UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
FROM THE LIBRARY OF
DR: JOSEPH LeCONTE.
GIFT OF MRS. LECONTE.
No.
COSMOS:
SKETCH
OF A
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE
BY
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
VOL. II.
*c n«n Mam complcctatur anino.-Pw. H. N. lib. . Tl.
TRANSLATED UNDEE THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF
LIEUT.-COL. EDWAED SAEINE, B.A., E0K.SEc.E.S.
LONDON!
PRINTED POB
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
TATEBNOSTEH BOW ; AND
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1849.
CONTENTS.
INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE..
Page
General remarks » »».-.» 3
I. POETIC DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE.
By the Greeks . . . ... . , . .6
By the Romans 16
By the early Christians 25
By the Germans of the middle ages 30
By the Indians 37
By the Persians . 40
By the Fins 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
Modern prose writers 63
Travellers of the 14th and 15th centuries . . . .67
Modern travellers 68
98330
VI CONTENTS.
II. LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
Pag.
In ancient Greece, Rome, and India 74
Illuminated MSS. and mosaics 78
The Van Eycks . . .78
Titian 79
European painters of the 16th and 17th centuries . . .81
Characteristic representation of tropical scenery . . . .82
Characteristic aspect of nature in different zones . . . .87
Panoramas 90
III. CULTURE OF CHARACTERISTIC 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 ..... 101 to 116
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 (Cokeus of Samos) . . . 117 to 148
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 . . 149 to 165
Third Epoch. — Increase of the knowledge of nature under
the Ptolemies. Alexandrian Institution. Tendency
CONTENTS.
of the period towards the generalisation of the views
of nature, both in regard to the earth and to the
regions of space
Fourth Epoch. — The Roman empire of the world. — In-
fluence on cosmical views of a great political union of
countries. Progress of Geography through commerce
hy land. Pliny's physical description of the universe.
The rise of Christianity promotes the feeling of the
unity of the human race .....
Fifth Epoch. — Invasion of the 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 .
Vll
P««e
166 to 177
178 to 200
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
Retrospective view of the epochs which have been con-
sidered. Wide and varied scope, and close natural
connection, of the scientific advances of modern times.
The history of the physical sciences gradually becomes
that of the Cosmos
353 to 359
NOTES . ........ i. to cuv.
INDEX .cxxvii.tocxHi.
%* See NOTICE in the next page.
A notice is appended by M. DE HUMBOLDT at the close of the
second volume of " Kosmos," stating, that the first portion
of that volume, 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 BUNSEN.
February 21, 1848.
COSMOS
A. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OP THE UNIVERSE.
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.
"VVe 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 —
4 INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE.
what in aesthetic performances belongs essentially to the
powers and dispositions of the mind, and what to the parti-
cular direction of the intellectual activity, — but that we may
trace the sources of that animated contemplation which
enhances a genuine enjoyment of nature, and discover the
particular causes which, in modern times especially, have
so powerfully promoted, through 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 (l) kinds
of incitement more frequent in modern than in ancient
times ; 1st, the aesthetic treatment of natural scenery by vivid
and graphical descriptions of the vegetable and animal world,
which is a very modern branch 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 feelings of different races of men, and at different periods
of time, — and to notice how, at epochs when there has been
a general cultivation ot the mental faculties, the severe pur-
suit of exact knowledge, and the more delicate 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 pheno-
mena, but we must also regard her in her reflected image —
at one time filling the visionary land of physical myths with
GENERAL REMARKS. 5
graceful phantoms, and at another developing the noble
germs of imitative 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 Ganges — 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 OF NATURE.
L — Description of natural scenery, and the feelings associated there-
with at different times and among different races and 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 them than in modern
times. Schiller, (4) in his considerations on naive and
sentimental poetry, remarks, that "when we think of the
glorious scenery which surrounded 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 their 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 them of the sentimental interest
with which we moderns attach ourselves to natural scenes
and objects. In the description of these, the Greek is
indeed in the highest degree exact, faithful, and circumstan-
tial, but without exhibiting more warmth of sympathy than
in treating of a garment, a shield, or of a suit of armour.
Nature appears to interest his understanding rather than
his feelings ; he does not cling to her with intimate affection
and sweet melancholy, as do the moderns/' Much as there
is that is true and excellent in these remarks, they are far
J
DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY. 7
frSfrrbeing applicable to all antiquity, even in the sense ordi-
narily attached to the term ; I cannot, moreover, but regard as
far too limited, the restriction of antiquity (as opposed to
modern times), exclusively to the Greeks and Romans : a
profound feeling of nature speaks forth in the earliest poetry
of the Hebrews and of the Indians ; — in nations, therefore,
of very different descent, Semitic, and Indo-Germanic.
We can only infer the feeling with which the ancients
regarded nature from the portions of its expression which
have reached us in the remains of their literature; we
must therefore seek for such passages the more diligently,
and pronounce upon them the more circumspectly, as they
present themselves but sparingly in the two great forms of
epical and lyrical poetry. In Hellenic poetry, at that flowery
season of the life of mankind, we find, indeed, the 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 all is made to concenter within the sphere of human life
and feeling.
The description of nature in her manifold diversity, as a
distinct branch of poetic literature, was altogether foreign to
the ideas of the Greeks. With them the landscape is
always the mere background of a picture, in the foreground
of which human figures are moving. Passion breaking
forth in action rivetted their attention almost exclusively ;
the agitation of politics, and a life passed chiefly in public,
withdrew men's minds from enthusiastic absorption in the
tranquil pursuit of nature. Physical phsenomena were always
referred to man (5) by supposed relations or resemblances
8 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
either of external form or of inward spirit. It was almost
exclusively by 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, paeans to spring (6) 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 (7). This poem,
full of a noble 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, with 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 (8) ), natural descriptions veiled
under the significant names of mythic personages. In the
Boeotian bardic school, and generally in all ancient Greek
poetry, the phsenomena of the external world are introduced
only by personification under human forms.
But if it be true, as we have remarked, that natural
descriptions, whether 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 (9), where the
perception of beauty was so intense, — or the animated expres-
BY THE GREEKS. 9
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 modern 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 phsenomena 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 de-
clined, and as its blossoms faded, the rhetorical spirit shewed
itself in descriptive as well as in didactic poetry ; 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 calm 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" (10). The
fine description of the sylvan loneliness of Parnassus, and
of its dark, thickly-wooded rocky valleys, contrasts with the
10 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
smiling pictures of the many-fountained poplar groves of
the Phseacian Islands, and especially with the land of the
Cyclops, " where swelling meads of rich waving grass sur-
round the hills of undressed vines" (n). Pindar, in a vernal
dithyrambus 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 nurse
of enduring snows ? but he quickly hastens to turn from
the awful form of inanimate nature, to celebrate Hiero of
Syracuse, and the Greeks' victorious combats with the
powerful Persian nation.
Let us not 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 cliffs richly tinged with aerial hues. Whilst to other
nations the different features and the different pursuits
belonging to the sea and to the land appeared separate and
distinct, the Greeks, not only of the islands, but 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 have been
unmoved by the aspect of the wood-crowned cliffs of the
deeply-indented 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 interchange 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-
selves 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 QEdipus is approaching the grove of the Furies, the
chorus sings, "the 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 the ineradi-
cable, ever fresh-springing olive tree" (12). 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 (1S)
also takes pleasure in the picturesque description of " the
pastures of Messenia and Laconia, refreshed by a thousand
VOL. TI. c
12 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
fountains, under an ever mild sky, and through which the
beautiful Pamisus rolls his stream/'
Bucolic poetry, born 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
Theocritus, in whose hands tin's form of poetry reached its
greatest perfection. A soft elegiac element is indeed every
where proper to the idyll, as if it had arisen from " the
longing for a lost ideal;" or as if in the human breast a
degree of melancholy were ever blended with the deeper
feelings which the view of nature inspires.
When the true poetry of Greece expired with Grecian
liberty, 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
1 often adorned with much metrical skill. The forms and
Ihabits of animals are described with grace, and often with
jsuch exactness that our modern classifying natural histo-
rians can recognise genera and even species. But in none
of these writings can we discover the presence of that inner
life — that 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. This poet
takes pleasure in describing great revolutions of nature ; he
makes a fire kindled by lightning on the wooded banks of
BY THE GREEKS. 13
the Hydaspes burn 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 inclined 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 different
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 Sicilian 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 idyll of Meleager of Gadara in Ccelo-Syria is
a noble and more important composition (14). I am un-
willing, were it only for the ancient renown of the locality,
to omit all notice of the description of the wooded Yale of
^mpe given by JElian (15), 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 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
fourth century, we find descriptions of scenery frequently
introduced in the romances of the Greek prose writers ; as
in the pastoral romance of Longus (16), in which, however,
the author is much more successful in the tender scenes
taken from life, than in the expression of sensibility to the
beauties of nature.
It is not the object of these pages to introduce more than
such few references to particular forms of poetic art, as may
tend to illustrate 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 book of the Cosmos (or " Order of the
Universe") commences. This description shews us "the
terrestrial globe adorned with luxuriant vegetation, abun-
dantly watered, and, which is most worthy of praise, inha-
bited by thinking beings" (l7). The 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 (18), or to Chrysippus (19), or to any other author,
its place is fully supplied by a brief but genuine fragment
which Cicero has preserved to us from a lost work of
Aristotle (20). "If there were beings living 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 EOMA.NS. 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 effulgence; 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 Aristotelian eloquence" (21), 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 influ-
ence ; and were much more devoted to the realities of every-
day life, 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 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
add to this consideration, that of the acknowledged difference
in the organic structure of the two languages, notwithstand-
ing the affinity between the races. The language of ancient
Latium is regarded as possessing less flexibility, a more
limited adaptation of words, and " more of realistic tendency"
than of " ideal mobility." The predilection for the imita-
tion of foreign Greek models in the Augustan age, might,
moreover, have been unfavourable to the free outpourings of
the native mind and feelings in reference to nature ; but yet,
powerful minds, animated by love of country, have effectually
surmounted these varied obstacles, by creative individuality,
by elevation of ideas, and by tender grace in their presenta-
tion. The great poem which is the fruit of the rich genius
of Lucretius, embraces the whole Cosmos : it has much
affinity with the works of Empedocles and Parmenides ; and
the grave tone in which the subject is presented is enhanced
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 sentence passed by him on the " hymns to
nature" (22). My brother has pointed out, with great in-
genuity, the striking analogies 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 Indian epic Mahab-
harata (23) . In the great physical picture of the universe
traced by the Roman poet, we find contrasted with his
chilling 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 (24).
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 nature 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 (26), all those features
which we still 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 well as
on the island now called Isola di Carnello, which is formed
by the division of the stream, and into which Cicero retired,
as he says, to " give himself up to his meditations, to read,
or to write." Arpinum, on the Yolscian 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 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY
the original tendencies, capacities, and powers of his own
inner being.
In the midst of the stormy and eventful period of the
year 708 (from the foundation of Rome), Cicero found con-
solation in his villas, alternately at Tusculum, Arpinuin,
Cumae, and Antium. " Nothing," he writes to Atticus (27),
" can be more delightful than this solitude ; more pleasing
than this 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 the morning, I hide myself 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 Pliny, expressions resembling those so common
amongst the sentimental writers of modern times may be
unequivocally recognised ; I find in them only the accents
of a mind deeply moved, such as in every age, and every
nation or race, escape from the heavily-oppressed bosom.
From the general diffusion of Roman literature, the master
works of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, are so widely and
intimately known, that it would be superfluous to dwell on
individual instances of the delicate and ever wakeful sensi-
bility to nature, by which many of them are animated. In
the JEneid, the epic character forbids the appearance of
descriptions of natural scenes and objects otherwise than as
BY THE ROMANS. 19
subordinate and accidental features, limited to a very small
space; individual localities are not pourtrayed (28), 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 ^Etna with its flames (29). We might
have expected from Odd, 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 Roman 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 exile, which yielded to unmanly
lamentations, was filled with recollections of the social
pleasures and the political occurrences of Borne, and had no
place for the contemplation of the Scythian desert by which
he was surrounded. 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
20 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
Epidaurus and Troezene, which has been referred to in the
"General View of Nature" contained in the preceding
volume (30).
It is especially to be regretted that Tibullus should not
have left us any great composition descriptive of natural
scenery, general or individual. He belongs to the few
among the poets of the Augustan age who, being happily
strangers to the Alexandrian learning, and devoted to retire-
ment and a rural life, full of feeling and therefore simple,
drew from their own resources. Elegies are indeed portraits
of mind and manners of which the landscape forms only the
background; but the Lustration of the Fields and the 6th
Elegy of the first book shew what might have been expected
from the friend of Horace and Messala. (31)
Lucan, the grandson of the rhetor Marcus Annseus
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 (32) on the now treeless shore of Marseilles, which is
thoroughly true to nature : the severed oaks, leaning against
each other, support themselves for a time before they fall ;
and, denuded of their leaves, admit the first ray of light to
penetrate the 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 Prance (33).
In a didactic poem entitled JStna, written by Lucilius
the Younger, a friend of L. Annseus Seneca, the pheno-
mena of a volcanic eruption are described, not inaccurately,
but yet in a far less animated and characteristic manner than
BY THE ROMANS.
in the " jEtna Dialogus" (34) 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 Mo elle, by Ausonius, a
native of Aquitanian Gaul, who had aca mpanied Yalentinian
in his campaign against the Allemann:'. The "Mosella,"
which was composed at ancient Treves (?s), describes some-
times not unpleasingly the already vine-covered hills of
one of the loveliest 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 Roman 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 wiiji 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
22 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
of Germanicus's unsuccessful navigation of the Amisia, and
with the grand geographical sketch of the mountain chains
of Syria and of Palestine (36). Curtius (37) has left us a
fine natural picture of a forest wilderness to the west of
Hekatompylos, through which the Macedonian army 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
lively imagination, and what he has derived from historic
sources.
The great encyclopedic work of the elder Pliny, which,
as his nephew, the younger Pliny, has finely said, is " varied
as nature herself," and which, in the abundance 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, which
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 thoughtful,
animated, and rhetorically ornate — it has, as, indeed, might
be expected from its form, few individual descriptions of
nature ; but wherever the grand concurrent action of the
forces in the universe, the well-ordered Cosmos (naturae
majestas), is the object of contemplation, we cannot mistake
the evidences of true inward poetic inspiration.
We would gladly adduce the pleasantly-situated villas oi
the Romans, on the Pincian Mount, at Tusculum, and
Tibur, on the promontory of Misenum, and near Puteoli and
Baise, as evidences of a love of nature, if these spots had not.
B? THE ROMANS. 23
like those in which were the villas of Scaurus and Maecenas,
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 Scipio had surrounded his more simple country seat
at Liturnum with , tower? 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 younger Pliny furnish us with
pleasing descriptions of two (38j of his numerous villas,
Laurentinum and Tuscum. Although buildings, surrounded
by box cut into artificial forms, are more numerous and
crowded than our taste for nature would lead u*. 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 classes 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
24 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
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 beauty 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 difficulties of the way ; the romantic character of the
scenery never seems to have engaged their attention. It is
even known that Julius Caesar, when returning to his legions
in Gaul, employed his time, while passing over the Alps, in
preparing a grammatical treatise "De Analogia" (40).
Silius Italicus, who died under Trajan, when Switzerland
was already in great measure cultivated, describes the
district, of the Alps merely as an awful and barren wilder-
ness (41) ; although he elsewhere loves to dwell in verse on
the rocky ravines of Italy, and the wood-fringed banks of
the Liris (Garigliano) (42). 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, ou the banks of the Rhine, and in Lombardy, never
engaged the attention of the Romans sufficiently to lead
their Avriters 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 gradually 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 aestheti-
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 Koman 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 Mirmiermus (43) has often been called a sentimental
direction of the mind. The ancient world is not abruptly
separated from the modern ; 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
26 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
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 advocate living in Borne in the beginning
of the third century, and a contemporary of Tertullian and
Philostratus. We follow him with pleasure in the evening
twilight to the sea shore near Ostia, which, indeed, he
describes as more picturesque, and more favourable 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 (44) .
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 readers than are the evidences of
the ancient Italian love for a rural life contained in Roman
literature. I will begin with a letter of the great Basil,
which has long been an especial favourite with me. Basil,
who was a native of Cesarea in Cappadocia, left the pleasures
of Athens when little more than thirty years of age, and,
having already visited the Christian hermitages of Ccelo-
Syria and Upper Egypt, withdrew, like the Essenes and
Therapeuti before Christianity, into a wilderness adjacent to
the Armenian river Iris. His second brother, Naucratius (45),
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 believe I
have at last found the end of my wanderings : my hopes of
uniting myself with thee — my pleasing dreams, I should
rather say, for the hopes of men have been justly called
BY THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. . 27
waking dreams, — have remained unfulfilled. God has
caused me to find a place such as has often hovered before
the fancy of us both ; and that which imagination shewed
us afar off, I now see present before me. A high mountain,
clothed with thick forest, is watered towards the north by
fresh and ever flowing streams ; and at the foot of the,
mountain extends a wide plain, which these streams render
fruitful. The surrounding forest, in which grow many kinds
of trees, shuts me in as in a strong fortress. This wilder-
ness is bounded by two deep ravines ; on one side the river,
precipitating itself foaming from the mountain, forms an
obstacle difficult to overcome; and the other side is enclosed
by a broad range of hills. My hut is so placed on the
summit of the mountain, that I overlook the extensive plain,
and the whole course of the Iris, which is both more
beautiful, and more abundant in its waters, than the
Strymon near Amphipolis. The river of my wilderness,
which is more rapid than any which 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
which he gazes with delight and admiration, and valuable
to the native for the many fish which it affords. Shall I
describe to thee the fertilising vapours rising from the
moist earth, and the cool breezes from the broken water?
shall I speak of the lovely song of the birds, and of the
profusion of flowers ? What charms me most of a-11 is the
undisturbed tranquillity of the district : it is only visited
occasionally by hunters ; for my wilderness feeds deer a.nd
herds of wild goats, not your bears and your wolves. How
should I exchange any other place for this ! Alcmseon,
when he had found the Echinades, would not wander
VOL. IT. D
£8 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENEBY
farther" (46). In this simple description of the landscape
and of the life of the forest, there speak feelings more inti-
mately allied to those of modern times than any thing that
Greek and Roman antiquity have bequeathed to us. Erom
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 (47) have so long panted is at last found.
The sportive allusion at the close to the poetic mythus of
Alcmseon sounds like a distant lingering echo, repeating in
the Christian world accents belonging to that which had
preceded it.
Basil's Homilies on the Hexaemeron also bear witness to
Ms 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 (48). .
"When, in speaking of the creation of the world, he desires
to praise the beauty of the sea, he describes the aspect
of the boundless plain of waters in its different and vary-
ing conditions — "how, when gently agitated by mildly«
breathing airs, it gives back the varied hues of heaven, now
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 delight in nature, the same sentimental and partly
melancholy vein. " When/' he exclaims, " I behold each
craggy hill, each valley, and each plain clothed with fresh-
springing grass; the varied foliage with which the trees are
adorned ; at my feet the lilies 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
cloud is sailing, — my mind is possessed with a sadness which
is not devoid of enjoyment. When, in autumn, the fruits
disappear, the leaves fall, and the branches of the trees,
stripped of their ornaments, hang lifeless, in viewing this
perpetual and regularly recurring alternation the mind
becomes absorbed 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 thejoul feels the littleness of man in the
greatness of the universe" (49).
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 all works of human art. We find in
Chrysostom many such passages as these : "when thou lookest
on the glittering buildings, 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 whilst
he gazes at early morn, and, in the silence of the heart,
on the 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 foliage, his eye feeds
the while on the wide-extended prospect far vanishing in the
distance" (50). Antioch was at this period surrounded by
hermitages, in 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 the then
forest-covered mountain districts of Syria and Asia Minor.
But when, during the subsequent period, so hostile to alf
SO DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY
intellectual cultivation, 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 close and affec-
tionate intercourse 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 Tcrtullian, 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 (51). These intellectual fetters were
first broken by the courage of Albertus Magnus and Roger
Bacon ; when nature was pronounced pure, and reinstated in
her ancient rights.
Hitherto we have sought to depict differences which have
ahewn 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 which 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!
BY THE GERMANS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 31
An opinion has been repeatedly expressed, that the delight
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 palms 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 sufficient to remind us that
we must be cautious lest we generalise too much respecting
the influence thus ascribed to northern winters. The rich-
ness of the poetic literature 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, un-
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
82 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
strongest contrasts of desert barrenness and luxuriant vege-
tation, in the same horizontal plane, as well as in the vertical
elevation of the snow-capped mountain chains of India and
of Afghanistan. Wherever a lively tendency to the contem-
plation of nature is interwoven with the whole intellectual
cultivation, and with the religious feelings of a nation, great
and striking contrasts of season, of vegetation, 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 earliest poetry of the
middle ages. Of this the chivalric poems of the Minne-
singers during the Hohenstauffen period afford us numerous
examples. Many and varied as are its points of contact
with the romanesque poetry of the Proven 9als, yet 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(52). The wander-
ing Minnesingers, or minstrels, though living much in
courtly circles (from which, indeed, they often sprang), still
maintained frequent and intimate intercourse with nature,
and preserved, in all its freshness, an idyllic, and often an
elegiac, turn of thought. I avail myself on these subjects
of the researches of those most profoundly versed in the
history and literature of our German middle ages, my noble-
minded friends Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. " The poets of
our country of that period/' says the last named writer,
"never gave separate descriptions of natural scenery designed
solely to represent, in brilliant colours, the impression of
the landscape 011 the mind. Assuredly the eye and the
BY THE GEEMAJsS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 8S
feeling for nature were not wanting in these old German
masters ; but the only expressions 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 best and oldest monuments of
the popular epos, we do not find any description of scenery
either in the Niebelungen or in Gudrun (53), even where the
occasion might lead us to look 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 nature seems also discernible,
When the king's daughter, with her companions, reduced
to slavery, and compelled to perform menial offices, 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, vying 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 deliverer,
leaves her couch, the morning star rises over the sea, which
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 the luxuriant fertility and abundance
of the wild dwelling-place of the giant monsters, and the
34 , DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
magnificent residence of a powerful king. In neither poet
is the description of nature a primary or independent
object."
" Opposed to these simple popular epics, are the more
varied and artificial narrations of the chivalrous poets of the
thirteenth century; among whom, Hartmann von Aue,
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strasburg (54),
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 feeling for nature, as
it breaks forth in similitudes ; 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 ! Bernardin de St.-
Pierre uses the occurrences of his narratives only as frames for
his pictures. The lyric poets of the 13th century, especially
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 sources, 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 in which they are
expressed. Walther von der Yogelweide, and Wolfram von
Eschenbach, the former characterised by tenderness and the
latter by deep thought have left us some lyric pieces,
BY THE GERMANS OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 35
unfortunately only few in number, which are deserving of
honourable mention/'
" If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and,
by means of the crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with 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 find that acquaintance with the East
changed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period :
the crusaders had little familiar communication with the
Saracens, and there was much of repulsion even between the
warriors of different nations associated for a common cause.
Eriedrich von Hausen, who perished in Barbarossa's army,
was one of the earliest 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 taken part in the ex-
peditions to Palestine, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidbart,
and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of the
courA>y in which they were sojourning. Reinmar came to
Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke
Leopold VI. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of
home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God.
The date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the
palms 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. Walther von der Vogel-
weide, though he had wandered hi, had in Italy seen only
the Po; but Ereidank (55) was in Rome, and he merely
36 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
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 familiarity with the animal world ; to paint which was
not, however, its purpose. This peculiar class of poem,
which Jacob Grimm has treated in so masterly a manner, in
the introduction to his edition of Eeinhart Fuchs, shews a
cordial delight 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 enlivening 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 afterwards 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" (56).
Formerly we might have been tempted to number among
the memorials of Germanic poetry having 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 broken since the complete discovery of the
literary fraud of the talented Macplierson, by his publication
of the supposed Gaelic original text, now known to have
been a retranslation from the English work. There are,
BY THE INDIANS. 57
indeed, ancient Irish Fingalian songs belonging to the times
of Christianity, and perhaps not even reaching as far 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 (57) .
We have already remarked, that if sentimental and
romantic 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
untler the glowing brightness of southern skies, offer
descriptions full of charm, not only of organic, but also of
inorganic nature ; of the transition from parching drought
to tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud \m 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 (58), "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 fertility 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 fine organisation of this race, and their high endow-
38 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
ments of intellect 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 earliest Indian poetry. This
prevailing impression on the 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 dwelling in the
forest (59), whose ancient schools constituted one of the
most peculiar phsenomena of Indian life, and materially
influenced the mental development of the whole race ?"
In referring new, as I did in my public lectures under the
guidance of my brother and of others conversant with
Sanscrit literature, to particular instances of the vivid sense
of natural beauty which frequently breaks forth in the
descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I begin with the
Yedas, or sacred writings, which are the earliest monuments-
of the civilisation of the East Arianic nations, and are princi-
pally occupied with the adoring veneration of nature. The
hymns of the Rig-Yeda contain beautiful descriptions of the
blush of early dawn, and the appearance of the " golden-
handed" sun. The great heroic poems of Bamayana and
Mahabharata are later than the Yedas, and earlier than the
Puranas; and in them the praises of nature are connected
with a narrative, agreeably to the essential character of epic
BY THE INDIANS. 89
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. Bama'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 nourished at
the highly polished court of Yikramaditya, contempora-
neously with Virgil and Horace, has obtained an early and
extensive celebrity among the nations of the west : nearer
our own times, the English and German translations ot
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, claim for him a dis-
tinguished place among the poets of all countries (60) . 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 r of the commencement % of the
40 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
rainy season (61) traced by myself, in South America, at a
time when I was wholly unacquainted with Kalidasa's
Meghaduta, even in Chez/s translation. The obscure
meteorological processes which take place in the atmosphere,
in the formation of vapour, in the shape of the clouds, and
in the luminous electric phsenoinena, are the same 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 Brahminic Indians,
and their strongly marked sense of picturesque beauty in
nature (62), to the West Arians, or Persians, who had
migrated into the northern country of the Zend, and were
originally disposed to combine with the dualistic belief in
Ormuzd and Ahrimanes a spiritualised veneration of nature.
What we term Persian literature does not reach farther back
than the period of the Sassanides ; the older poetic memorials
have perished ; and it was not until the country had been sub-
jugated by the Arabs, and the characteristics of its earlier inha-
bitants in great measure obliterated, that it regained a national
literature, under the Samanides, Gaznevides, and Seldschuki.
The flourishing period of its poetry, from lirdusi to Hafiz and
Dschami, can hardly be said to have lasted four or five cen-
turies, and extends but little beyond the epoch of Vasco de
Gama. The literatures of Persia and of India are separated
by time as well as by space ; the Persian belonging to the
middle ages, while the great literature of India belongs
strictly to antiquity. lu the Iraunian highlands, nature
BY THE PERSIANS. 41
does not present the luxuriance of arborescent vegetation, or
the admirable variety of form and colour, which adorn the
soil of Hindostan. The Vindhya chain, which was long the
boundary of the East Arianic nations, is 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 four paradises
celebrated by the Persian poets (63), were the pleasant valley
of Soghd near Samarcand, Maschanrud near Hamadan,
Tcha'abi Bowan near Kal'eh Sofid in Tars, 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 life 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 (64) which
the same materials assume under their hands: we miss
in them depth and earnestness 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
Mazanderan, put into the mouth of a wandering bard, and
describing the mildness of its climate, and the vigour of its
vegetation, appear to me to have much grace and charm,
•nd a high degree of local truth. In the story, tjie king
42 DK^JRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
(Kei Kawuf,) is induced by the description to undertake an
expedition to the, Caspian, and to attempt a new conquest (65).
Enweri, Dschelaleddin E/umi (who is considered the greatest
mystic poet of the East)^ Adhad, and the half Indian Feisi,
have written poems €*t spring, parts of which breathe poetic
life and freshness, although in other parts our enjoyment is
often unpleasingly disturbed by petty efforts in plays on words
and artificial comparisons (66). Joseph von Hammer, in
his great work on the history of Persian poetry, remarks of
Sadi, in the Bostan and Gulistan (Fruit and Rose Gardens),
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
flights of no mean beauty ; but that in both the descriptions
of nature are too often marred and disfigured by turgidity
and false ornament (6?). The favourite subject of Persian
poetry, 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.
Mien we proceed northwards from the Iraunian highlands
through Turan (in the Zend Tuirja) (68), into the chain of
the Ural which forms the boundary between Europe and
Asia, we find ourselves in the early seat of the Finnish 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 far to the west in European low-
lands, Elias LonnroJ; has collected, from the lips of the
Karelians and the country people of Olonetz, a great
number of Finnish songs, in which Jacob Grimm (69)
finds, in regard to nature, a tone of emotion and of reverie
BY THE HEBREWS. 4S
rarely 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 Yaino, contains a
pleasing description of the rural life of the Fins ; especially
where the wife of the ironworker, Ilmarine, 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 political freedom, than the race of Fins, 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 Mongols,) who overrun the Roman world, — and
to a great and noble people, the Magyars.
We have seen that the vividness of the feeling with whici
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 religious feeling ; and we have
traced this influence in the nations of Europe, and in those
of kindred descent in Asia (the Indians and Persians)
of Arianic or Indo-Germanic origin. Passing from
thence to the Semitic or Aramean race, we discover
in the oldest and most venerable memorials in which the
tone and tendency of their poetry and imagination are dis-
played, unquestionable evidences of a profound sensibility
to nature.
This feeling manifests itself with grandeur and animation
in pastoral narratives, in hymns and choral songs, in the
splendour of lyric poetry in the Psalms, and in the schools
VOL. ir. E
44 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY
of the prophets and seers, whose high inspiration, almost
estranged from the past, is wrapped in futurity.
Besides its own inherent greatness and sublimity, Hebrew
poetry presents to Jews, to Christians, and even to Maho-
metans, local reminiscences more or less closely entwined
with religious feelings. Through 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 u reflex of monotheism, it always
embraces the whole world in its unity, comprehending the
life of the terrestrial globe as well as the shining regions of
space. It dwells less on details of phsenomena, and loves
to contemplate great masses. Nature is pourtrayed, not as
self-subsisting, or glorious in her own beauty, but ever in
relation to a higher, an over-ruling, 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 the Hebrews in its descriptions
of nature is essentially, in its very subject, grand and solemn,
and, when touching on the earthly condition of man, full of
a yearning pensiveness. It is deserving of notice, that
• notwithstanding its grand character, and even in its highest
lyrical nights 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, figurative in language, but
clear and simple in thought, it delights in comparisons, which
recur 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 nomacle
life, modern 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. Eeside them the birds of the air sing among
the branches. The trees of the Lord are full 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,
ft wherein are living things innumerable ; there move the
ships, and there is that leviathan whom Thou hast made to-
sport therein/' The fruits of the field, the objects of the
46 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
labour 01 man, are also introduced ; the corn, the cheerful
vine, and the olive garden. The heavenly bodies complete
this picture of nature. "The Lord appointed the moon
for seasons, and the sun knoweth 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 together, 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 the sun, to the evening when his daily work is
done. This contrast, the generality in the conception of
the mutual influence of phenomena, 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 (7°), (as in the 65th, v. 7 — 14,
and in the 74th, 15 — 17), and with perhaps most fulness
in the ancient, though not premosaic, book of Job. The
meteorological processes taking 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 modern physical science enables us indeed
BY THE HEBREWS. 47
to propound more formally, and to clothe in more scientific
language, but not to solve satisfactorily. The book of Job
is generally regarded as the most perfect example of Hebrew
poetry; it is no less picturesque in the presentation of single
phenomena than skilful in the didactic arrangement of the
•whole. In all the various modern languages into which
this book 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. 16. " The morning dawn illumines the border 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 ass and
the horse, the buffalo, the river horse of the Nile, the
crocodile, the eagle, and the ostrich. We see (chap, xxxvii.
v. 18) during the sultry heat of the south wind, "the
pure ether spread over the thirsty desert like a molten mir-
ror (71)." "Where the gifts of nature are sparingly bestowed,
man's perceptions 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 change 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 literature
of the Hebrews : while from Joshua to Samuel it breathes a
warlike tone, the little book of Ruth presents a natural
picture of the most naive simplicity, and of an inexpressible
charm. Goethe, at the period of his enthusiasm for the East,
48 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY
said of it, that we have nothing so lovely in the whole
range of epic and idyllic poetry. (72)
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 deserts,
which the grammarian Asmai has connected with the great
name of Antar, and has woven (together with other pre-
mohamedan legends of knightly 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, (moallakat), which are hung up in the Kaaba. The
learned English translator, Terrick Hamilton, has called
' attention to the biblical tones in the style of Antar. (73).
Asmai makes the son of the desert travel to Constantinople,
and thus introduces a picturesque contrast of Greek culture
with nomadic simplicity. We should be less surprised at
finding 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 Ereytag 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 Eelix. The dreary
uniformity of sandy deserts or grassy plains is ill fitted to
awaken the love of nature, excepting in rare instances and
in minds of a peculiar cast.
\ "Where the earth is unadorned by forests, the imagination,
\as we have already remarked, is the more occupied by the
BY THE ARABIANS. 49
efanospheric phenomena of storm, tempest,, and long desired
rain. Among faithful natural pictures of this class, I
would instance particularly Antar's Moallakat, which describes
the pasture fertilised by rain, and visited by swarms of hum-
ming insects (74) ; the fine descriptions of storms, both by
Amru'l Kais, and in the 7th book of the celebrated Hamasa
p5), which are also distinguished by a high degree of local
truth; and lastly, the description in theNabegha Dhobyani (76)
of the swelling of the Euphrates, when its waters roll down
masses of reeds and trunks of trees. The eighth book of
the Hamasa, which is entitled " Travel arid Sleepiness/'
naturally attracted my attention: I soon found that the
" sleepiness" (77) belongs only to the first fragment of the
book, and even there is more excusable, as it is ascribed to a
night journey on a camel.
I have endeavoured in this section to unfold in a frag-
mentary manner the different influence which the external
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 thought and feeling.
I have tried to accomplish this object by tracing throughout
the history of literature, the particular characteristics of the
vivid manifestation 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 examples as should best display the
peculiarities of the various periods and races. I have followed
the Greeks and Romans to the gradual extinction of those
feelings which have given to classical antiquity in the West
an imperishable lustre; I have traced in the writings of
50 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
tlie Christian fathers of the Church, the fine expression of a
love of nature nursed in the seclusion of the hermitage.
In considering the Lido-Germanic nations, (the denomination
being here taken in its most restricted sense), I have
passed from the poetic works of the Germans in the middle
ages, to those of the highly cultivated ancient East Arianic
nations (the Indians) ; and of the less gifted West Allans, (the
inhabitants of ancient Iran) . After a rapid glance at the Celtic
or Gaelic songs, and at a newly discovered Finnish 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 phenomena, 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 oxder 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 phaenomenon; and next as re-
flected in the feelings of mankind.
After the fading of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman glory — I
might say after the destruction 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 sensibility to the aspect of external nature.
The period at which he lived followed immediately that of
the decline of the minstrelsy of the Suabian Minnesingers,
on the north side of the Alps, of whom I have already
spoken. Dante, when treating of natural objects, withdraws
iimself for a time from the passionate, the subjective, and
Hie 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 (7S) , 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 (79). The en-
trance into the thick grove of tne terrestrial paradise reminds
the poet of the pine forest near Ravenna : " la pineta in sul lito
di Chiassi" (80), 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 light in the
heavenly paradise, from which et sparks burst forth, sink
amidst the flowers on the banks, and then, as if intoxi-
cated by their perfumes, plunge again into the stream (81)."
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 winch, during the beating of the waves,
luminous points dash above the surface, and the whole liquid
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 Yaucluse made on him 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 Yittoria Colonna (82).
When the sudden intercourse which took place with,
Greece in her low state of political depression caused a more
52 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
general revival of classical literature, we find, as the first
example among prose writers, a charming description of
nature from the pen of the lover of the arts, the counsellor
and friend of Eaphael, Cardinal Bembo. His juvenile work,
entitled JStna Dialogus, gives us an animated picture of the
geographical distribution of plants on the declivity of the
mountain, from the rich corn fields of Sicily to the snow-
covered margin of the crater. The finished work of his
maturer years, the Historise Yenetse, 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 suddenly enlarged boundaries both
of the earth, and of the powers of man. In antiquity, the
inarch of the Macedonian army to the Paropamisus, and
to the forest-covered river-valleys of Western Asia, left
impressions derived from the aspect of a richly adorned
exotic nature, of which the vividness manifested itself whole
centuries afterwards in the works of highly gifted writers y
and now, in like manner, 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 gradations 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 vie r of Europeans.
Imagination, without which no truly great work of man can
be accomplished, gave a peculiar charm to the descriptions
of nature traced by Columbus and Yespucci. The descrip-
tion of the coast of Brazil, by the latter, is characterised by
COLUMBUS. 53
an accurate acquaintance with the poets of ancient and
modern times ; that given by Columbus of the mild sky of
Paria, and of the abundant waters of the Orinoco, flowing
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, and 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 Castilian
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, acted on the imagination of men as in more recent
times, since Anson and Cook, those of Tinian and Tahiti
have done. If the tidings of far distant lands then drew
the youth of the Iberian peninsula, of Flanders, Milan, and
Southern Germany, under the victorious banners of the
great Emperor, to the ridges of the Andes and to the
burning plains of Uraba and Coro ; — in more modern times,
under 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. The passionate love for
the study of nature which proceeded chiefly from the north,
inflamed the minds of men ; intellectual grandeur of view
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 forms which were before
54 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
unknown. If we once more cast our eyes on the period of
those great discoveries which prepared the way for the
modern tendency of which we have been speaking, we must
in so doing refer preeminently to those descriptions of
nature which have been left us by Columbus himself. It is
only recently that we have obtained the knowledge of his
own ship's journal, of Ids letters to the treasurer Sanchez,
to Donna Juana de la Torre governess of the Infant Don
Juan, and to Queen Isabella. In my critical examination of
the history of the geography of the 15th and 16th centu-
ries (83), 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,
(" viage nuevo al nuevo cielo i mundo que fasta entonces
estaba en occulto"), with a beauty and simplicity 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 thickets of the forests, "iii wliich one can
hardly distinguish which are the flowers and leaves belonging
to eacii 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 have visited. Each
newly discovered laud appears to him still more beautiful than
those he had before described; he complains that he cannot find
^:ords in which to record the sweet impressions winch he has
COLUMBUS. 55
received. "Wholly unacquainted with botany, (although
through the influence of Jewish and Arabian physicians
some superficial knowledge of plants had at that time
extended into Spain), the simple love of nature leads him
to discriminate truly between the many strange forms
presented to his view. He already distinguished in Cuba
seven or eight different 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, but berries like the olives of the Axarafe de
Sevilla ; and, to cite one more and very remarkable example,
Columbus, as I have already noticed (84), separated the
genus Podocarpus from the family of Abietinese.
" The loveliness of this new land," says the discoverer,
" far surpasses that of the campina de Cordoba. The trees
are all bright with ever- verdant foliage, and perpetually laden
with fruits. The plants on the ground are tall and full of
blossoms. The breezes are mild like those of April in Castille ;
the nightingales sing more sweetly than I can describe. At
night other small birds sing sweetly, and I also hear
our grasshoppers and frogs. Once I came into a deeply
enclosed harbour, and saw high mountains which no human
eye had seen before, from which the lovely waters (lindas
aguas) streamed down. The mountain was covered with
firs, pines, and other trees of very various form, and adorned
with beautiful flowers. Ascending the river which poured
56 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY,
itself into the bay, I was astonished at the cool shade, the
crystal 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 Reyes de las cosas que vian, no bastaran mil lenguas a
referillo, ni la mano para lo escribir, que le par^ecia ques-
taba encantado.)" (85)
We here learn from the journal of an unlettered seaman,
the power which the beauty of nature, manifested in her
individual forms, may exert on a susceptible mind.
Peelings 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 Yeragua (86),
is, if not more eloquent, yet far more moving than the
allegorical pastoral romance of Boccaccio and the two
Arcadias of Sannazaro and of Sydney; than Garcilasso's
Salicio y Nemoroso ; or than the Diana of Jorge de Monte-
mayor. The elegiac idyllic element was unhappily too long
predominant in Italian and Spanish literature ; it required
the fresh and living picture which Cervantes has drawn of
the adventures of the 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 it?,
nature, like the allegorical artifices 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 (87.)
CAMOENS. 5 7
That truth to nature which springs from actual con-
templation, shines most richly in the great national epic of
Portuguese literature ; it is as 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 Priedrich SchlegeFs, according to which the
Lusiad of Camoens excels Ariosto in colouring and richness
of fancy ; (8S) 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 the accuracy of the representa-
tion of physical phenomena. Rather, as is always the case
when art draws from pure sources, they heighten the living
impressions of grandeur and of truth in the pictures of
nature. Inimitable are the descriptions in Camoens of the
never ceasing mutual relations between the air and sea,
between the varying form of the clouds above, their meteoro-
logical changes, and the different states of the surface of the
ocean. He shews us this sur'ace at one time, as, when
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 (S9) . Camoens is in the most proper sense of the
term, a great sea painter. He had fought at the. foot of Atlas
in the empire of Morocco, in the Red Sea, and in the Persian
Gulf; twice he had sailed round the Cape, and for sixteen years
^watched the phaenomena of the ocean on the Chinese and
Indian shores. He describes the electric fires of St. Elmo,
(the Castor and Pollux of the ancient Greek navigators)
58 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
"the living light, sacred to the mariner" (90). He paints
the danger-threatening water-spout in its gradual deve-
lopment ; " how the cloud, woven of thin vapour, whirls
round in a circle, and sending down a slender tube sucks
up the flood as if athirst ; and how, when 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 which it had drawn from them with a surging
noise" (91). "Let the book-learned," says the poet —
and his taunt might almost as well apply to the present
time — " try to explain the wonderful things hidden from the
world ; they who, guided by (so-called) science and their own
conceptions only, are so willing to pronounce as false, what is
heard from the mouth of the sailor whose only guide is
experience/'
Camoens shines, however, not only in the description of
single phsenorfnena, but also where large masses are com-
prehended in one view. The third canto paints with a few
traits the whole of Europe, from the coldest north, " to the
Lusitanian kingdom, and the strait where Hercules accom-
plished his last labour" (92). The manners and state of
civilisation of the different nations are alluded to. Prom the
Prussians, the Muscovites, and the tribes " que o Bheno
frio lava," he hastens to the glorious fields of Hellas, ' ' que
creastes os peitos eloquentes, e os juizos de alta phantasia."
In the tenth canto the view becomes still more extended :
Thetys conducts Gama to the summit of a lofty mountain to
shew him the secrets of the structure of the universe
(" machina do mundo"), and to disclose to him the courses
of the planets, (according to the views of Ptolemy). (93) It-
is a vision in the style of Dante, and as the Earth is the
CAMOENS. 59
centre of motion, we have in the description of the globe,
a review of all the countries then known, and of their
productions. (94) Even the "land of the Holy Cross/'
(Brazil), is named, and the coasts which Magellan discovered
" by the act, but not by the loyalty of a son of Lusitania."
When I before extolled Camoens as especially a marine
painter, it was to indicate that the aspect of nature on the
land seems to have attracted him less vividly. Sismondi
has remarked with justice, that the whole poem contains
absolutely no trace of graphical description of the vegetation
of the tropics, and its peculiar physiognomy and forms.
He only notices the spices and other productions which have
commercial value. The episode of the magic island (95) does,
indeed, present a charming landscape picture, but, as befits
an " Una de Venus/' the vegetation consists of " fragrant
myrtles, citrons, lemon trees, and' pomegranates /' all
belonging to the climates of South Europe. In the
writings of the great discoverer of the new world, we find
far greater delight in the forests of the coasts seen by him,
and far more attention to the forms of the vegetable
kingdom ; but it should be remarked, that Columbus, writing
the journal of his voyage, records in it the living impressions
of each day. The epic of Camoens, on the other hand, is
written to celebrate the great achievements of the Portuguese.
To have borrowed from native languages uncouth names of
plants, and to have interwoven them in the descriptions of
landscapes forming the background to the actors in his
narrative, might have appeared but little attractive to the
poet accustomed to harmonious sounds.
By the side of the knightly form of Camoens has often
been placed the equally romantic one of a Spanish warrior
VOL. II. F
60 DESCRIPTIONS O*1 NATURAL SCENERY.
who served under the banners of the great Emperor iii Peru
and Chili, and sung 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 Alonso de Ercilla,
the immediate presence of volcanoes clad with eternal
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 Cervantes 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
poetry, though it would appear to have misled Voltaire and
several modern critics. The Araucana is, indeed, a work
imbued with a noble national feeling ; and the description
which it contains of the manners of a wild race who perish
in fighting for the freedom of their native land, is not
without animation ; but Ercilla's style is heavy, loaded to
excess with proper names, and without any trace of true
poetic inspiration. (9G)
"We recognise this essential element, however, in several
strophes of the Romancero Caballeresco (97) ; we perceive its
presence, mixed with a vein of religious melancholy, in the
writings of Pray Luis de Leon,— as, for example, where he
celebrates the " eternal luminaries (resplandores eternales)
of the starry heaven" ; — (98) and we find it in the great
creations of Calderon. The most profound critic of the
dramatic literature of different countries, my friend Ludwig
Tieck, has remarked the frequent occurrence in Calderon
and his cotemporaries of lyrical strains in varied metres,
often containing dazzlingly beautiful pictures of the ocean, of
CALDEIION. SHAKSPEARE. 61
mountains, of wooded valleys, and of gardens ; but these
pictures are always introduced in allegorical applications,
and are characterised by a species of artificial brilliancy. In
reading them we feel that we have before us ingeniou*
descriptions, recurring with only slight variations, and
clothed in well-sounding and harmonious verse ; but 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
a Dream," (la vida es sueno), he makes Prince Sigismund
lament his captivity in a series of gracefully drawn contrasts
with the freedom of all living nature. He paints the birds,
" which fly across the wide sky with rapid wing," the fish,
which, but just escaped from the sand and shallows where
they were brought to life, seek the wide sea, whose
boundless expanse seems still too small for their bold range.
Even the stream meandering among flowers, finds a free
path through the meadow : " and 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" (^).
I have referred to particular instances, because they show
how in dramatic poetry, which is chiefly concerned with
action, passion, and character, "descriptions of natural
objects become as it were only mirrors in which the mental
emotions of the actors in the scene are reflected. Shak-
speare, who amidst the pressure of his animated action has
scarcely ever time and opportunity to introduce deliberate
62 DESCRIPTIONS OP NATURAL SCENERY.
descriptions of natural scenes,, does yet so paint them by
occurrences, by allusions, and by the emotions of the acting
personages, that we seem to see them before our eyes, and
to live in them. "We thus live in the midsummer-night in
the wood; and in the latter scenes of the Merchant of
Yenioe we see the moonshine brightening the warm summer
night, without direct descriptions. An actual and elaborate
description 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 summit of Dover Cliff. The picture drawn
of the downward view into the depths below actually turns
one giddy" (10°).
If in Shakspeare the inward life of feeling, and the grand
simplicity of the language, animate thus wonderfully the in-
dividual expression of nature, and render her actually present
to our imagination; in Milton' s sublime poem of Paradise
Lost, on the other hand, 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. This is also the case in Thomson's pleasing
didactic poem of The Seasons. Kalidasa's poem on the same
subject, the Kitusanhara, which is more ancient by above
seventeen centuries, is said by critics deeply versed in
Indian literature to individualise more vividly 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 which is proper to the higher
latitudes; the transition from fruit-bringing autumn to
MODERN PROSE WRITERS.
63
winter, and from winter to reanimating spring; and the
pictures afforded by the varied laborious or pleasurable pur-
suits of men belonging 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 prose
has more particularly developed itself, and with peculiar vigour.
Although the study of nature, enlarging on every side, has
increased beyond measure the mass of things known 'to us,
yet amongst the few who are susceptible of the higher inspi-
ration which this knowledge is capable of affording, the in-
tellectual contemplation of nature has not sunk oppressed
under the load, but has rather gained a wider comprehen-
siveness and a loftier elevation, 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-
lationship of different races of men. The first modern
prose writers who have powerfully contributed to awaken,
through the influence of the imagination, the keen per-
ception of natural beauty, the delight in contact with
nature, and the desire for distant travel which is their almost
inseparable companion, were in France, Jean Jacques
Eousseau, Buffon, Bernardin de St. -Pierre, and (to name
exceptionally one living writer), my friend Auguste de Cha-
teaubriand; in the British islands the ingenious Playfair;
and in Germany, George Porster, who was the companion of
Cook^on his second voyage of circumnavigation, and who
was gifted both with eloquence and with a mind peculiarly
favourable to every generalisation in the view of nature.
I must not attempt in these pages to examine the charac-
teristics of these different writers ; or what it is that, in
64 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
works so extensively known, sometimes lends to their de-
scriptions of scenery such grace and charm, or at others
disturbs the 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 little 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, light, 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 artificially-constructed periods, more rhetorical pomp than
individual truth to nature ; 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 this 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 expression of awakened emotion ; we miss
in him almost all that flows from the mysterious analogy
between the movements of the mind and the phenomena
perceived by the senses.
Greater depth of feeling, and a fresher spirit of life, breathe
in Jean Jacques Rousseau, in Bernardin de St.-Pierre, and
ROUSSEAU. ST.-PIEEUE. 65
in Chateaubriand. If in the first-named writer (whose
principal works were twenty years earlier than Buffon's fan-
ciful Epoques de la Nature) (101) I allude to his fascinating
eloquence, and to the picturesque descriptions of Clarens
and La Meillerie on Lake Leman, it is because, in the most
celebrated works of this ardent but little informed plant-
collector, poetical inspiration shews itself principally in the
inmost peculiarities of the language, breaking forth no less
overflowingly in his prose, than in Klopstock's, Schiller's,
Goethe'' s, and Byron'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 be
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 Bernardin de St.-Pierre owes the fairest
portion of his literary fame— I mean Paul and Virginia : a
work such as scarcely any other literature can shew. It is
the simple but living 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
Chaumiere Indienne, and even in the Etudes de la Nature,
(which are unhappily disfigured by extravagant theories and
erroneous physical views), the aspect of the sea, the grouping
of the clouds, the rustling of the breeze in the bushes of tho
bamboo, arid the waving of the lofty palms, are painted with
06 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
\
inimitable truth. Bernardin de St. -Pierre's master- work, ,
Paul and Virginia, accompanied me into the zone to which
it owes its origin. It was read there for many years by my
dear companion and friend Bonpland and myself, and there —
(let this appeal to personal feelings be forgiven) — under the
silent brightness 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, which 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, without impairing the general
impression or depriving the external materials of the free
and animating breath of poetic imagination, characterises in
an even higher degree the ingenious and tender author of
Atala, Rene, the Martyrs, and the Journey to Greece and
Palestine. The 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 wonderful distinctness
of vision: the serious grandeur of historic remembrances
could alone have given so much of depth and repose to the
impressions of a rapid journey.
In our German fatherland, 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 : this was the course followed by the
Persian traveller Paul Elemming, Brockes, Ewald von Kleist,
in whom we recognise a mind full of feeling, Hagedorn,
Solomon Gessner, and by one of the greatest naturalists of
all times, Haller, whose local descriptions present, however,
better defined outlines and more objective truth of colour.
TRAVELLERS OF THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES. 67
At that time the elegiac idyllic element predominated in a
heavy style of landscape poetry, in which, even in Voss, the
noble and profound classical student of antiquity, the poverty
of the materials could not be veiled by happy and elevated,
as well as highly finished diction. It was not until the
study of the earth's surface gained depth and variety, and
natural science, no longer limited to tabular enumerations of
extraordinary occurrences and productions, rose to the great-
views of comparative geography, that this finish 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 Schiltbergtr of Munich (1425),
and Bernhard von Breytenbach (1486), still delight us by
an amiable naivete, 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 cf the inhabitants 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 which they are most fond of re-
marking are, first, those which shew some resemblance to the
68 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
human form, and next those which- are most wild and most
formidable to man. The cotemporaries of these travellers
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
countries were then called, to appear at an immeasurable
distance. Columbus was as yet scarcely justified in saying,
as he did in his letter to Queen Isabella, "the earth is not
very large : it is much less than people imagine" (l02).
In respect to composition, these almost-forgotten books
of travels of the middle ages had, notwithstanding the poverty
of their materials, great advantages over most of our modern
voyages. Tney nad the unity which every work of art re-
quires: everything was connected with an action, t. e.
subordinated to the journey itself. The interest arose from
the simple, animated, and usually implicitly believed narrative
of difficulties overcome. Christian travellers, unacquainted
with the previous travels of Arabs, Spanish Jews, and
proselytizing Buddhists, always supposed themselves to be
the first to see and describe everything. The remoteness
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 modern travels, and especially
in those 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 can now only be looked for, in
arduous, though perhaps little instructive ascents of moun-
tains, and above all adventurous navigations of untraversed
in voyages of discovery properly so called, and in the
MODERN TRAVELLERS. 69
awful solitudes of the Polar regions, where the surrounding
desolation and the lonely situation of the mariners, cut off
from all human aid, isolate the picture, and cause it to act
more stirringly on the imagination of the reader. If the
above considerations render it undeniably evident that in
modern books of travels the active element necessarily falls
into the background, 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 views 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 modern cultivation are the constantly advancing
enlargement of our field of view, the increasing wealth in
ideas and feelings, 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 in-
tellectual delight unknown to the ancient world, — is one of
the efforts of modern 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 transport, both by sea and land, renders the
70 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
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 result
of his opportunities of observation, the infusion of a fresh life
into the descriptive element of literature, and the variety of
the views which are continually 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 this direction with the
greatest degree of vigour and success, was my distinguished
teacher and friend George Forster. Through him has been
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
aesthetic feeling, and retaining the fresh and living pictures
with which Tahiti and the other fortunate islands of the
Pacific had filled his imagination (as in later years that of
Charles Darwin) (103), George Porster was the first grace-
fully and pleasingly to depict the different gradations cf
vegetation, the relations of climate, and the various articles
of food, in their bearing on the habits and manners of different
tribes according to their differences of race and of previous
habitation. All that can give truth, individuality, and
graphic distinctness to the representation of an exotic nature,
s united in his writings : not only his excellent account of
he 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 (104). But, for this noble,
MODERN TRAVELLERS. 71
sensitive, and ever-hopeful 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 modern times have more especially enriched German,
Trench, English, and North American literatures, yet such
censure is only properly applicable to the abuse of the sup-
posed enlargement of the field of art. Yersified 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 all 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 modern
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 (105). 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
72 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY.
in sentimental effusions, has seized simultaneously in different
countries on authors otherwise possessed of merit as tra-
vellers, and as writers on subjects of natural history. This
nixture is still more unpleasing, when the style, from the
absence of literary cultivation, and especially of all true in-
ward spring of emotion, degenerates into rhetorical inflation
and spurious sentimentality. Descriptions of nature, I
would here repeat, may be sharply denned and scientifically
correct, without being deprived thereby of the vivifying
breath of imagination. The poetic element must be derived
from a recognition of the links which unite the sensuous
with the intellectual; from a feeling of the universal extension,
the reciprocal limitation, arid the unity of the forces which
constitute the life of Nature. The more sublime the objects,
the more carefully 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
produced by it can only be disturbed and marred by the
intrusions of elaborate appeals on the part of its presenter.
He who, familiar with the great works of antiquity, and in
secure possession of the riches of his 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 his own frame of mind, he leaves unfettered the
freedom of feeling in others.
But it is not alone the animated description of those
richly adorned lands of the equinoctial zone, in which in-
tensity of light and of humid warmth accelerates and
heightens the development of all organic germs, which has
MODERN 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 diffused 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 works there
breathes a profound feeling of external nature, seen alike in the
Sorrows of Werter, in the Reminiscences 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 Ptath-
sel zu losen") ; and to renew the ancient alliance which m
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 Hinvmel weht,
Die Myrte still, und hock der Lorbeer stehtP
74
INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE.
IT. — Landscape painting — Graphical representation of the physiog-
nomy of plants — Characteristic form and aspect of vegetation
in different zones.
As fresh and vivid descriptions of natural scenes and objects
are suited to enhance a love for the study of nature, 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 as they are more or less happily
conceived, of linking together the outward and the inward
world. It is the tendency to form such links which marks
the last and highest aim of representative art; but the
scientific object to which these pages are devoted, restricts
them to a different point 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 with nature in her freedom.
In classical antiquity, from the peculiar direction of the
Greek and Roman mind, landscape painting, like the poetic
description of scenery, could scarcely become an indepen-
dent object of art: both were used only as accessories.
Employed in complete subordination to other objects,
1ANDSCAPE PAINTING. 75
landscape painting long served merely as a background to
historical composition, or as an accidental ornament in the
decoration of painted walls. The epic poet, in a similar
manner, sometimes marked the locality of particular events
by a picturesque description of the landscape, or, as I might
again term it, of the background, in front of which the
acting personages were moving. The history of art teaches
how the subordinate auxiliary gradually became itself a
principal object, until landscape painting, separated from
true historical painting, took its place as a distinct form.
Whilst this separation was being gradually effected, the
human figures were sometimes inserted as merely eecondary
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, but is wholly of
modern growth.
Graphical indications of the peculiar features of a district
must, however, have existed in the earliest Greek paintings,
if (to cite particular instances) Mandrocles of Samos, as
Herodotus tells us (106), had ^painting made for the great
Persian king of the passage of the army across the Bos-
phorus; or if Polygnotus (107) 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 was seen to issue from the sum-
mit of a volcano, and the stieam of lava to pour itself into
the sea. In the very complicated composition of a view of
seven islands, the most recent commentators think that
VOL. II. G
76 LANDSCAPE PAINTING
they recognise the representation of a real district ; viz. the
small volcanic group of the ^Eolian or Lipari islands, north
of Sicily^08).
Perspective scene painting, which was made to contribute
to the theatrical representation of the master-works of
jEschylus and Sophocles, gradually extended this depart-
ment of art(109), 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 Romans from the theatre into halls adorned
with columns, where long surfaces of wall were covered, at
first with more restricted scenes (110), but afterwards with
extensive views of cities, sea-shores, and wide pastures with
grazing herds of cattle (U1). These pleasing decorations
were not, indeed, invented by the Roman painter, Ludius,
in the Augustan age, but were rendered generally popu-
lar (112) by him, and enlivened by the introduction of small
figures (113). Almost at the same period, and even half a
century earlier, amongst the Indians, in the brilliant epoch
of Yikramaditya, we find landscape painting referred to as a
much practised art. In the charming drama of " Sacontala,"
the king, Dushmanta, has tl» picture of his beloved shewn
him; but not satisfied with her portrait only, he desires
that "the paintress should draw the places which Sacon-
tala most loved : — the Malini river, with a sandbank on
which the red flamingoes are standing; a chain of lulls,
which rest against the Himalaya, and gazelles reposing on
the hills." These are no small requisitions : they indicate
a belief, at least, in the possibility of executing complicated
representations.
OF THE ANCIENTS. 77
In Borne, from the time of the Caesars, landscape painting
became a separate branch of art, but so far as we can judge
by what the excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and
Stabia, have shewn us, the pictures were often mere bird's-
eye 'views, resembling maps, and aimed rather at the repre-
sentation of seaport towns, villas, and artificial gardens,
than of nature in her freedom. That which the Greeks and
the Romans regarded as attractive in a landscape, seems to
have been almost exclusively the agreeably habitable, and
not what we call the wild and romantic. In their pictures,
the imitation 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
Mse of which the severe Yitruvius 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 dreamy twilight of mind which
speaks to us in landscape appeared to the ancients, accord-
ing to their mode of feeling, incapable of artistic represen-
tation." ("*)
The specimens of ancient landscape-painting in the man-
ner of Ludius, which have been brought to light by the
excavations at Pompeii (lately so successful), belong most
probably to a single and very limited epoch (115), namely,
from Nero to Titus ; for the town had been entirely destroyed
by earthquake sixteen years before the catastrophe caused
by the celebrated eruption of Yesuvius
Erom Constantino the Great to the beginning of the
middle ages, painting, though connected with Christian
subjects, preserved a close affinity to its earlier character.
78 LANDSCAPE PAINTING
An entire treasury of old memorials is found both in the
miniatures (ll6) adorning superb manuscripts still in good
condition, and in the scarcer mosaics of the same period.
Bumohr mentions a manuscript Psalter, in the Barberina at
Borne, containing a miniature in which " David is seen play-
ing on the harp, seated 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 century, 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 preserve
the lingering echoes and types of a more nourishing period.
Memorials, 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 Prankish monarchy, among the
Anglo-Saxons, and into the Netherlands. It is therefore
a fact of no little importance in respect to the history of
modern 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 Elan-
ders" (n?).
It is in the historical paintings of the brothers Van Eyck
that we first meet with a careful 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
OP THE 15TH CENTURY. 79
suit to the daughter of King John I. of Portugal. We
possess, in the Berlin Museum, the volets of the magnificent
painting which these artists, the true founders of the great
Netherlands school of painting, executed for the cathedral
at Ghent. On the sides which present the holy hermits
and pilgrims, John van Eyck has adorned the landscape
with orange trees, date palms, and cypresses, which are
marked by an extreme fidelity to nature, and impart to the
other dark masses a grave and solemn character. In view-
ing this picture, we feel that the painter had himself received
the impression of a vegetation fanned by soft and warm
breezes.
The master-works of the brothers 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 technical perfection. The desire to
produce an animated representation of natural forms was
now awakened ; and if we would trace the gradual extension
and heightening of the feelings connected therewith, we
should recal how Anton ello of Messina, a scholar of the
brothers Yan Eyck, transplanted to Yenice a fondness for
landscape ; and how, even in Florence, the pictures of the
Van Eyck school exerted a similar influence over Domenico
Ghirlandaio, and other masters (118). 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 forms. The representation of nature first appears
conceived with freedom and with grandeur in the master-
works of Titian, to whom, in this respect also, Giorgione
had served as an example. I had the opportunity, during
many years, of admiring, at Paris, Titian's painting of the
80 LANDSCAPE PAINTING
death of Peter Martyr ("»), attacked in a forest by an Albi-
gense in the presence of another Dominican monk. The
form of the forest trees, their foliage, the blue mountainous
distance, the management of the light and the subdued
tone of colouring, produce an impression of grandeur,
solemnity, 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 ATenus 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
IBolognese school, Annibal Caracci and Domenichino re-
mained faithful to this elevation of style and character. If,
however, the sixteenth century was the greatest epoch of
historic painting, the seventeenth is that of landscape. As
the riches of nature became better 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 which the external world can awaken within us.
When, conformably to the elevated aim of all art, tin's awaken-
ing power transforms the actual into the ideal, the enjoyment
produced is accompanied by emotion; theheartistouchedwhen-
eveiwelookintothe depths either of nature or of humanity (12°),
OF THE 16TH AND 1?TH CENTURIES. 81
We find assembled, in the same century, Claude Lor-
raine,, the idyllic painter of light and of aerial dis-
tance; EuysclaeFs dark forest masses and threaten-
ing clouds; Gaspar and Nicholas Poussin's heroic forms
of trees; and the faithful and simply natural repre-
sentations of Everdingen, Hobbima, and Cuyp (121).
This flourishing period in the development of art com-
prised happy imitations of the vegetation of the north of
Europe, of southern Italy, and of the Iberian peninsula:
the painters adorned their landscapes with oranges and
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 Chamserops maritima) was usually
represented conventionally, with scaly and serpentlike
trunks (122), and long served as the representative of tropi-
cal vegetation generally, — much as Pinus pinea (the stone
pine) is, by a still widely prevailing idea, regarded as exclu-
sively characteristic of Italian vegetation. The outlines of
lofty mountains were yet but little studied : and naturalists
and landscape painters still regarded the snowy summits,
which rise above the green pastures of the lower Alps, as
inaccessible. The particular characters of masses of rock
were rarely made objects of careful imitation, except
where associated with the foaming waterfall. 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, who in his great hunting pieces has
depicted with inimitable truth and animation the wild
movements of the beasts of the forest, has also apprehended,
with peculiar felicity, the characteristics of the inanimate
82 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
surface of the earth, in the arid desert and rocky plateau
on which the Escurial is built (123).
The . department of art to which we are now referring
might be expected to advance in variety and exactness as
the geographical horizon became enlarged, and as voyages
to distant climates facilitated the perception of the rela-
tive beauty of different vegetable forms, and their con-
nection in groups of natural families. The discoveries
of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Alvarez Cabral in Cen-
tral America, Southern Asia, and Brazil, the extensive com-
merce in spices and drugs carried on by the Spaniards, Por-
tuguese, Italians, Dutch, and Flemings, and the establish-
ment, between 1544 and 1568, of botanic gardens (not
yet however furnished with regular hothouses), at Pisa,
Padua, and Bologna, did indeed afford to painters the opportu-
nity 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 sixteenth century ; but until
near the middle of the seventeenth century there were no
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, Franz 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
CHARACTERISTIC REPRESENTATION OF TROPICAL SCENERY. 88
shores of the Eio San Francisco, and on those of the lower
part of the river of the Amazons (124). Some of these were
afterwards executed by himself as pictures, and others were
etched with much spirit. There are preserved in Denmark,
(in a gallery of the fine castle at Erederiksborg), some
large oil paintings of great merit belonging to the same
epoch by the painter Eckhout, 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.
These examples were followed by few artists of merit
until Cook's second voyage of circumnavigation: what
Hodge did for the western islands of the Pacific, and our
distinguished countryman, Eerdinand Bauer, for New Holland
and Van Diemen Island, has been since done in very recent
times in a much grander style, and with a more masterly
hand, for tropical America, by Moritz, Eugendas, Count
Clarac, Eerdinand Bellermann, and Edward Hildebrandt ; and
for many other parts of the earth by Heinrich von Kittlitz,
who accompanied the Eussian admiral, Lutke, on his voyage
of circumnavigation (125).
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 coasK but also
on the declivities of the snow-crowned Andes the Hima-
laya or the Neilgherries of Mysore, or in the virgin forests
watered by the network of rivers between the Orinoco and
the Amazons, can feel, — and he alone can feel, — how almost
84 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
infinite 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, Borneo, 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 and yet un-
known beauty, when highly-gifted artists shall oftener pass
the narrow bounds of the Mediterranean, and shall seize,
with the first freshness of a pure youthful 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 chiefly
by travellers to whom the want of previous artistic train-
ing, and a variety of scientific occupations, allowed but
little opportunity of attaining perfection in landscape
painting. But few among them were able, in addition
to the botanical interest excited by individual forms of
flowers and leaves, to seize the general 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 found to be less prepared than the
occasion demanded ; and perhaps the end of the voyage was
approaching, when even the most talented among them,
after a long enjoyment of the spectacle of the great scenes of
nature, and many attempts at imitation, were just beginning
to master 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
CHARACTERISTIC REPRESENTATION OF TROPICAL SCENERYc 85
course of great rivers, or to the summits of the mountain
chains of the interior. It is only by 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 his return. He will be able
to do so the more perfectly, if he has also accumulated
a large number of separate studies of tops of trees, of
branches clothed with leaves, adorned with blossoms, or laden
with fruit, of fallen trunks of trees overgrown with pothos
and orchidese, of portions of rocks and river banks, as well
as of the surface of the ground in the forest, all drawn or
painted directly from nature. An abundance of studies of
this kind, in which the outlines are well and sharply marked
will furnish him with materials enabling him, on his re-
turn, to dispense with the misleading assistance afforded by
plants grown in the confinement of hot-houses, or by what
are called botanical drawings.
Great events in the world's history, the independence of
the Spanish and Portuguese Americas, and the spread and
increase of intellectual cultivation in India, New Holland,
the Sandwich Islands, and the southern 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 development which might not have
been attainable without these local circumstances. In South
America populous cities are situated 13,000 feet above the
level of the sea. In descending from them to the plains,
all climatic gradations of the forms of plants are offered to
the eye. What may we not expect from the picturesque
study of nature in such scenes, if after the termination of
civil discord and the establishment of free institutions,
86 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
artis'ic feeling shall at length awaken in those elevated
highlands !
All that belongs to the expression of human emotion and
to the beauty of the human form, has attained perhaps its
highest perfection in the northern temperate zone, under the
skies of Greece and Italy. By the combined exercise of
imitative art and 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 own race. Landscape painting, though no merely
imitative art, has, it may be said, a more material sub-
stratum 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
n^ure, 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, large alpine 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 the simpler forms of our native
•floras, but not therefore without depth of feeling or with-
out the treasures of creative imagination. Even in this
narrower field, highly-gifted painters, the Caracci, Caspar
Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Jluysdael, have, with magic
power, by the selection of forms of trees and by effects of
light, found scope wherein to call forth some of the most
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 which I could not
but point, in order to recal the ancient and deeply-seated
bond which unites natural knowledge with poetry and
with artistic feeling, for we must ever distinguish, in
landscape painting as in every other branch of art, be-
tween productions derived from direct observation, and
those which spring 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
Ruysdael and Everdingen, 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 horizon, and an increased acquaintance with the
nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the Luxuriant
fulness of life in the tropical world, offer the advantage not
only of enriching 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 here 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 ; they were contained in a
memoir which has been but little read, entitled " Ideen zu
88 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
einerPhysiognomik der Gewachse" (12G) (Ideas towards a phy-
siognomy of plants). When rising from local phenomena
we embrace all nature in one view, we perceive the increase
of warmth from the poles to the equator accompanied by the
gradual advance of organic vigour and luxuriance. Prom
Northern Europe to the beautiful coasts of the Mediterranean
this advance is even less than from the Iberian Peninsula,
Southern Italy and Greece, 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 light
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 -feathered
arborescent ferns, the trunks of Anacardias and of gigantic
species of Picus are enlivened by Cymbidium and the fragrant
vanilla. The fresh green of the Dracontias, and the deep-cut
leaves of the Pothos, contrast with the many-coloured flowers
of the Orchidese. Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow
flowering Banisterias, entwining the stems of the forest trees,
spread far and ^dde, and rise high in air ; delicate flowers
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 leaves 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 single
tree adorned with Paullinias, Bignonias, and Dendrobium,
CHARACTERISTIC ASPECT OF DIFFERENT ZONES. 89
presents a mass of vegetation and a variety of plants which,
if detached from each other, would cover a considerable space
of ground.
But to each zone of the earth are allotted peculiar beauties ;
to the tropics, variety and grandeur in the forms of vegeta-
tion ; to the north, the aspect of its meadows and green
pastures, and the periodic long-desired reawakening of nature
at the first breath of the mild air of spring. As in the
Musacese we have the greatest expansion, so in the Casuarinse
and needle trees we have the greatest contraction of the
leafy vessels. Pirs, Thuias, and Cypresses, 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 arid ice cover the earth, the inward life of plants,
like the Promethean fire, is never extinct upon our planet.
Each zone of vegetation, besides its peculiar beauties, has
also a distinct character, calling forth in us a different order
of impressions. To recal here only forms of our native
climates, who does not feel himself differently affected in the
dark 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 there 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
Local character. The azure of the sky, the form of <-«h«
90 LANDSCAPE PAINTING.
clouds, the haze resting on the distance, the succulency of
the herbage, the brightness of the foliage, the outline of the
mountains, are elements which determine the general im-
pression. It is the province of landscape painting to ap-
prehend these, and to reproduce them visibly. The artist is
permitted 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), into
a few simple characters.
Even in the present imperfect state of our pictorial f epre-
sentations of landscape, the engravings which accompany,
and too often only disfigure, our books of travels, have yet
contributed not a little to our knowledge of the aspect of
distant zones, to the predilection for extensive 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 years increased both the generality
and the strength of these impressions. The class of repre-
sentations which Vitruvius and the Egyptian Julius 'Pollux
satirically described as "rural satyric decorations/' which,
in the middle of the sixteenth century, were, by Serlio's
plan of sliding scenes, made to increase theatrical illusion,
may now, in Barker's panoramas, by the aid of Prevost
and Daguerre, be converted into a kind of substitute for
wanderings in various climates. More may 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 imagme himself surrounded on all sides
by nature in another clime. Impressions are thus produced
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 phenomena of nature
generally before the contemplation of the eye and of the mind.
VOL. II.
INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE.
HE. — Cultivation of tropical plants — Assemblage of contrasted
forms — Impression of the general characteristic physiog*
nomy 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
the 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 youthful experience, when the sight of a colossal
dragon tree and of a fan palm in an old tower of the botanic
garden at Berlin, implanted in my breast the first germ of
an irrepressible longing for distant travel. Those who are
able to reascend in 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
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 are 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, AiaUcarias
CULTURE OP CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS. 93
and Mimosas, and moss-covered trunks from which shoot
Dracontias, Ferns with their delicate foliage, and Orchidese 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 light-feathered
Bamboos ; to the picturesque apposition of grand and noble
forms, such as adorn the banks of the upper Orinoco and the
forest shores of the Amazons, 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 life 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 palms, or the undulating
savannah which bounds the horizon. The illumination and
colouring, which between the tropics are shed over all
terrestrial objects by the light of the thinly veiled or perfectly
pure heaven, give to landscape painting, when the pencil
succeeds in imitating this mild effect of light, a peculiar and
mysterious power, A deep perception of the essence of the
94 CULTURE OF CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS.
Greek tragedy led my brother to compare the charm of the
chorus in its effect with the sky in the landscape. (127)
The multiplied means which painting can command for
stimulating the fancy, and concentrating in a small space the
grandest phenomena of sea and land, are indeed denied to
our plantations in gardens or in hot-houses ; but the
inferiority in general impression is compensated by the
mastery which the reality every where exerts over the seiises.
When in the palm 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 the tropics, looking down from the
summit of a hill upon a small thicket of palms. The 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 land ; we hear the rustling of
the fan-like leaves, and see the changing play of light, as,
gently moved by slight currents of air, the waving tops of
the palms come into contact with each other. So great is
the charm which reality can give. The recollection of the
needful degree 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 realm of nature
as elsewhere ; and in the eyes of the earnest and travelled
botanist, the dried specimen in an herbarium, if actually
PARKS AND GARDENS. 95
gathered on the Cordilleras 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 character ; 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 will 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 earlier 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 mountain (128),
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, resembling 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 (129). The Asiatic
terrestrial paradises (irapa^taot), were early celebrated in
more western countries (130> ; and the worship of trees even
96 CULTURE OP CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS.
goes back among the Iraunians to the rules of Horn, called,
in the Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. We
know from Herodotus the delight which 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" (131). 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 Anurahdepura, supposed to have sprung
from the branches of the original tree under which Buddha,
while inhabiting the ancient Magadha, was absorbed in
beatification, or " self-extinction" (nirwana) (132). 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 the
praise of a grove belonging to the temple of Apollo, at
Grynion, in ^Eolis (133) ; and the grove of Colone. 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 miles that agriculture
PARKS AND GARDENS. 97
was affected, (134) and the people were excited to revolt.
u What is it," says an ancient Chinese 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.
Symmetry is wearisome \ and a garden where every thing be-
trays constraint and art becomes tedious and distasteful." (135)
A description which Sir George Staunton has given us of
the great imperial garden of Zhe-hol, (136) 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, (137) 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, wood-crowned hills, 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 his deceased
98 CULTURE OF CHARACTERISTIC EXOTIC PLANTS.
ancestors, according to the rites prescribed by Confucius,
and the pious remembrance of departed monarchs and
warriors, are the more special objects of this remarkable
poem. A long enumeration of the wild plants, and of the
animals which enliven the district, is tedious, as 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 world 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 Chinese, leads the author to introduce
careful descriptions of the aspect of inanimate nature, to
which the Greeks and the Romans 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 with marked predilection. (138)
As I do not participate in that distaste to Chinese
literature which is too slowly disappearing amongst us,
and as I have dwelt, perhaps, at too much length on the
work of a cotemporary of Frederic the Great, it is the more
incumbent on me to go back to a period seven centuries and
a half earlier, for the purpose of recalling the poem of " The
Garden/' by See-ma-kuang, a celebrated statesman. It is
true that the pleasure grounds described in this poem are,
in part, overcrowded with numerous buildings, as was the
case in the ancient villas of Italy; but the minister also
describes a hermitage, situated between rocks, and sur-
rounded by lofty fir trees. He praises the extensive prospect
over the wide river Kiang, with its many vessels : " here he
PARKS AND GARDENS. 99
can receive his friends, listen to their verses, and recite to
them his own/' (139) See-ma-kuang wrote in the year 1086,
when, in Germany, poetry, in the hands of a rude clergy,
did not even speak the language of the 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 burying-places were surrounded with
gardens, adorned with exotic trees, and with a carpet of
flowers of many forms and colours. The plants of India
were early conveyed to China, Corea, and Nipbn. Siebold,
whose writings afford a comprehensive view of all that
relates to Japan, was the first to call attention to the cause
of the intermixture of the floras of widely-separated Bud-
dhistic countries. (14°)
The rich and increasing variety of characteristic vegetable
forms which, in the present age, are offered both to scientific
observation and to landscape painting, cannot but afford a
lively incentive to trace out the sources which have prepared
for us this more extended knowledge and this increased
enjoyment. The enumeration of these sources is reserved
for the succeeding section of my work, *. 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 exerted on the intellectual activity
and the feelings of men by the reflected image of the external
world, which, in the progress of modern civilisation, have
tended so materially to encourage and vivify the study of
nature. Notwithstanding a certain degree of arbitrary free-
100 CTJLTUBE OF EXOTIC PLANTS.
dom in the development of the several p?irts, primary and
deep-seated laws of organic life bind all animal and vegetable
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 landscape
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.
101
HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE
UNIVERSE.
Principal epochs of the progressive development and extension of tho
idea of the Cosmos as an organic whole.
THE history of the physical contemplation of the universe is
the history of the recognition of nature as a whole ; 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 physical views.
It is that part of the history of our world of thought 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 scientific 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. (141) The history 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
the "history of the Cosmos," and sometimes the "history
102 HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL
of the physical contemplation of the universe/' — must not,
therefore, be confounded with the " history of the natural
sciences/' as 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
as historic periods or epochs, it may be useful 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
science of the Cosmos, — because they have supplied the
means of discovering what is common to all organic bodies,
of penetrating into the most distant regions of space, and
of distinguishing borrowed or reflected light 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 families 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 alga3ferous 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
CONTEMPLATION OOP THE TJNIVEB3B. 103
whole, is assuredly far from embracing the entire history of
human cultivation. Even were we to regard the insight
into the connection of the animating forces of the material
universe as the noblest fruit of that cultivation, as tending
towards the loftiest pinnacle which the intelligence of man
can attain, yet that which we here propose to indicate would
still be but one portion of a history, of which the scope
should comprehend all that marks the progress of different
nations in all directions in which moral, social, or mental
improvement can be attained. Restricted to physical asso-
ciations, we necessarily study but one part of the history of
human knowledge ; we fix our eyes especially on the relation
which progressive attainment has borne to the whole which
nature presents to us ; we dwell less on the extension of the
separate branches of knowledge, than on what different ages
have furnished either of results capable of general applica-
tion, or of powerful material aids contributing to the more
exact observation of nature.
We must first of all distinguish carefully and accurately
between early presage and actual knowledge. "With in-
creasing cultivation much passes 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 phaenomena, which, at first unproved, and
mingled with the most unfounded speculations, has at a
later period been confirmed by sure experience, and has
since become matter of scientific knowledge. The presen-
104 HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL
tient 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 nothing 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 phenomena and con-
currence in the action of the forces of the universe, our method
of proceeding must be to select for our notice those subjects
by which the idea of the unity of phsenomeua has been gradu-
ally developed. We distinguish in this respect, 1°, the efforts
of reason to attain the knowledge of natural laws by athought-
ful consideration of natural phenomena ; 2°, events in the
world's history which have 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 accurate, 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. For the sake
of illustrating what has been said, we will again adduce
particular instances, characteristic of the different 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," — of
"great events/' — and of the " invention or discovery of
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 phaeno-
CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 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 numeri-
cal elements, from a certain predilection for the relations of
number 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 thfc Pythagoreans,
according to the report of Philolaus of Croton, taught the
progressive movement of the non-rotating earth, or its
revolution around the hearth or focus of the universe (the
central fire, Hestia) ; whereas Plato and Aristotle imagined
the earth to have neither a rotatory nor a progressive move-
ment, but to rest immoveably in the center. Hicetas of
Syracuse (who is at least more ancient than Theophrastus),
Heraclides Ponticus, and Ecphantus, were acquainted with
the rotation of the earth around its axis ; but Aristarchus of
Samos, and especially Seleucus the Babylonian who lived a
century and a half 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, in the middle ages, fanaticism, and the still pre-
vailing influence of the Ptolemaic system, combined to bring
106 HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL
back a belief in the immobility of the earth, and if, in the
view of the Alexandrian Cosmas Indicopleustes, 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
Cuss, 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, TychoBrahe's doctrine wasastepbackwards;
but the retrogression was of short duration. When once a
considerable mass of exact observations had been assembled,
to which Tycho himself largely, contributed, the true view of
the structure of the universe could not be long repressed.
We have here shewn how the period of fluctuations is espe-
cially one of presentiment 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 horizon of the
contemplation of the universe has been extended. To this class
belong the migration of nations, remarkable voyages, and mili-
tary expeditions ; these have been instrumental in making
known the natural features of the earth's surface, such as
the form of continents, the direction of mountain chains,
the relative elevation of high plateaus, and sometimes
oy the wide range over which they extended, have even
provided materials for the establishment of general laws of
nature, in these historical considerations, it will not be
necessary to present a connected tissue of events ; it will be
sufficient to notice those occurrences which, at each period,
have exerted a decisive influence on the intellectual efforts
of man, and on a more enlarged and extended view of the
universe. Such have been, to the nations settled round the
CONTEMPLATION OF 4THE UNIVERSE, 107
basin of the Mediterranean, the navigation of Cokeus of Samos
beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; the expedition of Alexan-
der to Western India ; the empire of the world obtained by
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 among these heterogeneous 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 all the nations with whom they have been
brought in contact. (142) The Greek tongue appears in the
interior 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
Asiatic islands3 and in Madagascar; and it is even probable
VOT . JT.
108 HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL
that through intelligence from the Indian trading stations
of the Banians, they had a large share in occasioning the
bold enterprise of Vasco de Gama. The wide predomi-
nance of particular languages, though unfortunately it pre-
pared the early destruction of the displaced idioms, has
contributed beneficially to bring mankind together; re-
sembling in this, one of the effects which have followed the
extension of Christianity, and which has also been produced
by the spread of Buddhism.
Languages, compared with each other, and considered as
objects of the 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 modern 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 out epochs of development,
it recognises in the more or less altered characters 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 large field for investigations of this nature into the first
or most ancient conditions of language. The same histori-
CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 109
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. (143)
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 aids 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 worlds. Noticing here only those
instruments wliich mark great epochs in the history of the
knowledge of nature, we may name the telescope, and its too
long delayed combination with instruments for angular
determinations ; — the compound microscope, which affords
110 HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL
us 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 investigating the
earth's magnetism ; the pendulum, employed as 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 universe,
based, as we have seen, on the thoughtful consideration of
natural phsenomena, on the occurrence of influential events,
and on discoveries which have enlarged our sphere of per-
ception, is, however, to be here presented only in its lead-
ing features, and in a fragmentary and general manner. I
flatter myself with the hope, that brevity in the treatment
may enable the reader more easily to apprehend the spirit in
which an image, so difficult 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 assume on
the part of the reader such a knowledge of the different
events, and of their connection and causal relations, as may
render it sufficient to name them, and to shew the influence
which they have exerted on 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 OF THE UNIVERSE. Ill
to be regarded as the object of such an undertaking. In
making this announcement, for the sake of preserving to my
work on the Cosmos the peculiar character which can alone
render its execution possible, I doubtless expose myself
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 found in it. I have purposely
entered far more into detail in the earlier than in the later
portions of history. 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 generally 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
presentiments, and with only a few actual observations made
on detached portions of the great realm 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 our western cultivation (the
only one of which the progress has been almost uninter-
rupted), is immediately derived. We may indicate the princi-
pal streams through 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 unity of nature, does not belong to an
original and so-called primitive people, notwithstanding
that such an insight has been attributed at different periods,
112 HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL
and according to different historical views, at one time to a
Semitic race in Northern Chaldea, (Arpaxad (144), the
Arrapachitis of Ptolemy), and at another, to the race of the
Indians and Iraunians in the ancient land of the Zend (145),
near the sources of the Oxus 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, in order to arrive at the firm ground beneath, on
.which appear the first germs of human civilisation unfolding
according to natural laws. In the early twilight of history,
we perceive several shining points already established as cen-
ters of civilisation, radiating simultaneously towards each
other. Such was Egypt at least five thousand years before
our Era ; (146) such also were Babylon, Niniveh, Kashmeer,
and Iran, such too was China, after the first colony had
migrated from the north-eastern declivity 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 we know, indeed, the brightness, but, with few ex-
ceptions, (u?) 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 belief deeply rooted in the
earliest Indian doctrine of Krishna. (148) " Truth was origv
CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 113
nally deposited with men, but gradually slumbered and was
forgotten ; the knowledge of it returns like a recollection."
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 us to conjecture, many of them are 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 communication with these so-called
children of nature discloses 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 natural forces ; but such a
feeling has nothing in common with the endeavours to
embrace intellectually the connection of phenomena. True
cosmical views are the results of observation and ideal com-
bination; they are the fruit of long-continued contact
between the mind of man and the external world. INFor are
they the work of a single people ; in their formation, mutual
communication is required, and great if not general inter-
course between various nations.
As in the considerations on the reflex 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 literature, that which relates to the expression of
a vivid feeling of nature, so in the " history of the contem-
plation of the universe," I select, from the history of general
intellectual cultivation, that which marks progress in the
recognition of a natural whole. Both these portions,
not detached arbitrarily, but according to determinate
114
HISTORY OP THE PHYSICAL
principles, bear to each other the same relations as do the
subjects of study from which they are taken. The history
of the intellectual cultivation of mankind includes the history
of the elementary powers of the human mind, and therefore,
also, of the works in which these powers have manifested
themselves in the domains of literature and art. In a
similar manner we recognise in the depth and vividness of
the feeling for nature, which has 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 streams 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 witfh. a single
group of nations, viz. with that from which our present
western scientific culture, 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 Romans
received from without, from the east and from the south,
associated with that which they themselves originated 01
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 earlier period,
have either lapsed into a state of barbarism, whereby this know-
CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 115
ledge has been lost, or, whilst preserving their ancient civilisa-
tion and firmly established complex civil institutions, as is the
case with China, they have made extremely little progress in
science and in the industrial arts, and have been still more de-
ficient in participation in that intercourse with the rest of the
world, without which general views cannot be formed. 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 simultaneously 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-
descended scientific nomenclature, 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 declination of a freely-sus-
pended magnetic bar ; from Phoenicia and Egypt, the know-
ledge of chemical preparations (as glass, animal and vegeta-
ble colouring substances, and metallic oxides) ; and from
India, the general use of 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 already shewn how the continent of Europe 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 configuration of its coast Ike,
116 PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE.
extolled by Strabo ; to its position relatively to Africa, a broad
expanse of land within the torrid zone; and to the circum-
stance that the prevailing winds from the west are warm winds
in winter, owing to their passing over a wide extent of
ocean. (149) The physical constitution of the surface 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,
Jhave been most favoured by geographical relations,
117
PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HTSTOHY OP THE PHYSICAL
CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
I.
The Mediterranean taken as the point of departure for the repre-
sentation of the relations which led to the gradual extension of
the idea of the Cosmos.— Connection with the earliest Greek
cultivation. — Attempts at distant navigation towards the north-
east (the Argonauts) ; towards the south (Ophir) ; and towards
the west (Colseus of Samos).
PLATO describes the narrow limits of the Mediterranean in
a manner quite appropriate to enlarged cosmographical
views. He says, in the Phaedo, (15°) " we who dwell from the
Phasis to the Pillars of Hercules, inhabit only a small portion
of the earth, in which we have settled round the (interior)
sea, like ants or frogs around a marsh/' It is from this
narrow basin, on the margin of which Egyptian, Phoenician,
and Hellenic nations flourished and attained a brilliant
civilisation, that the colonisation of great territories in Asia
and Africa has proceeded ; and that those nautical enter-
prises have gone forth, which have lifted the veil from tho
whole western hemisphere of the globe.
The present form of the Mediterranean shews traces of a
former subdivision into three smaller closed basins. (151)
The JSgean portion is bounded to the south by a curved line,
which, commencing at the coast of Can a in Asia Minor, is
formed by the islands of Rhodes, Crete, and Cerigo, joining
118 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
the, Peloponnesus not far from Cape Malea. More to the
west we have the Ionian Sea, or the Syrtic basin, in which
Malta is situated : the western point of Sicily approaches to
within forty-eight geographical miles of the African shore ;
and we might almost regard the sudden but transient eleva-
tion of the burning island of Ferdinandea (1831), to the
southwest of the limestone rocks of Sciacca, as an effort of
nature to reclose the Syrtic basin, by connecting together Cape
Grantola, the Adventure bank (examined by Captain Smith),
the island of Pantellaria, and the African Cape Bon,— and thus
to divide it from the third, the westernmost, or Tyrrhenian
basin. (152) 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 Columbratse.
The peculiar form of the Mediterranean was very in-
fluential on the early limitation and later extension of
Phoenician and Grecian voyages of discovery, of which the
atter were long restricted to the JSgean and Syrtic basins.
In the Homeric times, continental Italy was still an
" unknown land/' The Phocseans first opened the Tyrrhenian
basin west of Sicily, and 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
undertakings, 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 outline gives to the
northern shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over the
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 119
southern or Lybian shore, which, according to Strabo, was
remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas, (153)
the Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their sinuous
and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the
neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and
isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and of the
islands, the latter either severed from the main or volcani-
cally elevated in lines, as if over long fissures, early led to
geognostical views respecting eruptions, 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. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably wrote in
Christian times, wove antique legends into his song; he
describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia into
several islands, when "the dark-haired Poseidon, being
wroth with Father Kronion, smote Lyktonia with the golden
trident." Similar phantasies, which, indeed, may often have
arisen 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 the myth of the Atlantis broken into fragments,
should be regarded as a distant and western reflex of that of
Lyktonia (as I think I have elsewhere shewn to be probable),
or whether, as Otfried Miiller considers, " the destruction of
Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to the Samothracian tradition of a
great flood, which had changed the form of that district." (154)
But, as has already been often remarked, the circumstance
which have most of all rendered the geographical position
180 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
of the Mediterranean so beneficently favourable to the inter-
course of nations, and the progressive extension of the
knowledge of the world, are the neighbourhood of the
peninsula of Asia Minor, projecting from the eastern conti-
nent } the numerous islands of the J3gean (155) which have
formed a bridge for the passage of civilisation; and the
fissure between Arabia, Egypt, and Abyssinia, by which the*
great Indian ocean, under the name of the Arabian Gulf
or lied Sea, advances so as to be only divided by a nar-
row isthmus from the Delta of the Nile, and from the
south-eastern coast of the Mediterranean. By means of
these geographical relations, the influence of the sea, as the
" uniting element," shewed itself in the increasing power of
the Phoenicians, 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 Indian Pentapotamia, and in China,
had been confined to the rich alluvial lands watered by wide
rivers ; but it was otherwise in Phoenicia and in Hellas.
The early impulse to maritime undertakings, which shewed
itself in the lively and mobile minds of the Greeks and
especially of the Ionic branch, found a rich and varied field
in the remarkable forms of the Mediterranean, and in its
position relatively to the oceans to the south and west.
The Red Sea, formed by the entrance of the Indian Ocean
through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, belongs to a class of
great physical phaenomena which modern geology has made
known to us. The European continent has its principal
axis in a north-east and south-west line; but, almost at
right angles to this direction, there exists a system of fissures,
which have given occasion, in some cases, to the entrance
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 121
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 north-west direction, from the
Indian Ocean to the mouth of the Elbe in northern
Germany; it shews itself in the Red Sea which, in its
southern portion, is bordered on both sides by volcanic
rocks ; — in the Persian Gulf and the lowlands of the double
river Euphrates and Tigris; — in the Zagros mountain
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 (156) of two systems of geodesic lines,
N.E.— S.W. and S.E.— N.W. (concerning winch I believe
the S.E. — N.W. to be the more recent, and that both result
from the direction of deep-seated earthquake movements in
the interior of the globe), has had an important influence on
the destinies of men, and in facilitating the intercourse
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 the
year, produce a regular alternation of currents of air
(Monsoons), (15?) favouring navigation to the Myrrhifera
Eegio of the Adramites in Southern Arabia, and to the
Persian Gulf, India, and Ceylon. During the season of
north winds in the Eed Sea (April and May to October),
the south-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 with 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 Greeks
122 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE
might receive from different quarters foreign elements of
mental cultivation and the knowledge of other countries,
I will next notice other nations dwelling near the Me-
diterranean, who enjoyed an early and high degree of
civilisation — the Egyptians, the Pho3nicians with their north
and west African colonies, and the Etruscans. Immigration
and commercial intercourse were powerful agents : the more
our historical horizon has been extended in the most recent
times, as by the discovery of monuments and inscriptions,
and by philosophical investigations into languages, the
greater we find to have been the influence which, in the
earliest times, the Greeks 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 large a
part in history, Ifollow the latest investigations of Lepsius, (158)
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 Schafra,
Cheops-Chufu, and Menkera or Menctees). This dynasty
commenced thirty-four centuries before our Christian era,
and twenty-three centuries before the Doric immigration of
the Heraclides into €the Peloponnesus. (159) The great
stone pyramids of Daschur, a little to the south of Gizeh
and Sakara, 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
kings' names have been discovered. The latest dynasty of
the " old kingdom/' which terminated at the invasion of the
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 123
Hyksos, 1200 years before Homer, was the twelfth of
Manetho, to which belonged Amenemha III. who made the
original labyrinth, and formed Lake Moeris artificially 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 dynasty (1600 B.C.) The
great Ramses Miamouii (Ramses II.) was the second
monarch of the nineteenth dynasty. The representations on
stone which perpetuated the record of his victories were
explained to Gdrmanicus by the priests of Thebes. (16°) He
was known to Herodotus under the name of Sesostris,
probably from a confusion with the almost equally warlike
and powerful conqueror Seti (Setos), who was the father of
Ramses 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, Phoenicia, and Greece. As I before
described in a few 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 Nile 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 satisfactory picture of history.
Civilisation, early awakened and arbitrarily modelledm Egypt
by the mental requirements of the people, by the peculiar
physical constitution of their country, 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
VOL. II. K
124 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
the records preserved to us by history and by monumental
remains indicate only transitory conquests by land, and but
little extensive navigation by the. Egyptians themselves.
This civilised nation, so ancient and so powerful, appears to
have done less to produce a permanent influence beyond its
own 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 cosmical views. Eamses Miamoun
(from 1388 to 1322 B.C., 600 years, therefore, before the
first Olympiad of Coroebus) undertook, according to Hero-
dotus, extensive military expeditions into Ethiopia (where
Lepsius considers that his most southern works are to be
found near Mount Barkal) ; through Palestinian Syria ; and
passing from Asia Minor into Europe, to the Scythians,
Thracians, and finally to Colchis and the Phasis, on the
banks of which, part of his army, weary of their wander-
ings, finally settled. Ramses was also the first — so said the
priests — who, with long ships, 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. (161) Diodorus says expressly, that
Sesoosis (the great Ramses) advanced in India beyond the
Ganges, and that he also brought back captives from
Babylon. " The only well-assured fact in relation to the
nautical pursuits of the native ancient Egyptians is, that
from the earliest times they navigated not only the Nile, but
also the Arabian Gulf. The famous copper mines near
"Wadi Magara, on the peninsula of Sinai, were worked as
tarly as in the time of the fourth dynasty, under Cheops*
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
Chufu. The inscriptions of Hamamat on the Cosseir road,
which connected the Valley of the Nile with the western
coast of the Red Sea, reach back as far as the sixth dynasty.
The canal from Suez was attempted under Ramses the
Great, (162) the immediate motive being probably the inter-
course with the Arabian copper district." Greater maritime
enterprises, such even as the often-contested, but I think,
not improbable, circumnavigation of Africa(163) under Nechos
II. (611 — 595 B.C.), were entrusted to Phoenician vessels.
Nearly at the same period, but rather earlier, under Nechos's
father, Psammetichus (Psemetek), and also somewhat later,
after the close of the civil war under Amasis (Aahmes),
hired Greek troops, by their settlement at Naucratis, laid
the foundationsof «t permanent foreign commerce, of the in-
troduction of foreign ideas, and of the gradual penetra-
tion of Hellenism into Lower Egypt. Thus was deposited
a germ of mental freedom, — of a greater independence of
local influences, — which developed itself with rapidity and
vigour in the new order of things which followed the Mace-
donian conquest. The opening of the Egyptian ports under
Psammetichus marks an epoch so much the more important
since until that period, Egypt, or at least her northern coast,
had been as completely closed against all foreigners as Japan
now is. (164)
Amongst the cultivated nations, not Hellenic, who dwelt
around the Mediterranean in the ancient seats where our
modern knowledge originated, we must place the Phoe-
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 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
tual development, and addicted rather to the mechanical than
to the fine arts, with little of the grand and creative genius
of the more thoughtful inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile,
the Phoenicians, as an adventurous and far ranging com-
mercial people, and by the formation of colonies, one of
which far surpassed the parent city in political power,
did nevertheless, earlier than all the other nations sur-
rounding the Mediterranean, influence the course and ex-
tension of ideas, and promote richer and more varied
views of the physical universe. The Phoenicians had Baby-
lonian weights and measures, (165) and, at least after the
Persian dominion, employed for monetary purposes a stamped
metallic currency, which, singularly enough, was not pos-
sessed by the Egyptians, notwithstanding their advanced
political institutions and skill in the arts. But that by which
the Phoenicians 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 Boeotia by
Cadmus, may remain wrapped in mythological 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 Phoenician signs. (166) Accord-
ing to the views which, since Champollion's great discovery,
have prevailed more and more respecting the early condi-
tions of the development of alphabetical writing, the
Phoenician and all the Semitic written characters, though
they may have been originally formed from pictorial writing,
are to be regarded as a phonetic alphabet ; i. e. as an
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 127
alphabet in which the ideal signification of the pictured
signs is wholly disregarded, and these signs or characters
are treated exclusively as signs of sound. Such a phonetic
alphabet, being in its nature and fundamental form a syllabic
alphabet, was suited to satisfy all the requirements of a
graphical representation of the phonetic system of a language.
S( When the Semitic writing," says Lepsius, in his treatise
on the alphabet, " passed into Europe to Tndo-Germanic
nations, who all shew a much stronger tendency 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 vowels in their languages), this syllabic alphabet
underwent very important and influential changes." (l67)
Amongst the Greeks, the tendency to do awa^ with the
syllabic character proceeded to its full accomplishment.
Thus not only did the communication of the Phoenician
signs to almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even
to the north-west coast of Africa, facilitate commercial in-
tercourse and form a common bond between several civilised
nations, but this system of written characters, generalised
by its graphic flexibility, had a yet higher destination.
It became the depository 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 through which this im-
perishable benefit has been bequeathed to the latest posterity.
Nor is it solely as intermediaries, and by conveying an
impulse to others, that the Phoenicians 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
128 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
prosperity, founded on extensive maritime commerce, and
on the products of labour and skill in the manufactures
of Sidon in white and coloured glass, in tissues, and in
purple dyes, led, as every where else, to advances in
mathematical and chemical knowledge, and especially in 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." (l68) In order to indicate the extent of
the earth's surface first opened by Phoenician navigation and
the Phoenician 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 JEgean visited in the Homeric times ;
the south of Spain, from whence silver was obtained (Tar-
tessus and G ades) ; the north of Africa, west of the lesser
Syrtis (Utica, Hadrumetum, and Carthage); the countries in
the north of Europe, from whence tin (l69) and amber were
derived; and two trading factories (17°) in the Persian gulf,
the Baharein islands Tylos and Aradus.
The amber trade, which was probably first directed to the
west Cimbrian coasts, (1?1) and only subsequently to the
Baltic and the country of the Esthonians, owes its first origin
to the boldness and perseverance of Phoenician coast navi-
gators. 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 a
single foreign production, in opening an inland trade between
nations and in making known large tracts of country. la
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 129
the same way that the Phocsean Massilians brought the
British tin across France to the Rhone, the amber was con-
veyed from people to people through Germany, and by the
Celts on either declivity of the Alps to the Padus, and
through Pannonia to the Borysthenes. It was this inland
traffic which first brought the coasts of the northern ocean
into connection with the Euxine and the Adriatic.
Phoenicians from Carthage, and probably from the settle-
ments of Tartessus and Gades which were founded two
centuries earlier, visited an important part of the northwest
coastof Africa, extendingmuchbeyondCape Bojador; although
the Chretes of Hanno is neither the Chremetes of Aristotle's
Meteorology, nor yet our Gambia. (17%2) 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. (173) Among them, Cerne (DicuiPs Gaulea,
according to Letronne) was the principal naval station and
chief 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.
This consideration gives to the question of the period when
Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canaries were first known to
the Phoenicians, either of the mother country or of the cities
planted in Iberia and Africa, a great, I might almost say a
universal, 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 HISTORY 0V THE
links. It is probable that, from the foundations of Tartessus
and Utica by the Phoenicians, fully 2000 years elapsed before
the discovery of America by the northern route, i. e. before
Eric Eauda crossed the ocean to Greenland (an event which
was soon followed by voyages to North Carolina), and 2500
years before its discovery by the south western route taken
by Columbus from a point of departure near the ancient
Phoenician 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 Africa, as the first link in a
long series of efforts 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 Islands
of the Blest, placed in the far 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; (174) but as the Greeks' knowledge of the
Mediterranean extended, the ideal land, the geographical
mythus of the Elysium, was moved farther and farther to the
west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. True geographical
knowledge, the discoveries of the Phoenicians, — of the epoch
of which we have no certain information, — did not probably
first originate the mythus of the Fortunate Islands ; but the
application was made afterwards, and the geographical dis«
covery did but embody the picture which the imagination
had formed, and of which it became, as it were, the sub-
gtratum.
Later writers, such as the unknown compiler of the
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 131
w Collection of Wonderful Narrations/' which was ascribed
to Aristotle and of which Timseus made use, and such as
the still more circumstantial Diodorus Siculus, when speak-
ing of lovely islands, which may be supposed to be the
Canaries, allude to the storms which may have occa-
sioned their accidental discovery. Phoenician and Cartha-
ginian ships, it is said, sailing to the settlements already,
existing on the Coast of Lybia, were driven out to sea;
the event is placed at the early period of the Tyrrhenian
naval power, during the strife between the Tyrrhenian Pe-
lasgians and the Phoenicians. Statius Sebosus and the
Numidian King Juba first gave names to the different
islands, but unfortunately not Punic names, although cer-
tainly according to notices drawn from Punic books. Plu-
tarch having said that Sertorius, when driven out of Spain,
and after the loss of his fleet, 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, (175) indi-
cated not obscurely by Pliny as Purpurariae. 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 which 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 Phoenician ships sailing along the coast of
the continent ; but it appears from my researches (r/6) that
it might have been discovered from the heights near Cape
133 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
Bojador under favourable circumstances, and especially
during eruptions, and by the aid of reflection from an ele-
vated cloud above the volcano. It has even been asserted
that eruptions of Etna have been seen in recent times from
Mount Taygetos. (W)
In noticing the elements of a more extended knowledge
of the earth which early flowed in to the Greeks from other
parts of the Mediterranean, we have hitherto followed the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in their intercourse with the
northern 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 thou-
sand geographical miles east of Cerne and Hanno's western
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 inhabitants into relation with each
other, came into contact with the productions of the most
varied climates, ranging from the Cassiterides to south of
the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and far within the region of
the tropics. The Tyrian flag waved at the same time in
Britain and in the Indian ocean. The Phoenicians had
formed trading settlements in the most northern part of the
Arabian Gulf, in the harbours of Elath and Ezion Geber, as
well as in the Persian Gulf at Aradus and Tylos, where,
according to Strabo, there were temples similar in their
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 133
style of architecture to those of the Mediterranean. (1>78)
The caravan trade which the Phoenicians carried on, in order
to procure spices and incense, was directed by Palmyra to
Arabia Felix, and to the Chaldean or Nabathseic Gerrha, on
the western or Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf.
The expeditions of Hiram and Solomon, conjoint under-
takings of the Tyrians and Israelites, sailed from Ezion
Geber through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to Ophir
(Opheir, Sophir, Sophara, the Sanscrit Supara (179) of
Ptolemy). Solomon, who loved magnificence, caused a
fleet to be built in the Bed Sea, and Hiram supplied him
with Pho3nician mariners well acquainted with navigation,
and also Tyrian vessels, "ships of Tarshish." (18°) The
articles of merchandise which were brought back from Ophir
were gold, silver, sandal wood (algummim), precious stones,
ivory, apes (kophim), and peacocks (thukkiim). The names
by which these articles are designated are not . Hebrew but
Indian. (1S1) The researches of Gesenius, Benfey, and
Lassen, have made it extremely probable that the western
shores of the Indian peninsula were visited by the Phoeni-
cians, who, by their colonies in the Persian Gulf, and by
their intercourse with the Gerrhans, 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. (182) If it seem difficult to
view Western India as a country productive in gold, it will
be sufficient, without referring to the " gold-seeking ants/1
or to Ctesias's unmistakable description of a foundry, (in
which, however, according to his account, gold and iron
were melted together), (183) to remember the vicinity of
134 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
several places notable in this respect. Such are the
Southern part of Arabia, the Island of Dioscorides (Dm
Zokotora of the moderns, a corruption of the Sanscrit
Dvipa Sukhatara), cultivated by Indian settlers, — and the
auriferous East African coast of Sofala. Arabia, and the
island just mentioned to the south east of the Straits of
33ab-el-Mandeb, formed for the combined Phoenician and
Hebrew commerce intermediate and uniting links between
the Indian peninsula and the East Coast of Africa. Indians
had settled on the latter from the earliest times as on a
shore opposite to their own, and the traders to Ophir might
find in the basin of the Erythrean and Indian Seas other
sources of gold than India itself.
Less influential than the Phoenicians in connecting dif-
ferent nations and in extending the geographical horizon,
and early subjected to the Greek influence of Pelasgic Tyr-
rhenians arriving from the sea, we have next to consider the
austere and gloomy nation of the Etruscans. A not incon-
siderable inland trade with the remote amber countries was
carried on by them, passing through Northern Italy, and
across the Alps, where a " via sacra" (184) was protected by all
the neighbouring tribes. It seems to have been almost by the
same route that the primitive Tuscan people, the Kasense, came
from Rhsetia to the Padus, and even still farther southward.
That which is most important to notice, according to the
point of view which we have selected, and in which we seek
always to seize what is most general and permanent, is the
influence exerted by the commonwealth of Etruria on the
earliest Bom an civil institutions, and thus upon the whole
of Eoman life. The reflex action of this influence, in its re-
motely derived consequences, may be said to be still politically
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 135
operative even at the present day, in as far as through Eome
it has for centuries promoted, or at least has given a pecu-
liar character to the civilisation of a large portion of the
human race. (185)
A peculiar characteristic of the Tuscans, which is espe-
cially deserving of notice in the present work, was the dis-
position to cultivate intimate relations with certain natural
phsenomena. Divination, which was the occupation of the
caste of equestrian and warrior priests, occasioned the daily
observation of the meteorological processes of the atmo-
sphere. The " Fulguratores" occupied themselves with the
examination of the direction of lightnings, with " drawing
them down/' and " turning them aside." (186) They dis-
tinguished carefully between lightnings from the elevated
region of clouds, and lightnings sent from below by Saturn
(an earth god), (187) and called Saturnian lightnings: a distinc-
tion which modern physical science has considered deserving
of particular attention. Thus there arose official records of
the occurrence of thunderstorms. (188) The " Aqua3licium"
practised by the Etruscans, the supposed art of finding water
and drawing forth hidden springs, implied in the Aquileges
an attentive examination of the natural indications of
the stratification of rocks, and of the inequalities of the
ground. Diodorus praises their habits of investigating
nature ; it may be remarked in addition, that the high-born
and powerful sacerdotal caste of the Tarquinii offered the
rare example of favouring physical knowledge.
Before proceeding to the Greeks, — to that highly gifted
race in whose intellectual culture our own is most deeply
rooted, and through whom has been transmitted to us an
important part of all the earlier views of nature, and know-
136 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ledge of countries and of nations, — we have named the more
ancient seats of civilisation in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Etruria ;
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 propagated itself widely and enduringly through
the Greeks and the Eomans, and especially after the
latter had broken the Phcenicio-Garthaginian 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 live, that by brilliant advances in the general and
comparative study of languages, by the more careful search
for monuments, and by their more certain interpretation, the
historical investigator finds that his scope of vision enlarges
daily ; and penetrating through successive strata, a higher
antiquity begins to reveal itself to his eyes. Besides the
different cultivated nations of the Mediterranean which we
have named, there are also others shewing traces of ancient
civilisation, — as in Western Asia the Phrygians and Lycians,
• — and in the extreme west the Turchli and Turdetani. (189)
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
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 137
indicating how much of ancient cultivation, even in Euro*
pean nations, lias 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 necessarily confined within restricted limits.
Beyond the 48th degree of latitude, north of the sea of
Azof and of the Caspian, between 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, (19°) 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 J^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 the great
highway of nations migrating from the East, as was the
north-west of Hellas for the Illyrian races. The archipelago
of the ./Egean, divided under Pho3iiician, Persian, and Greek
dominion, formed the intermediate link between the Greek
world and the fa/ East.
When the Phrygian was incorporated with the Lydian
and the latter with the Persian empire, the circle of ideas of
the Asiatic and European Greeks was enlarged by the
contact. The Persian sway was extended by the warlike
enterprises of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspes, from Gyrene
and the Nile to the fruitful lands on the Euphrates and tho
Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, was employed to
138 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
examine the course of the Indus, from the then kingdom of
Kashmeer (Kaspapyrus), (191) to the mouth of the river.
The Greeks had carried on an active intercourse with
Egypt (with Naucratis and the Pelusiac arm of the Nile)
under Psammetichus and Amasis, (192) before the Persian
conquest. In these various ways many Greeks were with-
drawn from their native land, not only in the plantation of
distant colonies which we shall have occasion to refer to in
the sequel, but also as hired soldiers, forming the nucleus of
foreign armies, in Carthage, (193) Egypt, Babylon, Persia,
and the Bactrian country round the Oxus.
A deeper consideration of the individual character and
popular temperament of the different Greek races has shewn,
that if a grave and exclusive reserve in respect to all beyond
their own boundaries prevailed amongst the Dorians, and par-
tially among the ^Eolians, the gayer Ionic race, on the other
hand, were distinguished by a vividness of life, incessantly
stimulated by energetic love of action, and by eager desire
of investigation, to expand towards the world without as well
as to expatiate in inward contemplation. Directed by the ob-
jective tendency of their mode of thought, and embellished
by the richest imagination in poetry and art, Ionic life,
when transplanted in the colonised cities to other shores,
scattered every where the beneficent germs of progressive
cultivation.
As the Grecian landscape possesses in a high degree the
peculiar charm of the intimate blending of land and sea, (194)
so likewise was the broken configuration of the coast line,
which produced this blending, well fitted to invite to early
navigation, active commercial intercourse, and contact with
strangers. The dominion of the sea by the Cretans and
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 139
Hhodians was followed by the expeditions of the Samians^
Phocseans, Taphians, and Thesprotians, which, it must be
admitted, were at first directed to carrying off captives and
to plunder. Hesiod's aversion to a maritime life may
probably be regarded as an individual sentiment, though it
may also indicate that at an early stage of civilisation inex.
perience and timidity arising from want of knowledge of
nautical affairs prevailed on the mainland of Greece. On
the other hand, the most ancient legendary stories and myths
relate to extensive wanderings, as if the youthful fancy of
mankind delighted in the contrast between these ideal
creations and the restricted reality. Examples of these are
seen in the journeyings of Dionysus and of the Tyrian
Hercules (Melkart, in the temple at Gadeira), the wan-
derings of lo, (195) and those of the often resuscitated
Aristeas, of the marvellous Hyperborean Abaris, in whose
guiding arrow (196) some have thought that they recognised
the compass. We see in these journeyings the reciprocal
reflection of occurrences and of ancient views of the world, and
we can even trace the reaction of the progressive advance in
the latter on the mixed mythical and historical narrations.
In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aris-
tonichus makes Menelaus circumnavigate Africa, (197) and
sail from Gadeira to India five hundred years before Nechos.
In the period of which we are now treating, i. e. in the
history of the Greek world previous to the Macedonian ex-
peditions to Asia, three classes of events especially influenced
the Hellenic view of the universe ; these were the attempts
made to penetrate beyond the basin of the Mediterranean
towards the East, the attempts towards the "West, and the foun-
dation of numerous colonies from the Straits of Hercules to the
VOL. ii. L
140 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
North Eastern part of the Euxine. These Greek colonies
were far more varied in their political constitution, and far
more favourable to the progress of intellectual cultivation,
than those of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the
^Egean Sea, in Sicily, Iberia, and on the North and West
Coasts of Africa.
The pressing forwards towards the East about twelve
centuries before our era and a century and a half after
Ramses Miamoun (Sesostris), when regarded as an historical
event, is called the " expedition of the Argonauts to Colchis/'
The actual reality which, in this narration, is clothed in a
mythical garb, or mingled with ideal features to 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 Titan on the Caucasus by Hercules in jour-
neying eastward, — the ascent of lo from the valley of the
Hybrites (198) towards the Caucasus, — and the mythus of
Phryxus and Helle, — all point to the same path on which
Phoenician navigators had earlier adventured.
Before the Doric and ^Eolic migration, the Boeotian Or-
chomenus, near the north end of the Lake of Copais, was a
rich commercial city of the Minyans. The Argonautic ex-
pedition, however, began at lolchus, the chief seat of the
Thessalian Minyans on the Pagassean Gulf. The locality of
the legend, which, as respects the aim and supposed termi-
nation of the enterprise, has at different times undergone
various modifications, (199) became attached to the mouth of
the Phasi« (Eion), and to Colchis, a seat of more ancient
civilisation^ instead of to the undefined distant land of M&.
The voyages of the Milesians, and the numerous towns
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 141
planted by them on the Euxine, procured a more exact
knowledge of the north and east boundaries of that sea, thus
giving to the geographical portion of the mythus more
definite outlines. An important series of new views began
at the same time to open ; the west coast of the neighbour-
ing Caspian had long been the only one known, and Heca-
tseus still regarded this western shore (20°) as that of the
encircling eastern ocean ; it was the venerable father of
history who first taught the fact, which after him was
again contested for six centuries until the time of Ptolemy,
that the Caspian Sea is a closed basin, surrounded by
land on every side.
In the north east corner of the Black Sea an extensive
field was also opened to ethnology. Men were astonished
at the multiplicity of languages which they encountered ; (201)
and the want of skilful interpreters (the first aids and rough
instruments of the comparative study of languages) was
strongly felt. The exchange of commodities led traders be-
yond the Mseotic Gulf (which was supposed to be of far
larger dimensions than it really is), through the steppe
where the horde of the central Kirghis now pasture their
herds, — and through a chain of Scythian-Scolotic tribes of
the Argippseans and Issedones (who I take to be of Indo-
Germanic (202) origin), to the Arimaspes (203) dwelling on
the northern declivity of the Altai, and possessing much
gold. Here is the ancient " kingdom of the Griffin/' the
site of the meteorological mythus of the Hyperboreans, (204)
which has wandered with Hercules far to the westward.
It may be conjectured that the part of Northern Asia
above alluded to (which has again been rendered cele-
brated in oui own days by the Siberian gold washings), as
142 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB
well as the large 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 opened with the Euxine, an important source of
wealth and luxury to the Greeks. I place the locality of
this source between the 53d and 55th degrees of latitude.
The region of auriferous sand, of which the Daradas
(Darders or Derders, mentioned in the Mahabharata, and
in the fragments of Megasthenes,) gave intelligence 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, (205) belongs to a more southern
latitude, 3 5° or 37°. It would fall (according to which 01
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 Hiuen-
thsang, in the beginning of the seventh century of our era.
How much more accessible to the trade of the Milesian
colonies on the north east of the Euxine, must have been
the gold of the Arimaspes and the Massagetse! 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 Euxine, and of the first advances of the
Greeks towards the East.
The great event, so productive of change, of the Doric
migration and the return of the Heraclidse to the Pelopon-
nesus, falls about a century and a half after the semi-
mythical expedition of the Argonauts, t . e. after the opening
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 143
of the Euxine to Greek navigation and commerce. This
migration, together with the foundation of new states and
new institutions, first gave rise to the systematic establish-
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 establishment of
colonies ; they formed a chain from Sinope, Dioscurias, and
the Tauric Panticapseum, to Saguntum and Gyrene; the
latter founded from the rainless Thera.
By no ancient nation were more numerous, of for the
most part more powerful, cohnial cities established ; but
it should also be remarked, that four or five centuries
elapsed from the foundation of the oldest JSolian colonies,
among which Mytilene and Smyrna were chiefly distin-
guished, to the foundation of Syracuse, Croton, and Gyrene.
The Indians and the Malays only attempted the formation
of feeble settlements on the East Goast of Africa, in Soco-
tora (Dioscorides), and in the South Asiatic Archipelago.
The Phoenicians had, it is true, a highly advanced colonial
.system, extending over a still larger space than the Grecian,
stretching (although with wide interruptions between the
stations) from the Persian Gulf to Cerne on the West Coast
of Africa. No mother country has ever founded a colony
which became at once so powerful in conquest and in com-
merce as Carthage. But Carthage, notwithstanding her
greatness, was far inferior 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
144 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE
many populous Greek cities in Asia Minor, on the shores of
the JEgean Sea, in Lower Italy, and in Sicily ; that Miletus
and Massilia became, like Carthage, the founders of fresh
colonies ; that Syracuse, at the summit of its power, fought
against Athens, and against the armies of Hannibal and of
Hamilcar ; and that Miletus was for a long time the first
commercial city in the world after Tyre 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 agitated, and whilst
the native cultivation, transplanted to other shores, propa-
gated itself afresh, and prosperity increased, new germs
of mental national development were every where elicited.
Community of language and of worship bound together
the most distant members, and through 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 th3 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,
than the influence of the settlements of Cecrops from Sais,
of Cadmus from Phoenicia, and of Danaus from Chemmis,
the reality of which has been much contested, and is at least
wrapped in obscurity.
The peculiar characteristics which, pervading the whole
organisation of the Greek colonies, distinguished them from
all others, and especially from the Phrenician, arose from the
distinctness and original diversity of the races into which
the parent nation was divided* In the 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, Cos,
Rhodes, and Halicarnassus 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 Phrenician ships had sailed in the open
ocean for several centuries, when the straits, which Pindar
termed the " Gadeirian Gate" (2o6), were still closed to the
Greeks. As the Milesians in the East, by opening the
J46 LEADING EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
Euxine (2°7), laid the groundwork of communications wliich
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 (208) and the Phocreans (209) 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 begun
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 ^Egseon, 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 (wpavoe) (21°), 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 from
Gadeira and Tartessus, gazed onward into a boundless
region. It was this which, for fifteen hundred years, gave
PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 147
to the "gate of the interior sea" a peculiar importance.
Ever stretching forwards towards that which lay beyond,
one maritime people after another, Phoenicians, Greeks,
Arabians, Catalans, Majorcans, Frenchmen from Dieppe
and La Kochelle, 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, aa
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 Stagirite
(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 Ehodes,
and through Thinse — " there might exist intermediately be-
tween the shores of western Europe and eastern Asia several
other habitable lands" (212). The assignment of the
locality 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
148 THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE.
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 Africa, 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 Hipa and
Gadeira, and compared his observations with what the
experienced Phoenicians were able to tell him respecting
the influence of the Moon. (2I4)
149
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP THB
UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OE ALEXANDER.
II.
Military 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 union 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 ot
the most important epochs of General History; or of that
part of the progressive development of the History of the
Human Race, 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 the unceasing efforts
150 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
of the conqueror towards a blending of all the different
races, and the formation of a general unity, under the ani-
mating influences of the Grecian spirit (215). 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 community 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 was 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 only 52 Olympiads elapsed from the battle of the
Granicus to the destructive irruption of the Sacse and
Tochari into Bactria, we shall 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, so 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 unity, 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 (216) we read : —
*' The Asiatic nations are not wanting in activity of mind
and skill in art j yet they live listlessly in subjection and
OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 151
servitude, while the Greeks, vigorous and susceptible, living
in freedom and therefore well governed, might, if they were
united in one state, subdue and rule over all barbarians"
Thus the Stagirite wrote during his second stay at Athens
(217), before Alexander had yet passed the Granicus. These
maxims, however the Stagirite might elsewhere have
spoken of an unlimited dominion (Kavt3a<n\eia) as unnatural,
doubtless made a more powerful impression on the mind ol
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 Phosnicians, 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 Red 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
152 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
world-dominion of the Achaemenides was annihilated ; the
expedition to Bactria and Sogdiana, between the Hindoo
Coosh and the Jaxartes (Syr) ; and, lastly, the daring
advance into the country of the five rivers (Pentapotamia) of
Western India. Alexander planted Greek settlements almost
every where, and diffused Grecian manners over the immense
region extending from the temple of Ammon in the
Lybian Oasis, and from Alexandria on the western Delta
of the Nile, to the Northern Alexandria on the Jaxartes,
the present Kodjend in Fergana.
The extension of the new field opened to consideration
— and this is the point of view 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 diversity
ot climates, from Cyropolis on the Jaxartes in the
latitude of Tiflis and Eome, to the eastern Delta of the
Indus, near Tira, under the tropic of Cancer. Let us add
the wonderful variety in the character and elevation of
the ground, including rich and fruitful lands, desert wastes,
and snowy 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 living contact with the nations of the
East, highly gifted in eome respects, enjoying a civiliza-
tion of high antiquity, with their religious myths, their
systems of philosophy, their astronomical 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 offered,
at one time and to one part of the human race, a greater
OF 1HE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OP 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 Pliny (219).
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
154 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOUY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
refer first to the remarkable diversity presented by
the earth's surface. In the countries which the army
traversed, low lands, — deserts devoid of vegetation or salt
steppes, (as on the north of the Asferah chain which is a
continuation of the Tian-schan), — and the four large, culti-
vated, and rich alluvial districts of the Euphrates, the
Indus, the Oxus, and the Jaxartes, — contrasted with
snowy mountains of nearly 20,000 feet of elevation. The
Hindoo Coosh, or Indian Caucasus of the Macedonians, is
a continuation of the Kuen-lun of North Thibet, and in
its further extension towards Herat, on the west of the
transverse north and south chain of Bolor, it divides into two
great chains bounding Kanristan (22°), 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 (221), gained the
crest of Kohibaba, and passed over Kabura, and along the
course of the Choes to cross the Indus above the present
Attock. The Hindoo Coosh, crowned with eternal snow,
which, according to Burnes, begins near Bamian at an
elevation of 12,200 French feet, must, when compared with
the humbler height of the Taurus to which the Greeks
were accustomed, have given to them occasion to recognise
on a more colossal scale the superposition of different
zones of climate and vegetation. That which elemen-
tary nature displays thus visibly, when presented to the
senses of men produces in susceptible minds a deep and
lasting effect. Strabo gives a highly graphic description
of the passage over the mountainous land of the Paro-
panisadse, where the army opened for itself with toil
OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OP 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 palms, the
Sanscrit name of which, tala, has been preserved by
Arrian (224) ; sugar from the sugar-cane (225), which,
indeed, is often confounded by the Greek and Eoman
writers with the Tabaschir of bamboo stems; wool from
the great Bombax tree? (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 Seleucidre (229), 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 excitin? imagery. Writers from whose severe
VOL. ii. M
156 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
and scientific style any degree of inspiration is else-
where entirely absent, become poetical when describing
the habits of the elephant, — the height of the trees,
"to the summit of which an arrow cannot reach, and
whose leaves are broader than the shields of infantry," — •
the bamboo, a light, 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, which 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
my feelings is the greatest ornament of ^he tropics, is
never mentioned by Alexander's companions (23°) ; but
they speak of the magnificent fan-like umbrella palm,
and of the delicate and ever fresh green of the cultivated
banana (231).
Now for the first time the knowledge of a large part of
the earth'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 fertilising influence on the human mind,
were widely diffused through the medium of Alexander's
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 [252)«
We touch here o» 'the happy coincidence by which, ai 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 availmsnt were facili-
tated and multiplied, through the new direction given bjr
OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF 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 y by which everything
may be accurately denned. Thus Aristotle remains, for
thousands of years to come, according to Dante's fine ex-
pression, "il maestro di color che sanno" (233).
The belief 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 (234), to that of the philosopher having
accompanied his pupil at least as far as the banks of the
Nile (235) . The great work on animals appears to have been
of very little 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 lllth 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
fchefj* P9r]y fOTnpletion : particularly the exact knowledge
which Aristotle appears to have had of the elephant, of the
bearded horse-stag (hippelaphos), of the Eactrian camel
with two humps, of the hippardion supposed to be the
hunting tiger (Guepard), and of the Indian buffalo which
was first brougjit to Europe at the time of the Crusades.
It should be remarked, However, that the native place of the
158 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF 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 widely extended trading intercourse ? It should be
remembered that when preparations by means of alcohol (338)
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 liberal 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
which 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 a later period (339),
or as traditions misunderstood by Pliny, Athenaeus, and Julian.
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 UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OP ALEXANDER. 159
in the strictest sense of the term as a scientific expedition ;
and, indeed, as the first in which a conqueror surrounded
himself with learned men of all departments of knowledge —
naturalists, 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-eminently 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. Callisthenes unshrinkingly pre-
ferred liberty to life ; and when in Bactra he was implicated,
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 Callisthenes, uprightly
and worthily undertook his defence after his fall. Prom Aris-
totle we only know that before Callisthenes' departure, the
Stagirite recommended to him prudence ; and apparently well
versed in the knowledge of courts by his long sojourn at
that of Philip of Macedon, advised him to " speak with the
king as little as possible, and if it must be, always in agree-
ment with him" (24°) .
Callisthenes, as a philosopher 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
160 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
of investigation now opened to them. It was not only the
grander forms of the animal kingdom, the luxuriance 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 saying (241), as "the centre and object of the
whole creation, the conscious possessor of thought derived
from the divine source of thought." 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 (242) . The influence of the atmosphere on colour,
and the different effects of dry and humid warmth, were
carefully noticed. In the early Homeric times, and for a
long subsequent period, the dependence of the temperature of
the air on latitude was completely overlooked. Eastern and
Western relations determined the whole thermic meteorology
of the Greeks. The parts of the earth towards the sun-rising
were regarded as near to the sun, or " sun lands.* " The God
in his course colours the skin of man with a dark sooty
lustre, and parches and curls his hair" (243).
The campaigns of Alexander first afforded an opportunity
of comparing on a large scale the African races, assembled
in Egypt especially, with Arian races beyond the Tigris, and
«ath the very dark coloured, but not woolly haired, Indian
aborigines. The subdivision of mankind into varieties and,
their distribution over the earth's surface, (the result rather
OF 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 hair, — extended much farther towards the
north-west than at present (244). 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 different races of men and with their civili-
sation and the contrasts winch 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 (246), — 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
162 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
would more especially refer to is the fact that, with an
increased knowledge of the earth and its productions,, we
find by recent and careful investigations that the Greeks
obtained from Babylon an important augmentation of their
knowledge of the heavens. The conquest of Cyrus had in-
deed already caused the downfal of the glories of the Astro-
nomical College of priests in the capital of the eastern world ;
the terraced pyramid of Belus, (at once 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 (247), rendered it possible for Callisthenes
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 Babylun, 01. 11 2, 2. 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 War.
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 foundation of the theory
of the Hioon(248)." 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.
This is not the place to examine how much of the earliest
Pythagorean views of the true fabric of the heavens, of the
course of the planets, and of that of comets which accord*
OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 163
ing to Apollonius Myndius (249) return in long regulated
paths, belonged to the Chaldeans : Strabo calls the "mathe-
matician Seleucus" a Babylonian, and distinguishes him
from the Erythrean who measured the tide of the sea. (25°)
Jt 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(251).
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) Hydasp^s ( 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 Pliny. 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
ee impure, kingless" tribes, not divided into castes, on the
West(253), Alexander, therefore, did not reach the proper
164 EPOCHS IN IHE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
eeat of the higher Indian civilisation. Seleucus Nicator,
the founder of the great empire of the Seleucidse, was the
first who advanced from Babylon towards the Ganges, and
by the repeated missions of Megasthenes to Pataliputra (254)
connected himself by political relations with the powerful
Sandracottus (Chandragupta) .
Thus first arose an animated and lasting contact with
the civilised parts of the Madhya-desa (" the central land").
There were indeed in the Pendschab (Punjaub, or Pentapo-
tamia) learned Brahmins living as hermits. We do not know,
however, whether those Brahmins and Gymnosophists were
acquainted with the fine Indian system of numbers, in which
t few characters receive their value merely by "posi-
tion •" nor 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 Sphines (called by the Greeks Calanos)
who accompanied 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 ! The 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
OF THE UNIVERSE. CONQUESTS OE ALEXANDER. 165
Indian system .- but that method, long unfruitful with the
Greeks and Romans, 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
EPOOflS TX THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE
UNIVERSE. EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES.
Ill,
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 OF THE PTOLEMIES, 167
tical unity, as well as that of geographical position; the
influx of the Eed Sea through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeh
to Suez and Akaba, (occupying one of the SSE.-KNW.
fissures, of which I have elsewhere spoken), (255), bringing
the traffic and intercourse of the Indian Ocean witliin a
few miles of the coasts of the Mediterranean.
The kingdom of the Seleucidse did not enjoy the advan*
lages 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 Seleucidse 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 Uttara-kuru, by the " stone
tower" (256) (probably a fortified 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
Lagidse, 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, ths
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
168 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
these expectations ; and the flourishing prosperity of Seleucia,
founded by Seleucus Nicator on the lower Tigris, and united
with the Euphrates by means of canals (257), contributed
to its complete decline.
Three great rulers, the three first Ptolemies, whose reigns
occupied a whole 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 Nature 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 scientific cultivation passed from the
Greeks settled in Egypt to the Romans. Even under
Ptolemy Philadelphus, hardly half a century after the death
of Alexander, and before the first Punic war had shaken
the aristocratic republic of Carthage, Alexandria was the
port of greatest commerce in the world. The nearest and
most commodious route from the oasin of the Mediter-
ranean to South Eastern Africa, Arabia and India, was by
Alexandria. The Lagidse 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 (258) ; — a route which will never be
fully appreciated until the wildness of Eastern life, and the
jealousies of the "W-estcrrx po^rs, thsSL botii QJr«i,iirik.
Even when Egypt became a Eoman province, il continued
to be the seat of almost boundless riches ; the increasing
luxury of Rome under the Csesars reacted on the land of
the Nile, and sought the means of its satisfaction principally
m the universal commerce of Alexandria.
The important extension of the knowledge of Nature and
OF THE UNIVERSE. — EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES. 169
of different countries under the Lagidae, was derived from
the caravan traffic in the interior of Africa by Gyrene and
the Oases ; from the conquests in Ethiopia and Arabia Felix
under Ptolemy Euergetes ; and from commerce by sea with
the whole Western Peninsula of India, from the Gulf of
Barygaza (Guzerat and Cambay), along the coasts of Canara
and Malabar (Malaya-vara, territory of Malaya) , to the
Brahminical Sanctuaries of Cape Comorin (Kumari), (259)
and to the great Island of Ceylon, (Lanka in the Eama-
yana, and called by Alexander's cotemporaries Taprobane
by the mutilation of a native name). (26°) 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
mouth 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
(01. 113, 3) to sail away from the mouth of the Indus at
Stura, because he knew that his voyage to the Persian Gulf
stag 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 sailing from Ocelis in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb,
;to hold a direct course across the open sea to Muziris, tho
170 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
great mart on the Malabar coast (south of Mangalor),
to which internal traffic brought articles of commerce from
the Eastern coast of the Indian Peninsula, and even gold
from the remote Chrysa (Borneo ?) . The honour of being the
first to apply this new system of Indian navigation is ascribed
to an otherwise unknown mariner, Hippalus ; and even the
precise period at which he lived is doubtful. (261)
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 Bed Sea and the Mediterranean by means of
the Nile, holds an important place in this respect. At the
part where a slender line of junction barely 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 (Bamses Miamoun) to whom Aristotle
and Strabo ascribe it, but by Nechos (Neku), who, however,
was deterred by oracles given by the priests from prosecuting
the undertaking. Herodotus saw and described a finished
canal which entered the Nile somewhere above Bubastis,
and was the work of the Achsemenian, Darius Hystaspes.
Ptolemy Philadelphus restored tin's canal which had fallen
into decay, in so complete a manner, that although (notwith-
standing a skilful arrangement of locks and sluices) it was
not navigable at all seasons of the year, it long aided and
greatly promoted traffic with Ethiopia, Arabia, and India,
continuing to do so under the Roman sway as late as the
reign of Marcus Aurelius, and perhaps even as late as
that of Septimius Severus, a period of four centuries and
a half. With a similar purpose of encouraging inter-
course by means of the Red Sea, harbour works were sedtt-
OF THE UNIVERSE. — EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES. 171
lously carried on at Myos Hormos 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 Lagida3 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 tin's increasing and advancing
knowledge, the frequent intercourse of Egypt with distant
countries, scientific exploring journies into Ethiopia at the
cost of the Government, (263) distant ostrich and elephant
hunts, (264) and menageries of wild and rare beasts in the
" kings' houses of Bruchium," might act as incitements to
the study of natural history, (2G5) 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,
VOL. II. N
172 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOItt OP THE CONTEMPLATION
and intellectual fructification 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 higher appreciation of empirical know-
ledge. Men examined and sifted what they possessed.
Natural philosophy becoming less bold in her speculations
and less fanciful in her images, at length approached nearer
to a searching empirical investigation in treading the sure
path of induction. A laborious tendency to accumulate
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 presented valuable results, yet in tiie
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 Institution, and the libraries of Bruchium
(266) and Rhakotis), or by the collegiate assemblage of so
many learned men of active and practical minds. An en-
OF THE UNIVERSE. — EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES. 173
cyclopsedic knowledge was favourable to the comparison of
the results of observation, and thus tended to facilitate
generalisations in the view of Nature. The great scientific
. Institution which owed its origin to the two first Ptolemies,
long maintained amongst other privileges that of its members
being free to labour in wholly different directions (26?) ; and
thus, although settled in a foreign country, and surrounded
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 spirit and form of the present
historic representation, a few examples may suffice to shew
the manner in which, under the protecting influence of the
Ptolemies, observation and experiment 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 all times manifested.
Although the different Greek schools of philosophy trans-
planted to Lower Egypt did not escape a certain degree of
Oriental degeneracy, and gave occasion to many mythical in-
terpretations of Nature and of physical phenomena, yet in the
Alexandrian school the Platonic doctrines (268) still remained
as the most secure support of mathematical knowledge.
The progressive advances made in this knowledge embraced
almost at the same time pure mathematics, mechanics and
astronomy. In Plato's high esteem for mathematical de-
velopment of thought, as well as in Aristotle's morphological
views embracing all organic beings, were contained the germs
of all later advances in natural science; they became the
174 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
guiding stars which conducted the human intellect securely
through the mazes of fanaticism in the dark ages; and did
not suffer healthy scientific intellectual power to perish.
The 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 which 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 ot mountains, the action of currents,
and the former presence of an aqueous covering over the
surface of lands still bearing traces of having been once the
bottom of the sea. Regarding with favouj the oceanic sluice
theory of Strato of Lampsacus, the Alexandrian librarian was
ed by the belief 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." (269) A farther instance of
happy generalisation on the part of Eratosthenes is his asser-
tion that the whole continent of Asia is traversed in the
parallel of Rhodes, (the diaphragm of Dicearchus), by a
tonnected chain of mountains running East and West. (2?°)
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) measurement of an arc of the
OP THE UNIVERSE. — EPOCH QV 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 generalization 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 earliest Alexandrian astronomers, Aristyllus
and Timocharis; — to Aristarchus of Samos, the cotenipo-
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, i. e. her rotation round her
axis, and her progressive movement around the sun ; — to
Seleucus of Erythrea, or of Babylon, (271) 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 little 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, (272) and the discoverer of the precession of the equi-
noxes. His own observations of fixed stars (made at Rhodes,
not at Alexandria), when compared with those of Timo-
charis and Aristyllus, led him (probably without the sudden
176 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
apparition of a new star (273) )to this great discovery; to winch
the long-continued observation of the heliacal rising of Sirius
ought indeed to have conducted the earlier Egyptians. (274)
Another peculiar feature in the proceedings of Hippar-
chus, was his endeavouring to avail himself of celestial phe-
nomena for determinations of geographical position. Such
a combination of the study of the heavens and the earth,
the knowledge of the one becoming reflected on the other,
served by its uniting tendency to give a lively impulse to
the great idea of the Cosmos. In 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, might 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 Alexan-
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 bodies, which made no
progress for many centuries.
f" Not only were several practical astronomers of the Alex-
andrian school themselves distinguished geometricians, but
the epoch of the Ptolemies was moreover the most brilliant
OF THE UNIVERSE. EPOCH OP THE PTOLEMIES. 177
epoch of the cultivation of mathematical knowledge. There
flourished in the same century Euclid the creator of mathe-
matics as a science, Apollonius 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, (275) 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
•pace, 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 application of all the resources afforded
l>y modern 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. W
178
1POCHS IN THE HISTOUY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF IHB
UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE.
IV.
Roman Universal Empire — Influence on Cosim'cal Views of a great
Political Union of Countries — Progress of Geography through
Commerce by Land— Strabo and Ptolemy— Commencement of
Mathematical Optics and Chemistry — Pliny's Attempt at a Physi-
cal Description of the Universe — The Rise of Christianity pro-
duces and favours the Eeeling of the Unity of Mankind.
IN tracing the intellectual progress of mankind and the
gradual extension of cosmical views, the period of the Roman
universal Empire presents itself as one of the most im-
portant 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, (2?7) that this
political union gives to the picture which I endeavour to trace,
(that of the history of the contemplation of the universe), an
objective unity of presentation. Our civilization, i. e. the
intellectual development of all the nations of the European
Continent, may be regarded as based on that of the
dwellers around 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-
HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 179
ledge has largely flowed, and which gave the first impulse
to a class of ideas and feelings most intimately connected
with the civilization and intellectual elevation of a nation
or a race. (278) We do not by any means regard as
unimportant the elements of knowledge, which, flowing
through the great current of Greek and Eoman cultivation,
were yet derived in a variety of ways from other sources —
from the valley of the Nile, Phoenicia, the banks of the
Euphrates, and India ; but even for these we are indebted,
in the first instance, to the Greeks, and to E-omans sur-
rounded by Etruscans and Greeks. At how late a period
have the great monuments 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 hieroglyphics and cuneiform in-
scriptions have been read, after having been passed for
thousands of years 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, as it were by a favour of destiny, unity and
diversity are still happily associated. The elements re-
ceived have been various, and no less various have
been their appropriation and transformation, according
to the sharply contrasted peculiarities, and individual tone
180 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
of mind and disposition, of the different races by which
Europe has been peopled. Her civilization has been
carried beyond the ocean to another hemisphere, where the
reflex of these contrasts is still preserved in colonies and
settlements, some of which have formed, and others it may
be hoped may yet form, powerful free states.
The Roman state, as a monarchy under the Csesars, when
considered only in regard to superficial extent, (279) was infe-
rior in absolute magnitude to the Chinese empire under the
dynasty of Thsin and the eastern Han (from 30 years before
to 116 years after the commencement of the Christian era) ;
it was inferior in extent to the empire of Ghengis Khan,
and to the present area of the Russian dominions in Europe
and Asia; but 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 favoured in climate, fertility,
and geographical position, as the Eoman empire from Au-
gustus to Constantine.
This empire, stretching 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 lurm of ground, organic
productions, and physical phenomena, 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 twilight of intellectual awakening.
Distant expeditions to the North and to the South, to the
Amber Coasts, and, (under ^Elius Gallus and Balbus) to
Arabia and the Garamantes, were carried out with unequal
success. Measurements of the whole empire were begin
OF THE UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE. 181
even under Augustus, by Greek geometers, Zenodorus and
Polycletus; and itineraries and special topographies were
prepared (as had indeed been done some centuries earlier in
the Chinese empire), for distribution amongst the several
governors of provinces. (28°) These were the first statistical
works which Europe produced. Many extensive prefec-
tures were traversed by Roman roads, divided into miles ;
and Hadrian even visited the different parts of his empire,
though not without interruption, in an eleven years' journey,
from the Iberian peninsula to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania.
Thus a large portion of the globe, subject to the Roman
dominion, was opened and made traversable ; "pervius orbis,"
as the chorus in Seneca's Medea less justly prophesies of the
whole earth. (281)
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
climates, 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 the undivided Eoman empire, occupying 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
species of plants, is far inferior to the philosophically com-
bining Theophrastus ; — whereas Galen, who extended his
182 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
observations to many genera of animals, by the fineness of
his distinctions, and the comprehensiveness of his physiolo*
gieal discoveries, " may be placed very near to Aristotle,
and in most respects even above him." It is Cuvier who
Las pronounced this judgment. (282)
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. (283) 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 light, at a period five
centuries anterior to that of the Arabians, must arrest our
attention yet more forcibly; they form, as it were, the first
step in a newly-opened course, — in the vast career of mathe-
matical physics.
The distinguished men whom we have named as shedding
scientific lustre on the period of the Roman empire, were all ol
Grecian origin; (the profound' arithmetical algebraist Die*
phantus, (284) who, however, was still without the use of
symbols, belonging to a later time.) In the two chief divi-
sions in respect to intellectual cultivation which the Eoman
empire presents to us, the palm was still with the Hellenes,
the older and more happily organised nation; but the gra-
dual decline of the Egyptian Alexandrian school was followed
by the dispersion of the still remaining, but weakened,
points of light in scientific knowledge and 'rational investi-
gation; and it was only at a later period that tiiey reap-
OF THE UNIVERSE. — 11OMAX 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«
berment 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 Roman universal empire was itself
a fruit of the greatness of the Roman 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
extended to individual life ; publicity and individuality, —
the two cliief 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 IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
Although, however, the vastness of the Eoman empire,
and the institutions which that vastness rendered necessary,
• were strongly contrasted with the independent life of the
small Hellenic republics, and tended rather to deaden than
to cherish creative intellectual power among its citizens, yet
there resulted from the same cause some peculiar advantages,
which should be noticed here. A rich accession of ideas
was the fruit of experience and varied observation ; the world
of objects was considerably augmented, and the ground was
thus lajd for a thoughtful contemplation of natural pheno-
mena at a later epoch. The Eoman empire gave animation
to the intercourse between nations, and extended the Eoman
language over the whole of the West, and over a portion of
Northern Africa. In the East, Greek influence survived, as
if naturalised, long after the Bactrian empire had been de-
stroyed under Mithridates I. (thirteen years before the attack
of the Sacse, or Scythians.)
In point of geographical extent, the Eoman language
gained upon the Greek, even before the seat of empire was
transferred to Byzantium. The interpenetration of two
highly-gifted idioms, rich in literary monuments, became a
means of farther blending and uniting different nations and
faces, and of increasing civilization and susceptibility to
mental culture; it tended, as Pliny says, (285) " to huma-
nize men, and to give them a common country/' However
much the language of the barbarians (the dumb, ayXoxro-oi, 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 Eoni8,n language was desired by the
public authorities : Mago's Treatise on Agriculture is known
to have been translated by the command of the Eoman
OF THE UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE. 185
Senate. The Lagidse 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 Trajan, 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 fall of the Greco-Bactrian empire, the rising and
flourishing power of the Arsacides favoured intercourse with
the Seres ; but to the Romans this communication was only
an indirect one, their immediate contact with the interior of
Asia being impeded by the active carrying trade of the Par-
thians. Movements which proceeded from the most distant
parts of China produced sudden and violent, though not per-
manent, changes in the political state of the vast range of
country, winch extends from the Thian-schan mountains to
the Kuen-lun, the chain of Northern Thibet. During the
reigns of the Eoman emperors Vespasian and Domitian, a
Chinese military expedition overran and oppressed the
Hiungnu country, rendered tributary the little kingdoms of
Khotan and Kashgar, and carried its victorious arms as far
as the eastern coast of the Caspian. This was ttie 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
Eomans (Tathsin) ; but that the advice of the Persians in-
duced him. to change his purpose (28G) . Thus there arose con-
186 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
nections between the coasts of the Pacific, the Shensi, and the
region around the Oxus, 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 half before our era,
near the time of the destruction of Corinth and of Carthage,
the attacks of the Hiungnu (a Turkish tribe confounded by
De Guignes and Johannes Muller with the Finnish Pluns) on
the fair-haired and blue-eyed, probably Indo-Germaiiic, race
of the (28*) Yueti (Getse?) 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 Hoangho to the Don
and the Danube ; and in the northern part of the Old Con-
tinent, movements advancing in different directions brought
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 like the currents of the ocean
between unmoved masses at rest, as facts of cosmical im-
portance.
Under the reign of the Emperor Claudius, the embassy
of Eachias came from Ceylon, through Egypt, to Borne.
Under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (called by the historians
of the dynasty of the Han, Antun), Roman legates appeared
at the Chinese court, having come by water by Tunkin. I
here point out the first traces of an extended intercourse
between the Eoman Empire and China and India for this
reason among others, that it is liighly probable that through
OF THE UN/VERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE. 187
this intercourse the knowledge of the Greek sphere, the
Greek zodiac, and the astrological planetary week, extended
to the last-named countries in the first centuries of our
era. (288) The great Indian mathematicians Warahamihira,
Bramagupta, and perhaps even Aryabhatta, are later than the
period of which we are treating ; (289) but it is also possible
that a partial knowledge of discoveries earlier 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 Caesars. We do not here undertake to dis-
tinguish accurately what belongs to each nation and to each
epoch ; 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 manner the increase which had taken place
in these channels and in general international intercourse.
The 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, as he takes pleasure in
telling us, had seen with his own eyes a considerable part of
the Koman empire, " from Armenia to the Tyrrhenian coasts,
and from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia." After
having completed forty-three bocks of history as a continuation
of Polybius, he had the courage in the eighty-third year of
his age (29°) to commence his great geographical work.
He reminds liis readers " that in his time the power of the
Eomans and of the Parthians had opened the world even
VOL. II. O
«
1S8 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
more than Alexander's expeditions, on which Eratosthenes
had rested/' The commerce of India was no longer in the
hands of the Arabians : Strabo saw in Egypt with surprise
the increased number of ships which sailed direct from Myos
Hormos to India; (291) 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 Ehodes, and in which Strabo believed that a
connected chain of mountains traversed the old continent in
its greatest breadth, he conjectured the existence of " another
continent " between the western coast of Europe and Asia.
He says, (292) " it is very possible that there may be, besides
the world which we inhabit, in the same temperate zone,
about the parallel of Thinae (or Athens ?) which passes
through the Atlantic Sea, one or more other worlds inhabited
l>y men different from ourselves." It is surprising 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.
" Since," as Strabo finely says, "in all works of art
which would represent something great, the object is not the
finish and completeness of separate parts," so in his " gigantic
work" it was his wish to fix his attention primarily
•n the form of the whole. This predilection for gene-
ralisation has at the same time not prevented him from
bringing forward a great number of excellent physical ob-
servations, and particularly many concerning the structure
of the earth. (293) Like Posidonius and Polybius, he
discusses the influence of the shorter or longer interval
between successive passages of the sun through the zenith
OF THE UNIVERSE. — ROMAN EMPIRE. 189
under 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 modern 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 animal" who €t requires much light n
(294). 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 Eoman 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 Ptolemaeus, from which physical visrs
are almost entirely absent. This latter work became the
guiding clue of all travellers as late as the sixteenth century ;
190 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
they imagined that they recognised in it under different
names whatever new places they discovered. In the same
manner that natural historians long attached to new found
plants and animals the marks of the classes of Linnseus, so
the earliest maps of the New Continent appeared in the atlas
of Ptolemy which Agathodsemon prepared, at the same time
that, in the farthest part of Asia, among the highly civilised
Chinese, the western provinces of the empire (295) 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 to
longitude, latitude, and length of day; but often as he
affirms the superiority of astronomical results over itinerary
estimates by land or water, we are unfortunately without
any means of distinguishing among these assigned positions,
above 2500 in number, the nature of the foundation on
which each rests, or the relative probability which may be
ascribed to them according to the itineraries then existing.
The 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 "
furnishing an index to the road to be followed, rendered
the most detailed itineraries of the Greeks and Romans
extremely uncertain, from a want of knowledge of the direc-
tion or angle with the meridian. (296)
In the better knowledge which has recently been ob-
tained of the Indian and ancient Persian (or Zend) Ian-
guages, we are struck by the fact that a great part of
the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy may be regarded
OF THE UNIVERSE. — ROMAN 1/MPIRB. 191
as an historic monument 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 Olbiopolites, from whose lips 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. Yery 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 little
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 Sfca thus seen was a gulf of
the Euxine. (298) 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 immediately adjoining
the Caspian,(from Albania, Atropatene, and Hyrcania), of the
192 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
caravan roads of the Aorsi, whose camels carried Indian and
Babylonian goods to theDon and to the Black Sea(299) . If, con-
trary to the juster 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 the former greater extent of the
Scythian Gulf (Karabogas) ; and the existence of Lake Aral,
the first decided notice of which we find in a Byzantine au-
thor, Menander, who wrote a continuation of Agathias. (30°)
It is to be regretted that Ptolemy, who reclosed the
Caspian Sea, (which the hypothesis of four gulfs sup-
posed to be the reflections or counterparts of similar ones in
the disk of the moon (301) 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 Thinse,
(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
which may be traced back from Marinus of Tyre to Hip-
parchus, Seleucus the Babylonian, and even to Aristotle. (302)
In these cosmical descriptions 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 navigation
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 Lagidee, and under the
Roman empire, did the never slumbering Hellenic imagina-
tion seek by ingenious combinations to blend all previous
conjectures with the newly added stores of actual knowledge,
OF THE UNIVERSE. — 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
?ery important step in advance, when physical phenomena,
instead 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.
(304) T}ie process thus referred to characterises Ptolemy'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. This
measurement of a physical phenomenon purposely called
forth, of a natural process not reduced to a movement of
of the waves of light (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. (305) 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-
194 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
tion. (306) As chemistry first begins when men have learnt
to employ mineral acids as powerful solvents, and as means of
liberating substances, the distillation of sea-water, described
by Alexander of Aphrodisias, in the reign of Caracalla, is
deserving of great attention. It indicates the path by which
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
organic nature, the anatomist Marinus, Eufus of Ephesus
who dissected apes and distinguished between nerves of
sensation and of motion, and Galen of Pergamos who eclipses
all other names. The natural history of animals by ^Eh'an of
Prseneste, and the poem treating of fishes written by Oppianus
of Cilicia, do not contain facts based on the author's own
examination, but only scattered notices derived from other
sources. It is hardly conceivable how the enormous multi-
tude (307) of rare animals, which, during four centuries, were
massacred in the Roman circus, — elephants, rhinoceroses,
hippopotamuses, elks, lions, tigers, panthers, crocodiles, and
ostriches, — should never have been rendered of any use to
comparative anatomy. I have already spoken of the merits of
Dioscorides in regard to the knowledge of collected plants :
his works exercised a powerful and long-enduring influence
on the botany and pharmaceutical chemistry 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-
phrastus and Mithridates, was probably of no greater scien-
tific use than the collection of fossil bones of the Emperor
OF THE UNIVERSE. — UOMAN EMPIRE. 195
Augustus, or the assemblage of objects of natural history
which has been ascribed on very feeble grounds to Appuleius
of Madaura. (308)
Before we close the description oJ what the period of
the Roman empire contributed towards the advancement
of cosmical knowledge, we have still to mention the grand
essay towards a description of the Universe which Caius
Plinius Secundus endeavoured to comprise in thirty-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 encyclopaedia of nature and art
(the author in his dedication to Titus not scrupling to
apply to his work the then more noble Greek expression
eyicv»c\o7rai3«a), 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 Historia 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 Macer
more finely described as a Naturae 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
molluscse 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 noblest works of art. I
have here named the elements of a general knowledge of nature
wliich He scattered almost without order in the great work
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
of which we are speaking. " The path in which I propose
to walk/' says Pliny, with noble confidence in himself, " is
untrodden, (non trita auctoribus via) ; no one among
ourselves, no one among the Greeks, has undertaken to
treat as one the whole of nature (nemo apud Graces qui
unus omnia tractaverit). If my undertaking is not success-
ful, still it is something fair and noble (pulchrum atque
magnificum) to have attempted its accomplishment/'
There floated before the mind of Pliny a grand and
single image ; but diverted from his purpose by specialities,
and wanting the living personal contemplation of nature,
he was unable to hold fast this image. The execution
remained imperfect, not merely from haste and frequent
want of knowledge of the objects to be treated, but also
from defective arrangement. We may judge thus from
those portions of work which are now accessible to us. We
recognise in the author a man of rank, full of occupation,
who prides himself on labour bestowed on his work in
sleepless nights, but who, whilst exercising the functions
of government in Spain, and those of superintendent of
the fleet in Lower Italy, doubtless too often confided to
imperfectly educated dependants the loose web of an
endless compilation. This fondness for compilation, i. e.,
for a laborious collection of separate observations and
facts such as the state of knowledge could then afford,
is, in itself, by no means deserving of censure ; the imper-
fection in the success of the result arose from the want
of capacity fully to master and command the accumu-
lated materials, — to subordinate the descriptions of nature
to higher and more general views, — and to keep steadily
to the point of view from which the whole should be seen,
OF THE UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE.
197
viz., that of a comparative study of nature. The germs of
such higher views, not merely orographic, but truly geo-
gnostic, were to be found in Eratosthenes and Strabo ; but
the works of the former were made use of by Pliny only in
one instance, and those of the latter not at all. Nor has he
learned from Aristotle's anatomical history of animals, either
the division into great classes based upon the principal diver-
sities of internal organisation, or the method of induction,
the only safe means of generalisation of results.
Commencing with pantheistic contemplations and con-
siderations, Pliny descends from the celestial spaces to
terrestrial objects. Eecognising the necessity of presenting
the powers and the majesty of nature (naturae vis atque
majestas) as a great and concurrent whole, (I refer here to
the motto on the title of my work), he aWb distinguishes,
in the beginning of the third book, between general and
special geography ; but this distinction is soon again for-
gotten and neglected when he plunges into the dry nomen-
clature of countries, mountains, and rivers. The greater
part of books viii. to xxvii., xxxiii. and xxxiv., xxxvi. and
xxxvii. is filled with catalogues of the three kingdoms of
nature. The younger Pliny, in one of his letters, charac-
terises his uncle's work with great justness as "a work
learned and full of matter; no less various than nature
herself (opus diffusum, eruditum, nee minus varium quam
ipsa natura)." Much which has been made a subject of
reproach to Pliny as needless and extraneous admixture, I
am inclined to regard rather as deserving of praise. I view
with particular pleasure the frequent references which he
makes, with evident predilection, to the influence of nature
198 ENOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
on the civilization and mental development of mankind. His
points of connection, however, are seldom happily chosen
(vii. 24 to 47 ; xxv. 2 ; xxvi. 1 ; xxxv. 2 ; xxxvi. 2 to 4 ;
xxxvii. 1.) The nature of mineral and vegetable sub-
stances, 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 his work in
descriptive natural history.
The style of Pliny is rather spirited and lively than cha-
racterised by true grandeur ; he seldom defines picturesquely j
and we feel, in reading his work, that the author had
derived his impressions from books, and not from the free
aspect of nature herself, although he had enjoyed that
aspect in variodfe 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, (309) though with less simplicity 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 Roman 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 1831, (31°)
it contains a cursory view of the comparative natural liistory
of countries in different zones ; and a laudatory description
of Southern Europe between the natural boundaries of the
Mediterranean and the Alps, and of the serene heaven of
OF THE UNIVERSE. — ROMAN EMPIRE. 1 99
Hesperia, " where/' according 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 Eoman dominion, as a constant
element of union and fusion, deserves to be brought forward,
in a history of the contemplation of the universe, with the
more detail and force, because we can recognise its conse-
quences even at a period- when the union 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 his sons,
came forward with new poetic productiveness in the decline
of literature, still sings, in too laudatorv strains, of the Eoman
sovereignty (311) : —
" Hsec est, in gremium victos quse sola recepit,
Humatmmque genus communi nomine fovit
Matris, non dominse, ritu ; civesqne vocavit
duos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit.
Hujus pacificis debemus moribus omnes
Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes" . . . . .
Outward 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 : it is in the inmost
impulses of the human mind, and in religious convictions,
that it& foundations are to be sought. Christianity has pre-
eminently contributed 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
200 CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE.
interwoven from the first with Christian doctrines, the iJea
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 already 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
place, (312) 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 Eomans 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 manner in which Christianity enlarged the views of man-
kind, and exercised a mild and enduring, although slowly
operating, influence on Intelligence and Civilization,
201
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE
UNIVERSE. — ITS ADVANCEMENT BY THE ARABIANS.
V.
Invasion of the Arabians — Aptitude of this 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 Sciences.
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-
202 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION
ledge of nature, in respect to form and measurement on the
earth and in the regions of space, to the heterogeneity of
substances, and to the powers or forces resident therein. The
discovery and exploration of the New Continent, with its
lofty Cordilleras and their numerous volcanoes, its elevated
plateaus with successive stages of climate placed one above
another, and its various vegetation ranging through 120
degrees of latitude, mark incontestably the period in which
there was offered to the human mind, in the smallest space
of time, the greatest abundance of new physical perceptions.
Thenceforward the extension of cosmical knowledge has no
longer been connected with political events acting within
definite localities. Prom that period the human intellect
has brought forth great things by virtue of its own proper
strength ; and instead of being principally incited thereto by
the influence of extraneous events, it now works simul-
taneously in many directions: by new combinations of
thought it creates for itself new organs, wherewith to examine,
on the one hand, the wide regions of celestial space, and, on
the other, the delicate tissues of animal and vegetable struc-
ture which form the substratum of life. The whole of the
seventeenth century, brilliantly opened by the great discovery
of the telescope and by the more immediate fruits of that
discovery, — from Galileo's observations of Jupiter's satellites,
the crescent form of the disk of Yenus, and the solar spots,
to Newton's theory of gravitation, — is distinguished as the
most important epoch of a newly created "physical
astronomy." We here find, therefore, once more a marked
epoch, characterised by unity in the endeavours devoted to
the observation of the heavens and to mathematical re-
search; it forms a well-defined section in the great process
OP THE UNIVERSE. THE AUA.BIANS. 203
of intellectual development, which since that period has
advanced uninterruptedly 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 many
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 quite possible,
even up to the most recent time, to distinguish insulated
periods in which the greatest advances were made, or in
which new views suddenly prevailed ; but in the " history of
the contemplation of the universe," — which, according to its
essential character, ought to borrow from the history of
separate studies only that which relates most immediately to
the extension of the idea of the Cosmos, — connection with
particular epochs becomes unsafe and impracticable, since
that which we have just termed an intellectual 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 Eoman Empire of the World, there
appears a new and foreign element of cultivation received by
our continent for the first time direct from a tropical coun-
try, it may be useful to cast a general glance at the path
which yet remains to be travelled over.
The Arabians, a primitive Semitic race, partially dispelled
the barbarism which 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
VOL. IT. P
204 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
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 Yalentinian 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 Usiin, 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 Himalaya. These Asiatic
hordes were not animated by any religious zeal before
they came in contact with Europe; it has even been
shown that they were not yet Buddhists (313) when they
arrived as conquerors in Poland and Silesia. Causes of an
entirely different kind gave to the warlike outbreak of a
southern people, the Arabians, a peculiar character.
In the generally compact and unbroken continent of
Asia, (3U) the almost detached peninsula of Arabia, between
the Bed Se«. and the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates and the
Syrian part of the Mediterranean, forms a remarkably dis-
tinct feature. It is the westernmost of the three peninsulas
OF THE UNIVERSE. — THE ARABIANS. 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 not
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 or 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 polished
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 religious faith. It often happened that great
provinces were only temporarily overrun. The swarming
troop, threatened by the natives, encamped, according to a
comparison of their native poets, " like groups of clouds
which 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. Eeligious per-
206 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
secution was here as elsewhere (among Christian nation?
also), rather the effect of a boundless dogmatising despo-
tism, (315) than of the original faith and doctrine or of the
religious 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 also 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 which led to the
great changes which the Arabians wrought in the three
continents proceeded from the Ismaelitish Hedjaz, and
owed its principal strength to a solitary pastoral tribe, yet
the coasts of the other parts of the peninsula had 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 gradurJly prepared
the way for them.
Towards the south west, near the Erythrean Sea, is
situated the fine fruitful and agricultural country of the
Joctanides, (3l6) Yemen, the ancient seat of civilization
(Saba). It produces incense (lebonah of the Hebrews, per-
haps Boswellia thurifera, Colebr.), (31^) myrrh (a kind of
Amyris, first exactly described by Ehrenberg), and what is
called the balsam of Mecca (BalSamodendron gileadense,
Kunth) : all of which formed articles of a considerable trade
with neighbouring nations, and were carried to the Egyp-
tians, to the Persians and Indians, and to the Greeks and
Romans. It Tras from these productions that the geographical
OF THE UNIVERSE. — THE ARABIANS. 207
denomination of Arabia Felix, which we find first employed
by Diodorus and Strabo, was given. On the south-east
of the peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, the town of Gerrha,
situated opposite to the Pho3nician settlements of Aradus
and Tylus, formed an important mart for the traffic
in Indian goods. Although almost the whole of the in-
terior of Arabia may be termed a treeless sandy desert,
yet there exist in Oman (between Jailan and Batna), a
chain of oases, watered by subterranean canals; and we
owe to the activity of the meritorious traveller Wellsted, (318)
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. (319)
The same variety of mountain landscape characterises the
peninsula of Sinai, the " copper land" of the Egyptians of
the " ancient kingdom" (before the time of the Hyksos), and
the rocky valleys of Petra. I have already spoken, in a
preceding section, (32°) of the Phoenician tracing settlements
on the most northern part of the Red Sea, and the voyages
to Ophir of the ships of Hiram and Solomon, which sailed
from Ezion Geber. Arabia, and the adjacent island of
Socotora (the Island of Dioscorides), inhabited by Indian
settlers, were the intermediate links of the traffic of the
world with India and the east coast of Africa. The produc-
tions of these countries were commonly confounded with
those of Hadramaut and Yemen. "We read in the prophet
208 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
Isaiah, " they (the dromedaries of Midian) shall come from
Saba,- they shall bring gold and incense." (321) Petra was
the emporium 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
Quatremere to have had their original dwelling-place in the
Gerrha mountains, near the lower Euphrates. This northern
part of Arabia, by its proximity to Egypt, by the 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 through Emesa
and Tadinor (Palmyra) to Babylon, had come into influential
contact with 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
he came forward as an inspired prophet and reformer,
had visited the fair of Bosra on the Syrian border, the fair
held in Hadramaut the land of incense, as well as the twenty
days' fair of Okadh near Mecca, where poets, chiefly Bedouins,
assembled for lyrical contests. I allude to these particulars
of the Arabian commerce, and the circumstances thence
arising, in order to give a more vivid picture of that which
prepared great revolutions in the world.
The spreading of the Arabian population towards the
north reminds us of two events, the circumstances of
which are indeed veiled in obscurity, but which afford
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 the Hyksos,
who, under the twelfth dynasty, 2200 years before our era,
OF THK UNIVERSE. — THE ARABIANS. 209
put an end to the "ancient kingdom" of Egypt, is now
received by almost all historic investigators. Maiietho 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) It still 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 freedom 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. From 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 (323)
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
southern Arabia laden with rich spoils. (324)
Although, on the whole, the prevailing 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
210 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
the towns of Medina and Mecca (the latter with its highly
ancient and enigmatical sacred Kaaba) were distinguished
as places of importance visited by foreign nations. In
districts adjacent to the sea, or to the caravan roads
which act as river vallies, the complete savage wildness
engendered by entire insulation never prevailed. Gibbon,
whose conception of the different 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 ap.d Hippocrates ; since among the latter, no
part of the pastoral population ever settled in towns, whereas
in the great Arabian peninsula, the inhabitants of the country
have always kept up intercourse with the inhabitants of the
towns, who they regard as descended from the same original
race as themselves. (325) In the Kirghez Steppe, a portion of
the plains inhabited by the ancient Scythians (Scoloti and
Sacse) and exceeding Germany in superficial extent, (326) no
town has existed for thousands of years; 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 such 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 original disposition and
capacity.
In the noble and richly-gifted Arab race, the internal dis-
position and aptitude lor mental cultivation concur with the
external circumstances to which I have adverted, — I mean the
natural features of the country, and the ancient commercial
OP THE UNIYEBSE. — THE ARABIANS. 211
intercourse of the coasts with highly-civilised neighbouring
states, — in explaining how the irruptions into Syria and Persia,
and at a later period the possession of Egypt, could have
so rapidly awakened in the conquerors a love for the sciences,
and a disposition to original investigation. We 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 on 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 Christianity was enabled to penetrate far into
eastern Asia under the protection of armed Islam. The
Arabians were first made acquainted with Greek literature
through the Syrians, (327) a cognate Semitic race, who had
received this 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, bj the investigation of
" healing substances in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms."
When this school was dissolved from motives of fanaticism
under Zeno the Isaurian, the Nestorians were scattered into
Persia, where they soon obtained a political importance, and
founded a new and much-frequented medicinal institution
at Chondisapur, in Khusistan. They succeeded in carrying
both their scientific and literary knowledge and their religion
as far as China, under the dynasty of the Thang, towards
21 2 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
the middle of the seventh century, 572 years after Buddhism
liad arrived there from India.
The seeds of western cultivation scattered in Persia by
learned monks, and by the philosophers of the school of the
later Platonists at Athens persecuted by Justinian, had
exercised a beneficial influence on the Arabians during their
Asiatic campaigns. However imperfect the scientific know-
ledge of the Nestorian priests may have been, yet, by its
particular medico-pharmaceutical direction, it was the more
effectual in stimulating a race of men who had long lived
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 repeat, to be regarded as the proper
founders of the physical sciences, in the sense which 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 difficult to
attach an absolute beginning to any particular period of time.
Separate points of knowledge, as well as processes by which
knowledge may be attained, are, 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 ARABIANS. 218
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 which are set at liberty in
order to enter into new combinations. The means which
lead to this liberation 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 climate
necessary for the growth of palms, and in its larger portion
possesses a tropical climate, as the tropic of Cancer crosses the
peninsr.h nearly from Maskat to Mecca;— it is therefore a
£>art 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 a*
beneficial to man. The attention of the people must havt
been early directed to the productions of their native soil, ana
to those obtained by commerce from the coasts of Malabar,
Ceylon, 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
EPOCHS IN THE HISTOUY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
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. Numerous caravan
roads, departing from the commercial mart, Gerrha,
on the Persian Gulf, and from the incense district of
Yemen, traversed the whole interior of Arabia to Phoenicia
and Syria ; and thus the names of these much -desired pro-
ductions, and the interest felt in them, became generally
diffused.
The science of materia medica, the foundation of which was
laid in the Alexandrian school by Dioscorides, is, in its scien-
tific form, a creation of the Arabians, who, however, had
previously access to a rich source of instruction, the
most ancient of all, that of the Indian physicians. (328)
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, and were diffused
through southern Europe by the school of Salerno. Pharmacy
and the materia medica, the first requirements of the healing
art, conducted to the studies of botany and chemistry.
Erom 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
connection of this structure with the laws of their develop-
ment; and the laws according to which vegetable forms are
distributed geographically over the earth's surface, according
to differences of climate and of elevation.
After the Asiatic conquests, for the maintenance of which
OP THE UNIVERSE. — THE ARABIANS. 215
Bagdad subsequently became a central point of power and
civilisation, the Arabs, in the short space of seventy years,
extended their conquests over Egypt, Gyrene, and Carthage,
and through the whole of northern Africa to the distant
Iberian peninsula. The low state of cultivation of the armed
masses and of their leaders, may indeed have rendered occa-
sional outbreaks 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 580 years after the supposed event. (329) 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-Raschid, Mamun, and Motasem, the
courts of princes and the public scientific institutions
were able to assemble a considerable number of highly
distinguished men. We cannot attempt in these pages to
characterise the extensive, varied, and unequal Arabic litera-
ture ; or to distinguish that which springs from the hidden
depths of the particular organisation of a race and the natural
unfolding of its faculties, from that which is dependent on
external incitements and accidental conditions . The solution
of this 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 in the
physical sciences, to the more general contemplation of the
Universe.
The true results of investigation are indeed here, as elsp>
where in the middle ages, alloyed by alchemy, supposed
216 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMi LATION
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 trdy their own, and have enlarged the view of
nature. Attention has been justly called (33°) to the dif-
ferent circumstances in respect to cultivation of the invading
and immigrating Germanic and Arabic races. The former
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 Provencal poets and the Minnesingers.
The Arabs possessed qualities which 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 conquered 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 journies undertaken by individuals, not always
for commercial objects, but also for collecting knowledge :
even the Buddhistic priests from Thibet and China, even Marco
Polo, arid 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-
OF THE UNIVERSE, THE ARABIANS. 217
tended under the Caliphate of the Ommaiades by the end of
the seventh century (331) to Kashgar, Caubul, and the
Punjab), important portions of Asiatic knowledge reached
Europe. The acute researches of Heinaud 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, (332)
the Moguls themselves soon became a uniting link to the
Arabs, who, by their own observations, and by laborious
researches, have illustrated the knowledge of the earth's sur-
face from the coasts of the Pacific to those of Western Africa,
and from the Pyrenees to Edrisi's marsh-land of Wangara
in the interior of Africa. The geography of Ptolemy was
translated into Arabic, according to Erahn, 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. (333)
Of the long series of distinguished geographers which
Arabic literature affords, it is sufficient to name the earliest
and the latest : — El-Istachri, (334) and Alhassan (Johannes
Leo Africanus). At no period before the discoveries of the
Portuguese and Spaniards, did the knowledge of the earth's
surface receive a larger accession. Only fifty years after
the death of Mahomet the Arabs had reached the extreme
western coast of Africa at the harbour of Asfi. Whether,
subsequently, when the adventurers known under the name
of Almagrurin navigated the " mare 'tenebrosum," the
islands of the Guanches were visited by Arab ships, as I long
thought probable, has recently been rendered again doubtful.
(33S) The quantity of Arabic coins found buried in the
218 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
countries about the Baltic, and in the extreme North in
Scandinavia, are not to be attributed to commerce by sea
properly so called, but to the far extended inland traffic of
the Arabs. (336)
Geography did not continue to be restricted to the
enumeration of countries and their boundaries, and to
positions in latitude and 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
especially those of the vegetable world. The horror which the
followers of Islam have for anatomical examinations pre-
vented all progress in the natural history of animals. They
were content with appropriating to themselves by translation
what they could find in Aristotle (338) and Galen; yet
Avicenna's history of animals, (which is in the Royal Library
at Paris), (339) differs from that of Aristotle. As a botanist
we may namelbn-Baithar of Malaga, (34°) who,fromhisjournies
into Greece, Persia, India, and Egypt, 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 of
the West. The study of medicines was, however, always
the point from which these endeavours proceeded ; it was
through it that the Arabs long swayed the schools of
Christendom, and for its improvement and completion
Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), a native of AfFschena near Bokhara,
Ibn-Eoschd (Averroes) of Cordova, the younger Serapion of
Syria, and Mesue of Maridin on the Euphrates, availed
themselves of all the materials furnished by the Arabian
caravan and sea traffic. I have purposely cited these widely-
separated birth-places of celebrated and learned Arabs, be-
cause they bring vividly before us the manner in which, by
<JF THE UNIVEUSE. THE ARABIANS. 219
the peculiar disposition of this race of men, natural know-
ledge was spread over a 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 :
several important works, probably those known under the
semifabulous names of Tscharaka and Susruta, (341) were
translated from Sanscrit into Arabic. Avicenna, a man of
comprehensive mind, and who has often been compared to
Albertus Magnus, affords in his Materia Medica a very
striking instance of this influence of Indian literature, in
showing himself acquainted, as the learned Boyle remarks,
with the Deodara (Cedrus deodvara) (342) of the snowy
Himalayan Alps, which, in the llth 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
Prederic II., the great prince of the house of Hohenstauffen,
who was indebted for part of his knowledge of natural his-
tory to communication with learned Arabs and Spanish
Jews. (343) The Caliph Abderrahman established a botanical
garden at Cordova, (344) and sent travellers into Syria and
other parts of Asia to collect rare plants. He planted, near
the palace of Eissafah, the first date tree, which he cele-
brates in strains full of tender regrets and longings for his
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 ciiemistry; with their labours commenced a new
VOL. II. Q
220 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
epoch in that science. Alchemistic and new Platonic fan-
cies were, it is true, as nearly allied with their chemistry, as
was astrology with their astronomy; hut the demands of
pharmacy, and the equally pressing requirements of the
technical arts, led to discoveries which were favoured some-
times by design, and sometimes, through a happy accident,
by metallurgic attempts connected with alchemy. The
labours of Geber, or rather Djaber (Abu-Mussah-Dschafar
al-Kufi), and the much later ones of Razes (Abu-Bekr
Arrasi), have had the most important results. This epoch is
marked by the preparation of sulphuric and nitric acids, (345)
aqua regia, preparations of mercury and other metallic
oxides, and by the knowledge of alcoholic (346) processes of
fermentation. The first foundation and earliest advances of
the science of chemistry are of so much the greater impor-
tance in the history 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 longer
looking exclusively to the Pythagorean Platonic perfection
of form, perceived that composition was also deserving of
regard. Differences of form and differences of composition
are the elements of all our knowledge of matter ; they are
the abstractions by which, through measurement and ana-
lysis, we believe that we can form a conception of the entire
universe.
It would be difficult to determine at present what portion
of knowledge the Arabian chemists may have derived, either
from their acquaintance with Indian literature (writings
on the Easayana), (347) from the primitive technical arts of
the ancient Egyptians, from the comparatively modern
OF THE UNIVERSE. THE ARABIANS. 221
•alchemistic rules of the Pseudo-Democritus and the Sophist
Synesius, or even from Chinese sources through the medium
of the Mogols. According to the most recent and very
careful investigations of a celebrated orientalist, Reinaud,
the invention of gunpowder, (348) and its application to
projectiles, are not to be ascribed to the Arabians : Hassan
Al-Rammah, who wrote between 1285 and 1295, was not
acquainted with this application; while, as early as th«
twelfth century, 200 years therefore before Berthold Schwarz,
a kind of gunpowder was used at Eammelsberg in the
Harz, for blasting rocks. The invention of an air thermo-
meter has been ascribed to Avicenna, on the strength of a
notice by Sanctorius ; but this notice is very obscure, and
six centuries elapsed before Galileo, Cornelius Dreddel, and
the Academia del Cimento, by the establishment of an exact
measure of temperature, created the important means of
penetrating into a world of almost unknown phsenomena,
whose regularity and periodicity excite our 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 Alhazen's work on the refraction
of rays, which may indeed have been partially derived from
Ptolemy's optical researches ; and the knowledge and first
application of the pendulum as a measure of time (349) by
the great astronomer Ebn- Junis.
The purity and rarely disturbed transparency of the Arabian
sky had in a peculiar manner drawn the attention of the Arab
race, in their earliest uncultivated state in their native land, to
the motions of the heavenly bodies ; for we find that, besides
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
the worship of the planet Jupiter among the Lachmites, the
tribe of the Asedites worshipped the planet Mercury, which,
from its proximity to the solar orb, is rarely visible. Notwith-
standing this, 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 encourage 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 neighbouring na-
tions. How many districts of tropical America, as Cumaiia,
Coro, and Payta, where rain never falls, enjoy an atmo-
sphere even more transparent than that of Egypt, Arabia, or
Bokhara ! The climate of the tropics, and the eternal se-
renity of the vault of heaven, resplendent with stars and
nebulae, 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 ; ae, 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 Phoenicians, and nations like the
Egyptians and Chaldeans fond of architecture 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. Nof is it until cultivation has reached a
OF THE UNIVERSE. THE ARABIANS.
still higher point, that the regularity and subjection to laws,
which characterise the movements of the heavenly bodies, arc
seen to be, as it were, reflected in terrestrial phenomena,
and that men seek to discover in these also, to use the
expression of our great poet, the "fixed unchanging pole/''
In all climates, the conviction of the regularity of the pla-
netary movements, 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 (35°) as early as the end of the eighth century. I
have already 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 Caliph Haroun Al-Baschid, — a proof of the early
introduction of Sanscrit literature. The Arabian mathema-
tician Albymrii went himself to India to study astronomy
there. His writings, which have only very lately become
accessible to us, shew how well he was acquainted with, the
country, the traditions, and the extensive knowledge of the
Indians, psi)
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 the domain of astronomy, by
their peculiar practical turn of mind, by the great number
and the direction of their observations, by their improve-
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
xnents in instruments for angular measurements, and by
their zealous endeavours to correct the earlier tables by
careful comparison with the heavens. Sedillot has recog-
nised in the seventh book of the Almagest of Abul-Wefa
the important inequality in the moon's motion, which
vanishes at the Syzygies and 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. (352)
Ebn-JumVs observations at Cairo have become particularly
important for the perturbations and secular changes of the
orbits of the two great planets, Jupiter and Saturn. (353)
A measurement of a degree of the meridian, executed by the
orders of the Caliph Al-Mamun 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 West,
the astronomical congress held in Toledo in Christian Spain
under Alphonso of Castile, in which the Eabbi Isaac Ebn
Sid Hazan occupied a prominent place ; and in the far East,
the Observatory provided with many instruments established
by Ilschan 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 us in a lively manner of what
the 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 Kepler and Tycho Brahe to
OF THE UNIVERSE. THE ARABIANS. 225
the foundation of theoretical astronomy, and to a correct
view of the motions of the heavenly bodies in space. The
light kindled in the part of Asia inhabited by Tatar nations
extended in the fifteenth century to the westward as far as
Samarcand, where Ulugh Beig a descendant of Timour
established an astronomical observatory, and a gymnasium
of the class of the Alexandrian Museum, and caused a
star catalogue to be prepared founded entirely on new and
independent observations. (354)
Besides the tribute of praise which we have here paid to
the advances made by the Arabians in the knowledge of
nature, both in the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we have
still to allude to the additions which, in the solitary paths
of the development of ideas, they made to the treasury of
pure mathematical knowledge. According to the most
recent works written in England, Prance, and Germany (355)
on the history of mathematics, the algebra of the Arabians
is to be regarded as " having originated from the confluence
of two streams whicli had long flowed independently of
each other, one Indian and one Greek/' The compendium
of algebra written by the command of the Caliph Al-Mamun
by the Arabian mathematician Mahommed Ben-Musa (the
Chowarezmian) is based, as my deceased learned friend
Friedrich Rosen has shewn, (356) not on the works of Diophan-
tus, 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 tenth
century by Abul-Wefa Buzjani. The Arabians were in-
debted to the Alexandrian school for that which we miss in
£26 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION"
the old Indian algebraists, namely, the establishment of a
conclusion by the successive advance from proposition tor
proposition. This fair inheritance, yet farther 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. (357) " In the
algebraical works of. the Indians we find the general solution .
of indeterminate equations of the first degree, and a far more
highly finished treatment of those of the second degree, 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 those
whicli had led to their acquaintance with Indian algebra. Per-
sians were employed at that period as revenue collectors on
the Indus; and the use of Indian numbers became general
amongst the Arab revenue officers, and extended to Northern
Africa, opposite to the coast of, Sicily. Nevertheless, the
profound and important historical investigations to which a
distinguished mathematician, M. Chasles, was led, by his
correct interpretation of the so-called Pythagorean table in,
the geometry of Boethius, (358) render it more than probable
that the Christians in the West were acquainted even earlier,
than the Arabians with the Indian system of numeration; .
the ube of the nine figures, having their values determined-.,
by position, being known by tiiem under the name of the
system of the Abacus,
OF TUB UNIVERSE. THE ARABIANS. 227
The present work is not the place for entering more fully
on. this subject, which was treated by me many years ago in
two memoirs presented in 1819 and in 1829 to the Aca-
demic des Inscriptions at Paris, and the Akademie deir>
Wissenschaften at Berlin ; (359) but in an historical problem,
in which much still remains to be discovered, the question
arises, whether the highly ingenious artificial idea of value
b) 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 Lagidse,
it. made its way from the western peninsula of India to
Alexandria, and subsequently, in 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 sense of similar wants, the
same combinations of ideas may have presented themselves
separately to highly-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 influence
during the brilliant period of the Italian mathematicians of the
middle ages; the Arabians have also the merit of having by
their 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 cir-
cumstances contributed powerfully, although in different
228 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION
ways, to advance the mathematical part of natural know-
ledge, and to facilitate the access to fields which without
these aids must have remained unopened, in astronomy, in
optics, in physical geography, in thermometrics, and in the
theory of magnetism.
In studying the history of nations, the question has often
been raised, what would have been the effect on the course
of events if Cartilage had conquered Borne, and had sub-
jected to its dominion the European West : "Wilhelm von
Humboldt (36°) has remarked, that " we might ask with
equal justice, what would have been the state of our present
intellectual cultivation, if the Arabs had continued the
exclusive possessors of science as they were for a long
period, and had spread themselves permanently over the
West ? In both cases it appears to me we can scarcely
doubt that the result would have been less favourable. It
is to the same causes which led to the Eoman universal
empire, namely, to the Eoman mind and character and not
to external accidents, that we owe the influence of the
Bomans on our civil institutions, our laws, our languages,
and our civilization. Through this beneficial influence, and
in consequence of our belonging to a kindred race, we have
been enabled to receive the impression of the Grecian mind
and Grecian language ; whereas the Arabians only attached
themselves to the scientific results of Greek investigation in
natural history, physics, astronomy, and pure mathematics."
The Arabians, by sedulous care in preserving the purity of
their native idiom, and by the ingenuity of their figurative
modes of speech, knew how to lend to the expression of
their feelings, and to the enunciation of noble and sage
OF THE UNIVEESE. THE ARABIANS. 229
maxims, the grace of poetic colouring; but judging from
what they were under the Abassides, even if they had built
on the same foundation of classical antiquity with which we
find them familiar, they yet could never have produced those
works of sublime poetry and creative art which are the
boast of our European cultivation.
230
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE
UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES.
Epoch of the Oceanic Discoveries — Opening of the Western Hemi-
sphere— Events, and Extension of different Branches of Scientific
Knowledge, which prepared the way for the Oceanic Discoveries.
— Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, and Vasco de Gama — America and
the Pacific Ocean — Cabrillo, Sebastian Vizcaino, Mendafia, and
Quiros. — The rich abundance of materials for the foundation of
Physical Geography offered to the nations of Europe.
THE fifteenth century belongs to those rare epochs in the
history of the world, 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. The unity of these endeavours, the success with
which they were crowned, and the vigour and activity dis-
played by entire nations, give grandeur and enduring splen-
dour to the age of Columbus, of Sebastian Cabot, and of
Vasco de Gama. 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 modern times. It is the epoch of the greatest dis-
coveries in geographical space, comprising almost all degrees
of latitude, and almost every gradation of elevation of the
earth's surface. To the inhabitants of Europe it doubled
OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 231
the works of Creation, while at the same time it offered to
the intellect new and powerful incitements to the improve-
ment of . the natural sciences in their physical and mathe-
matical departments. (361)
The world of objects, now as in Alexander's campaigns
but with yet more preponderating power, presented to
the combining mind 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 whole ; terrestrial nature
was conceived in its generality, no longer according to mere
presentiments or conjectures floating in varying forms before
the eye of fancy, but as a result of actual observation. The
vault of heaven also offered to the yet unassisted eye new
regions, adorned with constellations before unseen. As I
have already remarked, at no period has there been offered
to mankind a greater abundance 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 influential on human affairs. A larger field of
view was opened, commerce was stimulated by a great in
crease in the medium of exchange, as well as by a large
accession to the number of natural productions valued for
use or enjoyment ; above all, there were laid the foundations
of colonies, of a magnitude never before known : and through
the agency of all these causes, extraordinary changes were
wrought in manners and customs, in the condition of ser-
vitude long experienced by a portion of mankind, and
in their slate awakening to political freedom.
When a particular epoch thus stands out in the history
232 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
of mankind as marked by important intellectual progress, we
shall find on examination that preparations for this progress
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 Columbus attained the fulfilment of its objects so
rapidly, because their attainment was the development of
fruitful germs, which had been previously deposited by a
series of highly 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
thirteenth, shows us Eoger Bacon, Nicolaus Scotus, Albertus
Magnus, and Yincentius of Beauvais. The subsequent more
general awakening of mental activity soon bore fruit in the
extension of geographical knowledge. When, in 1525,
Diego Bibero returned from the geographico-astronomical
congress which was held at the Puente de Caya near Yelves,
for the termination of differences respecting the boundaries
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 Cabrillo
had already penetrated north of Monterey ; and after this
great and adventurous navigator had met his death off
New California, in the Channel of Santa Barbara, the pilot;
Bartholomew Perreto still led the expedition as far as the
43d degree of latitude, where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is
situated. The emulative activity of the Spaniards, English,
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES, 233
and Portuguese, was then so great, that half a century suf-
ficed to determine the outline or the general direction of the
coasts of the Western Continent.
Although the acquaintance of the nations of Europe with
the western hemisphere is the leading subject to which this
section is devoted, and around which are grouped the nu-
merous results which flow from it of juster and grander
views of the Universe, yet we must draw a strongly marked
line of distinction between the first discovery of America
in its more northern portions, which is certainly to be
ascribed to the Northmen, and the re-discovery of the same
Continent in its tropical portions. Whilst the Caliphate
of Bagdad still flourished under the Abassides, and while the
Samanides whose reign was so favourable to poetry bore sway in
Persia, America was discovered in the year 1000, by anorthern
route, as far south as 41 J-° north latitude, by Leif, the son of
Eric the Eed. (362) 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 Faroe Islands,
which had previously been visited from Ireland, was driven
by storms to Iceland, and the first Norman settlement was
established there by Ingolf, in 875. Greenland, the eastern
peninsula of a land which is everywhere separated by the
sea from America proper, was early seen, (363) 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 a south- westerly
direction, passing by Greenland, to the New Continent.
The Faroe Islands and Iceland must be regarded as in-
termediate stations, and as points of departure for enter-
prises to Scandinavian America. In ft similar manner the
234 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
settlement of the Tyrians at Carthage had aided them to
reach the Straits of Gadeira and the port of Tartessus, and
Tartessus itself conducted this enterprising race from station
to station to Cerne, the Gauleon (ship island) of the Car*
thaginians. (364)
Notwithstanding the proximity of the opposite coast of
Labrador (Helluland it mikla or the great), 125 years elapsed
from the first settlement of Northmen in Iceland, to Leif s
great discovery. of America; so small were the means which,
in this remote and desolate 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 Vinland, from wild
vines which were found 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 Leif the name bl
Vinland it goda (Vinland the good), comprised the coast
line between Boston and New York ; therefore parts of the
present States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connec-
ticut, between the parallels of Civita Vecchia and Terracina,
but which corresponded there to mean annual temperatures
of 51-8° and 57'2° of Eahr. f65) 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 Skra-
linger. The first bishop of Greenland, Eric Upsi, an Icelan-
der, undertook, in 1121, a Christian mission to Vinland ; and
the name of the colonised country has even been met with in
old national songs of the natives of the Faroe Islands. (366)
The activity, courage, and enterprising spirit of the ad-
venturers from Iceland and Greenland is manifested by the
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 235
fact, that after they had settled themselves so far south as
41 J° N. latitude, they prosecuted their researches to the
latitude of 72° 55' on the east coast of Baffin's Bay; where, on
one of the "Women's Islands, (367) north-west of the present
most northern Danish settlement of Upernavik, they set up
three stone pillars marking the limit of their discoveries.
The Runic inscription on the stone discovered there in the
autumn of 1824, contains, according to Hask and Mnn
Magnusen/ the date 1135. Prom this eastern coast of
Baffin's Bay the colonists very regularly visited Lancaster
Sound, and a part of Barrow's Strait, for purposes of
fishing, more than six centuries before the adventurous
voyage 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
(1266). This north-westernmost summer station is called
the Rroksfjardar-Heide. 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. (368)
Our accounts of the communications of the extreme
north of Europe, and of Iceland and Greenland, with the
American Continent properly so called, only extend to the
middle of the 14th century. In 1347, a ship was sent from
Greenland to Markland (Nova Scotia), to bring building
timber and other necessary articles. In returning from
Markland 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 us in ancient Scandinavian writings, (369)
I have hitherto kept strictly on historic ground. By the
VOL. ir. B
236 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
critical and liighly praiseworthy labours of Christian Rafn,
and of the Royal Society established at Copenhagen for the
study of northern antiquities, the Sagas and original
sources of information respecting the voyages of the North-
men to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland, the mouth
of the St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia, and to Yinland
(Massachusetts), have been severally printed, and satisfac-
torily commented on. (37°) The duration of the voyage,
the course, and the times of sunrise and sunset, are all
expressly given.
There is Jess certainty respecting the traces which have
been supposed to be found of a discovery of America from
Ireland previous to the year 1000. The Skralinger related
to the Northmen settled in Yinland, that farther to the
south, beyond Chesapeake Bay, there were ""white men,
wearing long white garments, who carried before them poles
with pieces of cloth fastened to them, and who called with
a loud voice." This account was interpreted by the Christian
Northmen to indicate processions, with banners and singing.
In the oldest Sagas, in the historical narratives of Thorfinn
Karlsefue, and the Icelandic Landnama-books, these sou-
thern coasts between Virginia and Florida are designated by
the name of White Men's Land. They are also called
Great Ireland (Hand it mikla), and it is asserted that they
were peopled from Ireland. According to testimonies
which go back as far as 1064, before Leif discovered Yin-
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 ; and not being permitted to go away,
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 237
was recognised there by men from the Orkney Islands and
Iceland. (3?i)
Some northern antiquaries are of opinion 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 Papyli 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 earlier period. The important treatise entitled " de
Mensura Orbis Terrse" 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 which were supposed to be inaccessible.
The desire of extending 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 indifference of the polytheist Greeks and Romans,
of Christians, Buddhists, and Mahometans. Letronne, in
his commentary on Dicuil, has with much ingenuity and
acuteness made it appear probable that after the Irish
missionaries were expelled from the Faroe Islands by the
Northmen, they began about the year 795 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 papse
238 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
(fathers) were the clerici of Dicuil. (3?2) If then, as we
may suppose from the testimony here referred to, these
objects belonged to Irish monks (papar) who had come from
the Faroe Islands, why should they have been termed in the
native Sagas, " West men" (Yestmen), " who had come over
the sea from the westward" (kommir til vestan um 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- Americans,
which credulous travellers thought they had discovered in
several parts of the United States, is gradually disappearing
since the introduction of strict ethnological comparison,
founded not on accidental resemblances of words, but on
organic structure and grammatical forms. (373)
That this first discovery of America in or before the
eleventh century was not productive of a great and per-
manent enlargement of the physical contemplation of the
Universe, as was the re-discovery of the same continent by
Columbus at the close of the fifteenth 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 appeared
necessary for the supply of their most immediate wants.
Greenland and Iceland, which must be regarded as the true
niother countries of those new colonies, are regions in which
man has to cope with all the difficulties and hardships of an
inhospitable climate. The wonderfully organised Icelandic
Free State did, indeed, preserve its independence for three
centuries and a half, until the destruction of civil freedom,
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 239
and the subjection of the country to the Norwegian king,
Haco VI. 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 the history of the intel-
lectual cultivation of nations, that when the national treasures
of the oldest documents belonging to the North of Europe
were placed in jeopardy by the unquiet state of their own
country, they should have been conveyed to Iceland and there
carefully preserved, and thus rescued for posterity. This
rescue, the remote consequence of Ingolfs first settlement
in Iceland in 875, became, amidst the undefined and
misty forms of the Scandinavian world of myths and of
figurative cosmogonies, an event of much importance in
respect to the fruits of the poetical and imaginative faculties
of men: it was only natural knowledge 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 little power to divert settlers and mariners
from their wholly European interest, that no tidings of these
newly settled countries 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 Greenland had then
been already separated from each other for more than two
centuries, as in 1261 Greenland had lost its republican
constitution, and as a possession of the crown of Norway
bad been formally interdicted from all intercourse with
240 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
foreigners, and even with Iceland. In a now very rare work
of Columbus " on the Five Habitable Zones of the Earth/*
he mentions having visited Iceland in the month of February
1477, and adds that "the sea was not then covered with
ice, (374) 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 Markland, and of " the good
Yinland" — 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 more spoken of
in the celebrated lawsuit respecting the merit of the first
discovery, which was not concluded until 1517 ; for the
suspicious Fiscal even mentions a chart (mappa mundo)
which Martin Alonso Pinzon had seen at Borne, on which
the New Continent was said to have been laid down. If
Columbus had designed to seek for a land of which he had
obtained information in Iceland, 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 1484,
seven years after Columbus's voyage to 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 its influence on the enlargement
of the physical contemplation of the Umverse, was the
re--discovery of America,— 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 UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES.
both Columbus and Amerigo Yespucci died in the firm per-
suasion (375) that the lands which they had seen were
merely portions of Eastern Asia, yet his voyage has all the
character of the execution of a plan founded on scientific
combinations. The expedition steered confidently onward
to the west through the gate which the Tyrians and Colseus
of Samos had opened, through the " immeasurable sea of
darkness" (mare tenebrosura) of the Arabian geographers ;
they pressed forwards towards an object of which they
thought they knew the distance: the mariners were not
accidentally driven by tempests, as were Naddod and Gardar
to Iceland, and Gunnbiorn the son of Ulf Kraka to Green-
land, nor were the discoverers conducted onward by inter-
vening stations. The great Nuremberg cosmographer,
Martin Behaim, who accompanied the Portuguese Diego
Cam on his important expeditions to the west coast of
Africa, lived four years (1486-1490) at the Azores ; but it
was not from these islands, situated at -f-ths of the distance
of the Iberian coast from that of Pensylvania, that 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 : —
Non oso di tentar 1'alto Oceano
Segno le mete, e'n troppo brevi chiostri
L'ardir ristrinse dell' ingegno umano
Tempo verra che fian d'Ercole i segni
Favola vile ai naviganti industri
Tin uom della Liguria avra ardimento
All' incognito corso esporsi in prima
TASSO, xv. st. 25, 30 and 31.
And yet all that the great Portuguese historical writer
John Barros, (376) whose first decade appeared in 155 2, has
242 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
to say of this " uom della Liguria," is, that he was a vain
and fantastic talker : (homem fallador e glorioso em
mostrar suas habilidades e mais fantastico, e de imaginacoes
com sua Una Cypango.) It is thus that, throughout all
ages and all degrees of civilization yet attained, national
animosity has endeavoured to obscure the brightness of glo-
rious names.
In the history of the contemplation of the Universe, the
discovery of tropical America by Christopher Columbus,
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 casting 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 which
gave to the era of Columbus its distinctive character, as a
series of uninterrupted and successful exertions for the
attainment of new 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 small
number of courageous men, who roused themselves at once
to general freedom of independent thought, and to the in-
vestigation of particular natural phsenomena ; — by the in-
fluence exerted on the most profound springs of intellec-
tual life by the renewed acquaintance formed in Italy
with the works of Greek and Eoman literature ;— by the
discovery of an art which lends to thought at once wings
for rapid transmission and indefinitely multiplied means of
preservation; — and by the more extensive knowledge of
Eastern Asia, which travelling merchants, and the monks
THE UNIVEESE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES.
who had been sent as ambassadors to the Mogul princes,
circulated amongst those nations 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 fulfilment of the wishes
which all these causes contributed to excite was in the most
important degree facilitated towards the close of the 15th
century, by advances in the art of navigation, the gradual
improvement of nautical instruments, magnetical 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 ephemerides of the sun and moon pre-
pared by Regiomontanus.
Without entering into details in the history of the
sciences which do not belong to the present work, we must
cite among those who had prepared the way for the epoch of
Columbus and Gama, three great names, Albertus Magnus,
Roger Bacon, and Yincent of Beauvais. I have given these
three in the order of time, — but the name of most importance,
and which belongs to the most comprehensive genius, is
unquestionably that of Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk of
Hchester, who studied in Oxford and in Paris. All three
were in advance of their age, and acted powerfully upon it.
In the long and for the most part unfruitful contests of
dialectic speculations, and of the logical dogmatism of a
philosophy which has been designated by the vague and
equivocal term of scholastic, we cannot overlook the advan-
tage derived from what might be 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,
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
had procured for the newly translated writings of Aristotle
an extensive reception, 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 commencement of the thirteenth centuries,
misunderstood doctrines of the Platonic philosophy pre-
vailed in the schools. The Fathers of the Church (3?7) had
thought they discovered in them types of their own religious
contemplations. Many of the symbolising physical fancies
of the Timseus 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 autho-
rity. Thus the predominance of the Platonic philosophy,
or, to speak more correctly, of the new modifications of Pla-
tonism, was propagated under varying forms from Augustine
to Alcuin, John Scotus, and Bernard of Chartres. (378)
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
the philosophical elaboration of natural knowledge by way of
experiment. Of these two directions the first might appear
to be but little connected with the object of the present work ;
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, in the most different departments of know-
ledge. An enlarged physical contempl ation of the universe not
only requires a rich abundance of observations to afford a satis-
factory basis for the generalisation of ideas ; but also a pre-
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 245
paratory invigorating training of men's minds, and this, as 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 forms, which even in
modern times have been unwisely regarded as forbidding
access to certain departments of experimental science.
When touching on intellectual development, we may not
separate the animating influences of the conciousness of man's
just 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, William of Occam, Nicholas of Cusa,
and continued through Ramus, Campanella and Giordano
Bruno to Descartes. (379)
The apparently impassable "gulf between thinking and
being, thought and actual existence ; — the relation between
the mind which recognises and the object recognised" divided
the Dialecticians into the two celebrated schools of the
Realists and the Nominalists. The almost forgotten con-
tests of these schools of the middle 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 in the success of the two parties, the
victory finally remained in the 14th and 15th centuries with,
the Nominalists, who allow to external nature only a sub-
jective existence in the human mind. Prom 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
senses. Thus, this direction of men's thoughts was at
246 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
least indirectly influential on the cultivation of experimental
natural knowledge; but even where the views of the Realists
were still exclusively prevalent, acquaintance with Arabian
literature had fostered a love for natural knowledge, and
aided it to assert its place successfully, amidst the exclusively
absorbing tendency 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 surface of the
earth, and for their successful employment in the enlarge-
ment of the circle of cosmical ideas, was gradually prepared
through wholly different trains 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
from their tendency to claim exclusive dominion repressed
empirical investigation in physics, organic morphology, and
astronomy, which indeed was for the most part allied to
astrology. The study of the works of the all-embracing
mind of Aristotle, which had been brought in by Arabs and
Jewish Rabbis, (38°) had tended to produce a philosophical
fusion of different branches of study; and thus Ibn-Sina
(Avicenna) and Ibn-Roschd (Averroes), Albertus Magnus
and Roger Bacon, passed as the representatives of all human
knowledge possessed by -their age. We may hence estimate
the fame which in the middle ages surrounded the names of
these eminent men.
Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstadt,
must be cited as himself an observer in the domain of
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 247
analytical chemistry. His hopes were indeed directed to
the transmutation of metals ; but in seeking the fulfilment
of these hopes, he not only materially improved the practical
manipulation and treatment of ores, brit 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 translation of Michael
Scot from the Arabic (381) A work of Albertus Magnus
bearing the title of Liber Cosmographicus de Natura
Locorum is a species of physical geography. I have
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 his having been celebrated by Dante, less to himself
than to his beloved scholar Thomas Aquinas, who he took
with him from Cologne to Paris in 124*5, and brought back
to Germany in 1248.
Questi, cite m' e a destra piu vicino,
Frate e maestro fummi ; ed esso Alberto
E' di Cologna, ed io Thomas d' Aquino.
IL PARADISO, x. 97 — 99.
In all that relates immediately to the extension of the
248 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
natural sciences, to their mathematical foundation, and to
the intentional production of phenomena in the way of
experiment, Albert von Bollstadt or Albertus Magnus, the
cotemporary of Eoger Bacon, holds the foremost place in
the middle ages. These two men occupy between them
almost the entire thirteenth century; but to B/oger Bacon
belongs the praise, that the influence exerted by him on the
form and treatment of the study of nature was more bene-
ficial, and more permanent in its operation, than the several
discoveries wliich have been with more or less correctness
ascribed to him. Awakened 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 valued a thorough study of that language, (382) the ap-
plication of mathematics, and the " Scientia experimentalis/'
to wliich last he devoted a particular section of the Opus
Majus. (38S) Protected and favoured by one pope
(Clement IY.), and accused of magic and imprisoned by
two others (Nicholas III. and IY.), he experienced the
alternations of fortune to which in all ages great minds
have frequently been subject. He was acquainted with
Ptolemy's Optics, (384) and with the Almagest. As, like
the Arabians, he always calls Hipparchus Abraxis, we may
infer that he too only made use of a Latin translation
derived from the Arabic. Next to his chemical experiments
on combustible explosive mixtures, his theoretico-optical
works on perspective, and on the position of the focus in
concave mirrors, are the most important. His Opus Majus,
which is full of thought, contains proposals and plans of
possible execution, but no clear traces of success in optical
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 249
discoveries. Nor are we to ascribe to him profound mathe-
matical knowledge. His characteristic is rather a certain
liveliness of imagination, which the impression of so many
great and unexplained natural phenomena, the long and
painful search for the solution of mysterious problems,
had raised to a degree of morbid intensity among those
of the mediaeval 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
the middle ages, when after the thirteenth century the circle
of ideas began to enlarge, a great predilection for Encyclo-
paedic works. These works are deserving of particular
attention in this place, because they 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)
winch Yincent of Beauvais (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 1349; and the "picture of the world"
(Imago Mundi) of Cardinal Petrus de Alliaco, Bishop of
Cambray, in 1410. These Encyclopaedias were the precur-
sors of the great Margarita philosophica of Father Beisch,
the first edition of which appeared in 1486, and which for
half a century promoted in a remarkable manner the
extension of knowledge. "We must here dwell a little more
particularly on the Imago Mundi of Cardinal Alliacus
(Pierre d'Ailly). I have shewn elsewhere that this work
was more influential on the discovery of America, than was
250 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
the correspondence with the learned Florentine Toscanelli
(385). All that Columbus knew of Greek and Roman
writers, all the passages of Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca, on
the nearness of Eastern Asia to the pillars of Hercules,
which, as his son Don Fernando tells us, were what princi-
pally incited his father to the discovery of Indian lands,
(autoridad de los escritores para mover al Almirante a'
descubrir las Indias) were derived by the Admiral from the
writings of Alliacus. Columbus carried these writings
with him on his voyages ; for, in a letter written to the
Spanish monarchs in October 1498 from Hayti, he translates
word for word a passage from the Cardinal's treatise, " de
quantitate terrse habitabilis," by which he had been pro-
foundly impressed. He probably did not know that Alliacus
Iiad on his part transcribed word for word from another earlier
book, Roger Bacon's Opus Majus. (386) Singular period,
when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes
(Avenryz), Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the
ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land,
afforded to monarchs guarantees for the safety and expedi-
ency of costly enterprises !
I have noticed the appearance, at the close of the
thirteenth century, of a decided predilection for the study
of the powers or forces of nature, and of a progressively
increasing philosophical tendency in the form assumed by that
study, in its establishment on a scientific experimental
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 literature exercised on the
deepest springs of the intellectual life of nations, and thus
upon the general contemplation of the Universe. The
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 251
individual intellectual character of a few highly gifted men
had contributed to the augmentation 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 lands. The Arabians in
their classical studies had remained strangers to all that
belongs to the inspiration of language. Those studies were
limited to a very small number of ancient writers ; and in
accordance with the strong national predilection for the
pursuit of natural knowledge, were principally directed to
Aristotle's books of Physics, Ptolemy's Almagest, the bo-
tany and chemistry of Dioscorides, and the cosmological
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 the
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 acquaintance 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
VOL. IT. s
252 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION Otf
ever found conjoined; but the influence of the aesthetic
feeling thus awakened in them vanished without leaving
farther traces ; and the praise of having prepared in Italy
a permanent resting place for the exiled 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 friendship — Petrarch and
Boccaccio. They had both received lessons from a Calabrian
monk named Barlaam, who had long lived in Greece enjoying
the favour of the Emperor Andronicus. (387) They first com-
menced the careful collection of Roman and Grecian manu-
scripts; and even an historical eye for the comparison of
languages had been awakened in Petrarch, (388) 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,
Gemistus Pletho, and the Athenian, Demetrius Chalcoiidylas,
to whom is owing the first printed edition of Homer, (389)
were all important agents in promoting acquaintance with
Grecian literature. All these came from Greece before the
eventful taking of Constantinople on the 29th of May, 1453
it was only Constantino Lascans, whose ancestors had once sat
on the throne of the eastern empire, who came later to Italy,
and brought with him a precious collection of Greek manu-
scripts, which is now buried in the seldom-used library of the
Escurial. (39°) 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 (39i) by Guttenberg in Strasburg and Mayence,
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 253
and by Lorenz Jansson Koster in Haarlem), between 1436
and 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 intellectual 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 circumnavigation 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 Pekin and the
Chinese wall as far as Cracow and Leignitz, and produced a
feeling of alarm throughout Christendom. A number of able
monks were sent both in a religious and diplomatic capacity ;
— John de Piano Carpini and Nicolas Ascelin to Batu Khan,
and Ruisbroeck (Rubruquis) to Mangu Khan to Karakorum.
The last named of these missionaries has left us some acute
and important remarks on the geographical extension of
different families of nations and of languages in the middle
of the thirteenth century. He was the first to recognize
that the Huns, the Bashkirs (inhabitants of Paskatir, Basch-
gird of Ibn-Eozlan), and the Hungarians, were of Finnish
or Uralian race ; and he found Gothic tribes, still preserving
their language, in the strong holds of the Crimea. (392)
The accounts given by Eubmquis 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 golden
towers of Quinsay," though he does not name that great
254 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
commercial city, (the present Hangtcheufu), which twenty-
five years later acquired such celebrity through the accounts
of the greatest of land travellers, Marco Polo (393). Truth
and naive error are curiously intermingled in the accounts
given by Rubruquis of his travels, and preserved to us by
Roger Bacon. "Near Cathay, which is bounded b^ the
Eastern Ocean/' he describes a happy land "where men
and women arriving from other countries cease to grow
old" (394). Still more credulous than the monk of Brabant,
and for that reason much more extensively read, was the
English knight, Sir John Mandeville. He describes India
and China, Ceylon and Sumatra. The variety and personal
interest of his narrative have, (like the itineraries of Balducci
Pegoletti, and the narrative of Buy Gonzalez de Clavijo),
contributed not a little to increase the disposition towards
intercourse with distant countries.
It has been often and with singular decision asserted, that
the excellent work of the truth-loving Marco Polo, and par-
ticularly the knowledge which he gave of the Chinese ports
and of the Indian archipelago, 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. (395) I have
shown that both Columbus himself, and his son Fernando,
speak of ./Eneas Sylvius's (Pope Pius II.) 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, on the facility
of reaching Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the accounts
<pf Nicolo de Conti, who travelled for 25 years through
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 255
India and Southern China. The oldest printed edition of
Marco Polo's travels is a German translation made in 1477,
and this certainly would not have been intelligible to Co-
lumbus and Toscanelli. The possibility of Columbus having
seen a manuscript written by the Yenetian traveller between
the years 1471 and 1492, in which he was occupied with the
project of sailing "to the East by the West" (buscar el
levante por el poniente, pasar a donde nacen las especerias,
navegando al occidente), cannot certainly be denied ; (396)
but if so, why, in the letter which he wrote to the monarchs
from Jamaica, June 7, 1503, — in which he describes the
coast of Veragua as a part of the Asiatic Ciguare, and hopes
to see horses with golden trappings, — does not he refer to
the Zipangu of Marco Polo rather than to that of Papa Pio ?
At the period when the extension of the great Mogul
empire from the Pacific to the Yolga rendered the interior
of Asia accessible, the maritime nations of Europe acquired
a knowledge of Cathay and Zipangu (China and Japan),
through the diplomatic missions of the monks, and through
mercantile enterprises conducted by means of land jour-
nies. By an equally remarkable concatenation 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
to 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 south, they would arrive at the extremity of that conti-
256 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
nent ; from whence the navigation to the Moon Island (the
Magastar of Polo), to Zanzibar, and to Sofala 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. (397) 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, have 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 (398) as early as 1306; in the Genoese
Portulano della Mediceo-Laurenziana of 1351 discovered
by Count Baldelli ; and in the map of the world by Fra
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 geographical
relations led men to think 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 skilful use
of the magnetic forces, were also 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 again were indebted for it to the Chinese. In a
Chinese work, (the historic Szuki of Szumathsian, a writer
belonging to the first half of the second century before our
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 257
era), mention is made of "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
Cochin China, that they might not miss their way on their
homeward journey by land. In Hiutschin's dictionary
Schuewen, written 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
communicated to an iron bar : navigation being then most
usually directed to the south, the end of the magnet which
pointed southwards was the one always referred to. A
century later, under 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 aphron (for south and north)
(399) which Vincent of Beauvais in his mirror of nature
gives to the two ends ot the magnetic needle, shew (as do
the many Arabic names of stars which we still employ) the
channel through which the nations of the West received
much of their knowledge. In Christian Europe the use of
the compass is first mentioned as a perfectly familiar subject
in the politico-satirical poem called " La Bible," written by
Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of
Palestine by Jacob of Vitry, Bishop of 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 ascribed
to Mavio Gioja of Positano, a place not far from the beauti-
ful Amain, which its widely extended maritime laws rendered
so celebrated; perhaps he may have made (1302) some
258 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
improvement in its construction. That the compass was
used in European seas much earlier than the beginning of
the fourteenth century is proved by a nautical treatise of
Raymond Lully of Majorca, the highly ingenious and
eccentric man whose doctrines inspired Giordano Bruno with
enthusiasm when a boy, (40°) and who was at once a philo-
sophical systematiser, a practical chemist, a Christian teacher,
and a person skilled in navigation. He says in his book
entitled "Penix de las maravillas del orbe," writ ten in 1286,
that mariners made use in his time of " measuring instru-
ments, of sea charts, and of magnetic needles/' (401) 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, reached the mouth of the
Rio de Ouro), and the discovery of the Azores (the Bracix
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, (402) was here performed under the
guidance of the magnetic needle.
The application of astronomy to navigation was prepared
by the influence which, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, was exerted, in Italy by Andalone del Nero and
John Bianchini who corrected the Alphonsiiie astronomical
tables, and in Germany by Nicolaus of Cusa, (403) Georg von
Peuerbach, and Regiomontanus. Astrolabes capable of being
used at sea for the determination of time, and of geographical
latitudes by meridian altitudes, underwent gradual improve-
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 259
ment from the instruments used by the pilots of Majorca de-
scribed by Raymond Lully (404) in 1295, in his " Arte de
Navegar," to that which Martin Behaim made in 1484 at
Lisbon, and which was perhaps only a simplification of the
meteoroscope of his friend Regiomontanus. When the Infante
Henry (Duke of Viseo) the great encourager of navigation,
and himself a navigator, founded a school 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, whilst 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 measuring the distance
passed over. (405)
The influence 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 trans-
ferred ; the " astrolabon" which Martin Behaim attached to
the main mast belongs originally to Hipparchus. When
Yasco de Gama landed on the east coast of Africa, he
found the Indian pilots at Melinda acquainted with
the use of astrolabes and cross staffs. (406) Thus, by
intercommunication consequent on more extended inter-
course between nations, as well as by original inven-
tion, and by the mutual aids to advancement furnished by
260 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
mathematical and astronomical knowledge, every thing was
gradually prepared for the great geographical achievements,
which have distinguished the close of the fifteenth and the
early portion of the sixteenth centuries, or the thirty years
from 1492 to 1522, namely, — the discovery of tropical
America, the rapid determination of its form, the passage
round the southern point of Africa to India, arid 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 general views
of the physical Universe.
It will suffice to allude here to a few only of the principal
elements of these higher views, which were capable of con-
ducting men to a farther insight into the connection of the
phenomena of the globe. In a careful study of the original
works of the earliest historians of the Conquista, we often
discover with astonishment in the Spanish writers of the
sixteenth century the germ of important physical truths.
At the sight of a continent in the wide waste of waters far
removed from other lands, many of the important questions
which occupy us in the present day presented themselves to
tlie awakened curiosity both of the first voyagers and of those
who collected their narrations; — questions respecting the
unity of the human race, and its deviations from a common
normal type ; — the migrations of nations, and the relationship
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 plants
or animals ; — the cause of the trade winds, and of the constant
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 261
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,
(abstracting from it mathematical considerations,) is found
in the Jesuit Joseph Acosta's " Historia natural y moral de
las Indias," as well as in the work by Gonzalo Hernandez de
Oviedo, which appeared only twenty years after the death
of Columbus. Never, since the commencement 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 different latitudes and at different
elevations above the level of the sea, and of multiplying the
means by which her secrets might be interrogated, was more
keenly felt.
It has, perhaps, as I have elsewhere remarked, (407) been
erroneously supposed, that the value of these great discoveries,
each of which in turn 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 feelings of the most talented among them anticipated
the influence which the events of the latter part of the fif-
teenth century would exert on mankind. Peter Martyr de
Anghiera (408) says, in his letters written in 1493 and 1494,
262 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
" Every 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 said was regarded as
fabulous. Our friend Pomponius Lsetus" (one of the most
distinguished promoters of classical literature, and perse-
cuted at Rome on account of his religious opinions), " could
hardly refrain from tears of joy, when I gave him the first
tidings of an event so unhoped for/' Anghiera, from whom
these words are taken, was a highly 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 Yespucci, 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 Oceanica.
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 I may hope, as
the historian of such great events, to obtain for my name
some fame with posterity. (4°9)" Thus vividly did cotempo-
raries feel the splendour of events, of which the remem-
brance will survive through ah1 ages.
Columbus, in sailing westward of the meridian of the
Azores, through an entirely unexplored sea, and employing
the newly-improved astrolabe for the determination of his
position, sought the east of Asia by the western route, not
as an adventurer, but according to a preconceived and
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 263
steadfastly pursued plan. He had indeed on board, the sea-
chart which the Florentine physician and astronomer, Tos-
canelli, had sent to him in 1477, and which fifty-three years
after his death was still in the possession of Bartholomew
de las Casas. According to the manuscript history of las Casas
which I have examined, this was the Carta de Marear, (41°)
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 25^°. Uneasy at not having yet
discovered the coasts of Zipangu, which according to his
reckoning he should have met with 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 Guanahaiii.
We must here pause a while, in order to notice a very
remarkable instance of the wonderful enchainment and
connection, which links small and apparently trivial occur-
rences with 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 towards the west, he would have entered the warm current
264 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
of the Gulf stream, have reached Florida, and thence perhaps
have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia ; a circum-
stance of immeasurable importance, since it might have given
the present United States of America a Roman Catholic Spanish
population, instead of a later arriving Protestant English one.
" It is," said Pinzon to the Admiral, " as if something whis-
pered to -my heart (el corazon me da) that we must change
our course." He even maintained in the celebrated lawsuit
(1513-1515), which he conducted against the heirs of
Columbus, that on this account the discovery of America
was due to him only. But Pinzon owed in fact this
suggestion, or what " his heart whispered to him," as an old
sailor from Moguer related in the same lawsuit, to the flight
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 had
the flight of birds more important consequences. It may
be said to have determined the first settlements on the new
Continent, and its distribution between the Latin and
Germanic races (4 1 1 ) .
The march of great events, like the sequence of natural
phenomena, is regulated by laws of which a few only are
known to us. The fleet which King Emanuel of Portugal sent
under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to India, by
the route discovered by Gama, was driven out of its course
to the coast of Brazil, on the twenty-second of April, 1500.
From the zeal which, from the time of the enterprise of
Diaz (1487), the Portuguese shewed for sailing round the
Cape of Good Hope, accidents similar to those which the
currents of the ocean occasioned to the ships of Cabral,
could hardly have failed to occur. Thus the African
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 265
discoveries would have led to that of America south of
the equator ; and .Robertson was justified in describing it as
in the destiny of mankind, that before the end of the fifteenth
century the new continent should be known to European
navigators.
Amongst the characteristic qualities possessed by Chris-
topher Columbus, we must especially distinguish the pene-
trating glance and keen sagacity with which, 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/' (412) he noticed
carefully the form of the land, the physiognomy of the
vegetation, the habits of the animals, the distribution of
heat, and the variations of the earth's magnetism. The old
navigator, whilst endeavouring to find the spices of India,
and the rhubarb (ruibarba) which had already acquired so
much celebrity through Arabian and Jewish physicians, and
through the reports of Rubruquis and the Italian travellers,
examined very closely the roots, fruits, and form of the leaves
of the plants which fell under his 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 individuality of a great man. In the journal of his
voyage and in his accounts, which were published for the
first time between 1825 and 1829, we find allusions to
almost all the subjects to which scientific activity was after-
wards directed in the latter half of the fifteenth and the
whole of the sixteenth centuries.
266 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
It is sufficient to recal in a general manner, all that the
geography of the western hemisphere gained from the period,
when, at his country seat, Perga Naval, on the beautiful bay
of Sagres, the Infante Dom Henry the Navigator sketched his
first plan of discovery, to the epoch of the South Sea expedi-
tions of Gaetano and Cabrillo. 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 itself felt, suddenly opening as it
were a new sense. The advances in the art of navigation,
and the application 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
features of the globe which they inhabit. The discovery of
the mainland of tropical America, which took place on the 1st
of August, 1498, was seventeen months later than Cabot's
arrival off the Labrador coast of North America. Columbus
first saw the Terra firma of South America, not as has been
hitherto believed on the mountainous coast of Paria, but in the
Delta of the Orinoco east of Cafio Macareo. (413) Sebastian
Cabot (414) landed on the 24th of June, 1497, on the coast
of Labrador between 56° and 58° of latitude. I have
shewn above that this inhospitable coast had been visited
five centuries earlier by the Icelander Leif Erikson.
Columbus on his third voyage set more value on the
pearls of the islands of Margarita and Cubagua, than on the
discovery of the Terra firma ; as he was persuaded until his
death, that, in his first voyage, when at Cuba in November
1492, he had already touched a part of the continent
of Asia. (415) From hence (as his son Don Fernando,
and his friend the Cura de los Palacios, relate,) if he had
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. £67
had sufficient provisions,, his design would have been to
have continued his navigation towards the west, and to have
returned to Spain, (416) either by water, passing by Ceylon
(Taprobane) and " rodeando toda la tierra de los Negros," or
by land, by Jerusalem and Jaffa. Such were the projects
which Columbus cherished in 1494, proposing to himself
the circumnavigation of the globe, four years before Yasco
de Gama, and twenty-seven years before Magellan and Sebas-
tian de Elcano. The preparations for Cabot's second voyage,
in 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 arctico), to be made at some future period. (417)
The more it became gradually recognised, that the newly-dis-
covered lands formed a connected continent stretching unin-
terruptedly from Labrador to the promontory of Paria, — and
even as the celebrated lately- discovered map of Juan de la Cosa
(1500) shewed, far beyond the equator into the Southern
hemisphere, — the more ardent became the desire to find a
passage to the westward, either in the North or in the
South. Next 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,) (418) the knowledge of the South
Sea or the Pacific 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
the isthmus of Panama, Columbus in sailing along the coast
of Veragua, had already received distinct accounts of a sea
VOL. II. T
268 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
to the westward of that land, " which would conduct in less
than nine days' voyage to the Chersonesus 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 Bio del Belen " the two opposite coasts of Yeragua are
situated relatively to each other like Tortosa near the
Mediteranean and Fuenterrabia in Biscay, or like Yenice
and Pisa." This bouthern or western sea, the great Pacific
ocean, was at that time still regarded as only a continuation
of the Sinus Magnus (/ueyag KO\TTOG) of Ptolemy, beyond
which lay the golden Chersonesus, whilst Cattigara and the
land of the Sinse (Thinse) was supposed to form its eastern
shore. The fanciful hypothesis of Hipparchus, according
to which this eastern coast of the great Gulf, or Sinus
Magnus, joined itself on to a part of the continent of Africa
advancing far to the East, (419) (thus making the Indian ocean
a closed inland sea,) was happily little regarded in the middle
ages, notwithstanding their attachment to the opinions 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
so much the more important in reference to the recognition
of great cosmical relations, as it was by their means, and
scarcely therefore three centuries and a half ago, that not
only the western coast of America and the eastern coast of
Asia were first known, but also, what is of much greater
importance, on account of the meteorological results
which follow from it, that the prevailing highly erroneous
views respecting the relative areas of land and water upon
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 269
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-f- 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 continents.
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 reaching the East,
by sailing to the West, germinated almost simultaneously in
the minds of two men of Italy, the navigator Columbus,
and the physician and astronomer Paul Toscanelli, — (42°) 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 Sinse, occupied a space of 180°;
or in other words, that it extended from East to West,
over an entire half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a
long series of erroneous inferences, extended this space to
240°, making the desired eastern coast of Asia advance as far
as the meridian of San Diego in New California. Columbus
hoped therefore that he would only have to sail over 120°,
instead of the 231° which the rich trading city of Quinsay,
for example, is actually situated to the westward of the
270 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
extremity of the Iberian peninsula. Toscanelli, in his
correspondence with the Admiral, diminished the breadth of
the ocean in a manner still more singular and more favour-
able to his plans. He made the distance by sea from
Portugal to China only 52° of longitude, leaving, according
to the ancient saying of Esdras, six-sevenths of the earth dry.
Columbus, in a letter which he addressed to Queen Isabella
from Hayti immediately after the accomplishment of his
third voyage, shewed himself the more inclined towards this
view, because it was the same which had been defended by
the man whom he regarded as the highest authority, Cardinal
d'Ailly, in his "Imago Mundi." (421)
Six years after Balboa sword in hand and advancing up
to Ms 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, (422) Magellan
appeared in the Pacific (27 November 1520), and navigated
the wide ocean for more than ten thousand geographical
miles; by a singular fatality seeing only, — before discover-
ing the Marianas, (his Islas de los Ladrones or de las Velas
Latinas), and the Philippines, — two small uninhabited islands
(the Desventuradas or Unfortunate islands), one of winch, 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 the
South West of the Archipelago of Mendana. (423) Sebastian
de Elcano, after the murder of Magellan in the island of Zebu,
completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in the ship
Victoria, and received for his armorial bearings a terrestrial
globe, with the glorious inscription : " Primus circumdedisti
me/' He entered the harbour of San Lucar in September
1-522 ; and before an entire year had elapsed, we find the
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 271
Emperor Charles urging, in a letter to Hernando Cortes,
the discovery of a passage " which should shorten the dis-
tance to the 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 the newly
conquered Mexican capital of Tenochtilan, "to the kings
of Zebu and Tidor in the Asiatic Archipelago." So rapid
was the enlargement of the geographical 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 north-eastern
passage from thence to Europe. Men could not accustom
themselves to the idea that the continent 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 Zuniga, the beautiful
daughter of the Conde de Aguilar, had two ships prepared
in order to seek for more certain tidings. (424) In 1541
California was already known as an arid peninsula without
wood, although this was again forgotten in the 1 7th century.
We can discover in the accounts which 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 enterprizes; and the hardihood of these, whether
successful or unfortunate, reacted on the imagination and
inflamed it still more powerfully. Thus, at this extraordinary
272 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
period of the Conquista, (a period when men's heads were
dizzy with strenuous efforts, heroic achievements, 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 Conquistadores as led only
by a thirst for gold, or even exclusively by religious
fanaticism. Dangers always exalt the poetry of life ; and
moreover, the powerful age which we here seek to depict in
regard to its influence on 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 surprise,
which begins to be wanting to our present more learned age in
the many regions of the earth which are now open to us. It
was not only a hemisphere, but almost two-thirds of the
surface of the globe, which was then still an unknown
and unexplored 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 deeply 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 them the increasing insight into the silent
operation of the powers of nature; — whether in electro-
magnetism, or in the polarisation of light, in the influence
of diathermal substances, or in the physiological phenomena
of living organised beings, offers a world of wonders
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 273
gradually unveiling itself, and of which we have yet scarcely
reached the threshold !
The Sandwich Islands, New Guinea, and some parts
of New Holland, were all discovered in the first half of
the 16th century. (425) These discoveries prepared the way
for those of Cabrillo, Sebastian Yizcaino, Mendana,, (426) 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 his
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 enterprizes of the Spaniards and
Portuguese. The important South Indian Malayan Archi-
pelago, obscurely described by Ptolemy, Cosmas, and Polo,
began to shew itself with more definite outlines after
Albuquerque had established himself in Malacca in 1511,
and after the voyage of Anthony Abreu. It is the especial
merit of the classical Portuguese historian Barros, a cotem- '
porary of Magellan and of Camoens, to have apprehended
the peculiarities 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 Molluccas, that tin's portion of the globe began to emerge
from obscurity, and to become known to geographers ; (427)
and then also began the great epoch of Abel Tasman. We do
not propose to ourselves to give the history of the several geo-
graphical discoveries, but merely to recal by a passing allusion
274 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
the leading occurrences, by which, in a short space of time,
and in close and connected succession, in obedience to the
suddenly awakened desire to search out the wide, the unknown
and the distant, two-thirds of the earth's surface were laid
open.
Together with this enlarged and increasing geographical
knowledge of land and sea, there arose also a more enlarged
insight into the existence and the laws of the powers or
forces of nature, — the distribution of heat over the surface
of the earth, — the abundance of organic forms, and the
limits of their distribution. The progress which different
branches of science had made during the course of the
middle ages, (which, as regards science, have been too little
esteemed,) accelerated the just apprehension and thoughtful
comparison of the unbounded wealth of physical phenomena,
wliich was now presented at one time to observation.
The 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 had 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 view
in close approximation, at 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 influence
belonging to a land of lofty mountains in the equinoctial
zone, I must plead once more as my justification that, to
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 275
their inhabitants alone is it given, to behold at once all the
stars of heaven, and almost all the families of forms of the
vegetable world; — but to behold is not necessarily to
observe, viz. to compare, and to combine.
Although in Columbus, as I think I have shewn in
another work, notwithstanding the entire absence of any pre-
liminary knowledge of natural history, the mere contact with
great natural phenomena, developed in' a remarkable and
varied manner the perceptions and faculties required for
accurate observation, yet we must by no means assume a
similar development in those who composed the rude and
warlike mass of the Conquistadores. That which Europe
unquestionably owes to the discovery of America, — in the
gradual enrichment of the physical knowledge of the con-
stitution of the atmosphere, and its effects on human orga-
nization,— the distribution of climates on the declivities of
the Cordilleras, — the elevation of the snow-line in different de-
grees of latitude in the two hemispheres, — the arrangement of
volcanoes in chains, — the circumscribed area of the circle of
commotion in earthquakes, — the laws of magnetism, — the
direction of the currents of the ocean, — and the gradations of
new forms of plants and animals, — it owes to a different and
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 natural
productions of the country. It is sufficient here to
276 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
name Gomara, Oviedo, Acosta and Hernandez. Columbus
brought home from his first voyage some natural produc-
tions,— fruits and skins of animals. In a letter written
from Segovia (August 1494), Queen Isabella requests the
Admiral to continue his collections, and particularly desires
"all birds belonging to the shores and the woods of
countries having a different climate and seasons." Prom the
same 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 Infante
Henry the Navigator, black elephant's hair a palm an da 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,
(428) half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Hernandez also availed himself of a collection of medicinal
plants, which he found still growing in the ancient Mexican
garden of Huaxtepec. Owing to its proximity to a newly
established Spanish hospital, (429) this garden had not been
laid waste by the Conquistadores. 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 chains of mountains, were
collected and described. The names of Giants' bones,
and Giants' fields (Campos de Gigantes), shew how
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 277
fanciful were the interpretations first attached to these
remains.
During this active period,, the enlargement of cosmical views
was promoted by 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 consequence 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 Camoens 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 Csesalpinus, honourably opened a new
path in zoology and botany.
In order to afford a more lively idea of the early influence
which the oceanic discoveries exercised on the enlargement
of physical and astro-nautical knowledge, I will call attention
at the close of this description to some bright points of light
which we see already glimmering in the writings of Columbus.
Their first feeble ray is the more deserving of careful regard
because they contained the germ of general cosmical views.
I pass over the proofs of the results here presented to my
readers, because I have already given them in detail in an
earlier work, entitled " Critical examination of the historic de-
278 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOKY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
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 modern 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 find
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 care, and have recognised that the needle of
the mariner's compass (agujas 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 (ray a), 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. Also 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 from the Canary
Islands to the parallel of Sierra Leone I had to sustain a
terrible heat, but as soon as we had passed beyond the
above-mentioned line (west of the meridian of the Azores)
the climate altered, the air became temperate, and the
freshness increased the farther we advanced."
This passage, which is elucidated by several others in
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 279
the writings of Columbus, contains views of physical geo-
graphy, remarks on the influence of geographical longitude,
on the declination of the magnetic needle, on the inflection
of the isothermal lines between the west coast of the old
and the east coast of the new Continent, on the situation of
the great Sargasso bank in the basin of the Atlantic, and on
the relations of this part of the ocean to the atmosphere
above it. Erroneous observations (43°) in the neighbourhood
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 line (raya) where the
magnetic needle points to the true north ; and this elevation
he supposed to be the cause of the cooler temperature. The
solemn reception of the Admiral at Barcelona took place in
April 1493, and on the 4th of May of the same year Pope
Alexander VI. signed the celebrated bull which " establishes
for ever" the demarcation line (431) between the Spanish and
Portuguese possessions at a hundred miles westward of the
Azores. If we bear in mind that Columbus, immediately
after his return from his first voyage of discovery, purposed
to go himself to Rome, in order, as he said, " to report to
the Pope all that he had discovered," and if we remember
the importance which the cotemporaries of Columbus attached
to the line of no variation, it may be admitted that there
are grounds for a suggestion first put forward by myself,
that at the moment of his highest court favour Columbus
280 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
endeavoured to cause " a physical Hue of demarcation to be
converted into a political one."
The influence which the discovery of America, and the
great nautical enterprizes connected with it exercised so
rapidly on all physical and astronomical knowledge, is most
strikingly felt when we recal the first impressions of those
who lived at the period, and the wide range of scientific
endeavours of which the most important part belongs to the
first half of the sixteenth century. Columbus has not only
the incontestable merit of having first discovered a " line
without magnetic variation," but also of having, by his
considerations on the progressive increase of westerly declina-
tion in receding from that line, given the first impulse to
the study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe. The circum-
stance, that almost every where the ends of a freely suspended
magnet do not point exactly to the north and south geo-
graphical poles, might easily have been recognised, even with
very imperfect instruments, in the Mediterranean, and in other
places where the declination amounted in the twelfth century
to more than eight or ten degrees. But it is not improbable
that the Arabs, or the Crusaders who were in contact with
Eastern nations from 1096 to 1270, in spreading the use of
Chinese or Indian compasses, may also have called attention,
even at that early period, to the circumstance of magnetic
needles pointing in different parts of the world to the north-
east or to the north-west, as to a long-known phenomenon.
"We know positively from the Chinese Penthsaoyan, which
was written under the dynasty of the Song (432) between
1111 and 1117, that the manner of measuring the amount
of westerly declination had been then long understood.
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 281
That which belongs to Columbus is not the first observation
of the existence of the variation (which, for example, is noted
in the map of Andrea Bianco in I486), but the remark
which he made on the 13th of September, 1492, that "2J°
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 attaining the American
continent, took place five years later than Columbus's first
voyage 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 1496) 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 lines of declination are so much curved that they
do not follow the direction of the meridian, but correspond
even with the parallels of latitude for considerable distances),
were at that period still unknown. Magnetical 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
282 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
nor that of the imperfect instruments employed at sea in 1493,
whether for measuring angles or time, were competent to the
practical solution of so difficult a problem. Under these
circumstances, Pope Alexander VI., in presumptuously
dividing half the globe between two powerful states, rendered
without knowing it an essential service to nautical astronomy
and to the physical science of terrestrial magnetism. The
great maritime powers were from that time continually
solicited to entertain innumerable impracticable proposals.
Sebastian Cabot, as we learn from his friend Eichard Eden,
still boasted on his death bed that there had been ' ' divinely
revealed to him an infallible method of finding the longitude."
This revelation was no other than his firm belief that the
magnetic declination changed rapidly and regularly with
the meridian. The cosmographer Alonso de Santa Cruz,
one of the instructors of Charles Y., undertook the drawing
up of the first general " Yariation Chart", (433) although,
indeed, from very imperfect observations, as early as 1530,
or a century and a half before Halley.
The " movement" of the magnetic lines, the first recogni-
tion of which is usually ascribed to Gassendi, was not even
yet conjectured by William Gilbert ; but at an earlier period,
Acosta, " from the information of Portuguese navigators/'
assumed four lines of no declination upon the surface of the
globe. (434) Hardly had the inclinometer, or dipping needle,
been invented in England by Bobert 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 (acre caliginoso). (4^5) From my own observations
in the Pacific, I shewed soon after my return to Europe
that, in certain parts of the earth, and under particular local
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 283
circumstances, for example on the coasts of Peru in the
season of constant fogs (garua), 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 all the points with which we are now occupied, in re-
ference to an important cosmical subject (with the exception
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 the 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-
nuto, in the Geographia di Tolomeo (1588), place it more
to the south. Sanuto entertained a prejudice which, strange
to say, has existed even in later times, that a man who
should be so fortunate as to reach the magnetic pole (il
calamitico), would experience there "alcun miracoloso stu-
pendo effetto."
In the department of the 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 (436) with increasing western longitude, (the in-
flection of the isothermal lines) ; to the law of rotation of the
winds (437) generalized by Francis Bacon ; to the diminution
of atmospheric moisture and of the quantity of rain> caused
by the destruction of forests ; (438) and to the decrease of tern-
perature with increasing elevation above the level of the
VOL. II. U
284 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
and the lower limit of perpetual snow. That this limit is " a
function of the geographical latitude" was first recognised by
Petrus Martyr Anghiera in 1510. Alonso de Hojeda and
Amerigo Vespucci had seen the snowy mountains of Santa
Marta (tierras nevadas de Citanna) as early as 1500 ; Eodrigo
Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa examined them more closely
in 1501 ; but it was not until the accounts of the expedi-
tion of Colmenares, which the pilot Juan Vespucci, nephew
of Amerigo, communicated to his patron and friend
Anghiera, that the "tropical snow region" seen on the
mountainous shore of the Caribbean sea acquired a great,
and it might be said a cosmical, signification. The lower
limit of perpetual snow was now brought into connection
with the general relations of the decrease of temperature
and the diversity of climates. Herodotus, in discussing the
causes of the rising of the Nile (ii. 22), had positively de-
nied the existence of snowy mountains south of the tropic
of Cancer. Alexander's expeditions, indeed, conducted the
Greeks to the Nevados of the Hindoo Coosh (opr/ ayawitya) ;
but these are situated between 34° and 36° of north 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 little attended to
by men of science, and which is 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, (439) and the first insight into the law of
the decrease of temperature in an ascending vertical line,
#nd the consequent gradual lowering, from the equator
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 285
towards the poles, of a stratum of air of equal coolness,
mark no unimportant 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. The greatest physicist of the 15th century, who
combined distinguished mathematical knowledge with the
most admirable and profound insight into nature, Leonardo
da Yinci, 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 the age in which 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 Yinci had not remained buried in his ma-
nuscripts, the field of observation which the new world
offered would have been already cultivated scientifically in
many of its parts before the great epoch of Galileo, 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 dalF esperienza,
e per mezzo di questa scoprirne la ragione." (44°)
As, notwithstanding the wrnt 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 expl(» '
Bions, were often spoken of in the commentaries on the first
land journeys ; so also the mariners very early embraced1
286 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
just views in regard to the direction and rapidity of cur-
rents, which, like rivers of variable breadth, traverse the
Atlantic Ocean. The proper " equatorial current," the
movement of the waters between the tropics, was first de-
scribed by Columbus. " The waters move con los cielos (or
like the vault of heaven) from east to west." Even the
direction of separate floating masses of sea- weed confirmed
tins belief. (441) A light pan of wrought iron, which
he found in the hands of the natives of the island of Qua-
daloupe, 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 coincidence 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 tropics from east to west.
When on his fourth and last voyage the Admiral dis-
covered the north and south direction of the coast of
America, from Cape Gracias a Dios to the Laguna de
Chiriqui, he felt the action of the strong current which sets
to the N. and N.N.W., and results from the impinging of the
equatorial current against the opposing line of coast. Ang»
hiera 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 circumstantiall) in another place, how
THE UNIVERSE.— ORGANIC DISCOVERIES. 287
much the expedition 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 Humphry Gilbert
between 1567 and 1576, the movement of the waters of the
Atlantic, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Banks of
Newfoundland, was treated according to views which agree
almost entirely with those of my excellent deceased friend,
Major Eennell.
The knowledge of the oceanic currents was accompanied
by that of the great banks of sea-weed (Eucus natans), the
" oceanic meadows" which offer the remarkable spectacle of
the accumulation of a " social plant" over a surface almost
seven times greater than that of Prance. The " great Pucus
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 Pucus 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. (442)
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 Garcilaso 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
288 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
to tlie navigators and land travellers of the period of which
we are treating, the magnificent spectacle of the southern
constellations, longer and more frequently than could have
been the case in the time of Hiram or of the Ptole-
mies, or under the Roman Empire, or in the course of
the commerce of the Arabians in the Bed Sea, and in the
Indian Ocean between the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and
the western peninsula of India. Amerigo Vespucci, in his
letters, Yicente Yanez Pinzon, Pigafetta who accompanied
Magellan and Elcano, as well as Andrea Corsali in his
voyage to Cochin in Eastern India in the beginning of the
16th century, have given us a record of the vivid impressions
produced by the earliest contemplation 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 to a
vain-glorious display, praises not unpleasingly the brightness,
the picturesque beauty, and the novel aspect of the constella-
tions which circle round the southern pole, of which the
more immediate vicinity is poor in stars. He affirms in his
letter to Pierfrancesco de Medici, that on his third voyage
he occupied himself carefully with observing the southern
constellations, measuring the polar distance of the principal
amongst them, and making drawings of them. .What he
communicates on the subject does not indeed lead us greatly
to regret the loss of his measurements.
I find the first description of the enigmatical black
patches, (Coalbags) given by Anghiera in 1510. They ha4
been remarked as early as 1499 by the companions of
Yicente Yanez Pinzon, on the expedition which went from
Palos and took possession of the Brazilian Cape St.
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 28$
Augustine. (444) The Canopo fosco (Canopus niger) of Ame-
rigo, is probably one of these " coal bags/' The acute Acosta
compares it to the darkened portion of the moon's disk in
partial eclipses, and appears to ascribe it to a void in space, or
to the absence of stars. Bigaud 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 stars round the South Pole, has been mistaken by
a celebrated astronomer for the first notice of spots in the
sun. (445) The knowledge of the two Magellanic clouds
has been erroneously ascribed to Pigafetta; I find that
Anghiera, from the observations of Portuguese navigators,
mentions these clouds 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 the two clouds, however, appears not to have escaped the
clear sight of the Arabians. It was very probably the White
Ox " 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
in the Tehama, and in the parallel of the Straits of Bab-el-
Mandeb. Under the Lagidae and subsequently, Greeks and
Eomans 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 Abdurrahmanii (1000 A.D.),
more than 4°. (446) 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.
290 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
near the equator, or even south of it; but the 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 clouds.
The probability 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 17th century. What the
Dutch navigators, Petrus Theodori of Embden, and Fre-
deric Houtman, who (1596 — 1599) was a prisoner to the
king of Bantam and Atschin, in Java and Sumatra, had ob-
served with imperfect instruments, was laid down in the
celestial charts of Hondius Bleaw (Jansonius Csesius) and
Bayer.
The more unequal distribution of the masses of light
gives to that zone of the southern heavens, between the pa-
rallels of 50° and 80°, which is so rich in crowded nebulae
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 dark
and desert. These singular contrasts, — the Milky Way,
which at several parts of its course shews a greatly increased
brilliancy, — the insulated, revolving, rounded Magellanic
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 particular regions in the southern celestial hemis-
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 291
phere. Religious associations have given to one of these
regions, — that of the Southern Cross, — a peculiar interest
to Christian navigators, travellers, and missionaries, in the
tropical and southern seas, and in both the Indies. The four
principal stars of which the Cross is composed were regarded
in the Almagest, and in the age of Hadrian and Antoninus
Pius, as part of the constellation of the Centaur. (447) The
form of the Southern Cross is so striking, and 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 have been earlier separated from the large ancient
constellation of the Centaur ; it is, indeed, the more surpris-
ing, because the Persian Kazwini and other Mahometan
astronomers were at pains to make out crosses from stars in
the Dolphin and Dragon. Whether the courtly flattery of
the Alexandrian learned men, who transformed Canopus
into a " Ptolemseon," also applied the stars of our present
Southern Cross to the glorification of Augustus, by forming
them into a " Ca3saris thronon" (448) which was never visible
in Italy, remains somewhat uncertain. In the time of
Claudius Ptolema3us, the fine star at the foot of the Southern
Cross had still 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 (1847), in order to see a Crucis at an altitude of
6° 10', and taking refraction into account, we must be 10°
to the south of Alexandria, or in 21° 43' of N. lat. The
Christian anchorites in the Thebais may still have seen the
cross at an altitude of 10° in the fourth century. I doubt,
292 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OJf
however, whether it received its name from them ; for Dante,
the celebrated passage of the Purgatorio —
THE ^\" 1° nu TOlsi a man destra, e posi mentc
All' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle
Non viste mai fuor ch' alia prima gente :**
Amerigo Yespucci, — who, at the aspect of the southern
firmament in his third voyage, first recalled these lines, and
even boasted that " he now beheld in his own person the
four stars never before seen save by the first human pair," —
were still unacquainted with the denomination of " Southern
Cross." Yespucci 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
Gama 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 maravigliosa), more glorious than
all the constellations of the entire heavens," by the Floren-
tine Andrea Corsali (1517), and afterwards, in 1520, by
Pigafetta. The 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
travellers from Pisa (449) . That in the Spanish settlements in
tropical America, the first settlers were accustomed to infer
the hour of the night from the inclined or perpendicular
position of the Southern Cross, as is still done, was already
remarked by Acosta in his " Historia natural y moral de las
Indias." (45°)
THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 293
By the precession of the equinoxes the aspect of th£
starry heavens from every point of the earth's surface is
constantly changing. The earlier inhabitants of our high
northern latitudes might see magnificent southern constella-
tions rise to their view, which, now long unseen, will not
reappear for thousands of years. In the time of Columbus,
Canopus was already fully 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 f> Cen-
tauri, are receding more and more ; whilst the Magellanic
clouds slowly approach our latitudes. 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 52j° 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 great Pyramid of
Cheops had already been standing in Egypt for five centu-
ries. 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 extension of a knowledge of the celestial spaces, — a
knowledge, however, limited to their outward aspect, — was
accompanied by advances in nautical astronomy ; that is to
say, in the improvement of all the methods of determining
a ship's place, or its geographical latitude and longitude.
£94 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP
All that in the course of time has 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 way by the more exact appara-
tus of the log, — the use 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 regarded as powerful means of
throwing open all parts of the earth's surface, of accelerating
the animating intercourse of nations with each other, and
of advancing the investigation of cosmical relations. Taking
this as our point of view, we would here recal the fact that
as early as the middle of the 13th 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 Raymond
Lully, in his Arte de Navegar, is almost two centuries older
than that 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 declination/' and, as Barros says, (451) to teach
pilots the " maneira de navegar per altura 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 la altura del
este-oeste." (452)
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 Spanish and Portuguese crowns in
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEA.NIC DISCOVERIES. 295
the 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 Hipparchian method by lunar
eclipses could be applied, and the use of lunar distances was
already recommended, in 1514, by the Nuremberg astrono-
mer Johann Werner, and soon afterwards by Orontius
Finseus and Gemma Frisius. Unfortunately this method
long continued impracticable, until, after many vain attempts
with the instruments of Peter Apianus (Bienewitz) and
Alonso de Santa Cruz, the mirror sextant was invented in
1700 by Newton, and brought into use among mariners by
Hadley in 1731.
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. (453) The suddenly awakened sense of the
want of those means which nautical astronomy, theoretically
at least, promised, shews itself in a particularly vivid man-
ner in the narratives of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Piga-
fetta, and Andres de San Martin the celebrated pilot of
Magellan's expedition, who was in possession of Buy Falero's
method of finding the longitude. Oppositions of planets,
occupations of stars, differences of altitude between the
Moon and Jupiter, and changes of the Moon's declination,
296 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
were all tried with more or less success. We have observa-
tions of conjunction by Columbus, in the night of the 13th
of January, 1493, from Haiti. The necessity of giving to
each great expedition a well-instructed astronomer, in addi-
tion to the naval officers, was so generally felt, that Queen
Isabella wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493,
that " although he had shewn in his enterprises that he
knew more than any other mortal man (que ninguno de los
nacidos), yet she advised him to take with him Pray Antonio
de Marchena, as a learned and skilful man in the know-
ledge of the stars/' Columbus says, 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/ (454) 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 find again the
lands which I have discovered. To navigate requires ' com-
pas y arte/ the compass, and the knowledge or art of the
astronomer/'
I have given these characteristic details, because they
0ring more sensibly before us the manner in which nautical
astronomy, the powerful instrument of rendering navigation
secure and certain and thereby facilitating access to all
regions of the globe, received its first development in the
epoch of which we are treating ; and how, in the general
movement of men's minds, there was an early recognition
of the possibility of methods, which had to await for their
extensive practical application the improvement of time-
keepers and of instruments for measuring angles, as well as
correct solar and lunar tables. If the character of an age
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 297
be " the manifestation of the human mind in a definite
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 field of our conquests, and our prospect into new
regions which yet rem'ain to be conquered. Weak spirits in
every age believe complacently that mankind have reached
the highest point of their intellectual progress; forgetful
that through the intimate mutual relation of all natural
phenomena, in proportion as we advance, the field to be
travelled over obtains a wider extension, — that it is bounded
by an horizon which recedes continually before the march
of the explorer.
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 circumnavigation of the 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 but a very 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 disturbing
actuality of the present. But here too, as in all terrestrial
tilings, the period of greatest brilliancy is closely associated
with events which call forth emotions of the deepest sorrow.
The progress of cosmical knowledge was purchased by all
298 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OF
the violence and all the horrors wliich conquerors, the so-
called extenders of civilisation, spread over the earth. Yet
it would be an indiscreet and rash boldness which, in the
interrupted 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 almost
coincides in point of time with the appearance and myste-
rious arrival of Manco Capac in the highlands of Peru; it
preceded by almost 200 years the arrival of the Aztecs in
the valley of Mexico. The foundation of the principal city,
Tenochtitlan, 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-
ful and politically united mother country, — the advancing
Germanic race would have still found many wandering
tribes of hunters, (455) where the Spanish conquerors found
settled agriculturists.
The period of the conquista, the end of the 15th and
oeginning of the 16th centuries, is marked by a wonderful
coincidence of great events in the political and moral life of
the nations of Europe. In the same month in which
Hernan 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. (456) Somewhat earlier, those long buned
glorious monuments of ancient Grecian art, the Laocoon,
THE UNIVERSE. — OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 299
the Torso, the Belvedere Apollo, and the Medicean Terms
had been disclosed. Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Yinci,
Titian, and Eaphael flourished in Italy, and Holbein and
Albert Durer in our German country. In the year in which
Columbus died, fourteen years after the discovery of the
new continent, the order of the universe was discovered,
though not publicly announced, by Copernicus.
The consideration of the importance of the discovery of
America, and of the first European settlements therein,
touches on other fields of thought besides those to which these
pages are 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 recal only by a passing allusion, how,
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, which 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 Eeformation, the precursor of great political revo-
lutions, passed through the different phases of its develop-
ment in a region which became the refuge of all religious
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
was accident, and not fraud or strife, (45?) which deprived
the continent of America of his name. The new world,
VOL. n. x
300 HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE.
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, (458) 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.
t
301
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE
UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES.
TIL
Great Discoveries in Space by the application of the Telescope. —
The great Epoch of Astronomy and Mathematics from Galileo
and Kepler to Newton and Leibnitz. — Laws of the Planetary
Motions, and general Theory of Gravitation.
IN attempting to recount the most distinctly marked pe-
riods and gradations of the development of cosmical con-
templation, we have in the last section endeavoured 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 began 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
birth (1707) is so near the year of Jacob Bernoulli's death.
A few names may suffice to recal the giant strides with
which the human mind advanced in the 17th century, less
from any outward incitements than from its own indepen-
dent energies, and especially in the development of mathe-
302 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
matical thought. The laws that regulate the fall of bodies,
and the planetary motions, were recognised ; the pressure of
the atmosphere, the propagation of light, and its refraction and
polarisation, were investigated. Mathematico-physical science
was created, and established on firm foundations. The in-
vention of the infinitesimal calculus marks the close of the
century ; and, reinforced by 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 perturbations of the heavenly bodies, by the polarisation
and interference of the waves of light, by radiant heat, by
the electro-magnetic re-entering currents, by vibrating 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 different portions lend to each other mu-
tual support. No earlier fruitful germ is stifled. We see
increase, simultaneously, the abundance of materials, the
strict accuracy of methods, and the perfection of instruments.
T propose to limit myself principally to the consideration of
the 17th century, the age of Kepler, Galileo, and Bacon, of
Tycho Brahe, Descartes, and Huygens, of Eermat, Newton,
and Leibnitz. "What they have done is so generally known,
that slight indications will suffice to point out through what
part of their achievements they have more especially contri-
buted to the enlargement of cosmical views.
We have already shewn (459) how, by the discovery of
telescopic vision, there was lent to the eye, — the organ of
the sensuous contemplation of the visible universe, — a powef
of which we are yet far from having reached the limit, but
of which the first feeble commencement (magnifying hardly
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 303
as much as 32 times in linear dimension), (46°) sufficed to
penetrate into cosmical depths before unknown. The exact
knowledge of many heavenly bodies belonging to our solar
system, the unchanging laws according to which they re-
volve in their orbits, and the perfected insight into the true
structure of the universe, are the characteristics of the
epoch which we here attempt to describe. The results
which this age produced have denned the leading outlines of
the picture of nature or sketch of the Cosmos, and have added
an intelligent recognition of the contents of the celestial
spaces, — at least in the well-understood arrangement of one
planetary group, — to the earlier explored contents of terres-
trial space. Seeking to fix attention on general views, I
here name only the most important objects of the astrono-
mical labours of the 1 7th 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 Copernican system of
the universe. Nicholas Copernicus (in two still existing
letters he calls himself Kopernik) had already attained his
21st year, and had observed with the astronomer Albert
Brudzewski, at Cracow, when Columbus discovered America.
Hardly a year after the death of the great discoverer, Coper-
nicus having returned to Cracow from a six years' residence
at Padua, Bologna, and Rome, we find him occupied with an
entice revolution in the astronomical view of the universe.
304 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
By tlie favour of his uncle, Lucas Waisselrode von Allen, (461)
Bishop of Ermland, he was named, in 1510, Canon at
Prauenburg, where he was engaged for thirty-three years in
.the completion of his work "De Revolutionibus Orbium
:Co3lestium." The first printed copy was brought to him
when in immediate preparation for death, and when his
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, (462) but
some days afterwards, on the 24th of May, 1543. 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 B/hseticus, to Johann
Schoner, Professor at Nuremberg. Yet it was not the pro-
mulgation of the Coperiiican theory, the renewed doctrine
of the solar orb forming the centre of our system, which
led, somewhat more than half a century after its first ap-
pearance, to the brilliant discoveries in space which mark
the beginning of the 17th century: — these discoveries were
the result of an invention accidentally made, — that of the
Telescope. Through 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 Yenus), — pointed out to theoretical
astronomy the paths which must conduct to the sure at-
tainment of her 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 Eegiomontanus (Johann Muller, of Konigs-
berg, in Franconia), exerted a beneficial influence on Coper-
THE UNIVEKSE.— DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 305
nicus and his scholars, Bhseticus, Reinhold, 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, Galileo, and Newton. This is the connecting 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, (463) regards Copernicus as having, through
timidity and fear of priestly persecution, represented the
earth's planetary movement, and the sun's position in the
centre 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 be regarded as true, or even as
probable." These singular words (464) are indeed found
in the anonymous preface placed at the commencement
of Copernicus's work, and entitled " De Hypothesibus
hujus operis;" 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 his life of Coperni-
cus, 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 religious
scruples, would appear to have thought it advisable to term
the new views an hypothesis, and not, like Copernicus, a
demonstrated truth. The founder of our present system of
306 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION Of
the universe (the most important parts of that system, the
grandest traits in the picture of the universe, unquestionably
belong to him) was no less distinguished by the courage
and confidence with which he propounded it, than by his
knowledge. He was in a high degree deserving of the fine
eulogium of Kepler, who, speaking of him in the introduc-
tion to the Eudolphine Tables, says, "vir fuit maximo in-
genio, et quod in hoc exercitio (in combating prejudices)
magni moinenti est, animo liber" Copernicus, in his de-
dication to the Pope, does not hesitate to term the generally
received opinion of the immobility and central position of
the earth an "absurd acroama," and to expose the stupidity
of those who adhere to so erroneous a belief. " If," said
he, "any empty babbler (ftaratoXoyot), ignorant of mathe-
matical knowledge, should yet rashly pronounce sentence
upon his work, by wresting for that purpose some passage
from Holy Scripture (propter aliquem locum scripturse male
ad suum propositum detortum), he sliould despise so pre-
sumptuous 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 tc he spherical. On mathematical subjects one
must write for mathematicians only. In order to shew that,
deeply penetrated with the truth of his results, he had no
cause to fear any condemnation, he addressed himself, from
a remote corner 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 UNIVERSE. DISCOVEEIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES, 307
remark it may be noticed, that astrology, and amendments
in the Calendar, were long chiefly efficacious in obtaining for
astronomy the protection of secular or ecclesiastical power ;
as chemistry and botany were long regarded solely as sub*
servient to medicinal knowledge.
The free and powerful language employed by Copernicus,
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 (lucernam mundi), the sun, as on a kingly throne,
in the midst of the beautiful temple of nature, guiding
from thence the entire family of circum-revolving planets
(circumagentem gubernaiae astrorum familiam) ." (465) Even
the idea of universal gravitation or attraction (appetentia
qusedam naturalis partibus indita) towards the centre of the
world (centrum mundi), 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 (466) in the 9th chapter of the 1st book of the
« Bevolutions."
! In passing in review the different stages of the develop-
rnent of cosmical contemplations, we discover from the
earliest times more or less obscure anticipations 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
808 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
justice on " the deep consideration of Nature by Aiiaxagoras,
from whom we hear, not without astonishment, that the
moon (467) if its force of rotation ceased would fall to the earth
as a stone discharged from a sling." I have already, in my first
volume, when treating of the fall of aerolites, (468) noticed
similar expressions of the Clazomenian, and of Diogenes of
Apollonia, respecting the tf 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,
Plato had a clearer idea than 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. (469) But at a later period, probably in
the 6th century, the Alexandrian John Philoponus, a pupil of
Ammonius Ilermese, 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 light, to come to the ground. (47°) But the idea which
Copernicus divined, and which Kepler enunciated more
clearly in his fine work " de Stella Martis," even applying
it (471) to the ebb and flood of the Ocean, we find invested
with new life, and rendered more fruitful (1666 and 1674)
by the sagacity of the ingenious Eobert 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. (472)
Copernicus, as we perceive not only from his dedication
to the Pope, but also from several passages in the book
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 309
itself, was tolerably well accquainted with the representations
which the ancients formed to themselves of the structure of
the Universe. In the period before Hipparehus, he however
only names Hicetas of Syracuse, (whom he always calls
Nicetas), Philolaus the Pythagorean, the Timseus of Plato,
Ecphantus, Heraclides of Pontus, and the great geometer
Apollonius of Perga. Of the two mathematicians who
came nearest to his system, Aristarchus of Samos, and
Seleucus the Babylonian, (4?3) he only names the first
without farther notice, and does not mention the second at
all. It has often been said that Copernicus was not
accquainted with the opinion of Aristarchus of Samos,
relative to the central position of the Sun and the planetary
character of the Earth, because the " Arenarius," and all
the works of Archimedes, were only published a year after
his death, a full century after the invention of the art of
printing; but in saying this, it is forgotten that, in the
dedication to Pope Paul III., Copernicus quotes a long
passage on Philolaus, Ecphantus, and Heraclides 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 Samos 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 Gas-
sendi's statements, to have been exercised by a passage in the
encyclopaedic 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 (474) sometimes to the Egyptians, and sometimes
<810 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
to the Chaldeans, the Earth rests immoveably in the centre,
and the Sun revolves round it as a planet, while Mercury
and Yenus accompany, and revolve round the Sun as hid
satellites. Such a view of the structure of the Universe
might tend to prepare the way for that of the Sun's central
force. There is nothing either in the Almagest, or in the
writings of the Ancients generally, or in the work of
Copernicus " de Revolutionibus," to justify Gassendi'g
decided assertion as to the perfect similarity of the System
of Tycho Brahe with that of Apollonius of Perga. After
Bockh's complete investigation, nothing more need be said
respecting the confusion of the System of Copernicus with
that of the Pythagorean Philolaus, in which the non-rotating
Earth (the Antichton or opposite earth is not itself a planet,
but only the opposite hemisphere 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.
The scientific revolution commenced by Copernicus had
the rare good fortune (setting aside a brief retrograde
movement in Tycho Brahe's hypothesis), of proceeding
uninterruptedly forward to its object, — the discovery of
the true structure of the universe. The rich supply of
e,xact observations which were furnished by Tycho Brahe
himself, the zealous opponent of Copernicus, laid the
foundation of the discovery of those unchanging laws of
the planetary movements, which prepared for Kepler im-
perishable fame, and which, when interpreted by Newton>
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,. (475) though perhaps with too -feeble an
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 311
appreciation of the free, great, and independent spirit
which conceived the theory of gravitation, " Kepler wrote a
book of laws, Newton the spirit of the laws/'
The figurative poetic myths of the Pythagorean and
Platonic pictures of the universe, (476) variable as the
imagination from which they had their birth, still found
a partial reflex in Kepler; they warmed and cheered his
often saddened spirits, but they did not divert him from
the earnest path which he steadfastly pursued, and of which
he reached the goal, (477) 12 years before his death, on the
memorable night of the 15th of May, 1618. Copernicus
had 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 movements of the planets
(their retrogressions and stationary appearances), — and had
thus found the true cause of what is called the " second
inequality of the planets." The first inequality, the non-
uniform movement of the planets in their orbits, he left
unexplained. True to the ancient Pythagorean principle of
the inherent perfection of circular movements, Copernicus, in
his structure of the universe, needed to add to the " excen-
tric" circles having unoccupied centres, some of the epicycles
of Apollonius of Perga. Bold as was the path struck out,
men could not free themselves at once from all earlier 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 which Anaximenes, (who was
perhaps not much later than Pythagoras), imagined the stars
312 EPOCHS IN THE HIST011Y OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
to be fastened as if nailed. (478) Geminus the Rhodian, a
cotemporary of Cicero's,, doubted the constellations being
all in the same plane ; some, he thought, were higher and
some lower. This manner of representing the heaven of the
fixed stars was transferred to the planets ; and thus arose
the theory of the excentric intercalated spheres of Eudoxus,
Menaechmus, and Aristotle who invented retrograding
spheres. After a century, the acute mind of Apollonius
caused the theory of epicycles, — a construction which
adapted itself more easily to the representation and calcula-
tion of the motions of the planets, — to supersede the solid
spheres. Whether, as Ideler believes, it was not until after
the establishment of the Alexandrian Museum, that philoso-
phers began to regard " a free movement of the planets in
space as possible," — whether previously to that period the
intercalated transparent spheres, (27 according to Eudoxus,
55 according to Aristotle), as well as the epicycles which
passed from Hipparchus and Ptolemy to the middle ages,
were generally regarded, 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 incline to the latter view.
It is more certain, that in the middle of the 1 6th century,
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 solid spheres, circles
and epicycles, which had been particularly favoured by the
fathers of the Church, was still extremely prevalent. Tycho
Brahe expressly boasts, that by his considerations on the
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES.
paths of comets, he first demonstrated the impossibility of
solid spheres, and thus shattered the whole artificial fabric.
He filled the free celestial spaces with air, and even believed
that the " resisting medium," made to vibrate by the revolv-
ing heavenly bodies, might produce sounds. The unpoetic
Eothmann thought it incumbent upon him to refute this re-
newal of the Pythagorean myth of the music of the spheres.
The great discovery of Kepler, that all the planets move
round the s tin in ellipses, and that the sun is placed in one of
the foci of these ellipses, finally freed the original Copernican
system from the excentric circles, and from all epicycles. (479)
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 minds clustered as it were together; and we see
this phenomenon repeated in the most striking manner in
the first ten years of the 17th century. Tycho Brahe the
founder of modern practical astronomy, Kepler, Galileo,
and Francis Bacon, were coteinporaries. All, except Tycho,
were cotemporaneous in their maturer years with the labours
of Descartes and Permat. The fundamental traits of Bacon's
Instauratio Magna 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 physical astronomy, (Jupiter's satellites, the solar spots,
the phases of Yenus, and the wonderful form of Saturn),
fall between the years 1609 and 1612. Kepler's specula-
314 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 0*
tions on the elliptic orbit of Mars (48°) were began in 1601,
and gave occasion to the ' ' Astronomia nova seu Physica
ccelestis" completed eight years 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 must
Remain ever ignorant of them. By resolutely continued labour
I have succeeded in subjecting the inequalities of the motion
of Mars to a natural law." The generalization of the same
thought conducted Kepler to the great truths and cosmical
conjectures which he presented ten years later in his
Harmonices Mundi, libri quinque. " I believe/' he
writes, in a letter to the Danish astronomer Longomontanus,
"that astronomy and physics are so closely connected, that
neither can be perfected without the other." The results
of his investigations on the structure of the eye and the
theory of vision appeared in the " Paralipomena ad Vitel-
Konem," in 1604, and the " Dioptrica/' (481) in 1611. Thus
rapid, in regard both to the most important objects in the
phsenomena 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 century, which 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, (482) this great invention may be
claimed by Hans Lippershey, a native of Wesel, and spec-
tacle-maker at Middelburg, — Jacob Adriansz, also called
Metius, who is said to have made burning-glasses of ice,—"
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 315
and Zacliarias Jansen. The first named of these three
parties is always called Laprey in the important letter of the
Dutch ambassador Boreel to the physician Borelli, the
author of the memoir " De vero telescopii inventore." (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 Lippershey, 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 Metius is
dated the 1 7th of October of the same year ; but he says
expressly in his petition, that " through meditation and in-
dustry he had constructed such instruments for two years."
Zacliarias Jansen (who, like Lippershey, was a spectacle-
maker at Middelburg), together with his father Hans Jan-
sen, invented the compound microscope, the eye-piece of
which 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 Boreel testifies. Jansen
and his friends directed the telescope towards remote ter-
restrial, but not towards celestial objects. The inappre-
ciable importance and magnitude of the influence exerted by
the microscope in communicating a more profound know-
ledge of all organic 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.
When the news of the recent Dutch invention, or of the
discovery of telescopic vision, reached Venice, Galileo was
accidentally present ; he at once divined what, were the
VOL. II. Y
316 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP
essential conditions of the construction, and immediately
completed a telescope at Padua for his own use. (483) 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 Mostlin, 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 Cancer, the
Milky Way, and the group of stars in the 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
true character was not at first recognised, — the solar spots, —
and the crescent form of Venus.
The satellites 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 quite 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 Nuncius Sidereus (1610),
preceded the Mundus Jovialis of Simon Marius (1614). (484)
Simon Marius wished to call Jupiter's satellites Sidera
Brandenburgica ; Galileo proposed Sidera Cosmica or Medi-
cea, 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 satellites, instead of being desig-
nated as they are by us, by numbers, having been called by
Simon Marius, lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, — Ga-
lileo substituted for these mythological personages the
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES- 317
names of the members of the family of the Medicean ruling
house, Catharina, Maria, Cosimo the elder, and Cosimo the
younger.
The knowledge of Jupiter's satellites and of thp phases
of Venus was most influential in confirming and extending
the Copernican system. The little world composed of the
planet Jupiter and his satellites (Mundus Jovialis) offered
to the intellectual eye a perfect image of the great solar and
planetary system. It was recognised that the satellites of
Jupiter obeyed the laws discovered by Kepler, and, in the
first place, that the squares of their periods of revolution
were in the ratio of the cnbes of their mean distances from
the central planet. This led Kepler, in the Harmonices
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 (485)
have elapsed, during which the Copernican doctrine of the
motion of the earth and the immobility 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 and
natural science, — had been already experienced by Kepler
even in Protestant Germany. (486)
The discovery of Jupiter's satellites marks a memorable
epoch in the history of astronomy, and in the permanent
establishment of the principles upon which it is founded. (487)
318 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
The occultations of the satellites, or their entrance into the
shadow of Jupiter, led to the knowledge of the velocitj of
light (1675), and through this, in 1727, to the explanation
of the " aberration-ellipse" of the fixed stars, in which the
orbit of the earth, in her annual revolution round the sun,
is, as it were, reflected on the celestial vault. These disco-
veries of Romer's and Bradley's have justly been termed the
" key-stone of the Copernican 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 Galileo (Sept. 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, (488) 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
Vicenzio, to Spain, with a hundred telescopes which he
should prepare; requiring for recompense "una Croce di
S. 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, — " pla-
neta tergeminus." As early as November 1610, Galileo
wrote to Kepler that "Saturn consists of three heavenly
"bodies in contact with each other." In this observation
there was the germ of the discovery of Saturn's ring. He-
velius described, in 1656, the variations in the form of
Saturn, the unequal opening of the " handles/' and their
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 319
occasional entire disappearance. But the merit of having
explained scientifically all the phsenomena of the ring of
Saturn taken as one, belongs to Huygens (1655), who, accord-
ing to the mistrustful manner of the time, and like Galileo,
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 Fabricius of East Friesland, and by
Galileo either at Padua or at Yenice. In the publication
of the discovery, Pabricius (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, (489) to have
been made in March 1611, or, according to Sir David
Brewster, even at the close of the preceding year ; while
Christopher Scheiner does not himself refer his observa-
tions to an earlier period than April 1611, 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 acquainted with the solar spots in.
April 1611, for he shewed them publicly at Rome, in the
garden of the Cardinal Bandini OP the Quirinal, in April
320 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
and May of that year. Harriot, to whom Baron Zach attri-
butes the discovery of the solar spots (16th 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 Plamstead,
on the 23d of December, 1690, and Tobias Mayer, on the
25th of September, 1756, did not recognise Uranus as a
planet when seen in their telescopes. Harriot first recog-
nised them as solar spots Dec. 1, 1611, five months after
Eabricius had published his discovery. Galileo remarked
thus early, that the solar spots, " of which many are larger
than the Mediterranean, and even than Africa and Asia/'
occupy a distinct zone in the sun's disk. He noticed that
the same spots 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 which the names of Borbonia and Austriaca Sidera
were given. (49°) Fabricius recognised, like Galileo, that the
spots belong to the sun itself; (491) he also saw that spots
which he had observed disappeared and returned again ; and
these phenomena taught him the rotation of the sun, wliich
Kepler had conjectured before the discovery of the spots.
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 321
The most exact determinations of the period of rotation
were made by the diligent 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's disk, we need not wonder that
Galileo, who doubtless first described the great solar faculae,
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. (492) Fancies respect-
ing the many envelopes of air, cloud, and light surrounding
the black earth-like nucleus of the sun, may be found in
the writings of Cardinal Nicolaus of Cuss, in the middle of
the 15th century. (^3)
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 Yenus. As early as 1610 Galileo 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
says also, in a letter to Benedetto Castelli (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
Yenus was the triumph of the Copernican system. The
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 adherents of the Platonic opinions had
raised against the Ptolemaic system on account of the
moon's phases. But in the development of his own system
322 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
he makes no particular remark respecting the phases of
Yenus, as in Thomas Smith's Optics he is stated to have
done.
These enlargements of cosmical knowledge, (the descrip-
tion of which cannot be kept entirely free from the unhappy
contests respecting claims of priority in discovery), like all
that belongs to physical astronomy, excited more general
interest than might otherwise have been the case, from the
invention of the telescope (1608) having occurred at a
period when popular attention had been roused by three
great and surprising events in the regions of space : I allude
to the sudden appearance and extinction of three new stars;
one in Cassiopea in 1572, one in Cygnus in 1600, and one in
the foot of Ophiuchus in 1604. All these surpassed in bright-
ness stars of the first magnitude; and that which Kepler
observed in Cygnus continued to shine in the vault of
heaven for twenty-one years, through the whole period of
Galileo V 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, (494) was a great increase of luminous
intensity in a long known star of the second magnitude
(rj Argus), which had not until then been seen to be of
variable brightness. The writings of Kepler, and the sen-
sation produced at 'the present time by the appearance 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 a
stimulus they afforded to imaginative combinations. Strik-
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 323
ing terrestrial natural events, such as 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 which
appear even more mysterious to persons in general than to
dogmatising philosophers.
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 with
a remarkable talent for 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 the infinitesimal calculus. (495) The possessor
of such a mind (496) was pre-eminently suited, by the richness
and mobility of his ideas, and even by the boldness of the
cosmological speculations which he hazarded, to promote
and animate the movement which carried the 17th century
uninterruptedly forward towards the attainment of its exalted
object, the enlarged contemplation of the universe. The
many comets visible to the naked eye from 1577 to the
appearance of Bailey's comet in 1607 (eight in number),
and the apparition, almost within the same period, of the
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 cosmical vapour filling the regions
of space. Kepler, like Tycho Brahe, believed the new stars
324 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
to have been condensed from this vapour, and redissolved
into it again. (497) In his " new arid 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 " celestial air." He even added,
in 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 water by generatio spontanea."
More happy in his other cosmical anticipations, Kepler
adventured the following propositions : — That the fixed stars
are all suns like our own, surrounded by planetary systems ;
that our sun is enveloped in an atmosphere which shews
itself as 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 ; (498) that the sun ro-
tates round its axis as do the planets and the fixed stars
(this was before the discovery 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 the much too large interval (499) be-
tween Mars and Jupiter, where we are now acquainted with
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 this
nature — felicitous conjectures, which have been for the most
part realised by subsequent discoveries — excited general
interest; while none of Kepler's cotemporaries, not even
Galileo, paid any just tribute of praise to the discovery of
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 325
the three laws which, since Newton and the promulgation
of the theory of gravitation, have immortalised the name of
Kepler. (50°) Cosmical speculations, even such as are not
founded on observation, but only on faint analogies, then,
as is still often the case, arrested attention more than the
most important results of " calculating astronomy/'
Having thus described the important discoveries which,
in so small a cycle of years, enlarged the knowledge of the
regions of space, I have still to recal the advances in physi-
cal astronomy which marked the second half of the great
century of which we are treating. The improvement of
telescopes occasioned the discovery of the satellites of
Saturn. Huygens, with an object-glass polished by himself,
first di?covered one of them (the sixth), on the 25th of
March, 1655, forty-five years after the discovery of Jupiter's
satellites. Prom a prejudice which Huygens shared with
several astronomers of the period, that the number of satel-
lites or secondary planets could not exceed that of the
larger or primary planets, (501) he did not seek to discover
any more of the satellites of Saturn. Pour of them, Sidera
Lodovicea, were discovered by Dominic Cassini : the seventh,
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
satellites, were discovered more than a century later (1788
and 17 8y), by William Herschel with his colossal telescope.
The second satellite offers the remarkable phsenomenon of
performing its revolution round the principal planet in less
than one of our days.
Soon after Huygens' discovery of a satellite of Saturn,
3£6 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP
Childrey (1658—1661) discovered the Zodiacal Light, of
which, however, the true relations in space were first deter-
mined by Dominic Cassini in 1683. Cassini regarded it
not as a part of the solar atmosphere, but, like Schubert,
Laplace, and Poisson, as a detached separately revolving
nebulous ring. (502) Next to the demonstration of the
existence of secondary planets or satellites, and of the de-
tached and concentrically divided ring of Saturn, the disco-
very of the probable existence of the nebulous ring of the
Zodiacal Light unquestionably constitutes one of the grand-
est enlargements in our view of the planetary system, which
at first appeared so simple. In our own days the closely
interwoven orbits of the small 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 with 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 which 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 (1572—1604) in which three new stars of the
first magnitude appeared in Cassiopea, Cygnus, and Ophiu-
chus, David Tabricius, Protestant minister of Oslell in Er.st
Friesland (the father of the discoverer of the solar spots),
in 1596, and Johann Bayer, at Augsburg, in 1608, re-
marked -in the neck of Cetus a star which disappeared
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 327
again, the varying brightness of which, however, as Arago
has shew* in an important memoir on the lustory of astro-
nomical discovery, (503) .was first recognised by Johannes
Phocylides Holwarda, professor at Franeker, in 1638 and
1639. Other phenomena of the same class were observed,
in the latter half of the 17th century ; stars of periodically
variable brilliancy were discovered in the head of Medusa,
in Hydra, and in Cygnus. In the memoir of Arago in
1842 above 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 phaenomena, some of
which could not escape the notice even of the unassisted eye.
Simon Marius described the nebula in Andromeda in 1612,
and in 1656 Huygens drew a sketch of the nebula in the
sword of Orion. These two nebulse may serve as types of
different states of condensation, more or less advanced, of
the nebulous cosmical matter. Marius, in comparing the
nebula of Andromeda with the light of a taper seen through
a semi-transparent substance, indicates very appropriately
the difference between it and the groups or clusters of stars
examined by Galileo in the Pleiades and in Cancer. As
early as the commencement of the 16th century, Spanish
and Portuguese navigators, 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 which one, as we have already remarked, was
known as the "white patch/' or "white ox," of the Per*
skn astronomer Abdurrahman Sol, in the middle of the
328 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
10th century. Galileo, in the Nuncius Siderius, employs the
appellations " stellse nebulosse," and " nebulosse," to de-
. note clusters of stars, which, as he expresses it, like " areolse
sparsim per sethera subfulgent." As he bestowed no parti-
cular attention on the nebula of Andromeda, which is visible
to the naked eye but has not yet shewn any stars even
under the highest magnifying powers, he regarded all nebu-
lous appearances, all his nebulosae, as being like the Milky
Way, masses of light formed of closely crowded stars. He
did not distinguish between nebula and star, as Huygens
did in the case of the nebula of Orion. Such were the first
commencements of the great works on nebulae, which have
so honourably occupied the first astronomers of our age in
both hemispheres.
Although the 17th century owed its chief splendour, at
its commencement, to the sudden enlargement by Galileo
and Kepler of the knowledge of the celestial spaces, and,
at its close, to Newton and Leibnitz's advances in pure
mathematical knowledge, yet it was not without a beneficial
influence on the greater part of the physical problems in
which we are engaged at the present day. In order not
to depart from the character of this history of the contem-
plation of the universe, I merely mention the works which
exercised a direct and essential influence on general or cosmi-
cal views of nature. In reference to Light, Heat, and Mag-
netism, we must name first Huygens, Galileo, and Gilbert.
When Huygens was occupied with the double refraction of
light in crystals of Iceland spar, i. e. with the separation of
the pencils of light into two parts, he also discovered, in
1678, that kind of polarisation of light which bears his
name. More than a century elapsed before the discovery of
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 329
this insulated phenomenon (which was not published until
1690, within five years of Huy gens' death) was followed
by the great discoveries of Malus, Arago, Eresnel,
Brewster (504) 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 regions 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, (505) and even announces its degree of inten-
sity. Advancing in this path, which takes us back through
Huygens to the 17th century, we are instructed respecting
the constitution of the solar orb and its envelopes, — 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 neutral points of polarisation, (5o6)
which Arago, Babinet, 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 phsenomena of optics — the
phsenomenon of ' c interferences," faint indications of which
were also observed in the 17th century, though without any
understanding of their causal conditions, by Grimaldi, in
1665, and by Hooke. (507) Our own time is indebted for the
discovery of these conditions, and the clear recognition of
the laws according to which rays of light (unpolarised)r.
when they proceed from one and the same source, but with a
830 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
different length of path, destroy each other and produce
darkness, to the acute and successful penetration of Thomas
Young. The laws of the interference of polarised light
were discovered in 1816, by Arago and Eresnel. The
theory of undulations, advanced by Huygens and Hookc.
and defended by Euler, at last found a firm 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 far higher splendour by
Newton's experimental researches, and by Olaus Homer's dis-
covery (in 1675) of the measurable velocity of light; a dis-
covery which enabled Bradley, half a century later (in 1728),
lo regard the variation which he found in the apparent place
of the stars as a consequence of the movement of the earth
in her orbit combined 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 may be 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. (508) of the essential points of his optical dis-
coveries, of his theory of gravitation, and of the method of
fluxions.
In order not to break the links of the common bond
which unites the general " primitive phaenomena 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 at
least as the foundations of these studies were established in
the century which it is the object of this section to describe.
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 331
The most ingenious and important work on electric aircl
magnetic forces, William Gilbert's Physiologia nova de Mag-
nete, of which I have already several times had occasion to
speak, (509) was published in 1600. Gilbert, whose saga-
cious mind was so highly admired by Galileo,, (51°) antici-
pated by his conjectures much of our present knowledge.
He regarded magnetism and electricity as two emanations of
one fundamental force pervading all matter, and there-
fore treated of both at once. Such obscure anticipations,
founded on analogies of tho attracting power of the Heraclean
magnetic stone on iron, and of amber (when animated, as
Pliny says, with a soul by warmth and friction) on dry straws,
have been common k» 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. (5U)
William Gilbert regarded the earth itself as a magnet, and
the lines of equal declination and inclination as having their
inflections determined by distribution of mass, or by the
form of continents and the extent of the deep intervening
oceanic basins. It is difficult to reconcile the periodic
variation which characterises the three elementary forms of
the magnetic phsenomena (the isoclinal, isogonic, and iso-
dynamic lines) with this rigid system of distribution of force
and mass, unless we imagine the attractive force of the ma-
terial particles modified by similarly periodical variations m
the interior of the globe.
In Gilbert's theory, as in gravitation, the quantity of
material particles only is estimated, without regard to the
specific heterogeneity of substances. This circumstance
gave to his work, in the period of Galileo and Kepler, a
character of cosmical grandeur. By the unexpected disco-
VOL. n. z
332 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
very of "rotation-magnetism" by.Ar<igo (1825), it has been
practically proved that all kinds of matter are susceptible of
magnetism; and Paraday's latest researches on diamagnetic
substances have, under particular conditions of " axial or
equatorial direction/' and of solid, fluid, or gaseous in-
active conditions of the bodies, confirmed this important
result. Gilbert had so clear an idea of the imparting of
the telluric magnetic force, that he already ascribed the
magnetic state of iron bars in the crosses on old church
towers or steeples to this circumstance. (512)
In the 17th century, by the increasing activity of navi-
gation to the higher latitudes, and by the improvement of
magnetic instruments, to which, since 1576, the clipping
needle or inclinatorium, constructed by Robert Norman of
Hatcliffe, had been added, a general knowledge of the pro-
gressive motion of a part of the magnetic curves — i. e. of
the lines of no variation — was first obtained. The position
of the magnetic equator (or line of no inclination), which
was long believed to be identical with the geographical
equator, was not examined. Observations of inclination
were made only in a few of the principal cities of western
and southern Europe : the intensity of the earth's magnetic
force, which varies both with place and with time, was indeed
.attempted to be measured by Graham in London, in 17 23,
by the oscillations of a magnetic needle ; but after the failure
of Borda's endeavour on his last voyage to the Canaries 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 Halley, availing himself of a great mass of ex-
isting observations of declination, of very unequal value (by
THE UNIVERSE.-— DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 333
Baffin, Hudson, James Hall, and Schouten), sketched, in
1683, his 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 this theory, and to
render it more perfect by the aid of new and more exact
observations, he was permitted by the English Government
to make (1698 — 1702) 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 undertaking forms an epoch in the history of terres-
trial magnetism. A general " variation chart/' or a chart
on which the points at which the navigator had found the
same amount of declination were connected by curved lines,
was its result. Never before, I believe, did any Govern-
ment equip a naval expedition for an object, which, 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,
Halley, as soon as he returned from his voyages, hazarded
the conjecture that the Aurora Borealis is a magnetic
phenomenon. I have remarked, in the picture of nature
contained in the first volume of this work, that Faraday's
brilliant discovery of the evolution of light by magnetism
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, —
334 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
it is not sufficient that the diurnal, regular, or disturbed
march of the needle should be observed at the magnetic
stations, which, since 1828, have begun to cover a consi-
derable portion of the earth's surface, both in northern and
southern latitudes ; (513) it would 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 vary
continually, in accordance with the observations of inclina-
tion, so as never to quit the line forming the magnetic
equator at that time. Land expeditions should be com-
bined with the undertaking, 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 m the
Pacific in the meridian of the Marquesas, (514) may, in
their movements and gradual changes of form, be deserv-
ing of particular attention. Since the memorable antarctic
expedition of Sir James Clark Boss (1839—1843), pro-
vided with excellent instruments, 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 Friedrich Gauss lias
succeeded in establishing the first general theory of ter-
restrial magnetism, we need not abandon the hope that
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 335
the many wants of science and 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" shall 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-
mical value of which is attached to long-continued repe-
titions ! (514 bis-)
The invention of instruments for measuring temperature
(Galileo's thermoscopes (515) of 1593 and 1602 were de-
pendent concurrently on changes of temperature and on
variations in the pressure of the external 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 as 1641, observations of temperature were made
five times a day at many stations, (516) with spirit ther-
mometers similar to our own ; at Florence, at the Convent
degli Angeli, 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. (517) The tempe-
ratures of mineral springs were also determined, giving
occasion to many questions respecting the temperature of
the earth. As all telluric natural phenomena, i. e all the
386 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOIIY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OP
alterations which terrestrial matter undergoes, are con-
nected with modifications of heat, light, and electricity,
either in repose or moving in currents, — and as the pheno-
mena of temperature operating by expansion are most acces-
sible to visible perception and cognizance, it follows that,
as I have elsewhere observed, the invention and improve-
ment of thermometric instruments marks an important epoch
in the progress of the general knowledge of nature. The
field of application of the thermometer, and the conclusions
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 inorganic
substances, as well as in the chemical and vital processes of
organic tissues.
More than a century previous to Scheele's extensive
labours, the action of radiant heat was also investigated by
the Florentine members of the Academia del Cimento, by
remarkable experiments made with concave mirrors, towards
which, non-luminous heated bodies, and masses of ice of
5001bs. in weight, radiated actually and apparently. (518)
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, the
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 UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IX THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 337
elevation, were soon associated others respecting the varia
tions of pressure, and of the quantity of vapour in the
atmosphere ; 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 Torricelli, a year after the death of his great
teacher, to the construction of the barometer. That the
column of mercury in the Torricellian tube 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
Beriguardi; (5l9) and was observed 11 7e years later in
Erance by Perrier, who, at the request of his brother-in-law,
Pascal, ascended the Puy de Dome, a mountain 840 French
feet higher than Yesuvius. The idea of employing the
barometer for the measurement of heights now presented
itself readily ; it may possibly have been first awakened in
Pascal's mind by a letter from Descartes. (52°) It is
unnecessary to explain at length all that the barometer
employed as a hypsometric instrument for the determination
of differences 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 " Historia naturalis et experimentalis
de ventis," (521) had the merit of considering the direction
of winds in connection with temperature and aqueous
precipitations ; but unmathematically denying the truth of
the Copernican system, he reasoned on the possibility "that
S38 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
our atmosphere may turn daily round the Earth like the
heavens, and may thus occasion the East wind/''
Hooke's comprehensive genius acted here also as the
restorer of light and order. (522) He recognised the influence
of 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. Galileo, in his last Dialogo, had indeed also
considered the trade winds as a result of the Earth's rotation ;
but he ascribed the remaining behind of the particles of air
within the tropics to a vapourless purity of the air in those
regions. (523) Hookers juster view was not revived until
the 18th century, when it was again put forward by Halley,
and explained more circumstantially and satisfactorily in
Tegard to the operation of the velocity of rotation proper to
each parallel of latitude. Halley had been previously led
by his long sojourn in the torrid zone to publish an excellent
work on the geographical extension of the trade winds and
monsoons. It is surprising that in his magnetic expeditions
lie makes no mention of the " law of the winds" — so
important 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,
(524) was the true discoverer of the differential thermometer.
In the brilliant period of the foundation of (C mathematical
natural philosophy," attempts to investigate the moisture of
ihe atmosphere in its connection with variations of tempera-
ture, and with the direction of the wind, were not' wanting.
!The Academia del Cimento conceived the happy idea of
cbtermining the quantity of vapour by evaporation and
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 339
precipitation. The oldest Florentine hygrometer was accord
ingly a condensation hygrometer, an apparatus in which the
quantity of precipitated water which ran off was determined
by its weight. (525) To this condensation hygrometer, which,
aided by the ideas of Le Roy, has gradually led in our own
days to the exact psychrometric methods of Dalton, Daniell,
and Auguste, there were added, according to the example
previously set by Leonardo da Vinci, (526) the absorption
hygrometers made of animal or vegetable substances, of
Santori (1625), Torricelli (1626), and Molineux. Catgut,
and the beards of a wild oat, were used almost at thr same
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 Sa\issure's and
Deluc's hair and whalebone hygrometers; 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 supplied by Regnault, but without
reference to the variation which might be occasioned by time
in the susceptibility of the hygrometric substances employed.
Pictet, (527) however, found that the hair of a Guanche
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 William Gilbert as
the operation of a natural force or power allied to magnetism.
The book in which this view was first enounced, and even
in which the terms " electric force," " electric emanations/'
EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION O*
and " electric attraction" (528) were first employed, is the
work to which I have already so often referred, published
in 1600, and entitled "Physiology of Magnets, and of the
Earth as a, great Magnet" (de magno magnete tellure).
" 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,
(asternis sepulchris). The attracting power belongs to a whole
class of very different substances ; such as glass, sulphur,
sealing wax and all resins, rock crystal, and all kinds of
precious stones, alum and rock salt." The strength of the
ejectricity excited was measured by Gilbert by means of an
iron needle (not very small), moving freely on a point (ver-
sorium electricum) : very similar to the apparatus employed
by Haiiy and by Brewster, in trying the electricity excited
in different minerals 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
silk is most advantageous. The terrestrial globe is held
together as by an electric force (?) (Globus telluris per se
electrice congregatur et cohseret) ; for the electric action
tends to produce the cohesion of matter (motus electricus
est motus- coacervationis materise)." In these obscure
axioms is expressed the view of a telluric electricity, — the
manifestation of a force like magnetism belonging to matter
as such. Nothing was yet said of repulsion, or of the
difference between insulators and conductors.
The ingenious discoverer of the air-pump, Otto von
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 341
Guerike, was the first who observed more than mere pheno-
mena of attraction. In his experiments, made with a
rubbed cake of sulphur, he recognised phenomena of
repulsion, which afterwards led to a knowledge of the laws
of the sphere of action and of the distribution of electricity.
He heard the first sound and saw the first light in artificially
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. (529) We have here sought out
only the first germs of the science of electricity, which, in
its great and singularly retarded development, has not only
become one of the most important parts of meteorology,
but also, since we have learned that magnetism is one of the
manifold forms in which electricity discloses itself, has
cleared up to us so much belonging to the internal operation
of terrestrial powers or forces.
Although Wall in 1708, Stephen Gray in 1734, and
Nollet, conjectured the identity of friction electricity and of
lightning, yet the experimental certainty was first attained
about the middle of the 18th century by the successful
endeavours of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin. Prom
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
Yolta, Thomas Young and Malus, Oersted and Faraday,
aroused their cotemporaries to an admirable activity. The
progress of human knowledge is generally connected with such
alternations of slumber and of suddenly awakened activity.
342 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOBY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
But if, as we have already remarked, by the invention of
appropriate although still very imperfect physical instru-
ments, and by the sagacity of Galileo, Torricelli, and the
members of the Accademia del Cimento, the relations of
temperature, the variations of the atmospheric pressure, and
the quantity of vapour in the air, became 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 chemistry"
were indeed laid by Johann Baptist van Helmont and Jean
Eey, 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 connection was wanting. The old belief in the
elementary simplicity of the air which acts in combustion,
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 (the " 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 century, and of Libavius,
an admirer of Paiacelsus, in 1612. Comparisons were drawn
between what was accidentally 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 by oxydation and
contact electricity), led to anticipations of the chemical
THE UNIVERSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 343
relations Between metals,, acids, and the air which gained
access from without. Paracelsus, whose fancies belong to
the epoch of the first conquests in America, already remarked
the disengagement of gas when iron was dissolved in sul-
phuric acid. Yan Helinont, who first made use of the
word " gas," distinguishes gases from atmospheric air, and
also, on account of their non-condensability, from vapours.
He regards the clouds z& vapours, which, when the sky is
very clear, are changed into gas "by cold and by the
influence of the heavenly bodies." Gas, he says, can only
become water when it has previously been retransformed
into vapour. These views of meteorological processes be-
longed to the first half of the 17th century. Yan Helmont
was not yet acquainted with the simple means of receiving
and separating his " Gas sylvestre," (under which name he
included all uninflammable gases different from pure atmo-
spheric air, and incapable of supporting flame and respira-
tion) ; yet he made a light burn in a vessel having its mouth
in water, and remarked that as the flame went out, the water
entered, and the " volume of air" diminished. Yan Hel-
mont also sought to demonstrate by determinations of weight,
(which we find already in Cardanus), that all the solid parts
of plants are formed from water.
The mediaeval 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 during the process, and of the changes undergone by
the metals themselves, and by the air in contact with them.
Cardanus had already become aware in 1553 of the increase
of weight that takes place during the oxidation of lead, and,
quite in the spirit of the phlogistic hypothesis, had ascribed
844 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
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 ex-
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 cak, saying, " Je responds
et soustiens glorieusement que ce surcroit de poids vient
de Fair qui dans le vase a este espessi." (53°)
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 complicated nature. Towards
the end of the 17th century there arose, — obscurely with
Hooke in his Micrographia (1665), and more distinctly with
Mayow(1669,) and Willis (1671),— a belief in the existence
of nitro-aerial particles, (spiritus nitro-aereus, pabulum nitro-
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
glott 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 UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 345
animals, of which the production of animal heat, and the
conversion of black into red blood are the result, the
processes of combustion and the calcination of metals, are
all dependent on these nitro-aerial 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 Hales, in 1727, first saw oxygen escape as gas
in large quantities from the lead which he calcined under
an intense heat. He saw the gas escape, but without ex-
amining its nature or remarking the vividness of the flame
occasioned by it. Hales 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, as many believe quite independently, (531)
—by Priestley in 1772-1774, by Scheelein 1774-1775, and
by Lavoisier and Trudaine in 1775.
The commencements of pneumatic chemistry have been
touched upon in these pages in their historic connection,
because, like the feeble beginnings of electric science,, they
prepared the way for the enlarged views, which the succeed-
ing century has been able to form of the constitution of the
atmosphere and of its meteorological variations. The idea
of specifically-distinct gases was never perfectly clear to
those who in the seventeenth century produced those gases.
Men began again to attribute the difference between
atmospheric air and the irrespirable, light-extinguishing, or
846 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP
inflammable gases, exclusively to the admixture of certain
vapours. Black and Cavendish first shewed in 1766 that
carbonic acid (fixed air) and hydrogen (combustible air) are
specifically distinct aeriform fluids. So long had the ancient
belief in the elementary simplicity 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 Dumas, is one of the brilliant
points of modern meteorology.
The extension of physical and chemical knowledge, which
has been here described in a fragmentary manner, could not
remain without influence on the early progress of Geology.
A great part of the geological questions with the solution of
which our age is occupied, were stirred by a man of the
most comprehensive knowledge, the great Danish anatomist
Nicolaus Steno (Stenson) in the service of the Grand Duke
of Tuscany, by an English physician Martin Lister, and by
" Newton's worthy rival/' (532) Robert Hooke. Steno's
merits in respect to the superposition of rocks have been de-
veloped by me more fully in another work. (533) Previously
to this period, and towards the end of the fifteenth century,
Leonardo da Yinci, probably in laying out the canals in
Lombardy which cut through alluvium and tertiary strata, —
IVacastoro in 1517, on the occasion of seeing rocky strata
containing fossil fish accidentally uncovered at Monte Bolca
near Yerona, — and Bernard Palissy in his investigations
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 forms,
terms the shells " animali che hanno 1'ossa di fuori." Steno,
THE TJNIVEKSE. — DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 347
in his work on the substances contained in rocks, (de
Solido intra Solidum naturaliter contento) (1669), distin-
guishes "rocky strata (primitive?), hardened before the
existence of plants and animals, and, therefore, never con-
taining organic remains, from sedimentary strata (turbidi
maris sedimenta sibi invicem imposita), which alternate with
each other and cover those other strata first spoken of. All
deposited strata containing fossils were originally horizontal.
Their inclination has arisen partly from the outbreak of sub-
terranean vapours which the central heat (ignis in medio
terrse) produces, and partly by the giving way of lower sup«
porting strata. (534) The valleys are the result of the falling
in, consequent on the removal of support."
Steno's theory of the formation of valleys is that of Deluc,
whereas Leonardo da Yinci, (535) like Cuvier, considers the
valleys as formed by the action of running water. In the
geological character of the ground in Tuscany, Steno thought
he recognised revolutions which must be attributed to six
great natural epochs, (sex sunt distinctse Etrurise facies, ex
prsesenti facie Etrurise collectse) : at six recurring periods
the sea had broken in, and after continuing for a long time
to cover the interior of the country, had withdrawn again
within its ancient limits. Steno did not, however, regard
all petrifactions as belonging to the sea ; he distinguishes
between pelagic and fresh-water petrifactions. Scilla, in
1670, gave drawings of the petrifactions or fossils of
Calabria and Malta : our great zoologist and anatomist
Johannes Miiller has recognised among the latter the oldest
drawing of the teeth of the gigantic Hydrarchus of Alabama
(the Zeuglodon Cetoides of Owen), a mammal of the great
VOL. n. 2 A
348 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF
order of the Cetacese: (536) the crown of these teeth is
formed like those of seals.
Lister, as early as 1678, made the important statement,
that each kind of rock is characterised by its own fossils,
and that "the species of Murex, Tellina and Trochus, which
are found in the quarries 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." (537) 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 Brongniart which have given a Tnew form to
the geology of the sedimentary formations. (538) 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 inundatioris
(single or repeated) attracted interest and attention, and,
mingling together belief and knowledge, produced in
England the " systems" of Ray, Woodward, Burnet, an.d
Whiston, yet, from the entire want of mineralogical dis-
tinction of the constituent parts of compound rocks, all that
relates to the crystalline and massive eruptive rocks and
their transformations remained unstudied. Notwithstanding
the assumption of a central heat in the globe, earthquakes,
thermal springs, and volcanic eruptions, were not regarded
as the results of the reaction of the planet against its
external crust, but were ascribed to such small local causes,
as, for example, the spontaneous combustion of beds of
THE UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 349
pyrites. Even experiments made in sport by Lemery in the
year 1700 exerted a long-continued influence on volcanic
theories, although these might have been raised to more
general views by the imaginative Protogsea of Leibnitz
(1680).
The Protogsea, which is sometimes more poetic than the
many metrical attempts of the same philosopher which have
recently been brought to light, (539) teaches the scorifi-
cation of the cavernous, glowing, and once self-luminous
crust of the earth; — the gradual cooling 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 the earth ; —
and finally the falling in of these caves or hollows causing
the inclination of the strata. The physical part of these
wild fancies offers some traits which, to the adherents of our
modern 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 consolidation ; 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, i. e. the associations of cer-
tain substances, chiefly crystalline, recurring in the most
distant regions of the earth, are as little spoken of in the
Protogsea as in Hooke's geognostical views. In the last
named writer, also, physical speculations on the operation
of subterranean forces in earthquakes, in the sudden eleva-
350 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION OF
tion of the bottom of the sea and of coast districts, and in
the formation of mountains and islands, predominate. The
nature of the organic remains of the ancient world even led
Hooke to form a conjecture that the Temperate Zone must
once have enjoyed the temperature of a tropical climate.
We have still to speak of the greatest of all geognostical
phenomena, the Mathematical Figure of the Earth, in
which we recognise as in 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, executed with measuring instruments which he had
himself improved (1670), is the more deserving of regard,
because it first induced Newton to resume with renewed zeal
the theory of gravitation, which he had already discovered
in 1666 and had subsequently neglected : it offered to that
profound and successful investigator, the means of demon-
strating the manner in which the attraction of the earth
maintained in her orbit the moon impelled onward by the
centrifugal force. The much earlier recognised fact of the
flattening of the poles of Jupiter (54°) had, it is supposed,
led Newton to reflect on the cause of such a departure from
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 Yarin, had been preceded by others
less decisive (541) made in London, Lyons, and Bologna,
including a difference of 7° of latitude. The decrease of
gravity from the pole to the equator, which had long been
THE UNIVERSE.— DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 351
denied even by Picard, was now generally admitted. Newton
recognised the compression of the earth at the poles as a
result of its rotation : he even ventured, upon the 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
of both hemispheres, to furnish a more correct deduction of
the mean compression, or the true figure of the earth. As
has already been remarked in the Picture of Nature in the
first volume of the present work, (542) the existence of the
compression announces of itself what may be termed the
most ancient geognostical 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 telescope ; 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 (543)
of whose operation the Keplerian laws are the necessary
consequences, and which could not but correspond to the
phenomena, 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, which opened the way to new mathe-
matical discoveries. The work of the intellect shews itself
in its most exalted grandeur, where, instead of requiring
852 HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
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. (544) 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 the periodic perturbations of the
353
VIII.
RETROSPECT OF THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN. THI|
CONTEMPLATION OF THE TJN1VEESE.
Retrospective View of the Epochs or Periods which have been
successively considered. — Influence of External Events on the
Development of the Recognition of the Universe as a Whole. —
Wide and varied Scope and close mutual Connexion of the
Scientific Endeavours of modern times. — The History of the
Physical Sciences gradually becomes coincident with that of the
Cosmos.
I APPROACH the termination of a comprehensive and hazardous
undertaking. More than two thousand years have been
passed in review, from the earliest state of intellectual 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 pass 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 in their due subor-
dination the mass of accumulated materials, to seize the
character of the leading epochs, and to mark the paths in
which ideas and civilisation have been conducted onwards,
854 KETROSPECT OP THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS
cannot be determined by him who, with a just mistrust of
his remaining powers, knows only that the type of so great
an undertaking has floated in clear, though general, outlines
before his mental eye.
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 European
civilisation, I determined the period from which the history of
the Cosmos becomes coincident with that of the physical sci-
ences. According to my conception, an historical view of the
gradual extension of natural knowledge, both in its terrestrial
and celestial sphere?, is connected with definite epochs, or with
certain events which have exerted a powerful intellectual influ-
ence within definite geographical limits, and which impart to
those epochs their peculiar character and colouring. Such were
the enterprises which conducted the Greeks into the Euxine,
and led them to anticipate the existence of another sea shore
beyond the Phasis, — the expeditions to the tropical lands
which furnished gold and incense ; — the passage through
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, Cerne and
the Hesperides, the Northern Tin and Amber Islands, the
Volcanic Azores, and the New Continent of Columbus south
of the ancient Scandinavian settlements. The movements
which proceeded from the basin of the Mediterranean, and
from the northern extremity of the neighbouring Arabian
Gulf, and the voyages to the Euxine and to Ophir, are
followed in my historic description by the military expedi-
tions of the Macedonian conqueror, and his attempt to fuse
together the nations of the "West and of the East, — by the
IN THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 855
operation of the Indian maritime commerce, and of the
Alexandrian Institute under the Lagidse ; — by the Roman
Universal Empire under the Csesars ; — and by the epoch of
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, stimulating men
to the research of physical laws, and animating them to the
endeavour to rise to the ultimate apprehension of the
Universe as a Whole, closed, according to my view, with
those geographical discoveries, — the greatest ever achieved, —
which placed the nations of the Old Continent in possession
of an entire terrestrial hemisphere till then concealed. From
thenceforward, as we have already remarked, the 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 which 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 history
of the physical contemplation of the Universe, on the
importance of these occurrences, and on the unity of the
356 RETROSPECT OP THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS
endeavours which the employment of the telescope called
forth. If we compare with the discovery of Ijhis 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 production of the metals of the earths and
alkalies,— and on the long sought 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 o£ nature ; but
which may rather seem to form a section in #ie history of
the Physical Sciences, than to. belong directly to the history
of the contemplation of the Cosmos. The multiplied con-
nections which link together the different branches of our
modern soien.ee, render it more difficujt to distinguish and
circumscribe them, We have even seen, most recently,
electro-magnetism acting upon the direction of &e pojarised
ray of light, and producing modifications like chemical
mixtures, Where, through 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 the
intellectual process, and to paint that which is incessantly
advancing, as if the goal 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 efforts
of those still living or recently departed,
. IB the historical considerations, describing the earlier
germs of our natural knowledge, I have, in almost all cases,
indicated the latest degree of development to which they
Uave attained, Tte ttH and last portion of my work IB
IN THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 357
designed to furnish towards the elucidation of the general
picture of nature, contained in the first volume, those
results of observation on which the present state of our
scientific opinions is principally founded. MuchA 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 belief 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 but a very inconsiderable
portion of those which, in the advance of activity and of
general cultivation, mankind in their freedom will attain in
succeeding ages. In the unfailing connection and course 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 the chief
character of the age, is the general and highly useful endea-
vour, not to limit our regards to that which has been 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
358 RETROSPECT OF THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS
antiquity. The generality of this method of criticism has
especially contributed to shew on each occasion the boun-
daries of the several sciences, and to discover the weakness
of certain systems, in which unfounded opinions or con-
jectures assume the place of facts, and symbolising myths
present themselves as grave theories. Yagueness of lan-
guage, and the transference of the nomenclature of one
science to another, have conducted to erroneous views and
delusive analogies. The 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; and the
knowledge of the 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. (545)
If art and poetry, dwelling within the magic circle of the
imagination, belong rather to the inner powers of the mind, —
the extension of knowledge, on the other hand, rests by
preference on contact with the external world; and this
contact becomes closer and more varied as the intercourse
between different nations increases. The creation of new
organs or nstruments of observation augments the intel-
lectual, and often also the physical powers of man. More
rapid than light, the closed electric current now carries
thought and will to the remotest distance. Forces, whose
silent operation in elementary nature, as well as in the
delicate cells of organic tissues, still escapes the cognizance
IN THE CONTEMPLATION OF 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 contnriallv nearer.
NOTES.
NOTES.
(*) p. 4.— Kosmos, Ed. i. S. 50 (English edition, Vol. i. p. 43).
(2) p. 5. — See my Relation historique du Voyage aux Regions equin. T. L
p. 208.
0 p. 5.— Dante, Purg. i. 25—28 :
" Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammellet
0 settentrional vedovo sito,
Poi che private se' di mirar quelle."
(4) p g _ Schiller's sammtliche Werke, 1826, Bd. xviii. S. 231, 473, 480,
and 486 ; Gervinus, neuere Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur der Deut«
schen, 1840, Bd. i. S. 135 ; Adolph Becker im Charikles, Th. i. S. 219.
Compare therewith Edward Muller iiber Sophokleische Naturanschauung,
und die tiefe Naturempfindung der Griechen, 1842, S. 10 und 26.
(°) p. ?.— Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Kiinste hei den Alten, Bd.
ii. 1843, S. 128—138.
(6) p. 8. — Pint, de El. apud Delphos, c. 9. Compare on a passage of
Apollonius Dyscolus of Alexandria (Mirah. Hist. c. 40), Otfried Muller's
last work, Gesch. der griech. Litteratur, Bd. i. 1845, S. 31.
0 p. 8.— Hesiodi Opera et Dies, v. 502, 561 ; Gottling, in Hes. Carnv
1831, p. xix. ; Ulrici, Gesch. der hellenischen Dichtkunst, Th. i. 1835, S. 337 i
Bernhardy, Grundriss der griech. Litteratur, Th. ii. S. 176 ; Gottfried Her-
mann (Opuscula, Vol. vi. p. 239) remarks, that Hesiod's picturesque descrip-
tion of winter has all the indications of great antiquity.
(8) p. 8.— Hes. Theog. v. 233—264. May not the name of the Nereid
Mara (Od. xi. 326 ; II. xviii. 48) express the phosphoric flashing of the sur-
VOT,, TT. 2 P,
U NOTES.
face of the sea, as the same name, Matpa, expresses the sparkling dog-star
Sirius ?
f9) p. 8. — Compare Jacobs, Leben und Kunst der Alten, i. Abth. i. S. vii.
(W) p. 9.— mas, viii. 5^5—559; iv. 452—455; xi. 115—199. Com-
pare also the accumulated but animated descriptions taken from the animal
world which precede the review of the army, ii. 458—475.
(») p. 10.— Od. xk. 431—445; vi. 290; ix. 115—199. Compare the
"verdant overshadowing grove" near Calypso's cave, " where an immortal
might linger with admiration, and gaze with cordial delight," v. 55 — 73 ; the
breakers at the Pheacian Islands, v. 400 — 442 ; and the gardens of Alcinous,
vii 113 — 130. On the vernal dithyrambus of Pindar, see Bo'ckh, Pindari
Opera, T. ii. P. ii. p. 575-579.
(12) p. 11. — (Ed. Kolon, v. 668 — 719. Amongst descriptions of scenery
disclosing a deep feeling for nature, I would instance those of Cithseron,
in the Bacchse of Euripides, v. 1045, when the messenger emerges from the
valley of Asopos (see Leake, Northern Greece, Vol. ii. p. 370) ; of the sunrise
in the Delphic valley, in the Ion of Euripides, v. 82 ; and the picture, in
gloomy colours, of the aspect of the sacred Delos, " surrounded by hovering
sea-gulls, and scourged by the stormy waves" in Callimachus, in the Hymn
on Delos, v. 11.
(13) p. 11.— According to Strabo (Lib. viii. p. 366, Casaub.), where he
accuses the tragedian of giving to Elis a boundary geographically incorrect.
This fine passage of Euripides is from the Cresphontes. The description of
the excellence of the country of Messenia is closely connected with the expo-
lition of political circumstances (the division of the territory among the
Heraclides). Here, therefore, as Bockh has well remarked, the description of
nature is connected with human afiairs.
(14) p. 13. — Meleagri Reliquiae, ed. Manso, p. 5. Compare Jacobs, Leben
und Kunst der Alten, Bd. i. Abth. i. S. xv. ; Abth. ii. S. 150—190. Zeno-
betti, in the middle of the eighteenth century, supposed himself the first
discoverer of Meleager's poem on the Spring (Mel. Gadareni in Ver Idyllion,
1759, p. 5). See Brunckii Anal. T. iii. p. 105. There are two fine sylvan
poems by Marianos in the Anthol. Grseca, ii. 511 and 512. Meleager's
poetry is strongly contrasted with the praises of spring in the Eclogues of
Ilimerius, a sophist and teacher of rhetoric in Athens under Julian. Ths
etyle of Himerius is generally ornate and cold, but in particular parts, and
especially in his form of description, he sometimes comes very near the modern
manner of contemplating the universe. Himerii Sophistse Eclogse et Decla-
NOTES. Ill
mationes, ed. Wernsdorf, 1790 (Oratio iii. 3 — 6, and xxi. 5), The magnifi-
cent situation of Constantinople could not inspire the sophists (Orat. vii. 5 — 7,
and xvi. 3 — 8). The passages of Nonnus referred to in the text are found in
Dionys. ed. Petri Cunsei, 1610, Lib. ii. p. 70 ; vi. p. 199 ; xxiii. p. 16 and
619 ; xxvi. p. 694. Compare also Ouwaroff, Nonnos von Panopolis, der
Dichter, 1817, S. 3, 16 und 21.
(J5) p. 13.— JSliani Var. Hist, et Fragm. Lib. iii. cap. i. p. 139, Kuhn.
Compare A. Buttmann, Qusest. de Dicsearcho, Naumb. 1832, p. 32, and
Geogr. gr. min. ed. Gail. Vol. ii. p. 140 — 145. We find in the tragic poet
Chseremon, a remarkable love of nature, and especially a fondness for flowers,
which Sir William Jones has noticed as resembling that of the Indian poets :
see Welcker, griechische Tragodien, Abth. iii. S. 1088.
(16) p. 14.— Longi Pastoralia (Daphnis et Chloe, ed. Seiler, 1843), Lib. i.
9; iii. 12; and iv. 1—3; p. 92, 125, and 137. See ViUemain sur les
romans grecs, in his Melanges de Litterature, T. ii. p. 435—448, where
Longns is compared with Bernardin de St.-Pierre.
O7) p. 14.— Pseudo-Aristot. de Mundo, c. 3, 14—20, p. 392, Bekker.
(18) p. 14.— See Stahr's Aristoteles bei den Romern, 1834, S. 173—177;
and Osann, Beitrage zur griech. und rom. Litteraturgeschichte, Bd. i. 1835,
S. 165 — 192. Stalir conjectures (S. 172), as does Heumann, that the pre-
sent Greek is an altered version of the Latin text of Appuleius. The latter
says distinctly (De Mundo, p. 250, Bip.), " that in the composition of his
work he has kept in view Aristotle and Theophrastus."
(19) p. 14. — Osaun, Beitrage zur griech. und rom. Litteraturgeschichte,
Bd. i. S. 194—266.
(20) p. 14.— Cicero de Natura Deorum, ii. 37 ; a passage, in which Sextus
Empiricus (Ad versus Physicos, Lib. ix. 22, p. 554, Fabr.) adduces an expres
sion of Aristotle's to the same effect, deserves the more attention, because he
has alluded a short time before (ix. 20) to another lost work, on divination
and dreams.
(2r) p. 15. — " Aristotelea flumen orationis anreum fundens" (Cic. Acad.
Qusest. ii. cap. 38.) (Compare Stahr, in Aristotelia, Th. ii. S. 161; and in
Aristoteles bei den Romern, S. 53.)
f2) p. 16.— Menandri Rhetoris Comment, de Encomiis, ex rec. Heeren,
1785, § i. cap. 5, p. 38 and 39. The severe critic terms the didactic poem
on Nature a " frigid" (fyvxpfcepov) composition, in which the forces of nature
are brought forward divested of their personality : Apollo is light, Hera the
whole of the phenomena of the atmosphere, and Jove is heat, Plutarch also
IV NOTES.
ridicules the so-called poems of nature, which have only the mere external
form of poetry (De Aud. Poet. p. 27, Steph.) The Stagirite (De Poet. c. L)
considers Empedocles rather a physiologist than a poet, having nothing in
common with Homer, except the measure in which his verses are written.
(^ p. 16. — "It may seem strange to endeavour to connect poetry, which
rejoices always in variety, form, and colour, with those ideas which are most
simple and abstruse ; but it is not the less correct. Poetry, science, philo-
sophy, and history, are not in themselves, and essentially, divided from each
other ; they are united, either where man's particular stage of progress places
him in a state of unity, or where the true poetic mood restores him to such a
state (Wilhelm von Humboldt, gesammelte Werke, Bd. i. S. 98—102.
Compare also Bernhardy, rom. Litteratur, S. 215 — 218, and Friedrich
Schlegel's sammtliche Werke, Bd. i. S. 108—110. Cicero (ad Quint,
fratrem, ii. 11) indeed ascribes to Lucretius, who Virgil, Ovid, and Quintilian,
have praised so highly, more art than creative talent (ingenium).
(24) p. 17 —Lucret. Lib. v. V. 930—1455.
f5) p. 17.— Plato, Phsedr. p. 230 ; Cicero de Leg. i. 5, 15, ii. 2, 1—3,
ii. 3, 6 (compare "Wagner, Comment Perp. in Cic. de Leg. 1804, p. 6) ;
Cic. de Oratore, i. 7, 28 (p. 15 EUendt).
(^ p. 17. — See the excellent work of Rudolph Abeken, Rector of the
Gymnasium at Osnabriick, published in 1835, under the title of Cicero in
seinen Briefen, S. 431—434. The valuable addition relative to Cicero's
birthplace is by H. Abeken, the learned nephew of the author, who was
formerly chaplain to the Prussian embassy at Rome, and is now taking part
in the important Egyptian expedition of Lepsius. Respecting the place of
Cicero's birth, see also Valery, Voy. hist, en Italic, T. iii. p. 421.
f7) p. 18.— Cic. Ep. ad Atticum, xii. 9 and 15.
.(*) ^ 19. — The passages from Virgil adduced by Malte-Brun (Annales des
Voyages, T. iii. 1808, p. 235—266) as being actual local descriptions, merely
shew that the poet was acquainted with the productions of different countries :
that he knew the saffron of Mount Tmolus, the incense of the Sabeans, the
true names of several small rivers, aud even the mephitic vapours which rise
from a cavern in the Apennines near Amsanctus.
p) p. 19.— Virg. Georg. i. 356—392, iii. 349—380 ; JEn. iii. 191—211,
iv/,246— 251, iv. 522—528, xii. 684—689.
C») p. 20.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 252 and 453 (English edit. Vol. i. p. 230,
Note 230). As separate pictures of natural scenes, compare Ovid, Met. i.
568—576, iii. 155—164, iii. 407— 412, vii. 180—188, xv. 296—306;
NOTES. V
Trist. Lib. i. El. 3, 60, lib. iii. El. 4, 49, El. 12, 15. Ex Ponto, Lib. iii.
Ep. 7 — 9. Ross has remarked, as being one of the rarely occurring instances
of individual pictures relating to a determinate locality, the pleasing descrip-
tion of a fountain on Mount Hymettus, beginning, " Est prope purpureos
colles florentis Hymetti" (Ovid de Arte Am. iii. 687). The poet is describing
the fountain of Kallia, celebrated in antiquity, and consecrated to Aphrodite,
which issues forth on the western side of Hymettus, which is otherwise very
deficient in waters (see Ross, Letter to Professor Vuros, in the griech.
medicin. Zeitschrift, June 1837.)
(31) p> 20.— TibuUus, ed. Voss, 1811, Eleg. Lib. i 6, 21—34; Lib. ii. 1,
37—66.
(32) p. 20,— Lucan, Phars. iii. 400—452 (Vol. i. p. 374—384, Weber.)
(33) p> 20.— Kosmos, Ed. i. S. 298 (English edit. Vol. i. p. 273).
(?) p, 21,— Idem. S. 455 (English edit. p. 436). The poem of Lucilius.
entitled ^Etna, is very probably part of a longer poem on the remarkable
natural objects of the island of Sicily, and is ascribed by Wernsdorf U
Cornelius Severus. I would refer to some passages deserving of particulai
attention : to the praises of general knowledge of nature considered as " the
fruits of the mind," v. 270—280; the lava currents, v. 360—370 and
474 — 515 ; the eruptions of water at the foot of the volcano (?) v. 395 ; the
formation of pumice, v. 425 (p. xvi. — xx. 32, 42, 46, 50, and 55, ed. Jacob.
1826).
(3s) p. 21.— Decii Magni Ausonii Mosella, v. 189—199 (p. 15 and 44,
Booking.) Consult also v. 85—150 (p. 9—12), the notice of the fish of the
Moselle, which is not unimportant as regards natural history, and has been
made use of by Valenciennes , and a pendant to Oppian (Bernhardy, griech.
Litt. Th. ii. S. 1049). The Orthinogonia and Theriaca of ^Emilius Macer of
Verona, which were imitated from the works of the Colophonian Nicander,
and which have not come down to us, also belonged to the same dry didactic
class of poems treating of natural productions. A natural description ot the
south coast of Gaul, contained in a poem by Claudius Rutilius Numatianus, a
statesman under Honorius, is more attractive than the Mosella of Ausonius
Rutilius, driven from Rome by the irruption of the Barbarians, is returning to
his estates in Gaul. Unfortunately we possess only a fragment of the second
book of the poem which gives a narrative of his travels ; and this leaves off
at the quarries of Carrara. Vide Rutilii Claudii Numatiani de Reditu suo (e
Kama in Galliam Narbonensem) libri duo, rec. A.W. Zumpt, 1840. p. xv. 31,
VI NOTES.
and 219 (with a fine map by Kiepert) ; Wernsdorf, Poet* Lat. Mm. T. v. P.
i. p. 125.
C36) p. 22.— Tac. Ann. ii. 23, 24 ; Hist. v. 6. The only fragment which,
we possess of the heroic poem in which Pedo Albinovanus, the friend of Ovid,
sung the exploits of Germanicus, which was preserved by the rhetor Seneca
(Suasor. i. p. 11, Bipont.), also describes the unfortunate navigation on the
Amisia (Ped. Albinov. Elegise, Amst. 1703, p. 172). Seneca considers this
description of the stormy sea more picturesque than any thing which the
Roman poets had produced; remarking, however, " Latini declamatores in
oceani descriptione non nimis viguerunt; nam aut tumide scripserunt aut
curiose."
(37) p. 22. — Curt, in Alex. Magno, vi. 16 (see Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders
des Grossen, 1833, S. 265). In Lucius Annseus Seneca (Qusest. Natur. Lib.
iii. c. 27 — 30, p. 677 — 686, ed. Lips. 1741), we find a remarkable descrip-
tion of the destruction of mankind, once pure, but subsequently defiled by sin,
by an almost universal deluge. " Cum fatalis dies diluvii venerit, bis
peracto exitio generis humana exstinctisque pariter feris in quarum homines
ingenia transierant." Compare the description of chaotic terrestrial revolu-
tions in the Bhagavata-Purana, Book iii. c. 17 (Burnouf, T. i. p. 441).
(3s) p. 23.— Plin. Epist. ii. 17, v. 6, ix. 7 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xii. 6 ; Hirt,
Gesch. der Baukunst bei den Alten, Bd. ii. S. 241, 291, and 376. The villa
Laurentina of the younger Pliny was situated near the present Torre di
Paterno, in the coast valley of La Palombara, east of Ostia (see Viaggio da
Ostia a la Villa di Plinio, 1802, p. 9 ; and Le Laurentin, par Haudelcourt,
1838, p. 62.) A deep feeling for nature breaks forth in the few lines written
by Pliny from Laurentinum to Minutius Fundanus : " Mecum tantum et cum
libellis loquor. Rectam sinceramque vitam! dulce otium honestumque! O
mare, o littus, verum secretumque (irovcreiov) ! quam multa invenitis, quam
multa dictatis !" (i. 9.) Hirt was persuaded that the beginning in Italy,
in the 15th and 16th centuries, of the artificial style of gardening, which has
long been termed the French style, and contrasted with the freer landscape
gardening of the English, is to be attributed to the desire of imitatmg what
the younger Pliny had described in his letters (Geschichte der Baukunst bei
den Alten, Th. ii. S. 366).
C39) p. 24.— Plin. Epist. iii. 19 ; viii. 16.
C50) p. 24. — Suet, in Julio Csesare, cap. 56. The lost poem of Cttsaf
(Iter.) described the journey to Spain, when he led his army to his last miK-
tary exploit from Rome to Cordova, by land, in twenty-four days, according
NOTES. VJ
to Suetonius, or in twenty-seven days according to Strabo and Appian ; the
remains of Pompey's party, defeated in Africa, having assembled in Spain.
(«) p. 24.— Sil. Ital. Punica, Lib. iii. V. 477.
t42) p. 24.— Idem. Lib. iv. V. 348 ; Lib. viii. V. 399.
(43) p. 25. — See, on elegiac poetry, Nicol. Bach, in the allg. Schul-Zeitung,
1829, Abth. ii. No. 134, S. 1097.
t44) p. 26. — Minucii Felicis Octavius, ex rec. Gron. Roterod. 1743, cap. 2
and 3 (p. 12—28), cap. 16—18 (p. 151—171).
(45) p. 26. — On the Death of Naucratius, about the year 357, see Basilii
Magni Opp. omma, ed. Par. 1730, T. iii. p. xlv. The Jewish Essenes, two
centuries before the Christian era, led an anchoritic life on the western shores
of the Dead Sea, "in intercourse with nature." Pliny says of them (v. 15),
"mira gens, socia palmarum." The Therapeutes dwelt originally more in
conventual communities, in a pleasant district near Lake Moeris (Neander,
allg. Geschichte der christl. Religion und Kirche, Bd. i. Abth. i. 1842, S.
73 and 103.)
C46) p. 28.— Basilii M. Epist. xiv. p. 93, Ep. ccxxiii: p. 339. On the
beautiful letter to Gregory of Nazianzum, and on the poetic tone of mind of
Saint Basil, see Villemain de 1'Eloquence chretienne dans le quatrieme Siecle,
in his Melanges historiques et litteraires, T. iii. p. 320—325. The Iris, on
the banks of which the family of the great Basil had ancient possessions in
land, rises in Armenia, flows through Pontus, and, after mingling with the
waters of the Lycus, pours itself into the Black Sea.
(47) p. 28. — Gregorius of Nazianzum was not, however, so much charmed
with the description of the hermitage on the banks of the Iris, but that he
preferred Arianzus, in the Tiberina Regio, though termed, with dissatisfaction,
by his friend an impure ftapaOpoy. See Basilii Ep. ii. p. 70 ; and the Vita
Sancti Bas., p. xlvi., and lix. in the edition of 1730.
t48) p. 28. — Basilii Homil. in Hexrem. vi., and iv. 6 (Bas. Opp. omnia, ed.
Gul. Gamier, 1839, T. i. p. 54 and 70). Compare therewith the expression
of profound melancholy in the beautiful poem of Gregory of Nazianzum, enti-
tled, " On the Nature of Man." (Gregor. Naz. Opp. omnia, ed. Par. 1611,
T. ii. Carm. xiii. p. 85).
(49) p. 29. — The quotation from Gregory of Nyssa given in the text, con-
sists of separate fragments closely translated. They will be found in S. Gre-
gorii Nysseni Opp. ed.Par. 1615, T. i. p. 49 C, p. 589 D, p. 210 C, p. 780 C ;
T. ii. p. 860 B, p. 619 B, p. 619 D, p. 324 D. " Be thou gentle towards
the emotions of melancholy," says Thalassius, in aphoristic sayings, which
Vlll NOTES.
were admired by his contemporaries. (Biblioth. Patnun, ed. Par. 1624, T. ii
p. 1180 C.)
(*°) p. 29.— See Joannis Chrysostomi Opp. omnia, Par. 1838 (8vo.) T. ix.
p. 687 A, T. ii. p. 821 A, and 851 E, T. i. p. 79. Compare also Joannia
Philoponi, in cap i. Geneseos de creatione Mundi, libri septem, Viennee Anstr.
1630, p. 192, 236, and 272; and also Georgii Pisidae Mundi opificium, ed.
1596, v. 367—375, 560, 933, and 1248. The works of Basil and of
Gregory of Nazianzum early arrested my attention after I began to collect
descriptions of nature; but I am indebted for all the excellent (German)
translations from Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, and Thalassius, to my old
and always kind colleague and friend, M. Hase, Member of the Institute,
and Conservator of the Bibliotheque du Roi, at Paris.
(51) p. 30. — On the Concilium Turonense, under Pope Alexander III., see
Ziegelbauer, Hist. Rei litter, ordinis S. Benedict*, T. ii. p. 248, ed. 1754 ; on
the Council atParis of 1209, and the Bull of Gregory IX. of the year 1231, see
Jourdain, Recherches crit. sur les traductions d'Aristote, 1819, p. 204*-206.
Heavy /penances were attached to the reading of the physical books of Aris-
totle. In the Concilium Lateranense of 1139 (Sacror. Concil. nova collectio,
ed. Yen. 1776, T. xxi. p. 528), monks were forbidden to exercise the art of
medicine. Consult also the learned and interesting writing of the young
Wolfgang von Gotbe, entitled, " der Mensch und die elementarische Natur,"
1844, S. 10.
(&) p. 32. — Fried. Schlegel, iiber nordische Dichtkunst, in his sanrmtlichen
Werken, Bd. x. S. 71 and 90. I may cite farther, from the very early time
of Charlemagne, the poetic description of the Thiergarten at Aix, enclosing
both woods and meadows, which is given in the life of the great emperor,
written by Angilbertus, Abbot of St. Riques. (See Pertz, Monum. Vol. i.
p. 393—403).
(M) p. 33.— See, in Gervinns's Geschichte der deutschen Litt., Bd. i. S.
354 — 381, the comparison of the two epics, the poem of the Niebelungen,
(describing the vengeance of Chriemhild, the wife of Siegfried), and that of
Gudrun, the daughter of King Hetel.
(M) p. 34. — On the romantic description of the grotto of the lovers, in the
Tristan of Gottfried of Strasburg, see Gervinus, in the work above referred to,
Bd. i. S. 450.
(55) p> 35.— Vridankes Bescheidenheit, by Wilhelm Grimm, 1834, S. 50,
and 128. All that refers to the German Volks-epos and the Minnesingers
(from p. 33 to p. 36) is taken from a letter of Wilhelm Grimm to myself
NOTES. IX
(Oct. 1845). In a very old Anglo-Saxon poem on the names of the Runes,
which was first published by Hickes, there is the following pleasing descrip-
tion of the birch tree : — " Beorc is beautiful in its branches : its leafy top
rustles sweetly, moved to and fro by the air." The greeting of the light of
day is simple and noble :— " The messenger of the Lord, dear to man, the
glorious light of God, bringing gladness and confidence to rich and poor,
beneficent to -all!" See also Wilhelm Grimm, iiber deutsche Runen, 1821,
S. 94, 225, and 234.
(56) p. 36. — Jacob Grimm, in Reinhart Fnchs, 1834, S. ccxciv. (Compare
also Christian Lassen, in his indischer Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. 1843,
S. 296.)
(67) p. 37. — On " the non-genuineness of the Ossianic songs, and of Mac-
pherson's Ossian in particular," see a memoir by the ingenious translatress of
the Volkspoesie of Servia (die Unachtheit der Lieder Ossian's und des Mac-
pherson 'schen Ossian's insbesondere, von Talyj, 1840). The first publication
of Ossian by Macpherson was in 1760. The Fingalian songs are, indeed,
heard in the Scottish Highlands, as well as in Ireland, but they have been
carried to Scotland from Ireland, according to O'Reilly and Drummond.
t58) p. 37.— Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 412—415.
(59) p. 38. — Respecting the Indian forest-hermits, Vanapfestise (Sylvicolse)
and Sramani (a name which has been altered into Sarmani and Garmani), see
Lassen, " de nommibus quibus veteribus appellantur Indorum philosophi,"
in the Rhein. Museum fur Philologie, 1833, S. 178 — 180. Wilhelm Grimm
thinks he recognises something of Indian colouring in the description of the
magic forest in the " Song of Alexander," composed more than 1200 years
ago by a priest, named Lambrecht, in immediate imitation of a French origi-
nal. The hero comes to a wood, where maidens, adorned with supernatural
charms, spring from large flowers, and he remains with them so long that
both flowers and maidens fade away. (Compare Gervinus, Bd. i. S. 282, and
Massmann's Denkmaler, Bd. i. S. 16.) These are the same as the maidens of
Edrisi's oriental magic Island of Vacvac, called, in the Latin version of
Masudi, Chothbeddin puellas vasvakienses. (Humboldt, Examen crit. de la
Geographic, T. i. p. 53.)
(*°) p. 39. — Kalidasa lived at the court of Vikramaditya, about 56 years
before our era. It is highly probable that the age of the two great heroic
poems, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is much earlier than that of the appear-
ance of Buddha, or much earlier than the middle of the sixth century before
our era. (Burnouf, Bhagavata-Purana, T. i. p. cxi. and cxviii. ; Lassen,
X NOTES.
ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 356 and 492.) George Forster, by the
translation of Sacontala, i. e. by bis tasteful presentation in a German garb
of an English version by Sir William Jones (1791), contributed greatly to
the enthusiasm for Indian poetry, which then first shewed itself in Germany.
I take pleasure in recalling two fine distichs of Gb'the's, which appeared in
1792:—
" Willst du die Bliithe des friihen, die Friichte des spateren Jahres,
Willst du was reizt und entziickt, willst du, was sattigt und nahrt,
Willst du den Himmel, die Erde mit einem Namen begreifen;
Nenn' ich Sakontala, Dich, und so 1st alles gesagt."
The most recent German translation of this Indian drama is that of Otto
Bohtlingk (Bonn, 1842), from the important original text found by Brock-
haus.
(61) p. 40. — Humboldt, on steppes and deserts (ueber Steppen und Wiisten),
in the Ansichten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 1826, Bd. i. S. 33—37.
(ffi) p. 40. — In order to render more complete the small portion of the text
which belongs to Indian literature, and to enable me to point out, as in
Greek and Roman literature, the several works referred to, I will here intro-
duce some manuscript notices, kindly communicated to me by a distinguished
and philosophical scholar thoroughly versed in Indian poetry, Herr Theodor
Goldstiicker : —
" Among all the influences which have affected the intellectual development
of the Indian nation, the first and most important appears to me to have been
that exercised by the rich aspect of nature in the country inhabited by them.
A profound love of nature has been at all times a fundamental character of
the Indian mind. In reference to the manner in which this feeling has mani-
fested itself, three successive epochs may be pointed out, each of which has a
determinate character, of which the foundations were deeply laid in the mode
of life and tendencies of the people. A few examples may thus be sufficient
to indicate the activity of the Indian imagination. The Vedas mark the first
epoch of the expression of a vivid feeling for nature : we would refer in the
Rigveda to the sublime and simple descriptions of the dawn of day (Rigveda-
SanhM, ed. Rosen, 1838, Hymn, xlvi.p. 88; Hymn, xlviii. p. 92; Hymn,
xcii. p. 184; Hymn, cxiii. p. 233: see also Hofer, Ind. Gedichte, 1841,
Lese i. S. 3,) and of the " golden-handed sun," (Rigveda-Sanhita, Hymn,
xxii. p. 31 ; Hymn. xxxv. p. 65). The veneration of nature, connected
here, as in other nations, with an early stage of their religious belief, has in
the Vedas a peculiarly determinate direction, being always conceived in the
NOTES. XI
most intimate connection with the external and internal life of man. The
second epoch is very different : in it a popular mythology was formed, having
for its object to mould the contents of the Vedas into a shape more easily
comprehensible by an age already far removed in character from that which
had given them birth, and to interweave them with historical events to which
a mythical character is given. To this second epoch belong the two great
heroic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata ; the latter had also the
additional object of rendering the Brahmins the most influential of the four
ancient Indian castes. The Ramayana is the older and more beautiful poem
of the two : it is more rich in natural feeling, and has kept more strictly oil
poetic ground, not having been constrained to take up elements alien and
almost hostile to poetry. In both poems, nature no longer constitutes, as in
the Vedas, the entire picture, but only a portion of it. There are two points
which essentially distinguish the conception of nature at the period of the
heroic poems from that which the Vedas present, independently of the wide
diiference between the language of adoration and that of narrative. One of
these points is the localising of the description. According to Wilhelm von
Schlegel, the first book of the Ramayana, or Balakanda, and the second book,
or Ayodhyakanda, are examples i see also Lassen, Ind. Alterthumskunde,
Bd. i. S. 482, on the differences between these two epics. Narrative, whe-
ther historical, legendary, or fabulous, leads to the specification of particular
localities, rather than to general descriptions. These early epic poets, whether
Valmiki, who sings the exploits of Rama, or the authors of the Mahabharata,
named collectively, by tradition, Vyasa, all show themselves transported, and
as it were overpowered, by emotions connected with external nature. Rama'»
journey from Ayodhya to Dschanaka's capital ; his life in the forest ; his ex-
pedition to Lanka (Ceylon), where dwelt the savage Ravana, the robber of
his bride, Sita ; and the hermit life of the Panduides ; all furnish to the poet
the opportunity of following the bent of the Indian mind, and of blending,
with the relation of heroic deeds, the rich imagery of tropical nature. (Rama-
yana, ed. Schlegel, lib. i. cap. 26, v. 13 — 15 : lib. ii. cap. 56, v. 6 — 11 : com-
pare Nalus, ed. Bopp, 1832, Ges. xii. V. 1—10.) The other point in which
the second epoch differs from that of the Vedas in regard to external nature,
is closely connected with the first, and consists in the greater richness of ma-
terials employed, comprehending the whole of nature, — the heavens and the
earth, with the world of plants and of animals in all their luxuriance and variety,
and viewed in their influence on the mind and feelings of men. In the third
epoch of poetic literature (if we except the Puranas, which have a particular
Xll NOTES.
object,) external nature exereises an undivided sovereignty, but the descriptive
'portion is based on more scientific and more local observation. Among the
great poems belonging to this epoch is the Bnatti-kavya (or Bhatti's poem),
•which, like the Kamayana, has for its subject the exploits and adventures of
"Rama, and in which fine descriptions of a forest life during banishment, of the
sea and of its beautiful shores, and of the breaking of the day in Ceylon
(Lanka), occur successively. (Bhatti-kavya, ed. Calc. P. i. canto vii. p. 432 ;
canto x. p. 715 ; canto xi. p. 814. Compare also Schiitz, Prof, zu Biele-
feld, fiinf Gesange des Bhatti-kavya, 1837, S. 1—18.) I would also refer to
an agreeable description of the different periods of the day in Magha's
Sistifialabdha, and to the Naischada-tscharita of Sri Harscha. In the last-
named poem, however, in the story of Nalus and Damayanti, the expression
of the feeling for external nature passes into a vague exaggeration, which
contrasts with the noble simplicity of the Ramayana, where Visvamitra leads
Ms pupil to the shores of the Sona. (Sisupaladha, ed. Calc. p. 298 and 372;
compare Schiitz, fiinf Ges. des Bhatti-kavya, S, 25 — 28 ; Naischada-tscharita,
ed. Calc. P. 1, v. 77—129 ; Ramayana, ed. Schlegel, lib. 1, cap. 35, v.
15 — 18.) Kalidasa, the celebrated author of Sacontala, represents, with a
master's hand, the influence which the aspect of nature exercises on the minds
and feelings of lovers. The forest scene pourtrayed by him in the drama of
Vikrama and Urvasi is one of the finest poetic creations of any period.
(Vikramorvasi, ed. Calc. 1830, p. 71 ; see the English translation in Wilson's
Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, Calc. 1827, Vol. ii. p. 63.)
tn the poem of " The Seasons," I would particularly refer to the rainy season
and to that of spring (RituSanhara, ed. Bohlen, 1840, p. 11—18, and
37—45, S. 80—88, and S. 107—114, of Bohlen's translation). In the
'"Cloud Messenger," also by Kalidasa, the influence of external nature on
human feeling ig also the leading subject of the composition. This poem
(the Meghaduta, or Cloud Messenger, which has been edited by Gildemeister
and translated both by Wilson and by Chezy) describes the grief of an exile
on the mountain Ramagiri, longing for the presence of his beloved from
whom he is separated : he entreats a passing cloud to convey to her tidings
of his sorrows ; he describes to the cloud the path which it must pursue, and
paints the landscape as reflected in a mind agitated with deep emotion.
Among the treasures which the Indian poetry of the third period owes to the
influence of nature on the national mind, the Gitagovinda of Dschayadeva
deserves the highest praise. (Riickert, in the Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des
Morgenlandes, Bd. i. 1337, S. 129—173; Gitagovinda Jayadevse poewe
NOTES. xiii
indici drama lyricum, ed. Chr. Lassen, 1836.) We possess a masterly metri-
cal translation by Riickert of this poem, which is one of the most, pleasing
and at the same time one of the most difficult in the whole of Indian litera-
ture. The translation renders the spirit of the original with admirable fider
lity, and presents a conception of nature the intimate truth of which animates
every part of this great composition.
C0) p. 41. — Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of London, Vol. s. 1841,
p. 2 — 3 ; Riickert, Makamen Hariri's, S. 261.
(M) p. 41. — Gothe im Commentar zum west-6'stlichen Divan : Bd. vi.
1828, S. 73, 78, and 111, of his works.
C65) p. 42.— Vide le Livre des Rois, publie par Jules Mohl, T. i. 1838,.
p. 487.
(66) p. 42. — Jos. von Hammer, Gesch. der schonen. Redekuuste Persiens,
1818, S. 96 (Ewhadeddin Enweri, who lived in the 12th century, in whose
poem on the Schedschai some have discovered a remarkable allusion to the
mutual attraction of the heavenly bodies; S. 183 (Dschelaleddin Rumi, the
mystic) ; S. 259 (Dschelaleddin Ahdad) ; S. 403 (Feisi, who came forward
at the court of Akbar as a defender of the religion of Brahma, and in whose
Ghazuls there breathes an Indian tenderness of feeling).
t67) p. 42. — " Night comes on when the ink-bottle of heaven is over-
turned,'3 is the tasteless expression of Chodschah Abdullah "Wassaf, a poet,
who has, however, the merit of having been the first to describe the great
astronomical observatory of Meragha, with its lofty gnomon. Hilali, of Aster -
abad, makes the disk of the moon glow with heat, and calls the evening dew
"the sweat of the moon." (Jos. von Hammer, S. 247 and 371.)
O p. 42. — Tuirja or Turan are names of which the derivation is still
undiscovered. Burnouf (Yacna, T. i. p. 427 — 430) has acutely called atten-
lion in reference to them to the Bactriau Satrapy of Turina or Turiva men-
tioned in Strabo (xi. 11, 3, pag. 517, lat.) : Du Theil and Gr.oskard, however,
Th. ii. S. 410) propose to read Tapyria.
(69) p. 42. — Ueber ein finnisches Epos, Jacob Grimm, 1845, S. 5.
(7°) p. 46. — I have followed in the Psalms the excellent translation oi
Moses Mendelsohn (see his Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. vi. S. 220, 238, and
280). Noble after-echoes of the ancient Hebrew poetry are found in the
llth century in the hymns of the Spanish synagogue poet, Salomo ben Jehu-
dah Gabirol : they also contain a poetic paraphrase of the pseudo- Aristotelian
book, De Mundo. Vide die religiose Poesie der Juden iu Spanien, by
Michael Sachs, 1845, S. 7, 217, and 229. Sketches drawn from mture, and
XIV NOTES.
full of vigour and grandeur, are found in the writings of Mose hen Jakob ben
Esra (S. 69, 77, and 285).
(?') p. 47. — I have taken the passages in the book of Job from the trans-
lation and exposition of Umbreit (1824), S. xxix. — xlii. and 290—314.
(Consult generally Gesenius, Geschichte der hebr. Sprache und Schrift, S. 33;
and Jobi antiquissimi carminis hebr. natura atque virtutes, ed. Ilgen, p. 28.)
The longest and most characteristic description of an animal which we meet
with in the book of Job, is that of the crocodile (xl. 25 — xli. 26), and yet it
contains one of the evidences of the writer having been himself a native of
Palestine, Umbreit, S. xli. & 308. As the river-horse of the Nile and the
crocodile were formerly found throughout the whole Delta of the Nile, it is
not surprising that the knowledge of animals of such strange and peculiar
form should have spread into the neighbouring country of Palestine.
(T2) p. 48. — Gothe im Commentar zum west-ostlichen Divan, S. 8.
(T3) p. 48. — Antar, a Bedouin romance, translated from the Arabic by
Terrick Hamilton, Vol. i. p. xxvi. , Hammer, in the Wiener Jahrbuchern der
Litteratur, Bd. vi. 1819, S. 229 , Rosenmuller, in the Charaktereu der vor-
nehmsten Dichter aller Natiouem, Bd. v. (1798) S. 251.
(?4) p. 49. — Antara cum schol. Sunsenii, ed. Menil. 1816, v. 15.
P) p. 49.— Amrulkeisi Moallakat, ed. E. G. Heustenberg, 1823 ; Ha-
masa, ed. Freytag, P. i. 1828, lib. vii. p. 785. See also in the pleasing
work, entitled, " Amrilkais, the Poet and King," translated by Fr. Ruckert,
1843, pp 29 and 62, where southern showers are twice described with ex-
ceeding truth to nature. The royal poet visited the court of the Emperor
Justinian several years before the birth of Mahommed, for the purpose of
obtaining assistance against his enemies. See Le Diwan d'Amro 'Ikais, ac
compagne d'une traduction par le Baron MacGuckm de Slane, 1837, p. 111.
P) p. 49. — Nabeghah Dhobyani, in Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestom. arabe,
1806, T. iii. p. 47. On the early Arabian literature generally, see "Weil's
Poet. Litteratur der Araber vor Mohammed, 1837, S. 15 and 90, as well as
Freytag's Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, 1830, S. 372—392. We
may soon expect a truly fine and complete version of the Arabian poetry con-
nected with uature in the writings ol Hamasa ironi our great poet Fnednch
Riickert.
f7) p. 49.— Hamasse Carmina, ed. Freytag, P. i. 1828, p, 788. " Here
finishes," it is said m page 796, " the chapter on travel
(**) p. 51.-— Dante, Purgatorio, canto i. v. 115;
" L' alba vmceva 1' ora mattutina
L,
NOTES. XT
Che fugia innanzi, si che di lontano
Conobbi il tremolar de la marina" ,
£9) p. 51.— Purg. canto v., v. 109—127:
" Ben sai come nell' aer si raccoglie
Quell' umido vapor, che in acqua riede,
Tosto che sale, dove '1 freddo il coglie"
(*°) p. 51. — Purg. canto xxviii. v. 1—24.
C31) p. 51.— Parad. canto xxx. v. 61—69
" E vidi lume in forma di riviera
Fulvido di fulgore intra duo rive
Dipiute di mirabil priinavera.
Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive,
E d' ogni parte si mettean ne' fiori,
Quasi rubin, che oro circonscriv^
Poi come, inebriate dagli odori,
Biprofondavan se nel miro gurge,
E s' una entrava, un' altra n' uscia fuori."
if 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 rane;e of
terrestrial phsenomena.
(f12) p. 51. — I would recal Boiardo's sonnet commencing,
" Ombrosa selva, che il mio duolo ascolti,"
and the fine stanzas of Vittoria Colonna, which begin,
" Quando miro la terra ornata e bella,
Di mille vaghi ed odorati fiori."
A beautiful and very characteristic natural description of the country seat of
Fracastoro on the hill of Incassi (Mons Caphius), near Verona, is given bj
that distinguished doctor in medicine, mathematician, and poet, in his " Nau
gerius de poetica dialogus" (Hieron. Fracastorii Opp. 1591, P. i. p. 321 —
326). See also in a didactic poem, lib. ii. v. 208—219 (Opp. p. 606), 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 nature in tht
letters of Petrarch, either when, in 1345, (three years, therefore, before tht
death of Laura), he attempted the ascent of Mont Ventour from Vaucluse,
hoping and longing to behold from its summit a part of his native land ; or,
when he visited the gidf of Baise, or the banks of the Rhine to Cologne.
His mind was occupied by the classical remembrances of Cicero and the
XVI NOTES.
Roman poets, or by the emotions of his ascetic melancholy, rather than by
surrounding nature. (Vid. Petrarchse Epist. de rebus familiaribus, lib. iv. 1 ;
v. 3 and 4: pag. 119, 156, and^lGl, ed. Lugdun, 1601). I find, however,
an exceedingly picturesque description of a great tempest which Petrarch
observed near Naples in 1343 (lib. v. 5, p. 165) : but it is a solitary instance.
(S3) p. 54. — Humboldt, Examen critique de riristoire de la Geographic du
nouveau Continent, T. iii. p. 227—248.
(84) p 55.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 296 and 469 (English translation, vol. i.
pp. 272 Note 329).
(») p. 56.— Journal of Columbus on his first voyage (Oct. 29, 1492 ; Nov.
25 — 29; Dec. 7 — 16; Dec. 21) ; also his letter to Dona Maria de Guzman, ama
del Principe D. Juan, Dec. 1500, in Navarrete, Coleccion delos Viages que
hicieron por mar los Espanoles, T. i. p. 43, 65, 72, 82, 92, 100, and 266.
(86) p 56.— Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages, T. i. p. 303—304 (Carta
del Almirante a los Reyes escrita en Jamaica a 7 de Julio, 1503); Humboldt,
Examen crit. T. iii. p. 231—236.
f87) p. 56. — Tasso, canto xvi. stanze 9—16.
(88) p 57. — gee Friedrich Schlegel's sammtl. Werke, Bd. ii. S. 96 ; and
on the disturbing mythological dualism, and the mixture of antique fable with
Christian contemplations, see Bd. x. S. 54. Camoens has tried, in stanzas
which have not been sufficiently attended to (82 — 84), to justify this mytho-
logical dualism. Tethys avows, in a somewhat naive manner, but in verses
which are a noble flight of poetry, " that she herself, Saturn, Jupiter, and all
the host of gods, are vain fables, born to mortals by blind delusion, and
serving only to embellish the poet's song—" A Sancta Providencia que em
Jupiter aqni se representa."
(S9) p. 57. — Os Lusiadas de Camoes, canto i. est. 19 ; canto vi. est. 71 — 82.
See also the comparison in the fine description of a tempest raging in a forest,
canto i. est. 35.
(?°) p. 58. — The fire of St. Elmo : "o lume vivo que a maritima gente tern
por santo, em tempo de tormenta" (Canto v. est. 18). One flame, the Helena
of the Greek mariners, brings misfortune (Plin. ii. 37) ; two flames, Castor
and Pollux, appearing with a rustling sound, " like the fluttering wings of
birds," are good omens (Stob. Eclog. Phys. i. p. 514 ; Seneca, Nat. Qusest.
i. 1). On the eminently graphical character of Camoens' descriptions of
nature, and the peculiar manner in which their subjects are brought as it were
visibly before the mind's eye, see the great Paris edition of 1818, in theVida
de. Camoes, by Dom Joze Maria de Souza. p. cii.
NOTES. XVU
f91) p. 58. — Compare the waterspout in Canto v. est. 19 — 22, with the also
highly poetic aud faithful description of Lucretius, vi. 423 — 442. On the
fresh water, which, towards the close of the phenomenon, falls apparently from
the upper part of the column of water, see Ogden on Waterspouts (from Ob-
servations made in 1820, during a voyage from Havanuah to Norfolk), in
Silliman's American Journal of Science, Vol. xxix. 1836, p. 254 — 260.
(9-) p. 58.— Canto iii. est. 7 — 21, of the text of Camoeus in the editio
princeps of 1572, which has heen given afresh in the excellent and splendid
edition of Dom Joze Maria de Souza-Botelho (Paris, 1818). In the German
quotations I have usually followed the translation of Donner (1833). The
principal aim of the Lusiad of Camoens is the honour and glory of his nation.
Would it not be a monument, well worthy of his fame, if a hall were constructed
in Lisbon, after the noble examples of the halls of Schiller and Gothe in the
Grand Ducal palace of Weimar, and if the twelve grand compositions of my
deceased friend Gerard, which adorn the Souza edition, were executed in
large dimensions, in fresco, on well lit walls ? The dream of the king Dom
Manoel, in which the rivers Indus and Ganges appear to him, the Giant
Adamastor hovering over the Cape of Good Hope (" Eu sou aquelle occulto e
grande Cabo, Aquem chamais vos outros Tormentorio"), the murder of Ines
de Castro, and the lovely Ilha de Venus, would all have the finest effect.
0*) p. 58.— Canto x. est. 79—90. Camoens, like Vespucci, terms the
part of the heavens nearest to the southern pole, poor in stars (Canto v. est. 14).
He is also acquainted with the ice of the southern seas (Canto v. est. 27).
(94) p 59._canto x. est. 91—141.
t95) p. 59.— Canto ix. est. 51—63. (Consult Ludwig Kriegk, Schriften
zur allgemeinen Erdkunde, 1840, S. 338.) The whole Ilha de Venus is an
allegorical fable, as is clearly indicated in Est. 89 ; but the beginning of the
relation of Dom Manoel's dream depicts an Indian mountain and forest dis-
trict (Canto iv. est. 70).
(^ p. 60. — Fondness for the old literature of Spain, and for the enchanting
region in which the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga was composed,
has led me to read conscientiously through the whole of this poem of 22000
lines on two occasions, once in Peru, and again very recently in Paris, when,
by the kindness of a learned traveller, M. Ternaux Compans, I received a very
scarce book, printed in 1596, at Lima, and containing the nineteen cantos of
the Arauco domado compuesto por el Licenciado Pedro de Ofia natural- de los
Infantes de Engol en Chile. Of the epic poem of Ercilla, in which Voltaire
sees an Iliad, and Sismondi a newspaper in ihyme, the first fifteen cantos were
VOL. II. 2 C
XV111 NOTES.
composed between 1555 and 1563, and were published in 1569 ; the late?
cantos were first printed in 1590, only six years before the miserable poem of
Pedro de Ona, which bears the same title as one of the master works of Lope
de Vega, in which the Cacique Caupolican is the principal personage. Ercilla
is naive and true-hearted ; especially in those parts of his composition which
he wrote in the field, mostly on bark of trees and skins of beasts for want of
paper. The description of his poverty, and of the ingratitude which he expe-
rienced at the court of King Philip, is extremely touching, particularly at the
close of the 37th canto :
" Climas passe, mude constelacione9>
Golfos inavegables navegando,
Estendiendo Senor, vuestra corona
Hasta la austral frigida zona."
"The flower of my life is past ; late instructed, I will renounce earthly things,
weep, and no longer sing." The natural descriptions of the garden of the
sorcerer, of the tempest raised by Eponamon, and of the ocean (P. i. p. 80,
135, and 173; P, ii. p. 130 and 161, in the edition of 1733), are cold and
lifeless : geographical registers of words are accumulated in such manner,
that, in Canto xxvii., twenty-seven proper names follow each other in immediate
succession in a single stanza of eight lines. Part IT. of the Araucana is not
by Ercilla, but is a continuation, in twenty cantos, by Diego de Santistevau
Osorio, appended to the thirty-seven cantos of Ercilla.
(97) p. 60. — In the Romancero de Romances caballeresco e historicos orde-
nado, por D. Augustin Duran, P. i. p. 189, and P. ii. p. 237, see the fine
strophes commencing "Yba declinaudo el dia" — " Su curso y ligeros horas"—
and on the flight of King Roderick, beginning
*' Quando las pintadas aves
Mudas estan y la tierra
Atenta esucha los rios."
(") p. 60. — Fray Luis de Leon, Obras proprias y traduceiones, cledicadas a
Don Pedro Portocarero, 1681, p. 120 : Noche serena. A deep feeling of
nature also reveals itself at times in the ancient mystic poetry of the Spaniards
(Fray Luis de Granada, Santa Teresa de Jesus, Malon de Chaide) ; but the
natural pictures are usually only the external veil symbolising ideal contem-
plations.
(") p. 61. — Calderon, in the " Steadfast Prince :" on the approach of the
Spanish fleet, Act i. scene 1 ; and on the sovereignty of the wild beasts in
the forest, Act iii. scene 2.
NOTES. XIX
(W") p. 62. — The passages in the text relating to Calderon and Shakspeare,
which are distinguished by marks of quotation, are taken from unpublished
letters, addressed to myself, by Ludwig Tieck.
(101) p. 65. — The works referred to were published in the following order
of time: — Jean Jacques Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloise, 1759; Buffon, Epoques
de la Nature, 1778, but his Histoire naturelle, 1749—1767 ; Bernardin dc
St.-Pierre, Etudes de la Nature, 1784, Paul et Virginie, 1788, Chaumiere
Indienne, 1791 ; George Forster, Reise nach der Siidsee, 1777, Kleinc
Schriften, 1794. More than half a century before the publication of the
Nouvelle Heloise, Madame de Sevigne had already manifested, in her charming
Letters, a vivid sense of natural beauty, such as can rarely be traced in the age
of Louis XIV. See the fine natural descriptions in the letters of April 20,
May 31, August 15, September 16, and November 6, 1671, and October 23
and December 28, 1689 (Aubenas, Hist, de Madame de Sevigne', 1842, p.
201 and 427). I have referred in the text to the old German poet, Paul
Flemmiug, who, from 1633 to 1639, accompanied Adam Olearius on his
journeys to Muscovy and to Persia, because, according to the authority of my
iriend Varnhagen von Ense (Biographische Denkw. Bd. iv. S. 4, 75, and 129),
" Flemming's compositions are characterised by a fresh and healthful vigour,**
aud because his images drawn from external nature are tender and full of
life.
(102) p. 68.— Letter of the Admiral from Jamaica, July 7, 1503: "El
mundo es poco ; digo que el mundo no es tan grande como dice el vulgo"
(Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages esp. T. i. p. 300).
(103) p. 70.— See Journal and Remarks, by Charles Darwin, 3832—1836,
in the Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, Vol. iii. p.
479 — 490, where an exceedingly beautiful description of Tahiti is given.
(104) p. 70. — On George Forster' s merit as a man and a writer, see Ger-
f iaus, Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur der Deutschen, Th. v. S. 390 — 392.
(105) p. 71.— Frcytag's Darstellung der arubischen Verskunst, 1830, S. 402.
(106) p. 75.— Herod, iv. 88.
(107) p. 75. — A portion of the works of Polygnotus and Mikon (the paint-
ing of the battle of Marathon in the Pokile at Athens) might still be seen,
according to the testimony of Himerius, at the end of the fourth century (of
our era), or 850 years after their execution (Letronne, Lettres sur la Peinturi
historique murale, 1835, p. 202 and 453).
(10S) p. 76.— Philostratorum Imagines, ed. Jacobs et Welcker, 1825, p. 79
and 485. Both the learned editors defend, against former suspicions, the
XX NOTES.
authenticity of the description of the paintings in the ancient Neapolitan
Pinacothek (Jacobs, p. xvii. and xlvi. ; Welcker, p. Iv. and xlvi.). Otfried
M tiller supposes that Philostratus's picture of the islands (ii. 1 7), as well as
that of the marsh district (i. 9), of the Bosphorus, and of the fishermen (i. 12
and 13), had much resemblance in their manner of representation to the mosaic
of Palestrina. Plato, in the introductory part of Critias (p. 107), mentions
landscape painting as representing mountains, rivers, and forests.
(109) p. 76. — Particularly through Agatharcus, or at least according to the
rules laid down by him. Aristot. Poet. iv. 16 ; Vitruv. Lib. v. cap. 7, Lib.
vii. in Praef. (ed. Alois Maxinius, 1836, T. i. p. 292, T. ii. p. 56) ; compare
Letronne's work, before cited, p. 271—280.
(ll°) p. 76.— On " Objects of Rhopographia," vide Welcker ad Philostr.
Imag. p. 397.
(1U) p. 76.— Vitrav. Lib. vii. cap. 5 (T. ii. p. 91).
(1K) p. 76.— Hirt, Gesch. der bildenden Kiinste bei den Alten, 1833, S.
332 ; Letronne, p. 262 and 468.
(1I3) p. 76. — Ludius qui primus (?) instituit amoenissimam parietum pictu-
ram (Plin. xxxv. 10). The topiaria opera of Pliny, and varietates topiorum
of Vitruvius, were small landscape decorative paintings. The passage of
Kalidasa is in the 6th act of Sacontala.
(m) p. 77.— Otfried Miiller, Archaologie der Kunst, 1830, S. 609. Having
before spoken in the text of the paintings found in Pompeii and Herculaneum
as being but little allied to nature in her freedom, I must here notice some
exceptions, which may be considered strictly as landscapes in the modern
sense of the word. See Pitture d' Ercolano, Vol. ii. tab. 45, Vol. iii. tab.
53 ; and, as backgrounds in charming historical compositions, tab. 61,62, and
03, Vol. iv. I do not refer to the remarkable representation in the Monumenti
dell' Institute di Corrispondenza Archeologica, Vol. iii. tab. 9, because its
genuine antiquity is considered doubtful by an archaeologist of much acumen,
Raoul Rochette.
(115) p. 77. — Against the supposition maintained by Du Theil (Voyage en
Italic, par 1'Abbe Barthelemy, p. 284) of Pompeii having still existed in
splendour under Adrian, and not having been completely destroyed until the
end of the fifth century, see Adolph von Hoff, Geschichte der Veranderungen
der Erdoberflache, Th. ii. 1824, S. 195—199.
O16) p. 78.— See Waagen, Kunstwerke und Kiinstler in England und Paris,
Th. iii. 1839, S. 195—201; and particularly S. 217—224, where he describes
the celebrated Psalter of the Paris Bibliotheque (of the tenth century), which
NOTES. XXI
•hews how long the "antique mode of composition" maintained itself in Con-
stantinople. I was indebted, at the time of my public lectures in 1828, to
the kind and valuable communications of this profound connoisseur of art
(Professor Waagen, Director of the Gallery of Paintings of my native city),
for interesting notices on the history of art after the time of the Roman
empire. What I afterwards wrote on the gradual development 01 landscape
painting, I communicated in the winter of 1835, in Dresden, to the distin-
guished and lamented author of the Italienischen Forschungen, Baron von
Rumohr ; and I received from him a great number of historical illustrations,
which he gave me permission to publish entire in case the form oi my work
should permit.
(117) p. 78. — Waagen, in the work above referred to, Th. i. 1837, S. 59 ;
Th. iii. 1839, S. 352—359.
(118) p. 79. — " Already Pinturicchio painted rich and well-composed land-
scapes in the Belvidere ot the Vatican as independent decorations. He
influenced Raphael, in whose paintings many landscape peculiarities cannot be
traced to Perugino. In Pinturicchio and his friends we also already find those
singular pointed forms of mountains which, in your lectures, you were inclined
to derive from the Tyrolese dolomitic cones, which Leopold von Buch has
rendered so celebrated, and by which travelling artists might have become
impressed in the transit between Italy and Germany. I rather believe that
these conical forms in the earliest Italian landscapes must be regarded either
as very old conventional mountain forms, in antique bas-reliefs and mosaic
works, or as unskilfully foreshortened views of Soracte and similarly isolated
mountains in the Campagna of Rome" (from a letter addressed to me by Carl
Friedrich von Rumohr, in October 1832). To indicate more precisely the
conical and pointed mountains which are here in question, I recal the fanciful
landscape which forms the background in Leonardo da Vinci's universally
admired picture of Mona Lisa (the wife of Francesco del Giocondo). Among
the artists of the Flemish school, who more particularly formed landscape
into a separate branch, we should name further Patenier's successor, Herry de
Bles, named Civetta from his animal monogram, and subsequently the
brothers Matthew and Paul Bril, who, during their sojourn in Rome, produced
a strong impression in favour of this particular branch of art. In Germany,
Albrecht Altdorfer, Durer's scholar, practised landscape painting even some-
what earlier and more successfully than Patenier.
(n9) p. 80.— Painted for the church of San Giovanni e Paolo at Venice.
(12°) p. 81.— Wilhelm vou Humboldt, gesammelte Werke, Bd. iv. S. 37.
XX11 NOTES.
Compare also, on the different gradations of the life of nature, and on the tone
of mind and feeling awakened by landscape, Carus, in his interesting letters
on landscape painting (Briefen iiber die Landschaftmalerei, 1831, S. 45).
C121) p. 81. — We find concentrated in the seventeenth century the works of
Johann Breughel, 1569—1625 ; Rubens, 1577—1640 ; Domenichino,
1581—1641 ; Philippe de Champaigne, 1602—1674 ; Nicolas Poussin,
1594—1655 ; Gaspar Poussin (Dughet), 1613 — 1675 ; Claude Lorraine
1600—1682; Albert Cuyp, 1606— 1672; Jan Both, 1610— 1650; Salvator
Rosa, 1615—1673; Everdingen, 1621—1675; Nicolaus Berghem, 1624—
1683 ; Swanevelt, 1620—1690 ; Ruysdael, 1635—1681 ; Minderhoot
Hobbema, Jan Wynants, Adriaen van deVelde, 1639—1672 ; Carl Dujardin,
1644—1687.
(122) p. 81. — An old picture of Cima da Conegliano, of the school of Bellino
(Dresdner Gallerie, 1835, No. 40), has some extraordinarily fanciful represen-
tations of date palms with a knob in the middle of the leafy crown.
(123) p. 82.— Dresdner Gallerie, No. 917.
O p. 83. — Franz Post, or Poost, was born at Harlem, m 1620, and died
there in 1680. His brother likewise accompanied Count Maurice of Nassau
as architect. Of the paintings, some representing the banks ot the Amazons
are to be seen in the picture gallery at Schleisheim, and others at Berlin,
Hanover, and Prague. The engravings (in Barlaus, Reise des Prinsen Moritz
von Nassau, and in the royal collection of copperplate prints at Berlin) evi-
dence a fine sense of natural character in the form of the coast, the shape and
nature of the ground, and the aspect of vegetation, as displayed in musacse,
cactuses, palms, different species of ficus with board-like excrescences at the
foot of the stem, rhizophoras, and arborescent grasses. The picturesque
Brazilian series of views terminates singularly enough with a German forest of
pineasters surrounding the castle of Dillenburg (Plate Iv.) The remark in the
text (p. 82), on the influence which the establishment of botanic gardens in
Upper Italy, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, may have exercised
on the knowledge of the physiognomy of tropical forms of vegetation, induces
me to recal in this note that, in the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus, who
was equally active and influential in promoting natural knowledge and the
study of the Aristotelian philosophy, possessed a hothouse in the convent of
the Dominicans at Cologne. This celebrated man, who had already fallen
under the suspicion of sorcery on account of his speaking machine, entertained
the King of the Romans, Wilhelm of Holland, on the 6th of January, 1249, in
a large space in the convent-garden, where he kept up an agreeable warmth, and
NOTES. XX1U
preserved fruit trees and plants in flower throughout the winter. We find the
account of this banquet exaggerated into a tale of wonder in the Chronica
Joannis de Beta, written in the middle of the 14th century (Beka et Heda de
Episcopis Ultrajectenis, recogn. ab Arn. Buchelio, 1643, p. 79 ; Jourdain,
Kecherches critiques sur 1'Age des Traductions d'Aristote, 1819, p. 331 :
Buhle, Gesch. der Philosophic, Th. v. S. 296). Although some remains dis-
covered in the excavations at Pompeii shew that the ancients made use of
panes of glass, yet nothing has yet been found to indicate the use of glass or
forcing houses in ancient horticulture. The conduction of heat by the cal-
daria in baths might have led to an arrangement of artificially warmed places
for growing or forcing plants ; but the shortness of the Greek and Italian
winters no doubt rendered such arrangements less necessary. The Adonis
gardens (KTJTTOI ASwrtSos), so indicative of the meaning of the festival of
Adonis, consisted, according to Bockh, of plants in small pots, which were
no doubt intended to represent the garden where Aphrodite and Adonis met.
Adorns was the symbol of the quickly fading flower of youth — of all that
flourishes luxuriantly and perishes rapidly ; and the festivals which bore his
name, the celebration of which was accompanied by the lamentations of
women, were amongst those in which the ancients had reference to the decay
of nature. I have spoken in the text of hothouse plants as contrasted with
those which grow naturally ; the ancients used the term " Adonis-gardens"
proverbiaDy, to express something which had sprung up rapidly, but gave no
promise of full maturity or substantial duration. The plants, which were not
many coloured flowers, but lettuce, fennel, barley, and wheat, were not forced
in winter, but in summer, being made to grow by artificial means in an un-
usually short space of time, viz. in eight days. Creuzer (Symbolik und
Mythologie, 1841, Th. ii. S. 427, 430, 479, and 481) supposes that the
growth of the plants of the Adonis garden was accelerated by the application
both of strong natural and artificial heat in the room in which they were
placed. The garden of the Dominican convent at Cologne recals the Green-
land (?) convent of St. Thomas, where the garden was kept free from snow
during the winter, being constantly warmed by natural hot springs, as is told
by the brothers Zeni, in the account of their travels (1388 — 1404), the
geographical locality of which is, however, very problematical. (Compare
Zurla, Viaggiatori Veneziani, T. ii. p. 63—69 ; and Humboldt, Examen
critique de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 127.) Regular hothouses seem
to have been of very late introduction in our botanic gardens. Ripe pine-
apples were first obtained at the end of the seventeenth century (Beckmann,
XXIV NOTES.
Geschichte der Erfindungen, Bd. iv. S. 287) ; and Linnaeus even asserts, fn
the Musa Cliffortiana florens Hartecampi, that the first banana which flowered
in Europe was at Vienna, in the garden of Prince Eugene, in 1731.
t125) p. 83. — These views of tropical vegetation, illustrative of the " phy-
siognomy of plants," form, in the Royal Museum at Berlin (in the department
of miniatures, drawings, and engravings), a treasure of art which, for its
peculiarity and picturesque variety, is as yet without a parallel in any other
collection. The sheets edited by the Baron von Kittlitz are entitled, " Vege-
tations Ansichten der Kiistenlander und Inseln des stillen Oceans, aufgenom-
men 1827— -1829 auf der Entdeckungs-reise der kais. russ. Corvette Senjawin,
(Siegen, 1844). There is also great truth to nature in the drawings of Carl
Bodmer, which are engraved in a masterly manner, and illustrate the great
work of the travels of Prince Maximilian zu Wied in the interior of North
America.
(126) p. 88.— Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 1826, Bd. i.
S. 7, 16, 21, 36, and 42. Compare also two very instructive memoirs, Friedrich
von Martius, Physionomie des Pflanzenreicb.es in Brasilien, 1824, and M. von
Olfers, allgemeine Uebersicht von Brasilien, in Feldners Reisen, 1828, Bd. r.
S. 18—23.
(127) p. 94.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his Briefwechsel mit Schiller,
1830, S. 470.
(128) p. 95. — Diodor. ii. 13. He however gives to the celebrated gardens
of Semiramis a circumference of only twelve stadia. The district near the
pass of Bagistanos is still called the " bow or circuit of the garden" — Tauk-i-
bostan (Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Grossen, 1833, S. 553).
(129) p. 95. — In the Schahnameh of Firdusi it is said, "a slender cypress,
sprung from Paradise, did Zerdusht plant before the gate of the temple of fire"
(at Kishmeer in Khorasan). " He had written on the tall cypress tree, that
Gushtasp had embraced the true faith, that the slender tree was a testimony
thereof, and that thus did God extend righteousness. When many years had
passed over, the tall cypress became so large that the hunter's cord could not
go ro^ad its circumference. When its top was furnished with many branches,
he encompassed it with a palace of pure gold and caused it to be said
abroad in the world, Where is there on the earth a cypress like that of
Kishmeer ? God sent it me from Paradise, and said, Bow thyself from thence
to Paradise." (When the Caliph Motewekkil had the sacred cypresses of
the Magians cut down, this one was said to be 1450 years old.) Compare
Yuller's Fragmente iiber die Religion des Zoroaster, 1831, S. 71 and 114;
NOTES. XXV
ind Hitter, Erdkunde, Th. vi., 1. S. 242. The cypress (m Arabic arar wood,
in Persian serw kohi) appears to be originally a native of the mountains of
Busih, west of Herat (vide Geographic d'Edrisi, traduit par Jaubert, 1836,
T. i. p. 464).
(iso) p> 95._Achill. Tat. i. 25; Longus, Past. iy. p. 108, Schafer.
" Gesenius (Thes. Linguae Hebr. T. ii. p. 1124) suggests, very justly, the view
that the word Paradise belonged originally to the ancient Persian language,
but that its use has been lost in the modern Persian. Firdusi, although his
own name was taken from it, usually employs only the word behischt ; the
ancient Persian origin of the word is, however, expressly witnessed by Pollux,
in the Onomast. ix. 3, and by Xenophon, (Econ. 4, 13, and 21 ; Anab. i. 2,
7, and i. 4, 10; Cyrop. i. 4, 5. In the sense of 'pleasure-garden' or
'garden,' the word was probably transferred from the Persian into the
Hebrew (pardes, Cant. iv. 13 ; Nehem. ii. 8 ; and Eccl. ii. 5), into the Arabic
{firdaus, plur. faradisu, compare Alcoran, xxiii. 11, and Luc. 23, 43), into
the Syrian and Armenian (paries, vide Ciakciak, Dizionario Armeno, 1837,
p. 1194 ; and Schroder, Thes. Ling. Armen. 1711, prsef. p. 56). The deriva-
tion of the Persian word from the Sanscrit (pradesa or paradesa, circuit, or
district, or foreign land), noticed by Benfey (Griech.Wurzellexikon, Bd. i. 1839,
S. 138), and previously by Bohlen and Gesenius, suits perfectly well in form,
but only indifferently in sense." — Buschmann.
(131) p. 96.— Herod, vii. 31 (between Kallatebus and Sardes).
(132) p. 96.- Hitter, Erdkunde, Th. iv. 2. S. 237, 251, and 681; Lassen,
indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 260.
(133) p. 96. — Pausanius, i. 21, 9. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, in
Meursii Opp. ex recensione Joann. Lami, Vol. x. Florent. 1753, p. 777—844.
(134) p. 97. — Notice historique sur leg Jardins des Chinois, in the Memoires
concernant les Chinois, T. viii. p. 309.
(135) p. 97.— Idem, p. 318—320.
(136) p. 97. — Sir Georgfr.Staunton, Account of the Embassy of the Earl of
Macartney to China, Vol. ii. p. 245.
(137) p. 97.— Fiirst v. Piickler-Muskau, Andeutungen iiber Landschafts-
gartnerei, 1834. See also hia Picturesque Descriptions of the Old and New-
English Parks, as well as that of the Egyptian Garden of Schubra.
(138) p. 98.— Eloge de la Ville de Moukden, Poeme compose par 1'Empe-
reur Kien-long, traduit uar le P. Amiot, 1770, p. 18, 22—25, 37, 63—68,
73—87, 104, and 120.
i139) p. 99. — M£moire» fionccraaat les Chinois, T. ii. p. 643—650.
XXVI NOTES.
f140) p. 99. — Ph. Fr. von Siebold, Rruidkundige Naamlijst van japansche en
ehineesche Planten, 1844, p. 4. How great a difference between the variety
cf vegetable forms cultivated for so many centuries past in Eastern Asia, and
the comparative poverty of the list given by Columella,inhispoemde Cultn
Hortorum (v. 95—105, 174—176, 255—271, 295—306), and to which the
celebrated garland- weavers of Athens were confined ! It was not until the
time of the Ptolemies, that in Egypt, and particularly in Alexandria, some-
what greater pains were taken by the more skilful gardeners to obtain variety,
particularly for winter cultivation. (Compare Athen. v. p. 196.)
(M1) p. 101.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 50—57 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 43—49).
(142) p. 107.— Niebuhr, rom. Geschichte, Th. i. S. 69; Droysen, Gesch.
der Bildung des hellenistischen Staatensystems, 1843, S. 31—34, 567—
573 ; Fried. Cramer de studiis quse veteres ad aliarum gentium contulerint
linguas, 1844, p. 2— .13.
(143) p. 109. — In Sanscrit, rice is vrihi, cotton karpdsa, sugar 'sarkara,
8nd nard nanartha; vide Lassen, indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. 1843, S.
245, 250, 270, 289, and 538. On 'sarlcara and kanda (whence our sugar-
candy), see my Prolegomena de distributione geographica plantarum, 1817,
p. 211 : — " Confudisse videntur veteres saccharum verum cum Tebaschiro
Bambusffi, turn quia utraque in arundinibus inveniuntur, turn etiam quia vox
sanscradana scharkara, qua? hodie (ut pers. schakar et hindost. schukur) pro
aaccharo nostro adhibetur, observante Boppio, ex auctoritate Amarasinhse,
proprie nil dulce (madu) significat, sed qiiicquid lapidosum et arenaceum est,
ac vel calculum vesica?. Verisimile igitur, vocem scharkara initio dumtaxat
tebaschirum (saccar mombu) indicasse, posterius in saccharum nostrum humi-
lioris arundinis (ikschu, kandekschu, kanda) ex similitudine aspectus transla-
tarn esse. Vox Bambusae ex mambu derivatur ; ex kanda nostratium voces
candis zuckerkand. In tebaschiro agnoscitur Persarum schir, h. e. lac,
sanscr. kschiram." The Sanscrit name for tabaschir (see Lassen, Bd. i. S.
271—274) is tvakkschira, bark milk; milk from the bark (tvatsch). Com-
pare also Pott, Kurdische Studien in der Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Mor-
genlandes, Bd. vii. S. 163 — 166, and the able discussion by Carl Hitter, in
his Erdkunde von Asien, Bd. vi. 2, S. 232—237.
O44) p. 112.— Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Bd. i. 1843, S. 332—
334 ; Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 528. Compare Rodiger, in
the Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, B. iii. S. 4, on Chaldeans
and Kurds, which latter Strabo terms Kyrti.
(14S) p. 112. — Bordj, the watershed of Ormuzd, nearly where the chain
NOTES. XXV11
of the Thian-schan (or heaven mountains), at its western termination, abuts
against the Bolor (Belur-tagh), or rather intersects it, under the name of the
Asferah chain, north of the highland of Pamer (Upa-Meru, or country above
Meru). Compare Burnouf, Commentaire sur le Yacna, T. i. p. 239, and
Addit. p. clxxxv. with Humboldt, Asie centrale, T. i. p. 163, T. ii. pp. 16,
377, and 390.
(146) p. 112.— Chronological data for Egypt:—" Menes, 3900 B. c. at
least, and probably tolerably exact; — commencement of the 4th dynasty
(comprising the Pyramid builders, Chephren-Schafra, Cheops-Chufu, and
Mykerinos or Memkera), 3430 ; — invasion of the Hyksos under the 12th
dynasty, to which belongs Amenemha III. the builder of the original Laby-
rinth, 2200. A thousand years at least before Menes, and probably still
more, must be allowed for the gradual growth of a civilisation which had
reached its completion, and had in part become fixed, at least 3430 years be-
fore our era." — (Lepsius, in several letters to myself, in March 1846, after
his return from his memorable expedition.) Compare also Bunsen's consi-
derations on the commencement of Universal History, (which, strictly speak-
ing, does not include the earliest history of mankind), in his ingenious and
learned work, ^gyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1845, 1st book, S.
11 — 13. The history and regular chronology of the Chinese go back to
2400, and even to 2700, before our era, much beyond Ju to Hoang-ty.
There are many literary monuments of the 13th century B. c. ; and in the
12th, Thscheu-li records the measurement of the length of the solstitial sha-
dow by Tscheu-kung, in the town of Lo-yang, south of the Yellow River,
which is so exact that Laplace found it quite accordant with the theory of the
alteration of the obliquity of the ecliptic, which was only propounded at the
close of the last century ; so that there can be no suspicion of a fictitious
measurement obtained by calculating back. See Edouard Biot sur la Consti-
tution politique de la Chine au 12eme siecle avant notre ere (1845), pp. 3
and 9. The building of Tyre and of the original temple of Melkarth, the
Tyrian Hercules, would reach back to 2760 years before our era, according
to the account which Herodotus received from the priests (II. 44). Compare
also Heeren, Ideen iiber Politik und Verkehr der Volker, Th. i. 2, 1824,
S. 12. Simplicius, from a notice transmitted by Porphyry, estimates the
antiquity of Babylonian astronomical observations which were known to Aris-
totle at 1903 years before Alexander the Great ; and the profound and cautious
chronologist Ideler considers this datum by no means improbable. Compare
XXVU1 TTOTES.
his Handbuch der Chronologic, Bd. i. S. 207 ; the Abhandlungen der Ber-
liiier Akad. auf das J. 1814, S. 217 ; and Bockh, metrol. Untersuohungen
iiber die Masse des Alterthnms, 1838, S. 36. It is a question still wrapped
in obscurity, whether there is historic ground in India earlier than 1200
B. c., according to the Chronicles of Kashmeer (Radjatarangini, trad, par
Troyer), while Megasthenes (Indica, ed. Schwanbeck, 1846, p. 50) reckons
from 60 to 64 centuries from Manu to Chandragupta, for 153 kings of the
dynasty of Magadha ; and the astronomer Aryabhatta places the beginning of
his Chronology 3102 B. c. (Lasseu, ind. Alterthumsk. Bd. i. S. 473, 505,
507, and 510). For the purpose of rendering the numbers contained in this
note more significant in respect to the history of civilization, it may not be
superfluous to recal, that the destruction of Troy is placed 1184 — Homer
1000 or 950 — and Cadmus the Milesian, the first historical writer among the
Greeks, 524 years before our era. This comparison of epochs shews how
unequally the desire for an exact record of events and enterprises made itself
felt among the nations most highly susceptible of culture : it reminds us in-
voluntarily of the sentence which Plato, in the Timseus, places in the mouth
of the priests of Sais : " 0 Solon, Solon ! you Greeks still remain ever chil*
dren ; nowhere in Hellas is there an aged man. Your souls are ever youth-
ful ; you have in them no knowledge of antiquity, no ancient faith, no wisdom
grown hoar by age."
C47) p. 112.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 92 and 160 (Engl. ed. Vol. i.
p. 79 and 144).
(148) p. 112.— Wilhelm von Humboldt iiber eine Episode des Maha-Bha-
rata, in his Gesammelten Werken, Bd. i. S. 73.
O p. 116.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 309 and 351 (Eng. ed. Vol. i. p. 283 and
822) ; Asie centrale, T. iii. p. 24 and 143.
(15°) p. 117.— Plato, Pheedo, pag. 109, B. (compare Herod, ii. 21). Cleo-
medes also depressed the surface of the earth in the middle to receive the
Mediterranean (Voss, krit. Blatter, Bd. ii. 1828, S. 144 and 150).
(151) p. 117. — I first developed this idea in my Rel. hist, du voyage aux
regions equinoxiales, T. iii. p. 236 ; and in the Examen crit. de 1'hist. de la
geogr. an 15eme siecle, T. i. p. 36—38. Compare also Otfried Miiller, in
the Gottingischen gelehrten Anzeigen, 1838, Bd. i. S. 375. The western-
most basin, to which I apply the general name of Tyrrhenian, includes, ac-
cording to Strabo, the Iberian, Ligurian, and Sardinian seas. The Syrtic
basin, east of Sicily, includes the Ausonian or Siculian, the Lybian, and the
Ionian seas. The southern and south-western part of the ./Egean sea was
NOTES. XXIX
called Cretic, Saronic, and Myrtoic. The remarkable passage in Aristot. de
Mundo, cap. iii. (pag. 393, Bekk.) relates merely to the sinuous form of the
coasts of the Mediterranean, and its effect on the inflowing ocean.
(152) p. 118.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 253 and 454 (Engl. ed. Vol. i. p. 231,
Note 233).
(153) p. 119.— Humboldt, Asie centrale, T. i. p. 6?. The two remarkable
passages of Strabo are the following : — " Eratosthenes names three, and Poly-
bins five points of projecting land in which Europe terminates. The penin-
sulas named by Eratosthenes are, first, the one which extends to the pillars
of Hercules, to which Iberia belongs ; next, that which terminates at the
Sicilian straits, on which is Italy ; and thirdly, that which extends to Malea,
and contains all the nations between the Adriatic, the Euxine, and the
Tanais." — (lib. ii. p. 109.) " We begin with Europe because it is of irregu-
lar form, and is the part of the world most favourable to the ennoblement
of men and of citizens. It is every where habitable, except some lands near
the Tanais, which are desert on account of the cold." — (Lib. ii. pag. 126.)
(1M) p. 119.— Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen mid Romer, Th. i. Abth. 3,
S. 345—348, and Th. ii. Abth. 1, S. 194 ; Johannes v. Muller, Werke, Bd.
i. S. 38 ; Humboldt, Examen critique, T. i. pp. 112 and 171 ; Otfried Muller,
Minyer, S. 64 ; and the same in a critical notice (only too kind) of my me-
moir on the Mythic Geography of the Greeks (Gott. gclehrte Anzeigen, 1838,
Bd. i. S. 372 and 383). I expressed myself generally thus : — "En soulevant
des questions qui offriraient deja de 1'importance dans 1'interet des etudes
philologiques, je n'ai pu gagner sur moi de passer entitlement sous silence oe
qui appartient moins a la description du monde reel qu'au cycle de la geogra-
phic mythique. H en est de 1'espace comme du terns ; on ne sauroit traiter
1'histoire sous un point de vue philosophique, en ensevelissant dans un oubli
absolu les terns hero'iques. Les mythes des peuples, meles a 1'histoire et a la
geographic, ne sont pas en entier du domaine du monde ideal. Si le vague
est un de leurs traits distinctifs, si le symbole y couvre la realite d'un voile
plus ou moins epais, les mythes intimement lies entr'eux, n'en re'velent pas
moins la souche antique des premiers aper9us de cosmographie et de phy-
sique. Les faits de 1'histoire et de la geographic primitives ne sont pas seule-
ment d'ingenieuses fictions, les opinions qu'on s'est formees sur le monde
reel s'y refletent." The great investigator of antiquity, whom I have named,
whose early death on the soil of Greece, to which he devoted such profound
and varied research, has been universally lamented, thought, on the contrary,
hat, " in the poetic idea of the earth, such as it appears in Greek poetry, the
XXX NOTES.
chief part is by no meaus to be ascribed to the results of actual experience,
invested by credulity and the love of the marvellous, with a fabulous appear-
ance, (as is supposed to have been particularly the case in the maritime legends
of the Phoenician sailors) ; we should, on the contrary, seek the bases of the
imaginary picture rather in certain ideal presuppositions and requirements of
the feelings, on which a tn^ geographical knowledge has only gradually
begun to work. From this there has often resulted the interesting phenome-
non, that purely subjective creations of a fancy working under the guidance
of certain ideas, pass almost imperceptibly into real countries, and well-
known objects of scientific geography. We may infer from these considera-
tions, that all pictures of the imagination, either mythical or arrayed in
mythical forms, belong, in their proper groundwork, to an ideal world, and
have no original connexion with the actual extension of the knowledge of the
earth, or of navigation beyond the pillars of Hercules." The opinion ex-
pressed by me in the French work was more accordant with the earlier views
of Otfried Miiller, for in the Prolegomenon zu einer wissenschaftlichen My-
thologie, S. 68 and 109, he said very distinctly, that, "in mythical narra-
tives, what is done and what is imagined, the real and the ideal, are most
often closely combined with each other." Compare also, on the Atlantis and
Lyktonia, Martin, Etudes sur le Timee de Platon, T. i. p. 293—326.)
(155) p. 120.— Naxos by Ernst Curtius, 1846, S. 11; Droysen, Geschichte
der Bildung des hellenistischen Staatensystems, 1843, S. 4 — 9.
(156) p. 121. — Leopold von Buch iiber die geognostischen Systeme von
Deutschland, S. xi. ; Humboldt, Asie centrale, T. i. p. 284—286.
(157) p. 121.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. Note 389).
(158) p. 122. — All relating to Egyptian chronology and history (from p.
122 to p. 125), which is distinguished by marks of quotation, rests on manu-
script communications received from my friend Professor Lepsius, in March
1846.
(159) p. 122.— -With Otfried Miiller, I place the Doric immigration into
the Peloponnesus 328 years before the first Olympiad (Dorier, Abth. ii. S.
436.)
O p. 123. — Tac. Annal. ii. 59. In the Papyrus of Sallier (Campagnes
de Sesostris), Champollion found the names of the Javani or Jouni and the
Luki (lonians and Lycians?). Compare Bunsen, .ZEgypten, Buch i. S. 60.
(161) p. 124.— Herod, ii. 102 and 103 ; Diod. Sic. i. 55 and 56. Of the
memorial pillars (stelse) or tokens of victory which Ramses Miamoun set up
in the countries which he traversed, three are expressly named by Herodotus
NOTES. XXXI
(ii. 106) — "one in Palestinian Syria, and two in Ionia — on the passage from
the Ephesian territory to Phocsea, and from that of Sardis to Smyrna." A
rock inscription, in which the name of Ramses presents itself several times,
has been found in Syria, near the Lycus, not far from Beirut (Berytus), as
well as another rnder one in the valley of Karabel, near Nymphio, and,
according to Lepsius, on the way from the Ephesian territory to Phocsea.
Lepsius, in the Ann. dell' Institut archeol. Vol. x. 1838, p. 12; and in his
letter from Smyrna, Dec. 1845, published in the archaologischen Zeitung,
Mai 1846, No. 41, S. 271—280. Kiepert, in idem, 1843, No. 3, S. 35.
The now rapidly advancing discoveries in archaeology and phonetic languages
will hereafter decide whether, as Heeren believes (Geschichte der Staaten des
Alterthums, 1828, S. 76), the great conqueror penetrated as far as Persia and
Hindostan, " as Western Asia did not then as yet contain any great empire"
(the building of Assyrian Nineveh is placed only in 1230 B.C.). Strabo (lib.
xvi. p. 760) speaks of a memorial pillar of Sesostris near the Strait of Deire,
now called Bab-el-Mandeb. It is, however, also very probable, that in " the
old kingdom," above 900 years before Ramses Miamoun, Egyptian kings
may have made similar military expeditions into Asia. It was under the
Pharaoh Setos II. the second successor of the great Ramses Miamoun, and
belonging to the 19th dynasty, that Moses went out of Egypt, according to
Lepsius about 1300 years before our era.
(162) p. 125. — According to Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny ; but not accord-
ing to Herodotus. See Letronne, in the Revue des deux Mondes, 1841, T.
xxvii. p. 219 ; and Droysen, Bildung des hellenist. Staatensystems, S. 735.
(163) p. 125. — To the important opinions of Rennell, Heeren, and Sprengel,
which are favourable to the reality of the circumnavigation of Lybia, we must
now add that of a profound philologist, Etienne Quatremere (Memoires de
1'Acad. des Inscriptions, T. xv. P. 2, 1845, p. 380—388). The most con-
vincing argument for the truth of the account given by Herodotus (iv. 42)
appears to me 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
sun on their right hand" In the Mediterranean, in sailing from east to
west, the sun at noon was always seen to the left only. It would seem as if
a more accurate knowledge of the possibility of such a navigation had existed
in Egypt previous to the time of Neku II. (Nechos), as Herodotus makes him
distinctly command the Phoenicians " to make their return to Egypt by the
Pillars of Hercules." It is singular that Strabo, who (lib. ii. p. 98), discussei
at such length the attempted circumnavigation of Eudoxus of Cyzicus under
XXX11 NOTES.
Cleopatra, and mentions fragments of a ship from Gadeira found on the
Ethiopian (eastern) coast, declares the accounts given of earlier circumnaviga-
tions actually accomplished to be Bergaii fables (lit), ii. p. 100) ; but he by
no means denies the possibility of the circumnavigation itself (lib. i. p. 38),
and affirms that from the east to the west there is but little remaining wanting
to its completion (lib. i. p. 5). Strabo did not at all concur in the extraordi-
nary isthmus-hypothesis of Hipparchus and Marinus of Tyre, according to
which Eastern Africa joined on to the south-east end of Asia, making thv
Indian Ocean a Mediterranean Sea (Humboldt, Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de
la Geographic, T. i. p. 139—142, 145, 161, and 229 ; T. ii. p. 370—373).
Strabo quotes Herodotus, but does not name Nechos, whose expedition he
altogether confounds with one directed by Darius round Southern Persia and
Arabia (Herod, iv. 44). Gosselin has even proposed, with too great boldness,
to change the reading from Darius to Nechos. A counterpart for the horses'
head of the ship of Gadeira, which Eudoxus is said to have exhibited in a
market-place in Egypt, may be found in the remains of a ship of the Red Sea,
brought to the coast of Crete by westerly currents, according to the account
of a very trustworthy Arabian historian (Masudi, in the Morudj-al-dzeheb,
Quatremere, p. 389, and Reinaud, Relation des Voyages dans 1'Inde, 1845,
T. i. p. xvi. and T. ii. p. 46).
(1W) p. 125.— Diod. lib. i. cap. 67, 10; Herodotus, ii. 154, 178, and 182.
On the probability of intercourse between Egypt and Greece before the time
of Psammetichus, see the ingenious observations of Ludwig Ross, in Helle-
nika, Bd. i. 1846, S. v. and x. "In the times immediately preceding Psam-
metichus," says the last named writer, " there was in both countries a period
of internal disorder, which could not but entail a diminution and partial
interruption of intercourse.
(m) p. 126. — Bockh, metrologische TJntersuchungen iiber Gewichte,
Munzfiisse und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhang, 1838, S. 12
und 273.
(166) p. 126.— See the passages collected in Otfried Muller's Minyer, S.
115, and in his Dorier, Abth. i. S. 129; Franz, Elementa Epigraphices
Grseca3, 1840, p. 13, 32, and 34.
(167) p. 127.— Lepsius, in his important memoir, iiber die Anordnung und
Verwandtschaft des semitischen, indischen, alt-persiscben, alt-aegyptischen
und sethiopischen Alphabets, 1836, S. 23, 28 und 57 ; Gesenius, Scripturae
Phoenicia? Mouumenta, 1837, p. 17.
(168) p. 128— Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 757.
NOTES. XXX1U
O89) p. 128. — It is easier to determine the locality of the " land of tin"
(Britain and the Scilly Islands) than that of the " amber coast ;" for it
seems to me very improbable that the old Greek denomination Kao-ffiTfgoi,
which was in use even in the Homeric times, is to be derived from a stanni-
ferous mountain in the south-west of Spain, called Mount Cassius, and which
Avieuus, who was well acquainted with the country, placed between Gaddir
and the mouth of a small southern Iberus (Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen und
Romer, Theil ii. Abth. i. S. 479). Kassiteros is the ancient Indian Sanscrit
word kasttra. Zinn in German, den in Icelandic, tin in English, and tenn in
Swedish, is in the Malay and Javanese language, timah ; a similarity of sound
which reminds us of that of the old German word glessum (the name given
to transparent amber) to the modern " glas," glass. The names of articles of
commerce pass from nation to nation, and become adopted into the most
different languages (see above, p. 109, and Note 143.) Through the inter-
course which the Phoenicians, by means of their factories in the Persian Gulf,
maintained with the east coast of India, the Sanscrit work kastira, expressing
a most useful product of further India, and still existing among the old
Aramaic idioms in the Arabian word kasdir, became known to the Greeks
even before Albion and the British Cassiterides had been visited (Aug. Wilh.
v. Schlegel, in the indischen Bibliothek, Bd. ii, S. 393 ; Benfey, Indica, S.
307 ; Pott, etymol. Forschungen, Th. ii. S. 414 ; Lassen, indische Alter-
thumskunde, Bd. i. S. 239). A name often becomes an historical monument,
and the etymological analysis of languages, which is sometimes ignorantly
derided, is not without its fruit. The ancients were also acquainted with the
existence of tin (one of the rarest metals on the globe) in the country of the
Artabri and the Callaici, in the north-west part of the Iberian continent
(Strabo, lib. iii. p. 147 ; PKn. xxxiv. c. 16) ; nearer of access, therefore, for
navigators from the Mediterranean than the Cassiterides (CEstrymnides of
Avienus). When I was in Galicia, in 1799, before embarking for the
Canaries, mining operations were still carried on, on a very poor scale, in the
graflitic mountains (see my Rel. hist. T. i. p. 51 and 53). The occurrence of
tin in this locality is of some geological importance, on account of the former
connection of Galieia, the peninsula of Brittany, and Cornwall.
(17°) p. 128.— Etienne Quatremere, Me'in. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. T. XT.
P. ii. 1845, p. 363—370.
(171) p. 128.— The early expressed opinion (Heinzea's neues Kielische*
Magazin, Th. ii. 1?87, S. 339 ; Sprengei, Gesch. der geogr. Entdeckungen,
1792 ; S. 51 ; Voss, krit. Blatter, Bd. ii. S. 392—403) is now gaining
VOL. 11. 2 D
xxxiv
NOTES.
ground, that the amber was brought by sea, at first only from the west Cinv
brian coast, and that it reached the Mediterranean chiefly by land, being
brought across the intervening countries by means of inland traffic and barter.
The most thorough and acute investigation of this subject is contained in
Ukert's memoir iiber das Electrum, in der Zeitschrift fur Alterthumswissen-
schaft, Jahr. 1838, No. 52—55. (Compare with it the same author's Geo-
graphic der Griechen und Romer, Th. ii. Abth. ii. 1832, S. 26 — 36, Th. iii.
i. 1843, S. 86, 175, 182, 320, and 349.) The Massilians, who, according to
Heeren, penetrated, after the Phoenicians, as far as the Baltic, under Pytheas,
hardly went beyond the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. The amber
islands (Glessaria, also called Austrania) are placed by Pliny (iv. 16) de-
cidedly west of the Cimbrian promontory in the German Sea ; and the con-
nection with the expedition of Germanicus sufficiently shews that an island in
the Baltic is not meant. Moreover, the effects of the ebb and flood tides in
the estuaries which throw up amber, where, according to the expression of
Servius, " mare vicissim turn accedit, turn recedit," suits the coasts between
the Helder and the Cimbrian peninsula, but does not suit the Baltic, in which
Timseus places the island of Baltia (Plin. xxxviL 2). Abalus, a day's journey
from an sestuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurische Nehrung. On the
voyage of Pytheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the amber trade
along the whole coast of Skagen, as far as the Netherlands, see also
Weiiauff, Vidrag til den nordiscke Ravhandels Historie (Copenh. 1835).
Tacitus, not Pliny, is the first writer acquainted with the glessum of the
shores of the Baltic, in the land of the JSstyans (2Estuorum gentium) and the
Venedi, concerning whom the great ethnologist Schaffarik (slawische Alter-
thumer, Th. i. S. 151 — 165), is uncertain whether they were Slavonians or
Germans. The more active direct connection with the Samland coast of the
Baltic, and with the ^Estyans by means of the overland route through
Pannonia, by Carnuntum, which was opened by a Roman knight under Nero,
appears to me to have belonged to the later times of the Roman Ceesars
(Voigt, Gesch. Preussen's, Bd. i. S. 85.) The relations between the Prustian
coasts and the Greek colonies on the Black Sea are evidenced by fine coins,
struck probably before the 85th Olympiad, which have been recently found ia
the Netz district (Lewezow, in den Abhandl. der fieri. Akad. der Wiss. aua
dcm Jahr 1833, S. 181—224). No doubt the amber stranded or buried on
coasts (Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2), — the electron, the sun stone of the very ancient
mythus of the Eridanus, — came to the so'ith, both by land and by sea, from
veiy different districts. The " amber dug up at two places in Scythia was
ffCTES. XXXV
m part very dark coloured." Amber is still collected near Kaltschedansk,
not far from Kamensk, on the Ural ; fragments imbedded in lignite were
given to us in Katharinenburg. See G. Rose, Reise nach dem Ural, Bd. i.
S. 481 ; and Sir Roderick Murchison, in the Geology of Russia, Vol. i. p.
866. The fossil wood which often surrounds the amber had early attracted
the attention of the ancients. This resin, which was at that time so highly
valued, was ascribed to the black poplar (according to the Chian Scymnus, v.
396, p. 367, Letronne), or to a tree of the cedar or pine kind (according to
Mithridates, in Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2 and 3). The recent excellent investiga-
tions of Prof. Goppert, at Breslau, have shewn that the conjecture of the
Roman collector was the more correct. Respecting the fossil amber tree
(Pinites succinifer) belonging to an earlier vegetation, compare Kosmos, Bd. i.
S. 298 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 273) and Berendt, organische Reste im Bern-
stein, Bd. i. Abth. i. 1845, S. 89.
p) p. 129.— Respecting the Chremetes, see Aristot. Meteor, lib. i. p. 350,
Bekk. ; and respecting the southern stars, of which Hanno makes mention in
his ship's journal, see my Rel. Hist. t. i. p. 172; and Examen Grit, de la
Geogr. t. i. p. 39, 180, and 288; t. iii. p. 135. (Gosselin Recherches sur
la Ge'ogr. System, des Anciens, t. i. p. 94 and 98 ; Ukert, Th. i. S. 61-66.)
C'3) p. 129.— Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 826. The destruction of Phoenician
colonies by Nigritians (lib. ii. p. 131) appears to indicate a very southern
locality ; more so, perhaps, than the crocodiles and elephants mentioned by
Hanno, as both these were certainly found north of the desert of Sahara, in
Maurusia, and in the whole western country near the chain of Mount Atlas,
as is plain from Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 827 ; ^Elian de Nat. Anim. vii. 2 ; Plin.
v. 1, and from many occurrences in the wars between Rome and Carthage.
On this important subject, as respects the geography of animals, see Cuvier,
Ossemens fossiles, 2 ed. t. i. p. 74 ; and Quatremere's work, already cited
(Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xv. p. 2, 1845), p. 391—394.)
C"4) p. 130.— Herod, iii. 106.
(175) p. 131.— In another work (Examen Grit. t. i. p. 130—139; t. ii.
p. 158 and 169 ; t. iii. p. 137—140) I have treated in detail this often con-
tested subject, as well as the passages of Diodorus (v. 19 and 20), and of the
Pseudo-Aristot. (Mirab. Auscult. cap. Ixxxv. p. 172, Bekk.) The compila-
tion of the Mirab. Auscult. appears to be older than the end of the first Punic
war, as in cap. cv. p. 21 1, it describes Sardinia as under the dominion of the
Garthaginians. It is also remarkable, that the wood-clothed island men-
tioned in this work is said to be uninhabited, not therefore peopled with
XXXVI NOTES.
Guanches. Guanches inhabited the whole group of the Canary Islands, but
not the island of Madeira, in which no inhabitants were found either by John
Gonxalves and Tristan Vaz in 1519, or at an earlier period by Robert Macham
and Anna Dorset (supposing their romantic story to be historically tme.)
Heeren applies the description of Diodorus to Madeira only, yet he thinks
that in the account of Festus Avienus (v. 164), so conversant with Punic
writings, he can recognise the frequent volcanic earthquakes of the Peak of
Teneriffe. (Vide his Ideen iiber Politik und Handel, Th. II. Abth. 1, 1826,
S. 106.) From the geographical connection, the description of Avienus ap-
pears to me to refer to a more northern locality, perhaps even to the Kronic
sea. (Examen Grit. t. iii. p. 138.) Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii. 15), also
notices the Punic sources which Juba used. Respecting the probability of
the Semitic origin of the name of the Canary Islands (the dog islands of
Pliny's Latin etymology !), see Credner's biblische Vorstellung vom Paradiese,
in Illgen's Zeitschr. fur die historische Theologie, Bd. vi. 1836, S. 166—186.
All that has been written from the most ancient times to the middle ages,
respecting the Canary Islands, has been recently brought together in the
fullest manner by .Toaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, in a work entitled,
Memoria em que se pretende provar que os Arabes n§,o conhecerfto as Cana-
rias antes dos Portuguezes, 1844. Where history, so far as it is founded on
certain and distinctly expressed testimony is silent, there remain only diffe-
rent degrees of probability; but an absolute denial of every fact in the
world's history of which the evidence is not perfectly distinct, appears to me
no happy application of philologic and historic criticism. The many indica-
tions which have come down to us from antiquity, and careful considerations
of the geographical relations of proximity to ancient undoubted settlements on
the African coast, lead me to believe that the Canary group was known to the
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans, and perhaps even to the
Etruscans.
(176) p. J31. — Compare the calculations in my Rel. Hist. t. i. p. 140 and
287. The Peak of Teneriffe is distant 2° 49' of arc from the nearest point of
the African coast. Assuming a mean refraction of 0*08, the summit of the
Peak may therefore be seen from a height of 202 toises, and thus from th«
Montanas Negras, not far from Cape Bqjador. In this calculation the eleva
tion of the Peak above the level of the sea has been taken at 1904 toises. It
has been recently determined trigonometrically by Captain Vidal at 1940
toises, and barometrically by Messrs. Coupvent and Dumoulin (D'Urrille,
Voyage au Pole Sud, Hist. t. i. 1842, P. 31 and 32) at 1900 toises. But
NOTES. XXX VII
Lancerote, with a volcano, la Corona, of 300 toises elevation (Leop. v. Buch,
Canarische Inseln, S. 104), and Fortaventura, are much nearer to the maiu-
*and than Teneriffe : the distance of the first-named island being 1° 15'. and
that of the second!0 2'.
(177) p. 132. — Ross only mentions this assertion as a report. (Hellenika,
Bd. i. S. 11.) May the supposed observation have rested on a mere illusion ?
If we take the elevation of Etna above the sea at 1704 toises (lat. 37° 45'.
long, from Paris 12° 41'), and that of the place of observation, on the
Taygetos (the Elias Mountain), at 1236 toises (lat. 36° 57', long, from Paris
20° 10, and the distance between the two at 352 geographical miles, we have
for the point above Etna, receiving light from it, and being visible on
Taygetos (jr for the cloud perpendicularly above the luminous column of
smoke, and reflecting its light), an elevation of 7612 toises, or 4£ times
greater than that of Etna. But if, as my friend Professor Encke has re-
marked, we might assume the reflecting surface to be that of a cloud placed
nearly intermediately between Etna and Taygetos, then its height above the
sea would only require to be 286 toises.
(178) p. 133.— Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 767, Casaub. According to Polybius,
both the Euxine and the Adriatic could be seen from the Aimon mountains ;
Strabo was already aware of the inadmissibility of such a supposition (lib. vii.
p. 313.) Compare Seymnus, p. 93.
(179) p. 133. — On the synonymes of Ophir, see my Examen Grit, de 1'Hist.
de la Geographic, t. ii. p. 42. Ptolemy, in lib. vi. cap. 7, p. 156, speaks of a
Sapphara, metropolis of Arabia; and in lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 168, of Supara, in
the Gulf of Camboya (Barigazenus sinus, according to Hesychius), " a country
rich in gold" ! Supara signifies in Indian, fair shore (Schonufer.) (Lassen,
Diss. de Tapobrane, p. 18, indische Altersthumkunde, Bd. i. S. 107 ; Keil,
Professor in Dorpat, iiber die Hiram- Salomonische Schiflahrt nach Ophir
und Tarsis, S. 40—45.)
(18°) p. 133. — "Whether ships of Tarshish mean ocean ships, or whether,
as Michaelis contends, they have their name from the Phrenician Tarsus, in
Cilicia? see Keil, S. 7, 15—22, and 71—84.
(181) p. 133. — Gesenius, Thesaurus Linguae Hebr. t. i. p. 141 ; and the
same in the Encycl. of Ersch and Gruber, Sect. III. Th. iv. S. 401 ; Lassen,
ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 538 ; Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits par
les Arabes dans 1'Inde et en Chine, t. i. 1845, p. xxviii. The learned Quatre-
mere, who, in a very recently published treatise (Mem. de 1'Acad. des In«
•eriptions, t. xv. pt. 2, 1845 «. 349—402), again considers, with Heeren,
XXXVlll NOTES.
Ophir to be the east coast of Africa, explains the thukkiim (thukkiyyim) to
mean not peacocks, but parrots, or Guinea-fowls (p. 375.) Respecting Soco-
tora, compare Bohlen, das alte Indien, Th. ii. S. 139, with Benfey, Indien,
S. 30—32. Sofala is described as a country rich in gold by Edrisi (in
Amedee Jaubert's translation, t. i. p. 67), and subsequently by the Portuguese,
after Gama's voyage of discovery (Barros, Dec. I. liv. x. cap. i; P. ii. p. 375 ;
Kiilb, Geschiehte der Entdeckungs reisen, Th. i. 1841, S. 236.) I have called
attention elsewhere to the circumstance that Edrisi, in the middle of the 12th
century, speaks of the employment of quicksilver in the goldwashings made
by the negroes in this country, as a long known practice. Remembering the
great frequency of the interchange of r and 1, we find the name of the east
African Sofala perfectly equivalent to that of Sophara, which is used in the
Septuagint, with several other forms, for the Ophir of Solomon's and Hiram's
fleet. Ptolemy also, as has been noticed above (Note 179), speaks of a Sap-
phara, in Arabia (Ritter, Asien, Bd. viii. 1846, S. 252), and a Supura in India,
The significant Sanscrit names of the mother country had been repeated, or,
as it were, reflected on neighbouring or opposite coasts : we find similar re-
lations in the present day in the Spanish and English Americas. The range
of the trade to Ophir might thus, according to my view, be extended over a
wide space, just as a Phosnician voyage to Tartessus might include touching
at Cyrene and Carthage, Gadeira and Cerne ; and one to the Cassiterides
might embrace the Artabrian, British, and East Cimbrian coasts. It is,
however, remarkable, that we do not find incense, spices, and silk and cotton
cloth, named among the wares from Ophir, together with ivory, apes, and
peacocks. The latter, are exclusively Indian, although, from their gradual
extension to the westward, they were often called by the Greeks " Median
and Persian birds :" the Samians even supposed them to have been originally
belonging to Samos, on account of the peacocks kept by the priests in the
sanctuary of Hera. From a passage in Eustathius (Comm. in Iliad, t. iv>
p. 225, ed. Lips. 1827), on the sacredness of peacocks in Libya, it has been
unduly inferred that the rotas also belonged to Africa.
O p. 999.— See Columbus on Ophir, and el Monte Sopora, " which
Solomon's fleet could only reach in three years," in Navarrete, viages y descu-
brimientos que hicieron los Espafloles, t. i. p. 103. The great discoverer
says elsewhere, still in the hope of reaching Ophir, "the excellence and
power of the gold of Ophir are indescribable ; he who possesses it does what
he wills in this world ; nay, it even avails him to draw souls from purgatory
to paradise" ("llega a que echa las animas al paraiso.") — Carta del Almirante
NOTES. XXXIX
sscrita en la Jamaica, 1503 ; Navarrete, t. i. p. 309. Compare my Examen
Critique, t. i. p. 70, and 109 ; t. ii. p. 38 — 44, and on the proper duration
of the Tarshish voyage, Keil, S. 106.
(183) p. 133. — Ctesise Cnidii Operum Keliquise, ed. Felix Baehr, 1824,
cap. iv. and xii. p. 248, 271, and 300. But the accounts collected hy the
physician at the Persian court from native sources, and therefore not altoge-
ther to he rejected, relate to districts in the north of India, and from these
the gold of the Daradas must have come to Abhira, the mouth of the Indus,
and the coast of Malabar, by many circuitous routes. (Compare my Asie
Centrale, t. i. p. 157, and Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 5.) Is it
not probable that the wonderful story repeated by Ctesias, of an Indian spring,
at the bottom of which malleable iron was found when the fluid gold had run
off, was based on a misunderstood account of a foundry ? The molten iron
was taken for gold from its colour ; and when the yellow colour had disap-
peared in cooling, the black mass of iron was found underneath.
(184) p. 134.— Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. cap. 86 and 111, p. 175 and 225,
Bekk.
(185) p, 135.— Die Etrusker, by Otfried MiUler, Abth. ii. S. 350 ; Niebuhr,
Romische Geschichte, Th. ii. S. 380.
(186) p. 135. — A story was formerly repeated in Germany after Father
Angelo Cortenovis, that the tomb of the hero of Clusium, Lars Porsena,
described by Varro, ornamented with a bronze hat and bronze pendent chains,
was an apparatus for atmospherical electricity, or for conducting lightning ;
(as were, according to Michaelis, the metal points on Solomon's temple;)
but the tale obtained currency at a time when men were much inclined to
attribute to ancient nations the remains of a supernaturally revealed primitive
knowledge which was soon after obscured. The most important ancient notice
of the relations between lightning and conducting metals (a fact not difficult
of discovery), still appears to me to be that of Ctesias (Indica, cap. 4, p. 169,
ed. Lion; p. 248, ed. Baehr). He had possessed two iron swords, presents
from the king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and from his mother Parysatis, which,
when planted in the earth, averted clouds, hail, and strokes of lightning. He
had himself seen the operation, for the king had twice made the experiment
before his eyes." The exact attention paid by the Etruscans to the meteoro-
logical processes of the atmosphere in all that deviated from the ordinary
course of phenomena, makes it certainly to be lamented that nothing has come
down to us from their Fulgural books. The epochs of the appearance of great
comets, of the fall of meteoric stones, and of showers of falling stars, would
Xl NOTES.
no doubt have been found recorded in them, as in the more ancient Chinese
annals, of which Edouard Biot has made use. Creuzer (Symbolik und My-
thologie der alten Volker, Th. iii. 1842, S. 659) has attempted to show, that
the natural features of Etruria may have influenced the peculiar turn of mind
of its inhabitants. A "calling forth" of the lightning, which is ascribed to
Prometheus, reminds us of the pretended " drawing down" of lightning by the
Fulguratores. This operation consisted in a mere conjuration, and may well
have been of no more efficacy than the skinned ass's head, which, in the Etrus-
can rites, was considered a preservative from danger in thunder storms.
(187) p. 135.— Otfr. Muller, Etrusker, Abth. ii. S. 162 to 178. In the
very complicated Etruscan augural theory, a distinction was made between
the " soft reminding lightnings sent by Jupiter from his own perfect power,
and the violent electrical explosions or chastening thunderbolts which he might
only send constitutionally after consultation with the other twelve gods."
(Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. p. 41.)
(188) p. 135.— Job. Lydus de Ostentis, ed. Hase, p. 18 in preefat.
(189) p. 136.— Strabo, lib. iii. p. 139, Casaub. Compare Wilhelm vou
Humboldt, iiber die Urbewohner Hispaniens, 1821, S. 123 and 131—136.
M. de Saulcy has been recently engaged, with success, in deciphering the
Iberian alphabet ; the ingenious discoverer of cuneiform writing, Grotefeud,
the Phrygian ; .and Sir Charles Fellowes, the Lycian alphabet. (Compare
Ross, HeUenika, Bd. i. S. 16.)
O90) p. 137.— Herod, iv. 42 (Schweighauser ad Herod. T. v. p. 204).
Compare Humboldt, Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 54 and 577.
(191) p. 138. — On the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus of Hecataus
(Fragm. ed. Klausen, No. 173, v. 94), and Kaspatyrus of Herodotus (iii. 102,
and iv. 44), see my Asie centrale, T. i. p. 101—104.
(192) p. 138.— Psemetek and Achmes. See above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 159
(Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 125).
(193) p. 138.— Droysen, Geschichte der Bildung des hellenistischen
Staatensystems, 1 843, S. 23.
O p. 138.-See above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 10 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 10).
(195) p. 139. — Volker, Mythische Geographic der Griechen und Homer,
Th. i. 1832, S. 1—10 ; Klausen, iiber die Wanderungen der lo nnd des
Herakles, in Niebuhr und Brandis rheinischen Museen fiir Philologie,
Geschichte undgriech. Philosophic, Jahrg. iii. 1829, S. 293—323.
(196) p. 139.— In the mythus of Abaris (Herod, iv. 36), the man does not
travel th? -ugh the air on an arrow, but carries the arrow " which Pythagoraa
NOTES. li
gave him (Iambi, de Vita Pythag. xxix. p. 194, Kiessling), in order that it
might be useful to him in all difficulties during long wanderings." Creuzer,
Symbolik, Th. ii. 1841, S. 660—664. On the repeatedly disappearing and
reappearing Arimaspian bard, Aristeas of Proconnesus, vide Herod, iv. 13 — 15.
(197) p. 139.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 38, Casaub.
O98) p. 140. — Probably the valley of the Don or of the Kuban ; compare
my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 164. Pherecydes says expressly (fragm. 37 ex
Schol. Apollon. ii. 1214), that the Caucasus burned, and therefore Typhon
fled to Italy; from which Klausen, in the work above referred to (S. 298),
explains the ideal relation of the "fire kindler" (irvpxasvs) , Prometheus, to
the burning mountain. Although the geological constitution of the Caucasus,
which has been very recently well examined by Abich, and its connection with
the volcanic chain of the Thian-schan, in the interior of Asia (which connection
has, I think, been shown by me in my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 55 — 59), render
it by no means improbable that very early traditions may have preserved
reminiscences of great volcanic eruptions ; yet it is rather to be assumed, that
the Greeks may have been led to the hypothesis of the " burning" by etymo-
logical circumstances. Ou the Sanscrit etymologies of Graucasus (Glansberg ?)
(or shining mountain), see Bohlen's and Burnouf s statements, in my Asie
Centrale, T. i. p. 109.
(199) p. 140.— Otfried Miiller, Minyer, S. 247, 254, and 274, Homer was
not acquainted with the Phasis, or with Colchis, or with the pillars of Hercules ;
but Hesiod names the Phasis. The mythical narrations concerning the return
of the Argonauts by the Phasis into the Eastern Ocean, and the " double"
Triton lake, formed either by the pretended bifurcation of the Ister, or by
volcanic earthquakes (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 179, T. iii. p. 135—137 ; Otfr.
Miiller, Minyer, S. 357), are particularly important towards a knowledge of
the earliest views entertained regarding the form of the continents. The
geographical fancies of Peisandros, Timagetus, and Apollonius of Rhodes,
were propagated until late in the middle ages, operating sometimes as
bewildering and deterring obstacles, and sometimes as stimulating incitements
to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity upon later times, when men
were almost more led by opinions than by actual observations, has not been
hitherto sufficiently regarded in the history of geography. The object of the
notes to Cosmos is not merely to present bibliographical sources from the
literature of different nations, for the elucidation or illustration of statements
contained in the text, but I have also desired to deposit in these notes,
which permit greater freedom, such abundant materials for reflection as I
xlii NOTES.
have been able to gather from my own experience, and from long-continued
literary studies.
C200) p. 141.— Hecatffii fragm. ed. Klausen, p. 39, 92, 98, and 119. See
also my investigations on the history of the geography of the Caspian Sea,
from Herodotus down to the Arabian El-Istachri, Edrisi, aud Ibn-el-Vardi,
on the sea of Aral, and on the bifurcation of the Oxus and the Araxes, in my
Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 162—297.
(201) p. 141. — Cramer de Studiis quee veteres ad aliarum gentium contulerint
linguas, 1844, p. 8 and 17. The ancient Colchians appear to have been identical
with the tribe of Lazi (Lazi, gentes Colchorum, Plin.viM ; the Aafot of Byzan-
tine writers) ; see Vater (Professor in Kasan), der Argonautenzug aus den
Quellen dargesteUt, 1845, Heft i. S. 24; Heft ii. S. 45, 57, and 103. In
the Caucasus, the names Alani (Alanethi for the land of the Alani), Ossi, an
ass, may still be heard. According to the investigations commenced with
philosophic and linguistic acumen in the valleys of the Caucasus by George
Rose, the language spoken by the Lazi would appear to contain remains of the
ancient Colchian idiom. The Iberian and Grusic group of languages includes
Lazian, Georgian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, all belonging to the family of the
Indo-Germanic languages. The language of the Ossetes is nearer to the
Gothic than to the Lithuanian.
(202) p. 141.— On the relationship of the Scythians (Scolotes or Sacse),
Alani, Goths, Massa-Getse, and the Yueti of the Chinese historians, see Klap-
roth, in the commentary to the Voyage du Comte Potocki, T. i. p. 129, as
well as my Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 400 ; T. ii. p. 252. Procopius himself
says very distinctly (De Bello Gothico, iv. 5 ed. Bonn, 1833, Vol. ii. p. 476,)
that the Goths were formerly called Scythians. The identity of the Getae and
the Goths has been shewn by Jacob Grimm in his recently-published
work, iiber Jornandes, 1846, S. 21. Niebuhr believed (see his Untersuchun-
gen iiber die Geten und Sarmaten, in his kleinen histor. und philologischen
Schriften, Ite Sammlung, 1828, S. 362, 364, and 395,) that the Scythians
of Herodotus belong to the family of the Mongolian tribes ; but this opinion
has the less probability, since these tribes, partly under the yoke of the Chi-
nese, and partly under that of the Hakas or Kirghis (Xe/>xty °^ Menander)
still lived far in the east of Asia round Lake Baikal in the beginning of the
13th century. Herodotus distinguishes, moreover, the bald-headed Argip-
pseans (iv. 23) from the Scythians; and if the first-named are said to be
"flat-nosed," they have at the same time "a long chin," which, according to
my experience, is by no means a physiognomic characteristic of the Calmucks
xliii
or otlier Mongolian races, but rather characterises the blonde (Germanising ?)
Ousun and Tingling, to whom the Chinese historians attribute " long horse
faces."
(203) p. 141. — On the dwelling-place of the Arimaspes and the gold trade
of north-western Asia in the time of Herodotus, see my Asie Ceutrale, T. i.
p. 389—407.
(2W) p. 141. — "Les Hyperboreans sont un mythe meteorologique. Le
vent des montagnes (B'Oreas) sort des Monts Rhipeens. Au dela de ces
monts, doit regner un air calme, un climat heureux, comme sur les sommets
alpins dans la partie qui depasse les nuages. Ce sont la les premiers ape^ua
d'une physique qui explique la distribution de la chaleur et la difference des
climats par des causes locales, par la direction des vents qui dominent, par la
proximite du soleil, par 1'action d'un principe humide ou salin. La conse-
quence de ces idees systematiques etait une certaine independence qu'on sup-
posait entre les climats et la latitude des lieux : aussi le mythe des Hyper-
boreens lie par son origine au culte dorien et primitivement boreal d'Apollon,
a pu se deplacer du nord vers 1'ouest, en suivant Hercule dans ses courses aux
sources de 1'Ister, a Tile d'Erythia et aux Jardins des Hesperides. Les Rhipes,
ou Monts Rhipeens, sont aussi un nom significatif meteorologique : ce sont
les" montagnes de " 1'impulsion," ou du souffle glace (pi-mf) celles d'ou se de-
chainent les tempetes boreales" (Asie Centr. T. i. p. 392 and 403).
(205) p. 142.— In Hindostanee, as Wilford has already remarked, there are
two words which might easily be confounded ; one of which, tschiunta, a large
black kind of ant (whence the diminutive tschiunti, tschinti, the small com-
mon ant) ; the other tschita, a spotted kind of panther, the little hunting
leopard (cheetah; the Felis jubata, Schreb). The latter word (tschita) is the
Sanscrit word tschitra, signifying variegated or spotted, as is shewn by the
Bengalee name for the animal (tschitabagh and tschitibagh, from bagh, Sanscrit
wyaghra, tiger.) — Buschmann. A passage has been recently discovered in
the Mahabharata (ii. 1860) in which there is question of the ant-gold.
" Wilso invfenit (Journ of the Asiat. Sec. vii. 1843, p. 143,) mentionem fieri
etiam in Indicis litteris bestiarum aurum effodientium, quas, quum terrain
effodiant, eodem nomine (pipilica) atque formicas Indi nuncupant." Compare
Schwanbeck, in Megasth; Indicis, 1846, p. 73. I have been struck by
seeing that in the basaltic districts of the Mexican highlands the ants
carry to their heaps shining grains of hyalite, which I could collect out of
the ant-hills.
C206) p. 145.— Stxabo, lib iii. p.172 (Bokh,Pind. Fragm. v. 155). The voyage
lliv NOTES.
of Colseus of Samos is placed in 01. 31, according to Otfr. Mttller (Prolego.
mena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie) ; and in 01. 35, 1, or the year
640, according to Letroune's investigation (Essai sur les idees cosmo-
graphiques qui se rattachent an nora d' Atlas, p. 9). The epoch is, however,
dependent on the foundation of Gyrene, which Otfr. Miiller places be-
tween 01. 35 and 37 (Minyer, S. 344, Prolegomena, S. 63) ; for in the
time of Colseus (Herod, iv. 152), the way from Thera to Lybia was still un-
known. Zumpt places the foundation of Carthage in 8? 8, and that of Gades
in 1100 B.C.
(2°7) p. 146. — According to the manner of the ancients (Strabo, lib. ii. p.
126,) I reckon (as indeed physical and geological views require) the whole
Euxine, together with the Mseotis, as forming part of the common basin of
the great " Interior Sea."
(S08) p. 146.— Herod, iv. 152.
C209) p. 146. — Herod. . 163, where even the discovery of Tartessus is attri-
buted to the Phocajaus ; but according to Ukert (Geogr. der Griechen und
Komer, Th.L i.S. 40), the commercial enterprise of the Phocseans was seventy
years later than Colseus of Samos.
(f30) p. 146. — According to a fragment of Phavorinus, the words (wKeoroy,
and therefore oryjjr also) are not Greek, but are borrowed from the barba-
rians (Spohn de Nicephor. Blemm. duobus opusculis, 1818, p. 23). My
brother thought that they were connected with the Sanscrit roots ogha and
ogh (see my Examen critique de 1'hist. de la Geogr. T. i. p. 33 and 182).
(ai) p. 147.— Aristot. de Oslo, ii. 14 (p. 298, b, Bekk.) ; Meteor, ii. 5
(p. 362, Bekk.) Compare my Examen critique, T. i. p. 125 — 130. Seneca
ventures to say (Nat. Quasi in preefat. 11), contemnet curiosus spectator
domicilii (terrse) angustias. Quantum enim est quod ab ultimis littoribus
Hispauise usque ad Indos jacet ? Paucissimorum dierum spatium, si navem
suus ventus implevit (Examen critique, T. i. p. 158).
C212) p. 147.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 65 and 118, Casaub. (Examen critique, T.i,
p. 152.)
C213) p. 147.— In the Diaphragma (the dividing line of the Earth) of
Dicearchus, the elevation passes through the Taurus, the chains of Demavend
and Hindoo-koosh, the Kuen-liin of Northern Thibet, and the perpetually
•now-clad cloud mountains of the Chinese provinces, Sse-tschuan and Kuang-si.
See my orographic researches on these lines of elevation in my Asie Centrale,
T. i. p. 104—114, 118—164 ; T. ii. p. 413 and 438.
f4) p. 148 —Strabo, lib. iii. p. 173 (Examen. crit. T. iii. p. 98).
NOTES. xlv
(211) p. 150. — Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Grossen, S. 544 ; the same
in his Gesch. der Bildung des hellenistischen Staatensystems, S. 23 — 34,
588—592, 748—755.
(21G) p. 150.— Aristot. Polit. VII. vii. p. 1327, Bekker. (Compare also
III. xvi., and the remarkable passage of Eratosthenes in Strabo, lib. i. p. 66
and 97, Casaub.)
0^) p. 151.— Stahr, Aristotelia, Th. ii. S. 114.
t218) p. 151. — Ste. Croix, Examen critique des historiens d' Alexandra,
p. 731. (Schlegel, Ind. Bibliothek, Bd. i. S. 150.)
C2'9) p. 153.— Compare Schwanbeck " de fide Megasthenis et pretio," im
his edition of that writer, p. 59 — 77. Megasthenes often visited Palibothra,
the court of the King of Magadha. He was fully initiated in the system of
Indian chronology, and relates "how, in the past, the All had three times
come to freedom ; how three ages of the world had run their course, and in
his own time the fourth had begun." (Lassen, indische Alterthumskunde,
Bd. i. S. 510.) The Hesiodic doctrine of four ages of the world, connected
with four great elementary destructions, which together occupy a period of
18028 years, existed also among the Mexicans. (Humboldt, Vues desCor-
dilleres et Monumens des peuples indigenes de I'Amerique, T. ii. p. 119 — 129.)
In modern times a remarkable proof of the accuracy of Megasthenes has been
afforded by the study of the Rigveda and the Mahabharata. Consult what
Megasthenes says respecting " the land of the long-living happy persons" in
the extreme north of India, — the land of Uttara-kuru (probably north of
Kashmeer, towards Belurtagh), which, according to his Grecian views, he con-
nects with the supposed " thousand years of life of the Hyperboreans." (Las-
sen, in the Zeitschrift fiir dieKande des Morgenlandes, Bd. ii. S. 62.) We
may notice, in connection with this, a tradition mentioned in Ctesias, of a
sacred place in the Northern Desert. (Ind. cap. viii. ed. Baehr, p. 249 and
285.) Ctesias has been long too little esteemed : the martichoras mentioned
by Aristotle (Hist, de Animal. II. iii. § 10 ; T. i. p. 51, Schneider), the grif.
fin, half eagle half lion, the kartazonon spoken of by ^Elian, and a one-horned
wild ass, are indeed referred to by him as real animals ; but this was not an
invention of his own, but arose, as Heeren and Cuvier have remarked, from
his taking pictured forms of symbolical animals, seen on Persian monuments,
for the representation of strange beasts still living in India. The acute
Guiguaut has, however, noticed that there is much difficulty in identifying the
martichoras with Persepolitan symbols. (Creuzer, Religions de 1'Antiquite ;
notes et ecliiircissements, p. 720-^
xv ttOTES.
(220) p. 154. — I have illustrated these intricate orographical relations in
my Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 429 — 434.
C221) p.154.— Lassen,intheZeitschrift fiir dieKundedesMorgenl.Bd.i.S.230.
(222)*p. 155. — The district hetween Bamian and Ghori. See Carl Zimmer-
mann's excellent orographical tabular view of Afghanistan, 1842. (Compare
Straho, lih. xv. p. 725 ; Diod. Sicul. xvii. 82; Menn, Meletem. hist. 1839,
p. 25 and 31 ; Ritter iiber Alexanders Feldzug am Indischen Kaukasus, in the
Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. of the year 1829, S. 150; Droysen, Bildung des
Hellenist. Staatensystems, S. 614.) I write Paropanisus, like all the good
codices of Ptolemy, and not Paropamisus. I have given the reasons in my
Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 114 — 118. (See also Lassen zur Gesch. der Griech-
ischen und Indoskythischen Konige, S. 128.)
P) p. 155.— Strabo, lib. xv. p. 717, Casaub.
(2-4) p. 155. — Tala, as the name of the palm Borassus flabelliformis (very
characteristically termed by Amarasinha "a king of the grasses") ; Arrian,
Ind. vii. 3.
O p. 155. — The word tabascbir is referred to the Sanscrit tvak-kschira
(bark milk) ; see above, Note 143. In 1817, in the historical addenda to my
work De Distributione Geographica Plantarum, secundum Coeli, Temperiem
et Altitudinem Montium, p. 215, I called attention to the fact, that the com-
panions of Alexander became acquainted with the true sugar of the sugar
cane of the Indians, as well as with the tabaschir of the bamboo. (Strabo,
lib. xv. p. 693 ; Peripl. maris Erythr. p. 9.) Moses of Chorene, who lived
in the middle of the 5th century, was the first who described circumstantially
the preparation of sugar from the juice of the Saccharum offieinarum, in the
province of Khorasan. (Geogr. ed. Whiston, 1736, p. 364.)
P) p. 155.— Strabo, lib. xv. p. 694.
(^ p. 155.— Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, Bd. TV. i. S. 437 ; Bd. VI. i.
S. 698 ; Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. I. S. 317 — 323. The passage
in Aristotle's Hist, de Animal, v. 17 (T. i. p. 209, ed. Schneider), respecting
the web of a great horned spider, relates to the island of Cos.
f228) p. 155. — So Aoxxos xp*>ljiarivo5> in the PeripL maris Erythr. p. 5
(Lassen, S. 316.)
C229) p. 155.— Plin. Hist. Nat. xvi. 32. (On the introduction of rare
plants from Asia into Egypt by the Lagidse ; see Pliny, xii. 14 and 17.)
P) p. 156.— Humboldt, De Distrib. Geogr. Plantarum, p. 178.
P1) p. 156. — Since the year 1847, I have often corresponded with Lassen
on the remarkable passage in Pliny, xii. 6 : — " Major alia (arbor) porno et
NOTES. xlvii
suavitate prsecellentior, quo sapientes Indorum vivunt. Eolimn alas aviura
imitatur, longitudine triura cubitorum, latitudine duum. Fructum cortice
mittit, admirabilem succi dulcedine ut uno quaternos satiet. Arbori nomen
falae porno ariena" The following is the result of the examination of my
learned friend ; — " Amarasinha places the banana (musa) at the head of all
nutritive plants. Among the many Sanscrit names which he mentions, are,
varanabuscha, bhanuphala (sun fruit), and moko, whence the Arabic mauza.
Phala (pala) is fruit in general ; and it is therefore only by a misunderstand-
ing that it has been taken for the name of the plant. In Sanscrit varana
without buscha is not the name of the banana, although the abbreviation may
have belonged to the popular language. Varana would be iu Greek ouapej/a,
which is certainly not very far removed from ariena." (Compare Lassen,
ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 262 ; my Essai politique sur la Nouv. Espagne,
T. ii. 1827, p. 382 ; Relation hist. T. i. p. 491.) The chemical connection
of the nourishing amylum with saccharin was divined alike by Prosper Alpinus
and Abd-Allatif, since they sought to explain the origin of the banana by the
insertion of the sugar cane, or the sweet date fruit, into the root of the colo-
casia. (Abd-Allatif, Relation de 1'Egypte, traduit par Silvestre de Sacy, p. 28
and 105.)
C23-) p. 156. — Respecting this epoch, consult Wilhelm von Humboldt in
his work, iiber die Kawi-Sprache und die Verschiedenheit d.es menschlichen
Sprachbaues, Bd. i. S. ccl. and ccliv. ; Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Gr.
S. 547 ; and Hellenist. Staatensystem, S. 24.
C833) p. 157.— Dante, Inf. iv. 130.
(-34) p. 157- — Compare Cuvier's assertions in the Biographic universelle,
T. ii. 1811, p. 458 (and unfortunately again repeated in the edition of 1843,
T. ii. p. 219), with Stahr's Aristotelia, Th. i. S. 15 and 108.
P5) p. 157. — Cuvier, when engaged on the Life of Aristotle, believed that
the philosopher had accompanied Alexander to Egypt, " whence," he says,
"the Stagyrite must have brought back to Athens (01. 112, 2) all the mate-
rials for the Historia Animalium." Subsequently, in 1830, Cuvier aban-
doned this opinion ; for after more examination he remarked, " that the de-
scriptions of Egyptian animals were not taken from the life, but from notices
by Herodotus." (See also Cuvier, Histoire des sciences naturelles, publiee
par Magdcleine de Saint Agy, T. i. 1841, p. 136.)
P6) p. 157. — Among these internal indications may be enumerated,— the
statement of the perfect insulation of the Caspian ; the notice of the great
comet which appeared when Nicomachus was Archou, 01. 109, 4 (according
xlviii NOTES.
to Corsini), and which is not to be confounded with that which Herr von
Boguslawski has named the comet of Aristotle (seen when Asteus was Archon,
01. 101, 4; Aristot. Meteor, lib. i. cap. 6, 10 ; vol. i. p. 395, Ideler; and
supposed to be identical with the comets of 1695 aud 1843?) ; and also the
mention of the destruction of the temple at Ephesus, as well as of a lunar
rainbow, seen on two occasions in the course of fifty years. (Compare Schneider
ad Aristot. Hist, de Animalibus, Vol. i. p. il. xlii. ciii. and cxx. ; Ideler ad
Aristot. Meteor. Vol. I. p. x. ; and Humboldt, Asie Cent. T. ii. p. 168.) We
know that the " History of Animals," was written later than the " Meteorolo-
gica," since the last-named work alludes to the former as soon to follow.
(Meteor, i. 1, 3 ; and iv. 12, 13.)
(**) p. 158. — The fire animals named in the text, and especially- the
hippelaphus (horse-stag with a long mane), the hippardion, the Bactrian
camel, and the buffalo, are adduced by Cuvier as proofs of the Historia
Auimalium having been written by Aristotle at a later period. (Hist, des
Sciences Nat. T. i. p. 154.) Cuvier, in the fourth volume of the Recherches
gur les Ossemens fossiles, 1823, p. 40-43 and p. 502, distinguishes between
two Asiatic stags with manes, which he calls Cervus hippelaphus and Cervut
aristotelis. At first he regarded the Cervus hippelaphus, of which he had seen
a living example, and of which Diard had sent him skins and antlers from
Sumatra, as Aristotle's hippelaphus from Aracliosia, (Hist, de Animal., ii. 2,
$ 3, and 4, T. i. p. 43-44, Schneider) : subsequently he judged that a stag's head
sent to him from Bengal by Duvaucel, and the drawing "of the entire large
animal, agreed still better with the Stagirite's description of the hippelaphus ;
and this stag, which is indigenous in the mountains of Sylhet in Bengal, in
Ncpaiil, and in the country east of the Indus, then received the name of
Cervus aristotelis. If, in the same chapter in which Aristotle treats
generally of animals with manes, he names together with the horse-stag
(Equicervus), the Indian Guepard or hunting tiger (Felisjnbata). Schneider
(T. iii. p. 66) considers the reading irapbiov to be preferable to that of TO
anraplkov. The latter reading, as Pallas also thinks, (Spicileg. Zool. fasc. i.
p. 4), would be best interpreted to mean the giraffe. If Aristotle had himself
seen 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 equally surprising how Aristotle, who is always so accurate, if, as
August Wilhelm von Schlegel maintains, he had a menagerie near his
residence at Athens, and had himself dissected an elephant which had been
taken at Arbela, could have failed to describe a small opening near the temples
NOTES.
xlix
of the elephant, which, at certain seasons particularly, secretes a strong
smelling fluid, often alluded to by the Indian poets. (Schlegel's Indische
Bibliothek, Bd. i. S. 163-166.) I notice this apparently trifling circumstance
thus particularly, because this small aperture was made known by accounts
given by Megasthenes, to whom, nevertheless, no one would be led to
attribute anatomical knowledge. (Strabo, lib. xv. p. 704 and 705, Casaub.)
I do not find in the different zoological works of Aristotle which have come
down to us anything which necessarily implies his having had the opportunity
of observing living elephants, or of his having dissected a dead one. Although
it is most probable that the Historia Animalium was completed before
Alexander's campaigns in Asia Minor, yet it is undoubtedly possible 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 Alexander ; but direct evidence of such being the case is
wanting. The correspondence of Aristotle which we possess is not genuine,
(Stahr, Th. i. S. 194—208, Th. ii. S. 169-234), and Schneider says very
confidently, (Hist, de Animal. T. i. p. 40), " hoc enim tanquam certissimum
sumere mihi licebit scriptas comitum Alexandri notitias post mortem demum
regis fuisse vulgatas."
(s38) p. 158. — I have shewn elsewhere that although the decomposition of
sulphuret of mercury by distillation is described in Dioscorides, (Mat. Med.
v. 110, p. 667, Saracen) ; yet the first description of the distillation of a fluid,
(the distillation of fresh water from sea water), is to be found in the Com-
mentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias to Aristotle de Meteorol. ; see my
Examen critique de 1'histoire de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 308-316, and Joannis
(Philoponi) Grammatici in libro de Generat. et Alexandri Aphrod. in Me-
teorol. Comm. Venet. 1527, p. 97, b. Alexander of Aphrodisias in Caria,
the learned commentator of the Meteorologica of Aristotle, lived under the
reigns of Septimius Severus aud Caracalla ; and although in his writings
chemical apparatuses are called xwie a oqyava, yet a passage in Plutarch (do
Iside et Osir, c. 33), proves that the word Chemie, applied by the Greeks to
the Egyptian art, is not to be derived from x™, (Hoefer, Histoire de la
Chimie, T. i. p. 91, 195 and 219, T. ii. p. 109).
P) p. 158.— Compare Sainte-Croix, Examen des historiens d'Alexandre,
1810, p, 207, and Cuvier, Histoire des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 137, with
Schneider ad Aristot. de Historia Animalium, T. i. p. 42-46, and Stahr,
Aristotelia, Th. i. S. 116-118. If the transmission of specimens from Egypt
and the interior of Asia appears according to these authorities to be rery
VOL. II. 2 E
1 NOTES.
improbable, yet the latest writings of our great anatomist Johannes Miiller
shew with what wonderful acuteness and delicacy Aristotle dissected the fishes
of the Greek seas. See the learned treatise of Johannes Miiller on the ad-
herence of the egg to the uterus in one of the two species of the genus Mus-
telus living in the Mediterranean, which in its foetal state possesses a placenta
of the vitelline vesicle which is connected with the uterine placenta of the mo-
ther; and his researches on the *ya\eos \fios of Aristotle in the Abhandl.
der Berliner Akad. aus d. j. 1840, S. 192-197. (Compare Aristot. Hist.
Anim. vi. 10, andde Gener. Anim. iii. 3.) The fineness of Aristotle's own ana-
tomical examinations is testified by the distinction and detailed analysis of the
species of cuttle-fish, the description of the teeth of snails, and the organs of
other Gasteropodes. Compare Hist. Anim. iv. 1 and 4, with Lebert in
Muller's Archiv der Physiologic, 1846, S. 463 aud 467. I have myself ia
1797 called the attention of modern naturalists to the form of snails' teeth.
See my Versuche iiber die gereizte Muskel und Nerveufaser, Bd. i. S. 261.
(24°) p. 159. — Valer. Maxim, vii. 2; " ut cum rege aut rarissime aut quam
jucundissime loqueretur."
(241) p. 160.— Aristot. Polit. i. 8, and Eth. ad Eudemum, vii. 14.
C0) p. 160— Strabo, lib. xv. p. 690 and 695. Herod, iii. 101.
C243) p. 160.— Thus says Theodectes of Phaselis ; see Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 380
and 491, (Engl. trans. Vol. i. . 352 and note 437). Northern countries were
placed to the West, and southern countries to the East. Consult Volcker iiber
Homerische Geographic und "Weltkunde, S. 43 and 87. The indefiniteness,
even at that period, of the word Indies, as connected with geographical position,
with the complexion of the inhabitants, and with precious natural productions,
contributed to the extension of these meteorological hypotheses, for it was
given at once to Western Arabia, to the countries between Ceylon and the
mouth of the Indus, to Troglodytic Ethiopia, and to the African myrrh and
cinnamon lands south of Cape Aromata, (Humboldt, Examen crit. T. ii. p. 35) .
C*44) p. 161.— Lassen ind. Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 369, 372-375, 379
and 389 ; Bitter, Asien, Bd. iv. 1, S. 448.
(^ p. 161. — The geographical distribution of mankind is not more de-
terminable in entire continents by degrees of latitude than that of plants and
animals. The axiom propounded by Ptolemy, (Geogr. lib. cap. 9), that
north of the parallel of Agisymba neither elephants, rhinoceroses, nor negroes
are to be met with, is entirely unfounded. (Examen critique, T. i. p. 39.)
The doctrine of the universal influence of soil and climate on the intellectual
capacities and dispositions, and 011 the civilisation of numkiiul, was peculiar to
NOTES. 11
,he Alexandrian school of Ammonius Sakkas, and especially to Longirms.
See Proclus, Comment, in Tim. p. 50.
f46) p. 161. — See Georg. Curtius, die Sprachveraileichung in ihrem Ver-
haltnisszur classichen Philologie, 1845, S. 5-7, and the same author's Bildung
der Tempora und Modi, 1846, S. 3-9- (Compare also Pott's Article entitled
Indogermanischer Sprachstamm in the Allgem. Encyklopadie of Ersch and
Gruber, Sect. ii. Thrxviii. S. 1-112.) Investigations on language in general,
as touching upon the fundamental relations of thought, are, however, to be
found in Aristotle, where he develops the connection of categories with
grammatical relations. See the luminous statement of this comparison in
Adolf Treudelenburg's histor. Beitragen zur Philosophic, 1846, Th. i. S.
23—32.
(24J) p. 162. — The schools of the Orchenes and Vorsipenes (Strabo, lib.
xvi. p. 739). In this passage, in conjunction with the Chaldean astronomers,
four Chaldean mathematicians are cited by name. This circumstance is
of the greater historical importance, because Ptolemy always designates the
observers of the heavenly bodies by the collective name of Xa\5c»oi, as if the
Babylonish observations were only made " collegiately" (Ideler, Handbuch der
Chronologic, Bd. i. 1825, S. 198).
(S48) p. 162. — Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologic, Bd. i. S. 202, 206, and
218. When doubts are raised respecting the fact of Callisthenes having sent
astronomical observations from Babylon to Greece, on the ground of "no
trace of these observations of a Chaldean priestly caste being found in the
writings of Aristotle," (Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astron. anc. T. i. p. 308), it is
forgotten that Aristotle, where he speaks (De Coelo, lib. ii. cap. 12), of anoccul-
tation of Mars by the moon observed by himself, expressly adds, that "similar
observations had been made for many years on the other planets by the Egyp-
tians and the Babylonians, many of which have come to our knowledge." On
the probable use of astronomical tables by the Chaldeans, see Chasles, in the
Comptes rendus de 1'Academie des Sciences, T. xxiii. 1846, p. 852—854.
t249) p. 163.— Seneca, Nat. Qusest. vii. 17.
C250) p. 163. — Compare Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 739, with lib. iii. p. 174.
(2p) p. 163. — These investigations belong to the year 1824 (see Guignaut,
Religions de 1'Antiquite, ouvrage traduit de 1'Allemand de P. Creuzer, T. i.
P. 2, p. 928). See farther, Letronne, in the Journal des Savans, 1839, p.
338 and 492 ; as well as the Analyse critique des Representations zouiacales
en Egypte, 1846, p. 15 and 34. (Compare with these Ideler iiber den Ur-
Ill NOTES.
sprung des Thierkreises, in den Abhandlungen der Akademie des Wissen-
schaften zu Berlin aus dem Jahr 1838, S. 21.)
O*2) p. 163.— The magnificent Cedrus deodvara (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 43 ;
Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 363, note 4), which is most abundant at an elevation of
from eight to eleven thousand feet on the upper Hydaspes (Behut), which flow*
through the lake of the Alpine valley of Kashmeer, supplied the materials for
the fleet of Nearchus (Burnes' Travels, Vol. i. p. 59). ' The trunk of this
cedar has often a circumference of forty feet, according to Dr. Hoffmeister, of
whom science has unhappily been deprived, by his death on a field of battle,
when accompanying Prince Waldemar of Prussia.
P3) p. 163. — Lassen, in his Pentapotamia indica, p. 25, 29, 57 — 62, and
77 ; and also in his indischen Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 91. Between the
Sarasvati, to the north-west of Delhi, and the rocky Drischadvati, there is
situated, according to Menu's code of laws, Brahmavarta, a priestly district
of Brahma, established by the gods themselves ; on the other hand, in the
more extensive sense of the word, Aryavarta, the land of the worthy, signifies,
in the ancient Indian geography, the whole country east of the Indus,
between the Himalaya and the Vindhya chain ; to the south of which the
ancient non-Ariau aboriginal population commences. Madhya-Desa, the cen-
tral land referred to in Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 15 (English trans. Vol. i. p. 14),
was only a portion of Aryavarta. Compare my Asie centrale, T. i. p. 204,
and Lassen, ind. Alterthumsk. Bd. i. S. 5, 10, and 93. The ancient Indian
free states, the countries of the kingless, (condemned by the orthodox eastern
poets), were situated between the Hydraotes and the Hyphasis, i. e. the pre-
sent Ravi and the Beas. .
f284) p. 164.— Megasthenes, Indica, ed. Schwanbeck, 1846, p. 17.
t255) p. 167.— See above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 155 (English trans. Vol. ii.
p. 121).
P6) p. 167. — Compare my geographical researches, Asie centrale, T. i.
p. 145, and 151—157 ; T. ii. p. 179.
P?) p. 168.— Plin. vi. 26 (?).
O258) p. 168.— Droysen, Gesch. des heflenistiscnen Staatensystems, S. 749.
(S59) p. 169.— Compare Lassen, indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 107,
153, and 158.
C260) p. 169. — " Mutilated from Tfonbapanni. This Pali form sounds in
Sanscrit T&mraparni. The Greek Taprobane gives half the Sanscrit (Tambra,
Tapro), and half the Pali" (Lassen, indische Alterthamskunde, S. 201 ; com-
NOTES. liii
pare Lassen, Diss. dc Taprobane insula, p. 19). The Laccadives (lakke for
lakscha, and dive for d\vipa, one hundred thousand islands), as well as the
Maldives (Malayadiba, i. e. islands of Malabar), were known to Alexandrian
navigators.
(•6') p. 170. — Hippalus is supposed to have lived no earlier than the reign
of the Emperor Claudius ; but this is improbable, even though under the
iirst Lagidac great part of the Indian products were only purchased in Arabian
markets. The south-west monsoon was itself called Hippalus, and a portion
of the Erylhrean or Indian Ocean is also called the Sea of Hippalus. Letronne,
in the Journal des Savans, 1818, p. 405 ; Reinaud, Relation des Voyages dans
1'Iiide, T. i. p. xxx.
C*62) p. 171. — See the researches of Letronne, on the construction of the
canal between the Nile and the Red Sea from Neku to the Caliph Omar, or
an interval of more than 1300 years, in the Revue des deux Mondes, T. xxvii.
1841, p. 215 — 235. Compare also Letronne, de la Civilisation egyptienne
depuis Psammitichus jusqu'a la conquete d'Alexandre, 1845, p. 16 — 19.
(£63) p. 171. — Meteorological speculations on the distant causes of the
swelling of the Nile gave occasion to some of these journies ; Philadelphus, as
Strabo expresses it (lib. xvii. p. 789 and 790), " continually seeking new
diversions and interests out of curiosity and bodily weakness."
(264) p. 171. — Two hunting inscriptions, one of which "principally records
the elephant hunts of Ptolemy Philadelphus," were discovered and copied by
Lepsius from the colossi of Abusimbel (Ipsambul). (Compare, on this subject,
Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 769 and 770 ; ^Elian, De Nat. Aniin. iii. 34, and xvii. 3 ;
Athenseus, v. p. 196.) Although, according to the " Peri plus maris Ery-
thraei," Indian ivory was an article of export from Barygaza, yet, according
to the notices of Cosmas, ivory was also exported from Ethiopia to the
western peninsula of India. Since ancient times, elephants have withdrawn
more to the south in eastern Africa also. According to the testimony of
Poly bi us (v. 84), when African and Indian elephants encountered each other
on fields of battle, the sight, the smell, and the cries of the larger and
stronger Indian elephants drove the African ones to flight. The latter were
never employed as war elephants in such large numbers as were used in
Asiatic expeditions, where Chandragupta had assembled 9000, the powerful
king of the Prasii 6000, and Akbar as many (Lassen, ind. Alterthumskunde,
Bd. i. S. 305—307).
C265) p. 17L— Athen. xiv. p. 654 ; compare Parthey, das alexandrinische
Museum, eiue Preisschrift, S. 55, and 171.
liv
NOTES.
C166) p. 172. — The library in the Bruchium was the more ancient; it was
destroyed in the burning of the fleet under Julius Caesar. The library at
Rhakotis made part of the " Serapeum," where it was combined with the
museum. By the liberality of Antoninus, the collection of books at Pergamos
was incorporated with the library of Rhakotis.
(267) p. 173. — Vacherot, Histoire critique de 1'Ecole d'Alexandrie, 1846,
T. i. p. v. and 103. "We find much evidence in antiquity, that the institute
of Alexandria, like all academical corporations, together with much good
arising from the concurrence of many workers, and from the power of obtain-
ing material aids, had also some disadvantageous narrowing and restraining
influence. Hadrian made his tutor, Vestiiius, High Priest of Alexandria, and
at the same time Head of the Museum (or President of the Academy)
(Letronue, Recherches pour servir a 1'Histoire de 1'Egypte pendant la domi-
nation des Grecs et des Romains, 1823, p. 251).
f268) p. 173. — Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. ii. S. 5. ; and the
same author's Lehrbuch der Naturlehre, Th. i. S. 42. Compare also Consi-
derations on the Influence which Plato exercised on the Foundation of the
Experimental Sciences by the application of Mathematics, in Brandis, Ge-
schichte der griechisch-romischen Philosophic, Th. ii. Abth. i S. 276.
t269) p. 174. — On the physical and geognostical opinions of Eratosthenes,
see Strabo, lib. i. p. 49—56, lib. ii. p. 108.
C270) p. 174.— Strabo, lib. xi. p. 519 ; Agathem. in Hudson, Geogr. Grsec.
Min. Vol. ii. p. 4. On the correctness of the grand orographic views of
Eratosthenes, see my Asie centrale, T. i. p. 104—150, 198, 208—227,
413—415, T. ii. p. 367, and 414—435 ; and Examen critique de 1'Hist. de
la Geogr. T. i. p. 152 — 154. I have purposely called Eratosthenes' measure-
ment of a degree the first Hellenic one, as a very ancient Chaldean determi-
nation of the magnitude of a degree in camels' paces is not improbable. See
Chasles, Recherches sur 1'Astronomie indienne et chaldeenne, in the Comptes
rendus de 1'Acad. des Sciences, T. xxiii. 1846, p. 851.
t271) p. 175. — The latter appellation appears to me the more correct, as
Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 739, cites "Seleucus of Seleucia, among several very
honourable men, as a Chaldean well acquainted with the heavenly bodies."
Probably Seleucia on the Tigris, a flourishing commercial city, is here meant.
It is indeed singular, that the same Strabo speaks of a Seleucus as an exact
observer of the ebb and flood, calling him also a Babylonian (lib. i. p. 6), and
subsequently (lib. iii. p. 174), perhaps from carelessness, an Erythrean.
(Compare Stobaus, Eel. phys. p. 440.)
NOTES. 17
p) p. 175.— Tdeler, Handbuch der Chronologic, Bd. i. S. 212 and 829.
PJ) p. 176. — Delambre, Histoire de I'Astronomie aucienne, T. i. p. 290.
p) p. 176. — Bokh has examined in his Philolaos, S. 118, whether the
Pythagoreans were early acquainted, through Egyptian sources, with the pre-
cession, under the name of the motion of the heaven of the fixed stars. Letronne
(Observations sur les Representations zodiacales qui nous restent de 1'Anti-
quite, 1824, p. 62) and Ideler (Handbuch der Chronol. Bd, i, S. 192) vindi-
cate Hipparchus's exclusive claim to this discovery.
P) p. 177.— Ideler on Eudoxus, S. 23.
P) p. 177.— The planet discovered by Le Verrier.
C277) p. 178.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 141, 146, 149 and 170 (Engl.
trans. Vol. ii. p. 106, 111, 114, and 136).
P) p. 179.— Wilhelm von Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i. S.
xxxvii.
P) p. 180. — The superficial extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus
(according to the boundaries assumed by Heeren, in his Geschichte der Staaten
des Alterthums, S. 403 — 470) has been calculated by Professor Berghaus, the
author of the excellent Physical Atlas, at rather more than 100000 (German)
geographical square miles. This is about a quarter greater than the extent of
1600000 square miles assigned by Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. i. Chap. i. p. 39, but which he indeed says
must be taken as a very uncertain estimate.
C280) p. 181.— Veget. de Re Mil. iii. 6.
C281) p. 181.— Act. ii. v. 371, in the celebrated prophecy which, from the
time of Columbus' son, was interpreted to relate to the discovery of America.
O82) p. 182. — Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 312 — 328.
P) p. 182. — Liber Ptholemei de Opticis sive Aspectibus; the rare manu-
script of the Royal Library at Paris (No. 7310), was examined by me on the
occasion of discovering a remarkable passage on the refraction of rays in
Sextus Empiricus (adversus Astrologos, lib. v. p. 351, Fabr.) The extracts
which I made from the Parisian manuscript in 1811 (therefore before
Delambre and Venturi) are given in the introduction to my Recueil d'Obser-
vations astronomiquec, T. i. p. Ixv. — lx\. The Greek original has not come
down to UB ; we have only a Latin translation of two Arabic manuscripts of
Ptolemy's Optics. The Latin translator gives his name as Amiracus Euge-
nius, Siculus. Compare Venturi, Comment, sopra la Storia e le Teorie
dell' Ottica, Bologna, 1814, p. 227 ; Delambre, Hist, de I'Astronomie an-
cienne, 1817, T. i. p. 51, and T. ii. p. 410—432.
Ivi NOTES.
C284) p. 182. — Letronne shews, from the fanatical murder of the daughter
jf Theon of Alexandria, that the much contested period of Diopharitus cannot
fall later than the year 389 (Sur 1'Origine grecque des Zodiaques pre'tendua
egyptiens, 1837, p. 26).
C285) p. 184. — This beneficial influence of the extension of a language was
finely noticed in Pliny's praise of Italy : " omnium terrarum alumna eadem
et parens, nnmine Deum electa, quse sparsa congrcgaret imperia, ritusque
molliret, et tot populorum discordes ferasque linguas sermonis commercio
contraheret, colloquia, et humanitafem komini daret, hreviterque una cunc-
tarum gentium in toto orbe patria fieret" (Plin. Hist. nat. iii. 5).
t286) p. 186.— Klaproth, Tableaux historique-de 1'Asie, 1826, p. 65—67.
t28') p. 186.— To this fair-haired, blue-eyed, Indo-germanic, Gothic, or
Arian race of eastern Asia, belong the Usiin, Tingling, Hutis, and great Yueti.
The last are called by the Chinese writers a Thibetian Nomade race, who,
300 years before our era, migrated between the upper course of the Hoang-ho
and the snowy mountains of Nanschau. I here recal this descent, as the Seres
are also described as " rutilis comis et ceernleis oculis" (compare Ukert, Geogr.
der Griech. und Romer, Th. ii i. Abth. ii. 1845, S. 275). We owe to the
researches of Abel Remusat and Klaproth, which are among the brilliant his-
torical discoveries of our age, the knowledge of these fair-haired races, which,
in the most eastern part of Asia, gave the first impulse to what has been
called " the great migration of nations."
C288) p. 187. — Letroune, in the Observations crit. et archeol. sur lea
Representations zodiacales de 1'Antiquite, 1824, p. 99, as well as in his later
work, Sur 1'Origine grecque des Zodiaques pretendus egyptiens, 1837, p. 27.
(289) p. 187. — The sound investigator, Colebrooke, places Warahamihira in
the fifth, Brahmagupta at the end of the sixth century, and Aryabhatta rather
undecidedly between 200 and 400 of our era. (Compare Holtzmann iiber
den griechischen Ursprung des iudischen Thierlcreises, 1841, S. 23.)
(i90) p. 187. — On the reasons on which the assertion in the text of the ex-
ceedingly late commencement of Strabo's work rests, see Groskurd's German
translation, 1831, Th. i. S. xvii.
C-91) p. 188.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 14; lib. ii. p. 1]8 ; lib. xvi. p. 781 ; lib.
xvii. p. 798 and 815.
(£9i) p. 188. — Compare the two passages of Strabo, lib. i. p. 65, and lib.
ii. p. 118 (Ilumboldt, Examen critique de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. i. p.
152 — 154). In the important new edition of Strabo published by Gustav
Kramer, 1844, Th. i. p. 100, " the parallel of Athens is read instead of the
Ivii
parallel of Thinse, as if Thinse had first been named in the Pseudo-Arrian, in
the Periplus Maris Rubri." Dodwell places the writing of the Periplus under
Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, but according to Letronue it was written
under Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Although in five passages in Strabo
all our manuscripts read Thinse, yet lib. ii. p. 79, 86, 87, and above all 82,
in which Eratosthenes himself is named, are decisive in favour of the parallel
of Athens and Rhodes. Athens and Rhodes were thus confounded, as old
geographers made the peninsula of Attica extend too far towards the south.
It would also appear surprising, supposing the usual reading Qivcav KVK\OS
to be the correct one, that a particular parallel, the Diaphragm of Dicearchus,
should be called after a place s"o little known as Sinse (Tsin). However.
Cosmas Indicopleustes connects his Tzinitza (Thinse) with the chain of moun
tains which divides Persia and the Romanic lands and the whole habitable
world into two parts, adding the remarkable observation, that this is accord,
ing to the "belief of the Indian philosophers and Brahmins." Compar«
Cosmas, in Montfaucon, Collect, nova Patrum, T. ii. p. 137 ; and my Asie
centrale, T. i. p. xxiii. 120—129, and 194—203, T. ii. p. 413. The Pseudo-
Arrian, Agathemeros, according to the learned investigations of Professor
Franz, and Cosmas, decidedly ascribe to the metropolis of the Sinse a -very
northern latitude, nearly in the parallel of Rhodes and Athens; whereas
Ptolemy, misled by the accounts of mariners, speaks solely of a Thinse three
degrees south of the equator (Geogr. i. 17). I suspect that Thinse merely
meant, generally, a Chinese emporium, a harbour in the land of Tsin ; and
that therefore one Thinse (Tziuitza) may have been intended north of the
equator, and another south of the equator.
C293) p. 188.— Strabo, lib. i. p. 49—60, lib. ii. p. 95 and 97, lib. vi. p
277 ; lib. xvii. p. 830. On the elevation of islands, and of the continent, sea
particularly lib. i. p. 51, 54> and 59. The old Eleat Xenophanes was led, by
the numerous fossil marine productions found at a distance from the sea, to
conclude that "the present dry ground had been raised from the bottom of th«
Bea" (Origen, Philosophumena, cap. 4). Appuleius, in the time of Antoninus,
collected fossils from the Gsetulian (Mauritania^) mountains, and ascribed
them to the flood of Deucalion, considering it to have been universal. Pro-
fessor Franz, by means of very careful investigation, has refuted Beckmann's
and Cuvier's belief, that Appuleius possessed a collection of specimens of
natural history (Beckmann's Gesch. der Erfindunger, Bd. ii. S. 370 j and
Cuvier's Hist, des Sciences naturelles).
C2*1) p. 189.— Strabo, lit »vii. p. 810.
NOTES.
(») p. 190.— Carl Ritter, Asien, Th. v. S. 560.
(S96) p. 190. — See a collection of the most striking instances of Greek and
Roman errors, in respect to the directions of different chains of mountains,
in the introduction to my Asie centrale, T. i. p. xxxvii. — xl. Most satisfac-
tory investigations, respecting the uncertainty of the numerical bases of
Ptolemy's positions, are to be found in a treatise of Ukert, in the Rheinischen
Museum fur Philologie, Jahrg. vi. 1838, S. 314—324.
t29') p. 191.— For examples of Zend and Sanscrit words which have been
preserved to us in Ptolemy's Geography, see Lassen, Diss. de Taprobane
insula, p. 6, 9, and 17 ; Burnouf's Comment, sur le Ya9na, T. i. p. xciii. — cxx.
and clxxxi. — ckxxv. ; and my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogr. T. i. p.
45 — 49. In few cases Ptolemy gives both the Sanscrit names and their sig-
nifications, as for the island of Java " barley island," lojSa&ou, o (nj/icuvci
KP&TJS vi}ffos, Ptol. vii. 2 (Wilhelm v. Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd.
i. S. 60 — 63). The two-stalked barley (Hordeum distichon) is, according to
B'ischmann, still termed in the principal Indian languages (Hindustanee,
Bengalee and Nepaulese, Mahratta, Cingalese, and the language of Guzerat),
as well as in Persian and Malay, yava, djav, or djau, and in the language of
Orissa, yaa. (Compare the Indian versions of the Bible in the passage John
~\ vi. 9 and 13 ; and Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindostan, Madras, 1813, p.
217.)
t298) p. 191.— See my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p.
147—188. *
O299) p. 192.— Strabo, lib. xi. p. 506.
(S00) p. 192. — Menander de Legationibus Barbarorum ad Romanes, et
Romanorum ad Gentes, e rec. Bekkeri et Niebuhr, 1829, p. 300, 619, 623,
and 628.
t301) p. 192.— Plutarch de Facie in Orbe Lunse, p. 921, 19 (compare my
Examen crit. T. i. p. 145 — 191). I have met, among highly-informed Per-
sians, with a repetition of the hypothesis of Agesianax, according to which, the
marks on the lunar surface, in which Plutarch (p. 935, 4) thought he saw
" a peculiar kind of shining mountains" (? volcanoes), were merely the
eflected images of terrestrial lands, seas, and isthmuses. My Persian friends
said, " what they shew us through telescopes on the surface of the moon are
only the reflected images of our own countries."
C302) p. 192. — Ptolem. lib. iv. cap. 9 ; lib. vii. cap, 3 and 5. Compare
Letroune, in the Journal des Savans, 1831, p. 476—480, and 545—555 ;
Humboldt, Examen crit. T. i. p. 144, 161, and 329 j T. ii. p. 370—373.
NOTES. lX
(*») p. 193. — Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astronomie ancienne, T. i. p. liv. ; T. ii.
p. 551. Theon never makes any mention of Ptolemy's Optics, although he
lived fully two centuries after him.
(30*) p. 193. — In reading ancient works on physics, it is often difficult to
decide whether a particular result followed from a phenomenon purposely
called forth, or accidentally observed. When Aristotle (De Coelo, iv. 4) treats
of the weight of the atmosphere, which, however, Ideler appears to deny his
having done (Meteorologia Veterum Grsecorum et Romanorum, p. 23), he
says distinctly that a " bladder when blown out is heavier than an empty
bladder." The experiment, if actually tried, must have been made with con-
densed air.
t305) p. 193.— Aristot. de Anim. ii. 7; Biese, die Philosophic des Aristot.,
Bd. ii. S. 147.
(306) p. 194. — Joannis (Philoponi) Grammatici in Libr. de Geuerat. and
Alexandri Aphrodis. in Meteorol. Comment. (Venet. 1527,) p. 97, b. Com-
pare my Examen critique, T. ii. p. 306 — 312.
C307) p. 194.— The Numidian Metellus had 142 elephants killed in the
circus. In the games given by Pompey, 600 lions and 406 panthers were
shewn. Augustus sacrificed 3500 wild beasts in the festivities which he gave
to the people; and a tender huslwid laments that he could not celebrate the
day of his wife's death by a sanguinary gladiatorial fight at Verona, "because
contrary winds detained in port the panthers which had been bought in
Africa" ! (Plin. Epist. vi. 34.)
(S03) p. 195.— Compare Note 293. Yet Appuleius, as Cuvier recals (Hist,
des Sciences naturelles, T. i. p. 287), was the first to describe accurately the
bony hook in the second and third stomach of the Aplysise.
(309) p. 198. — "Est enim animorum ingeuiorumque naturale quoddam
quasi pabulum consideratio contemplatioque naturae. Erigimur, elatiorea
fieri videmur, humana despicimus, cogitantesque supera atque coelestia hsec
nostra, ut exigua et minima, contemnimus" (Cic. Acad. ii. 41).
(31°) p. 198.— Plin. xxxvii. 13 (ed. Sillig. T. v. 1836, p. 320). All ear-
lier editions terminated with the words " Hispaniam quacunque ambitu man."
The conclusion of the work was discovered in 1831 in a Bamberg Codex, by
Herr Ludwig v. Jan, Professor at Schweinfurt.
C3'-1) p. 199. — Claudian in secundum consulatum Stilichonis, v. 150—155.
(312) p, 200.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 385 and 492, Bd. ii. S. 25 (Eng. trans.
Vol. i. p. 356, and note 443, Vol. ii. p. 25). Compare also Wilhelm von
Humboldt iiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i. S. xxxviii.
IX NOTES.
C18) p. 204. — If, as has often been said; Charles Kartell's victory at Tours
protected middle Europe against the Mussulman invasion, it cannot be
maintained with equal justice that it was the retreat of the Moguls after the
battla of Liegnitz, which prevented Buddhism from penetrating to the banks
of the Elbe and the Rhine. The battle which was fought in the plain of
Wahlstatt, near Liegnitz, and in which Duke Henry the Pious fell heroically,
was fought on the 9th of April, 1241, four years after the Asiatic hordes
under Batu. the grandson of Ghengis Khan, had subjected the Kaptschak and
Russia. But the first introduction of Buddhism among the Mogols took
place in the year 1247, when, at Leang-tscheu, in the Chinese province of
Schensi, the sick Mongolian Prince Godan sent for the Sakya Pandita, a
Thibetian arch-priest, to cure and convert him (Klaproth, in a manuscript frag-
ment " iiber die Verbreitung des Bnddhismus im ostlichen und nordlichen
Asien"). It should also be remarked, that the Moguls have never occu-
pied themselres with the conversion of conquered nations.
(314) p. 204.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 308 and 471 (English trans. Vol. i. p.
283, and note 342).
(315) p. 206. — Hence the contrast between the tyrannical measures of
Motewekkel, the tenth Caliph of the house of the Abassides, against Jews
and Christians (Joseph von Hammer iiber die Landerverwaltung unter dem
Chalifate, 1835, S. 27, 85, and 117), and the mild tolerance of wiser rulers
in Snain (Conde, Hist, de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espafia, T. i.
1820, p. 67). It should also be remembered, that Omar, after the taking of
Jerusalem, permitted every rite of Christian worship, and concluded an agree-
ment with the Patriarch very favourable to the Christians (Fnndgruben d°«
Orients, Bd. v. S. 68).
(316) p. 206.— " There is a tradition of a branch of the Hebrews having mi-
grated to southern Arabia, under the name of Jokthan (Oachthan), before the
time of Abraham, and of having founded there flourishing kingdoms" (Ewald,
Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Bd. i. S. 337 and 450).
(3!0 p. 206.— The tree which furnishes the " incense of Hadramaut,"
celebrated from the earliest times, has not yet been discovered and determined
by any botanist, not even by the laborious and far-searcning Ehrenberg ; it is
entirely wanting in the island of Socotora. An article resembling this
incense is found in India, and particularly in Bundelcund ; and is an object of
considerable export from the port of Bombay, to China. This Indian
kind of incense is obtained, according to Colebrooke (Asiatic Researches, Vol.
ix. p. 377), from a plant made known by Roxburgh, Boswellia thurifera or
NOTES. Ixi
serrata, of Kunth's family of Burseraceae. As from the very ancient commer-
cial connections between the coasts of southern Arabia and western India
(Gildemeister, Scriptorum Arabum Loci de rebus Indicis, p. 35) it might be
doubted whether the \ifiavos of Theophrastus, (the Thus of the Romans), be-
longed originally to the Arabian peninsula, Lassen's remark (indische Altef-
thumskunde, Bd. i. S. 286), that incense is called " yawana, Javanese, i. e.
Arabian, in Amara-Koscha itself," apparently implying that it is brought to
India from Arabia, becomes very important. It is called in Amara-Koscha,
"turuschka', pindaka', sihlo, (three names signifying incense), yawano" (Amara-
kocha, pubi. par A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, P. i. 1839, p. 1 56). Dioscoridea
distinguishes Arabian from Indian incense. Carl Hitter, in his excellent
monograph on the kinds of incense (Asien, Bd. viii. Abth. i. S. 356 — 372),
remarks very justly, that, from the similarity of climate, this species of plant
(Boswellia thurifera) may well extend over a region reaching from India,
through the south of Persia, to Arabia. The American incense (Olibauum
americanum of our Pharmacopoeia) is obtained from Icica gujanensis, AubL
and Icica tacamahaca, which Bonpland and myself found growing abundantly
in the vast grassy plains (Llanos) of Calaboso in South America. Icica, like
Boswellia, belongs to the family of Burseracea?. The red pine (Pinus abies,
Linn.) produces the common incense of our churches. The plant which bears
myrrh, and which Bruce thought he had seen (Ainslie, Materia Medica of
Hindostan, Madras, 1813, p. 29) has been discovered near el-Gisan in
Arabia, by Ehrenberg, and has been described, from the specimens collected
by him, under the name of Balsamodendron myrrha, by Nees von Esenbeck.
Rilsamodendron kotaf of Kunth, an Amyris of Forskal, was long erro-
neously supposed to be the true myrrh tree.
(318) p. 207.— Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, 1838, Vol. i. p. 272—289.
P>) p. 207.— Jomard, Etudes geogr. et hist, sur 1' Arabic, 1839, p. 14
and 32.
P) p. 207.— Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 167 (English trans. Vol. ii. p. 133.)
P) p. 208.— Isaiah, Ix. 6.
P) p. 209.— Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, Bd. i. S. 300 and 450 ;
Bunsen, ^Egypten, Buch iii. S. 10 and 32. The traditions of Medes and
Persians in northern Africa indicate very ancient migrations to the westward.
They have been connected with the variously related myth of Hercules, and
the Phoenician Melkarth. (Compare Sallust, Bellum Jugurth. cap. 18, drawn
from Punic writings, by Hiempsal ; and Pliny, v. 8.) Strabo even calls the
Ixii NOTES.
Maurusians Cohabitants of Mauritania) " Indians who had come with Her-
cules."
C323) p. 209.— Diod. Sic. lib. ii. cap. 2 and 3.
(S24) p. 209. — Ctesise Cnidii Operum reliquiae, ed. Baehr., Fragment*
Assyriaca, p. 421 ; and Carl Miiller, in Dindorf 's edition of Herodotus, Par.
1844, p. 13—15.
C525) p. 210.— Gibbon, Hist, of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Vol. ix. chap. 1. p. 200, Leips. 1829.
C326) p. 210.— Humboldt, Asie centr. T. ii. p. 128.
C327) p. 211. — Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur 1'Age des Traductions
d'Aristote, 1819, p. 81 and 8?.
(S28) p. 214. — Respecting the knowledge which the Arabians derived from
the Hindoos, in the study of the materia medica, see Wilson's important iuvesti-
gations, in the Oriental Magazine of Calcutta, 1823, Feb. and March ; and
those of Royle, in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, 1837, p.
56 — 59, 64 — 66, 73, and 92. Compare an account of Arabic pharniaceutic
writings, translated from Hindostanee, in Ainslie (Madras edition), p. 289.
f^) p. 215.— Gibbon, Vol. ix. chap. Ii. p. 392 ; Heeren, Gesch. des
Studiums der classischen Litteratur, Bd. i. 1797, S. 44 and 72; Sacy, Abd-
Allatif, p. 240; Parthey, das alexandrinische Museum, 1838, S. 106.
(530) p. 216. — Heinrich Ritter, Gesch. der christlichen Philosophic, Th. iii.
1844, S. 669—676.
(531) p. 217. — The learned Orientalist, Reinaud, in three late writings,
which shew how much may still be derived from Arabic and Persian, as well
as Chinese sources ; Fragments arabes et persans inedits relatifs a Flnde an-
terieurement au 11 erne Siecle de 1'Ere chretienne, 1845, p. xx. — xxxiii. ;
Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans PInde et a la
Chine dans le 9eme Siecle de notre Ere, 1845, T. i. p. xlvi. ; Meinoire geog.
et hist, sur PInde d'apres les Ecrivains arabes, persans et chinois, anterieure-
ment au milieu du onzieme Siecle de PEre chretienne, 1846, p. 6. The
second of these memoirs is based on the far less complete treatise of the Abbe
Renaudot, entitled " Anciennes Relations des Indes, et de la Chine, de deux
Voyageurs mahometans," 1718. The Arabic manuscript contains only one
notice of a voyage, viz. that of the merchant Soleiinan, who embarked on the
Persian Gulf in the year 851 ; to which is added, what Abu-Zeyd-Hassan, of
Syraf in Farsistan, who had never travelled to India or China, could learu
from other well-informed merchants.
NOTES. Ixiii
C32) p. 217.— Reinaud et Fave du Fea gregeois, 1845, p. 200.
(S33) p. 217. — Ukert, uber Marinus Tyrius uud Ptolemaus, die Geographen,
m the Rheinischen Museum fiir Philologie, 1839, S. 329—332; Gilde-
meister de rebus Indicis, Pars 1, 1838, p. 120 ; Asie centrale, T. ii. p. 191.
(m) p. 217.— The "Oriental Geography of Ebn-Haukal," which Sir
William Ouseley published iu London in 1800, is that of Abu-Ishak el-
Istachri, and, as Frahn has shewn (Ibn Fozlan, p. ix. xxii. and 256 — 263),
is half a century older than Ebn-Haukal. The maps which accompany the
" Book of Climates" of the year 920, and of which there is a fine manuscript
copy in the library of Gotha, have been very useful to me in what I have
written on the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral (Asie centrale, T. ii. p.
192 — 196). We now possess an edition of Istachri, and a German transla-
tion ; (Liber Climatum, ad similitudinem codicis Gothaui delineandum, cur.
J. H. Moeller, Goth. 1839 ; Das Buch der Lander, translated from the
Arabic by A. D. Mordtmann, Hamb. 1845).
(535) p. 217- — Compare Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, Memoria em
que se pretende provar que os Arabes nsio conheceriio as Canarias antes dos
Portuguezes, Lisboa, 1844, p. 86—99, 205—227, with Humboldt, Examen
crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 137—141.
(536) p. 218. — Leopold von Ledebur, uber die in den baltischen Landern
gefundenen Zeugnisse eines Handels-Verkehrs mit dem Orient zur Zeit der
arabischen Weltherrschaft, 1840, S. 8 and 75.
(337) p. 218. — The determinations of longitude which Abul-Hassan AH of
Morocco, an astronomer of the 13th century, has incorporated with his work
on the astronomical instruments of the Arabs, are all computed from the
first meridian of Arin. M. Sedillot fils first directed the attention of geo-
graphers to this meridian ; it has also been an object of careful research to
myself, because Columbus, being as always guided by Cardinal d'Ailly's
Imago Mundi, in his phantasies respecting the difference of form which he
supposes between the eastern and western hemisphere, speaks of an Isla de
Arin : centro de el hemispheric del qual habla Tolomeo y ques debaxo la
linea equinoxial eutre el Sino Arabico y aquel de Persia. (Compare J. J.
Sedillot, Traite des Instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, publ. par L. Am.
Sedillot, T. i. 1834, p. 312—318, T. ii. 1835, preface, with Humboldt's
Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogr. T. iii. p. 64, and Asie centrale, T. iii. p.
593 — 596, where will be found the data which I derived from the Mappa
Mundi of Alliacus of 1410, in the " Alphonsine Tables," 1483, and in
Madrignano's Itinerarium Portugallensium, 1508. It is singular that Edrisi
NOTES.
appears to know nothing of Khobbet Irin (Cancadora, more properly Kank.
der). Sedillot ftls (in the Memoire sur les Systemes geographiques des Grecs
It des Arabes, 1842, p. 20—25) places the meridian of Arin in the group of
the Azores ; whereas the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Reinaud (Me'-
moire sur 1'Inde anterieurement au lleme Siecle de 1'Ere chretienne, d'apres
les Ecrivains arabes et persans, p. 20—24), assumes "Arin to have been a
name originating by confusion with Azyn, Oxein, and Odjein, an old
seat of cultivation : according to Burnouf, Udjijayani in Malwa O$VTJ
of Ptolemy ; and that this Ozene is in the meridian of Lanka, and that in
later times Arin was believed to be an island on the coast of Zanguebar, per-
haps Effcrvvov of Ptolemy." Compare also Am. Sedillot, Mein. sur les Instr.
astrou. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75.
C"88) p. 218. — The Caliph Al-Mamun caused many valuable Greek manu-
scripts to be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egjrpt, and to
be translated direct from Greek into Arabic, the earlier Arabic versions
having long been founded on Syrian translations (Jourdaiu, Recherches crit.
sur 1'Age et sur I'Origine des Traductions latines d'Aristote, 1819, p. 85, 88,
and 226). Al-Mamun's exertions have rescued much which, without the
Arabians, would have been lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by
Armenian translations, as Neumann of Munich has first shewn. Unhappih
a notice by the historian Geuzi of Bagdad, preserved to us by the celebrated
geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir entitled " De Viris inter Arabea
illustribus," gives reason to believe, that at Bagdad itself many Greek
originals, supposed to be useless, were burnt ; but no doubt this passage does
not relate to important manuscripts already translated. It is capable of more
interpretations than one, as has been shewn by Bernhardy (Grundriss der
griechen Litteratur, Th. i. S. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der
elassischen Litteratur, Bd. i. S. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle
have often been made useful in executing Latin ones (e. g. the eight books cf
Physics, and the History of Animals) ; but the larger and better part of the
Latin translations have been made direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Recb,
crit. sur 1'Age des Traductions d'Aristote, p. 230 — 236). We may recognise
an allusion to the same twofold source in the memorable letter which the
Emperor Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen sent with translations of Aristotle
to his universities, and especially to that of Bologuainl232. This letter coutaiiii
the expression of noble sentiments, and shews that it was not only the love
of natural history which taught Frederick II. to appreciate the philosophical
value of the " Compilationes varias quse ab Aristotele aliisque philosophii
NOTES. 1XV
sub Greecis Arabicisque Vocabulis Antiquitus editce sunt." He writes : " W«
have from our earliest youth, desired a closer acquaintance with science,
although the cares of government have withdrawn us therefrom. As far as
we could, we delighted in spending our time in the careful reading of excellent
works, to the end that the mind might be enlightened and strengthened by
exercises, without which the life of man is wanting both in rule and in free-
dom (ut animse clarius vigeat instrumentum in acquisitione scientise, sine qua
mortalium vita non regitur liberaliter). Libros ipsos tamquam prsemium
amici Csesaris gratulantur accipite, et ipsos antiquis philosophorum operibus,
qui vocis vestrae rninisterio reviviscunt, aggregantes in auditorio vestro." ....
(Compare Jourdain, p. 169 — 178, and Friedrich von Raumer's excellent
Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, Bd. iii. 1841, S. 413.) The Arabs formed a
uniting link between ancient and modern science : without their love of
translation, succeeding ages would have lost great part of that which the
Greeks had either formed themselves, or derived from other nations. It is in
this point of view that the subjects which have been touched upon, though
seemingly purely linguistic, have a general cosmical interest.
(S39) p. 218. — Michael Scot's translation of Aristotle's Historia Anima-
lium, and a similar work by Avicenna (Manuscript No. 6493 in the Paris
Library), are spoken of by Jourdain, Traductions d'Aristote, p. 135 — 138,
and by Schneider, Adnot. ad Aristotelis de Animalibus Hist. lib. ix. cap. 15.
t340) p.- 218.— On Ibn-Baithar, see Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzneykunde, Th.
ii. 1823, S. 468 ; and Royle on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p. 28.
We possess, since 1840, a German translation of Ibn-Baithar, under the title
Grosse Zusammenstellung iiber die Krafte der bekannten einfachen Heil- und
N ahrungs-mittel, translated from the Arabic by J. v. Sontheimer, 2 vols.
^') p. 219. — Royle, p. 35 — 65. Susruta, son of Visvamitra, is consi-
dered by Wilson to have been a cotemporary of Rama. We have a Sanscrit
edition of his works (The Sus'ruta, or System of Medicine taught by Dhan
wantari, and composed by his disciple Sus'ruta, ed. by Sri Madhusudana
Gupta, Vol. i. ii. Calcutta, 1835, 1836), and a Latin translation (Sus'rutas
Aynrvedas, id est Medicinae Systcma a venerabili D'havantare demon stratum,
a Susruta discipulo compositum. Nunc pr. ex S nskrita in Latinum sermonem
vertit Franc. Hessler, 2 vols. Erlangse, 1844, 184?.
f*4-) p. 219. — Avicenna says, " Deiuuar (Deodar), of the genus 'abhel
(juniperus) ; also an Indian pine which yields a peculiar milk, syr deiudar
(fluid turpentine)."
(343) p. 219. — Spanish Jews from Cordova carried the lessons of Avicennr
VOL. I]. 2 F
Ixvi NOTES.
to Montpellier, and contributed in a principal degree to the establishment of
its celebrated medical school, belonging to the 12th century, which was
modelled according to Arabian patterns (Cavier, Hist, des Sciences naturelles,
T. i. p. 387).
(344) p. 219. — Respecting the gardens of the palace of Rissafah, which was
built by Abdurrahman Ibu-Moa\vijeh, see History of the Mohammedan
Dynasties in Spain, extracted from Ahmed Ibn Mohammed Al-Makkari, by
Pascual de Gayangos, Vol. i. 1840, p. 209—211. En su Huerta planto el
Key Abdurrahman una palma que era entonces (756) unica, y de ella proce-
dieron todas las que hay en Espaiia. La vista del arbol acrecentaba mas que
templaba su melancolia" (Antonio Coude, Hist, de la Dominacion de los
Arabes en Espana, T. i. p. 169).
(&*) p. 220. — The preparation of nitric acid and aqua regia by Djaber
(whose proper name was Abu-Mussah-Dschafar) is more than 500 years
anterior to Albertus Magnus and Raymond Lully, and almost 700 years an-
terior to the Erfurt Monk, Basilius Valentinus. Nevertheless, the discovery
of these decomposing (dissolving) acids, which constitutes an epoch in
chemical knowledge, was long ascribed to the three last named Europeans.
(346) p. 220. — Respecting the rules given by Razes for the vinous fermen-
tation of amylum and sugar, and for the distillation of alcohol, see Hofer,
Hist, de la Chimie, T. i. p. 325. Although Alexander of Aphrodisias
(Joannis Philoponi Grammatici in Libr. de Generatione et Interitu Comm.
Venet. 1527, p. 97), properly speaking, only describes circumstantially distil-
lation from sea-water, yet he also indicates that wine may also be distilled.
This is the more remarkable, because Aristotle had put forward (Meteorol. ii.
3, p. 358, Bekker) the erroneous opinion, that in natural evaporation fresh
water only rose from wine, as from the salt water of the sea.
(M7) p. 220. — The chemistry of the Indians, comprising alchemistic arts,
is called ras&yana (rasa, juice or fluid, also quicksilver ; and ayana, march or
proceeding), and forms, according to Wilson, the seventh division of the Ayur-
Veda, the " science of life, or of the prolongation of life" (Royle, Hindoo
Medicine, p. 39 — 48). The Indians have been acquainted from the earliest times
(Royle, p. 131) with the application of mordants in calico or cotton printing,
an Egyptian art which we find most clearly described in Pliny, lib. xxxv. cap. 11,
No. 150. The name " chemistry" indicates literally " Egyptian art," the art
of the black land ; for Plutarch (de Iside et Osir, cap. 33) knew that the Egyp-
tians called their country Xrj/ua, from the black earth. The inscription on
the Rosetta stone has Chmi. I find the word chemie, as applied to the de-
NOTES. Ixvii
composing art, first in the decrees of Diocletian against "the old writings of
the Egyptians which treat of the 'chemie' of gold and silver (irepi xnt*10*
apyvpov Kai XOVGOV)." Compare my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogra-
phic et de 1'Astronomie nautique, T. ii. p. 314.
(34S) p. 221. — Reinaud et Fave du Feu gregeois, des Feux de Guerre, ct
des Origines de la Poudre a Canon, in their Histoire de 1'Artillerie, T. i.
1845, p. 89—97, 201, and 211; Piobert, Traite d'ArtiUerie, 1836, p. 25;
Beckmann, Technologic, S. 342.
C349) p. 221.— Laplace, Precis de I'Hist. de I' Astronomic, 1821, p. 60;
and Sedillot, Menioire sur les Instrumens astr. des Arabes, 1841, p. 44. Also
Thomas Young (Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,
1807, Vol. i. p. 191) does uot doubt that Ebn-Junis, at the end of the teufh
century, applied the pendulum to the measurement of time, but he ascribes
the first combination of the pendulum with wheel- work to Sanctorius, in
1612 (44 years before Huyghens). Respecting the very skilfully made time-
piece which was among the presents which Haroun Al-Raschid, or rather the
Caliph Abdallah, sent, two centuries before, from Persia to Charlemagne at
Aix-la-Chapelle, Eginhard says distinctly, that it was moved by water (horo-
logium ex aurichalco arte mechanica mirifice compositum, in quo duodecim
horarum cursus ad Clepsidram vertebatur) ; Einhardi Annales, in Pertz's
Monumenta Germanise Historica Scriptorum, T. i. 1826, p. 195. Compare
H. Mutius, de Germanorum Origine, Gestis, &c. Chronic, lib. viii. p. 5^, in
Pistorii Germanicorum Scriptorum, T. ii. Francof. 1584; Bouquet, Recueil
des Historiens des Gaules, T. v. p. 333 and 354. The hours were marked
by the sound of the fall of small balls, as well as by the coming forth of small
horsemen from as many opening doors. The manner in which the water
acted in such timepieces may indeed have been very different among the
Chaldeans, who " weighed time" (determined it by the weight of fluids), and
among the Greeks and the Indians in Clepsydras ; for the hydraulic clock-
work of Ctesibius, under Ptolemy Euergetes II. which gave the civil hours
throughout the year at Alexandria, according to Ideler was never known
under the common denomination of nXetyvSpa (Ideler's Handbuch der Chro-
nologie, J825, Bd. i. S. 231). According to Vitruvius's description (lib. ix.
cap. 4), it was a real astronomical clock, a " horologium ex aqua," a very
complicated "machina hydraulica," working by means of toothed wheel*
(versatilis tympani denticuli sequales alius alium impellentes). It is thus not
improbable, that the Arabians, acquainted with the accounts of improved me-
chanical constructions under the Roman Empire, succeeded in making an
Ixviii NOTES.
hydraulic clock with wheel-work (tympana qiue nonnulli rotas appellant,
Grseci autem vfpirpoxa, Vitruvius, x. 4). Leibnitz (Annales Imperil Occi-
dents Brunsvicensis, ed. Pertz, T. i. 1843, p. 24?) expresses his admiration
of the construction of the clock of Haroun Al-Raschid (Abd-Allatif, trad, par
Silvestre de Sacy, p. 578). A much more remarkable piece of skilful work
was that which the Sultan sent from Egypt, in 1232, to the Emperor
Frederic II. It was a large teut, in which the sun and moon were made to
move by mechanism, so as to rise and set, and to shew the hours of the day
and of the night at correct intervals of time. In the Annales Godefridi
Monachi S. Pantaleonis apud Coloniam Agrippiuam, it is described as " ten-
torium, in quo imagines solis et lurise artificialiter motse cursum suum certis
et debitis spaciis peragrant, et horas diei et noctis infallibilitcr indicant
(Freheri Rerum Germanicarura Scriptores, T. i. Argcntor. 1717, p. 398).
The monk Godefridus, or whoever else may have treated of those years in the
chronicle which was, perhaps, written by many different authors for the con-
vent of St. Pantaleon at Cologne (see Bohmer, Fontes Rerum Germanicarum,
Bd. ii. 1845, S. xxxiv. — xxxvii.), lived in the time of the great Emperor
Frederic II. himself. The emperor had this curious work, the value of which
was estimated at 20000 marks, preserved at Venusium, with other treasures
(Fried, von Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, Bd. iii. S. 430). That the
whole tent was given a movement like., that of the vault of heaven, as has
often been asserted, appears to me very improbable. The Chronica Monas-
terii Hirsaugiensis, edited by Trithemius, contains scarcely any thing more
than a mere repetition of the passage in the Annales Godefridi, without giving
any information about the mechanical construction (Joh. Trithemii Opera
Historica, P. ii. Francof. 1601, p. 180). Reinaud says that the movement
was effected "par des ressorts caches" (Extraits des Historiens Arabes relatifs
aux Guerres des Croisades, 1829, p. 435).
C350) p. 223. — On the Indian tables which Alphazari and Alkoresmi translated
into Arabic, see Chasles, Recherehes sur 1'Astronomie indienne, in the Comptes
rendus des Se'ances de 1'Acad. des Sciences, T. xxiii. 1846, p. 846—850.
The substitution of the sine for the arc, which is usually ascribed to Albateg-
nius, in the beginning of the tenth century, also belongs originally to the
Indians : tables of sines are to be found in the Surya-Siddhanta.
p1) p. 223. — Reinaud, Fragments Arabes relatifs a 1'Iude, p. xii. — xvii.
96—126, and especially 135 — 160. Albiruni's proper name was Abul-Ryhan.
He was a native of Byrun in the valley of the Indus, was a friend of
Aviceuna, and lived with him at the Arabian academy which had been formed
NOTES.
kix
in Charezm. His sojourn in India, and the writing of his history of India
(Tankhi-Hind), the most remarkable fragments of which have been made
known by Reinaud, belong to the years 1030 — 1032.
(352) p. 224. — Sedillot, Materiaux pour servir a 1'Histoire comparee de»
Sciences mathematiques chez les Grecs ct les Orientaux, T. i. p. 50 — 89 ; the
same, in the Comptes rendus de 1'Acad. des Sciences, T. ii. 1836, p. 202, T.
xvii. 1843, p. 163—173, T. xx. 1845, p. 1308. M. Biot maintains, in
opposition to this opinion, that the fine discovery of Tycho Brahe by no
means belongs to Abul-Wefa ; that the latter was acquainted, not with the
" variation," but only with the second part of the " evection" (Journal des
Savans, 1843, p. 513—532, 609—626,719—737; 1845, p. 146—166;
and Comptes reiidus, T. xx. 1845, p. 1319—1323).
C353) p. 224.— Laplace, Expos, du Systeme du Monde, Note 5, p. 407.
C35*) p. 225.— On the observatory of Meragha, see Delambre, Histoire de
1'Astronomie du Moyen Age, p. 198 — 203 ; and Am. Sedillot, Mem. sur les In-
strumens arabes, 1841, p. 201 — 205, where the gnomon is described with a
circular opening. On the peculiarities of the star catalogue of Ulugh Beig,
see J. J. Sedillot, Traiie des Instruments astronomiques des Arabes, 1834,
p. 4.
P5) p. 225. — Colebrooke, Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration from
the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara, Lond. 1817. Chasles, Aper9u
historique sur 1'Origine et le Developpement des Methodes en Geometric,
1S37, p. 416— 502; Nesselmann, Versuch einer kritischen Geschichte der
Algebra, Th. i. S. 30—61, 273—276, 302—306.
I356) p. 225.— Algebra of Mohammed Ben-Musa, edited and translated by
F. Rosen, 1831, p. 8, 72, and 196—199. The mathematical knowledge of
India was extended to China about the year 720 ; but this was at a period
when many Arabians were already settled in Canton and other Chinese cities.
Reinaud, Relation des Voyages fuits par les Arabes dans 1'Inde et a la Chine,
T. i. p. 109 ; T. ii. p. 36.
C357) p. 226. — Chasles, Histoire de 1'AJgebre, in the Comptes rendus,
T. xiii. 1841, p. 497—524, 601—626; compare also Libri, in the same,
p. 559—563.
p8) p. 226. — Chasles, Aper$u historique des Methodes en Geome'trie,
1837, p. 464—472. The same, in the Comptes rendus de 1'Acad. des
Sciences, T. viii. 1839, p. 78; T. ix. 1839, p. 449; T. xvi. 1843, p. 156—
173, and 218—246; T. xvii. 1843, p. 143—154.
C359) p. 227.- Humboldt, iiber die bei verschiedenen Volkern ublichen
NOTES.
/
Systeme von Zahlzeichen und iiber den Ursprung des Stellenwerthes in dea
indischen Zahlen, in Crelle's Journal f iir die reine und angewandte MatLematik,
Bd. iv. (1829), S. 205—231 ; compare also my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la
Geographic, T. iv. p. 275. The simple relation of the different methods
which nations, to whom the Indian arithmetic by position was unknown, em-
ployed for expressing the multiplier of the fundamental group, contains, I
believe, the explanation of the gradual rise or origin of the Indian system.
If we express the number 3568, either perpendicularly or horizontally, by means
ef "indicators," which correspond to the different divisions of the Abacus,
(thus, M c X l)» we staU easilv Perceive tliat the group-signs (M C X I)
could be left out. But our Indian numbers are no other than these indicators ;
they are the multipliers of the different groups. We are also reminded of this
designation (solely by means of indicators) by the ancient Indian Suanpan (the
reckoning machine which the Moguls introduced into Russia), which has
successive rows or wires representing the thousands, hundreds, tens, and units.
These rows would present, in the numerical example just cited, 3, 5, 6, and 8
balls. In the Suanpan, no group-sign is visible : the group-signs are the
positions themselves; and these positions (rows or wires) are occupied by
units (3, 5, 6, and 8) as multipliers or indicators. In both ways, whether
by the written or by the palpable arithmetic, we arrive at position-value, and
at the simple use of nine numbers. If a row is empty, the place will be un-
filled in writing. If a group (a member of the progression) is wanting, the
vacuity is graphically filled by the symbol of vacuity (sunya, sifron, tziiphra).
In the " Method of Eutocius," I find, in the group of the myriads, the first
trace of the exponential system of the Greeks so important for the East :
Ma, M*, MY, designate 10000, 20000, 30000. That which is here applied
only to the myriads extends among the Chinese and Japanese, who derived
their instruction from the Chinese 200 years before the Christian Era, to all
the multipliers of the groups. In the Gobar, the Arabian " dust writing," (dis-
covered by my deceased friend and teacher, Silvestre de Sacy, in a manuscript
in the library of the old Abbey of St. Germain des Pres,) the group-signs are
points — therefore, noughts or ciphers; for in India, Thibet, and Persia,
noughts and points are identical. In the Gobar, 3" is 30 ; 4" is 400; and
6v is 6000. The Indian numbers, and the knowledge of the value of position,
must be more modern than the separation of the Indians and the Arians ; for
the Zend nation only used the far less convenient Pehlvi numbers. The
opinion that the Indian notation has undergone successive improvements
appears to me to derive particular support from the Tamul system, which ex-
NOTES.
presses units by nine diameters, and all other values by group-signs for 10,
100, and 1000, having multipliers added to the left. I draw the same infer-
ence from the singular aptfljiiot eySt/cot in a scholium of the monk Neophytos,
discovered by Prof. Brandis in the library of Paris, and kindly communicated
to me for publication. The nine characters of Neophytos are, with the ex.
ceptiou of the 4, quite similar to the present Persian ; but these nine units are
raised to 10, 100, 1000 times their value by writing one, two, or three
o o oo
ciphers (o) above them ; as 2 for twenty, 2 4 for twenty-four, 5 for five hun«
0 0
dred, and 3 6 for three hundred and six. If we suppose points to be used
instead of ciphers, we have the Arabic dust writing, Gobar; As my brother
Wilhelm von Humboldt has often remarked of the Sanscrit, that it is very in
appropriately designated by the terms "Indian" and "ancient Indian"
language, since there are in the Indian peninsula several very ancient lan-
guages not at all derived from the Sanscrit, — so the expression Indian, 01
ancient Indian, system of notation is also vague, both in respect to the form
of the characters and also to the spirit of the method, which latter sometimes
consists in simple juxta-position, sometimes in the use of Coefficients and
Indicators, and sometimes in proper " position-value." Even the existence
of the cipher, or character for 0, is not a necessary condition of the simple
position-value in Indian notation, as the scholium of Neophytos shews. The
Indians who speak the Tamul language have numerical characters which
appear to differ from their alphabetic characters. The 2 and the 8 have a
faint resemblance to the 2 and the 5 of the Devanagari figures, (Rob. Anderson,
Rudiments of Tamul Grammar, 1821, p. 135) ; and yet an accurate com-
parison shews that the Tamul numerical characters are derived from the
Tamul alphabetical writing. Still more different from the Devanagari figures
are, according to Carey, the Cingalese. In the latter, and in the Tamul, we
find neither position-value nor zero sign, but symbols for tens, hundreds, and
thousands. The Cingalese work, like the Romans, by juxta-position ; the
Tamuls by coefficients. Ptolemy, in his Almagest and in his Geography,
nses 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 the Arabs. (See my work above
cited, and the memoir printed in Crelle's Mathematical Journal, S. 215, 219,
223, and 227.)
(360) p. 228.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, fiber die Kawi-Sprache, Bd. i.
S. cclxii. Compare also the excellent description of the Arabians, in Herder's
Ideen zur Gesch. der Menscheit, Book xix. 4 and 5.
hxii NOTES.
C361) p. 231. — Compare Humboldt, Examen crit. de FHist. de la Ge'ograw
phie, T. i. p. viii. and xii.
(562) p. 233. — Parts of America were seen, but not landed on, 14 year*
before Leif Eireksson, in the voyage which Bjame Herj'ilfson undertook from
Greenland to the southward in 986. He first saw the land at the island of
Nantucket, a degree south of Boston ; then in Nova Scotia ; and, lastly, in
Newfoundland, which was subsequently called " Litla Helluland," but never
" Vinland." The gulf which divides Newfoundland from the mouth of tht
great river St. Lawrence was called by the northmen settled in Iceland and
Greenland, Markland Gulf. See Caroli Christiani Rafn, Antiquitates Ame-
ricana;, 1845, p. 4, 421, 423, and 463.
(563) p. 233. — Gunnbjorn was wrecked, in 876 or 877, on the rocks sub-
sequently called by his name, which were lately rediscovered by Captain
Graah. It was Gunnbjorn who first saw the east coast of Greenland, but
without landing upon it. (Rafn, Autiquit. Amer. p. 11, 93, and 304.)
(M) p. 234.— Kosmos, Bd. ii S. 163 (Engl. trans. Vol. ii. p. 129).
C3"5) p. 234. — These mean annual temperatures of the east coast of America,
between the parallels of 42° 25' and 41° 15', correspond in Europe to the
latitudes of Berlin and Paris, places situated 8° or 10° more to the north.
Moreover, on this coast the decrease of mean annual temperature from lower
to higher latitudes is so rapid that, in the interval of latitude between Boston
and Philadelphia, which is 2° 41', an increase of a degree of latitude cor-
responds to a decrease in the mean annual temperature of almost 2° of the
Centigrade thermometer; whereas, in the European system of isothermal
lines, the same difference of latitude, according to my researches, barely cor-
responds to a decrease of half a degree of temperature, (Asie centrale, T. iii.
p. 227).
(366) p. 234. — See Carmen Fseroicum in quo Vinlandise mentio fit, (Rafn,
Autiquit. Amer. p. 320 and 332).
t367) p. 235. — The Runic stone was placed on the highest point of the
Island of Kingiktorsoak " on the Saturday before the day of victory," i. e.
before the 21st of April, a great Heathen festival of the ancient Scandinavians,
which, at their reception of Christianity, was converted into a Christian
festival. Rafn, Antiquit. Amer. p. 347 — 355. On the doubts which Bryn-
julfsen, Mohnike, and Klaproth have expressed respecting the Runic numbers,
see my Examen crit. T. ii. p. 97 — 101 ; yet, from other indications, Bryn-
julfseu and Graah regard the important monument on the Women's Isknds
(as well as the Runic inscriptions found at Igalikko and Egegeit, lat. 60° 51*
NOTES.
Ixxiii
and 60° 0', and the ruins of buildings at Upernaviclc, lat. 72° 50', as belonging
decidedly to the llth and 12th centuries.
t368) p. 235.— Rafn, Antiquit. Amer. p. 20, 274, and 415— 418 (Wilhelmi
iiber Island, Hvitramannaland, Greenland, and Vinland, S. 117 — 121). Ac-
cording to a very ancient Saga, the most northern part of the east coast of
Greenland was also visited in 1194, under the name of Svalbard, at a part
which corresponds to Scoresby's land, near the point where my friend,
then Captain Sabine, made his pendulum observations, and where I possess a
very dreary cape, in 73° 16' (Rafn, Antiquit. Amer. p. 303, and Aper9U de
1'ancicnne Geographic des Regions arctiques de I'Ame'rique, 1847, p. 6.)
(3G9) p. 235.— Wilhelmi, work above quoted, S. 226 ; Rafu, Antiquit. Amer.
p. 264 and 453. The settlements on the west coast of Greenland, which,
until the middle of the 14th century, were in a very nourishing condition,
underwent a gradual decay, from the ruinous operation of commercial mono-
poly, from the attacks of Esquimaux (Skralinger), the black death which,
according to Hecker, desolated the North during the years 1347 to 1351, and
the invasion of a hostile fleet from some unknown quarter. At the present
time, credit is no longer given to the meteorological myth of a sudden 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 west coast of Greenland, it cannot be true that a
bishop of Skalholt, in 1540, saw, on 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 neighbourhood of a chain of mountains having glaciers and
running parallel to the line of coast, and on the direction of marine currents.
This state of things did not take its origin from the close of the 14th or the
beginning of the 15th centuries. As Sir John Barrow has very justly shewn,
it has been subject to many accidental alterations, particularly in the years
1815 — 1817. (See Barrow, Voyages of Discovery within the Arctic Regions,
1846, p. 2 — 6). Pope Nicholas V. named a bishop for Greenland as late as
1448.
t370) p. 236. — The principal sources of information are the historic narra-
tions of Eric the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandsson, pro-
bably committed to writing as early as the 12th century in Greenland itself,
and partly by descendants of settlers born in Vinland (Rafn, Antiquit. Amer.
p. vii. xiv. and xvi.) The care with which genealogical tables were kept was
NOTES.
so great, that that of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son Suorre Thorbrandsson
was born in America, has been brought down from 1007 to 1811.
(&1) p. 237. — Hvitramannaland, the land of the white men. Compare
the original sources of information, in Rafn, Antiquit. Amer. p. 203 — 206, 211,
446—451 ; and Wilhelmi iiber Island, Hvitramannaland, &c. S. 75—81.
(?•*) p. 238. — Letronne, Recherches geogr. et crit. sur le Livre de "Men-
sura Orbis Terra1," composed en Irlande, par Dicuil, 1814, p. 129—146
Compare my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Ge'ogr. T. ii. p. 87—91.
(^3) p. 238. — I have appended to the ninth book of my travels (Relation
historique, T. iii. 1825, p. 159) a collection of the stories which have been
told from the time of Raleigh, of natives of Virginia speaking pure Celtic ; of
the Gaelic salutation, hao, hui, iach, having been heard there ; of Owen Cha-
pelain, in 1669, saving himself from the hands of the Tuscaroras, wrho were
about to scalp him, " by addressing them in his native Gaelic." These Tus-
caroras of North Carolina are now, however, distinctly recognised by linguistic
investigations, as an Iroquois tribe. See Albert Gallatin on Indian Tribes,
in the Archseologica Americana, Vol. ii. 1836, p. 23 and 57. A considerable
collection of Tuscarora words is given by Catlin, one of the most excellent
observers of manners who at any time sojourned amongst the aborigines of
America. He, however, is often inclined to regard the rather fair and often
blue-eyed nation of the Tuscaroras as a mixed race, descended from ancient
Welsh and irom the original inhabitants of the American continent. See his
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North
American Indians, 1841, Vol. i. p. 207 ; Vol. ii. p. 259 and 262—265.
Another collection of Tuscarora words is to be found in my brother's manu-
script notes respecting language, in the Royal Library at Berlin. " Comme la
structure des idioms americains parait singulierement bizarre aux differens
peuples qui parlent les langues modernes de PEurope occidentale, et se laissent
facilement tromper par de furtuites analogies de quelques sons, les theologiens
ont cru generalement y voir de 1'hebreu, les colons espagnols du basque, les
colons anglais ou fra^ais du gallois, de 1'irlandais ou da bas-breton
J'ai rencontre un jour, sur les cotes du Perou, un officier de la marine espag-
nol et un baleinier anglais, dont 1'un pretendait avoir entendu parler basque
a Tahiti, et 1'autre gale-iiiandais aux iles Sandwich" (Humboldt, Voyage aux
Regions equinoxiales, Relat. hist. T. iii. 1825, p. 160). Although, however,
no connection of language has yet been proved, I by no means wish to deny
that the Basques and the nations of Celtic origin inhabiting Ireland and
Wales, who were eark engaged in fisheries on the most remote coasts, were
NOTES.
Ixxv
the constant rivals of the Scandinavians in the northern parts of the Atlantic,
and even that the Irish preceded the Scandinavians in the Faroe Islands and
in Iceland. It is much to be desired that in our days, when a healthy spirit
of criticism, severe but not contemptuous, prevails, the old investigations of
Powel and Richard Hakluyt (Voyages and Navigations, Vol. iii. p. 4) might
be resumed in England, and also in Ireland itself. Are there grounds for the
statement that fifteen years before Columbus's discovery, the wanderings of
Madoc were celebrated in the poems of the Welsh bard Meredith ? I do not
participate in the rejecting spirit which has but too often thrown popular
traditions into obscurity ; I incline far more to the firm persuasion that, by
greater diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which
relate to the charts of the early part of the middle ages, — to the striking agree-
ment in religious traditions, manner of dividing time, and works of art in
America and Eastern Asia ; — to the migrations of the Mexican nations, — to
the ancient centres of dawning civilization in Aztlan, Quivira, and Upper
Louisiana, as well as in the elevated table lands of Cundinamarca and Peru,-—
will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts which have been hitherto
entirely unknown to us. See my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogr. du
Nouveau Continent, T. ii. p. 142—149.
(^4) p. 240. — Whereas this circumstance of the absence of ice in February
1477 has been adduced as a proof that Columbus's Island of Thule could not
be Iceland, Finn Magnusen found, in ancient historical sources, that up to
March 1477 the northern part of Iceland had no snow, and that in February
of the same year the southern coast was free from ice (Examen crit. T. i. p.
105 ; T. v. p. 213). It is very remarkable, that Columbus, in the same
" Tratado de las cinco zonas habitables," mentions a more southern island,
Frislanda ; a name which plays a great part in the travels of the brothers
Zeni (1388 — 1404) which are mostly regarded as fabulous, but which is
wanting in the maps of Andrea Bianco (1436), and in that of Fra Mauro
(1457—1470). (Compare Examen crit. T. ii. p. 114—126.) Columbus
cannot have been acquainted with the travels of the Fratelli Zeni, as they
even remained unknown to the Venetian family until the year 1558, in which
Marcolini first published them, 52 years after the death of the great admiral.
Whence was the admiral's acquaintance with the name Frislanda ?
(3~5) p. 241. — See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy
documents, for Columbus in the Examen crit. T. iv. p. 233, 250, and 261,
and for Vespucci, T. v. p. 182 — 185. Columbus was so mil of the idea of
Cuba being part of the continent of Asia, and even the south part of Cathay
Ixxvi NOTES.
(the province of Mango), that on the 12th of June, 1494, he caused the
whole crews of his squadrons (about 80 sailors) to swear that they were con-
vinced he might go from Cuba to Spain by land (" que esta tierra de Cuba
fuese la tierra firme al comienzo de las Tndias y fin a quien en estas partea
quisiere venir de Espafla por tierra") ; and that " if any who now swore it
should at any future day assert the contrary, they would incur the punish-
ment of perjury, in receiving one hundred stripes, and having the tongue torn
out." (See Informacion del Escribano publico Fernando Perez de Luna, in
Navarrete, Viages y Descubrimientos de los Espafioles, T. ii. p. 143—149.)
When Columbus was approaching the island of Cuba on his first expedition,
he thought himself opposite the Chinese commercial cities of Zaitun and
Quinsay (" y es cierto, dice el Almiraute, questa es la tierra firme y que estoy,
dice el, ante Zayto y Guinsay"). He designs to deliver the letters of the
Catholic monarchs to the Great Mogul Khan (Gran Can) in Cathay ; and
having thus discharged the mission entrusted to him, to return immediately
to Spain (but by sea). Subsequently he sends on shore a baptised Jew, Luis
de Torres, because he understands Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, which
are languages in use in Asiatic trading cities. (See Columbus's Journal of
his Voyage, 1492, in Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim, T. i. p. 37, 44, and 46.)
As late as 1533, the Astronomer Schoner maintained the whole of the so-
called New World to be a part of Asia (superioris Indise), and the city of
Mexico (Temistitan) conquered by Cortes to be no other than the Chinese
commercial city of Quinsay, so immoderately extolled by Marco Polo. (See
Joannis Schoneri Carlostadii Opusculum geographicum, Norimb. 1533, Pars
u. cap. 1—20.)
P) p. 241.— Da Asia de Jofto de Barros e de Diogo de Couto, Dec. i. liv.
iii. cap. 11 (Parte i. Lisboa, 177?, p. 250).
(^ p, 244.— Jourdain, Rech. crit. sur les Traductions d'Aristote, p. 230,
231, and 421 — 423 ; Letronne, des Opinions cosmographiques des Peres
de 1'Eglise, rapprochees des Doctrines philosophiques de la Grece, in the Revue
des deux Mondes, 1834, T. i. p. 632.
C':s) p. 244. — Friedrich von Raumer iiber die Philosophic des dreizehnten
Jahrhunderts, in his Hist. Taschenbuch, 1840, S. 468. On the inclination
towards Piatonism in the middle ages, and on the contests of the schools, see
Heiurich Ritter, Gesch. der christl. Philosophic, Th. ii. S. 159; Th. iil.
S. 131—160, and 381—417.
P) p. 245.— Cousin, Cours dc THist. de la Philosophic, T. i. 1829, p.
360 and 389 — 136; Frajgfmens de Philosophic carte'sienne, p. 8—12 and
NOTES. ixxvn
403. Compare also the recent ingenious work of Christian Bartholmess,
entitled Jordano Bruno, 1847, T. i. p. 308 ; T. ii. p. 409—416.
t380) p. 246.— Jourdain sur les Trad. d'Aristote, p. 236 ; and Michael
Sachs, die religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanieu, 1845, S. 180—200.
(S81) p. 247. — The greater share of merit in regard to the history of ani-
mals belongs to the Emperor Frederic II. Important independent observa-
tions on the internal structure of birds are due to him. (See Schneider, in
Reliqua Librorum Frederici II. Imperatoris de Arte venandi cum Avibus, T.
i. 1788, in the Preface.) Cuvier also calls this prince the "first independent
and original zoologist of the scholastic Middle Ages." For Albert Magnus's
correct view of the distribution of heat over the surface of the globe, under
different latitudes and at different seasons, see his Liber cosmographicus de
Natura Locorum, Argent. 1515, fol. 14 B and 23 A (Examen crit. T. i. p.
54 — 58). In his own observations, however, Albertus Magnus unhappily
often shews the uncritical spirit of his age. He thinks he knows " that rye
changes on a good soil into wheat ; that from a beech wood which has been
cut down, by means of the decayed matter a birch wood will spring up ; and
that from oak branches stuck into the earth vines arise." (Compare also
Ernst Meyer iiber die Botanik des 13ten Jahrhunderts, in the Liunsea, Bd. x.
1836, S. 719.)
C382) p. 248. — So many passages of the Opus majus shew the respect which
Roger Bacon paid to Grecian antiquity, that, as Jourdain has already remarked
(p. 429), we can only interpret the wish expressed by him in a letter to Pope
Clement VI. " to burn the works of Aristotle, in" order to stop the propaga-
tion of error among the schools," as referring to the bad Latin translations
from the Arabic.
(383) p. 248. — " Scientia experimeatalis a vulgo studentium penitus igno-
rata ; duo tamen suut modi cognoscendi, scilicet per argumeuturn et experi-
entiam (the ideal path, and the path of experiment). Sine experieutia uihil
sufficienter sciri potest. Argumentum concludit, sed non certificat, neque re-
movet dubitatiouem ; ut quiescat animus in iutuitu veritatis, nisi earn inve-
niat via experiential" (Opus Majus, Pars vi. cap. 1). I have collected all the
passages relating to Roger Bacon's physical knowledge, and to his proposals
for invention and discovery, in the Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogr. T. ii.
p. 295 — 299. Compare also Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
Vol. ii. p. 323-337.
P) p. 248.— See Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 228 (Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 193). I
find Ptolemy's Optics quoted in the Opus Majus (ed. Jebb, Lond. 1733), p.
Jxxviii NOTES.
79, 288, and 404. It has been justly denied (Wilde, Geschiehte der Optik,
Th. i. S. 92—96), that knowledge derived from Alhazen, of the magnifying
power of segments of spheres, actually led Bacon to construct spectacles ; that
invention appears either to have been known as early as 1299, or to belong
to the Florentine Sal vino degli Armati, who was buried, in 1317, in the
Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Florence. If Roger Bacon, who com-
pleted his Opus Majus in 1267, speaks of instruments by means of which
small letters appear large, "utiles senibus habentibus oculos debiles," his
words, and the practically erroneous considerations which he subjoins, shew
that he cannot himself have executed the plan which floated before his mind
as possible.
(3s5) p. 250.— See my Examen crit. T. i. p. 61, 64—70, 96—108; T. ii.
p. 349. " II existe aussi de Pierre d'Ailly, que Don Fernando Colon nomme
toujours Pedro de Helico, cinq memoires de Concordantia Astronomies cum
Theologia. Us rapellent quelques essais tres moderues de Geologic helsrais-
sante publics 400 ans apres le cardinal."
(S86) p. 250. — Compare Columbus's letter (Navarrete, Viages y Descubri-
mientos, T. i. p. 244) with the Imago Mundi of Cardinal d'Ailly, cap. 8, and
Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, p. 183.
(W) p. 252.— Heeren, Gesch. der classischen Litteratur, Bd. i. S. 284~
290.
(388) p. 252.— Klaproth, Memoires relatifs a 1'Asie, T. iii. p. 113.
(S89) p. 252.— The Florentine edition of Homer of 1488 ; but the first
printed Greek book was the grammar of Constantino Lascaris, in 1476.
(390) p. 252. — Villemain, Melanges historiques et litteraires, T. ii. p. 135.
t391) p. 252. — The result of the investigations of the librarian Ludwig
Wachler, at Breslau (see his Geschiehte der Litteratur, 1833, Th. i. S. 12—
23). Printing without moveable types does not go back, even in China,
beyond the beginning of the tenth century of our era. The first four books
of Confucius were printed, according to Klaproth, in the province of Szut-
•chuen, between 890 and 925 ; and the description of the technical manipula-
tion of the Chinese printing press might have been read in western countries
as early as 1310, in Raschid-eddin's Persian history of the rulers of Cathay.
According to the most recent results of the important researches of Stanislas
Julien, however, an ironsmith in China itself would seem to have used move-
able types, made of burnt clay, between the years 1041 and 1048 A.D. or
almost 400 years before Guttenberg. This is the invention of the Pi-aching,
which, however, remained without application.
NOTES.
P2) p. 253. — See the proofs, in my Exanien crit. T. ii. p. 316 — 320.
Josafat Barbara (1436) and Ghislin von Busbeck (1555) still found, between
Tana (Asof), Caffa, and the Erdil (the Volga), A'ani and Gothic tribes speak-
ing German (Ramusio, delle Navigatioui et Viaggi, Vol. ii. p. 92 b and 98 a).
Roger Bacon always terms Rubruquis only frater Willielmus, quern dominua
Rex Francise misit ad Tartaros.
t393) p. 254. — The great and fine work of Marco Polo (II Milione di Messer
Marco Polo), as we possess it in the correct edition of Count Baldelli, is in-
correctly called "Travels" ; it is for the most part a descriptive, one might
say a statistical, work ; in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveller
saw himself what he learned from others, and what he derived from topogra-
phic descriptions, in which the Chinese literature is so rich, and which might
be accessible to him through his Persian interpreters. The striking resemblance
between the narrative of the travels of Hiuan-thsang, the Buddhistic pilgrim of
the seventh century, and that which Marco Polo found in 1277 (respecting the
Pamir-Highland), early drew my whole attention. Jacquet, who an early de-
cease withdrew from tlie investigation of Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth
and myself, was long occupied with the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me,
a short time before his death, " Je suis frappe comme vous de la forme de re-
daction litteraire du Milione. Le fond appartient sans doute a 1'observation
directe et persoimelle du voyageur, mais il a probablement employe des docu-
ments qui lui out ete communiques soit omciellement, soit en particulier.
Bien des choses paraissent avoir ete empruntees & des livres Chinois et Mon-
gols, bien que ces influences sur la composition du Milione soient difficiles a
reconnaitre dans les traductious successives sur lesquelles Polo aura fonde sea
extraits." Whilst our modern travellers are only too well pleased to occupy
their readers with their own persons, Marco Polo takes no less pains to blend
his own observations with the official data communicated to him ; of which,
as governor of the city of Yangui, he might have many. (See my Asie cen-
trale, T. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the illustrious traveller also
helps to explain the possibility of his dictating his book while confined in the
prison at* Genoa, in 1295, to his fellow-prisoner and friend Messer Rustigielo
of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden,
Travels of Marco Polo, p. xxxiii.)
(m) p. 254.— Purchas, Pilgrims, Part iii. ch. 28 and 56 (p. 23 and 24).
(393) p. 254. — Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que
hicieron por mar los Espafloles, T. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History
of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828, Vol. iv. p. 297.
1XXX NOTES.
t396) p. 255.— Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geog. T. i. p. 63 and 215 ;
T. ii. p. 350. Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, p. Ivii. Ixx. and Ixxv. The
first German Nuremberg version of 1477, (das puch des edeln Kilters ufl
landtfarers Marcho Polo) appeared in print in Columbus's lifetime ; the first
Latin translation in 1490, and the first Italian and Portuguese translations in
1496 and 1502.
C39?) p. 256.— Barros, Dec. i. liv. iii. cap. 4, p. 190, says expressly that
" Bartholomeu Diaz, e os de sua companhia per cauaa dos perigos, e tormen-
tas, que em o dolrar delle passaram, Ihe puzeram nome Tormentoso." The
merit of first doubling the Cape does not therefore belong, as usually stated,
to Vasco de Gama. Diaz was at the Cape in May 1487, almost therefore at
the same time that Pedro de Covilham and Alonso de Payva of Barcelona
arrived from their expedition. In December of the same year (1487), Diaz
brought himself to Portugal the news of his important discovery.
t398) p. 256.— The planisphere of Sanuto, who calls himself " Marinus
Sanuto dictus Torxellus de Veneciis," belongs to the work, Secreta fidelium
Crucis. " Marinus precha adroitement une croisade dans Finteret du com-
merce, voulant detruire la prosperite de 1'Egypte, et diriger toutes les mar-
chandises de 1'Inde par Bagdad, Bassora et Tauris (Tebriz), a Kaffa, Tana
(Azow), et aux cotes asiatiques de la Mediterranee. Contemporain et com-
patriote de Polo, dont il n'a pas connu le Milione, Sanuto s'e'leve a de
grandes vues de politique commerciale. C'est le Raynal du moyen-age,
moins 1'incredulite d'un abbe philosophe du 18rne siecle." — (Examen crit.
T. i. p. 331, 333—348.) The Cape of Good Hope is called Capo di Diab
on the map of Fra Mauro, which was compiled between 1457 and 1459 : see
the learned memoir of Cardinal Zurla, entitled, II Mappamondo di Fra
Mauro Camaldolese, 1806, § 54.
(3") p. 257. — Avron or avr (aur) is a less-used term for North, employed
instead of the more ordinary "schema!"; the Arabic Zohron or Zohr, from which
Klaproth erroneously endeavours to derive the Spanish sur and Portuguese sul
(which is, without doubt, like our Siid, a true Germanic word), does not pro-
perly belong to the particular denomination of the quarter indicated ; it sig-
nifies ouly the time of high noon ; South is dschenub. Respecting the early
knowledge of the Chinese of the south pointing of the magnetic needle, see
Klaproth's important investigations in his Lettre a M. A. de Humboldt, sur
1'Invention de la Boussole, 1831, p. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79 and 90; and the
Memoir of Azuni of Nice, which appeared in 1805, entitled, Dissertation
•ur rOrigine de la Boussole, p. 35 and 65 — 68. Navarrete, in his Discurso
NOTES.
historico sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar en Espafta, 1802, p. 28,
recals a remarkable passage in the Spanish Leyes de las Partidas (II. tit. ix.
ley 18) of the middle of the 13th century: — "The needle which guides* the
mariner in the dark night, and shows him how to direct his course both in
good and in bad weather, is the intermediary (medianera) between the load-
stone (la piedra) and the North star" See the passage in Las siete
Partidas del sabio Key Don Alonso el IX. (according to the usual manner of
counting the Xth.) Madrid, 1829, T. i. p. 473.
(40°) p. 258.— Jordano Bruno, par Christian Bartholmess, 1847, T. ii.
p. 181—187.
C101) p. 258. — Tenian los mareantes instrumento, carta, compas y aguja."
— Salazar, Discurso sobre los progresos de la Hydrografia en Espafia, 1809,
p. 7.
(m) p. 258.— Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 203 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 169.)
(403) p. 258. — Respecting Cusa (Nicolaus of Cuss, properly of Cues on the
Moselle), see above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 140 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. p. 106) ; and
Clemens' treatise, iiber Giordano Bruno and Nicolaus de Cusa, S. 97, where
there is given an important fragment, written by Cusa's own hand, and dis-
covered only three years ago, respecting a threefold movement of the earth.
(Compare also Chasles, Apercus aur 1'origine des methodes en Geometric,
1807, p. 529.)
O04) p. 259. — Navarrete, Dissertation historica sobre la parte que tuvieron
los Espanoles en las guerras de Ultramar 6 de las Cruzadas, 1816, p. 100 ;
and Examen crit. T. i. p. 574 — 277. An important improvement in obser-
vation by means of the plumb-line has been attributed to Georg von Peuer-
bach, the teacher of Regiomontanus. But the use of the plumb-line had
long been known to the Arabs, as we learn by Abul- Hassan- Ali's compendious
description of astronomical instruments, written in the 13th century: Sedil-
lot, Traite des instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, 1835, p. 379 ; 1841,
p. 205.
C105) p. 259. — In all the writings on the art of navigation which I have
examined, I find the erroneous opinion that the Log, for the measurement of
the distance passed over, has only been in use since the end of the 16th or
the beginning of the 17th century. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica (7th.
edition, 1842), Vol. xiii. p. 416, it is still said: "The author of the device
for measuring the ship's way is not known, and no mention of it occurs till
the year 1607, in an East India voyage, published by Purchas." This year
is also named as the extreme limit in all earlier and later dictionaries.—
VOL. II. 2 G
ixxxii NOTES.
— (Gehler, Bd. vi. 1831, S. 450.) It is only Navarrete, in the Disseitacion
sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar, 1802, who places the use of the
xog-line in English ships in the year 1577. — (Duflot de Mofras, Notice bio-
graphique sur Mendoza et Navarrete, 1845, p. 64.) Subsequently he affirms
in another place (Coleccion de los Viages de los Espafioles, T. iv. 1837, p. 97),
that " in Magellan's time the ship's speed was only estimated by the eye (a
ojo), until in the 16th century the corredera (the log) was devised." The
measurement of the distance sailed over by means of heaving the log, although
this means must in itself be tenned imperfect, has become of such great im-
portance towards a knowledge of the velocity and direction of oceanie
currents, that I have been led to make it an object of careful research. I
give here the principal results which are contained in the 6th and still unpub-
lished volume of my Examen critique de 1'histoire de la Geographic et des
progres de 1'Astronomie nautique. The Romans, in the time of the republic,
had in their ships apparatus for measuring the distance passed over, consist-
ing of wheels four feet high provided with paddles placed outside the ship,
just as in our steamboats, and as in the apparatus for propelling vessels which
Blasco de Garay had proposed in 1543 at Barcelona to the Emperor Charles V.
— (Arago, Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, 1829, p. 152.) The ancient
Roman way -measurer (ratio a majoribus tradita, qua in via rheda sedentes
vel mari navigantes scire possumus quot millia numero itineris fecerinius) is
described in detail by Vitruvius (lib. x. cap. 14), the credit of whose Augustan
age has indeed been recently much shaken by C. Schultz and Osann. By
means of three toothed wheels acting on each other, and by the falling of
small round stones from a wheel-case (loculamentum) having only a siugle
hole, the number of revolutions of the outside wheels which dipped in the sea,
and the number of miles passed through in the day's course, were given.
Whether these hodometers were much used in the Mediterranean, " as they
might afford both use and pleasure," Vitruvius does not say. In the biogra-
phy of the Emperor Pertinax by Julius Capitolinus, mention is made of the
purchase of the effects left by the Emperor Commodus, among which was a
travelling carriage provided with a similar hodometric apparatus. — (Cap. 8 in
Hist. Augustse Script, ed. Lugd. Bat. 1671, T. i. 554.) The wheels gave at
once " the measure of the distance passed over and the duration of the jour-
ney" iu hours. A much more perfect hodometer used both on the water and
on land has been described by Hero of Alexandria, the pupil of Ctesibius, in
his Greek still inedited manuscript on the Dioptra. — (Sec Venturi, Comment.
»opra la Storia delT Ottica, Bologna, 1814, T. i. p. 134—139.) We liud
NOTES. Ixxxiii
nothing on the subject we are considering, in the literature of the middle
ages, until we come to the period of several " books of Nautical Instruction,"
written or printed in quick succession by Antonio Pigafetta (Trattato di Navi-
gazione, probably before 1530); Francisco Falero (1535, a brother of the
astronomer Ruy Falero, who was to have accompanied Magellan on his voy-
age round the world, and left behind him a Regimiento para observar la lon-
gitud en la mar) ; Pedro de Medina of Seville (Arte de Navegar, 1545) ; Mar-
tin Cortes of Bujalaroz (Breve Compendio de la esfera y de la arte de navcgar,
1551) ; and Andres Garcia de Cespedes (Regimiento de Navigacion y Hidro-
grafia, 1606). From almost all these works, some of which have become
extremely rare, as well as from the Suma de Geografia which Martin Fer-
nandez de Enciso had published in 1519, we recognise most distinctly that
navigators were taught to estimate the " distance sailed over" in Spanish and
Portuguese ships, not by any distinct measurement, but only by estimation or
appreciation by the eye, according to certain established principles. Medina
says (libro iii. cap. 11 and 12), "to know the course of the ship as to the
length of distance passed over, the pilot must set down in his register how
much distance she has made according to hours (i. e. guiding himself by the
hourglass, " ampolleta,") and for this he must know that the most a ship
advances in an hour is four miles, and with feebler breezes three, or only two."
Cespedes (Regimiento, p. 99 and 156) calls this mode of proceeding "echar
punto por fantasia." This fantasia, as Enciso justly remarks, depends, if
great errors are to be avoided, on the pilot's knowledge of the qualities of his
ship : on the whole, however, every one who has been long at sea will have
remarked with surprise, when the waves are not very high, how nearly the mere
estimation of the ship's velocity 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), sarcastically, and certainly very
incorrectly, " la corredera de los Holandeses, corredera de los perezosos." In
Columbus's ship's journal, frequent reference is made to the contest with Alonso
Pinzon as to the distance passed o? er since their departure from Palos. The
hour or sandglasses, ampolletas, which they made use of, ran out in half an
hour, so that the interval of a day and night was reckoned at 48 ampolletas.
In this important journal of Columbus, it is said (for example on the 22d of
January, 1493) : " Andaba 8 millas por hora hasta pasadas 5 ampolletas, y
3 antes que comenzase la guardia, que eran 8 ampolletas." — (Navarrete, T. i.
p. 143.) The Log (la corredera) is never mentioned. Are wo to assume
that Columbus was acquainted with aud employed it, but that, being
NOTES.
already in very general use, lie did not think it necessary to name it ? in the
same way that Marco Polo does not mention tea, or the great wall of Chin*.
Such an assumption appears to me very improbable, even if there were no
other reason, because I find in the proposals made by the pilot Don Jayme
Ferrer, 1495, for the exact examination of the position of the Papal line of
demarcation, that, when it is question of the determination of the distance
sailed over, the appeal is made only to the accordant sentence (juicio) of
20 very experienced mariners (que apunten en su carta de 6 en 6 horas el
camino que la nao fara segun su juicio.) If the log had been in use, no doubt
Ferrer would have prescribed how often it should be hove. I find the first
application of the log in a passage of Pigafetta's Journal of Magellan's voyage
of circumnavigation, which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the
Ambrosian Libraiy at Milan. It is said in it, that, in the month of January
1521, when Magellan had already arrived in the Pacific, " Secondo la misura
che facevamo del viaggio colla catena a poppa, noi percorrevamo da 60 in 70
leghe al giorno." — (Amoretti, Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo,
ossia Navigazione fatta dal Cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta sulla squadra del Cap.
Magaglianes, 1800, p. 46.) What can this arrangement of a chain at the
hinder part of the ship (catena a poppa), " which we used throughout the
entire voyage to measure the way," have been other than an apparatus similar
to our log ? The "running out" log-line divided into knots, the log-ship, and the
half-minute or log-glasses are not mentioned ; but this silence need not sur-
prise us in speaking of a long-known matter. In the part of the Trattato di
Navigazione of the Cavaliere Pigafetta given by Amoretti in extracts, amount-
ing indeed only to 10 pages, the " catena della poppa" is not again mentioned.
(**) p. 259.— Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. p. 320.
C407) p. 261.— Examen crit. T. i. p. 3—6 and 290.
(40S) p. 262. — Compare Opus Epistolarum Petri Martyris Anglerii Medio-
lanensis, 1670, ep. cxxx. and clii. "Prse Isetitia prosilisse te, vixque a
lachrymis prae gaudio temperasse quando literas adspexisti meas, quibus de
antipodium orbe, latenti hactenus, te certiorem feci, mi suavissime Pomponi,
insinuasti. Ex tuis ipse literis colligo, quid senseris. Sensisti autem, tan-
tique rem fecisti, quanti virum summa doctrina insignitum decuit. Quis nam-
que cibus sublimibns pra?stari potest ingeniis isto suavior ? quod condimen-
tum gratius ? a me facio conjecturam. Bcari sentio spiritus meos, quando
accitos alloquor prudentes aliquos ex his qui ab ea redeunt proviucia (Hispa-
niola insula.") The expression, " Christophorus quidam Colonus," reminds
ue, I will not say of the too often and unjustly quoted "nescio quis Plutar-
NOTES. 1XXXV
chus" of Aulus Gellius (Noct. Atticse, xi. 16), but of the "quodam Cornelio
scribente," in tiie auswer of the king Theodoric to the prince of the JSstyans,
who was to be informed respecting the true origin of amber from the Germ,
cap. 45, of Tacitus.
(m) p. 202. — Opus Epistol. No. ccccxxxvii. and dlxii. An extraordinary
person, Hieronymus Cardanus, a fantastic enthusiast and at the same time aa
acute mathematician, also calls attention in his " physical problems" to how
much of the knowledge of the earth consisted in facts to the observation of
which one man has led. Cardani Opera, ed. Lugdun. 1663, T. ii. Probl. p,
630 and 659 ; " at nunc quibus te laudibus afferam Christophore Columb^
non familise tantum, non Genuensis urbis, non Italise Provincise, non Europa
partis orbis solum, sed humani generis decus." In comparing the " pro-
blems" of Cardanus with those of the later Aristotelian school, amidst the
confusion and the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail
almost equally in both collections, I remark in Cardanus a circumstance
which appears to me characteristic of the sudden enlargement of geography
at that epoch ; namely, that the greater part of his problems relate to compa-
rative meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm insular cli-
mate of England in contrast 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 atmospheric heat and cold not arriving until after
the summer and winter solstices ; — on the elevation of the region of snow
under the tropics; — on the temperature dependent on the radiation of heat
from the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ; — on the greater intensity of
light in the southern hemisphere, &c. — " Cold is merely absence of heat.
Light and heat differ only in name, and are in themselves inseparable." Car-
dani Opp. T. i. de vita propria, p. 40; T. ii. Probl. 621, 630 — 632, 653 and
713 ; T. iii. de subtilitate, p. 417.
(41°) p. 263.— See my Examen crit. T. ii. p. 210—249. According to
the manuscript, Historia general de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 12, "la carta de
marear que Maestro Paula Fisico (Toscanelli) envio a Colon" was in the
hands of Bartholome de las Casas when he wrote his work. Columbus's
ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, T. i. p. 13), does
not quite agree with the relation which I find in a manuscript written by Las
Casas, which was kindly communicated to me by M. Teruaux-Compans.
The ship's journal says, " Iba hablaudo el Alrnirante (martes 25 de Setiembre,
1492) con Martin Alonso Pinzon, capitan de la otra carabela Pinta, sobra
una carta que le habia enviado tres dias hacia a la carabela, donde segun
NOTES.
parece tenia pintadas el Almirante ciertas islas por aquella mar " In
the manuscript of Las Casas (lib. i. cap. 12), on the other hand, I find, "La
carta de marear que embio (Toscanelli al Almirante) yo que esta historia
scrivo la tengo en mi poder. Creo que todo su viage sobre esta carta fundo ;"
(lib. i. cap. 38) "asi fue que el martes 25 de Setiembre llegase Martin Alonso
Pinzon con su caravela Pinta a hablar con Christobal Colon sobre una carta
de marear que Christobal Colon le avia embiado .... Eeta carta es la que le
embio Paulo Fisico el Florentin, la qual yo tengo en mi poder con otras cosas
del Almirante y escrituras de su misma mano que traxeron a mi poder. En
ella le pinto muchas islas " Are we to assume that the Admiral had
drawn upon the map of Toscanelli the islands which he expected to find, or
does " tenia pintadas" merely mean " the Admiral had a map on which were
painted " ?
(411) p. 264. — Navarrete, Documentos, No. 69, in T. iii. der Viages y
Descubr. p. 565—571 ; Examen crit. T. i. p. 234—249 and 252, T. iii. p.
158 — 165 and 224. Respecting the contested spot of the first landing in
the West Indies, see T. iii. p. 186—222. The map of the world of Juan de
la Cosa, which has acquired so much celebrity, and which was discovered by
Walckenaer and myself in the year 1832, during the cholera epidemic, and
which was drawn six years before the death of Columbus, has thrown new
light on these contested questions.
(412) p. 265. — Respecting Columbus's graphical and often poetical descrip-
tions of nature, see above, Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 55 — 57 (Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p.
54—56).
(413) p. 266. — See the results of my investigations, in the Relation hist, du
Voyage aux Regions equinoxiales du nouveau Continent, T. ii. p. 702 ; and
in the Examen crit. de 1'Hist de la Geographic, T. i. p. 309.
(414) p. 266.— Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, 1831, p. 52—61 j
Examen crit. T. iv. p. 231.
(415) p. 266.— In a part of Columbus's Journal (Nov. 1, 1492) which has
received but little attention, it is said, " I have (in Cuba) opposite and near
to me Zayto y Guinsay (Zaitun and Quinsay, Marco Polo, ii. 77) del Gran
Can." Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim. de los Espaftoles, T. i. p. 46 ; and
above, note 375. The curve towards the south, which Columbus on his
second voyage remarked in the most western part of the coast of Cuba,
had an important influence, as I have elsewhere observed, on the discovery of
South America, and on that of the Delta of the Orinoco and Cape Paria ; see
crit. T. iv. p. 246—250. Anghiera (Epist. ckviii. ed. Amst. 1670,
NOTES. Ixxxvii
p. 96) writes, " Putat (Colonus) regiones has (Parise) esse Cubee contiguas et
adhserentes : ita quod utrseque sint Indiae Gangetidis continens ipsum . . . ."
C416) p. 267. — See the important manuscript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de
la Villa de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes Catholicos, cap. 123). This
history comprises the years 1488 to 1513. Bernaldez had received Columbus,
in 1496, on his return from his second voyage, into his house. By the par-
ticular kindness of M. Ternaux-Compans, to whom the History of the Con-
quista owes many important elucidations, I was enabled to make a free use,
in Dec. 1838, at Paris, of this manuscript, which was in the possession
of my distinguished friend the historiographer, Don Juan Bautista Mufloa
(Compare Fern. Colon, Vida del Almirante, cap. 56).
(417) p. 267.— Examen crit. T. iii. p. 244—248.
(418) p. 268. — Cape Horn was discovered in February 1526, by Francisco
de Hoces, in the expedition of the Commendador Garcia de Loaysa, which,
following that of Magellan, was destined for the Moluccas. Whilst Loaysa
sailed through the Straits of Magellan, Hoces, with his Caravel, the San
Lesmes, was separated from the flotilla, and driven as far as 55° S. latitude.
"Dijeron los del buque que les parecia que era alii acabamiento de tierra"
(Navarrete, Viages de los Espanoles, T. v. p. 28 and 404—488). Fleurieu
maintains that Hoces only saw the Cabo del buen Successo, west of Staten-
Island. Such a strange uncertainty respecting the form of the land prevailed
anew towards the end of the 16th century, that the author of the Araucana
(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 (Historia natural y moral de las Indias, lib. iii. cap. 10) took
the Terra del Fuego for the beginning of a great south polar land. (Compare
also Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 62 and 124 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 60 and Note 96.)
(419) p. 268. — The question, whether the isthmus-hypothesis, according
to which Cape Prasum, on the east of Africa, joined on to an east Asiatic
isthmus from Thina?, is to be traced back to Marinns of Tyre, or to Hipparchus,
or to the Babylonian Seleucus, or rather to Aristotle de Coelo (ii. 14), has
been treated by me in detail in another work (Examen crit. T. i. p. 144, 161,
and 329 ; T. ii. p. 370—372).
C420) p. 269. — Paolo Toscanelli was so much distinguished as an astronomer,
that Behaim's teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his work
" De Quadratura Circuli," directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa.
He constructed the great gnomon in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at
Florence, and died in 1482, at the age of 85, without having lived long
Ixxxviii NOTES.
enough to enjoy the tidings of the discover} of the Cape of Good Hope by
Diaz, and that of the tropical part of the new continent by Columbus.
(42!) p. 270. — As the old continent, from the western extremity of the
Iberian peninsula to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130° of longi-
tude, there remain about 230° as the space which Columbus should have had
to traverse to reach Cathay (China) ; but less if he only proposed to reach
Zipangi (Japan). This difference of 230° which I have taken, is between the
Portuguese Cape St. Vincent (11° 20' W. of Paris), and the far projecting
part of the Chinese coast near the then so celebrated port of Quinsay, so often
named by Columbus and Toscanelli (lat. 30° 28', long. 117° 47' E. of Paris).
(Synonymes for Quinsay in the province of Tscheldang are Kanfu, Hang-
tscheufu, Kingszu.) The general commerce in the east of Asia was shared, in
the 13th century, between Quinsay and Zaitun (Pinghai or Tseuthung) oppo-
site to the island of Formosa (then Tnngfan) in 25° 5' N. lat. (see Klaproth,
Tableau hist, de 1'Asie, p. 227). The distance* of Cape St. Vincent from
Zipangi (Niphon) is 22° of longitude less than from Quinsay, or about 209°
instead of 230° 53'. It is a striking circumstance that, through accidental
compensations, the oldest statements, those of Eratosthenes, and Strabo (lib.
i. p. 64), come within 10° of the above mentioned result of 129° for the
difference of longitude of the otKovpevri, Strabo, in the very place where he
alludes to the possible existence of two great habitable continents in the
northern hemisphere, says that our oixovfjievi) in the parallel of Thinse (Athens,
see Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 223 ; Engl. edit. Vol. ii. p. 188) takes more than one-
third of the earth's circumference. Marinus of Tyre, being misled by the
length of the time occupied in the navigation from Myos Hormos to India,
by the erroneously assumed direction of the greater axis of the Caspian from
east to west, and by the over estimation of the length of the route by land to
the country of the Seres, gave to the old continent a breadth of 225° instead
of 129°, thus advancing the Chinese coast to the Sandwich Islands. Columbus
naturally 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. 1), places the coast of the
Sina at 180° ; and in his Geography (lib. i. cap. 12), at 177i°. As Columbus
estimated the navigation from Iberia to the Sines at 120°, and Toscanelli even
at only 52°, they might both, estimating the length of the Mediterranean at
about 40°, have naturally callel the apparently so hazardous enterprise only
a "brevissimo camino." Martin Behaim, also, on his "world apple" (the
celebrated globe which he finished in 1492, and which is still kept in the
NOTES.
Ixxxix
Behaim house at Nuremberg), places the coast of China (or the throne of the
king of Mango, Cambalu, and Cathay) only 100° west of the Azores, i. e. as
Behaim lived four years at Fayal, and probably counted the distance from
that point, 119° 40' west of Cape St. Vincent." Columbus was probably
acquainted with Behaim at Lisbon, where they both lived from 1480 to 1484
(see my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T. ii. p. 357—369). The
many wholly erroneous numbers which are to be found in all the writings on
the discovery of America, and the then supposed extent of Eastern Asia, have
induced me to compare more closely the opinions of the middle ages with
those of classical antiquity.
(422) p. 270. — The eastern part of the Pacific was first navigated by white
men in a boat, when Alonso Martin de Don Beiiito, (who had seen the sea
horizon with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on the 25th September, 1513, from the
little Sierra de Quarequa), descended a few days afterwards to the Golfo de
San Miguel, before Balboa went through the ceremony of talcing possession
of the ocean ! Seven mouths previously Balboa had announced to his court
that the South Sea, of which he had heard from the natives, was very easy to
navigate : " mar muy mansa y que nunca an da brava como la mar de nuestra
banda" (de las Antilles). The name Oceano Pacifico, however, was, as Piga-
fctta tells us, first given by Magellan to the Mar del Sur (Balboa's name).
In August 1519 (before Magellan's expedition), the Spanish government,
which was not wanting in watchfulness and activity, had given secret orders,
in November 1514, to Pedrarius Davila, Governor of the province of Castilla
del Oro (the northwesternmost of South America), and to the great navigator
Juan Diaz de Solis ; — to the first to have four caravels built in the Golfo de
San Miguel " to make discoveries in the newly discovered South Sea" ; and
to the second, to seek for an opening (" abertura de la tierra") from the
eastern coast of America, with the view of arriving at the back (" a' espel-
das") of the new country, i. e. of the sea-surrounded western portion of
Castilla del Oro. The expedition of Solis (October 1515 to August 1516)
led him far to the south, and to the discovery of the Rio de la Plata, which
was long called the Rio de Solis. (Compare, respecting the little known first
discovery of the Pacific, Petrus Martyr, Epist. dxl. p. 296, with the docu-
ments of 1513 — 1515 in Navarrete, T. iii. p. 134 and 357 ; also my Examea
crit. T. i. p. 320 and 350.)
f*8) p. 270. — Respecting the geographical position of the Desventuradas
(San Pablo, lat. 16i° S. long., 135f° west of Paris; Isla de Tiburones, lat.
10f° S., long. 145° W.), see my Examen crit. T. i. p. 286; and Navarrete,
XC NOTES.
T. iv. p. lix. 52, 218, and 267. The great epoch of geographical discoveries
gave occasiou to many such illustrious heraldic bearings as that mentioned in
the text ; (the terrestrial globe, with tht inscription " Primus circumdedisti
me," to Sebastian de Elcanoand his descendants). The arms which, as early
as May 1493, were given to Columbus, " para sublimarlo" with posterity,
contain the first map of America — a range of islands in front of a gulf
(Oviedo, Hist, general de las Indias, ed. de 1547, lib. ii. cap. 7, fol. 10 a ;
Navarrete, T. ii. p. 37 ; Examen crit. T. iv. p. 236). The Emperor Charles
V. gave to Diego de Ordaz, who boasted of having ascended the volcano of
Orizaba, the drawing of that conical mountain ; and to the historian Oviedo,
who resided uninterruptedly for 34 years (from 1513 to 1547) in tropical
America, the four stars of the southern cross, as armorial bearings (Oviedo,
lib. ii. cap. 11, fol. 16 b).
(^4) p. 271. — See my Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle
Espagne, T. ii. 1827, p. 259 ; and Prescott, History of the Conquest of
Mexico (New York, 1843), Vol. iii. p. 271 and 336.
C425) p. 273. — Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich Islands in 1542.
Respecting the voyage of Don Jorge de Meaezes (1526), and that of Alvaro
de Saavedra (1528), to the Ilhas de Papuas, see Barros da Asia, Dec. iv. Liv.
i. cap. 16, and Navarrete, T. v. p. 125. The " Hydrography" of Joh. Rotz
(1542), which is preserved in the British Museum, and has been examined
by the learned Dalrymple, contains outlines of New Holland ; as does also the
collection of maps of Jean Valard of Dieppe (1552), for the first knowledge
of which we are indebted to M. Coquebert Monbret.
C126) p. 273. — After the death of Mendafia, the command of the expedition,
which did not terminate until 1596, was undertaken in the South Sea by his
wife, Dofla Isabela Baretos, a woman of distinguished personal courage, and
great mental endowments (Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Espagne, T. iv. p. 111.)
Quiros practised distillation of fresh from salt water on a considerable scale
in his ship, and his example was followed in several instances (Navarrete,
T. i. p. liii.) The entire operation, as I have elsewhere proved, on the testi-
mony of Alexander of Aphrodisias, was known as early as the third century
of our era, although not then practised in ships.
(4-7) p. 273. — See the excellent work of Professor Meinicke at Prenzlau,
entitled, "Das FestlandAustralien, eine geogr. Monographic," 1837, Th. i.
S. 2—10.
(^ p. 276. — This king died in the time of the Mexican king Axyacatl,
who reigned from 1464 to 1477. The learned native Mexican historian,
NOTES. XC1
Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, whose manuscript chronicle of the Chichi-
meques, which I saw, in 1803, in the palace of the Viceroy of Mexico, and
which Mr. Prescott has made such happy use of in his work (Conquest of
Mexico, Vol. i. p. 61, 173, and 206 ; Vol. iii. p. 112), was a descendant of
the poet king Nezahualcoyotl. The Aztec name of the historian, Fernando de
Alva, signifies Vanilla faced. M. Ternaux-Compans, in 1840, printed a
French translation of this manuscript in Paris. The notice of the long ele-
phant's hair which Cadamosto collected, is to be found in Ramusio, Vol. i. p.
109, and in Gryneeus, cap. 43, p. 33.
t429) p. 277.— Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico (Cesena, 1780) T. ii. p.
153. The accordant testimonies of Hernan Cortes, in his reports to the
Emperor Charles V., of Bernal Diaz, Gomara, Oviedo, and Hernandez, leave
no doubt that at the time of the conquest of Montezuma's empire, there were
in no part of Europe menageries and botanic gardens (collections of living
animals and plants) which could be compared to those of Huaxtepee, Chapol-
tapec, Iztapalapan, and Tezcuco (Prescott, Vol. i. p. 178; Vol. ii. p. 66 and
117; Vol. iii. p. 42). Respecting the early attention stated in the text to
have been paid to the fossil bones in the American " fields of giants," see
Garcilaso, lib. ix. cap. 9 ; Acosta, lib. iv. cap. 30 ; and Hernandez (ed. of
1556), T. i. cap. 32, p. 105.
C130) p. 279. — Observations de Christophe Colomb sur le Passage de la
Polaire par le Meridien, in my Relation hist. T. i. p. 506, and in the Examen
crit. T. iii. p. 17—20, 44 — 51, and 56 — 61. (Compare also Navarrete, in
Columbus's Journal of 16 to 30 Sept. 1492, p. 9, 15, and 254.)
C131) p. 282.— Respecting the singular differences of the Bula de concesion
a los Reyes Catholicos de las Indias descubiertas y que se descrubieren of 3
May, 1493, and the Bula de Alexandro VI. sobre la particion del oceano of
May 4, 1493 (elucidated in the Bula de estension of the 25th of September,
1493), see Examen crit. T. iii. p. 52 — 54. Very different from this line
of demarcation is that settled in the Capitulaciou de la Particion del Mar
Oceano entre los Reyes Catholicos y Don Juan, Rey de Portugal, of the 7th
June, 1494, 370 leguas (17$ to an equatorial degree) west of the Cape Verd
Islands. (Compare Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubr. de los Esp.
T. ii. p. 28—35, 116—143, and 404; T. iv. p. 55 and 252). This last
named line, which led to the sale of the Moluccas (de el Maluco) to Portugal,
1529, for the sum of 35000,0 gold ducats, had no connection with magnetical
or meteorological fancies. The papal lines of demarcation, however, deserve
more careful consideration in the present work, because, as I have mentioned
XCH NOTES.
in the text, they exercised great influence on the endeavours to improve
nautical astronomy, and especially the methods ot finding the longitude. It
is also very deserving of notice, that the capitulation of June 7, 1494, affords
the first example of a proposal to fix a meridian in a permanent manner by
marks graven in rocks, or by the erection of towers. It is commanded, " que
se haga alguna senal 6 torre" wherevei the dividing meridian, in its course
from pole to pole, whether in the eastern or the western hemisphere, inter-
sects an island or a continent. In continents, the raya was to be marked, at
proper intervals, by a series of such marks or towers j which would, indeed,
have been no small undertaking.
(^ p. 280. — It is a remarkable fact, that the earliest classical writer on
terrestrial magnetism, William Gilbert, who we cannot suppose to have had
any knowledge of Chinese literature, yet regards the mariner's compass as a
Chinese invention, which had been brought to Europe by Marco Polo.'
"Lla quidem pyxide nihil unquam humanis excogitatum artibus humano
generi profuisse magis, constat. Scientia nauticse pyxidulse traducta videtur
in Italiam per Paulum Venetum, qui circa annum mcclx. apud Chinas artem
pyxidis didicit" (Guilielmi Gilberti Colcestrensis, Medici Londinensis, de
Magnete Physiologia nova, Lond. 1600, p. 4). There are, however, no
grounds for the supposition that the compass was introduced by Marco Polo,
whose travels were from 1271 to 1295, and who therefore returned to Italy
after the mariner's compass had been spoken of by Guyot de Provins in his
poem, as well as by Jacques de Vitry and Dante, as a long known instrument.
Before Marco Polo set out on his travels in the middle of the 13th century,
Catalans and Basques already made use of the compass (see Raymond Lully,
in the treatise De Contemplatione, written in 1272).
O p. 282.— For the anecdote respecting Sebastian Cabot, see Biddle's
Memoirs of that celebrated navigator : a work written with a good historical
and critical spirit (p. 222). "We know," says Biddle, "with certainty
neither the date of the death nor the burying place of the great navigator
who gave to Great Britain almost an entire continent, and without whom (as
without Sir Walter Raleigh), the English language would perhaps not have
been spoken by many millions who now inhabit America." Respecting the
materials from which the variation-chart of Alonzo de Santa Cruz was com-
piled, as well as respecting the variation-compass, of which the construction
was already such as to permit altitudes of the sun to be taken at the same
time, see Navarrete, Noticia biografica del Cosmografo Alonso de Santa Cruz,
p. 3 — 8. The first variation-compass was constructed before 1525, by an
NOTES. XC1T
ingenious apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen. So earnest were the en-
deavours to learn more exactly the direction of the curves of magnetic decli-
nation, that in 1585 Juan Jayme sailed with Francisco Gali from Manila to
Acapulco for the sole purpose of trying in the Pacific a declination instrument
which he had invented. See my Essai polftique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T.
ir. p. 110.
t484) p. 282.— Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 17. These
four magnetic lines of no variation led Halley, by the contests between Henry
Bond and Beckborrow, to the theory of four magnetic poles.
(435) p. 282.— Gilbert de Magnete Physiologia nova, lib. v. cap. 8, p. 200.
t436) p. 283. — In the temperate and cold zones, the inflexion of the iso-
thermal lines is general between the west coast of Europe and the east coast
of America, but within the tropics the isothermal lines run almost parallel to
the equator ; and in the hasty conclusions into which Columbus suffered him-
self to be led, no account was taken of the difference between sea and land
climates, or between east and west coasts, or of the influence of winds, — as
in the case of winds blowing over Africa. Compare the remarkable conside-
rations on climates which are brought together in the Vida del Almiraute
(cap. 66). The early conjecture of Columbus respecting the curvature of the
isothermal lines in the Atlantic Ocean was well founded, if we limit it to the
extra-tropical (temperate and frigid) zones.
(**) p. 283.— An observation of Columbus (Vida del Almirante, cap. 55 ;
Examen crit. T. iv. p. 253 ; Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 479 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. note
388).
(438) p. 283.— The admiral, says Fernando Colon (Vida del Aim. cap. 58)
ascribed the many refreshing falls of rain, which cooled the air whilst he was
sailing along the coast of Jamaica, to the extent and denseness of the forests
which clothe the mountains. He takes this opportunity of remarking, in his
ship's journal, that " formerly there was as much rain in Madeira, the Cana-
ries, and the Azores ; but since the trees which shaded the ground have been
cut down, rain has become much more rare." This warning has remained
almost unheeded for three centuries and a half.
(*») p. 284.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 355 and 482 (Engl. edit. Vol. i. p. 327,
and note 400) ; Examen crit. T. iv. p. 294 ; Asie centrale, T. iii. p. 235. The
inscription of Adulis, which is almost fifteen hundred years older than
Anghiera, speaks of " AbyssLaiao, gaow in which a man may sink up to the
knees."
XC1V NOTES.
C440) p. 285. — Leonardo da Vinci says very finely of this proceeding, "questo
e il methodo da osservarsi nella ricerca de' fenomeni della natura." See Ven-
turi, Essai stir les Ouvrages physico-mathematiques de Leonard da Vinci, 1797,
p. 31 ; Amoretti, Memorie storiche su la Vita di Lionardo da Vinci, Milano,
1804, p. 143 (in his edition of the Trattato della Pittura, T. xxxiii. of the
Classici Ttaliani) ; Whewell, Philos. of the Inductive Sciences, 1840, Vol. ii.
p. 368—370 ; Brewster, Life of Newton, p. 332. Most of Leonardo da
Vinci's physical works belong to the year 1498.
(441) p. 286. — The great attention paid by the early navigators to natural
phenomena may be seen in the oldest Spanish accounts. Diego de Lepe, for
example, (as we learn from a witness in the law-suit against the heirs of
Columbus,) by means of a vessel provided with valves, which did not open
until it had reached the bottom, found that at a distance from the mouth of
the Orinoco, a stratum of fresh water of 6 fathoms depth flowed over the salt
water (Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim. T. iii. p. 549). Columbus, on the
south of the coast of Cuba, took up milk-white sea-water (" white as if meal
had been mixed with it") to be carried to Spain in bottles (Vida del Almi-
rante, p. 56). T was myself at the same spots, for the purpose of determining
longitudes, and was surprised that the milk-white discolouration of sea- water,
so common on shoals, should have appeared to the experienced admiral a new
and unexpected phenomenon. In what relates to the gulf-stream itself, which
must be regarded as an important cosmical phenomenon, various effects pro-
duced by it had been observed, long before the discovery of America, by the
sea washing on shore at the Canaries and the Azores stems of bamboos, trunks
of pines, corpses of foreign aspect from the Antilles, and even living men in,
canoes " which could not sink." But all this was then attributed solely to
the strength of westerly tempests (Vida del Almirante, cap. 8 ; Herrera, Dec.
i. lib. i. cap. 2, lib. ix. cap. 12) ; there was as yet no recognition of the
movement of the waters which is independent of the direction of the wind,
viz. the returning stream of the oceanic current, which brings every
year tropical fruits from the West India Islands to the coasts of Ireland and
Norway. Compare the Memoir of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, On the Possibility
of a North-west Passage to Cathay, in Hakluyt, Navigations and Voyages,
Vol. iii. p. 14 ; Herrera, Dec. i. lib. ix. cap. 12; and Examen crit. T. ii. p.
247—257, T. iii. p. 99—108.
t442) p. 287.— Examen crit. T. iii. p. 26 and 66—99 ; Kosmos, Bd. i. S.
823 and 330 (Engl. ed. Vol. i. p. 801 and 303).
NOTES. XCV
(443) p. 287. — Alonso de Ercilla has imitated the passage of Garcilaso in
the Araucana : " Climas passe, mude constelaciones ;" see Kosmos, Bd. ii.
S. 121, Anm. 62 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. note 62).
(w) p. 289.— Pet. Mart. Ocean. Dec. I. lib. ix. p. 96; Examen crit.
T. iv. p. 221 and 317.
O p. 289.— Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 2 ; Rigaud,
Account of Harriot's Astron. Papers, 1833, p. 37-
C146) p. 289. — Pigafetta, Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo, pubbl.
da C. Amoretti, 1800, p. 46 ; Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 355 c ; Petr. Mart. Ocean.
Dec. III. lib. i. p. 217. (From the events to which Anghiera refers, Dec. II.
ib. x. p. 204, and Dec. III. lib. x. p. 232, the passage of the Oceanica
which speaks of the Magellanic clouds must have been written between 1514
and 1516.) Andrea Corsali (Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 177) also describes in a let-
ter to Giuliano de Medici the movement of translation of " due nugolette di
ragionevol grandezza." The star which he represents between Nubecula
major and minor appears to me to be ft Hydrse (Examen crit. T. v. p. 234 —
238). Respecting Petrus Theodor of Emden and Houtman, the pupil of the
mathematician Plancius, see an historical article by Olbers, in Schumacher's
Jahrbuch fiir 1840, S. 249.
C247) p. 291. — Compare the researches of Delambre and Encke with Ideler,
Ursprung der Sternnamen, S. xlix. 263 and 277 ; also my Examen crit.
T. iv. p. 319—324 ; T. v. p. 17—19, 30 and 230—234.
O p. 291.— Plin. ii. 70; Ideler, Sternnamen, S. 260 and 295.
(449) p. 292. — I have attempted in another place to dispel the doubts
which several distinguished commentators of Dante have expressed in modern
times respecting the " quattro stelle." To take this problem in all its com-
pleteness, we must compare the passage, " lo mi volsi," &c. (Purgat. I. v.
22—24) with other passages :— Purg. I. v. 37; VIII. v. 85—93; XXIX.
v. 121: XXX. v. 97; XXXT. v. 106; and Inf. XXVI. v. 117 and 127.
The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three " facelle" (" Di
che '1 polo di qua tutto quanto arde," and which set when the four stars of
the Cross rise,) to be Canopus, Achernar and Fomalhant. I have attempted
to solve the difficulties by the following considerations : — " Le mysticisme
philosophique et religieux qui penetre et vivifie 1'immense composition dn
Dante, assigne a tous les objets, a cote de leur existence reelle ou materielle,
une existence ideale. C'est comme deux moudes, dont 1'un est le reflet de
1'autre. Le groupe des quatres etoiles represente, dans 1'ordre moral, les
vertus cardinales, la prudence, la justice, la force et la temperance ; elles
XCV1 NOTES.
meritent pour celale nom de ' saintcs lumieres, luci sante,' Les trois ctoiles
. ' qui eclairent le pole' representent les vertus theologales, la foi, 1'esperauce
et la charite. Les premiers de ces etres nous revelent eux-memes leur double
nature ; ils chauteut : ' Ici nous somraes des nymphes, dans le ciel nous
fommes des etoiles; Noi sem qui Ninfe, e nel del semo stelle* Dans la
Terre de la verite, le Paradis terrestre, sept nymphes se trouvent reunies : Li
cerchio lefacevan di se claustro le sette Ninfe. C'est la reunion des vertus
cardinales et theologales. Sous ces formes mystiques, les objets reels du
firmament, eloignees les uns des autres, d'apres les lois eternelles de la
Mecaniqwe celeste, se reconnaissent a peine. Le monde ideal est une libre
creation de 1'ame, le produit de 1'iuspiration poetique." (Examen crit. T. iv.
p. 324—332.)
(**) p. 292. — Acosta, lib. i. cap. 5. Compare my Relation historique,
T. i. p. 209. As the stars a and 7 of the Southern Cross have almost the
same right ascension, the Cross appears perpendicular when passing the meri-
dian ; but the natives too often forget that this celestial timepiece marks the
hour each day 3' 56" earlier. I am indebted for all the calculations respect-
ing the visibility of southern stars in the northern latitudes to the kind com-
munications of Dr. Galle, by whom the planet of Le Verrier was first disco-
vered in the heavens. "The uncertainty of the calculation according to
which the star a of the Southern Cross, taking refraction into account, would
have begun to be invisible in 52° 25' N. lat. in the year 2900 before the
Christian era, may possibly amount to more than 100 years, and according to
the strictest formula of calculation could not altogether be removed, as the
proper motion of the fixed stars cannot well be assumed to be uniform for such
long intervals. The proper motion of a Crucis is about \ of a second annu-
ally, chiefly in right ascension. The uncertainty produced by neglecting this
*nay be presumed not to exceed the above-mentioned limit.
(«») p. 294.— Barros da Asia, Dec. I. liv. IV. cap. 2 (1778), p. 282.
C462) p. 294. — Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos qua
hicieron por mar los Espafioles, T. iv. p. xxxii. (in the Noticia biografica de
Fernando de Magallanes).
(«3) p. 295.— Barros, Decad. III. Parte ii. p. 650 and 658—662.
(454) p. 296. — The queen writes to Columbus : " Nosotros mismos y no
otro alguno, habemos visto algo del libro que nos dejastes (a journal of his
voyage in which the distrustful navigator had omitted all numerical data of
degrees of latitude and of distances) : quanto mas en esto platicamos y vemos,
conocemos cuan gran cosa ha seido este negocio tro y que habeis s do
en ello mas que nunca se penso que pudiera saber ninguuo de los uacidot .
NOTES. XCV11
Nos parece que seria bien que llevasedes con vos un buen Estrologo, y nos
parescia que seria bueno para esto Fray Antonio de Marchena porque es buen
Estrologo y siempre nos parecio que se conforraaba con vuestro parecer."
Respecting this Marchena, who is identical with Fray Juan Perez, the Guar-
dian of the Convent de la Rabida where Columbus in his poverty in 1484
" asked the monks for bread and water for his child," see Navarrete, T. ii.
.p. 110; T. iii. p, 597 and 603 (Munoz, Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, lib. iv.
f 24). — Columbus, in a letter to the Christianissimos Monarcas from Jamaica,
July 7, 1503, calls the astronomical Ephemerides " una vision profetica"
(Navarrete, T. i. p. 306). The Portuguese astronomer Buy Falero, a native
of Cubilla, named by Charles V. 1519, Caballero de la Orden de Santiago,
at the same time as Magellan, performed an important part in the prepara-
tions for Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation. He had prepared expressly
for him a treatise on determinations of longitude, of which the great historian
Barros possessed some chapters in manuscript (Examen crit. T. i. p. 276 and
302; T. iv. p. 315): probably the same which in 1535 were printed at
Seville by John Exomberger. Navarrete (Obra postuma sobre la Hist, de la
Nautica y de las ciencias matematicas, 1846, p. 147) could not find the book
even in Spain. Respecting the four methods of finding the longitude which
Falero had received from the suggestions of his "Demonio familiar," see
Herrera, Dec. II. lib. ii. cap. 19 ; and Navarrete, T. v. p. Ixxvii. Subse-
quently the cosrnographer Alonso de Santa Cruz, the same who (like the
apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen, 1525) attempted to determine the longi-
tude by means of the variation of the compass-needle, made impracticable
proposals for accomplishing the same object by the conveyance of time ; but
his chronometers were sand-and-water timepieces, wheelworks moved by
weights, and even " wicks saturated with oil," which burnt out in very equal
intervals of time! Pigafetta (Transunto del Trattato di Navigazione, p. 219)
recommends altitudes of the moon on the meridian. Amerigo Vespucci
speaking of the method of determining longitude by lunars, says with great
naivete and truth, that its advantages arise from the " corso piu leggier de la
lima" (Canovai, Viaggi, p. 57).
C455) p. 298.— The American race, which is the same from 65° N. lat. to
55° S. lit., did not pass from the life of hunters to that of cultivators of the
soil through the intermediate gradation of a pastoral life. This circumstance
is the more remarkable, because the bison, enormous herds of which roam
over the country, is susceptible of domestication, and yields much milk. Little
attention has been paid to an account given in Gomara (Hist. gen. de las
VOL. II. 2 H
XCVU1 NOTES.
Indias, cap. 214), of a tribe living in the 16th century to the north-w«st of
Mexico in about 40° N. lat., whose greatest riches consisted in herds of tamed
bisons (bneyes con una giba). From these animals the natives derived mate-
rials for clothing, food, and drink, probably the blood, (Prescott, Conquest of
.Mexico, Vol. iii. p. 416) ; for the dislike to milk, or at least its non use, ap-
pears, before the arrival of Europeans, to have been common to all the natives
of the New Continent, as well as to the inhabitants of China and Cochin-
china. It is true that there were from the earliest times in the mountainous
parts of Quito, Peru, and Chili, herds of domesticated lamas ; but these herds
were in the possession of nations who led a settled life, and were engaged in
the cultivation of the soil ; in the Cordilleras of South America there were
no " pastoral nations," and no such thing as a " pastoral life." What are
the "tame deer," near the Punta de St. Helena, which I find spoken of in
Herrera (Dec. II. lib. x. cap. 6, T. i. p. 4?] , ed. Amberes, 1728) ? These
deer are said to have yielded milk and cheese : " Ciervos que dan leche y
queso y se crian en casal" From what source is this notice derived ? It
may have arisen from a confusion with the lamas (which have neither horns
nor antlers) of the cool mountainous region, — of which Garcilaso affirms
that in Peru, and especially on the plateau of Collao, they were used for
ploughing (Comment, reales, P. I. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 133). (Compare also
Pedro de Cie?a de Leon, Chronica del Peru, Sevilla, 1553, cap. 110, p. 264.)
.The employment of lamas for the plough would however appear to have been
t rare exception, and a merely local custom. In general the want of domestic
animals was a characteristic of the American race, and had a profound influ-
ence on family life.
(456) p. 298. — On the hopes which in the execution of his great and free-
minded work, Luther placed especially on the younger generation, the youth
of Germany, see the remarkable expressions in a letter of June 1518 (Nean»
der de Vicelio, p. 7).
(®7) p. 299.— I have shewn elsewhere how a knowledge of the period at
which Vespucci was named Piloto mayor would alone be sufficient to refute
the accusation, first brought against him in 1533 by the astronomer Schoner
of Nuremberg, of having astutely inserted the words " Terra 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, are clearly manifested in the instructions (Real titulo con extensas
fecultades) which were given to him when, on the 22d of March, 1508, he
wu appointed Piloto mayor (Navarrete, T. iii. p. 297—302). He was placed
NOTES. XC1X
at the head of a true Deposito hydrografico, and was to prepare for the Casa
de Contratacion in Seville, (the central point of all Oceanic discoveries,) a
general description of coasts and register of positions, in which all new disco-
veries were to be entered every year. But the name of " Americi terra" had
heen proposed for the New Continent as early as 1507, by a person whose
existence even was assuredly unknown to Vespucci, the geographer Waldsee-
miiller (Martinus Hylacomylus) of Freiburg in the Breisgau, the director of
a printing establishment at St. -Die in Lorraine, in a small work entitled,
Cosmographise Introductio, insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii Navigationes
(impr. in oppido S. Deodati, 1507). Ringmann, professor of cosmography at
Basle, (better known under the name of Philesius,) Hylacomylus and Grego-
rius Reisch, who published the Margarita Philosophica, were firm friends.
In the last-named work there is a treatise by Hylacomylus on architecture
and perspective written in 1509 (Examen crit. T. iv. p. 112). Laurentius
Phrisius of Metz, a friend of Hylacomylus, and like him patronised by the Duke
Renatus of Lorraine who corresponded by letter with Vespucci, speaks in the
Strasburg edition of Ptolemy, 1522, of Hylacomylus as deceased. The map of
the New Continent drawn by Hylacomylus and contained in this edition pre-
sents the first instance of the name of America " in the editions of Ptolemy's
Geography:" but in the meanwhile, according to my investigations, there had
appeared two years earlier a Map of the World by Petrus Apianus, which was
inserted in Camer's edition of Soliuus, and a second time in the Vadian edition
of Mela, and which, like more modern Chinese maps, represents the Isthmus
of Panama broken through (Examen crit. T. iv. p. 99—124 ; T. v. p. 168—
176). It is a great error to regard the map of 1527 now in Weimar, ob-
tained from the Ebner library at Nuremberg, and the map of 1529 of Diego
Eibero, engraved by Giissefeld, as the oldest maps of the New Continent (Exa-
men crit. T. ii. p. 184 ; T. iii. p. 191). Vespucci had visited the coasts of
South America in 1499 (a year after Columbus's third voyage) in the expe-
dition of Alonso de Hojeda, in company with Juan de la Cosa, whose map.
drawn at the Puerto de Santa Maria in 1500 fully six years before Colum-
bus's death, was first brought to light by myself. Vespucci could not even
liave had any motive for feigning a voyage in 1497, for he, as well as Colum-
bus, was firmly persuaded until his death, that his discoveries were a part of
Eastern Asia. (Compare the better of Columbus, February 1502, tjp Pope
Alexander VI., and another, July 1 503, to Queen Isabella, Navarrete, T. i.
p. 304, T. ii. p. 280, and Vespucci's letter to Pier Francesco de' Medici in
Bandini's Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci, p. 66 and 83.) Pedro de Le-
C WOTES.
desma, Columbus's pilot in his third voyage, still says in 1513, in th« lair-
suit against the heirs, that Paria is considered a part of Asia, " la tierra
firme que dicese que es de Asia:" Navarret*, T. iii. p. 539. The frequent
use of such periphrases as Hondo nuovo, alter' Orbis, Colonus novi Orbis
repertor, do not contradict this, as they only denote regions not before seen,
and are used just in the same manner by Strabo, Mela, Tertullian, Isidore of
Seville, and Cadamosto (Examen crit. T. i. p. 118; T. v. p. 182—184).
For more than 20 years after the death of Vespucci, which took place in 1512,
and indeed until the calumnious statements of Schoner in the Opusculum
Geographicum, 1533, and of Servet in the Lyons edition of Ptolemy's Geo-
graphy in 1535, we find no trace of any accusation against the Florentine
navigator. Columbus himself a year before his death speaks of Vespucci in
terms of unqualified esteem ; he calls him " mucho hombre de bien," —
" worthy of all confidence," and " always inclined to render me service"
(Carta a mi muy caro fijo D. Diego, inNavarrete, T. i. p. 351). The same
goodwill towards Vespucci is displayed by Fernando Colon, who wrote the life
of his father in 1535 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, and at the proceedings respecting the possession of the Moluccas;
— by Petrus Martyr de Anghiera, the personal friend of the Admiral, and
whose correspondence goes down to 1525 ; — by Oviedo, who seeks for every
thing which can lessen the fame of Columbus ; — by Ramusio ; — and by the
great historian Guicciardini. If Amerigo had intentionally falsified the dates
of his voyages, he would have brought them into agreement with each other,
and not have made the first voyage terminate five months after the commence-
ment of the second. The confusion of dates in the numerous versions of his
voyages, is not to be attributed to him, as he did not himself publish any of
these accounts ; such mistakes and confusion of figures are moreover of very
frequent occurrence in writings printed in the 16th century. Oviedo had
been present, as one of the queen's pages, at the audience at which Ferdinand
and Isabella received Columbus with much pomp on his return from his first
voyage of discovery. Oviedo printed three times that this audience took
place in the year 1496, and even that America was discovered in 1491.
Gomara had the same printed not in figures but in words, and placed the dis-
covery of the Terra firma of America in 1497, precisely therefore in the year
BO critical to Amerigo Vespucci's reputation (Examen crit. T. v. p. 196 — 202.
The entire guiltlessness of the Florentine navigator, who never attempted to
attach his name to the New Continent, but who had the misfortune by his mag-
NOTES. Cl
niloquencein Ihe accounts addressed to the Gonfalionere Piero Soderini, to Pier
'Francesco de' Medici, and to Duke Renatus II. of Lorraine, to draw upon
himself the attention of posterity more than he deserved, is most decisively
shewn hy the lawsuit which the fiscal authorities conducted from 1508 to
1527 against the heirs of Columbus, for the purpose of withdrawing from
them the rights and privileges which had heen ceded by the crown to the
Admiral in 1492. Amerigo entered the service of the state as Piloto mayor
in the same year that the lawsuit was commenced. He lived at Seville during
four years of its proceedings, in which it was to be decided what parts of the
New Continent were first seen by Columbus. The most miserable reports
found a hearing, and were made matter of accusation by the fiscal ; witnesses
were sought for at St. Domingo and all the Spanish ports, at Moguer, Palos
and Seville, and all this under the eyes of Amerigo Vespucci and his nephew
Juan. The Mundus Novus, printed by Johann Otmer at Augsburg, 1504, —
the Raccolta 8i Vicenza (Mondo novo e paesi novamente retrovati da Alberico
Vespuzio Fiorentino, of Alessandro Zorzi, 1507,) usually attributed to Fra-
canzio di Montalboddo, — and the Quatuor Navigationes of Martin Waldsee-
miiller (Hylacomylus) had already appeared ; since 1520 maps were extant
having in them the name of America, which had been proposed by Hylacomylns
in 1507, and praised by Joachim Vadius in a letter addressed to Rudolphus
Agricola from Vienna in 1512 ; and yet the person to whom extensively cir-
culated writings in Germany, France, and Italy, attributed the discovery in
1497 of the Terra firma of Paria, was neither cited by the fiscal as a witness
in the proceedings which had begun in 1508, and were continued for 19 years,
nor was he even spoken of as opposed to Columbus, or as having preceded
him. Why, after the death of Amerigo Vespucci (22d Feb. 1512 in Seville)
was not his nephew Juan Vespucci called upon to give evidence, (as were Mar-
tin Alonso and Vicente Yaflez Pinzon, Juan de la Cosa and Alonso de Hojeda,)
that he might testify that the coast of Paria, to which great value was at-
tached not as "part of the main land of Asia," but on account of the produc-
tive pearl fishery in its vicinity, had been already landed on before Columbus,
before August (1498) by Amerigo ? The disregard of this most important tes-
timony would be inexplicable if Amerigo Vespucci had ever boasted of having
made a voyage of discovery in 1497, or if any serious value had at that time
been attached to the confused dates and misprints of the " Quatuor Naviga-
tiones." The diiferent parts of the great and still unprinted work of a friend
of Columbus, Fra Bartholome de las Casas (the Historia general de las In-
dias), were as we know with certainty written at very different periods. It
Cll NOTES.
was not commenced until 1527, 15 years after the death of Amerigo, and
was completed in 1559, 7 years before the death of the aged author in his 92d
year. Praise and bitter censure are mingled in it in an extraordinary mannor.
We see that dislike and suspicion augmented progressively as the fame of the
Florentine navigator spread. In the preface (Prologo) which was written
first, Las Casas says, " Amerigo relates what he did in two voyages to oar
Indies, but he appears to me to have passed over many circumstances in silence,
whether advisedly (a saviendas) or because he did not attend to them ; this
has led some to attribute to him that which is due to others, and which ought
not to be taken from them." The sentence pronounced in the 1st book (chap.
140) is still equally moderate : " Here I must notice the injustice towards
the Admiral which appears to have been committed by Amerigo, or perhaps by
those who printed (16s que imprimieron) his Quatuor Navigationes. To him
alone, without naming any other, the discovery of the continent is attributed.
He is also said to have placed in maps the name of America, thereby sinfully
failing towards the Admiral. As Amerigo was eloquent, and an elegant
writer (era latino y eloquente), he makes himself appear in the letter to
King Renatus like the leader of Hojeda's expedition : yet he was only one of
the pilots, although experienced in seamanship and learned in cosmography
(hombre entendido en las cosas de la mar y docto en cosmographia) . , , . In
the world the belief prevails that he was the first at the main land. Il he
purposely gave currency to this belief, it was great wickedness j and if it was
not really intentionally done, yet it looks like it (clara pareze la falsedad : y
si fue de industria hecha, maldad grande me ; y ya que no lo fuese, al menoa
parezelo) Amerigo is represented as having sailed in the year 7 (1497) :
which seems indeed to have been only an error of the pen and not an inten-
tional false statement (pareza aver avido yerro de pendola y no malicia), be.
cause he is made to have returned at the end of 18 months. "She foreign
writers call the country America. It ought to be Columba." This passage
shews clearly that up to that time Las Casas had not accused Amerigo
having himself brought the name America into usage. He says, " an
tornado los escriptores extrangeros de nombrar la nuestra Tierra firme America,
conio si Americo solo y no otro con el y antes que todos la oviera descubier-
to.** Farther on in the work, lib. i. cap. 164—169, and lib. ii. cap. 2,
violent animosity breaks out : nothing is now attributed to erroneous dates,
or to the partiality of foreigners for Amerigo ; all is intentional deceit of
which Amerigo himself is guilty (" de industria lo hizo . . . persistio en el
engaio . . . de falsedad esta claramente convencido"). Bartholome de laa
NOTES. CU1
Casas laboturs also in two passages to shew more particularly that Amerigo
in his accounts falsified the true succession of the occurrences of his first two
voyages, placing in the first voyage many things which belonged to the second,
and vice vers£. It is strange that the accuser does not seem to have felt how
much the weight of his accusations is diminished by what he himself says of the
opposite opinion, and of the indifference of the person who would have been most
interested in attacking Vespucci, if he had believed him guilty and adverse to his
father and himself. " I cannot but wonder," says Las Casas (cap. 164), "that
Hernando Colon, a clear-sighted man, who as I certainly know had in his hands
Amerigo's accjunts of his travels, should not have remarked in them any deceit
or injustice towards the Admiral." Having had a few months ago a fresh
opportunity of examining the rare manuscript of Bartholome de las Qasas, I
have been led to embody in this long note what I had not already employed
in 1839 in my Examen critique, T. v. p. 178—217. The conviction which
I then expressed, in the same volume, p. 217 and 224, has remained un-
shaken. " Quand la denomination d'un grand continent, generalement
adoptee et consacree par 1'usage de plusieurs siecles, se presente comme ua
monument de 1'injustice des hommes, il est naturel d'attribuer d'abord la
cause de cette injustice a celui qui semblait le plus interresse a la commettre.
L'etude des docutnens a prouve qu'aucun fait certain n'appuie cette supposition,
et que le nom KAmerique a pris naissance dans un pays eloigne (en France
et en Allemagne), par un concours d'incidens qui paraisseut ecarter jusqu'an
soup9on d'une influence de la part de Vespuce. C'est la que s'arrete la cri-
tique historique. Le champ sans bornes des causes inconnues ou des combi-
itaisons morales possibles, n'est pas du domaine de 1'histoire positive. Un
nomme qui pendant une longue carriere a joui de 1'estime des plus illustres de
ses contemporains, s'est eleve, par des connaissances en astronomic nautique,
distinguees pour le temps ou il vivait, a un emploi honorable. Le concours
de circonstances fortuites lui a donne une celebrite dont le poids, pendant
trois siecles, a pese sur sa memoire, en fournissant des motifs pour avilir son
caractere. Une telle position est bien rare dans 1'histoire des infort lines hu-
maines : c'est 1'exemple d'une fletrissure morale croissant avec 1'illustration
du nom. II valait la peine de scruter ce qui, dans ce melange de succes et
d'adversites, appartient au navSgateur meme, aux hazards de la redaction pr£-
cipitee de ses ecrits, ou a de maladroits et dangereux amis." Even Copernicus
contributed to this dangerous celebrity ; for he also ascribes the discovery of
the new part of the globe to Vespucci. In discussing the " centrum gravi-
tatis" and " ctutrum magnitudiuis" of the continent he adds • " magis id
CIV NOTES.
erit clarum, si addentur insulse setate nostra sub Hispaniarum Lusitanieequft
Principibus repertse et prsesertim America ab inventore denominata navium
preefecto, quern, ob incompertam ejus adhuc magnitudinem, alterum orbem
terrarum putant." (Nicolai Copernici de Revolutionibus orbium coelestiura,,
Libri sex, 1543, p. 2 a.)
C158) p. 300.— Compare my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, T.
iii. p. 154—158, and 225—227.
I459) p. 302.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. 6. 86 (Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 73.)
(46°) p. 303. — " The telescopes which Galileo constructed himself, and others
which he used for observing Jupiter's satellites, the phases of Venus, and the
solar spots, magnified 4, 7, and 32 times in linear dimensions, never more."
(Arago^ in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour 1'an 1842, p. 268).
<461) p. 304.— Westphal, in his Biography of Copernicus (1822, S. 33),
dedicated to the great astronomer of Konigsberg, Bessel, like Gassendi, calls
the Bishop of Ermland Lucas Watzelrodt von Allen. According to explana-
tions very recently obtained, ^nd for which I am indebted to the learned his-
torian of Prussia, Archiv-Director Voigt, the family of the mother of
Copernicus is called in original documents Weisselrodt, Weisselrot, Weise-
brodt, and most usually Waisselrode. His mother was undoubtedly of
German descent, and the family of Waisselrode, who were originally distinct
from that of von Allen, which had flourished at Thorn from the beginning of
the 15th century, probably took the name of von Allen in addition to their
own, through adoption or connection. Sniadecki and Czynski (Kopernik
et ses Travaux, 1847, p. 26) call the mother of the great Copernicus Barbara
Wasselrode, married, in 1464, at Thorn, to his father, whose family they
bring from Bohemia. The name of the astronomer, who Gassendi designates
as Tornseus Borussus, is written by Westphal and Czynski, Kopernik, and by
Krzyzianowski, Kopirnig. In a letter of the Bishop of Ermland, Martin
Cromer of Heilsberg, dated Nov. 21, 1580, it is said, "Cum Jo. (Nicolaus)
Copernicus vivens ornamento fuerit, atque etiam nunc post fata sit, non
solum huic ecclesiae, verum etiam toti Prussiae patrise suse, iniquum esse puto,
eum post obitum carere honore sepulchri sive monumenti."
(**) p. 304. — Thus Gassendi, in Nicolai Copernici Vita, appended to his
biography of Tycho (Tychonis Brahei Vita, 1655, Hagse-Comitum, p. 3-20:
*' eodem die ct horis non multis priusquam animam efflaret." It is only
Schubert, in his Astronomy, Th. i. S. 115, and Robert Small, in the very
instructive Account of the Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler, 1804, p. 92,
who state that Copernieos died "a few days after the appearance of hia
NOTES. CV
work." This is also the opinion of the Archiv-Director Voigt at Konigsberg ;
because in a letter which George Donner, Canon of Ermland, wrote to the
Duke of Prussia after the death of Copernicus, it is said, that " the estimable
and worthy Doctor Nicolaus Koppernick sent forth his work, like the sweet
Bont? of the swan, a short time before his departure from this life of sorrows."
According to the ordinarily received opinion (Westphal, Nikolaus Kopernikus,
1822, S. 73 and 82), the work was begun in 1507, and in 1530 was already
So far completed that only a few corrections were subsequently added. The
publication was hastened by a letter from Cardinal Schonberg, written from
Home iu 1536. The cardinal wishes to have the manuscript copied and sent
to him by Theodor von Reden. * Copernicus himself, in his dedication to
Pope Paul III. says, that the performance of the work has lingered on into
the " quartum novennium." If we remember how much time was required
for printing a work of 400 pages, and that the great man died in May 1543-,
we may presume that the dedication was not written in the last named year ;
which, reckoning backwards 36 years, would not give us a later but an earlier
year than 1507. — Herr Voigt doubts whether the aqueduct and hydraulic
works at Erauenburg, generally ascribed to Copernicus, were really executed
according to his designs. He finds that so late as 1571, a contract wa»
concluded between the Chapter and the " skilful Master Valentine Zendel at
Breslau," to bring the water to Frauenburg, from the mill-ponds to the
houses of the Canons. Nothing is said of any previous water-works, and
therefore the existing ones cannot have been commenced until 28 years after
the death of Copernicus.
C463) p. 305.— Delambre, Histoire de 1'Astronomie moderne, T. i. p. 140.
(^ p. 304. — " Neque enim necesse est, eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne
verisimiles quidem, sed sufficit hoc unum, si calculum observationibus con-
gruentem exhibeant," says the preface of Osiander. " The bishop of Culm,
Tidemann Gise, a native of Dantzig, who had for years urged Copernicus to
publish his work, at last received the manuscript, with permission to have it
printed at his free pleasure. He sent it first to Rhseticus, Professor at Wit-
tenberg, who had recently been living for a long time with his teacher at
Fraueuburg. Rhseticus regarded Nuremberg as the most suitable place for
the publication, and entrusted the superintendence of the printing to the
Professor Schoner and Andreas Osiander" (Gassendi, Vita Copernici, p. 319).
The eulogium pronounced on the work at the close of the preface would
Buffice to shew, without the express testimony of Gasseudi, that the preface
was by another hand. Also on the title of the first edition (that of Nureia-
CV1 NOTES.
berg, 1543), Osiander has made use of an expression which is always carefully
avoided in Copernicus's own writing: "motus stellarum novis insuper ac
admirabilibus hypothesibus ornati," together with, the very ungentle addition,
" igitur, studiose lector, erne, lege, fruere." In the second Bale edition of
1566, which I have very carefully compared with the first Nuremberg edition,
there is no longer mention in the title of the book of the " admirable hypo-
thesis ;" but Osiander's " Prsefatiuncula de Hypothesibus hujus Operis," as
Gassendi calls the interpolated preface, is preserved. It is also evident that
Osiander, without naming himself, meant to shew that the praefatiuncula was
by a different hand from the work itself, as he designates the dedication to
<Paul III. as the " Prajfatio Authoris." The first edition has only 196
leaves ; the second has 213, on account of the added Narratio Prima of the
astronomer George Joachim Bhseticus, and a letter directed to Schoner, which,
as I have remarked in the text, being printed in 1541 by the intervention of
the mathematician Gassarus of Basle, gave to the learned world the first cor-
rect knowledge of the Copernican system. Rhseticus had given up his pro-
fessorship at Wittenberg for the sake of enjoying the instructions of Copernicus
at Frauenburg itself. (Compare, on these subjects, Gassendi, p. 310 — 319.)
The explanation of what Osiander was induced to add from timidity, is given
by Gassendi : " Andreas porro Osiander fuit, qui non modo operarum inspector
(the superintendent of the printing) fuit, sed Prsefatiunculam quoque ad
lectorem (tacito licet nomine) de Hypothesibus operis adhibuit. Ejus in ea
consilium fuit, ut, tametsi Copernicus Motum Terrse habuisset, nou solum pro
Hypothesi, sed pro vero etiam placito ; ipse tamen ad rem, ob illos, qui heine
offenderentur, leniendam, excusatum eum faceret, quasi talem Motum non pr»
dogmate, sed pro Hypothesi mera assumpsisset."
(465) p. 307. — " Q/uis enim in hoc pulcherrimo templo lampadem hanc in
alio vel meliori loco poneret, quam unde totum simul possit illuminare ? Si»
quidem non inepte quidam lucernam mundi, alii mentem, alii rectorem vocant.
Trimegistus visibilem Deum, Sophoclis Electra intuentem omnia. Ita pro-
fecto tanquam in solio regali Sol residens circumagentem gubernat astrorun,
familiam : Tellus quoque minime frandatur lunari ministerio, sed ut Aristo-
teles de animalibus ait, maximam Luna cum terra cognationem habet. Con-
cepit interea a Sole terra, et impregnatur annuo partu. Invenimus igitur sub
Jiac ordinatione admirandam mundi symmetriam ac certum harmonise nexum
motus et magnitudinis orbiura : qualis alio modo reperiri non potest (Nicol.
Copern. de Revol. Orbium Coelestium, lib. i. cap. 10, p. 9b). In this pas-
sage, which is not without poetic grace and elevation of style, we recognise
KOTES. CVU
is was the case with all the astronomers of the 17th. century, traces of long and
intimate acquaintance with classical antiquity. Copernicus had in his mind
Cic. Somn. Scip. c. 4 ; Plin. ii. 4 ; and Mercur. Trismeg. lib. T. (ed. Cracor.
1586), p. 195 and 201. The allusion to the Electra of Sophocles is obscure,
as the sun is not termed any where " all-seeing," as it is in the Iliad
and the Odyssey, and also in the Choephorse of JUschylus (v. 980), which yet
Copernicus would not probably have called Electra. According to Bockh's
conjecture, the allusion is to hi ascribed to a vague remembrance of verse
869 of Sophocles' CEdipus Coloaeus. It is singular that quite lately, in an
otherwise instructive memoir (Czynski, Kopernik et ses Travaux, 1847, p.
102), the Electra of the tragedian is confounded with " electric currents."
The passage of Copernicus quoted above is thus translated : " Si on prend le
soleil pour le flambeau de 1'univers, pour son ame, pour son guide, si Trime-
giste le nomme un Dieu, si Sophocle le croit une puissance electrique qui anime
et contemple 1'ensemble de la creation.", , . .
(466) p. 307. — "Pluribus ergo existentibus centris, de centro quoque mnndi
non temere quis dubitabit, an videlicet fuerit istud gravitatis terrenes, an aliud.
Equidem existimo, gravitatem noa aliud esse, quam appetentiam quandam
naturalem partibus inditam a divina providentia opficis universorum, ut in nni-
tatem integritatemque suam sese conferant in fonnam globi coeuntes. Quam
affectionem credibile est etiam Soli, Lunee, cseterisque errantium fulgoribus
inesse, ut ejus efficacia in ea qua se reprasentant rotunditate permaneant, qua
nihilominus multis modis sues efficiunt circuitus. Si igitur et terra faciat alios,
ut pote secundum centrum (mundi), necesse erit eos esse qui similiter extrin-
secus in multis apparent, in quibus invenimus annuum circuitum. — Ipse
denique Sol medium mundi putabitur possidere, quse omnia ratio ordinis, quo
ilia sibi invicem succedunt, et mundi totius harmonia nos docet, si modo rem
ipsam ambobus (ut ajunt) oculis inspiciamus" (Copern. de Revol. Orb. Coal,
lib. i. cap. 9, p. 7, b).
(«*) p. 308.— Plut. de Facie in Orbe Lnnaj, p. 923, c (compare Ideler,
Meteorologia Veterum Graecorum et Romanorum, 1832, p. 6). In the pas-
sage of Plutarch, Anaxagoras is not named ; but that the latter applied the
same theory of "falling if the force of rotation intermitted" to all the material
celestial bodies, we learn from Diog. Laert. ii. 12, and the many passages
which I have collected (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 139, 397, 401, and 408 ; Engl.
trans. Vol. i. p. ] 23-124, Notes 62, 69, 89). Compare also Aristot. de Casio,
ii. 1, p. 284, a 24, Bekker and a remarkable passage of Simplicius,p. 491, b,
in the Scholia, according to the edition of the Berlin Academy, where the
cviii NOTES.
"not falling of heavenly bodies" is spoken of "when the force of rotation
predominates over the proper falling force or downward attraction." We
may connect with these ideas, which also partially belong to Empedocles and
Democritus as well as to Anaxagoras, the instance adduced by Simplicius, (/. c.)
" that water in a phial is not spilt when the phial is swung round with a
movement of rotation more rapid than the downward movement of the
water" (TTJS ein TO KO.TW rov vtiaTos </>o£os).
C468) p. 308.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 139 and 408; Engl. trans, p. 124 and
note 89. (Compare Letronne, des Opinions cosmograpbiques des Peres de
1'Eglise, in the Revue des deux Mondes, 1834, T. i. p. 621.)
C469) p. 308.— For all that relates to attraction, gravity, and the fall of
bodies, as regarded in antiquity, see a collection of passages from the ancients,
made with great industry and discrimination, by Th. Henri Martin, Etude*
sur le Timee de Platon, 1841, T. ii. p. 272—280, and 341.
(47°) p. 308. — Job. Philoponus de Creatione Mundi, lib. i. cap. 12.
(4?1) p. 308. — He afterwards gave up the correct opinion (Brewster, Mar-
tyrs of Science, 1346, p. 211) ; but that there dwells in the central body of
the planetary system, the Sun, a power which governs the movements of the
planets, and that this solar force decreases either as the square of the distance
or in direct ratio, was expressed by Kepler, in the Harmonices Mundi, com-
pleted in 1618.
(472) p. 308.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 30 and 58 (Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 31
and 52.)
(473) p. 309.— Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 139 and 209 (Eng. trans. Vol. ii. p. 105
and 175). The scattered passages in the work of Copernicus, relating to the
Ante-Hipparchian system of the structure of the universe, exclusive of the
dedication, are the following : — lib. i. cap. 5 and 10 ; lib. v. cap. 1 and 3 (ed.
princ. 1543, p. 3, b; 7, b; 8, b; 133, b; 141 and 141, b; 179 and 181,
b). Every where Copernicus shews a predilection for, and a very accurate ac-
quaintance with, the views entertained by the Pythagoreans, or which, to
speak more circumspectly, were attributed to the most ancient among them.
For example, as we see by the beginning of the dedication, he was acquainted
with the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus ; which, indeed, shews that the mys-
tery loving Italic school only designed to communicate their opinions to
friends, "as had at first been the purpose of Copernicus likewise." The
period to which Lysis belonged is somewhat uncertain; he is sometimes
termed an immediate disciple of Pythagoras himself, sometimes, and with
more probability, a teacher of Eeaminondas (Bockh, Philolaos, S. 8—15).
NOTES. CIX
The letter of Lysis to Hipparchus (an old Pythagorean, who had disclosed
the mysteries of the sect), is, like so many other writings, a forgery of later
times. Copernicus had probably become acquainted with it from the collec-
tion of Aldus Manutius, Epistolse diversorum Philosophorum (Romse, 1494),
or from a Latin translation by Cardinal Bessarion (Venet. 1516). In the
prohibition of Copernicus' work, De Revolutionibus, in the famous decree of
the Congregazione dell' Indice of the 5th of March, 1616, the new system of
the universe is expressly designated as " falsa ilia doctrina Pythagorica, Di-
vine Scripturse omnino adversans." The important passage on Aristarchus
of Samos, of which I have spoken in the text, is in the Arenarius, p. 449 of
the Paris edition of Archimedes of 1615 by David Rivaltus. But the editio
princeps is the Basle edition of 1544, apud Jo. Hervagium. The passage in
the Arenarius says very distinctly, that " Aristarchus had confuted the Astro-
nomers who imagined the earth to be immoveable in the centre of the uni-
verse ; that this centre was occupied by the sun, which was immoveable, like
other stars, while the earth revolved round it." Copernicus, in his work,
twice names Aristarchus, p. 69 b and 79, but without any allusion to his
system. Ideler, in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum der Alterthums-Wissen-
schaft (Bd. ii. 1808, S. 452), asks whether Copernicus was acquainted with
Nicolaus von Cusa's work, De Docta Ignorantia. The first Paris edition of it
was indeed published in 1514, and the expression, "jam nobis manifestum
est terram in veritate moveri," from a platonising cardinal, might have been
expected to make some impression on the Canon of Frauenburg (Whewell,
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 343) ; but a fragment of
Cusa's writing discovered very recently (1843) in the library of the Hospital
at Cues, sufficiently proves, as does the work De Venatione Sapientiw,
cap. 28, that Cusa 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. vua Cusa,
1847, S. 97—100).
(474) p. 309.— See the profound treatment of this subject in Martin, Etudes
sur Timee, T. ii. p. Ill (Cosmographie des Egyptiens), and p. 129—133
(Antecedents du Systeme de Copernic). The statement of this learned phi-
lologist, according to which the original system of Pythagoras himself
differed from that of Philolaos, and placed the earth at rest in the centre,
does not appear to me quite convincing (T. ii. p. 103 and 107). Respecting
the remarkable statement of Gassendi mentioned in the text, of the simi-
larity of the systems of Tycho Brahe and Apollonius of Perga, I here add
CX NOTES.
farther explanation. In Gassendi's biographies, he says, " Magnam imprimU
rationem habuit Copernicus duarum opinionum affinium, qnarum unam Mar-
tiano Capellse, alteram Apollonio Pergaeo attribuit. — Apollonius Solem delegit,
circa quern, ut centrum, non modo Mercurius et Venus, verum etiam Mars,
Jupiter, Saturnus suas obirent periodos, dum Sol interim, uti et Luna, circa
Terrain, ut circa centrum, quod foret affixarum mundique centrum, moverentur,
quse deinceps quoque opinio Tychonis propemodum fuit. Rationem autem
magnam harum opinionum Copernicus habuit, quod utraque eximie Mercurii
ac Veneris circuitiones repraesentaret, eximieque causam retrogradationum,
directionum, stationum in iis appaventium exprimeret et posterior (Pergsei)
quoque in tribus planetis superioribus praestaret" (Gassendi, Tychonis Brahei
Vita, p. 296). My friend the astronomer Galle, from whom I sought infor-
mation, like myself finds nothing which could justify Gassendi's decided
statement. He writes to me, "In the passages which you refer to in
Ptolemy's Almagest (in the commencement of Book XII.), and in the works
of Copernicus (lib. v. cap. 3, p. 141, a; cap. 35, p. 179, a and b; cap. 36,
p. 181, b), there is only question of explaining the retrogressions and sta
tionary appearances of the planets, in which ther« is indeed a reference to
Apollonius's assumption of the revolution of the planets round the sun (and
Copernicus himself mentious expressly the assumption of the earth's standing
still) ; but it does not appear possible to determine where he obtained what
he supposes to have been derived from Apollonius. 1 can only therefore
conjecture, that some late writer gave a system attributed to Apollonius of
Perga which resembled that of Tycho ; although I do not find, even in
Copernicus, any clear exposition of such a system, or any quotations of ancient
passages respecting it. If the source from whence the complete Tychonic
view is attributed to Apollonius should be merely lib. XII. of the Almagest,
we may consider that Gassendi went too far in his suppositions, and that the
case resembled that of the phases of Mercury and Venus, which Copernicus
spoke of indeed (lib. i. cap. 10, p. 7, b, and 8, a), but without decidedly
applying them to his system. Apollonius, perhaps, in a similar manner may
have treated mathematically the explanation of the retrogressions of the
planets under the assumption of a revolution round the sun, without subjoin-
ing any thing decided and general as to the truth of this assumption. The
difference of the Apollonian system described by Gassendi from that of Tycho
would only be, that the latter explained the inequalities of the movements
as well. The remark of Robert Small, that the fundamental idea of the
Tychonian system was by no means a stranger to the mind of Copernicus,
NOTES. Cxi
but had rather served him as a point of transition to his own system, appears
to me well founded."
(W) p. 310. — Schubert, Astronomic, Th. i. S. 124. Whewell has given,
in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 282, an Inductive
Table of Astronomy, which presents an exceedingly good and complete tabular
riew of the astronomical contemplation of the structure of the universe,
from the earliest times to Newton's system of gravitation.
(^6) p. 311. — Plato inclines, in the Phsedrus, to the system of Philolaus;
but in the Timseus, to that which represents the earth as immoveable in the
centre, subsequently called the Hipparchian or the Ptolemaic system (Bockh,
de Platonico Systemate Coelestium Globorum, et de vera indole Astronomise
Philolaicse, p. xxvi. — xxxii. ; also the same author in the Philolaos, S. 104 —
108. Compare also Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. i. S. 325—347, with
Martin's Etudes sur Timee, T. ii. p. 64 — 92). The astronomical vision in
whiofe the structure of the universe is veiled, at the end of the Book of the
Republic, reminds one at once of the planetary systems of intercalated spheres,
and of the concord of tones (the music of the spheres) — "the voices of the
Sirens winging their flight with the revolving orbs." (See, on the discovery of
the true system of the universe, the fine and comprehensive work of Apelt,
Epochen der Gesch. der Menscheit, Bd, i. 1845, S. 205—305 and 379—
445.)
(477) p. 311. — Kepler, Harmonices Mundi, libri quinque, 1619, p. 189.
"On the 8th of March, 1618, Kepler, after many unsuccessful attempts,
came upon the thought of comparing the squares of the times of revolution
of the planets with the cubes of the mean distances ; but he made an error of
calculation, and rejected the idea. On the 15th of May, 1618, he came back
upon it, and calculated correctly. The third Keplerian law was now disco-
vered." This discovery, and those related to it, coincide with the distressing
period when this great man, exposed from early childhood to the hardest
strokes of fate, was labouring, in a trial for witchcraft which lasted six years,
to save his aged mother, 70 years old, accused of poison-mixing, incapacity of
shedding tears, and sorcery, from the torture and the stake. The suspicion
was strengthened by her own son, the wicked Christopher Kepler a worker
in tin, being his mother's accuser ; and by her having been brought up by an
aunt who was burnt at Weil as a witch. See an exceedingly interesting
work, but little known in foreign countries, drawn from newly discovered
manuscripts by Baron von Breitschwert, entitled, " Johann Ktppler's Leben
tad Wirken," 1831, S. 12, 97—147, and 196. According to this work,
CX11 NOTES.
Kepler, who in German letters always signed his name Keppler, was not born
on the 21st of December, J 571, in the imperial town Weil, as is usually sup-
posed, but on the 27th of December, 1571, in the Wurtemberg village of
Magstatt. Of Copernicus it is uncertain whether he was born on the 19th
of January, 1472, or on the 19th February, 1473 (as Mostlin supposes), of
(according to Czynski) on the 12th February of the same year. The year of
Columbus's birth was long uncertain within 19 years. Ramusio places it in
1430, Bernaldez, the friend of the discoverer, in 1436, and the celebiatel
historian Mufloz in 1446.
(478) p. 312.— Plut. de Plac. Philos. ii. 14; Aristot. Meteorol. xi. 8, De
Coelo, ii. 8. On theories of the spheres generally, and on the retrograding
spheres of Aristotle in particular, see Ideler's Vorlesung iiber Eudoxus, 1828,
S. 49—60.
(479) p. 313. — A better insight into the free movement of bodies, and into
the independence of the direction of the axis of the earth once given, and of
the rotatory and progressive movement of the terrestrial globe in its orbit, has
freed the original system of Copernicus from the assumption of a declination-
movement, or a so-called third movement of the earth (De Revolut. Orb. Ccel.
lib. i. cap. 11, triplex motus telluris). In the annual revolution round th«
sun, the parallelism of the earth's axis is maintained in conformity with the
law of inertia, without the application of a " correcting" epicycle.
f480) p. 314. — Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astronomie ancienne, T. ii. p. 381
(m) p. 314.— See Sir David Brewster's judgment on Kepler's optical
works, in the " Martyrs of Science," 1846, p. 179—182. (Compare Wilde,
Gesch. der Optik, 1838, Th. i. S. 182—210.) If the law of the refraction
of rays of light belongs to the Ley den Professor Willebrord Snellius (1626),
who at his decease left it behind him buried in his papers, on the other hand
the publication of the law in a trigonometrical form was first made by Des-
cartes. See Brewster, in the North British Beview, Vol. vii. p. 207 ; Wilde,
Gesch. der Optik, Th. i. S. 227.
C*82) p. 314. — Compare two excellent memoirs on the discovery of thj
telescope, by Professor Moll of Utrecht, in the Journal of the Royal Institu-
tion, 1831, Vol. i. p. 319 ; and by Wilde at Berlin, in his Gesch. der Optik,
1838, Th. i. S. 138—172. The work of Moll, written in the Dutch lan-
guage, is entitled, " Geschiedkundig Onderzoek naar de eerste Uitfinders der
Vernkykers, uit de Aantekenningen van wyle den Hoogl. van Swinden zamen-
gesteld door G. Moll," Amsterdam, 1831. Olbers has given an extract from
this interesting treatise in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 1843, S. 56—65. The
NOTES. CX111
optical instruments which Prince Maurice of Nassau and the Archduke Albert
had from Jansen (the Archduke gave his to Cornelius Drebbel), were, (as is evi-
dent from the letter of the ambassador Boreel, who had been, often in Janseu's
house when a child, and at a later period saw the instruments in the shop,)
microscopes 18 inches long, " through which small objects, when one looked
down at them from abore, appeared wonderfully magnified." — The confusion
between the microscope and the telescope has contributed to obscure the his-
tory of the invention of both instruments. The letter of Boreel (Paris,
1655), above alluded to, notwithstanding the authority of Tiraboschi, renders
it improbable that the first invention of the compound microscope belonged to
Galileo. Compare, on this obscure history of optical inventions, Vincenzio
Antinori, in the Saggi di Naturali Esperienze fatte uelT Accademia del Cimento,
1841, p. 22 — 26. Even Huygens, who was born scarcely twenty-five
years after the supposed date of the invention of the telescope, did not
venture to decide with certainty respecting the name of the first inventor
(Opera reliqua, 1728, Vol. ii. p. 125). According to the researches which
Van Swinden and Moll have made in Archives, not only was Lij;pershey, as
early as the 2d of October, 1608, in possession of a telescope made by him-
self, but the French Ambassador at the Hague, President Jeaonin, wrote, on
the 2Sth of December of the same year, to Sully, " that he was in treaty
with the Middleburg spectacle-maker for a telescope which he wished to send
to the king" (Henry IV.) Simon Marius (Mayer of Gunzenhausen, one of
the two independent discoverers of Jupiter's satellites) even relates that his
friend Fuchs of Bimbach, Privy Councillor of the Margrave of Ansbach, was
offered a telescope for sale in the autumn of 1608 at Frankfort-on-Maine,
by a Belgian. Telescopes were made in London in February 1610, or a year
after Galileo had completed his telescope (Rigaud on Harriot's Papers, 1833,
p. 23, 26, and 46). They were at first called cylinders. Porta, the inventor
of the camera obscura, as well as, at earlier periods, Fracastoro the cotempo-
rary of Columbus, Copernicus, and Cardanus, had merely spoken of the pos-
sibility " of seeing every thing larger and nearer" by looking through convex
and concave glasses placed on each other (duo specilla ocularia alterum alteri
superposita) ; but we cannot ascribe to them the invention of the telescope
(Tiraboschi, Storia della Letter, ital. T. xi. p. 467 j Wilde, Gesch. der Optik,
Th. i. S. 121). Spectacles had been known in Haarlem since the beginning
of the 14th century ; and an epitaph in the church of Maria Maggiore at
Florence names as the inventor (inventore degli occhiali) Salvino degli Armati,
deceased in 1317. Separate and apparently authentic notices of the use of
VOL. II. 2 I
CX1V
spectacles by aged persons occur even as early as 1299 and 1305. The pas-
sages of Roger Bacoii relate to the magnifying power of spherical segments
of glass. See Wilde, Gesch. der Optik, Th. i. S. 93—96 ; and above, Note
284.
(^ p. 315. — In like manner, the above named physician and mathemati-
cian of the Margravate of Ansbach, Simon Marius, as early as 1608, after
receiving a description of the action of a Dutch telescope, is believed to have
constructed one himself. On Galileo's earliest observation of the moun-
tains in the moon, referred to in the text, compare Nelli, Vita di Galilei, Vol.
i. p. 200—206 ; Galilei, Opere, 1744, T. ii. p. 60, 403, and (Lettera al Padre
Cristoforo Grienberger, in Materia delle Montuosita della Luna) p. 409 — 424.
Galileo found in the moon some circular districts, surrounded on every side
by mountains, like the form of Bohemia. " Eundem facit aspecturn lunse
locus quidam, ac faceret in terris regio consimilis Boemise, si montibus
altissimis, inque peripheriam perfecj^i circuli dispositis occluderetur undique"
(T. ii. p. 8). The measurements of the altitudes of the mountains were made
by the method of the tangent of the solar ray. Galileo, as Helvetius still
later, measured.the distance of the summit of the mountains from the boundary
of the illuminated portion, at the moment when the mountain summit first
caught the solar ray., I find no observation of the lengths of the shadows of
the mountains. He found the summits " incirca miglia quattro" in height,
and "much higher than our terrestrial mountains." The comparison is
curious, because, according to Riccioli, very exaggerated ideas of the height
of our mountains then prevailed ; and one of the principal or most celebrated
amongst them, the Peak of Teneriffe, was first measured with some degree of
exactness, trigonometrically, by Feuillee, in 1724. Galileo, like all other
observers up to the end of the 18th century, believed in the existence of many
seas in the moon, and of a lunar atmosphere.
C484) p. 316. — I again find occasion (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 434 ; Engl. trans.
Vol. i. note 159) to recal here the proposition laid down by Arago, "II n'y a
qu'une maniere rationelle et juste d'ecrire 1'histoire des sciences, c'eSt de
s'appuyer exclusivement sur des publications ayant date certaine : hors de la,
tout est confusion et obscurite." The singularly delayed publication of the
Frankischen Kalender's oder der Practica (1612), and of the astronomically
important memoir entitled " Mundus Jovialis anno 1609 detectus ope per-
spicilli Belgici (Feb. 1614)," may indeed have given occasion to the suspicion
that Marius had derived information from the Nuncius Sidereus of Galileo,
the dedication of which bears date in March 1610, or even from earlier com-
NOTES. CXV
munications by letter. Galileo, excited by the not forgotten law- suit against
Balthasar Capra, calls him a pupil of the Marius, " usurpatore del Sistema di
Giove" ; Galileo even reproaches the heretical protestant astronomer of Gunzen-
hausen with founding the apparently earlier date of his observation on a con-
fusion between the calendars. " Tace il Mario di far cauto il lettore, come
essendo egli separato della chiesa nostra, ne avendo accettato 1'emendatione
gregoriana, il giorno 7 di Geunaio del 1610 di noi cattolici (the day on which
Galileo discovered the sateUites) e 1'istesso, che il di 28 di Decembre del 1609
di loro eretici, e questa e tutta la precedenza delle sue finte osservationi"
(Venturi, Memorie e Lettere di G. Galilei, 1818, P. i. p. 279 ; and Delambrt,
Hist, de 1'Astr. mod, T. i. p. 696). According to a letter which Galileo
wrote, in 1614, to the Accademia di Lincei, he, somewhat unphilosophically,
thought of addressing his complaint against Marius to the Marchese di Brau-
deburgo. On the whole, however, Galileo continued well disposed towards
the German astronomers. He writes, in March 1611, " Gli ingegni singo-
lari, che in gran numero fioriscono nell' Alemagna, mi hanno lungo tempo
tenuto in desiderio di vederla" (Opere, T. ii. p. 44). It has always appeared
to me remarkable, that if, in a conversation with Marius, Kepler was playfully
cited as a sponsor for the bestowal of the mythological denominations of lo
and Callisto, there should not occur any mention of his countryman, either in
the Commentary to the Nuncius Sidereus, nuper ad mortales a Galilaeo missus,
published in Prague, in April 1610, or in his letters to Galileo or to the
Emperor Rudolph in the autumn of the same year ; instead of which, Kepler
every where speaks of "the glorious discovery of the Medicean stars by
Galileo." In publishing his own observations of the satellites, made from the
4th to the 9th of September, 1610, he gives to a little memoir which appeared
bt Frankfort in 1611, the title, " Kepleri Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor
Jovis Satellitibus erronibus quos Galilseus Mathematicus Florentinus jure in-
ventionis Medicea Sidera nuncupavit. " A letter addressed to Galileo from
Prague, Oct. 25, 1610, concludes with the words "neminem habes, quern
metuas semulam." Compare Venturi, P. i. p. 100, 117, 139, 144, and 149.
Baron von Zach, misled by a mistake, and after a by no means careful exami-
nation of the valuable manuscripts preserved at Petworth, the seat of Lord
Egremont, stated that the distinguished astronomer and Virginian traveller,
Thomas Harriot, had discovered the satellites of Jupiter at the same time as
Gaiileo, and even earlier. A more close examination of Harriot's manuscripts,
by Rigaud, has shewn that they began, not on the 16th of January, but only
on. the 17th of October, 1610, nine months after Galileo and Marius. (Com-
CXV1 NOTES.
pare Zach, Corr. Astron. Vol. vii. p. 105 ; Rigaud, Account of Harriot's
Astron. Papers, Oxford, 1833, p. 37 ; Biewster, Martyrs of Science, 1846,
p. 32. The earliest observations of Jupiter's satellites by Galileo and his
pupil Renieri, were only discovered two years ago.
C185) p. 317. — It ought to be 73 years ; for the prohibition of the Coperni-
can system by the Congregation of the Index was given on the 5th of
March, 1616.
C86) p. 317.— Freiherr von Breitschwert, Keppler's Leben, S. 36.
(«*) p. 317.— Sir John Herschel, Astron. S. 465.
f488) p. 318.— Galilei. Opere, T. ii. (Longitudine per via de' Pianeti
Medicei), p. 435—506; NeUi, Vita, Vol. 2, p. 656—688 ; Venturi, Memorie
e Lettere di G. Galilei, P. i. p. 177. As early as 1612, or scarcely two yean*
after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, Galileo boasted, somewhat prema-
turely, of having completed tables of those satellites to such a degree of
exactness, that the phenomena could be computed by them to 1' of time. A
long diplomatic correspondence, which did not lead to the desired object, was
commenced with the Spanish ambassador in 1616, and with the Dutch ambas-
sador in 1636. The telescopes were to magnify 40 to 50 times. In order
to find the satellites more easily when the ship is in motion, and (as he
imagined) to keep them in the field, he invented, in 1617 (Nelli, Vol. ii.
p. 663), the binocular telescope, which has usually been attributed to the
Capucine monk, Schyrleus de Rheita, who had much experience in optical
matters, and was seeking to find the means of constructing telescopes magni-
fying 4000 'times. Galileo made experiments with his binocular (to which he
also gave the name of celatone or testiera) in the harbour of Leghorn, during
a strong wind and much motion of the ship. He also had a contrivance pre-
pared in the arsenal at Pisa, for protecting the observer of the satellites from,
the motion of the ship, by seating him in a kind of boat, which was to float
in another boat filled with water or with oil (Lettera al Picchena de 22 Marzo,
1617 ; Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. p. 184 ; Galilei, Opere, T. ii. p. 473 ; Lettera a
Lorenzo Realio del 5 Giugno, 1637). The proofs which Galileo assigns of the
advantages for the naval service of his method over Morin's method of lunar
distances, are very remarkable. (Opere, T. ii. p. 454)
O p. 319.— Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, pp. 460—476 (Decouvertes
des taches Solaires et de la Rotation du Soleil), and Brewster (Martyrs of
Science, pp. 36 and 39) place the first observation of Galileo in October or
November 1610. Compare Nelli, Vita, Vol. i. pp. 324—384 ; Galilei, Opere,
-T' i. p. lix. T. ii. pp. 85—200, T. iv. p. 53. On Harriot's observations, see
NOTES. CXV11
Rigaud, pp. 32 and 38. The Jesuit Schoner, who was summoned from Gratz
to Rome, has been accused of seeking to revenge himself of Galileo on account
of the literary contest respecting the discovery of the solar spots, by getting it
whispered, through another Jesuit, Grassi, to Pope Urban VIII. that he (the
Pope) was the person represented by the foolish and ignorant Simplicius in the
Dialoghi delle Scienze Nuove (Nelli, Vol. ii. p. 515).
(49°) p. 320.— Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astronomie moderne, T. i. p. 690.
(49°) p. 320.— In Galileo's Letters to the Principe Cesi (May 25, 1612) the
same opinion is expressed ; Venturi, P. i. p. 172.
(492) p. 321.— See on this subject some ingenious and interesting conside-
rations by Arago, in the Annuaire pour 1'an 1842, pp. 481—488. (The
experiments with Drummond's light projected on the sun's disk are mentioned
by Sir John Herschel in his Astronomy, S. 334.)
(493) p. 321. — Giordano Brano und Nic. von Cusa verglichen, 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.
(494) p. 322.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 160 and 416 ; Eng. translation,
Vol. i. p. 144, Note 120.
(495) p. 323. — Laplace says of Kepler's theory of the measurement of casks
(Stereometria doliorum, 1615, which, like Archimedes, contains the develop-
ment of elevated ideas in reference to an insignificant subject) : — Kepler
presente dans cet ouvrage des vues sur 1'infini qui ont influe sur la revolution
que la geometric a eprouvee a la fin du 17me siecle; et Fermat, que Ton doit
regarder comme le veritable inventeur du calcul differentiel, a fonde sur elles
sa belle methode de maximis et minimis (Precis de 1'hist. de 1'Astronomie,
1831, p. 95). On the geometrical acuteness manifested by Kepler in the five
books of his Harmonices Mundi, see Chasles, Apercu hist, des Methodes en
Geometric, 1837, pp. 482—487.
(496) p. 323. — Sir David Brewster says well in the account of Kepler's
method of investigating truth : — " The influence of imagination as an instru-
ment of research has been much overlooked by those who have ventured to
give laws to philosophy. This faculty is of greatest value in physical inquiries :
if we use it as a guide, and confide in its indications, it will infallibly deceive
us ; but if we employ it as an auxiliary, it will afford us the most invaluable
aid" (Martyrs of Science, p. 215).
(497) p. 324.— Arago, in the Annuaire, 1842, p. 434 (De la transformation
des Nebuleuses et de la matiere diffuse en etoiles). Compare Kosmos, Bd. i.
S. 148 and 158 (English translation, Vol. i. pp. 132 and 142).
CXV111 NOTES.
(498) p. 324. — Compare the ideas of Sir John Herschel on the position of
our planetary system, Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 157 and 415 ; and Struve, Etudes
d'Astronomie Stellaire, 1847, p. 4.
(<») p. 324.— Apelt says (Epochen der Geschichte de Menschheit, Bd. i.
1845, S. 233) : " The remarkable law of the distances, which usually passes
under the name of Bode's law (or that of Titius), was a discovery of Kepler's,
who, after many years of persevering industry, first deduced it by calculation
from the observations of Tycho de Brahe." See Harmonices Mundi, libri
quinque, cap. 3. Compare also Cournot, Additions to a Translation of Sir
John Herschel, Traite d'Astronomie, 1834, S. 434, p. 324, and Fries, Vorle-
sungen iiber die Sternkunde, 1813, S. 325 (Law of the distances in the
secondary planets or satellites). The passages from Plato, Pliny, Censorinus,
and Achilles Tatius, in the Prolegomena to the Aratus, are carefully collected
in Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. i. 1837, S. 146—150 ; in Martin,
Etudes sur le Timee, T. ii. p. 38 j and in Brandis, Geschichte der Griechisch-
Romischen Philosophic, Th. ii. Abth. i. 1844, S. 364.
O p. 325.— Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astronomie moderne, T. i. p. 360.
(501) p. 325. — Arago, in the Anuuaire for 1842, pp. 560—564 (Kosmos,
Bd. i. S. 102 ; English translation, Vol. i. p. 88).
C08) p. 326.— Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 142—148, and 412 (English
translation, Vol. i. p. 127-133, Notes, 91—92.)
f608) p. 327. — Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour 1'an 1842,
p. 312 — 353 (Etoiles changeantes ou periodiques). In the seventeenth
century there were recognised as variable stars, besides Mira Ceti (Holwarda,
1638) and a Hydrse (Montanari, 1672), 0 Persei or Algol, and % Cygni (Kirch,
1686). On what Galileo calls nebulae, see his Opere, T. ii. p. 15, and Nelli,
Vita, Vol. ii. p. 208. Huygens, in the Sistema Saturninum, points in the
dearest manner to the nebula in the sword of Orion, in saying of nebulae
generally : — " Cui certe simile aliud nusquam apud reliquas fixas potui animad-
vertere. Nam ceterce nebulosse olim existimatse atque ipsa via lactea, perspi-
cillis inspectse, nullas nebulas habere comperiuntur neque aliud esse quam
plurium stellarum congeries et frequentia." This passage shews that
Huygens (as previously Galileo) had not attentively considered the nebula in
Andromeda which Marius had first described.
O p. 329.— On the important law, discovered by Brewster, of the con-
nection between the angle of complete polarisation and the refractive power
of bodies, see Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the year
1815, pp. 125—159.
NOTES. CX1X.
(K*5) p. 329. — See Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 35 and 48; English translation,
Vol. i. p. 37, Note 16.
(S06) p. 329. — Sir David Brewster, in Berghaus and Johnson's Physical
Atlas, 1847. Part vii. p. 5 (Polarisation of the Atmosphere).
(^T) p. 329. — On Grimaldi's and Hooke's attempt to explain the polari-
sation (?) of soap-bubbles by the interference of the rays of light, see Arago,
in the Annuaire for 1831, p. 164 (Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 53).
(508) p. 330.— Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 17. The year
1660 has been assumed for the date of the invention of the method of fluxions,
which, according to the official explanations of the Committee of the Royal
Society of London, April 24, 1712, is "one and the same with the differen-
tial method, excepting the name and mode of notation." For the whole,
unhappy contest with Leibnitz on the subject of priority, in which, extra-
ordinary to say, accusations against Newton's veracity were even interspersed,
see Brewster, pp. 189 — 218. That all colours are contained in white light
was already maintained by De la Chambre, in his work entitled " La Lumiere"
(Paris, 1657), and by Isaac Vossius, who was afterwards a Canon at Windsor,
in a remarkable memoir, entitled " De Lucis natura et proprietate" (Amstelod.
1662), for the communication of which I was indebted two years ago to M.
Arago, at Paris. This memoir is treated of by Brandes in the new edition of
Gehler's physikalischen Worterbuch, Bd. iv. (1827), S. 43, and very circum-
stantially by Wilde, in his Gesch. der Optik, Th. i. (1838), S. 223, 228, and
317). Isaac Vossius, however, regarded sulphur, which forms, according to
him, a component part of all bodies, as the fundamental substance of all
colours (cap. 25, p. 60). In Vossii Responsum ad objecta Joh. de Bruyn,
Professoris Trajectini, et Petri Petiti, 1663, it is said, p. 69— Nee lumen
ullum est absque calore, nee calor ullus absque lumine. Lux, sonus, anima (!)
odor, vis magnetica, quamvis incorporea, sunt tamen aliquid (De Lucis Nat.
cap. 13, p. 29).
(509) p. 331.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 427 and 429, Bd. ii. S. 482, Anm. 92,
Engl. trans. Vol. i. Notes 141 and 144, Vol. ii. Note 432.
(51°) p. 331. — Lord Bacon, whose comprehensive and, generally speaking,
free and methodical views were unfortunately accompanied by very limited
mathematical and physical knowledge, even for the period at which he lived,
therefore did Gilbert the greater injustice. "Bacon showed his inferior
aptitude for physical research in rejecting the Copernican doctrine which
William Gilbert adopted (Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
Vol. ii. p. 378.)
CXX NOTES.
(511) p. 331.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 194 und 435, Anm. 31 and 32 , Engl.
trans. Vol. i. p. 176, Notes 161 and 162.
(512) p. 332. — The first observations of the kind were made on the tower of the
Augustine's church, at Mantua (1590.) Grimaldi and Gassendi were acquainted
with similar instances, all in geographical latitudes where the inclination of
the magnetic needle is very considerable. On the subject of the first measure-
ments of the magnetic intensity by the oscillation of a needle, compare my
Relation hist. T. i. pp. 260—264, and Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 432—434 (Engl.
transl. Vol. i. Note 159).
(513) p. 334.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 436—439, Anm. 36 (Engl. tram. Vol. i.
Note 166).
(«4) p. 334.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 189 (Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 171.)
(514 bis) p. 335. — [Additional note ly the Editor. — The desire so earnestly
expressed by the author in the text, pp. 334 and 335, that " the laws of ter-
restrial magnetism should be thoroughly sought out by naval expeditions,
which should 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," that " such expeditions should be combined with land surveys," and
that " the year 1850 might deserve to be marked as the first normal epoch in
which the materials of a magnetic map of the 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 Germany
(October 1847). The antarctic expedition of Sir James Clark Ross, referred
to in the text, has been followed by that of Lieuts. Moore, R.N. and Clerk,
Royal Artillery (1845), by which the magnetic survey of the accessible por-
tions of the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere has been completed ;
by the voyages of Lieuts. Smith and Dayman, R.N. (1844 and 1845) between
the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen Island ; of Lieut. Moore, R.N. (1846)
to Hudson's Bay; and by the land expedition of Lieut. Lefroy, Royal
Artillery (1843-44), by which the whole of British North America east of the
Rocky Mountains, from the frontiers of the United States to the shores of
Hudson's Bay and the Polar ocean, has been magnetically surveyed. These
•were all special surveys, undertaken by the British Government expressly for
the magnetical purposes which they accomplished ; and, with the exception of
the observations in Lieutenant Moore's voyage to Hudson's Bay, which are now
(February 1848) in process of reduction, their results have been deduced and
published. In addition to special expeditions to parts of the globe which are
either remote or difficult of access, the British Government has availed itself
NOTES. CXX1
of the services of Her Majesty's ships arid vessels employed in Hydrographies!
Surveys, by directing that determinations of the three magnetic elements should
be made by them at the several ports and harbours which they may visit, as
well as at sea daily, as often as the weather permits, in their passages from,
port to port. Such determinations have been executed, in whole or in part,
by the surveying expeditions of Sir Edward Belcher (1837 — 1840, and 1843 —
1 84 7) to the north-west coast of America, the islands of the Pacific, and the Indian
and Chinese seas ; of Captain Sullivan (1838—1839) to the Falkland Islands ;
of Captain Allen (1841—1842) to the western coast of Africa; of Captain
Blackwood (1842—1846) to Australia and Torres Strait ; of Captain Barnett
(1843—18 *) to Bermuda and the West Indies; of Captain Kellett
(1845—18 *) to the Pacific; of the Arctic Expedition under Sir John
Franklin (1845—18 *) ; of Captain Stanley (1847—18 *) to Australia
and New Guinea ; of Captain Moore (1848—18 *) to Kamptschatka and
Behring's Strait; and of Captain Stokes (1848—18 *) to New Zealand.
To these should bo added, as a special undertaking at the expense of the East
India Company, a magnetic survey of the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
by Lieut. Elliot, of the Madras Engineers, commenced in 1846, and still in
progress. When it is remembered that several of the above-named surveys
include periods of three or four years, and in some instances not only deter-
minations at the several ports and harbours which may have been visited, but
also daily observations, weather permitting, of the three magnetic elements at
sea in passages from port to port, the accumulation of materials, and their
already extensive distribution over the surface of the globe, may in some
degree be judged of. These surveys, with others which may be expected to
be made under the present favourable disposition of Her Majesty's Govern-
meut towards scientific researches, and, taken in conjunction with extensive
magnetic surveys which are in progress on the continent of Europe (particu-
larly in the Austrian dominions), give a full promise of the speedy realisation
of M. de Humboldt's wish so earnestly expressed, that the materials of the
first general magnetic map of the globe should be assembled, and even permit
the anticipation, that the first normal epoch of such a map will be but little
removed from the year 1850.]
(515) p. 335. — On the oldest thermometers, see Nelli, Vita e Commercio
liuerario di Galilei (Losanna, 1793), Vol. i. p. 68—94; Opere di Galilei
(Padovo, 1744), T. i. p. lv. ; Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques eu
* When the concluding date is not filled up, the observations are still in prosrea*.
CXX11 NOTES.
Italic, T. iv. 1841, p. 185—197- Evidence respecting the first comparative
observations of temperature may be found in the letters of Gianfrancesco
Sagredo and Benedetto Castelli, in 1613, 1615, and 1633, in Venturi, Me-
morie e Lettere inedite di Galilei, P. i. 1818, p. 20.
(516) p. 335.— Viucenzio Autinori, in the Saggi di Naturali Esperienze,
fatte uell' a Accademia del Cimento, 1841, p. 30 — 44.
f17) p. 335. — On the determination of the thermometric scale of the Acca-
demia del Cimento, and on the meteorological observations continued for 16
years by Father Raineri, a pupil of Galileo, see Libri, in the Annales de
Chimie et de Physique, T. xlv. 1830, p. 354 ; and a more recent similar work
by Schouw, in his Tableau du Climat et de la Vegetation de 1'Italie, 1839,
T. 99—106.
(518) p. 336.— Antinori, Saggi dell' Accad. del Cim. 1841, p. 114, and in
the Aggiunte at the end of the book, p. Ixxvi.
f19) p. 337.— Antinori, p. 29.
(820) p. 387.— Ren. Cartesii Epistote (Amstel. 1682), P. iii. Ep. 67.
(521) p. 337.— Bacon's Works, by Shaw, 1733, Vol. iii. p. 441 (see Kosmos,
Bd. i. S. 338 and 479, Anm. 58 ; Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 310, and note 388)
(522) p. 338.— Hooke's Posthumous Works, p. 364. (Compare my Relat.
historique, T. 1. p. 199.) Hooke however, unhappily, like Galileo, assumed
a difference in the velocity of rotation of the earth and of the atmosphere :
see Posth. Works, p. 88 and 363.
(5:3) 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
een. Galileo, in the Dialogo quarto (Opere, T. iv. p. 311) makes Salviati
say : " Dicevamo pur' ora che 1' 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 1' asprezza della superficie terrestre ne rapisce, e seco
porta una parte a se contigua, che di non molto intervallo sopravanza le mag-
giori altezze delle montagne ; la qual porzion d' aria tanto meno dovra esser
renitente alia conversion terrestre, quauto che ella e ripiena di vapori, fumi,
ed esalazioni, materie tutte participanti delle qualita terrene : e per conse-
guenza atte nate per lor natura (?) ai medesimi movimenti. Ma dove man-
cassero le cause del moto, cioe dova la superficie del globo avesse grandi spazi
piani, e meno vi fusse della mistione dei vapori terreni, quivi cesserebe in
parte la causa, per la qule 1' aria ambiente dovesse totalmente obbedrie al
rapimento della conversion terrestre ; si che in taliluoghi, mentre che la terra
NOTES. CXX111
si volge verso Oriente, sidovrebbesentircontinuamentennvento, checi ferisse,
spirando da Levante verso Ponente; e tale spiramento dovrebbe farsi piu sen-
sibile, dove la vertigine del globo fusse piu veloce : il che sarebbe ne i luogbi
piu remoti da i Poli, e vicini al cerchio massimo delk diurna conversione.
L'esperienza applaude molto a questo filosofico discorso, poiche ne gli ampi
mari sottoposti alia Zona torrida, dove anco 1* evaporazioni terrestri man-
cano (?) si sente una perpetua aura muovere da Oriente "
(524) p. 338. — Brewster, in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, Vol. ii.
1825, p. 145. Sturm has described the Differential Thermometer in a little
work, entitled, Collegium experimentale curiosum, (Nuremberg, 1676,) p. 49.
On the Baconian law of the rotation of the wind, which Dove first extended to
both zones, and recognised in its intimate connection with the causes of all aerial
currents, see the detailed treatise of Muncke in the new edition of Gehler's
Physikal. Worterbuch, Bd. x. S. 2003—2019 and 2030—2035.
(525) p. 339.— Antinori, p. 45, and even in the Saggi, p. 17—19.
(526) p. 339. — Venturi, Essai sur les ouvrages physico-mathematiques de
Leonard de Vinci, 1797, p. 28.
(527) p. 339.— Bibliotheque universeUe de Geneve, T. xxvii. 1824, p. 120.
(528) p. 340.— Gilbert de Magnete, lib. ii. cap. 2—4, p. 46—71. In in-
terpreting the nomenclature employed he already said : " Electrica qua attra-
hit eadem ratione ut electrum, versorium non magneticum ex quovis metallo,
inserviens electricis experimentis." In the text itself we find it said ; " Mag-
netice ut ita dicam, vel electrice attrahere (vim illam electricam nobis placet
appellare . . . .) (p. 52); " effluvia electrica, attractiones electricse." He
neither employed the abstract expression electricitas, nor the barbarous term
magnetismus introduced in the 18th century. On the derivation of ijAc/crpoy,
the " attracter or drawer, and the drawing or attracting stone," from e\£«
and €\K€iv, already indicated in the Timseus of Plato, p. 80 c, and the proba-
ble transition through a harder €\Krpov, see Buttmann, Mythologus, Bd. ii.
(1829), S. 357. Among the theoretical propositions put forward by Gilbert
(which are not always expressed with equal clearness), I select the following :
" Cum duo sint corporum genera, quse manifestis sensibus nostris motionibns
corpora allicere videntnr, Electrica et Magnetica; Electrica naturalibus ab
humore effluviis ; Magnetica formalibus efiicientiis seu potius primariis vigo-
ribus, incitationes faciunt Facile est hominibus ingenio acutis, absque
experimentis et usu rerum labi, et errare. Substantise proprietates aut fami-
liaritates, sunt generates nimis, nee tameu verse designates causse, atque, ut
ita dicam, verba qusedam sonant, re ipsk nihil in specie ostendunt. Neque
CXX1V NOTES.
ista succini credita attractio, a singular! aliqua proprietate substantive, aut
familiaritate assurgit ; cum in plnribus aliis corporibus eundem effectum,
majori industria inveuimus, et omnia etiani corpora cujusmodicunque pro-
prietatis, ab omnibus illiis alliciuntur." (De Magnete, p. 50, 51, 60, and 65.)
Gilbert's principal labours appear to belong to the interval from 1590 to 1600.
Whevvell justly assigns him an important place among those whom he terms
" practical Reformers of the physical sciences." Gilbert was surgeon to
Queen Elizabeth and James I. and died in 1603. A second work, entitled
" De Mundo nostro sublunari Philosophia Nova," was published after his
death.
P) p. 341.— Brewster, Life of Newton, p. 307.
(^°) p. 344. — Rey, strictly speaking, only mentions the access of air to
the oxides ; he 'did not know that the oxides themselves (which were then
called metallic calxes) are only combinations of metals and air. According
to him, the air makes " the calx heavier, as sand increases in weight when
water hangs about it." The calx is susceptible of being saturated with air.
" L'air espaissi s'attache a la chaux, ainsi le poids augmente du commence-
ment jusqu'a la fin : mais quand tout en est affuble, elle u'en S9auroit prendie
d'avantage. Ne continuez plus votre calcination soubs cet espoir, vous per-
driez vostre peine." Rey's work thus contains the first approximation to the
better explanation of a phenomenon, the more complete understanding of
which was afterwards influential in reforming the whole of chemistry. See
Kopp, Gesch. der Chemie, Th. iii. S. 131 — 133. (Compare also in the same
work, Th. i. S. 116—127, and Th. iii. S. 119—138, as well as S. 175—
195.)
C31) p. 345. — Priestley's last complaint of that which " Lavoisier is
deemed to have appropriated to himself," makes itself heard in his little
memoir entitled, "The Doctrine of Phlogiston established," 1800, p. 43.
t532) p. 346.— Sir John Herschel, Discourse on the Study of Natural Phi-
losophy, p. 116.
t533) p. 346.— Humboldt, Essai geognostique sur le Gisement des Roches
dans les deux Hemispheres, 1823, p. 38.
(^ p. 347.— Steno de Solido intra Solidum naturaliter contento, 1669,
p. 2, 17, 28, 63, and 69 (fig. 20—25).
t535) p. 347. — Venturi, Essai sur les Ouvrages physico-mathe'matiques de
Leonard de Vinci, 1797, S. 5, No. 124.
(w6) p. 347. — Agostino Scilla, La vana Speculazione disiugannata dal
Senso, Nap. 1670, Tab. xii. fig. 1. Compare Joh. Muller, Bericht iiber die
NOTES. CXXV
von Herru Koch, in Alabama gesamraeltcn fossilen Knochenreste seines Hy-
drachus (tUe Basilosaurus of Harlan, 1835 ; the Zeuglodon of Owen, 1839 ;
the Squalodon of Grateloup, 1840 ; 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 Clarksville), 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, ia
Malta.
(537) p. 348. — Martin Lister, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. vi.
1671, No. Ixxvi. p. 2283.
(538) p. 348. — See a luminous exposilkm of the earlier progress of paleeon-
tological studies, in "WhewelTs History of the Inductive Sciences, 1837, Vol.
iii. p. 507—545.
(58i)) p. 349. — Leibnizen's geschichtliche Aufsatze und Gedichte, heraus-
gegeben von Pertz, 1847 (in the gesammelten Werkeu : Geschichte, Bd.
iv.) On the first, Protogaea of 1691, and the subsequent revisions, see Tell,
kampf, Jahresbericht der Burgerschule zu Hannover, 1847, S. 1 — 32.
(54°) p. 350.— Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 172 (Engl. trans. Vol. i. p. 155).
(541) p. 350.— Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astronomie mod. T. ii'. p. 601.
(542) 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
\cademy, was first cleared up by Delambre, in his Hist, de 1'Astr. mod. T. i.
p. Iii. and T. ii. p. 558. Richer'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.
t543) p. 351.— Bessel, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fiir 1843, S. 32.
(544) p. 352.— Wilhelm von Humboldt, gesammelte Werke, Bd. i. S. 11.
(M5) p. 358.— Schleiden, Grundzuge der wissenschaftlichen Botanik, Th. i.
1845, S. 152, Th. ii. S. 76; Kuuth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, Th. i. 1847, S.
91—100, and 505.
INDEX TO VOL. H.
ABACUS, p. 164, 227 ; Note 359.
Accademia delCimento, p. 335—339. See Cimento.
^Elian, his description of the Vale of Tempe, p. 13.
JJneid, descriptions of nature in the, p. 18, 19.
Africa, its supposed circumnavigation by Phoenician ships under Nechos II.
p. 125; Note 163. Phoenician colonies on the north-west of, p. 129; Notes
172, 173. Navigation of its western coast to the Cape of Good Hope, p. 255,
256 ; Note 397.
Albertus Magnus, his garden in the Dominican Convent at Cologne, Note 124 ;
his influence in advancing natural knowledge and preparing the way for the
epoch of Columbus and the great oceanic discoveries, p. 246—248 ; Note 381.
Alexander, influence of his expeditions, conquests, and policy on the history of
the physical contemplation of the universe, p. 149—165.
Alexandrian Museum or Institute, p. 172—177.
Algebra, the algebraist Diophantus, p. 182. Of the Arabians and Indians, p. 225
—228 ; Notes 355—358.
Alliaco (Cardinal), Alliacus, or Pierre d'Ailly, his Imago Mundi, p. 249, 250;
Notes 385, 386.
Alphabetical writing communicated by the Phoenicians to the Greeks, p. 126, 127;
Notes 166, 167.
Alps, apparent general indifference of the ancients to the grandeur of their see-
nery, p. 24.
Amber, the ancient trade in, and the countries from whence it was obtained, p.
128, 129, 134 ; Note 171.
America, influence of its discovery, p. 52—56. Interval between the first and last
steps to that discovery from the foundation of Tartessus to the voyage of Eric
Rauda and to Columbus, p. 129, 130. Discovery of North America (Vinland), by
Leif, the son of Eric the Red, p. 233—240 ; Note 362. Semi-fabulous or doubtful
accounts of earlier discoveries of North America (White Man's Land, cr
Virginia) by Irishmen, p. 236, 237 ; Note 371 : by Madoc, p. 238 ; Note 3/3.
cxxvm INDEX.
Contrast between the earlier seemingly accidental and comparatively fruitless
discoveries of America by the Northmen, 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 108.
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 modern 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, 106, 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 advancen. -»nt of astronomy in the
succeeding epoch,— Copernicus, Tycho 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 Phoenicians, 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,
INDEX. CXX1X
and moisture, p. 335-339 ; Notes 515, 524—527. Investigations connected
with its chemical composition, p. 342— 346; Notes 530, 531.
Ausonius, poem on the Moselle, p. 21.
Bacon (Roger), p. 30, 243, 248, 249; Notes 382—384.
(Francis), p. 313. Did not receive the Copernican system, p. 337. His
Historia naturalis et experimentalis de ventis, p. 337, 338.
Bactrian empire, its influence, p. 150.
Balboa, his first sight of the Pacific Ocean or South Sea, p. 270 ; Note 422.
Barometer, its invention ; first used for determining heights ; its value both as
a hypsometric and meteorological instrument, p. 337.
Basil the Great ; beautiful description of the scenery surrounding his hermitage,
p. 26—28 ; Notes 46, 47. Descriptions of nature in his Homilies, p. 28 ;
Note 48.
Bauer (Ferdinand), drawings of scenery and vegetation in New Holland and Van
Diemen Island, p. 83.
Behaim (Martin), directed to make solar tables, p. 259, 294.
Bembo (Cardinal), his Etna Dialogus, p. 21, 52. His Historicae Venetae, p. 52.
Botanic gardens, of the Romans, p. 194. Of the Arabs in Spain, p. 219 ; Note 344.
Of the Mexicans, p. 276 ; Note 429. First European, p. 82. Early established
in India by Alfonso de Sousa, p. 277.
Botany of the Arabians, p. 218, 219.
Bradley's discoveries, p. 318, 330.
Brahe, see Tycho.
Bucolic poetry, see Idyl.
Bttffon, descriptions of nature, p. 64.
Cabot (Sebastian), his voyages and discoveries, p. 266, 267 ; Note 414. Proposed the
magnetic declination as a means of finding the longitude, p. 282 ; Note 433.
Caesalpinus, p. 277.
Calderon, his poetry considered in reference to descriptions of naturr.l scenery,
p. 60, 61.
Callimachus, description of Delos, Note 12.
Callisthenes of Olynthus, a disciple of Aristotle, accompanied Alexander's expe-
ditions, p. 159.
Camoens, his natural descriptions in the Lusiad, and those of the various states
of the ocean especially extolled, p. 57—59 ; Notes 88—95.
Campani, his object-glasses with which Cassini discovered four of the satellites
of Saturn, p. 325.
Canal joining the Red Sea and the Nile, p. 170.
Canaries, discovery and early knowledge of the, p. 129—132 ; Notes 175 and 176.
Cardanus, his " physical problems," Note 409. Experiments on the increase of
weight in metals during oxidation, p. 343, 344.
Carthage, its position near the limits of the Tyrrhenian and Syrtic basins, p. 118.
Inferior to the Grecian colonies in intellectual and artistic cultivation, p. 143.
Caspian, its character as an inland sea first recognised by Herodotus,and afterwards
lost sight of or denied until the time of Ptolemy, p. 141, 191, 192 ; Note 200.
Cassini (Dominic), discovered four of the satellites of Saturn, p. 325. Recognised
the true relations in space of the zodiacal light, p. 326.
VOL. It. 2 K
CXXX INDEX.
Cassiterides, discussion relative to the, Note 169.
Caucasus, p. 140 ; Note 198. Languages of the, Note 801.
Celtic poetry, p. 36, 37.
Chaldean astronomy, p. 162 ; Notes 247, 248.
Charts, historically memorable. Planisphere of Sanuto, p. 256 ; Note 398. Pici-
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, Notes 411, 457. Variation chart of Alonso de Santa Cruz i >
1530, p. 282.
Chateaubriand, his descriptions of nature, p. 63, 66.
Chemistry, its progress under the Roman empire, p. 193, 194 ; Note 238. Of th
Arabians and Indians, p. 219—221 ; Notes 345—347. Commencement f
pneumatic chemistry in the 17th century, p. 342—346 ; Note 530.
Chezy's translation of the Indian Mcghaduta, p. 40.
Childrey 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 Vespasian 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 th
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 Greek, p. 26, 29.
Christianity, its influence gave a new impulse to the love of nature, p. 24, 25, 26
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. 14, 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 geographical relations, p. 115, 116,
120, 121. Peculiar character of that of Egypt, p. 123, 124.
Climate, influence of different 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.
Colasus of Samos, his navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules, p. 107, 146—148.
Colchis, p. 140, 141 ; Notes 199—201. See Argonauts.
Colouna (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, 438. 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, 266, 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 respecting
the relative distances from Spain to China by the east and by the west, and
INDEX. CXXJ1
its influence upon his views and proceedings, p. 269, 270; Note 421. Letter
from Columbus describing the " line of no variation of the magnetic needle"
in the Atlantic Ocean, the tract of ocean covered by the Gulf weed, and the
cooler temperature or inflection of the isothermal lines, p. 278, 279. Impor-
tance attached by him to this region, raya, or line, on which the " papal line
of demarcation" was founded, p. 279, 280. Columbus was the first discoverer
of a line without magnetic variation, and proposer of the method of deter-
mining longitude from the magnetic variation, p. 280, 281. Observed and re-
cognised the equatorial oceanic current, p. 286. Experienced the effect of the
Gulf stream, p. 286. Observed the Mar de Sargasso or Gulf weed, p. 287.
His remarks on the importance of nautical astronomy, p. 296. Immeasura-
ble importance of the chain of events of which his adventurous enterprise
formed the first link, p. 299.
Commerce, of the Phoenicians, p. 128, 129, 132, 133 ; of the Tyrians and Israelites,
p. 133, 134. Under the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies, p. 167—169. Of the Ara-
bians, p. 206, 208.
Compass early known and employed by the Chinese, while the Romans and the
Greeks were ignorant of its use, p. 190, 256, 257. Known in Europe in or be-
fore the 12th century, p. 256, 257 ; Notes 399, 432. Its early influence in
promoting and extending navigation, p. 258. First variation compass con-
structed before 1525, Note 433.
Conquista, period of the ; mixed character and motives of the Conquistadores, p.
272, 298.
Copernicus, the true order of the universe discovered by him about the time of
the death of Columbus, p. 299, 303. The work embodying it completed and
published only a short time before his own decease, p. 304. Firmness with
which he believed, and confidence and independence with which he announced,
the reality of his view of the universe, and the contrary assertion discussed and
rejected, 305—307. His knowledge of the opinions of the ancients respecting
the structure of the universe, p. 309, 310. His family and country, Note 461.
Cosmos, science of the, and its history distinguished from separate sciences or
branches of science and their history, p. 101, 102.
Cross, the constellation of the Southern, first received its name in the 16th cen-
tury; previous notice in Dante's celebrated lines, p. 291, 292. When visible
in our latitudes, p. 293.
Cruz— Alonzo de Santa, constructed the first general chart of the variations of
the compass, p. 282 ; Note 433.
Cuss (Cardinal Nicolaus de) maintained the earth's movement round the sun a
century before Copernicus, p. 106. His independence, and original views,
p. 245, 258 ; Note 403. His fancies, p. 321.
Cuvier, discussions respecting the zoological writings of Aristotle, Notes 234, 235,
237. His praise of Galen, p. 182 ; and of the Emperor Frederic II. Note 381.
Dante, p. 50, 51 ; Notes 78—81. On the constellation of the Southern Cross,
p. 292; Note 3. Discussion respecting his "quattro stelle," Note 449.
Darwin (Charles), p. 70 ; Note 103.
Delille, his style of versined description disapproved, p. 71,
Diamagnetism, p. 332.
Diathermism, p. 336.
Didactic poetry, p. 12, 21.
Diophantus, p. 182 ; Note 284.
CXXXI1 INDEX.
Dioscorides, descriptions of plants by, p. 181. Chemical experiments, p. 193, 212.
EDITOR, Note 514 bit.
Egypt, chronological epochs of its history, p. 112, 122,123; Note 146. Peculiar
character of its civilisation, p. 123, 124. Conquests and victories of Ramses
Miamoun, p. 123, 124. Egyptian navigation, p. 124. Influence of the admis-
sion of Greek hired troops and Greek commerce in Lower Egypt, p. 125.
Advantages of its geographical position for commerce, p. 167, 168.
Elcano, Sebastian de, after the death of Magellan, completed the first circumnavi-
gation of the globe, and armorial bearings granted to him in commemoration
thereof, p. 270.
Electricity,connection of electric action with magnetism recognised by William
Gilbert, p. 331, 339, 340 ; Note 528. Great though interrupted advances in the
knowledge of electricity, p. 339-341.
Ellipticity of Jupiter and of the Earth, p. 350 ; Note 542.
Empedocles, his Poem of Nature, p. 9.
Eratosthenes, his geography, p. 174. Measurement of an arc of the meridian
175, Note 270. Remarks on the configuration of the southern part of Europe,
Note 153.
Ercilla, Don Alonso de, his Araucana, p. 60 ; Note 96.
Essenes, reference to the anchoritic life of the Jewish, Note 45.
Ethnology, materials for the comparison of different races furnished by Alexander's
campaigns, but the comparative study of languages not followed by the
ancients, p. 160, 161.
Etruscans, their character, influence, and study of nature in connection with
augury and divination, p. 134, 135 ; Notes 185—188.
Euclid, p. 177.
Euripides, description of Messenia, p. 11 ; Note 13. Of Cithoeron, and of sun
rise in the Delphic valley, Note 12.
Exotic, culture of exotic plants, p. 92—95.
Experiment, as distinguished from observation, commenced by Ptolemy, p. 18 ,
193. Pursued by the Arabians, p. 213.
Eyck, the landscape oaintings of Hubert and John van Eyck, p. 78, 79.
Fabricius (Jonn), his discovery of the solar spots, p. 319, 320.
Fabricius (David), father of John, observed the varying brightness of a star in
Cetus, p. 326, 327.
Faraday, diamagnetism, p. 332.
Fermat regarded as the inventor of the infinitesimal calculus, p. 323 ; Note 495.
Fins, Finnish songs, and a recently-discovered ancient Finnish epic poem, p. 42, 43.
Firdusi's Shahnameh, p. 41. Quotation from, Note 129.
Forster (George), his descriptions of the Islands of the Pacific, p. 63, 70, 71. Their
influence on the author, p. 5.
Fortunate Islands, of the Greeks, p. 130.
Frederic, Emperor Frederic II. his love of knowledge and his letter to the Uni-
versity of Bologna, Note 338. His advances in natural history, and Cuvier's
praise of him, Note 381.
Freytag, remarks on Arabian poetry, p. 48.
Frislanda, Island of, mentioned by Columbus, Note 374.
Galen of Pergamos, his merits, and Cuvier's praise of him, p. 181, 182, 194.
INDEX. CXXX111
Galileo, his first telescope, p. 315, 316. Measures the height of mountains in the
Moon, p. 316 ; Note 483. Discovery of the satellites of Jupiter, p. 316. Pro-
poses to determine longitudes at sea by their occultations, p. 318. First
imperfect observation of Saturn's ring, p. 318, 319. Solar spots, p. 319—321.
Phases of Venus, p. 321. His just views of atmospheric pressure, which led
to the construction of the barometer, p. 337. His view of the trade winds,
p. 338 ; Note 523.
Gardens, botanic, p. 82, 219 ; Note 344. Gardens of Semiramis, p. 95 ; Note
128. Chinese gardens, p. 96— 99 ; Notes 134— 139. Gardens in Japan, and
generally round Buddhistic edifices, p. 99; Note 140. Adonis gardens,
Note 124. Garden of Albertus Magnus at Cologne, Note 124.
Gas, first employment of the term, and early views, observations, experiments,
&c. in respect to gases, p. 342 — 346.
Geography, discussion on mythical, p. 130, 140, 141, 146; Note 154, 204. Of the
Arabians and other Asiatic nations, p. 217, 218; Notes, 331, 334. Of the
ancients, p. 141, 147, 174, 187—192; Notes 200, 243, 290-302, 333. Early
progress of physical, p. 260, 261. Rapid advance of geographical knowledge
in the great epoch of the oceanic discoveries, p. 266, 271, and Section VI.
generally.
Geology, early geological inquiries, p. 346—351. Commencements of fossil geo-
logy, p. 346—348. Views of Leibnitz and Hooke, 348, 349.
Germans of the middle ages, their descriptions of natural scenery, p. 32 — 36 ;
Notes 52—55. Writers of the last century, ibid. p. 66, 67.
Gilbert (William), terrestrial magnetism and electricity, p. 331, 332, 339, 340;
Notes 510, 528.
Gobar, the Arabian "dust-writing," a system of numeration, Note 359.
Joethe, his descriptions of nature, p. 73. Lines on Sacontala, Note 60.
Gold, the countries and sources from whence it was obtained by the ancients,
p. 132-134, 141, 142.
Greece, peculiar charm of Grecian scenery, p. 10, 138. The deeply-indented
coast line which contributes to that charm, favourable to early navigation and
intercourse with strangers, p. 138.
Greeks, the ancient, their descriptions of natural scenes and objects, p. 6—15 ;
Notes 4—21. The Christian Greeks, ibid. p. 26— 29; Notes 45— 50. Land-
scape painting of the Greeks, p. 75, 76; Notes 107, 108. General notice
of the character and influence of the Greeks in extending the physical know-
ledge of the Universe previous to the expeditions of Alexander, p. 137 — 148.
Character of the different races of which the ancient Greeks were composed,
and its influence, p. 138. Greek hired soldiers in other countries, p. 125, 138.
Greek colonies, p. 139, 140, 143—145. Influence of the restoration of the
knowledge of Greek literature in the middle ages, p. 251—253.
Greenland, discovery of, and settlements there, p. 233 ; Notes 363, 307, 369, 370.
Adventurous voyages from thence to the North, to Barrow's Straits, to the
east coast of Greenland, and to the coast of America, p. 234, 235 ; Notes 367,
368. Prohibition of commercial intercourse with Iceland, and gradual decay
of the settlements, 239, 240 ; Note 369.
Gregory of Nazianzum, Notes 46—48.
Gregory of Nyssa on the contemplation of nature, p. 28, 29.
Grimaldi, optical observations, p. 329.
Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm), account of the poetic literature of the Germans in
the middle ages, p. 32—36 ; Notes 55, 56, 59. On Finnish poetry, p. 42.
Grouping, influence of the well-contrasted grouping of exotic plants, p. 92—96.
CXXX1V INDEX.
Groves, ancient veneration of, p. 96.
Gudrun, an old German poem, p. 33.
Guerike (Otto von), the inventor of the air-pump, and the first who observed
electric repulsion, and artificially elicited electric light and sound, p. 340, 341.
Hafiz, the Persian poet, p. 42.
Halley, his theory of terrestrial magnetism, declination charts, magnetic voyages,
and conjecture of the connection of the Aurora with magnetism, p. 332, 333.
His just views of trade-winds and monsoons, and work on the latter, p. 338.
Hamilton (Terrick), notes to his translation of Antar, p. 48.
Heat, investigations on radiant, p. 336.
Hebrew poetry of the Scriptures, p. 43—48 ; Note 71 . Of modern Jews, Note 70.
Hellas, Hellenic, &c. See Greece, Greek, &c.
Helmont (Van) first used the term "gas," his " gas sylvestre," p. 343.
Herodotus regards Scythian Asia as part of Europe, p. 137. Knew the Caspian to
be a closed basin, p. 141.
Herschel (Sir John), sudden brightening of rj Argus, p. 322.
(Sir William) discovered two of the satellites of Satnrn, p. 325.
Hesiod, his " Works and Days," p. 8 ; Note 7. His Theogony, p. 8 ; Note 8. His
dislike of maritime life, p. 139.
Hipparchus, p. 175, 176.
History of the physical contemplation of the universe, or formation of the
science of the Cosmos, 101—359 ; Notes 141—545. Method according to which
it is treated, p. 110, 111.
Hodge, painter of tropical scenery, p. 5, 25.
Homer and the Homeric songs, p. 9, 33 ; Notes 10, 11.
Hooke, beginning of the undulatory theory of light, and of the observation of in-
terferences, p. 329, 330 ; Note 507. View of the trade-winds, p. 338 ; Note
522. Geological views, p. 349, 350.
Hot-houses, remarks on, p. 94 ; Note 124.
Humboldt (Alexander von), quotations from his other works: — Asie Centrale,
Note 204 ; Examen Critique, Notes 449, 457 ; Prolegomena, Note 143 ; Mythic
Geography of the Greeks, Note 154 ; Relation Historique du Voyage aux
Regions e"quinoxiales, Note 373.
(Wilhelm von) compares the poem of Lucretius with an Indian poem,
p. 16. On the connection between poetry, science, philosophy, and history,
Note 23. Discussion on the different and less favourable results in regard to
intellectual cultivation which would have been likely to follow if Carthage had
conquered Rome, and the Arabs Christendom, p. 228.
Huygens first discovered a satellite of Saturn, p. 325. On the nebula in Orion,
p. 327, 328 ; Note 503. Polarisation of light, p. 328, 329.
Hygrometers, their invention, progressive improvement, and use, p. 339.
HykSGS, p. 123, 208, 209.
Hyperboreans, meteorological mythus of the, p. 141 ; Note 204.
Jacquet, note on Marco Polo, Note 393.
Iceland, its discovery by Naddod, p. 233. Discovery of North America, and settle-
ments there and in Greenland from Iceland, p. 233—235. Discussion of the
hypothesis of Iceland having been first settled, or at least visited, by Irishmen
from America or from the Feroe islands, p. 237. Visit of Columbus, p. 240;
Note 374.
Idyle or Idyllic poetry, p. 12.
INDEX. CXXXV
Indian poetic literature in reference to nature, p. 31, 37—42 ; Notes 58—62. Indian
use of position in determining the valueof numbers, p. 115, 227 ; Note 359. Early
commercial intercourse with India, and Indian names of the articles of com-
merce which Solomon obtained from Ophir, p. 133; Notes 179, 181, 182, 264.
Early Indian settlers on the east coast of Africa, p. 134. Indian mathema-
ticians, p. 187; Note 289. Indian Algebra, p. 225—227; Notes 355, 359.
Indian planetary tables, p. 223 ; Note 350. Indian knowledge of the materia
medica and chemistry, p. 214, 220 ; Notes 328, 340, 341, 3i7. Ancient Indian
geography, Note 253.
Indies, indefiniteness of the term, Note 243.
Infinitesimal calculus, p. 302, 323, 351 ; Note 495
Job, descriptions of nature in the book of, p. 46, 47.
Jones (Sir William), remarks on Indian poetry, Note 15, Translation of Sacon
tala, Note 60.
Ionic school of philosophy, p. 105.
lonians, their mental character, p. 138.
Isabella (Queen) requests Columbus to collect specimens of natural hi story, p. 276
Her letter to Columbus, Note 454.
Italian poetry and literature in reference to nature, p. 50, 51, 56.
Tupiter, discovery of the satellites of, p. 316—318. Controversy respecting the
discovery, Note 484. Galileo's proposal to determine the longitude at sea
by the occultations of the satellites of, Note 488. Ellipticity of, 350.
Kalidasa (the Indian poet), p. 39, 40, 62; Notes 60 and 62.
Kepler, his praise of Copernicus, p. 306. His discovery of the laws which bear his
name, p. 310, 311, 313, 317 ; Note 477, 499. This discovery not appreciated by
his cotemporaries, p. 324, 325. His work on the planet Mars, and his Har-
monices Mundi, p. 308, 314 ; Note 499. Spirited passage from the last-named
work, p. 317. His life, sufferings, and biography, by Freiherr von Breit-
schert, Note 477. His optical investigations, p. 314 ; Note 481. His Stereo-
metria doliorum, p. 323 ; Note 495. His mental character and speculations
p. 311, 323, 324 ; Note 496.
Kien-long, poem of the Chinese Emperor, p. 97, 98.
Klaproth, his valuable researches, and those of Abel Remusat, which have made
known to us the races who, in the east of Asia, gave the first impulse to the wave
of the great migration of nations which at last broke over Europe, p. 186
Note 287.
Landscape painting, p. 74—91, 93, 94 ; among the Greeks and Romans, p. 74—77 ;
Notes, 107—114. From the time of Constantine to the Van Eycks only found
in marginal ornaments of manuscripts, p. 78 ; Note 116. The Van Eycks, p.
78,79. Early Italian and German painters,p. 79; Notes 118, 122. Giorgione,
Titian, A. Caracci, Domenichino, Claude Lorraine, Ruysdael, Caspar and
Nicolas Poussin, Everdingen, Hobbima, Cuyp, and Rubens, p. 79— SI,
86,87; Note 121. New field opened to, by the great geographical dis-
coveries of the 16th century, p. 82. Views of tropical scenery taken on
the spot by Franz Post and by Eckhout, p. 82, 83 ; Note 124. By some later
artists named, p. 83. Future more numerous and grander examples antici-
pated, p. 83—89. Characteristic aspect of different zones and countries may
be conveyed by, 88—90.
Landscape gardening, p. 95. Rules for itrecommended by a Chinese writer, p. 97.
CXXXV1 INDEX.
Languages, their place and influence in the history o^the physical contemplation
of the universe, p. 107—109. Ethnological studies, and philosophical investi-
gations respecting language, rare in antiquity; their few and slight begin-
nings, p. 141, 161 ; Notes 201, 246. Influence of the wide extension of a lan-
guage in uniting nations, noticed by Pliny, p. 184; Note 285.
Las Casas, his manuscript history recently discovered, and his accusations against
Amerigo Vespucci discussed, Note 457.
Lasscn, his work on Indian antiquity, and remarks on Indian poetry in reference
to nature, p. 37, 38.
Leibnitz, his Protogaea, p. 349.
Lepsius, notices of Egyptian chronology by, p. 122, 123 ; most southern extension of
the monuments of Ramses Miamoun, p. 124, Note 161 ; on the syllabic alpha-
bet, p. 127.
Lieu-tscheu, a Chinese writer on the art of landscape gardening, p. 97.
Lister, Martin, early correct views and advances in fossil geology, p. 348.
Log for measuring a ship's way, date of its first introduction, p. 259 ; Note 405.
Longitude, method of determining the, at sea, and stimulus given thereto by the
desire to determine the place of the Papal line of demarcation between the
Spanish and Portuguese claims ; attempts to employ the magnetic declina-
tion and inclination for the attainment of this object, p. 281,282; Galileo
proposes the occultations of the satellites of Jupiter, p. 318 ; Note 488.
Longus, pastoral romances, p. 14 ; Note 16.
Lucan, description of a druidical forest, p. 20.
Lucilius, poem on Etna, p. 20 ; Note 34.
LucretiuS, p. 16, 17.
Ludius a Roman landscape painter, p. 76.
Lully, Raymond, his Arte deftavegar, p. 258, 259.
Lusiad of Camoens, p. 57—59.
Lyktonia, geographical mythus of, p. 119.
Macpherson's Ossian, p. 36.
Madeira, early knowledge of, p. 131.
Magnetic line of no variation first observed by Columbus, p. 278—281.
Magnetism, terrestrial, its advances during the period of the oceanic discoveries,
p. 278-283; Notes, 432, 434. Gilbert's investigations and writings, p. 331,
332. Halley's theory, charts, and expeditions, p. 332, 333. Modern antarctic
expeditions for the advance of the knowledge of, and desire expressed for
farther researches on a great scale, p. 333—335 ; what is accomplished and
accomplishing, Note 514 bis (Editor's additional Note.)
Magellan, voyage to the Pacific, p. 270.
Magellanic clouds, first knowledge of the, by Europeans, p. 289 ; known to the
Arabians, p. 289, 290.
Mahabharata, (Indian poem) p. 16, 38.
Mandeville, Sir John, his travels, and their influence in the middle ages, p. 67,254.
Marius, Simon, his discovery of Jupiter's satellites, contemporaneously with and
independently of Galileo, p. 316 ; Note 484. Described the nebula in Andro-
meda, p. 327.
Martianus Mineus of Madaura, an ancient writer on astronomy much regarded by
Copernicus, p. 309.
Materia medica, knowledge and study of the, by the Arabians and Indians, p.214,
218, 219. Notes 328, 341, 343.
INDEX. CXXXVll
Mathematicians, Greco-Egyptian, p. 177 ; ancient Indian, p. 187, Note 289 ;
modern, p. 301.
Maurice, Prince, of Nassau, views of tropical scenery by artists taken by him to
Brazil, p. 82, 83.
Mayovv, his view of pneumatic chemistry as connected with respiration, p. 344,315.
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.
Megasthenes, correctness of many accounts given by him which were disbelieved
in antiquity, Note 219.
Meghaduta or " cloud messenger," Indian poem, 39, 40.
Meleager, vernal idyl, 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.
Muller, Edward, on Greek poetry in reference to nature, Note 4.
Johannes, on zoological questions, Note 239.
Otfried, his remarks on the different feeling with which the ancients and
the moderns regarded landscape painting, p. 77 ; his views respecting the
mythical geography of the ancients, Note 154.
Naddod, his discovery 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 discussed,
p. 132, 133 ; Notes 179—182.
CXXXVU1 INDEX.
Optics, Ptolemy's experiments in, p. 182, 193 ; Note 283. Alhazen on the refrac-
tion of rays, p. 221 . Investigations in the seventeenth and succeeding centu-
ries, p. 328—330 ; Notes 504-507.
Ossian, p. 36, 37; Note 57.
Ovid, p. 19, 20; Note 30.
Oxidation of metals, p. 342—344; Note 530.
Oxygen, first observation of the gas, and first discovery of its properties, p. 345.
Pacific Ocean, first heard of by Columbus, p. 267, 268. Importance of its dis-
covery towards meteorological as well as geographical knowledge, p. 268, 269.
First seen by Balboa, and navigated by Magellan, with subsequent discove-
ries, p. 270, 271, 273 ; Notes 418, 422, 423, 425.
Painting, landscape, p. 74—91 ; Notes 107—125.
Panoramas, suggestions for rendering them a highly effective means of dif-
fusing and increasing a knowledge and love of the beauties of creation in the
different regions of the Earth, p. 90, 91.
Paradise Lost, p. 62.
Parks and gardens of different countries, p. 95—99 ; Notes 128—139.
Pendulum first used to measure time by the Arab, Ebn Junis, p. 221 ; Note
3*9. Experiments with the seconds, p. 350 ; Notes 541, 542.
Persian poetry in reference to nature, p. 37, 40—42 ; Notes 66, 67. Parks of the
Persian kings, p. 95. Ancient Persian empire, and its influence, p. 137. Sup-
posed Persian knowledge of lightning conductors, Note 186.
Petrarch, p. 51 ; Note 82.
Phlogiston, doctrine of, or phlogistic theory, p. 343, 344 ; Note 531.
Phosnicians, their place among the early civilized nations of the globe, and
their extensive navigation, commerce, and influence, p. 125—133, 145.
Their circumnavigation of Africa under the Egyptian monarch, Nechos II.,
p. 125 ; Notes 163, 172. Their manufactures, p. 128. Their colonies, p. 126,
129,143,145; Note 173. Their weights, measures, and money, p. 126. Their
influence in advancing and diffusing arithmetical, nautical, and astronomical
knowledge, and above all in communicating to European nations, and
especially to the Greeks, the use of alphabetical signs, p. 126—128. Know-
ledge of useful chemical preparations derived from them, p. 115.
Phrygians, p. 136.
Pierre, Bernardin de St., p. 63. His beautiful descriptions of tropical scenery,
p. 65, 66.
Pigafetta, his supposed mention of the log, p. 259; Note 405. Notice of the
Southern heavens, p. 288 ; Note 446.
Pinzon, Martin Alonso, prevailed on Columbus to alter his course to the southward,
and the consequences of this change, p. 263, 264.
Plato, descriptions of nature, p. 17. Of the Mediterranean, p. 117. Enduring
influence, in different ages, of the Platonic philosophy, together with its later
modifications, p. 173, 174, 244 ; Notes 268, 377, 378
Playfair, p. 63.
Pliny the elder, his Historia Naturalis, p. 22, 195-198 ; Note 285.
the younger, his villas, and natural descriptions contained in his letters, p. 23—
24 ; Note 38. Praise of his uncle's work, p. 197.
Polarisation of light, p. 328, 329. Place which the discovery of chromatic
polarisation holds in the history of the Science of the Cosmos, p. 102.
Porsenna Lars, story of his tomb, Note 186.
INDEX.
CXXX1X
« Position- value" in numeration, discussions as to the place or places, and as to
the manner in which it originated, p. 164, 227 ; Note 359.
Polo, Marco, his travels, and their influence, p. 254, 255 ; Notes 393—396.
Pompeii, remains of landscape paintings found in, p. 77.
Poussin, Caspar and Nicolas, p. 81, 86, 87.
Psalms, descriptions of nature in the, p. 45, 46.
Ptolemaeus, Claudius, his geography, p. 189—192, 268, 269. His optical experi-
ments, p. 182, 193 ; Note 283.
Ptolemies, epoch of the sovereignty of the, in Egypt, and its influence,?. 166—177;
Notes 255-276.
Quotations from—
Anghiera, p. 262 ; Note 408.
An old Anglo-Saxon poem, Note 55.
Arago, Note 484.
Aristotle, p. 14, 15 (extract preserved
by Cicero), 150, 151, 160.
Barros, p. 242.
Basil, p. 26, 27.
Boiardo, Note 82.
Brewster, Notes 496, 508.
Calderon, p. 61.
Camoens, p. 58.
Cardanus, Note 409.
Chrysostom, p. 29.
Cicero, p. 18 ; Note 309.
Claudian, p. 199.
Colonna (Vittoria), Note 82.
Colon Fernando, Note 438.
Columbus, p. 55, 56, 278, 296; Note
410.
Copernicus, p. 306, 307 ; Notes 457,
465, 466.
Ctesias, Note 186.
Dante, Notes 3, 78—81.
Ercilla, Note 96.
Euripides, p. 11.
Firdusi, Note 129.
Frederic II. (Emperor), Note 338
Galileo, Notes 484, 523.
Galle, Note 450, 474.
Gassendi, Notes 464, 474.
Gilbert (William), Notes 432, 528.
Goethe, p. 73 ; Note 60.
Goldstucker (Theodor), Note 62.
Gregory of Nyssa, p. 28, 29.
Grimm (Jacob andWilhelm),p. 32,36.
Gudrun, poem of, p. 33.
Homer, p. 9.
Humboldt (Alexander von)—
Asie Centrale, Note 204.
Examen Critique, Notes 449, 457.
Prolegomena, Note 143.
Mythic Geography of the Greeks,
Note 154.
Voyage aux Regions e'quinoxiales,
Note 373.
— (Wilhelm von), p. 228.
Huygens, Note 503.
Kepler, p. 317 ; Note 477.
Jacquet, Note 393.
Ideler, p. 162 ; Note 248.
Job (book of), p. 47.
Isabella (Queen), letter to Columbus,
Note 454.
Laplace, Note 495.
Las Casas, Note 457.
Lassen, p. 37, 38 ; Note 231.
Lepsius, p. 122, 123, 127 ; Note 146.
Lieu-tscheu (Chinese writer), p. 97.
Pliny the elder, p. 196; Note 231,
285
Muller (Otfried), p. 77 ; Note 154.
Osiander, Note 464.
Pindar, p. 10.
Plato, p. 117; Note 146.
Pliny the elder, p. 196; Notes 231, 235.
— . younger, p. 197 ; Note 38.
Psalms, p. 45, 46.
Schiller, p. 6.
Seneca, Notes 36, 37, 211.
Simplicius, Note 467.
Sophocles, p. 11.
Spanish romantic ballads, Note 97.
Strabo, p. 128, 136, 188, 189 ; Note 153.
Tasso, p. 241.
CXI INDEX.
Ramayana (Indian poem), p. 38, 39 ; Notes 60, 62.
Rainses Miamoun or Sesostris, his expeditions, victories, and monuments, p. 123—
125 ; Note 161.
Realists, influence of their school in the middle ages, 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. 36.
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.
Ritusanhara (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 ; 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 different 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 modern 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 different
Scythian tribes, Notes 202—204.
Seasons, Indian poem of the, or Ritusanhara, p. 39, 62. Thomson's Seasons,
p. 62, 63.
See-ma-kuang (a Chinese statesman), his poem of " The Garden," p. 98, 99.
Seleacus 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. 11.
IMDEX. Chi
Snow-line, the elevation of the, recognised 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 beginning of the 17th
centuries, p. 322—333. Variations in the brightness of particular stars, p. 322,
326,327; Note 503.
Steno (Nicolaus), early advances in geology, 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 theTyrian towns of the west coast of Africa,
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 Accademia del Cimento, p. 335 ; Notes 515—517.
Differentia], p. 338 ; Note 524.
Thier-epos or epos of animals, p. 36.
Thomson's Seasons, p. 62, 63.
Tibullus, 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. CO. 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, 2f 9 and 270 ; Notes 410, 420.
Travellers, comparison between the writings of modern, 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.
Turdetani and Turduli, p. 136.
Tuscans : see Etruscan.
Tycho Brahe, p. 106, 310, 312, 313.
cxlii INDEX.
Tyrian, towns on the west coast of Africa, p. 129. Conjoint Tynan and Hebrew
commercial expeditions sent £y Solomon and Hiram, p. 133.
Van Eyck, landscapes of Hubert and John, p. 78, 79.
Vedas, the Indian Vedas, or sacred writings, p. 38, 39 ; Note 62.
Venus, phases of, p. 321.
Vespucci, descriptions of the scenery of the coast of Brazil, p. 52. Believed 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 that of
Columbus, a result attributable to a concurrence of accidental circumstances,
p. 299; Note 457.
Villas, Roman, p. 22, 23 ; Note 38.
Villemain, on the Greek novels or romances of Longus, p. 14 ; Note 16. On the
eloquence of Christian writers in the fourth century, Note 46.
Vinci, 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. 347.
Virgil, p. 18, 19 ; Note 28.
Water-spout, description by Camoens in the Lusiad, p. 58; Note 91.
Whewell, " inductive table" of astronomy, Note 475.
Winds, law of the rotation of the, and theory of the trade, p. 337, 33 ; Notes
522—524.
Zodiacal light, discovery of the, p. 326.
END OF VOL. II.
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