen.
haiisen with fonndmg tlie apparently eatlier date of hiE obaervatiun on a con-
fiuiou between the calendars. " Tace il Mario di far csuto il lettore, come
essendo egli separate della chieaa nostra, ne avendo accetlato I'emendaliono
gregorlaoa, il gioruo 7 <Il Geuoiua del 16W di noi csltollci (Ihedaf on which
Galileo discovered the Balellites) e riatesao, cho il dl 28 di Decembre del 1B09
di loco cretiei, e qacsta k tutla la precedenza delle ane dute 099crvationi"
(Venturi, Memorie e Lettere di G. Galilei, 1818, P.i. p. 279; and Dclambre,
Hist, dc I'Astr. mod. T. i. p. 696). According to a letter which Galileu
wroie, in 1614, to the Aeademia di IJncei, be, somewhat nnpbihiaopbically,
thought of addieesiag Us complaint agunst Mariua to the Marcbeac di Bran-
deborgo. On the whole, howeTer, Galileo continued well diapoaed towards
the German aatronomers. He writes, in March Iflll, " Gli in|fegni aiugo-
kri, chc in gran numero fioriscono nell' Alemagna, mi hanno lungo tempo
tonuto in desiderio di vederLi" (Opere, T. ii. p. 4i). It baa always appeared
to me reniarkabk, that if, in a conversation with Marins, Kepler was playfully
eilsd aa a sponsor for the bestowal of the mythulngical denominations of lo
and Caliisto, there should not occur any mention of his countryman, either in
the Commentary to the Nnnciua Siderens, nuper ad mortalca a Galilan missus,
published in Prague, in April 1610, or in his letters to Galileo or to the
£mperor Rudolph in the automu of the same year ; instead of which, Kepler
every where speaks of "the glorious discovery of the Medioean stars hy
Galileo." In puhlishiug his own observations of the satellites, made from the
ith to the Blh of September, IfllO, be gives to a little memoir which appeared
Bt Frankfort io 1611 , the title, " Kepleri flarratio de Obsenatis a se qualnor
Jovia Satellitibus errouibos quos Galiliens Mathematicus Florentiuus jure in-
vendonls Medicea Sidera nc.aeupaWt. "A letter addressed to Galileo frmn
Prague, Oct. 25, 1610, coiieludea with the words "neminem babes, qnem
metnss xmulun." Compare Venturi, P. i. p. 100, 117, 139, lU, and 149.
BaroQ von Kach, misled by a mistake, and after a by no meana carefid exami-
nation of the valuable niauuseri[its preserved at Petwortb, the sent of Lord
Egrenmnt, slated that the distinguished utronomer and Virginian trvnllcr,
Thomas Harriot, had discovered the aalelliles of Jupiter at the same time aa
Galileo, and even earlier. A miire close eiamioatiou of Harriot's manuK-rijits,
by Rigaud, has shewn that they began, not on the 16th of January, but only
OS the 17th of October, 1610, nine months after Galileo and Mariui. ((^iin-

CXVl S0TE9.

pirt Zaeh, Coir. Astron. Vol. vii. p. 105; Rignud, Actouul of IlBrriot'i
Aalron, P«peri, Oiforf, 1838. p. 87i Brewjter, Martyrs of Science, 1848,
p. 33. The earliisit obaervations of Japiter't aotelUtes hjr Galileo and Jus
pupil Renieri, were only disf avered two years sgo.

(*•) p. 317.— Ilounht lo be 78 years ; fut the proliihition of Ihe Copemi-
ean sjglctn by the CuDgregation of the Indei Has gitea dd the 5th of
March, IGIS.

(*«) p. 817— FreiherT von Breitwhwert, Kcppler's Lehen, S. 38.

{") p. 817.— Su- John Hcrechel, Aatron, S. 485.

(™) p. 318.— Galilei, Opt«. T. ii. (Longitadiue per via de' Pianeti
Medicei), p. 435— 506; Nelli, Vita, Vol, B, p. 856-888; Ventnri. Memorie
e letteredi G. Galilei, P. 1. p. 177. As early as 1D12, or scareely two yesrs
afler the dispovery of Jupiter's satellites, Gulileo boasted, soinewhat prema-
turely, of bairiog completed tables of those sateHilas In soch a degrte of
exsclDesB, that the phGnoini?na could be computed by tbem to 1' of time. A
long diplomatic eorrespoadence, nhich did not lead to the desired object, was
commenced with the Spanish ambagsadorin IGIO, aad with the Dutch unbas-
sador in 1636. The telescopes were to magnily 40 to 50 times. In ordd
to find the satellites more easily when the ship is in motion, and (as he
imagined) to keep them in the Geld, he invented, in 1617 (Nelli, Vol. ii.
p. GG3J, the binocular telescope, which has usually been atlribnted to the
Capncine moak, Schyrleua dc Hheita, who had niDcb eiperieneo iu optical
matters, and was cecliing to find the means of constructing telescopes magni-
fying 4000 tiaiea. Galileo made eipeiimcnts with his biuocular {it xhieh he
also gave the name of eelatone or testiers) in the harbour of Lcghoro, doriug
a strong wind and much motion of the ship. He also hud a contrivance pre-
pared iu the arsenal at Pisa, for protecting the observer of the satelliles from
the molLoD of the ship, by seating him in a kind of host, nitich was to deal
iu another boat filled with water or with oil (LettemalFiecbenade 2S Mario,
1617; Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. p. 184; Galilei, OFre, T. ii. p. 473; Letlera a
Loreiuo Itealio del 5 Giugno, 1S37}. The proob whicJt Galileo assigns of the
advantages for the naval service of bis method over Mnrin'a method of lonar
distances, are very remarkable. (Opera, T. ii. p. 451)

(«) p. 319.— Arago, in the Auntiaire for 1843, pp. 460—476 (Decouvortea
des taehes Solaircs el dc la Rotation du SoleiJ), and Brewsler (Martyn of
Science, pp. 88 and 30) place the first observation of Galileo in October or
November 1810. Compare Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. pp.324— 884 ; (ralilei, Open,
T. i. p. lii. T. ii. pp. 85—200, T. iv. p. 53. On Hairiofi observations, see

N0TE9. CXVU

Rigaud, pp. 32 SD<! 38. The Jesuit Schaaer, nho was BnmmoDed from Grali
to Rome, has been bccuwkI of seeking to revenge hitoseir of Gelileo on acoooat
of the literary contest resppcting the discovery of the solar spots, by getting it
whispered, throi^h another Jesuit, Grasai, to Pope Urhan Vlll. that he (the
Fope) was the person represented by the foolish and ignorant Simplicios in the
Dialoghi dcllB Scienje Nuove (Nelli, VoL ii. p. 615),

("°) p. 320.— Delambre, Hist, de rAatronomie modeme,T. i. p. 690.

n p. 320.— In Galileo's Letters to the PrincipeCeai (May 25, 1612) the
same opinion is expressed ; Venturi, F. i. p. 172.

("^ p. 331. — See on this snbjeet Boms ingenions and interesting conside-
rations by Arago, in Ihe Annuaire pour I'An 18*2, pp. 181 — 188. (Theei-
periments nith Drummoud's light projected on the sou's disk are mentioned
hj Sir John Hcrsche! in bis Astronoray, S. 331.)

(■""jp. 321. — Giordano Brano nnd Nie. von Cosa verf^lichen, von
J. Clemens, 1847, S. 101. On the phases of Venus, see Galileo, Opere, T. ii.
p. 53, and Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. pp. 213—215.

(*") p. 322.- Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 160 and -116 ; Eng. translation.
Vol. i. p. 141, Note 120.

{*") p. 323. — Laplace anya of Kepler's theory of the measurement of casks
[Stereometria dolionun, 1615, wliich, iit^e Archimedes, containa the develop-
ment of elevated ideas in reference to an insignificant subject) :— Kepler
presente dans cet oavrage des vnes snr I'infini qui ont inHoe sur la retolntion
que Is geometric a eprouv^ a, la Gn dn 17" siikle; et Fermat, qne Ton doit
regarder comme le veritable inventeur du calcul dilffrentiel, a fond£ snr elles
sa beile mcthode de aaxiaiia ei miaimii (Precis de I'hist. de I'Aatronomie,
1821, p. 95), On the geometrical acuteness manifested by Kepler in the five
books of his Harmonices Mundi, aeo Chaalea, Aper9ii hiat. des Methodes en
Geometrifl. 1837, pp. 482 — 187.

(*») p. 823,— Sir David Brewster says well in Ibn aocainnt of Kepler's
method of investigating truth: — "The influence of imagination as an inslru-
ment of research has been mnch overlooked by those who have ventnred to
give laws to philosophy. This faculty is of greatest value in pbysieal inquiries ^
if we use it se a guide, and confide in its tndicationa, it will iofallibty deceive
ua : but if we employ it as an auriliary, it will afford us the most invaluable
aid" (Martyrs of BriEnce, p. 215).

(W) p. 321.— Arago, in the Annnairc, 1312, p. 431 (De la transformation
des jH^buleosea et de la mati^rc diffuse en eloiles). Compare Kosmos, Bd. i.
S. 148 ud 15S CEJiglieh traaalatiDii, Vol. L pp. 132 and 142).

LVU 1

rail

J

cxvm

NOTBS.

(**) p. 334, — Coinjiara the ideas of Sir JoliQ Hcrscliel on llie poailion of
our plnnetwy ayatem, Kosnios, Bd. i. S. 157 and 416 -. and Stnive, Eliidca
d'Astroaomifl StellBire, 1847, P- *•

("•) p. 324. — Apclt BBjB (Epochen tier Gesdiichte de MenacUieit, Bd. i.
1843, S. 233) : ■' Tlic remarkahlo Un- of llic distanca, which nBoally passes
lUidcr the name of Boat's law (or that of TitioB), was a discoverj of Kqiler'a,
who, aftar mnuy years of persevering industry, first deduced it bjf calcnlation
frem the observations of TjEbo de flcahe," See Harmonices Mnndi, lihri
quinqoe, eap. 3. Compare also Cuumot, Additions to a TronslatioD of Sir
John Heraeiiel, Trailc d'Aatronomie, 1834, S. 434, p. 324, and Fcie^ Vorie-
sungen liber die Sternlnuide, 1813, S. 326 (Law of the dislBDcea in the
secondary planets or aatellitesj. The paseagea Erooi Plato, Pliny, CensoriuaE,
and Achilles Tstias, in the Prolegomena to the Aratus, are carefnlly collected
in Fries, Gescbichte der Philoscpbie, Bd. i. 1837, S. 116—150 ; in Martin,
Etudea anr le Timee, T. ii. p. 38 ; and in Brandia, Gesobichte der GiiechiMh-
Bomiacbeu Philoaopbie, Tb, ii. Abth. i, 1844, S, 364.

(*^ p. 835.^Delambre, Hist, de I'Astronomie modcme, T. i, p. 360.

O p. 825.— Arago, in the Anunaire for 1843, pp. 560—564 (Komos,
Bd. i. S. 103 ; English tranalation, Vol. i. p. S8).

(SO) p. 326.— Compere Koamos, Bd. i. S. 142—148, and 412 (English
tranalation. Vol. i. p. 127—133, Notes, 91—93.)

(*") p. 327. — Anmiaire du Bureau dea Longitndea ponr I'an 1842.
p. 313 — 353 (Etoiles changeantes on periodiqnes). In tho serenleeulh
century there were recognised as variable stars, beaides Mira Ceti (Holwuda.
1638) and a Hydra (Montanari, 1673), fiPersci or Algol, and x Cygni (Riidi,
1886). On what Galileo calls ncbalffi, sec his Opere, T. ii. p. 15, and Nelli,
Yita, Vol. ii. p. 308. Huygens, in. the Sistema Satn-ninnln, pcouta in the
clearest manner to the nebula in the sn'ord of Orion, in saying of nebnliE
generally : — " Cui certe similn alind nnsquam apud reliqnas Eras potni animad-
vartere. Nam cetcrcc aebutosic ohm eiistimalic atque ipsa lia ladea, pcrepi-
cillia inspects, nullas nebulas habere comperiuntor neque aliud eaeo ^nam
plurinm atellamm congeries et Irequcntia." This passage shena thai
Huygens (as previously Galileo) had not attentively conaideicd the nebnU in
Andromeda which Maniia had first descrilied.

("") p. 339. — On the important law, discovered by Brewster, of the con-
nection betneen the angle of complete polarisation and the re&activc power
of bodies, sec Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the year
181S.PP. 125— 159.

XOtES.

(™j p. 32fl,— See Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 35 and 48 ; Euglish traiiElutiou,
Vol. i. p. 37, Nole Ifl.

C") p. 329.— Sir Dnvid Brensler, in Bfsrghoua and JoliiiBQn'a Pbyaicftl
Atlas, 1847, Part vii. p. 5 (Polarisation of the Atmosphere).

{""i p. 329. — On Griinaldi's and Hoolre's nlteiupt to explain tlie pului-
sation (?) of eoap-bubbles by the iuterfercuce of the mj9 of li^ht, aee Arago,
intbe AnnuairefDrl831, p. 164 (Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 53).

(W6) p. 830.— Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 1?. The jear
16flO bas been eBBnmed for the date of tbe ijivention of tbe mctbod of flimons,
nhicb, aeeording to tbe official eiplanations of tbe Committee of tbe Boyal
SoeietyofLondoD, April 24, 1712, is " one and the same witk the diiTeren-
tial method, eicepting tbe name and mode of notation." For tbe whole
unhappy contest wili Leihnili on the snhject of priority, in wbieb, eilra-
ordinary to aay, accusations a^intt Neuloii's veracity were even interspersed,
see Brewster, pp. 189—218. That all colours are contained in white ligbt
naa already maintained by Be la Cbambre, in his worli entitled "La Lumiire"
(Paris, lfio7), and by Isaac VoBsius, who was afterwards aCanon atWindwir,
in a remarkable memoir, entitled " De Lucia nature et proprietate" (.tmatebjd.
1602), for tbe communication of which I waa indebted two years ago to M.
ArBg;o, at Paris. This memoir is treated of by Brandes in the new edition of
Gcbler'a physikaliscben Wdrtcrbucb, Bd. iv. (1827), S. 43. and wiy circum-
Btantiallv by Wflde, in bis Geaeb. d'er Opfik, Th. i. (1838), S. 228, 228, and
3171. Isaao Vossins, however, regarded Bnlphor, which forms, according to
him, a component [lart of all bodies, as the fundamental substance of all
colom-s (cap. 25, p. 60). In Vossii BespoDsum ad ohjccta Job. de Bruyn,
Professoris TrBJcclini, et Petri Peliti, 1963, it is said, p. GO— Nee Imnen
nltiim eat absque culore, nee calor ullu£ absque lumine. Lux, sonus, anima (!)
odor, Tis magnelicB, quamvis iDCDrporea, sunt tamei
cap. 13, p- 29).

('<») p. 331.— Kosraoa, Bd. i. S. 137 and 429, 1
Engl trans. Vol. i. Notes 141 and 144, VoL ii. Note 432.

("") p. 331. — Lord Bucdq, wbiae comprehensive and, geneially speaking,
free and methodical views were nnforlnnately aceompouieii by very limited
mathematicnt and physical knowledge, even for tbe period at which he lived,
therefore did Gilbert the greater injuslice, " Bacon showed his inferior
aptitude for physical research in rejecting the Coperoican doctrine which
William Gilbert adopted (Wbewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
Vol. ii. p. S78.)

iguid (De Lucis Mat,

S. 482, Anm. S

CXX HOTES.

("') p, 331.— Konnos, Bi i. S. IBl luiil 435, Aidn. 31 and 32, Engl,
trana. Vol. i. p. ITS, KoUb ISl mi 162.

[*") R. S32. — The first oburvitiuns of the kind were made on the toner of tlu
Auguitine's Church, it Muitna (I BQO.) Griiaiklili and Gasaeudl were BcquBinud
with umilu instuicea, all in geogniibioil latitudca where the iDcliDntioa oF
the magoetic needle ia very coaBidurabte. Oa tbe enbject of the first meuun-
meals of Ibc mngnetic iDlflnsity hj the OKillstion of a needle, compare m;
RelMion Mat. T. L pp. 200— 2G4, iiid Kosmoe, Bd. i. S. 432—434 (Ed^.
tmnal. Vol. i. Note 159).

("^ p. 334.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S, 436—439, Aum. 36 (Engl, trans. Vol. L
Note ISO).

('») p. 834.— XosmoB, Bi i S. 189 (Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 171.)
C" iu) p. 335.— [J(/(ftfc*oBo( HOU hg the Editor.— Thf desire so eaniesllj
expressed bj tbR author in tbe text, pp. S34 and 336, thai " the laws of ter-
regtrial mBgDetism sboufd be tliDJ-DUghlj' sought ont by navid e>[ieditioD9,
nhieh shuuld examine, as nearly as passible at the some time the atat< g(
magnetisiu orer all the SL-eessible parts of the globe whieh are covered by the
oceaUi" that " such expeditions should be eouibined with land eurvcys." and
that " the year 1850 niigbt deserve to be inarlied as the first normal epoch in
wtiph the niateriala of a magnetic map of tbe world should be assembled,"
is much nearer its fulfilment than M. de Humboldt seems to have been
aware of when the second volume of Kosmos was published in Germanj
[October ISiT). The snlarrtic expedition of Sir James Clark Ross, referred
to in tbe text, has been followed by that of Lieub. Moore, R.N. aud Clerk.
Royal Artillery (1845), by which tbe magnetic survey of the aeecssilile por-
tions of the high latitudes of the southern bemispborG has been campleUd;
by the voyages of Lieats. Smith and Dayman, R.N. (1 844 and 1845J U'tweeB
tbe Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen lalandj of Lieut. Moore, R.N. (1816)
to Hudson's Bay; and by the land ex]>edition of Lieut. Lcfroy, Royil
Artillery (1843-44), by which the whole of British North America east of tl*
Kor^ky Mountains, ham the frontiers of tbe United States to the shores tt
Hudson's Bay and the Poiar ocean, has been magnetically surveyed. Th»«
were all special surveys, undertaken by tbe British Goverumcut expressly for
the magneticul purposes which they aocomplished ] and, with Che exception of
theobservationsiu Lieutenant Moore'svoyage to Hudson's Bay, which are poir
(February 1848) in process of reduction, their results have bei'n deduced and
pubUshed. In addition to special expeditions to parts ot the globa whirh ara
either remote or difficult of access, the British Govemmeot baa arailed itadf

N0TK9. CXXl

of Ihe BCTvices o[ Iler Majestj'a ships and vessels employed ia Hydrograpbical
Surveys, by directing that dctci'minatiaoa of the three M^etic dementa should
bo made by them at the scTeml ports and harhonra which they may visit, as
well as iif sea rffli'y, as ofteu as the weather perniits, in their passages from
port to port. Suuh <!elenninBtioua bare been eiecut«d, in whole or in part,
by the surveying eipcationsof Sic Edward Belcher {1837—^840, and 1843—
1947) to the north-west coast of Aioeriea, the islands of tlieFaeiJic.tmd the Indian
and Chinese seas; of Captain Sullivan 0838—1839) to the Falkland Islands ;
of Captain Allen (ISll— 1813) to the western coast of AWca; of Captain
Blaclcwood (1843— 1846) lo AuatraUa and Torres Strait; of Captain Bamett
(1843—18 ') to Bcrnmda and the West Indies; of Cflptain Kcllott
(1845 — 18 •) tu the Pacific; of the Arctic Eipedition nndec Sir John
Franfclin (1845—18 *) ; of Captun Stanley (1847—18 •) to Auatralia
and New Gninea : of Captiun Moore (1848— J8 *) to Kamptsohatl™ aod
Behring's Strait ; and of Captain Stotea (1848—18 •) (o New Zealand.
Tu these sbonid be added, as a special undertaking at Ibo eipeuse of the East
India Company, a magnetic survey of the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
by Lient. Elliot, of the Madras Engineers, commenced in 1840, and still in
progress. When it is remembered thai several of (ho above-named inrrcys
iuclnde pcriodji of three or fonr years, and in some instances not only deter-
minntiona at the several porta and harbonra which may have been visited, hut
also daily observations, weather permitting, of the three magnetic elements at
8ca in passages from port to port, the accamulalion of materials, and their
already eilanaivo distributiou over the surface of the globe, may in soma
degree be jodged of. These surveys, with eithers which may he cipeetcd to
be made under the present favourable disposition of Hec Miyesty's Govern-
ment towards scientifii: researches, aud, taken ia coDJaaction with eiteosive
magnetic surveys which are in progress on the continent of Europe (parlicit'
larly in the Anstrisn doininions), give a liill promise of the speedy realisation
of H. dc Humboldt's wish so earnestly expressed, that UiB materials of the
first general magnetic map of the globe should be assembled, and evea permit
the antieipation, that tho first norma! epoch of such a map will he but Utile
removed from the year 1850.]

(*") p. 835.^ — On the oldest thermometers, see Nelli, Vita o Comnwrdo
lillerario di Galilei [Losanna, 1793), Vol. i. p. 88— Bl ; Opcre di Galilei
(Padovo, 1744), T. i. p. Iv, ; Libri, lllstolre des Scicncea malbEmaliques en

■ When the conclodlni dateisnot filled up, the otHKrvaUoniareHill in prosreu.

TOL. n. /

<

CXXn NOTES.

Italie, T. iv. 1841, p. 185 — 197- Evidence respecting the first comparative
observations of temperatnre may be foond in the letters of Gianfirancesco
Sagredo and Benedetto Castelli, in 1&13, 1615. and 1633, in Yentnri, Me-
morie e Lettere inedite di Galiki, P. i. 1818, p. 20.

P^ p. 335. — Vincenzio Antinori, in the Saggi di Natorali Esperienze^
fiitte nell*a Academia del Cimentoj 1841, p. 30 — 44;

(*^ p. 835.— On the determination of the thennometric scale of the Aca-
^mia del Cimento, and on the meteorological observations c(mtinned for 16
years by lather Raineri, a pnpil of Gralileo, see Libri, in the Annales de
Chimie et de Physique, T. xlv. 1830, p. 354 ; and a more recent similar work
by Schoaiv, in his Tableau da Climat et de la Vegetation de Tltalie, 1839,
T. 99—106.

P^ p. 386.— Antinori. Saggi dell' Accad. del Cim. 1841, p. 114, and in
the Agginnte at the end of the book, p. Ixzvi.

(*'*; p. 337.— Antinori, p. 29.

(«») p. 387.— Ren. Cartesn Epistola (Amstel. 1682), P. iii. Ep. 67.

(*2») p. 337.— Bawm's Works, by Shaw, 1733, Vol. iii. p. 441 (see Kosmos,
Bd. I. S. 388 and 479, Anm. 68 ; Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 310, and note 388).

(**') p. 838. — Ho<*e'8 Posthumous Works, p. 364. (Compare my ReUt.
historique, T. 1. p. 199.) Hooke however, unhappily, like Galileo, assumed
a difierence in the velocity of rotation of the earth and of the atmosphere ;
see Posth. Works, p. 88 and 363.

(*^ p. 338. — Although Galileo also speaks of the remaining behind of the
particles of air as a cause of the Trade Winds, yet his view ought not
to be confounded with that of Hooke and Hadley as it has recently
beeu. Galileo, in the Dialogo quarto (Opere, T. iv. p. 311) makes Salviati
say : ** Dicevamo pur' ora che V aria, come corpo tenue, e fluido, e non salda-
mente congiunto alia terra, pareva, che non avesse necessita d' obbedire al suo
moto, se non in quanto V asprczza della superficie terrestre ne rapisce, e seco
porta una parte a se contigua, che di non molto iutervaDo sopravanza le mag-
giori altezze delle montagne ; la qual porzion d' aria tanto meno dovra esscr
renitente alia conversion terrestre, quanto che ella e ripiena di vapori, fami,
ed esalazioni, materie tutte participanti delle quality terrene : e per consc-
^ucnza atte nate per lor natura (?) ai medesimi movimenti. Ifa dove man-
cassero le cause del moto, croe dove la superficie del globo avesse grandi spazi
piani, e meno vi fusse delia mistione dei vapori terreni, quivi cesserebe in
parte la causa, per la qule Taria ambiente dovesse totalmente obbedrie al
rapimento della conversion terrestre ; si che in taliluoghi, mentre che la terrr

VOTKS. CXXlll

si »olge verso Orienfe, BidovreliheBentircontinuimenteunTOnlo, checi ferissc,
BpiraDdD <Ia Lernnte veno Pouente; e tde spiramento dovrebbe fcini piu gen-
Bibile, dove U vcrtigine dd globo fqsso pia velow : tl che sirebbo no i luoghi
pia remoti da i Poli, o virini al oerchio maasimo della diurns cooveraione.
L'esperlenzn app'sudc molto a qneato filosuSro diarorgo, puicbe ne gli smpi
man Bottoposti aUa ZoTta torrida, dove aaco 1' eveporaziotiL terrcBtri man-
cano (?) BL aento una pprpetua aura mnovcre da Oricnte "

C«) p, 338.— Brewster, in the Edinbnrgli Journal of Science, Vol. i!.
1825, p. US. Slurra has described the Differential Thermometer in a little
nork, entitled, CoUcgiam eiperimentale cnrloBum, (Narcmfaarg, IGTS,) p. 19.
On the Baeonian law of (he rolalidn of tbc wind, which Dove first eitended to
both zones, and reeogniacd in its intimate connectiau with the causes of aU aerial
cnrreuls, see the detailed treatiie of Munclie iu the new edition oC Gehler'a
Physikal. WDrterbncb, Bd. j. S. 2003—3019 and 2030—2035.

C^) p. 330.— Antinori, p. 45, and eren in (he Sa^, p. 17—19.

(™) p. 339. — Ventnri, Easiu but lea ouvwgei phjaieo-roalbematiqnea de
Wonard de Vind, 1797, p. S8.

^ p. 339.— Bibliotheqiie uniTerselle de GenSve, T. rmi. 1831, p. 120.,

(*») p. 340.— Gilbert de Magnele, lib. ii. enp. 2—4. p. 48-71. In in-
terprating the nomenclatnrc mnplojed he already aaid : " Electrica qotp attra-
Iiit eadem rations nt electrum, versorium non megneticrum ei qnovia metoUo,
inserviena elcctricis eiperimentis." In the tert itself we find it said^ "Mog-
nctic^ ut its dicsm, vel electricii attrabere (vim illam electricam nobia placet
nppcllaro . . . .) (p. 52) ; " effluvia elcctrien, attraction es elertricni." He
neither employed the abstract eipression etectrieiloi, nor the harharoua term
tuaffHtliimiu introduced in the 1 8tli century. On the derivation of q^iitTpoi',
the " attracter or drawBT, and the drawing or nttmctiag atone," from •*(«
and t\Kf If, etready indicated in the Timicua of Plato, p. SO c, and the proba-
ble tranBilion through a harder (Airpsi', sec Buttmann, Mytbolngus, Bd. ii.
(1820), S, 357. Among tlie IhcoreticaJ propoBilioas pat forward hj Gilbert
(which are not always eipreased with equal deameas), I «e!Bot tiie following :
" Cum duo Bint corpomm genera, qnin manifcBtis BeniihuB noetriB motionibuB
corpora allicere videntiu', Electrica et Magaettcai Eledriea nsturalibuB ab
bumorc eflluviis ; Magnetica funnalibus eSicieotiis B«a potius primariis vigo-

ribna, iucitaltoneB facinnt f'adle cat hominiboB iagenioacntiB, absque

operiminliB et dbu renim lubi, ot errare, Subttanlis proprietatea ant ttjaU
liarilalcB, sunt geiieroles nimis, nee lamen cerni designatic cauBie, atqne, ut
ita dicaoi, verbs nmeJbm miant, re igA nihil in Bpeoie ostendunt. Ncque

Tim- ^x TeivoB^ ^ :|0T.

lenEr ^zpiaBBziaiL li i ^eofnzKaon. die Tiwrrg ymiTHfitB 3ixi£essEcminii^ 'if

Kiion. ^icscii- ier 'TTifsmp. T!l iiL 5. 131 — 133. Comgacs atsa iR lae aame
wra% Ti. :. i. lid — Ii7- mil Ti dL i. 113 — I3J*, js ttoL is S. 173 —

®* 1- .^5. — pT^sdcTT i last <3nitmamr at rroc woii^ " ^La^rmdjs '•&
iegmed 'a 'isv^ siinnuciaced :□ ritmsBf. ^ mainn icseif beaid in his iiin^

'^ p. ^4«1. — ^ J'lim. H"t?r?rn«M, Diacoarse an 5ae Sisi^ or XaCRral Piii-
.cm^hj, p. Ili5.

"^ p. 34^. — ^HmnonuiiL E^aoi zeoencadqxK sir k Giaemiac te Bocke^
4imA leu <kxa Hftmi^iierea, 15i-5, p. 3S.

^*^^ p. ^7, — Scao & SoHda intn SoiiiiBi naLixn^cer coatento, 1669,
p 2, IT, ^, ^1, and §^ is. 20—25;..

"^ p. S47' — TentixrL Esaai snr ks Oomscs pfcyaco-^iMthrTnatrqiKS de
t///nfirii r}« Tjwri, 17^7, S. 5, No. 124.

^"'^"'j p. S47. — AqrMlno SdHa, La Tana Specalazioae diangannata dal
.*?*T,V/, Nap. 1^70, Tab. xii. fig. 1. Compare Jdh. Malkr, Bericht uber die

KOTES. CXXV

voa Herra Koch, in Alabama gesammeltea fossilen Knochenreste seines Hy-
drachus (the Basilosauru3 of Harlan, 1835 ; the Zeuglodon of Owen, 1839 ;
the Squalodon of Grateloup, 1840 j the Dorndon of Gibbes, 1845), read in
the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, April — June 1847. These valuable
fossil remains of an animal of the ancient world, which were collected in the
state of Alabama (in Washington County, not far from ClarksviUe), have be-
come by the munificence of our King, since 1847, the property of the
Zoological Museum at Berlin. Besides the remains found in Alabama and
South Carolina, parts of the Hydrachus have been found in Europe, at Leog-
nan near Bordeaux, not far from Linz on the Danube, and, in 1670, in
Malta.

(^) p. 348. — Martin Lister, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. vi.
1671, No. kxvi. p. 2283.

(^ p. 348. — See a luminous exposition of the earlier progress of palseou-
tological studies, in Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, 1837, Vol.
iii. p. 507—545.

(^) p. 349. — Leibnizen's geschichtliche Aufeiitze und Gedichte, heraus-
gegeben von Pertz, 1847 (in the gesammelten Werken : Greschichte, Bd.
iv.) On the first, Protogsea of 1691, and the subsequent revisions, see Tell-
kampf, Jahresbericht der Borgerschule zu Hannover, 1847, S. 1 — 32.

^ p. 350.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 172 (Engl, trans. VoL i. p. 155).

(**') p. 350. — Delambre, Hist, de I'Astronomie mod. T. ii. p. 601.

(8*2) p. 351.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 171 (Engl, trans. Vol. i. p. 154). The
contest respecting priority relative to the knowledge of the earth's compres-
sion, in reference to a memoir read by Huygens, in 1669, before the Paris
Academy, was first cleared up by Delambre, in his Hist, de TAstr. mod. T. i.
p. Iii. and T. ii. p. 558. Eicher's return to Europe took place indeed in 1673,
but his work was not printed until 1679 ; and as Huygens left Paris in
1682, he did not write the Additamentum to the Memoir of 1669, the publi-
cation of which was very late, until the period when he had already before
his eyes the results of Richer*s Pendulum Experiments, and of Newton's great
work, Philosophise Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

(W3) p. 351.— Bessel, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 1843, S. 32.

("*) p. 352.— Wilhelms von Humboldt, gesammelte Werke, Bd. i. S. 11.

{^) p. 358. — Schleiden, GrundzUge der wissenschaftlichen Botanik, Th. i.
1845, S. 152, Th. ii. S. 76; Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, Th. i. 1847, S.
91—100, and 505.

INDEX TO VOL, n.

Andf miB del Cimento, p. 335-

339. Seeramento.

a!eofTemiw,p, 13.

XbM, deKTiptiooi of nature

a the, p. 18, 19.

Africo, Ita tnppoted drcumn

vigatioa by Phcenid

n ships nnder Ncchos 11.

p. las, Note 183. Phosn

cian colonies on the n

orth-Hesl of, p. 139; Notes

ITS, in. Navigation of

Cupe of Good Hope, p. SM,

UR : Note 3BT.

Albertui Magnus, his garden

In the Doininiean Co

nvent at Cologne, Note 124 ;

his influence in advancing

nataral knonledge an

preparine the way for the

great oceanic discove

iea,p.2i6-aiajNote381.

A(«ander, influence of his e

peditions, conquests,

nd policy on Ihe history of

-16S.

nle, p. 173—177.

Algebra, llie idgebraiat Diopha

ntiis, p. IM. OftbeA

rabianaaadlndlans, p. MS

— 2SS; Notes 3S5-3S8.

Aniaca (Cardinal), Alliaciu, d

Pierre d'Ailly, his

mago Mundi, p. 2+9, 2S0!

Notea8§J.S86.

.atedhylhePhcEnician

BtotheCreeks, p. 126,127;

N'ole. 166, 167.

ence of the ancients t

D (he grandeur of their we-

Amber, the ancient trade in.

and the countries from whence It was obtained, p.

138, 1». 134; Note 171.

America, influence of its discovery, p. sa^M. Interv

al beliteen (he llr« and lest

■ten to thai discowry fro

o (he foundation of Ta

Leir,the»nDfErlctheRed,p.233— 21DiNote3ei. Semi-fabulous or doubtful
■ccoanta of earlier discoveries of North America (White Man'i Land, or
Virginia) by Iriifemen, p. S38, M7 ; Note S71 ; by Madoc, p. 238 ; Note 373.

CXXVm INDEX.

Contrast between tbe earlier seemingly accidental and comparatively frtdtless
discoveries of America by the Nortbmen, and its re-discovery by Columbus,
p. 240, 241. Gradual preparation of Columbus's discovery during preceding^
centuries, p. 242 et seq. : its coincidence with the epoch of other great and
influential occurrences and events, p. 298, 299: its important intellectual
and moral consequences, p. 299, 300. Epoch of the arrival of Manco Capac,
p. 298. Nonpastoral habits of the aboriginal races of America, Note 455.
Discussion of the accidental causes which led to the name of America, and
exculpation of Amerigo Vespucci from blame on that account, p. 299 ; Note 457.

Analytical calculus, its influence, p. 302, 352.

Anghiera (Peter Martyr), his letters on the great geographical discoveries then in
progress, p. 261, 262 ; Note 408.

Anglo-Saxon, extracts from an Anglo-Saxon poem. Note 55.

Antar, the Arabian poem of, p. 48 ; Note 73.

Anthology, the Greek, p. 13.

Arabians, their poetic literature in reference to nature, p. 48, 49 ; Notes 73—77.
Their influence on European cultivation, aud on the progress of natural
knowledge, p. 201 — 229 ; Notes, 313— 360. Astronomy, chemistry, and algebra
of the Arabians, see those heads respectively. Discussion of the probable ef-
fect on modem intellectual and artistic cultivation of the longer continuance
and wider extension of Arab sway, p. 228, 229. What may be termed the
" after action" of their influence in Europe favourable to science and natural
knowledge, p. 243, 244, 246, 259.

Archipelago (Grecian), with Asia Minor, the uniting link between Greece and
Eastern Asia, p. 137.

Argonauts, expedition of the, to Colchis, p. 140.

Arians, the East and West, (or Indians and Persians) their poetic literature in
reference to nature, p. 37 — 42.

Aristarchus of Samos, his views respecting the structure of the universe, p. 105,
175, 309.

Aristotle, passages quoted from, p. 14, 15, 150, 151, 160. Influence of, p. 156 et
seq., 173, 244, 246. His zoological writings, p. 157 ; Notes 235, 237, 239. Ara-
bic and Latin translations of, p. 218 ; Notes 338, 339.

Astronomy of the ancients, p. 105, 108, 308—310; Notes 467, 469, 473—476. Of the
Chaldeans, p. 162 ; Note 248. Of the Greeks and Greco-Egyptians, p. 163,
175, 176. Of the Arabians and Indians, p. 221—225, 289; Notes 350— 354.
Knowledge of the southern heavens gained in the epoch of the oceanic disco-
veries, 287—293 ; Notes 443 —450. Rapid advancement of astronomy in the
succeeding epoch,— Copernicus, T>'cho Brahe, the discovery of the telescope,
GalileO; Kepler, and Newton, p. 301—328.

(Nautical), p. 258, 259, 293—296 ; Note 454.

Atlantic first opened by the Phcenicians, p. 129, 130 : and to the Greeks by the pas-
sage of Colaeus of Samos, p. 146. Boundless prospect thus opened, and ten-
dency of successive nations towards the unknown west, p. 129, 130, 146, 147.
Early navigation of the Catalans to the west coast of Africa and discovery* of
the Azores, p. 258. Papal " line of demarcation" in the Atlantic, and its phy-
sical characteristics as assigned by Columbus, p. 279, 280; Note 431. Cur-
rents in the Atlantic, p. 286, 287 ; Note 441. Tracts covered with seaweed,
p. 287.

Atmosphere, invention of instruments for determining its temperature, pressure.

AoBOalus, poem oa the MoBellc, p. 31.

BUTOn IRoserl, p. 30, 3*3, 348, US; Notes 3B3— 3S4.

(Francis), p. 31S. Did not receive tte Copernican system,

Hiitoria nslunitts et eiperimcnlalis ile ventls, p. 337, 338.
Butrian empire, Hs influence, p. ISO.

Balhoa,liisflnitsiKhtof the Pacific Ocean or South Sea, p. S70; No
Baroiaet^r, ite invention; first used for determining liei^hta; it

a hypBOmelric and meteorological instrument, p. 33T.
Balil tbe Great ; beautiful description oflhe scenery Eurroundinn;

Behaim (Martin), directed to raake solar ta.b[ea, p. 259, 2!H.

Bembo (Cardinal), his Etna Dialogns, p. 31, S2. Hie Historlcic Venctx,

Botaoicgnrdcns, oflhe Romans, p. 19t. Orthe Arabsln apaln, p. aiB;

Of the Mexicans, p. 276 ; Note M9. First European, p. 83.

Early es

in India by Alfonso de Souse, p. M7.

Botany of the Arabions, p. aiB, 319.

Bradley's diKOveriea, p. 31S, 330.

Urahe, see Tjcho.

Bucolic poetry, see Idyl.

Buffon, descriptions of nature, p. M.

14. Pro

.382; N

Cieaalpinus, p. 3TT.

Calderon, liii poetry considered in referoiJce to descriptions o

CalUslhenes of Olynlhus, t disciple of Ariatolle. accompanied

41exBi.de

Camoens, his tiBtural detcrlptions in the Lusiid, and those of the varihua slate

of the ocean especially estolled, p. B7— B9 ; Notes 88— BS.
Cwnpaoi, his object-glasses with which Csseini discovered four of Ihe satellite:

Canal joinioE the Red Sea and the Nde, p. 1 70.

Canaries, discovery and eariy knonledge of the, p. 139—131; Notes 17j and ITfl,

Cardanus, his "physical prohlema," Note 409. Ejperimeots on the increase o

■teiKht in metals during oxidation, p. 343, 344.
Carthage, ill iiosition near the limitaof the Tyrrhenian and Syrlic basins, p. IIS

iDferlorlotlieGrecian colonies in iotellectual and artistic cultivation, p. 143
Caipian, its character as an Inland eeaflrslrecoe:ni9edl>yHerodatus,aDdnftenvardE

lost light of or denied until the lime at Ptolemy, p. 141, 191, 193 ; Note 300.
Caisini (Dominic), discovered four of the salellitea of Saturn, p, 335. Rccog-uisei:

Ibe true relations in space Of the lodlacnl lisht, p. 3:6.

/2

CXXr IKDEX.

CiMsiterides, discussion relative to the. Note 169.

Caacasos, p. 140 ; Note 198. Lang^iiages of the. Note 201.

Celtic poetry, p. 36, 37.

CHialdean astronomy, p. 162 ; Notes 247, 248.

Charts, historicaUy memorable. Planisphere of Sanuto, p. 256 ; N t 98. Fid-
gano's chart of 1367, showing^ the Azores, p^ 258. Toscanelli's Carta de Ma-
rear used by Columbus, p. 263, Note 410. Recently discovered charts of
Juan de la Cosa, Nbtes 411, 457. Variation chart of Alonso de Santa Cruz in
153a, p. 282.

Chateaubriand, hia descriptions of nature, p. 63, 66.

Chemistry, its progress under the Roman empire^ p. 193, 194 ; Note 238. Of the
Arabians and Indians, p. 219 — 221 ; Notes 345—347. Commencement of
pneumatic chemistry in the 17th century, p. 342 — 346 ; Note 530.

Chezy's translation of the Indian Meghaduta, p. 40.

Chilcbrey discovered the zodiacal light, p. 326.

Chinese parks and gardens, and extracts from Chinese writers on the subject, p.

96—99. A Chinese military expedition advances in the time of V^espasian to

the shores of the Caspian, p. 185. Roman ambassadors sent to the Chinese
court, p. 186. Early knowledge of the compass, p. 190, 256, 257 : and of the
magnetic declination, p. 280.

Chivalrous poetry of the middle ages in reference to nature, p. 34, 35.

Christians, descriptions of natural scenery by the early Gree';, p. 26, 29.

Christianity, its influence gave a new impulse to the love of nature, p. 24, 25, 25.
Productive of the recognition and feeling of the unity of mankind, p. 199, 200.

Chrysostom, eloquent admiration of nature, p. 29.

Cicero, his praises of Aristotle, and fine passage of that writer preserved by him,
p. (4, 15 ; Notes 20, 21. His love of nature and descriptions of natural
scenery, p. 17, 18. Criticism on Lucretius, Note 23.

Cimento (Academia del). Systematic thermometric observations, p. 335. Inves-
tigated the action of radiant heat, p. 336. Made the first hygrometers, p. 338, 339.

Civilisation, influenced by climate, vicinity of the sea, configuration of coasts,
large rivers, geological features, and other ge' graphical relations, p. 115, 116,
120, 121. Peculiar character of that of Eg)T)t, p. 123, 124.

Climate, influence of difl'erent climates on the appreciation and poetic description
of natural scenery, p. 31, 37, 38, 41, 48. On civilisation, p. 115, 116. On
astronomy, p. 221, 222.

COlaeus of Samos, hi& navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules, p. 107, 146—148.

Colchis, p. 140, 141 ; Notes 199—201. See Argonauts.

Colonna (Vittoria), quotation from, p. 51 ; Note 82.

Columbus, descriptions of scenery, p. 53, 54 — 56. His attention to all natural
phenomena and frequent remarkably correct untaught apprehension of their
true characters, p. 55, 265 ; Notes 412, 436, 4o8. His visit to Iceland, p. 240 ;
Note 374. His discovery of America, p. 240 — 300. His constant persuasion that
the lands discovered by him were a part of Asia, p. 241, 2C6, 267; Notes 375,
415. Question respecting his knowledge of the travels of Marco Polo, p. 254,
255. Influence of Toscanelli and his chart on Columbus, p. 263, Note 410, and
that of Pinzon in inducing the alteration in his course which brought him to
Guanahani instead of to more northern latitudes, with the vastness of the
consequences which have flowed therefrom, p. 263, 264. His belief respectini^
the relative distances from Spain to China by the eai;t and by the west, aui

CXSXJ II

Iti influence upon hiJvifwa t

).ae9,aTOjNote«i,

, Letter

fromrolnmhuidfEcribLnf It

In the AI1>n«c Ocean, them

rtof 0

and tba

he isotherm

lUUnes, p.l7B,ajO.

Impor-

Uncealtachal bybimto thin

region

.,ruja.orll,

ne, on which the" papal lin.

of deroarestinn" w.. fopnded.

),280. Col,

imhua was the first d

of Jlinewithont magnetic vi

iriatio!

a, and proponer of the method

mlninf lonjciCude rroin the mi

igneti<

; variation.!

p. 380, 381. Obaervei

mpiiaed the eqnatoriBl ocear

rent, p. m

Experienced the effect of the

Gulf Btream, p. 28«. Obsen

fed til

e Mar de a

iargBBaoorGntfweei

i, p. m;.

ceof I

nteriA-ise

(Ormed the fiisl link, p. 2S9.

Commerce, of the Pbieniciiuis, p.

128,15

Ift.lSlMMi

sraelilei.

p.]33,IS4. Under the SeleuddB an

dlhePtolemiee.p. 167— ifls. of

hian., p. 204, 20S.

the Cliineee

■, whila the Romana

and the

Oreeka were ignorant of itn u

l90,3S6,i57

, Known in Euroiie

in or be-

f*ire the laih century, P. 836

'vifaH,

Notes 3W,

ra, p. M8.

strncted before 1B»5, Note 433

ConqulBIa, period of the; miiedc

er itad oioti'

a;a,2»8.

Copernicus, the true order of the

ed by him about the

1 time of

thedealli orCoIambua, p. 39!

The work

embodying it conipli

pnblKhed only a abort lime

before

hie own dec

esse, p. 3UI. Firmr

laawith

which he bellered.and confidence and Independence with nhicb he anuoonced,
Ibe reality of his view of the univcrac, and the contrary assertion discoased and
rejected, SOS— 307. His knnwledse of the opinions otthe ancienla respectinj
the rtmctorc of the universe, p. S09, 310. Ilia family and couiiiry, Note tSI.

CosmoB, science of the, and its history distinguished from separate scieucea or
branclKS of science and their history, p. iDi.lDa.

CrosB, (he conalellation of Ihe SouLbern, flrel receiveil its name ia the leth cen-
tury; prerions notice iu Dante's celebrated lines, p.3»l,iaa. When lisilile
tnourlatitodea, p. 1!9$.

Crui— Alonio de Santa, consimcted the first General chart of the lariatlone of
the compass, p. »SS ; Note 433.

Cuss (Cardinal Nicolai

andof tiie Emperor I

Danle, p. M, si j Notea 78—81. On the conalell
p.lWtN0Ie3. Diacu»aionreapecIinghia"qu
Darwhi {Charles), p. TO ; Note IDS.
Delille, bla style of veraifled deacri;)Ilon diiapproTei
Diamaenetlam, p. Sal.
Biatbermiam, p. 330.
Didactlepoelry, p. n, ai.
Di=p'ianHlB,p. ISi; Note 28*.

II. Nole'asi! J

(Unukr. !>.>«- Otmaate*rehmtatf,p.iai,1l)T

m^ittiimnrj, p. Ill, HMM; N«to MS. Pfculiu
a-rffciirtifi— . ».t«^t»*- Cnatummd Tirtoriea of Rmaa
^^■•■B. K KW n^ BpTl»««— lifJM.f- 1»«. tudaOKx of Uk adniit-
MB •* aiA kacA >iii|i a« GrA iimmiiii is Unm ESTpt. p- WJ.
JjM^tn If fci fWgrajfcm pwiiliw «ir «— anr^ p. 16T. IW.

■ MB.nfcMliMll Ifcl 1*1 *■> rfMujBiB. IIWIllllI lllfcllillllT

pMn ^at ^*c. Hd khkM bono nsned (o hi

IB of Uw ■DBIbeni pu t Df SnrDpr,

file «r flw Jcoub, Note 4S.

nicc< Avnisbed by A1exaader*£
■iBdj of lanjiutcn not (blloind b; tbe

! 13. Of Ciib(£rOD, and of lOB-

ftom obaemHoc, coniaicnnd bf Ptolem;, p. IS],
l«. Pnmwd b» ■ -

Eitk,tlieludK>p»pun<iiigsaf Hubenaad John Van Byck,p. TS, 79.

ulJohsi. bit aiKtnm of tbe coliripot!, p. 119,330.
Fibhdiu (DiTidl, lalbcr of John, obsened tbe virying- brigfatntn of > stir in

Cnoi. p. 3K, STT.
Fanday, diamagnttiuD, p. 333.

Fennal rraanied a» Ihe inrmlor of tbs initoilssiniBl cnlcninf, p, 323 i Note 195.
Tiiu, FiCBiib laagi, imAarecaitij-ilifnovetitHntirat Fianisb^ncporm, [>. «3, I3.
Finlmi'i ifhahnameli, p. <l . QuotalJaD from. Note 123.
Fiiruer (George), bi> d«cripIlaos of the Iglands of Ihe Pacific, p. 63, TO, 71. Tlicic

inflnence on tb; antbor, p. 9.
Fortunate IitandB, of ihe Grs eka, p. ISO.
Frederic, Emperor Frederic 11, bis tove of knowledge and his letter to the Itni-

T«ai If of Bologna, Note 338. HlBBdnacesin aatanil biflory, aad Cnvicr't

lirai e of him, Nnle 3Bi .
Frevllg, remwlui on Arabian poetry, p. 48.

iXxxiS ^^

adikD,hisflri

It telescope, p.

315,316. He»iir« tbe height

ofmon

Moon, p. 3

DiscoTCry of ihesuelliteaDr Jnplter, ]

pD>a tod

ions, p

i«eiirii'9rinK,T).ai8,319. Solar

Phii«)orVenu.,p.3il.

Hie Just view* of Blmospberic ]

totheconi

iructioQ of Ibe

barometer, p. 337. Hia .lew ■

Dftbe

GuTiHiE, iiolai

i Note Si*. Gardeng of Semi

IM. Chir

ie«e gardens, p

. 96-B9; Notes 134—139. Gan

iens in

tslic edificn, p. 99( Note I4D

GBrdenofAlb

■eilue Mspiw «t Cologne, No.e

G«,flr.tei«pl

oymenlofthet

*nn, »nd early views, observa

.lions, .

&e. in resptet lo gsacs, p.

.343—346.

cuBsion OD mjtliical, p. 130, IMi, l+l, l*fi( No

leisi,!

Arsbiaoa c

ind uttaer Aeii

tie nations, p. 517, aiB; Nolef

I, 331,

Of tbe-
Rapid ndVBnCB of Eeopuphieal knowledge

Geology, early geological inqniries, p. MS— 3C1. Comnienren

Germans of the middle. agex, tbelr descriptionii of nitural sc

Notes sa— SS. Writers of tbe last century, iUiil, p. 66, 67.
Gilbert (William', terrestrial maKnelism and eleelricity, p. 3

riei and sources from wtience it vaa obtained by the ancients,
141, 149.

r charm of Grecian scenery, p. 10, tse. Tbe deeply-indented
hicb contributes to that chatmj favourable lo early navigation and
with strangers, p. 138.
Greeks, the aacient, their descriptians of natural EcenesaDd objects, p. 6— IS;

scape painting of (lie Greeks, p. 79, 76; Nulea IDT, IDS. General notice
of the character and inflaence of Ibe Greeks in eilending the physical know-
ledge of the Universe previous to Hie expedilions of Alelandcr, p. 137—148.
Chancier of the different races of wbli^h the anclenl Greeks were composed,
and lis influence, p. 138. Greek hired soldiers in other countries, p. \iS, 138.
Greek colonics, p. 139, 140, 143—149. laQnence of the restoration of the
knonledge of Greek literature In tlie middle ages, p. 211— JiS.

AdventuroDs voyages from thence to Ibe North, to Barrow's straits, Id tbe
east coast of Greenland, and to thecoaat of America, p. U4, Zia ; Notes 367,
3£8, Prohibition of commercial intercourse with Iceland, and gradual decay.
of the selllemenlB, 13a, 340 ; Note 369.

Gregory of Naiianzum, N'otes 46— tB.

Gregory of Nysts on theconleniplation of nalnre, p. 38,11).

Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm), account of the poetic literature of the Gi
themiddleages, p. 33— 36; Notes S9, SB, 39. On FInniih poetry, p.
Groniiiiig, Inltnecce of the well-cvntrasted sroaping of exotic iriants, p. S2— M.

I

GodruD, mn old Gcnuan |

Gunike {OtiD von), Ihe

electric rtpuLi

HbAe, tfae PpriiiFLpael, p. 42.

Hilley, bis theory or (erreslrial maicnellam, i

UIiJdM Tiewi of trade-windi and diddso
HunUton (Tcnick), notei to hia trariBlition i
H«t, iovotiKaliona an railiunt, p. 336.
HfltrtwpoetryofilicScripturet, 0. «— 48;
Hdlu, Hellcntr, &C. See Or«ece, Greek, &c
Uelmonl (Van) fini nied the term " gM," ht
Herodatui regard! Scytbiau Asa aa part of I

Herecbel (Sir John), iDd.

BcHod, hia " Worka and

Hlpparcliai, p. 179, 17G.
Klelory of the pbyiiea

len briicbletilnj; of ij Arglit. |
•covered two of the satellite
I>iyB,"p. 8; Note;. Uial

. MelbodHCcorilingtowl

513. Geological vii
Hot-bonan, remarks on
It (Alexander

iNolealO, II.

oryof light, and of Uie obaervaliw
. View of tlie trade-ninda, p. Z3i

is other workB;~ABie Centiale,
NuleaOf; EiBmenCritiqDe,NoIe!4l9, 07; Prolegomena, Note I4iti Mytbic
Geography of tbe Greeka, Note is*; Relation Hiatorique du Voyage in i
R^oni equinoiialea, Note 373.

(Wlltaelm von) comparea the poem of Lncretina «ltb an Indian poem,

p, 10. On tbe connection between poetry, ecienf«, phrloaopby, aod hialory.
Note 33. Dlacusaion on Ibe ditff^renl and leu fivonrable resulli in recard to
inlellectoil cuUivation whicb xould bave been likely to follow if Canbagehad

Rygromete
HykBoi, p.

Hyperbocei

larisation of light, p. 9
prosteBtiye ini|

mythuioflhe,

im America or from tbeFeroe ii
if Idyllic poetry, p. 1!.

Ecovery of North America, and tettle-
md, p. 233-13S. DlicuHion of Iha
ettteil, or at letat visited, by Iriabmen
, p. S37. Vlall of Co]uialHu,p.M)i

ii*uipoeticIller«tiireinMferencelonBture, p. 31,37—13; NoteaSS— 6a. Indian
iHeofpo«itionindetcrininin]i(lieviln8ofnnnil!erB,[v.llS,227; Notc3S9. Early
cDmmerciiil intercoDree ititb luilla, And IndiaanaiueBorihe BFtlda at com-
merce wliicli Solomon obtained from Ophir, p.l93i Notes 179, 181, IBS, aw.
Earif Indian eeltlera on Ibe east coast of Africa, p. 134, Indian niathenia-
tidauB, p. ISI; Note W9. Indian Algebra, p. 229—237; Notei 355, 359.
Indian planetary tablei, p. 233 ; Note 350. Iniliin ItnonledKC of tbc maleria
medio and cbcmistry, p. 314, 330 ^ Notes 32a, 340, Ml, 347, Ancient IniUan
^eo^rapby, Note 353.
idies, indefiniteneM of tbc term, Nole 343,

tnAnltesimal calculoB, p. 301, 333, 351 ; Mute 499.

Job, descriptions of nature in tbe book of, p. 4fi, 47.

Bcbool of pbiioEsphj, p. 105.

Her letter to Columbus, Note 4H4.

Italian poetry and Uteratnre in reference to nature, p. 50, 51, B6.

~ ipiter, discovery of tbe satellites of, p. 31d— 318. Controversy respecting the
discovery, Nute 484. Galileo's proposal to determine tbe lonjiitode at Ka
by IbeoccultstionsoftbesatelUtesof.NolelSS. Ellipticilyof, 350.

, p, 39, 40, G3 1 Notes 60 and 62.

■nicus, p. 300. His discovery of the U«a nliich bear it
3]7{ Nate477, 4g». Thisdiscoverynatappreciatedby
Us colemporaries, p. 324, 325. His work 00 tbe planK Mars, and bis Har-
monket Hnndi, p. 308, 3U; Note 499. Spi riled pa^ssEe fioin Ibe last-named
Kotk, p. 317. His life, sutTerings, and biograpby, by Freihcrr von Breit-
scbert, N0IC477. His optical investigationE, p. 314; Note 4G1. His Stereo-

p, 311, 323, 334; Note 496.

Klen-loDg, poem of the Chinese Emperor, p. 97, 98.

Klsprotb, bis vaioable researches, and those of Abel Kemosst, nbjch have made
hjiown to us tbe races Hbo,in the east of Asia, gave the first impulse to the wave
of tbe great migration of nations ubitli at hist broke over Europe, p. 1S6 ;

Landscape painting.

p. J+-9

,93,94

amonglheGreeKa and Romans,

p, 74-77 J

Notes, 107-114.

From tbe lime

otheVanETckso

ilyfOund

inn:arginaloma

cripls, p. 7S i N

Ejtks, p.

78, 79. Early Ita

inn and

German

NotcBlIB, 132.

Titian, A. Cars

ci,Dom

, Claode Lorra

ne, Ruysdsel, t!

apart and

Nicolas rousiin

Uobbima, Cuyp

and Rubens,

88,87; Note IB

New

field o

Kned to, by the great geographical dis-

coveries of the

flthcen

tnry, p

83. Views of

Ibe oml by Fran

Postal

dbyEc

miout, p. 82. 83

Note 124. Hy

ome Uler

d grander examples an lici-

paled, p. 83-89.

Chara

teristic

apect ofdilTer

nt lonea and countries may

Lai;d[cape gsrditiinR

p.ss.

Rules fu

Itreeomn.ende

dljaChineiew

Iter. p. 97.

I

exnn nnoei.

IjuipU){Hi tbeir place uiA inlla«n» in tbp hiEtoiy of the physlcil contemplaijon
or Ibe tmiverw, p. lOT— IM, BLhDolr«lcal atudiet, and philMapbical inv«a[i-
gilloiu reBprtting- tanjruMjfe, nre in anHqnitif ; th«r fen and alight begin-
nlngB, p. Ml, 181! Notes 301,316. Influence of the iride exlcnaion of a laa-
piage in nniting nations, noticed hy Pliuif, p. 18* i Noleaas.
Iai CauB, hit otuiuicript hiatory recently diieovend, and his arcoHtians ■;;ainn
Amerigo Vespucii diacaueJ, Note 457.

Laaaen, hii vorlE nn Indian antiquity, and rauarks on Indian poetry in rei^renn

Leibnlti, hla Protogiea, p. MD.

Lepdna, not.

1ogTby,p.lil!l,l

2Simo«BOntliemeate

nuona

themon

menUDfRBinaeaMia

moon, p. IM, Note 161 ; on the »yilalric alpha

bet, p. I

Lien-lacheD

henn

oftondac»peg«TjpninK,P.97.

Uater. Marti

n, early correct view.

and

advances i

fosm] geology, p. S48

Logftrmea,

nrinE.. hip's «By.d

teo

■odnction,p. a59i Not

at tea, and

Blimnlua given therett

hylhr

deaireto

Papal Un

of lieoiarcotion belir

Spanieh

nd PortOKoeae claim

1 at

empla to e

mpioy the maenetic

eclina-

tionuid

nclinition for the

ttoin

. object, p. SSI, waj

GBlileo

propoaea

theoccnltationaofth

aate

liteaofJu

iter, p. 318; Nole 488

LonRoa, pal

oral romances, p. U

Not

plionofndruidiralft

rest

Lndli^poemonEtna,p.M;No

e31

ILndlDi a Roman landscape painter, p. T6.
LuUy, Baymond, bis Arts de Nai^ar, p. :
Lnaiad of Camoens, p. S7^S9.
Lylltania, geographical mytbua of, p. 119.
Ui
M.
Re
"
Ma
Me
Ma
Ma
"■
Ha

UBcpberaon'a Oasian, p. 36.

Madeira, early Imonlrdge of, p. 131.

RagneticUneorno vaHaClnn first obaerved by ColambtiB, p. 3TS— SSI.

j^etiam, terrestrial, its advances dnring the period of the oceanic dlacoreriea.
p. 378-383; Notes, 133, 43i. Gilbert's iurestigaliona and writinga, p. 131,
a31. Halley'sCheory, chBrts,andeipeditlons,p.331,333. Modem (niarctle
eipeditiona for the advance of Ihe IniQwIedee of, and deaire eipreased fir
Krther reaearches on e great scale, p. 3S3— 33S; what is accompliahed asil
accomptisbing. Note Sit bit (Editor's additional Note.)

Magellan, vnyn;^ to the Pacific, p. 270.

■ ■ ■ jdp, first knowledge of llie, by Europeans, p. 589; known to the

Mahabharata, andian poem) p. 16, 38.

Msndeville, Sir John, his travels, and their inHuenee in the raidille ag«, p. 67,»4.

Uarina, Blmon, bis discovery of Jupiter'a aatellites, contemporaneously iHlh and

independently of Galileo, p. 316; Note4S(. Deacribed Ibe nebula in Andro-

rtianns Hineus of Madanra, an ancient wtiter on astrononty much regtrdefl1>y
CopemicuB, p. 309.
M»teriamedltB,knowledge«n(Utudy oflhc,by llie.irabionsand Indiana, p.JU,

U8, aigt NotcB3a8, Ml, 313.

INDEX. CXXXVll

Mathematicians, Greco-Egyptian, p. 177 *, ancient Indian, p. 187, Note 289 ;
modem, p. 301.

Maurice, Prince, of Nassau, views of tropical scenery by artists taken by him to
Brazil, p. 82, 83.

Mayow, his view of pneumatic chemistry as connected with respiration, p. 344,345.

Mediterranean taken as a point of departure, and its geographical relations and
configuration described in reference to the gradual extension of the physical
knowledge of the universe, p. 117—120, 136 ; its subdivision into three subor-
dinate basins, p. 117; Note 151.

M^asthenes, correctness of many accounts given by him which were disbelieved
in antiquity. Note 219.

Meghaduta or " cloud messenger," Indian poem, 39, 40.

Meleager, vernal idyll, p. 13 ; Note 14.

Menageries, Egyptian, under the Ptolemies, p. 171 ; Mexican, Note 429.

Microscope, discovery of the compound, and its influence on the science of the
Cosmos, p. 102, 315.

Migration of nations commencing in the East, p. 186.

Milton, p. 62.

Minnesingers, their allusions to natural scenery, p. 32.

Minucius Felix, an early Christian writer, p. 26.

Moguls, their advance to Cracow and Liegnitz, and embassies and missionaries
sent to them, p. 253—255 ; Note 313.

Monsoons, knowledge of, p. 169, Note 261 ; favourable to navigation and inter-
course between different countries, p. 121, 169, 170.

Mosella, an ancient descriptive poem, p. 21 ; Note 35.

Miiller, Otfried, his remarks on the different feeling with which the ancients and
the modems regarded landscape painting, p. 77; his views respecting the
mythical geography of the ancients. Note 154.

Edward, on Greek poetry in reference to nature. Note 4.

^— ^— Johannes, on zoological questions. Note 239.

Naddod, his di&covery of Iceland, p. 233.

Nature, incitements to the study of, p. 3—100 ; three classes distinguished— i. e.
1. Poetic descriptions of nature, p. 6—73, Notes 4—105 ; 2. Landscape paint-
ing, p. 74—91, Notes 106—126 ; 3. Cultivation of exotic plants, 92— 100; Notes
127—140.

Nebulae, early observations of Marius and Huygens, p. 327, 328.

Nechos or Neku II., discussion on the reality of the circumnavigation of Africa
under, p. 125 ; Note 163.

Nestorians, influence on Arabian knowledge, p. 211, 212.

Niebelungen, few illusions to natural scenery in the Niebelungen Lied, p. 33.

Newton, theory of gravitation, p. 313, 351 ; vitreous electricity, p. 341 ; optical
discoveries, p. 330 ; compression of Jupiter and of the Earth at the poles,
p. 350.

Nominalists, influence of the school of the, in the middle ages, p. 245.

Nonnus of Panopolis, his poetry, p. 12, 13.

Occam, William of, p. 245.

Oceanic Discoveries, epoch of the great, p. 230—300 ; Notes 361—457.
Ophir, voyages of the ships of Solomon and Hiram to ; and its locality discassed,
p. 132, 133 ; Notes 179-182.

Optirs, Ptolrmy'a npfrimrii

lygen, fir«t ob«er™iion of the gat, ■nd firrt discovery of its propertieB, p. St5.

iciGc Ocean, first beard of by Colambiia, p. %7, X8. Importance of iU itii-
rovtry tonarili mtleoroloptal tt well la eeographical knowledge, p. SIX, 369.
First aei^n by Dilboa, and naiigated by Magellan, witb mbeeqaCDt disnrre-
riea,p. 370, 271,i;»i NoteallS. (2a, 413. tlS.

monmas, an^efltiana for rendering them a bighly efTectlve nieftna of di^
fasingind Increailpg a knairied^ and love oC tbe beauties of creation in the
different reiciang of the Earlli, p. DO, SI.

arliB and gardens of different coantriea, p. 95—99; Notes 138—139.
enduliuD flmt uaed to mesaure time by tbe Arab, Ebn Junie, p. 731 ; Note
B49. Eiperlmenta nith tlie leconds, p. 3B0i Nolee Sti , S43.

Their circmnnaiiBation of Afria
p. 129; NDteal63,173. Their n
lM,14a, !«; KotclTS. Their'

av^Hon, commerce, *ail ii

Egyptian DionnrFh, Nechoa II,,
labcturea, p. 12g. Their culnniea. p. 116,
ighta, nessarcs, and money, p. 136. Their

knowledee, and above all in communicating to European notions, and
especially to the Greeks, the uae of alphabetical signa. p. lIS_l2tl. Know-
led^ of D^fol chetnical prcpanclona derived froiti them, p. 115.

PhTysians, p. ISI.

Pierre, Hernardin de St., p. 63. Hii beautiful deicripliona of tTO[rical acenery,
p. BS. 6S.

Pigafetta, his auppoaed mention of the lof, p. 239i Note *M. Notice of the
SanthernbeaienB,p. 3SS; Note 4*6.

Pinaon. Martin Aioi«o,p

eiailed

onColomhos

0 alter hia can

rae to the sDnthminl.

and the con

T^r

of this
tare, p

change, p. MS, 36*.

Flato, deecripti

17. or the

, p. 117. EnduriDj;

inflnence, i

differen

•KM,

Rcther with ■« biter

., p. 1J3

;Nolea368,

»77, 878.

PIayfair.p.<iS.

Pliny the elder.

his Historta Nat

ralU, p. M, 1

9£— 198-. Note

fflj.

theyouBKe

hiBvillaa,andn

lural deacrip

nhia letters, p. M-

U ) Note 38

ncle's work.

Polarlaation of

Kxht. r

M. Place which the discovery of cbroDWIic

on-ortheSci

nee of the Cosmo*, p. IIB.

POTMnna Lar»,

tory of h

.tomb

Note 186.

ir

1

1

IMDES. CXXxix

" Poaiiion-vilue" in DutDfratlon, diKUuiona u to (be place or plscea, aiul a> to

tbe manner in which it originnted, p.

S4,aa7i Note 339. ,

Polo, Marco, hia traveli^ and their influenc

, p. as», 355 ! Notes 39a-3B«.

Pompeii, remains oC landicape paintingD f

undin,p.77.

Potiasin, Ga*par «id Nicholaa, p. 81, 86, 87

S-lsa, 268, 269. Hi. optical experi- |

I'sainu, oebcnptiona or nature in lue, p. *

raentB, p. 183, lU ; Note 383.

ID Egypt, and it. inOuepce, p. 166—177 ;

NoUb M5-J7fl.

QnotatiODi rrom—

Anghiera,p.Ma; Note MS.

HiunlAlrit (Alexander von)—

An old AnBlo-Suxon poem. Nole &S.

AaieCentrale,Nolelw.

Arago, Nole 484.

Ejamen Criliqne, Nota449, 457.

Aristotle, p. H. 15{extrBCt prMerred

Prelesomcn., Note 143.

byacero), 150,111,160.

Milhtc GeoffrapliT of the Greeka,

Note 1S4.

BaBil,p.2a,27.

Voyage aux Region, ^qnlnoil.le..

Boiardo, Now 83.

Note 373. 1

(Wiihelm ron), p. isa.

Calderon, p.«l.

Huygcna, NoteSOS.

C«noeni, p. 58.

Kepler, p. 31 7, Note 477.

CvdanuB, Nole40».

Jei^quet, Nole 303.

lrteler,p. IGSiNoteMH.

(5cero, p. 181 NoleSOS.

Jobibookof),p. 47.

Cl.iidlan,p. 199.

leabelU (Q»een), letter to Columbu. ,

Coloniia (Vittoria), Note 8S.

Colon Fernando, Note 438.

Laplace, Note *BS.

La. Caiai, Nole 457.

Lasaen, p. 37, S8j Note Ml.

CoperniCTH, p. 306,1307; Notes 4*7,

Lepiiua,p.lM, 133,157! NoW 148.

«B,4ea.

Ij™.t!eheu (Chinese writer', p. 97.

a«l«. Note IBS.

Pliny tbe elder, p. 196i Note Ml.

Dante, Noln»,»-81.

SM.

Krd!Li.Not«9«.

Bimier (OtIVIed), p. 77 1 Note 151.
Otiander, Note 461.

EnripiilM,p.ll.

nrduli. Nolo 129.

Pindar, p. 10.

Frederic II. (P.mpfror), Nole J38.

Pl.to,p.ll7!Notel46.

GaUleo, Note. 481.333.

Pliny the elder.p. 196; NoW.Ml,»5.

Galle, Nole 4S0, 474.

yonnBfr,p. 187; Noteas.

PBDlms, p. 45,46.

GMttndi, Nole. 464,474.

Gilbert (Willlaml, Notea 4SJ, BW.

GoMbe,p. n, NoleW.

Senec«,Nn(ea 86, 37,311.

Golditncker (Tlieodor), Note M.

Gre[orTDfNy.«,p.M,3S.

Sopbocle.,p.ll.

Orimn(JacobindW|Uielni),p.ll,36.

Oodran, pofm of, p. 83.

C<inbo,p.l28,l3e,l8a,189( NoWISt.

Homer, p. 1.

Tub, p. 111.

Cxl INDEX.

Ramayana (Indian poem), p. 38, 39 ; Notes 60, 62.

Ramses Miamoan or Sesostris, his expeditions, victories, and monuments, p. 123—

125; Note 161.
Realists, influence of their school in the middle ag^es, p. 245, 246.
Red Sea, its importance to commerce and international intercourse, p. 120, 121,
168. Belongs to a system of transverse geological fissures of great general
importance in respect to commerce and the intercourse of nations, p. 120, 121 ;
Note 152.
Reinhart Fuchs, p. 86.

Regiomontanus, his astronomical tables, p. 258.
Remusat, Abel. See Klaproth.
Rey (Jean) first stated, from experiment, that the increase of weight in metals

during calcination was drawn from the air, p. 344 ; Note 530.
Ritusanbara (Indian poem), p. 62.
Romances, pastoral romances of Longus, p. 14. Of Spanish and Italian writers,

p. 56. Of German writers, p. 66, 67.
Romans, the ancient, their descriptions of natural scenery, p. 15—24 ; Notes
23—40. Influence of their empire, p. 178—200 j Notes 277—311 . Wide extent
of the empire, and diversity of climates, p. 180, 181 ; Note 279. Their
paintings (landscapes), p. 76, 77; Notes 113, 114.
Rousseau (Jean Jacques), p. 63, 65.
Rubens, his hunting pieces and landscapes, p. 81, 82.
Rubruquis, p. 253, 254 ; Note 392.
Ruysdael, p. 81, 86, 87.

Sacontala (the Indian dramatic poem of), p. 39, 76.

Sadi the Persian poet, p. 42.

Sanscrit names of diflerent productions and articles of commerce. Notes 143, 225,

231, 297.
Satellites. See Jupiter and Saturn.

Saturn, discovery of its ring and satellites, p. 318, 319, 325.
Schiller, remarks on the differences observable in the descriptions of natural

scenes and objects by the ancient Greeks and by modem writers, p. 6.
Schnaase on the manner in which the ancient Greeks referred all physical phe-
nomena to man, p. 7 ; Note 5.
Scotus, Duns, p. 245.
Scythia, opinions of Herodotus in regard to its geographical character, p. 137.

Traffic with the Greeks, p. 141, 142. Descent and habitation of diflferent

Scythian tribes, Notes 202—204.
Seasons, Indian poem of the, or Ritusanbara, p. 39, 62. Thomson's Seasons,

p. 62, C3.
See-ma-kuang (a Chinese statesman), his poem of " The Garden," p. 98, 99.
Seleucus the Babylonian, the first who taught that the Sun, and not the Earth, is

the centre of the planetary system, p. 105.
Seneca, reference to a deluge, Note 37.
Shakspeare, p. 61, 62.

Silius Italicus, notices the scenery of the Alps, but without praise, p. 24
Solomon, voyages to Ophir, p. 133.
Sophocles, beautiful descriptions of nature, p. II.

IKDEX. Clxi

Snow-line, the elevation of the, recog^nised as a function of the latitude, p. 284 ;

Note 439.
Spanish poetry and literature considered in reference to descriptions of nature,

p. 59— 61; Notes 96— 99.
Stars, apparition of new, in the latter part of the 16th and be<i^nninj|f of the 17tb

centuries, p. 322—333. Variations in the brightness of particular stars, p. 322,

326,327; Note 503.
Steno (Nicolaus), early advances in j^eolog^, p. 346, 347.
Strabo, on the varied coast line of Southern Europe, p, 115 ; on the knowledge and

skill of the Sidonians, p. 128. On the Tyrian towns of the west coast of AfHca,

p. 129. On temples near the Persian Gulf, p. 132. On the ancient Iberian

nations, p. 136. On his great work on geography and geological views,

p. 187—189.
Suan-pan, Indian reckoning apparatus, p. 227 ; Note 359.

Tacitus, p. 21, 22.

Tasso, p. 56. Quotation from, in praise of Columbus, p. 241.

Telescope, history of the discovery of the, 314—316 ; Note 482. Place which this

discovery holds in the history of the Cosmos, p. 102, 109, 304, 355.
Theocritus, p. 12.

Theophrastus, p. 158, 159, 181. \

Thermometer, invention of the, p. 335 ; Note 515. Its importance towards the

general knowledge of nature, p. 335, 336. Early thermometric observations

on a systematic plan of the Academia del Cimento, p. 335; Notes 515—517.

DiflFerential, p. 338 ; Note 524.
Thier-epos or epos of animals, p. 36.
Thomson's Seasons, p. 62, 63.
TibuUus, p. 20.
Tides of the ocean, first known to the Greeks at Gadeira, p. 148. Application of

mathematical analysis to the laws of, p. 352.
Tieck, Ludwig, comments on descriptions in Calderon and other Spanish writers,

p. 60. On Shakespeare's description of Dover Cliff, and on the manner in

which he often conveys impressions of natural scenes without describing

them, p. 61, 62.
Time-piece, a very curious, sent to Charlemagne from Persia, and another from

Egypt to Frederic II., Note 349.
Tin, ancient trade in, p. 128 ; Note 169.
Titian, on the landscape portion of some of his pictures, and of one especially-

p. 79, 80.
Torricelli, pupil of Galileo, and inventor of the barometer, p. 337.
Toscanelli, Paolo, his famous chart, and his connection with and influence on

Columbus, p. 263, 2r9 and 270 ; Notes 410, 420.
Travellers, comparison between the writings of modem, and those of the middle
ages, p. 67 — 69.
Tropics, enthusiastic description of the beauty of tropical scenery, p. 83, 84, 88,

93. Cultivation of tropical plants, p. 92—95. Views of tropical scenery

hitherto painted, p. 82, 83 ; Note 124. More beautiful ones hoped for, 83—89.
Turcletani and Turduli, p. 136.
Tuscans : see Etruscan.
Tyrl.o Hrahe, p. 106, 310, 312, 313.

Cxlii INDEX.

Tyrimn, towns on the west coast of Africa, p. 199. Conjoint Tyrian and Hebrew
commercial expeditions sent by Solomon and Hiram, p. ISS.

Van Byck, landscapes of Hubert and John, p. 78, 79.

Vedas, the Indian Vedas, or sacred writings, p. 88, 39 ; Note 62.

Venus, phases of, p. 321.

Vespncd, descriptions of the scenery of the coast of Brazil, p. 52. BeUered until
his death that the lands he had seen in the New World were a part of the
Continent of Asia, p. 241. His descriptions of the beauty of the southern
constellations, p. 288. Unjustly accused of having used unworthy arts for the
purpose of attaching his name to the New Continent instead of tha of
Columbus, a result attributable to a concurrence of accidental circumstances,
p. 299; Note 457.

Villas, Roman, p. 22, 23 ; Note 88.

Villemain, on the Greek novels or romances of Longus, p. 14 ; Note Id On the
eloquence of Christian writers in the fourth century, Note 46.

Vind, Leonardo da, his sound views of the foundations of physical knowledge,
p. 285, Note 440: on Zoology, p. 346. His opinion regarding the formation
of valleys, p. 847.

Virgil, p. 18, 19 i Note 28.

Wato'-spout, description by Camoens in the Lusiad, p. 58; Note 91.
Whewdl, *' inductive table" of astronomy, Note 475.

"Winds, law of the rotation of the, and theory of the trade, p. 337, S3 ; Notes
522—524.

Zodiacal light, discovery of the, p. 326.

END OF VOL. II.

1^ ^ Jh W J^ltm

WILSON AND OOILVY, 57, S^INNfeR STREEt, LOKD«K.

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