UC-NRLF B 3 13b 3flS Btt LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA gjS^ &£<& LIBRARY OF TH LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF TH §>ig QJS^D IIRR1RY HF THF IINIVFRXITY nF niMFRRNIt IIRR1RY OF TH ^(286£>^' r>lr^\\r\ x^/se&jy OF CALIFORNIA IARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA S3\; 9§^ ^3^,c " fe^f3^,H^ OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA QJS^\D n C P A i I C n D k ! d IIDOIDV n c rur 11 u i w r n o i r v nr niiirnnyti BOHN'S SCIENTIFIC LIBEAEY. HUMBOLDT'S COSMOS. COSMOS: A SKETCH OP A PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE. ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY E. C. OTTE. Naturae vero rerum vis atquemajestasin omnibus momentis fide caret, si quis modopartes ejus ac non totam coniplectatur animo.— Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. vii. c. 1. VOL. II. LONDQN: HENRY G. BOHN, YOEK STREET, COVENT GARDEN". 1819. Q \ 5 LONDON: PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON, ST. MARTIN'S LANK CONTENTS OF VOL. II. PART I. INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE. Page THE IMAGE REFLECTED BY THE EXTERNAL WORLD ON THE IMAGINA- TION.— POETIC DESCRIPTION OF NATURE. — LANDSCAPE PAINTING. — THE CULTIVATION OF EXOTIC PLANTS WHICH CHARACTERISE THE VEGETABLE PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE VARIOUS PARTS OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE 370-372 I. Description of nature. — The difference of feeling excited by the contemplation of nature at different epocJis, and amongst dif- ferent races of men 372-439 Descriptions of nature by the ancients 373 Descriptions of nature by the Greeks 375 Descriptions of nature by the Romans 383 Descriptions of nature in the Christian fathers 393 Descriptions of nature by the Indians 397 Descriptions of nature by the Minnesingers 399 Descriptions of nature by the Arian races 403 Natural descriptions by the Indians 405 Natural descriptions in the Persian writers 409 Natural descriptions in the Hebrew writers 411 Hebrew poetry 413 Literature of the Arabs 415 General retrospect 417 Descriptions of nature in early Italian poets 419 Descriptions of nature by Columbus 421 Descriptions of nature in Camoens' Lusiad 425 Descriptions of nature in Ercilla's Araucana 427 Calderon 429 Modern prose writers 431 Travellers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 435 Modern travellers , 437 Goethe 439 II. Landscape painting, in its influence on the study of nature. — Graphical representation of the physiognomy of plants. — The character and aspect of vegetation in different zones 440-457 Landscape painting among the ancients 443 The brothers Van Eyck 445 Landscape painting of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 447 Franz Post of Haarlem 449 Introduction of hot-houses in our garden 450 The treasures open to the landscape painter in the tropics 451 VI CONTENTS. Page The perfection of art jn Greece 453 The condition of art in more modern times 454 Tropical scenery 455 Panoramas 457 III. Cultivation of tropical plants — Contrasts and assemblages of vegetable forms. — Impressions induced by the physiognomy and character of the vegetation 458-465 Eastern gardens 461 Chinese parks and gardens 463 Physiognomy of nature , 465 PAET II. HISTOKT OF THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION1 OF THE UNIVEKSE. — PKINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENSION OF THE IDEA OF THE COSMOS AS A NATURAL WHOLE 466-479 The knowledge of nature amongst the ancients 469 Events which have been the means of extending a knowledge of nature 470 Comparative philology 471 The idea of the unity of the Cosmos 474 History based on human testimony knows of no primitive race ... 475 Ancient seats of civilisation 479 PRINCIPAL MOMENTA THAT HAVE INFLUENCED THE HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE 480 I. The Mediterranean considered as the starting point 480-517 Civilisation in the valley of the Nile 485 The cultivation of the Phoenicians 490 The amber trade 493 The geographical myth of the Elysion 496 The expeditions of Hiram and Solomon 499 The Ophir (El Dorado) of Solomon 501 The Etruscans 502 The highly-gifted Hellenic races 504 The landscape of Greece 506 The three events which extended the knowledge of the universe ... 507 The extent of inland traffic 510 The Doric migrations 512 Contact with the East ,.... 513 The passage beyond the Pillars of Hercules 515 II. Expeditions of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great 517-535 The foundation of Greek cities in Asia 518 CONTENTS. VU Page The vast sphere of new ideas opened to mankind by the campaigns of Alexander 520 The countries through which the Macedonians passed 522 The natural products first made known 523 Aristotle 525 The men of Aristotle's school 529 The comparison of races 531 The schools of Babylon 532 Alexander's advance to the land of the Five Rivers 534 III. Extension of the contemplation of the universe under the Ptole- mies 536-546 The three great Ptolemies 537 The caravan trade, its influence in extending a knowledge of dif- ferent countries 538 Proofs of the commercial relations maintained by the Egyptians ... 540 The tendency of the schools of Alexandria 541 The foundation of the Alexandrian Museum 542 The Alexandrian astronomers 543 The slow advance of astronomy from those remote ages to its present high stand 546 IV. Universal dominion of the Romans 547-568 The extent of the area of the Roman dominions 548 The few observers of nature who appeared at this period 550 The greatness of the national character of the Romans 551 Diffusion of the Latin tongue 552 The expeditions undertaken by Asiatic rulers 553 The works of Strabo and Ptolemy 555 The way-measurers in use amongst the Chinese 559 The optical inquiries of Ptolemy 561 The botanical gardens of the Romans 563 The Historia Naturalis of Pliny 564 Reference to the influence exercised by the establishment of Chris- tianity 568 V. Invasion of the Arabs 569-600 Principal momenta of the recognition of the unity of nature 569 V The Arabs 571 Natural products of Arabia 574 Nomadic life in Arabia 577 Mental culture of the Arabs 578 Arabian geographers 584 The learned men of Arabia 587 Astronomical works of the Arabs 593 Science of numbers 597 VI. Period of Oceanic discoveries 601-680 The fifteenth century, its tendencies 601 The first discovery of America 603 12 Till CONTENTS. Page The conjectured discovery of America by the Irish 607 The efforts of missionaries 608 The traces of Gaelic supposed to be met with in American dialects 609 The re-discovery of America by Columbus 612 The discovery of tropical America 614 Alber tus Magnus, Bacon, and Vincenzius of Beauvais 615 Realistsand Nominalists 617 The encyclopaedic works of the fifteenth century 620 The revival of Greek literature 622 Important events in Asia 624 Early travellers 625 Marco Polo's narratives 626 Use of the magnetic needle 628 The supposed inventor of the mariner's compass 629 Application of astronomy to navigation 630 Martyr de Anghiera 635 The charts consulted by Columbus 638 The characteristics of Columbus 639 The discovery and navigation of the Pacific 643 The first circumnavigation of the earth 647 The Conquistadores 648 The discovery of the Sandwich Islands, &c 649 Spanish travellers in the new continent 651 Papal line of demarcation 655 Line without magnetic variation 656 The magnetic pole 659 The line of perpetual snow 660 The equatorial current 662 The first descriptions of the southern constellations 664 The coal-bags and the Magellanic clouds 665 The southern cross 666 The determination of the ship's place 670 The age of the Conquista 675 VII. Great discoveries in the Heavens 681-737 The telescope 681 The seventeenth century 682 Nicolaus Copernicus 683 The different stages of the development of cosmical contemplation 689 The theory of eccentric intercalated spheres 697 The great men of the sevententh century 698 The accidental discovery of the telescope 699 Telescopic discoveries 702 The discovery of Jupiter's satellites 704 The spots upon the sun 706 Galileo '., 708 Kepler 709 The zodiacal light 712 CONTENTS. IX Page Polarization and interference oflight 715 Measurable velocity oflight 716 William Gilbert 717 Edmund H alley 719 Land and sea expeditions 720 Instruments for measuring heat 721 The electric force 725 Otto von Guericke 727 Pneumatic chemistry 728 Geognostic phenomena 732 The charm inherent in mathematical studies 737 VIII. Retrospect of the epochs considered 738-742 Recapitulation 738 The power of penetrating space 739 Early gems of natural knowledge 740 The advance of various sciences . 741 SUMMARY. [xi] VOL. II. GENEKAL SUMMAKY OP THE CONTENTS. A. Incitements to the Study of Nature. The image reflected by the external world on the imagination .... pp. 370--372 I. Poetic delineation of nature. The feeling entertained for nature according to difference of times and races . pp. 372-439 II. Landscape Painting. Graphical representation of the physio- gnomy of vegetation pp. 440-457 III. Cultivation of exotic plants. Contrasted apposition of vegetable forms pp. 458-465 B. History of the physical contemplation of the universe. Principal momenta of the gradual development and extension of the idea of the Cosmos as one natural whole .... pp. 466-479 I. The Mediterranean the starting-point of the attempts at an advance towards the north-east, (by the Argonauts), towards the south (to Ophir), towards the west (by the Phoenicians and Colaeus of Samos). Simultaneous reference to the earliest civilisation of the nations who dwelt around the basin of the Mediterranean . . . pp. 480-517 II. Campaigns of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. Fusion of the East and West. Hellenism furthers the blending of nations from the Nile to the Euphrates, the Jaxartes and the Indus. Sudden extension of the contemplation of the Universe by direct observation, as well as by intercourse with anciently civilized industrial nations pp. 517-536 III. Increased contemplation of the universe under the Ptolemies. Mu- seum at Serapeum. Encyclopaedic learning. Generalisation of natural views regarding the earth and the regions of space. Increased maritime trade towards the south pp. 536-546 IY. Universal dominion of the Romans. Influence of a political union on Cosmical views. Advance of geography by means of inland trade. The development of Christianity generates and fosters the feel- ing of the unity of the human race .... pp. 547-568 Y. Irruption of the Arabian Races. — Intellectual aptitude of this branch of the Semitic races. Taste for the study of nature and its forces. Medicine and chemistry. Extension of physical geography, astronomy, and the mathematic sciences generally . . pp. 569-600 VI. Period of Oceanic Discoveries. — Opening of the western hemi- sphere. America and the Pacific. The Scandinavians. Columbus, Cabot, and Gama; Cabrillo, Mendafia, and Quiros. The greatest abundance of materials now presented itself to the western nations of Europe for the establishment of physical geography . pp. 601-680 VII. Period of the great Discoveries in the Regions of Space. — The [xii] COSMOS. application of the telescope. Principal epochs in the history of astro- nomy and mathematics from Galileo and Kepler to Newton and Leibnitz pp. 681-737 VIII. Retrospect. Multiplicity and intimate connection of the scien- tific efforts of recent times. — The history of the physical sciences becomes gradually associated with the history of the Cosmos . pp. 738-741 SPECIAL SUMMAKY. A. Means of incitement to the Study of Nature . . pp. 370-372 I. Poetic delineation of nature. The principal results of obser- vation referring to a purely objective mode of treating a scientific description of nature, have already been treated of in the picture of nature ; we now, therefore, proceed to consider the reflexion of the image conveyed by the external senses to the feelings and a poetically framed imagination. The mode of feeling appertaining to the Greeks and Komans. On the reproach advanced against these nations of having entertained a leea vivid sentiment for nature. The expression, of such a sentiment is more rare amongst them, solely in consequence of natural descriptions being used as mere accessories in the great forms of lyric and epic poetry, and all things being brought in the ancient Hellenic forms of art within the sphere of humanity, and being made subservient to it. Paeans to Spring, Homer, Hesiod. Tragic authors : fragments of a lost work of Aristotle. Bucolic poetry, Nonnus, Antho- logy, p. 379. Romans: Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Lucilius the younger. A subsequent period, in which the poetic element appears only as an incidental adornment of thought ; the Mosella, a poem of Ausonius. Roman prose writers ; Cicero in his letters, Tacitus, Pliny. Description of Roman villas — p. 389. Changes in the mode of feeling and in their representation produced by the diffusion of Christianity and by an anchorite life. Minucius Felix in Octavius. Passages taken from the writings of the fathers of the Church : Basil the Great in the wilderness on the Armenian river Iris, Gregory Nyssa, Chrysostom. Melan- choly and sentimental tone of feeling — pp. 393-396. Influence of the difference of races manifested in the different tone of feeling pervading the natural descriptions of the nations of Hellenic, Italian, North Ger- manic, Semitic, Persian, and Indian descent. The florid poetic litera- ture of the three last-named races shows that the animated feeling for nature evinced by the North Germanic races is not alone to be ascribed to a long deprivation of all enjoyment of nature through a protracted vinter. The opinions of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm on the chivalric poetry of the Minnesingers and of the German animal epos; Celto- Irish descriptions of nature — p. 402. East and west Arian nations (Indians and Persians). The Ramayana and Mahabharata; Sakuntala and Kalidasa's Messenger of Clouds. Persian literature in the Iranian highlands does not ascend beyond the period of the Sassanidse — p. 407. (A fragment of Theodor Goldstucker.) Finnish epic and songs, collected by Elias Lonnrot from the lips of the Karelians — SUMMARY. Xiii p. 411. Aramaeic nations : natural poetry of the Hebrews in which we trace the reflection of Monotheism — pp. 411-415. Ancient Arabic poetry. Descriptions in Antar of the Bedouin life in the desert. De- scriptions of nature in Amrul Kais — p. 416. After the downfall of the Aramseic, Greek, and Koman power, there appears Dante Alighieri, whose poetic creations breathe from time to time the deepest sentiment of admiration for the terrestrial life of nature. Petrarch, Bojardo and Vittoria Colonna. The JStna dialogus and the picturesque delinea- tion of the luxuriant vegetation of the new world in the Historic^ Venetce of Bembo. Christopher Columbus — p. 421. Camoens' Lusiad — p. 424. Spanish poetry: the Araucana of Don Alonso de Ercilla. Fray Luis de Leon and Calderon, with the remarks on the same of Ludwig Tieck. Shakspeare, Milton, Thomson — p. 430. French prose writers : Rousseau, Buflfon, Bernardin de St. Pierre and Chateaubriand — pp. 431-434. Review of the narratives of the older travellers of the Middle Ages, John Mandeville, Hans Schiltberger, and Bernhard von Breitenbach; contrast with modern travellers. Cook's compa- nion George Foster — p. 437. The blame sometimes justly applied to descriptive poetry as an independent form does not refer to the attempt • either to give a picture of distant zones visited by the writer, or to convey to others by the force of applicable words an image of the results yielded by a direct contemplation of nature. All parts of the vast sphere of creation, from the equator to the frigid zones, are endowed with the happy power of exercising a vivid impression on the human mind, 439. II. Landscape painting in its animating influence on the study of nature. — In classical antiquity, in accordance with the respective mental direction of different nations, landscape painting and the poetic delinea- tion of a particular region, were neither of them independent objects of art. The elder Philostratus. Scenography. Ludius. Evidences of landscape painting amongst the Indians in the brilliant period of Vi- kramaditya. Herculaneum and Pompeii. Painting amongst Christians, from Constantine the Great to the beginning of the Middle Ages ; of landscape painting in the historical pictures of the brothers Van Eyck. The seventeenth century the most brilliant epoch of landscape painting. Miniatures on manuscripts — p. 444. Development of the elements of painting. (Claude Lorraine, Ruysdael, Gaspard and Nicholas Poussin, Everdingen, Hobbima, and Cuyp.) Subsequent striving to give natural truthfulness to the representation of vegetable forms. Representation of tropical vegetation. Franz Post, tlae companion of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Eckhout. Requirement for a representation of the phy- siognomy of nature. The great and still imperfectly completed cos- mical event of the independence of Spanish and Portuguese America, and the foundation of constitutional freedom in regions of the chain of Cordilleras between the tropics, where there are populous cities situated at an elevation of 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, together with the increasing civilisation of India, New Holland, the Sandwich Islands, and Southern Africa, will undoubtedly impart a new impulse and a more exalted character to landscape painting, no less than to meteoro- [_xiv] COSMOS. logy and descriptive geography. Importance and application of Barker's panoramas. The conception of the unity of nature and the feeling of the harmonious accord pervading the Cosmos will increase in force amongst men in proportion to the multiplication of the means for representing all natural phenomena in delineating pictures. III. Cultivation of exotic forms. — Impression of the physiognomy of vegetable forms, as far as plantations are capable of producing such an impression. Landscape gardening. Earliest plantation of parks in Central and Southern Asia. Trees and groves sacred to the Gods — p. 462. The gardens of the nations of Eastern Asia. Chinese gardens under the victorious dynasty of Han. Poem on a garden by the Chinese states- man, See-ma-kuang, at the close of the llth century. Prescripts of Lieu-tscheu. Poem of the Emperor Kien-long, descriptive of nature. Influence of the connection of Buddhist monastic establishments on the distribution of beautiful characteristic vegetable forms — p. 465. B. History of the Physical Contemplation of the Universe. — The history of the recognition of the universe is wholly different from the history of the natural sciences, as given in our elementary works on physics, and on the morphology of plants and animals. This is the history of our conception of the unity of phenomena, and of the reciprocal con- nection existing amongst the natural forces of the universe. Mode of treating a history of the Cosmos : a. The independent efforts of reason to gain a knowledge of natural laws : b. Cosmical events which have suddenly enlarged the horizon of observation : c. The invention of new means of sensuous perception. Languages. Points of radiation from which civilisation has been diffused. Primitive physics and the natural science of barbarous nations obscured by civilisation — p. 480. Principal momenta of a History of a Physical Contemplation of the Universe. I. The basin of the Mediterranean the starting point of the attempts to extend the idea of the Cosmos. Sub-divisions in the form of the basin. Importance of the form of the Arabian Gulf. Intersection of two geognostic systems of elevation from N.E. to S.W., and from S.S.E. to N.N.W. Importance of the latter direction of the lines of inter- section considered with reference to general international intercourse. Ancient civilisation of the nations dwelling round the Mediterranean. The valley of the Nile, the ancient and modern kingdom of the Egyptians. The Phoenicians, a race who favoured general intercourse, were the means of diffusing alphabetical writing (Phoenician signs), coins as medium of currency, and the original Babylonian weights and measures. The science of numbers, arithmetic. The art of navigating by night. West African colonies — p. 492. Pelasgian Tyrrhenians and Etruscans (Rasense). Peculiar tendency of the Etrurian races to maintain an intimate communion with natural forces; the fulguratores andaquileges — p. 504. Other anciently civilised races dwelling around the Mediterranean. Traces of cultivation in the East, under the Phrygians and Lycians; aaid in the West, under the Turduli and the Turdetani. Dawn of SUMMARY. XV Hellenic power. Western Asia the great thoroughfare of nations emigrating from the East; the JEgean island-world the connecting link between Greece and the far East. Beyond the 48th degree of latitude, Europe and Asia are fused together as it were by flat steppea. Pherecydes of Syros, and Herodotus considered the whole of North Scythian Asia as appertaining to Sarmatian Europe. Maritime power, and Doric and Ionic habits of life transmitted to the colonial cities. Advance towards the east, to theEuxine and Colchis; first acquaintance with the western shore of the Caspian sea, confounded according to Hecataeus with the encircling eastern ocean. Inland trade and barter carried on by the chain of Scytho-scolotic races with the Argippaeans, Issedones, and the Arismaspes, rich in gold. Meteorological myth of the Hyperboreans. Opening of the port of Gadeira towards the west, which had long been closed to the Greeks. Navigation of Colaeus of Saiuos. A glance into the boundless ; an unceasing striving for the far distant; accurate knowledge of the great natural phenomenon of the periodic swelling of the sea — p. 517. II. Campaigns of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and the long-enduring influence of the Bactrian empire. — With the exception of the one great event of the discovery and opening of tropical America eighteen and a-half centuries later, there was no other period in which a richer field of natural views, and a more abundant mass of materials for the foundations of cosmical knowledge, and of comparative ethnolo- gical study were presented at once to one single portion of the human race. The use of these materials, and the intellectual elaboration of matter, are facilitated and rendered of more importance by the direction imparted by the Stagirite to empirical investigation, philosophical speculation, and to the strict definitions of a language of science. The Macedonian expedition was, in the strictest sense of the word, a scien- tific expedition. Callisthenes of Olynthus, the pupil of Aristotle, and friend of Theophrastes. The knowledge of the heavens, and of the earth and its products, was considerably increased by intercourse with Babylon, and by the observations that had been made by the dissolved Chaldean order of priests — p. 535. III. Increase of the contemplation of the universe under the Ptolemies. — Grecian Egypt enjoyed the advantage of political unity, whilst its geographical position, and the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, brought the profitable traffic of the Indian Ocean within a few miles of the south- eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The kingdom of the Seleucidaa did not enjoy the advantages of a maritime trade, and was frequently shaken by the conflicting nationality of the different Satrapies. Active traffic on rivers and caravan tracks "with the elevated plateaux of the Seres, north of the Uttara-Kuru and the valley of the Oxus. Knowledge of monsoons. Re-opening of the canal connecting the Red Sea with the Nile above Bubastus. History of this water route. Scientific insti- tutions under the protection of the Lagides; the Alexandrian Museum, and two collections of books in Bruchium and at Rhakotis. Peculiar direction of these studies. A happy generalisation of views manifests itself, associated with an industrious accumulation of materials. Era- [xvi] COSMOS. tosthenes of Gyrene. The first attempt of the Greeks, based on imper- fect data of the Bematists, to measure a degree between Syene and Alexandria. Simultaneous advance of science in pure mathematics, mechanics and astronomy. Aristyllus and Timochares. Yiews enter- tained regarding the structure of the universe by Aristarchus of Samos, and Seleucus of Babylon or of Erythnea. Hipparchus, the founder of scientific astronomy, and the greatest independent astronomical observer of. antiquity. Euclid. Apollonius of Perga, and Archimedes — p. 546. IV. Influence of the universal dominion of the Romans and of their empire on the extension of cosmical views. — Considering the diversity in the configuration of the soil, the variety of the organic products, the distant expeditions to the Amber lands, and under ^Elius Gallus to Arabia, and the peace which the Romans long enjoyed, under the monarchy of the Caesars they might, indeed, during four centuries, have afforded more animated support to the pursuit of natural science ; but with the Roman national spirit perished social mobility, publicity, and the maintenance of individuality — the main supports of free institutions for the further- ance of intellectual development. In this long period, the only observers of nature that present themselves to our notice are Dioscorides, the Cilician, and Galen of Pergamus. Claudius Ptolemy made the first advance in an important branch of mathematical physics, and in the •study of optics, based on experiments. Material advantages of the extension of inland trade to the interior of Asia, and the navigation of Myos Hormos to India. Under Vespasian and Domitian, in the time of the dynasty of Han, a Chinese army penetrates as far as the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. The direction of the stream of migration in Asia is from east to west, whilst in the new continent it inclines from north to south. Asiatic migrations begin, a century and a-half before our era, with the inroads of the Hiungnu, a Turkish race, on the fair- haired, blue-eyed, probably Indo-germanic race of the Yueti and Usun, near the Chinese wall. Roman ambassadors are sent under Marcus Aurelius to the Chinese Court by way of Tonkin. The Emperor Clau- dius received an embassy of the Rashias of Ceylon. The great Indian Mathematicians Warahamihira, Brahmagupta, and probably also Arya- bhatta, lived at more recent periods than those we are considering; but the elements of knowledge, which had been earlier discovered in India in wholly independent and separate paths, may, before the time of Diophantus, have been in part conveyed to the west by means of the extensive universal commerce carried on under the Lagides and the Caesars. The influence of these widely diffiised commercial relations is manifested in the colossal geographical works of Strabo and Ptolemy. The geographical nomenclature of the latter writer has recently, by a careful study of the Indian languages and of the history of the west Iranian Zend, been recognised as a historical memorial of these remote commercial relations. Stupendous attempt made by Pliny to give a description of the universe ; the characteristics of his encyclopaedia of nature and art. Whilst the long-enduring influence of the Roman •dominion manifested itself in the history of the contemplation of the universe as an element of union and fusion, it was reserved for the dif- SUMMARY. I*™} fusion of Christianity (when that form of faith was, from political motives, forcibly raised to be the religion of the State of Byzantium) to. aid in awakening an idea of the unity of the human race, and by degrees to give to that idea its proper value amid the miserable dissen- sions of religious parties — p. 568. V. Irruption of the Arabs. — Effect of a foreign element on the process of development of European civilisation. The Arabs a Semitic primi- tive race susceptible of cultivation, in part dispel the barbarism which, for two hundred years had covered Europe, which had been shaken by national convulsions; they not only maintain ancient civilisation, but extend it and open new paths to natural investigation. Geographical figure of the Arabian peninsula. Products of Hadramaut, Yemen and Oman. Mountain chains of Dschebel-Akhdar, and Asyr. Gerrha,. the ancient emporium for Indian wares, opposite to the Phoenician settle- ments of Aradus and Tylus. The northern portion of the peninsula was brought into animated relations of contact with other cultivated states by means of the spread of Arabian races in the Syro-Palestinian frontier mountainous districts and the lands of the Euphrates. Pre-existing indigenous civilisation. Ancient participation in the general commerce of the universe. Hostile advances to the west and to the east. Hyksos and Ariagus, Prince of the Hymyarites, the allies of Minus on the Tigris. Peculiar character of the nomadic life of the Arabs, together with their caravan tracks and their populous cities — pp. 569-578. Influence of the ISTestorians, Syrians, and of the pharmaceutico-medicinal school at Edessa. Taste for intercourse with nature and her forces. The Arabs- were the actual founders of the physical and chemical sciences. The science of medicine. Scientific institutions in the brilliant epoch of Al- Mansur, Harun Al-Raschid, Mamun, and Motasem. Scientific intercourse with India. Employment made of the Tscharaka and the Susruta, and of the ancient technical arts of the Egyptains. Botanical gardens at Cordova under the Caliph Abdurrahman, the poet — pp. 578-589. Efforts made at independent astronomical observations and the improvement in instruments. Ebn Junis employs the pendulum as a measure of time. The work of Alhazen on the refraction of rays. Indian planetary tables. The disturbance in the moon's longitude recognised by Abul Wefa. Astronomical Congress of Toledo, to which Alfonso of Castillo invited Rabbis and Arabs. Observatory at Meragha, of Ulugh Beig, the descendant of Timur, at Samarkand and its influence. Measurement, of a degree in the plain between Tadmor and Rakka. — The Algebra of the Arabs has originated from two currents, Indian and Greek, which long flowed independently of one another. Mohammed Ben Musa, the Chowarezmier. IMophantus, first translated into Arabic at the close of the tenth century, by Abul Wefa Buzjani. — By the same path which brought to the Arabs the knowledge of Indian Algebra, they likewise obtained in Persia and on the Euphrates the Indian numerals and the knowledge of the ingenious device of Position, or the employment of the value of S^sition. They transmitted this custom to the Revenue officers in orthern Africa, opposite to the coasts of Sicily. The probability that the Christians of the West were acquainted with Indian numerals earlier [xviii] COSMOS. than the Arabs, and that they were acquainted, under the name of th« system of the Abacus, with the employment of nine ciphers according to their position-value. The value of position was known in the Suanpan, derived from the interior of Asia, as well as in the Tuscan Abacus. Would a permanent dominion of the Arabs, taking into account their almost exclusive predilection for the scientific (natural, descriptive, physical, and astronomical,) results of Greek investigation have been beneficial to a general and free mental cultivation, and to the creative power of art1? — pp. 590-600. VI. Period of the great Oceanic Discoveries. — America and the Pacific. Events and extension of scientific knowledge which prepared the way for great geographical discoveries. As the acquaintance of the nations of Europe with the western portion of the globe constitutes the main object of this section, it is absolutely necessary to divide in an incontes- tible manner the first discovery of America in its northern and temperate zone by the Northmen, from the rediscovery of the same continent in its tropical regions. While the Caliphate of Bagdad nourished under the Abbassides, America was discovered and investigated to the 41 \° north latitude by Leif, the son of Erik the Eed. The Faroe Islands and Ice- land, accidentally discovered by Naddod. must be regarded as interme- diate stations, and as starting points for the expeditions to the Scan- dinavian portions of America. The eastern coasts of Greenland in Scoresby's Land (Svalbord), the eastern coasts of Baffin's Bay to 72° 55', and the entrance of Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Straits, were all visited — Earlier (1) Irish discoveries. The White Men's Land between Virginia and Florida. — Whether previously to Naddod and Ingolf's colonisation of Iceland, this island was inhabited by Irish (west-men from American Great Ireland), or by Irish missionaries (Papar, the Clerici of Dicuil), driven by the Northmen from the Faroe Islands? The national treasures of the most ancient records of Northern Europe, endangered by disturbances at home, were transferred to Iceland, which three and a half centuries earlier enjoyed a free social constitution, and were there preserved to future ages. We are acquainted with the commercial relations existing between Greenland and New Scot- land (the American Markland) up to 1347; but as Greenland had lost its republican constitution as early as 1261, and, as a crown-fief of Norway, had been interdicted from holding intercourse with strangers,, and therefore also with Iceland, it is not surprising that Columbus, when he visited Iceland in 1477, should have obtained no tidings of the new continent situated to the west. Commercial relations existed however as late as 1484 between the Norwegian port of Bergen and Greenland— pp. 601-612. Widely different in a cosmical point of view from the isolated and barren event of the first discovery of the new continent by the North- men, was its re-discovery in its tropical regions by Christopher Colum- bus, although that navigator seeking a shorter route to Eastern Asia had not the object of discovering a new continent, and like Amerigo Vespucci, believed to the time of his death that he had simply reached the eastern shores of Asia. The influence exercised by the nautical SUMMARY. xlx discoveries of the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the six- teenth century on the rich abundance of the ideal world, cannot be thoroughly understood until we have thrown a glance on the ages which separate Columbus from the blooming period of cultivation under the Arabs. — That which gave to the age of Columbus the peculiar character of an uninterrupted and successful striving for an extended knowledge of the earth, was the appearance of a small number of daring minds (Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam), who incited to independent thought and to the investigation of sepa- rate natural phenomena ; the revived acquaintance with the works of Greek literature ; the invention of the art of printing ; the missionary embassies to the Mogul Princes, and the mercantile travels to Eastern Asia and South India (Marco Polo, Mandeville, and Nicolo de'Conti) ; the improvement of navigation ; and the use of the mariner's compass or the knowledge of the north and south pointing of the magnetic needle, which we owe to the Chinese through the Arabs — pp. 613-629. Early expeditions of the Catalans to the western shores of Tropical Africa; dis- covery of the Azores; general atlas of Picigano of 1367. Relations of Columbus to Toscanelli and Martin Alonso Pinzon. The more recently known chart of Juan de la Cosa. The South Pacific and its islands — pp. 629-650. Discovery of the magnetic line of no variation in the Atlantic Ocean. Inflection observed in the isothermal lines a hundred nautical miles to the west of the Azores. A physical line of demarcation is converted into a political one ; the line of de- marcation of Pope Alexander VI. of the 4th of May, 1493. Know- ledge of the distribution of heat ; the line of perpetual snow is recog- nised as a function of geographical latitude. Movement of the waters in the Atlantic Ocean. Great beds of sea-weed — pp. 650-663. Extended view into the world of space; an acquaintance with the stars of the southern sky; more a sensuous than a scientific knowledge. Improve- ment in the method of determining the ship's place; the political requirement for establishing the position of the papal line of demarcation increased the endeavour to discover practical methods for determining longitude. The discovery and first colonisation of America, and the voyage to the East Indies round the Cape of Good Hope coincide with the highest perfection of art, and with the attainment of intellectual freedom by means of religious reform, the forerunner of great political convulsions. The daring enterprise of the Genoese seaman is the first link in the immeasurable chain of mysterious events. Accident, and not the deceit or intrigues of Amerigo Vespucci deprived the continent of America of the name of Columbus. Influence of the new world on political institutions, and on the ideas and inclinations of the people of the old continent— pp. 664-680. ^ VII. Period of great discoveries in the regions of space. — The applica- tion of the telescope — A more correct view of the structure of the uni- verse prepared the way for these discoveries. Nicholas Copernicus was engaged in making observations with the astronomer Brudzewski at Cracow when Columbus discovered America. Ideal connection between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Peurbach and Regiomontanua xx COSMOS. Copernicus never advanced his system of the universe as an hypothesis, but as incontrovertible truth — pp. 681-694. Kepler and the empirical planetary laws which he discovered — pp. 694-699. Invention of the telescope ; Hans Lippershey, Jacob Adriaansz (Metius), and Zacharias Jansen. The first fruits of telescopic vision : mountains of the moon : clusters of stars and the milky way ; the four satellites of Jupiter ; the triple configuration of Saturn ; the crescent form of Venus ; solar spots ; and the period of rotation of the sun. The discovery of the small system of Jupiter indicates a memorable epoch in the fate and sound foundation of astronomy. The discovery of Jupiter's satellites gave rise to the discovery of the velocity of light, and the recognition of this velocity led to an explanation of the abberration-ellipse of the fixed stars — the perceptive evidence of the translatory movement of the earth. To the discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, and Johann Fabricius, followed the discovery of Saturn's satellites by Huygens and Cassini, of the zodiacal light as a revolving isolated nebulous ring by Childrey, of the variation in brilliancy of the light of the fixed stars by David Fabricius, Johann Bayer, and Holwarda. A nebula devoid of stars in Andromeda described by SimOfci Marius — pp. 699-714. While the seventeenth century owed at its commencement its main brilliancy to the sudden extension of the knowledge of the regions of space afforded by Galileo and Kepler, and at its close to the advance made in pure mathematical science by Newton and Leibnitz, the most important of the physical problems of the processes of light, heat and magnetism, likewise experienced a beneficial progress during this great age. Double refrac- tion and polarisation; traces of the knowledge of the interference of light in Grimaldi and Hooke. William Gilbert separates magnetism from electricity. Knowledge of the periodical advance of lines without variation. Halley's early conjecture that the polar light (the phos- phorescence of the earth) is a magnetic phenomenon. Galileo's ther- moscope and its employment for a series of regular diurnal observa- tions at stations of different elevation. Researches into the radiation of heat. Toricellian tubes and measurements of altitude by the position of the mercury in them. Knowledge of aerial currents and the influence of the earth's rotation on them. Law of rotation of the winds con- jectured by Bacon. Happy but short-lived influence of the Academica del Cimento on the establishment of mathematical natural philosophy as based on experiment. Attempts to measure the humidity of the atmos- phere ; condensation hygrometer. The electric process ; telluric elec- tricity ; Otto von Guerike sees, for the first time, light in induced elec- tricity. Beginnings of pneumatic chemistry; observed increase of weight in metals from oxidation; Cardanus and Jean Rey, Hooke and Mayow. Ideas on the fundamental part of the atmosphere (spiritus nitro-aereus) which enters into all metallic calxes, and is necessary to all the processes of combustion, and the respiration of animals. Influ- ence of physical and chemical knowledge on the development of geognosy (Nicolaus Steno, Scilla, Lister) ; the elevation of the sea's bottom and of littoral districts. In the greatest of all geognostic phenomena — the mathematical figure of the earth— we see perceptibly reflected all the SUMMAHY. [XXIJ conditions of a primitive age, or in other words, the primitive fluid state of the rotating mass and its consolidation into a terrestrial spheroid. Measurements of degrees and pendulum experiments in different lati- tudes. Compression. The figure of the earth was known to Newton on theoretical grounds, and the force discovered, of the operation of which the laws of Kepler are a necessary consequence. The discovery of such a force, whose existence is developed in Newton's imperishable work Principia, was nearly simultaneous with the opening of new paths to mathematical discovery by the invention of the infinitesimal calculus — pp. 714-737. VIII. Retrospect, multiplicity, and intimate connection existing among the scientific efforts of modern times. — Ketrospect of the principal momenta in the history of cosmical contemplation connected with great events. The multiplicity of the links of connection among the different branches of science in the present day increases the difficulty of separa- ting and limiting the individual portions — Intellectual activity hence- forth produces great results almost without any external incitement, and by its own internal power manifested in every direction. The history of the physical sciences gradually fuses into that of the idea of Universal Nature — pp. 738-741. VOL. II. *2 B 370 COSMOS. INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE. THE IMAGE REFLECTED BY THE EXTERNAL WORLD ON THE IMAGINATION. POETIC DESCRIPTION OF NATURE. LANDSCAPE PAINTING. THE CULTIVATION OF EXOTIC PLANTS, WHICH CHARACTERISE THE VEGETABLE PHYSI- OGNOMY OF THE VARIOUS PARTS OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE. WE are now about to proceed from the sphere of objects to that of sensations. The main results of observation which, stripped of all the extraneous charms of fancy, belong to the purely objective domain of a scientific delineation of nature, have been considered in the former part of this work in the mutually connected relations, by which they constitute one sole picture of the universe. It now, therefore, remains for us to consider the impressions reflected by the external senses on the feelings, and on the poetic imagination of mankind. An iDner world is here opened before us, but in seeking to penetrate its mysterious depths, we do not aspire, in turning over the leaves of the great book of nature, to arrive at that solution of its problems which is required by the philosophy of art in tracing aesthetic actions through the psychical powers of the mind, or through the various manifestations of intellectual activity, but rather to depict the contemplation of natural objects, as a means of exciting a pure love of nature, and to investigate the causes, which, especially in recent times, have, by the active medium of the imagination, so powerfully encouraged the study of nature, and the predilec- tion for distant travels.*1 The inducements which promote such contemplations of nature are, as I have already remarked, of three different kinds, namely, the esthetic treatment of natural scenery by animated delineations of animal and vegetable forms, constituting a very recent branch of litera- * gee p. 38. INCITEMENTS TO THE STUDY OF NATURE. 371 ture; landscape painting, especially where it has caught the characteristic features of the animal and vegetable world : and the more widely-diffused cultivation of tropical floras, and the more strongly contrasting opposition of exotic and indigenous forms. Each of these might, owing to their historical rela- tions, be made the object of a widely extending consideration, but it appears to me more in conformity with the spirit and aim of this work merely to unfold a few leading ideas, in order to remind the reader how differently the aspect of nature has acted on the intellect and feelings of different nations at different epochs, and how, at periods characterised by general mental cultivation, the severer forms of science and the more delicate emanations of fancy, have reciprocally striven to infuse their spirit into one another. In order to depict nature in its exalted sublimity, we must not dwell exclusively on its external manifestations, but we must trace its image, reflected in the mind of man, at one time rilling the dreamy land of physical myths with forms of grace and beauty, and at another developing the noble germ of artistic creations. In limiting myself to the simple consideration of the incite- ments to a scientific study of nature, I would not, however, omit calling attention to the fact that impressions arising from apparently accidental circumstances often — as is repeat- edly confirmed by experience — exercise so powerful an effect on the youthful mind as to determine the whole direction of a man's career through life. The child's pleasure in the form of countries, and of seas and lakes,* as delineated in maps; the desire to behold southern stars, invisible in our hemi- sphere ;f the representation of palms and cedars of Lebanon as depicted in our illustrated bibles, may all implant in the mind the first impulse to travel into distant countries. If I might be permitted to instance my own experience, and recal to mind the source from whence sprang my early and fixed * As the configuration of the countries of Italy, Sicily, and Greece, and of the Caspian and Red seas. See Relation historique du voy. aux Regions equinoxiales, t. i. p. 208. f Dante, Purg. i. 25-28. Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle: 0 settentrional vedovo sito, Poi che private se' di mirar quelle ! 2 B 2 372 COSMOS. desire to visit the land of the tropics, I should name George Forster's Delineations of the South Sea Islands, the pictures of Hodge, which represented the shores of the Ganges, and which I first saw at the house of Warren Hastings, in Lon- don, and a colossal dragon tree in an old tower of the Bota- nical garden at Berlin. These objects which I here instance by way of illustration belong to the three classes of induce- ments which we have already named, viz., the description of nature when springing from an animated impression of terres- trial forms; the delineative art of landscape painting; and, lastly, the direct objective consideration of the characteristic features of natural forms. The power exercised by these incitements is, however, limited to the sphere embraced by modern cultivation, and to those individuals whose minds have been rendered more susceptible to such impressions by a peculiar disposition fostered by some special direction in the development of their mental activity. DESCRIPTION OF NATURE. THE DIFFERENCE OF FEEL- ING EXCITED BY THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE AT DIFFERENT EPOCHS, AND AMONGST DIFFERENT RACES OF MEN. IT has often been remarked that, although the enjoyment derived from the contemplation of nature was not wholly unknown to the ancients, the feeling was, nevertheless, much more rarely, and less vividly expressed than in modern times. In his considerations on the poetry of the sentiments, Schiller thus expresses himself.* "If we bear in mind the beautiful scenery with which the Greeks were surrounded, and remem- ber the opportunities possessed by a people living in so genial a climate, of entering into the free enjoyment of the contempla- tion of nature, and observe how conformable were their mode * See Schiller's SammtlicJie Werke, 1826, bd. xviii. s. 231, 473, 480, 486; Gervinus, Neuere Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur der Deui- schen, 1840, bd. i. s. 135; Adolph Becker, in Charikles, th. i. s. 219. Compare also Eduard Miiller, ueber Soplwkleische Naturanscliauung und die tiefe Naturempfindung der Griechen,lMZ, s. 10, 26. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ANCIENTS. 373 of thought, the bent of their imaginations, and the habits of their lives to the simplicity of nature, which was so faithfully reflected in their poetic works, we cannot fail to remark with surprise, how few traces are to be met amongst them of the sentimental interest with which we, in modern times, attach ourselves to the individual characteristics of natural scenery. The Greek poet is certainly, in the highest degree, correct, faithful, and circumstantial in his descriptions of nature, but his heart has no more share in his words than if he were treating of a garment, a shield, or a suit of armour. Nature seems to interest his understanding more than his moral perceptions; he does not cling to her charms with the fervour and the plaintive passion of the poet of modern times," However much truth and excellence there may be in these remarks, they must not be extended to the whole of antiquity ; and I moreover consider that we take a very limited view of antiquity when, in contradistinction to the present time, we restrict the term exclusively to the Greeks and Romans. A profound feeling of nature pervades the most ancient poetry of the Hebrews and Indians ; and exists, therefore, amongst nations of very different descent — Semitic and Indo-Germaiiic. We can only draw conclusions regarding the feelings en- tertained by the ancients for nature, from those expressions of the sentiment which have come down to us in the remains of their literature, and we must, therefore, seek them with a> care, and judge of them with a caution proportionate to the infrequency of their occurrence in the grand forms of lyric and epic poetry. In the periods of Hellenic antiquity — the flowery season in the history of mankind — we certainly meet with the tenderest expressions of deep natural emotion, blended with the most poetic representations of human pas- sion, as delineating some action derived from mythical history; but specific descriptions of nature occur only as accessories, for, in Grecian art, all things are centred in the sphere of human life. The description of nature in its manifold richness of form, as a distinct branch of poetic literature, was wholly unknown to the Greeks. The landscape appears among them merely as the background of the picture of which human figures con- stitute the main subject. Passions, breaking forth inta> 374 COSMOS. action, riveted their attention almost exclusively. An active life, spent chiefly in public, drew the minds of men from dwell- ing with enthusiastic exclusiveness on the silent workings of nature, and led them always to consider physical pheno- mena as having reference to mankind, whether in the relations of external conformation or of internal development.* It was almost exclusively under such relations that the conside- ration of nature was deemed worthy of being admitted into the domain of 'poetry under the fantastic form of comparisons, which often present small detached pictures replete with objective truthfulness. At Delphi, pagans to Spring were sung,f being intended, proba- bly, to express the delight of man at the termination of the discom- forts of winter. A natural description of winter is interwoven (perhaps by the hand of some Ionian rhapsodist) in the Works and Days of Hesiod.J This poem, which is composed with noble simplicity, although in accordance with the rigid didactic form, gives instructions regarding agriculture, direc- tions for different kinds of trade and labour, and ethic pre- cepts for a blameless course of life. It is only elevated to the dignity of a lyric poem, when the poet clothes the miseries of mankind, or the exquisite mythical allegory of Epimetheus and Pandora in an anthropomorphic garb. In the theogony of Hesiod, which is composed of many ancient and dissimilar elements, we frequently find, as, for instance, in the enume- ration of the Nereides, § natural descriptions of the realm of * Schnaase, Geschiclite der bildenden Kunste bei den Alten, bd. ii. 1843, s. 128-138. t Plut., de E. I. apud Delphos, c. 9. [an attempt of Plutarch's to explain the meaning of an inscription at the entrance of the 1 emple of Delphi. — Tr.] "Regarding a passage of Apollonius Dyscolus of Alexandria (Mirab. Hist., c. 40), see Otfr. Miiller's last work, Gesch. der griech. Litteraiur, bd. i. 1845, s. 31. % Hesiodi Opera et Dies, v. 502-561. Gottling, in Hes. Carm. 1831, p. xix.; Ulrici, Gesch. der hellenischen Dichtkunst, th. i. 1835, s. 337. Bernhardy, Grundriss der griech. Litteratur, th. ii. s. 176. According to the opinion of Gottfr. Hermann (Opuscula, vol. vi. p. 239) " the picturesque description given by Hesiod of winter, bears all the evidence of great antiquity." § Hes. Theoff., v. 233-264. The Nereid Mera (Od., xi. 326; II, xviii. 48), may perhaps be indicative of the phosphoric light seen on the surface of the sea, in the same manner as the same word paipa desig- nates the sparkling dog-star Sirius. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE GREEKS. 375 Neptune concealed under the significant names of mythical characters. The Boeotian, and, indeed, all the ancient schools of poetry, treat only of the phenomena of the external world, under the personification of human forms. But if, as we have already remarked, natural descriptions, whether they delineate the richness and luxuriance of tropical vegetation, or pourtray the habits of animals, have only become a distinct branch of literature in the most recent times, this circumstance must not be regarded as a proof of the absence of susceptibility for the beauties of nature, where the perception of beauty was so intense,* nor must we sup- pose that the animated expression of a spirit of poetic con- templation was wanting to the Greeks, who have transmitted to us such inimitable proofs of their creative faculty, alike in poetry and in sculpture. All that we are led by the tendency of our modern ideas to discover as deficient in this depart- ment of ancient literature, is rather of a negative than of a positive kind, being evinced less in the absence of suscepti- bility than in that of the urgent impulse to give expression, in words, to the sentiment awakened by the charms of nature. Directed less to the inanimate world of phenomena than to the realities of active life, and to the inner and spontaneous emotions of the mind, the earliest, and, at the same time, the noblest directions of the poetic spirit were epic and lyric. In these artificial forms, descriptions of nature can only occur as incidental accessories, and not as special creations of fancy. As the influence of antiquity gradually disappeared, and as the bright beauty of its blossoms faded, rhetorical figures became more and more diffused through descriptive and didactic poetry. This form of poetry, which in its earliest philosophical, half- sacerdotal type, was solemn, grand, and devoid of orna- ment— as we see exemplified in the poem of Empedocles On Nature — by degrees lost its simplicity and earlier dignity, as it became more strongly marked by a rhetorical character. I may be permitted here to mention a few particular instances in illustration of these general observations. In conformity with the character of the Epos, we find the most attractive scenes of nature introduced in the Homeric songs merely as secondary adjuncts. " The shepherd rejoices in * Compare Jacobs, Lcben und Kunst der Alten, bd. i., abth. 1. e. vii. 876 COMMOH. f llllicfiH of 'j :;• hf n. I.! i' purify of I li'- • .1: y. ;i n<\ \ n f.he ' ' ,ncc df MM- v:iull. df h< aV< n j I'' I" :n frOffl ;if;ir l.lic ; of fhc nidinihiin foii'iil ;i , it. j>ni IICH if.H f'o;iinin;' com <• HWoll'n wilh tli'' f.fiiril-.'. of d;d. ; l.li:i.f. h;ive (•' ' n hoi IK- ;J!OIK' iti hnhid wfiiiTH."*1 'III*- lublime description <»f tin-. :.|| I'HM hlK . of l':i) li:i:,SUM, Wl'lJl JI,H HOIflhl'-, llildl. ,d< d :mr| K>0ky v:ill<-y. OOfXtTAAtl With ill'- JO of flic iiurny r«>uiil:iin'-'l |)'ijil:ir ;'iov, in l.lir- rii:i-:i«-i:Hi i.hni'! of Sri 1. 1 M and € i" ' N'Ny of (if land of the i :yir,j)H, it win-i-r- dowi wiring witfc Lttxuriftnt :m'i raooulent graii encir ck llif lull- of iinj)t iih'-fl viii*-!!.1'! l'i/nl;ir, in :i. rlit,|iyr:i.iiilius ill j.i:n • ol |)iin;' reClted :«.!. AlJn-ii.",, i.in^i of tl MM- c.-icllj '•I .Villi IKVV ho/ll flowi ;, \vll« II, III flic Arj'iv ,\«,; tlic (ir.l. ojx-nin^ shoot of l.lx- p;ilin fitmounOM '!»' COminj Iciliny Ipring, 'II" i' In1- nin^s of I'il.nn. JIM 4t flic j>ill;n oi" ln-;i.vii, I. In- fo f< i< i of f n'lurin^ NMOW ; Imf. If rjuirldy fin Q ;i .w.'i.y l'i 01 1 1 I li< «• l.» i i ili»- fonn . of in;i nini;if .«• n;il IIM- fo <•< \< \n;< \ <-. Mi' M) r,f ! \i;icii « , ;IIM| flu- viHonou:; com l>;i I : , of fJic C,\<< -I. wil.h fix nii-lil y raO€ "I" ili«- I'd i;niH. We inn I. nof loi"« |. l|,:il. (iifCKin Hfcncry |)ic inliiniifc ;r, ,oci;if ion of l;ind ;ind ;.c;(i of ii-)i' .-idoinid \vifli vcf-chil .Mm, or |>;c| .iirrscjin-ly p ;irl. ronii'l l)y ioc|. . :.|«';iniiii;' HI I lie 1 1- li I. of ;.ci j;i I l.inl.: :, :mc| of ;in occ;ni jiini in iiic |»i;i.y HCpn i :il« • • |j|u •! -i •:: nl' n;ilnic. lh" 'n<,! i I'M Hf>; vi iiiMl i , II f. I :»'.». Compare jili o " l.lin d;ihl. «.vi;'li.i.i(,win" <,l Hi. •••!.,,, M .n < '..I vpr.'>'..".roll(», " \V|M-«- < \di ;m iiiiniMil.il wmilil IMI.'-I-I wiMi .nliini.il i. ,11, rejoicing in I. In- I, .-ml ilul view," M.' I,M ,ii III", ol Ilir Hlirl' Oil ML- hofC .,!' III.- I'li; I I in. I \ li'M I I,',, :n,,| Mir ••:nu Mi.- vi>.nm\ (hlliycnnhii,1, of rin«l.n-, ,.. li.J( l.h, I'indan <>/»KI, I. il. pi. n. p. .'>Y.'» .'»Vl>. m . r. i ci FO . i ' /: i. i: v -i n i: ', i! i i.i ,",77 '|i|»o 1C lluil. so Intellectual "nd hi"hly hoidd h;i\<- i< iri:iiii'-d in fir ihlc fo tin- ;i j*' H, of liii foi« t crowned chlf. on fh< <\<-< -ply indent.'-'! shores of tl'<* M' dil< i i HIM ;ni. fo I li»- il« i,l inf( i r|i;iir-c of f |,i- milii' IM iri^ iiif Miii;)'-'' r,r iii<' earth, .-MM! fh«- IOWT itrata or tho .-ilirio pin )<• ;il. t|,r. i< , in M n< ' of M -'li.!! • ,i ',n :.n'l liom r . MIC <\\ tribution "i regetabk loi-nr-,? How, in :m wli' n Ilic jjo'-ljf r«-«-|iii;»s Wer€ til'1 I.!ron^»-s1., ronNI tli' .If ol' lh' • n l.ul' (I to ni;ini('< .1. if (If in ideal ronf«-iii|»l;iiioii:- 'l'li«- Ghreeli regarded the rcgetable wiil'l ;i tandinfl n> :• ni;iiiilol«l ;nnl iiiylliif;il I'l.ih'Mi fo i'l lo tin- ^ods, who wcj-c mppoted to avei injury iiillicl«-»l on lh" li< •• ;IIK| |>l..i .niin;ilf(| \« ;•« f;i|,lc f.,, ,,, ; will) life, hill, the of porliy, l.o whifh Ihf p»Tiili;ir dii-rcl ion of n.<'iit;i! ity amongst Hi»- JUI'-M-HI. (irc<-l-.s limit.rd l.ln-in, p/'iv<- only ;i p;ii'li;il development to lln-o1* fii ipt inns of n;itni:ii < ><•<•. i iou;illy, h ; bfi v, i il in;"i of tlnir 1 1 . .MI-'- ol' lli«- hriiiily of ii;ilni«- l»i';il. , fnrtli iimated <\< <-i\\t\ ion . of <•< n« rj in ill'1 mi'l I of Ihf I MM- d« CpCfttC li'-n Qidipvw in approaching tin- ^ »•»*•, c oi' ih<- Buxnenidet, t,h«- rh- - uolil'- p tillg |>l:u-«- of th<- illn li ion ( 'olorio-:, \\ tli«- mekxl :HK| |)onr foi ! '-. rl'-m- hill. pl;nnti\'- H()U;H." Av.-nn, it. HlllgH k* tllC V'ld.inl. i of tin- Ihi'-Uy Jn;inllin^ ivy, tin- n i< ' |>'-liocl' I li; .' lofly Conn of tin- f.ili '! ;ni'l , l.y tli«- In ink of III'- sI'Tjili \,.il- i . of ^ '< pi .!iii(lcy soil ;ind In r-hl ''n'!, 'I h< i-f|)o:;<- of ii;ilni'- ill'- iinpK :,ion ol' |);nii c;il|cd forth liy tin- ini.'iv '•!' tli' nohlc form of t.hc Mind Miffcn T, th" victim of Q ' '/;./ Colon , * A MI'. n," i, fi«-M. ••I :i. -I. ep I" hii'' "I mime, I would I pi ion "I ' iili.-- »'. ii 111 the /.'""//'/ -.I IM III'- III v;illry (,| A '.[MI , I. IK- i< !. rcilCC to Hi'- : mm <• in Hi- Ion i,f IJM ipi'l' , v. 82j :ni'l Hi- |L on I), lot, v. 11,1., ' in wlii'-l. Il looi indi I' I'lllll' I IIU-ljIlOII, III*' •! IIMIII Hi'-. ,l|ry ,,| I). v |)i'-hn«- in UK- Hymn HUM 378 COSMOS. and fatal passion. Euripides* also delights in picturesque descriptions of " the pastures of Messenia and Laconia, which under an ever mild sky, are refreshed by a thousand fountains, and by the waters of the beautiful Pamisos." Bucolic poetry, which originated in the plains of Sicily, and popularly inclined to the dramatic, has been justly termed a transitional form. Its pastoral epics describe on a small scale human beings rather than natural scenery ; and in this form it appears in its greatest perfection in the writings of Theocritus. A soft elegiac element is peculiar to the idyl, as if it had emanated from " the longing for some lost idea," as if in the breast of mankind, a certain touch of melancholy was ever mingled with the deep feelings awakened by the aspect of nature. True Hellenic poetry expired with the freedom of the Greeks, and became descriptive, didactic, and instructive. Astronomy, geography, hunting, and fishing, were converted in the time of Alexander into objects of poetic consideration, and often adorned with a remarkable degree of metrical skill. The forms and habits of animals are depicted with grace, and not unfrequently with such accuracy that the par- ticular genera or even species may be recognized by the classifying naturalist of the present day. All these compo- sitions are, however, wholly wanting in that inner life — that inspired contemplation of nature — by which the external world becomes to the poet, almost unconsciously to himself, a sub- ject of his imagination. The preponderance of the descrip- tive element shows itself in the forty-eight cantos of the Dionysiaca of the Egyptian Nonnus, which are remarkable for their skilfully artistical versification. The poet dwells with pleasure on the delineation of great convulsions of nature ; he makes a fire kindled by lightning on the woody banks of the Hydaspes, burn up even the fishes in the bed of * According to Strabo (lib. viii. p. 366, Casaub.), who accuses the tragedian of giving a geographically incorrect boundary to Elis. This beautiful passage of Euripides occurs in the Cresphontes. The de- scription of the excellence of the district of Messenia, is intimately connected with the exposition of its political relations, as, for instance, the division of the land amongst the Heraclidae. The delineation of nature is, therefore, here too, as Bockh ingeniously remarks, associated with human interests. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE GREEKS. 379 the river; and he shows how ascending vapours occasion the meteorological processes of the storm and electric rain. Although capable of writing romantic poetry, Nonnus of Panopolis is remarkably unequal in his style, being at one time animated and exciting, and at another tedious and verbose. A deeper feeling for nature and a greater delicacy of sensi- bility is manifested in some portions of the Greek Anthology which has been transmitted to us in such various ways, and from such different epochs. In the graceful translation of Jacobs, everything that relates to animal and vegetable forms has been collected in one section, — these passages being small pictures, consisting in most cases, of mere allusions to indi- vidual forms. The plane-tree, which " nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice," and which in the time of Dionysius the Elder, first penetrated from Asia Minor through the island of Diomedes, to the shores of the Sicilian Anapus, is, perhaps, too often introduced; still, on the whole, the ancient mind shows itself more inclined in these songs and epigrams, to dwell on the animal than on the vegetable world. The vernal idyl of Meleager of Gadara in Coelo-Syria, is a noble and at the same time a more considerable compoition.* On account of the renown attached from ancient times to the spot, I would not omit to mention the description of the * Meleagri Reliquice, ed. Manso, p. 5. Compare Jacobs, Leben und Kunst der Alien, bd. i. abth. i. s. xv. abth. ii. s. 1 50-190. Zenobetti believed himself to have been the first to discover Meleager's poem on Spring, in the middle of the eighteenth century, (Mel Gadareni in Ver Idyllion, 1759, p. 5); see Brunckii Anal., t. iii. p. 105. There are two fine sylvan poems of Marianos in the Anthol. Grceca, ii. 511 and 512. Meleager's poem contrasts well with the praise of Spring in the eclogues of Himerius, a sophist, who was teacher of rhetoric at Athens under Julian. The style, on the whole, is cold and profusely ornate, but in some parts, especially in the descriptive portions, this writer sometimes approximates closely to the modern way of considering nature. Himerii Sophistce Eclogce, et Declamationes, ed. Wernsdorf. 1790. (Oratio iii. 8-6, and xxi. 5.) It seems extraordinary that the lovely situation of Constantinople should not have inspired the sophists (Orat. vii. 5-7; xvi. 3--8). The passages of Nonnus, referred to in the text, occur in Dionys. ed. Petri Cunaei, 1610, lib. ii. p. 70, vi. p. 199, xxiii. p. 16 and 619, xxvi. p. 694. Compare also Ouwaroff, Nonnus von Panopolis, der Dichter, 1817, s. 3, 16. 21. 380 COSMOS. wooded valley of Tempe, as given by ./Elian,* probably in imitation of some earlier notice by Dicsearchus. It is the most detailed description of natural scenery by any of the Greek prose writers that we possess ; and although topographical, it is also picturesque, for the shady vale is animated by the Pythian procession (theoria^) " which breaks from the sacred laurel the atoning bough." In the later Byzantine epoch, about the close of the fourth century, we meet more frequently with descriptions of scenery interwoven in the romances of the Greek prose writers, as is especially manifested in the pastoral romance of Longus,f in which, however, the tender scenes taken from life greatly excel the expression of the sen- sations awakened by the aspect of nature. It is not my object in the present work, to extend these references beyond what my own special recollection of par- ticular forms of art may enable me to add to these general considerations of the poetic conception of the external world. I should here quit the flowery circle of Grecian antiquity, if, in a work to which I have ventured to prefix the title of Cosmos, I could pass over in silence the description of nature with which the pseudo-Aristotelian book of Cosmos, or, Order of the Universe, begins. It describes " the earth as adorned with luxuriant vegetation, copiously watered, and (as the most admirable of all) inhabited by thinking beings." J. The rhetorical colour of this rich picture of nature, so totally unlike the concise and purely scientific mode of treatment characteristic of the Stagirite, is one of the many indications by which it has been judged that this work on the Cosmos is not his composition. It may, in fact, be the production of * jEliani Var. Hist, et Fragm., lib. iii. cap. 1. p. 139, Kiilm. Compare A. Buttmann, Qucest. de DiccKarcJio (ISTaumb., 1832, p. 32,) and Geogr. gr. min., ed. Gail, vol. ii. pp. 1 40-145. We observe in thcr tragic poet Chaaremon a remarkable love of nature, and especially a pre- dilection for flowers which has been compared by Sir William Jones to the sentiments evinced in the Indian poets. See Welcker, Griecliisclie Tracodien, abth. iii. s. 1088. t Longi Pastor alia (Daphnis et Chloe, ed. Seller, 1843,) lib. i. 9; iii. 12, and iv. 1-3; pp. 92, 125, 137. Compare Villemaine, Sitr lea Romans grecs, in his Melanges de Litterature, t. ii. pp. 485-448, where Longus is compared with Bernardin de St. Pierre. J Pseudo-Aristot., de Mundo, cap. 3, 14-20, p. 392, Bekker. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE GREEKS. 381 Apuleius,* or of Chrysippus,f or of any other author. In the place of the passages relating to natural scenery which we cannot venture to ascribe to Aristotle, we possess, how- ever, a genuine fragment which Cicero has preserved to us from a lost work of Aristotle. J It runs thus: — "If there were beings who lived in the depths of the earth, in dwellings adorned with statues and paintings, and everything which is possessed in rich abundance by those whom we esteem fortunate; and if these beings could receive tidings of the power and might of the gods, and could then emerge from their hidden dwellings through the open fissures of the earth, to the places which we inhabit; if they could suddenly behold the earth, and the sea, and the vault of heaven ; could recognise the expanse of the cloudy firmament and the might of the winds of heaven, and admire the sun in its majesty, beauty, and radiant effulgence ; and, lastly, when night veiled the earth in darkness, they could behold the starry heavens, the changing moon, and the stars rising and setting in the unvarying course ordained from eternity; they would surely exclaim, ' there are gods, and such great things must be the work of their hands.' " It has been justly observed, that this passage is alone sufficient to corroborate Cicero's opinion of "the golden flow of Aristotle's eloquence," § and that his words are pervaded by something of the inspired force of Plato's genius. Such a testimony to the existence of the heavenly powers, drawn from the beauty and stupendous greatness of the works of creation, is rarely to be met with in the works of antiquity. * See Stahr, Aristoteles lei den Rdmern, 1834, s. 173-177. Osann, Beitraye zur griech. und rom. Litteraturgescliiclite, bd. i., 1835, s. 165--192. Stahr (s. 172) supposes, like Heumann, that the present Greek is an altered translation of the Latin text of Apuleius. The latter says distinctly (de Mundo, p. 250, Bip.), " that he has followed Aristotle and Theophrastus, in the composition of his work." t Osann, op. cit., s. 1 94-2 66. £ Cicero, de Natura Deorum, ii. 37. A passage in which Scxtus Empiricus (adversus Physicos, lib. ix. 22, p. 554, Fabr.) instances a similar expression of Aristotle, deserves the more attention from the fact that the same writer shortly before (ix. 20) alludes to another work of Aristotle (on divination and dreams) which is also lost to us. § " Aristoteles flumen orationis aurevim fundens." Cic., Acad. Qucest., ii. cap. 38. (Compare Stahr, Arwtotelia, th. ii. s. 161, and Aristoteles bei den Romern, s. 53.) 382 COSMOS. That which we miss in the works of the Greeks, I will not say from their want of susceptibility to the beauties of nature, but from the direction assumed by their literature, is still more rarely to be met with amongst the Romans. A nation which, in accord- ance with the ancient Sicilian habits, evinced a decided predilec- tion for agriculture and other rural pursuits, might have justified other expectations ; but with all their disposition to practical activity, the Romans, with the cold severity and practical understanding of their national character, were less susceptible of impressions of the senses than the Greeks, and were more devoted to every-day reality than to the idealising poetic con- templation of nature. These differences in the habits and feelings of the Greeks and Romans, are reflected in their literature, as is ever the case with the intellectual expression of national character. Here, too, we must notice the acknow- ledged difference that exists in the organic structure of their respective languages, notwithstanding the affinity between the races. The language of ancient Latium possesses less flexibi- lity, a more limited adaptation of words, a stronger character of "practical tendency," than of ideal mobility. Moreover, the predilection evinced in the Augustan age for imitating Greek images, must have been detrimental to the free out- pouring of native feelings, and to the free expression of the natural bent of the mind ; but still there were some powerful minds which, inspired by love of country, were able by creative individuality, by elevation of thought, and by the gentle grace of their representations, to surmount all these obstacles. The great poem of nature, which Lucretius has so richly decked with the charms of his poetic genius, embraces the whole Cosmos. It has much affinity with the writings of Empedocles and Parmenides, the archaic diction of the versification heightening the earnestness of the descriptions. Poetry is here closely interwoven with philosophy, without, however, falling into that frigidity of style which, in contrast with Plato's richly fanciful mode of treating nature, was so severely blamed by Menander the Rhetorician, in the sentence he pronounced on the Hymns of Nature.*4 My brother has * Menandri Ehetoris Comment, de Encomiis, ex rec. Heeren, 1785, sect. i. cap. 5, pp. 38, 39. The severe critic terms the didactic poem On nature, a frigid composition, (v//T/%po7-£pov) in which the forces of nature are brought forward divested of their personality — Apollo as DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 383 shown with much ingenuity the striking analogies and differ- ences which have arisen from the amalgamation of metaphysi- cal abstractions with poetry in the ancient Greek didactic poems, as in the works of Lucretius, and in the episode Bhagavad of the Indian Epic Mahdbharata* The great physical picture of the universe by the Roman poet, contrasts in its cold doctrine of atoms, and in its frequently visionary geognostic hypotheses, with his vivid and animated delinea- tion of the advance of mankind from the recesses of the forest to the pursuit of agriculture, to the control of natural forces, the more elevated cultivation of mind and languages, and through the latter to social civilisation. \ When in the midst of the active and busy life of the statesman, and in a mind excited by political passion, a keen susceptibility for the beauties of nature and an animated love of rural solitude still subsists, its source must be derived from the depths of a great and noble character. Cicero's writings testify to the truth of this assertion. As is generally known, many points in his book De Legibus, and in that De Oratore, are copied from Plato's Phcedrus ; J yet his delineations of Italian nature do not on light, Hera as the concentration of all the phenomena of the atmos- phere, and Jupiter as heat. Plutarch also ridicules the so-called poems of nature, which have only the form of poetry (de and. poet., p. 27, Steph.) According to the Stagirite (de Poet., c. i.), Empedocles was more a physiologist than a poet, and has nothing in common with Homer, but the rhythmical measure used by both. * " It may appear singular, but yet it is not the less correct, to attempt to connect poetry, which rejoices everywhere in variety of form, colour, and character, with the simplest and most abstract ideas. Poetry, science, philosophy, and history are not necessarily and essen- tially divided; they are united wherever man is still in unison with the particular stage of his development, or whenever, from a truly poetic mood of mind, he can in imagination bring himself back to it." Wilhem von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke, bd. i. s. 98--102. (Com- pare also Bernhardy, Rom. Litteratur, s. 215-218, and Fried. Schlegel, Sammtliche Werke, bd. i. s. 108-110.) Cicero (Ad Quint, fratrem, ii. 11.) ascribes, if not pettishly, at any rate very severely, more tact than creative talent (ingeniwri) to Lucretius, who has been so highly praised by Virgil, Ovid, and Quintilian. t Lucret., lib. v. v. 930-1455. J Pluto, Phcedr., p. 230; Cicero, de Leg., i. 5, 15; ii. 2, 1-3; ii. 3, 6. (Compare Wagner, Comment, perp. in Cic. de Leg., 1814, p. 6); Cic. de Oratore, i. 7, 28, (p. 15, Ellendt.) 384 COSMOS. tliat account lose any of their individuality. Plato extols in general terms, " the dark shade of the thickly-leaved plane- tree; the luxuriance of plants and herbs in all the fragrance of their bloom ; and the sweet summer breezes which fan the chirping swarms of grasshoppers." In Cicero's smaller sketches of nature we find, as has lately been remarked by an intelligent enquirer,*1 all things described as they still exist in the actual landscape, we see the Liris shaded by lofty poplars, and as we descend from the steep mountain behind the old towers of Arpinum, we see the grove of oaks on the margin of the Fibrenus, and the island now called Isola di Carnello, which is formed by the division of the stream, and whither Cicero retired in order, as he said, to " give himself up to meditation, reading, and writing." Arpinum, situated on the Yolscian hills, was the birth-place of the great statesman, mid its noble scenery no doubt exercised an influence on his character in boyhood. Unconsciously to himself, the external aspect of the surrounding scenery impresses itself upon the soul of man, writh an intensity corresponding to the greater or less degree of his natural susceptibility, and becomes closely inter- woven with the deep original tendencies and the free natural disposition of his mental powers. In the midst of the eventful storms of the year 708 (from the foundation of Rome), Cicero found consolation in Ms villas, alternately at Tusculum, Arpinum, Cumrea, and Antium. " Nothing can be more delightful," he writes to Atticus,f "than this solitude — nothing more charming than this country place, the neighbouring shore, and the view of the sea. In the lonely Island of Astura, at the mouth of the river of the same name, on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, no human being disturbs me; and when early in the morning I retire to the leafy recesses of some thick and wild wood, I do * See s. 431-434 of the admirable work by Rudolph Abeken, Rector of the Gymnasium at Osnabriick, which appeared in 1835, under the title of Cicero in seinen Briefen. The important addition relative to the birthplace of Cicero 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 Professor Lepsius. See also on the birthplace of Cicero, Valery, Voy. hist, en ftalie, t. iii. p. 421. f Cic., Ep. ad Atticum, xii. 9 and 15. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 385 not leave it till the evening. Next to my Atticus nothing is so dear to me as solitude, in which I hold communion with philosophy, although often interrupted by my tears. I strug- gle as much as I am able against such emotions, but as yet I am not equal to the contest." It has frequently been remarked, that in these letters and in those of the younger Pliny, passages are met with which manifest the greatest harmony with the expressions in use amongst modern senti- mental writers; for my own part, I can only find in them the echoes of the same deep-toned sadness, which in every age and in every race bursts forth from the recesses of the heavily- oppressed bosom. Amid the general diffusion of Roman literature, an ac- quaintance with the great poetic works of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus is so common, that it would be superfluous to dwell on individual examples of the tender and ever wakeful sensibility to nature, by which some of these works are ani- mated. In Virgil's great Epic, the nature of the poem tends to make descriptions of scenery appear merely as accessories, occupying only a very small space. There is no individual portraiture of particular localities,* but a deep and intimate comprehension of nature is depicted in soft colours. Where, for instance, has the gentle play of the waves, or the stillness of night been more happily described? And how well do these pleasing pictures contrast with the powerful description of the bursting tempest in the first book of the Georgics, and the picture in the ^iEneid of the voyage and landing at the Strophades, the crashing fall of the rock, or the flames emitted from Mount Etna.f From Ovid, we might have expected as the fruit of his long sojourn in the plains of Tomi in Lower Mcesia, a poetic de- scription of the marshes, of which, however, no account has * The passages from Yirgil, which are adduced by Malte-Brun (Annales des Voyages, t. iii. 1808, pp. 235-266,) as local descriptions, merely show that the poet had a knowledge of the produce of different countries, as for instance, the saffron of Mount Tmolus, that he was acquainted with the incense of the Sabeans, and with the true names of several small rivers, and that even the mephitic vapours which rise from a cavern in the Apennines near Amsanetus, were not unknown to him. •h Virg., Georg., i. 356-392; iii. 349-380; JEn., iii, 191-211; iv. 246-251; xii. 684-689. 386 COSMOS. been transmitted to us from antiquity. The exile did not indeed see that kind of steppe-like plain which in summer is densely covered with juicy plants, varying from four to six feet in height, and which in every breath of wind present the aspect of a waving sea of flowering verdure. The place of his banishment was a desolate swampy marsh-land, and the broken spirit of the poet, which gives itself vent in unmanly lamentation, was preoccupied with the recollection of the enjoyments of social life and the political occurrences at Rome, and thus remained dead to the impressions produced by the contemplation of the Scythian desert, with which he was surrounded. As a compensation, however, this highly gifted poet, whose descriptions of nature are so vivid, has given us, besides his too frequently repeated representations of grottoes, springs, and " calm moon-light nights," a remark- ably characteristic, and even geognostically important delinea- tion of a volcanic eruption at Methone, between Epidaurus and Troezene. The passage to which we allude, has already been cited at another part of this work.* Ovid shows us, as our readers will remember, " how by the force of the impreg- nated vapour, the earth was distended like a bladder filled with air, or like the skin of the goat." It is especially to be regretted that Tibullus should have left no great composition descriptive of the individual cha- racter of nature. Amongst the poets of the Augustan age, he belongs to the few, who being happily strangers to the Alex- andrian learning, and devoted to seclusion and a rural life, drew with feeling and therefore with simplicity from the resources of their own mind. Elegies,f of which the land- * Compare Ovid, Met., i. 568-576; iii. 155-164; iii. 407-412; vii. 180-188; xv. 296-306; Trist., lib. i., El 3, 60; lib. iii., El 4, 49; El 12, 15; Ex Ponto, lib. iii. Ep. 7-9, as instances of separate pictures of natural scenery. There is a pleasant description of a spring at Hymettus, beginning with the verse, " Est prope purpureos colles florentis Hymetti," (Ovid, deArte. Am. iii. 687), which, as Ross has remarked, is one of the rare instances that occur of individual delineations of nature, referring to a definite locality. The poet describes the fountain of Kallia sacred to Aphrodite, so celebrated in antiquity, which breaks forth on the west- ern side of Hymettus, otherwise so scantily supplied with water. (See Eoss, Letter to Professor Yuros, in the Griech. medicin. Zeitschrift, June, 1837. t Tibullus, ed. Yoss, 1811, Meg., lib. i. 6, 21-34; lib. ii. 1, 37-66. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 387 scape only constitutes the background, must certainly be regarded as mere pictures of social habits, but the Lustration of the Fields, and the Sixth Elegy of the first book show us what was to have been expected from the Mend of Horace and of Messala. Lucan, the grandson of the rhetorician M. Annseus Seneca, certainly resembles the latter too much in the rhetorical orna- tion of his diction, but yet we find amongst his works an admirable and vividly truthful picture of the destruction of a Druidic forest,* on the now treeless shores of Marseilles. The half-severed oaks support themselves for a time by leaning tottering against each other; and stripped of their leaves, suffer the first ray of light to pierce their awful and sacred gloom. He who has long lived amid the forests of the New World, must feel how vividly the poet with a few touches has depicted the luxuriant growth of trees, whose colossal remains lie buried in some of the turf moors of France. In the didactic poem of ^Etna by Lucilius the younger, a friend of L. Annasus Seneca, we certainly meet with a truthful description of the phenomena attending the eruption of a volcano; but the conception has much less of individuality than the work entitled JEtna Dialogus,\ by Bembo, of which we have already spoken in terms of praise. When, finally, at the close of the fourth century, the art of poetry in its grander and nobler forms, faded away, as if exhausted, poetic emanations, stripped of the charms of crea- tive fancy, turned aside to the barren realities of science and of description. A certain oratorical polish of style could not compensate for the diminished susceptibility for nature, and an idealising inspiration. As a production of this unfruitful age, in which the poetic element only appeared ae an incidental external adornment of thought, we may instance a poem on the Moselle by Ausonius. As a native of Aqui- * Lucan, Pliars., iii. 400-452 (vol. i. p. 374-384, Weber). + The poem of Lucilius, which is very probably a part of a largei poetic work, on the natural characteristics of Sicily, was ascribed by Wernsdorf to Cornelius Severue. The passages especially worthy of attention are the praises of general knowledge 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, 55, ed. Jacob, 1826.) 2 c 2 388 COSMOS. tanian Gaul, the poet had accompanied Valentinian in his campaign against the Allemanni. The Mosella, which was composed in ancient Treves,^ describes in some parts, and not ungracefully, the already vine-clad hills of one of the loveliest of our rivers, but the barren topography of the country, the enumeration of the streams falling into the Moselle, and the characteristic form, colour, and habits of some of the different species of fish that are found in these waters, constitute the main features of this wholly didactic composition. In the works of the Roman prose writers, among which we have already cited some remarkable passages by Cicero, descriptions of natural scenery are as rare as in those of Greek authors. It is only in the writings of the great his- torians, Julius Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus that we meet with some examples of the contrary, where they are compelled to describe battle fields, the crossing of rivers or difficult moun- tain passes, in their narrations of the struggle of man against natural obstacles. In the Annals of Tacitus, I am charmed with the description of the untoward passage of Germanicus over the Amisia, and the grand geographical delineation of the mountain chains of Syria and Palestine.! Curtius has left us a fine natural picture of a woody desert to the west of * Decii Magm Ausonii Mosella, v. 189-199, pp. 15, 44, Booking. See also the notice of the fish of the Moselle, which is not unimportant with reference to natural history, and has been ingeniously applied by Valenciennes, v. 85-150, pp. 9-12, and contrast it with Oppian (Bern- hardy, Griech. Litt., th. ii. s. 1049.) The Ortliinogonia and Theriaca of jEmilius Macer of Yerona (imitations of the works of Meander of Colophon) which have not come to us, belonged to the same dry didactic style of poetry which treated of the products of nature. A natural description of the southern coast of Gaul, which is to be found in a poeti- cal narrative of a journey by Claudius Eutilius Numatianus, a statesman tinder Honorius, is more attractive than the Mosella of Ausonius. Euti- lius, who was driven from Rome by the irruption of the Gauls, is return- ing to his estates in Gaul. We unfortunately possess only a fragment of the second book of this poem, and this does not take us beyond the quarries of Carara. See Rutilii Claudii Numatiani de Eeditu suo (c Roma in Galliam Narbonensem] libri duo, rec. A. "W. Zumpt, 1840, p. xv. 31-219 (with a fine map by Kiepert). Wernsdorf, Poetce Lat. Min., t. v. pt. i. p. 125. t Tac. Ann., ii. 23-24; Hist., v. 6. The only fragment preserved by the Rhetorician Seneca, (Suasor., i. p. 11, Bipont) that we possess of DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE BOMANS. 389 Hecatompylos, through which the Macedonian army had to pass in the marshy region of Mazanderan.* I would refer more circumstantially to this passage if our uncertainty as to the age in which this writer lived, did not prevent our deciding what was due to the poet's own imagination, and what was derived from, historic sources. The great encyclopedic work of the elder Pliny, which, by the richness of its contents, surpasses any other production 01 antiquity, will be more fully considered in the sequel, when we enter on the " history of the contemplation of the universe." The natural history of Pliny, which has exercised a powerful influence on the middle ages, is, as his nephew, the younger Pliny, has elegantly remarked, "manifold as nature itself." As the creation of an irresistible passion for a comprehensive, but often indiscriminate and irregular accumulation of facts, this work is unequal in style, being sometimes simple and narrative, and sometimes full of thought, animation, and rhe- torical ornament, and from its very character, deficient in individual delineations of nature : although wherever the con- nection existing between the active forces of the universe, the well ordered Cosmos (naturce majestas\ is made the object of contemplation, we cannot mistake the indications of a true poetic inspiration. We would gladly instance the pleasantly situated villas on the Pincian hill, at Tusculum and Tibur, on the promontory of Misenum, and at Puteoli and Baiaa, as proofs of a love of a heroic poem, in which Ovid's friend Pedo Albinovanus describes the deeds of Germanicus, likewise describes the unfortunate passage of the Ems (Fed. Albinov., Elegice, Amst. 1703, p. 172). Seneca considers this description of the stormy waters as more picturesque than any passage to be found in the writings of the other Roman poets. He remarks, however : Latini dedamatores in Oceani descriptione non nimis vigu- erunt ; nam aut tumide scripserunt aid curiose. * Curt, in Alex. Hagno., vi. 16. Compare Droysen, Gesch. Aleoo anders des Grossen, 1833, s. 265. In Qucest. Natur., lib. iii. c. 27-30, pp. 677-686, ed. Lips. 1741, of the too rhetorical Lucius Annaeus Seneca, there is a remarkable description of one of the several instances of the destruction of an originally pure and subsequently sinful race, by ail almost universal deluge, commencing with the words, Cum fatalis dief Wilhelm Grimm to myself, dated October, 1845. In a very old Anglo-Saxon poem on the names of the Eunes, first made known by Hickes, we find the following character- istic description of the birch-tree : " Beorc is beautiful in its branches : it, rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and fro by the breath of heaven." The greeting of the day is simple and noble : " The day is the messenger of the Lord, dear to man, the glorious light of God, a joy and trusting comfort to rich and poor, beneficent to all !" See also Wilhelm Grimm, Ueber deutsche Rumn, 1821, s. 94, 225, and 234. 402 COSMOS. be gifted with voice, form a striking contrast with the still life of the silent plants, and constitute the ever-animated principle of the landscape. " Ancient poetry delights in considering natural life with human eyes, and thus lends to animals and sometimes even to plants, the senses and emotions of human beings, giving at the same time a fantastic and child-like in- terpretation of all that had been observed in their forms and habits. Herbs and flowers that may have been gathered and used by gods and heroes, are henceforward named after them. It seems, on reading the German Animal epos, as if the fra- grance of some ancient forest were wafted from its pages. "* We might formerly have been disposed to number amongst the memorials of the Germanic poetry of natural scenery, the remains of the Celto-Irish poems, which for half a century flitted like vapoury forms from nation to nation under the name of Ossian ; but the charm has vanished since the literary fraud of the talented Macpherson has been discovered by his publication of the fictitious Gaelic original text, which was a mere retranslation of the English work. There are un- doubtedly ancient Irish Fingal songs, designated as Finnian, which do not date prior to the age of Christianity, and, pro- bably, not even from so remote a period as the eighth century ; but these popular songs contain little of that sentimental deli- neation of nature, which imparted so powerful a charm to the productions of Macpherson. f We have already observed that, although sentimental and romantic excitement of feeling may be considered as in a high degree characteristic of the Indo- Germanic races of Northern Europe, it cannot be alone referred to climate, or, in other words, to a longing, increased by protracted deprivation. We have already remarked how the literature of the Indians and Persians, which has been developed under the genial glow of southern climes, presents the most charming descriptions, not only of organic but of inanimate nature ; of the transition from * Jacob Grimm, in Reinliart Fucks, 1834, s. ccxciv. (Compare also Christian Lassen, in his Indiscke Altertliumskunde, bd. i. 1843, s. 296.) + (Die Undchtheit der Lieder Ossiaris und des Macpherson'schen Ossiaris insbesonderc, von Talvj, 1840.) The first publication of -Ossian by Macpherson was in 1760. The Finnian songs are, indeed, heard in the Scottish Highlands, as well as in Ireland, but they have been carried, according to O'fteilly and Drummond, from the latter country to Scot- land. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ARIAN RACES. 403 drought to tropical rain ; of the appearance of the first cloud on the deep azure of the pure sky, when the long-desired Etesian winds are first heard to rustle amid the feathery foliage of the lofty palms. The present would appear a fitting place to enter somewhat further into the domain of Indian delineations of nature. " If we suppose,'' writes Lassen, in his admirable work on Indian antiquity,* " that a part of the Arian race emigrated to India from their native region in the north-western por- tion of the continent, they would have found themselves sur- rounded by a wholly unknown and marvellously luxuriant vegetation. The mildness of the climate, the fruitfulness of the soil, and its rich and spontaneous products, must have imparted a brighter colouring to the new life opened before them. Owing to the originally noble characteristics of. the Arian race, and the possession of superior mental endowments, in which lay the germ of all the nobleness and greatness to which the Indians have attained, the aspect of external nature gave rise in the minds of these nations to a deep meditation on the forces of nature, wrhich has proved the means of inducing that contemplative tendency, which we find so intimately interwoven in the most ancient poetry of the Indians. The all-powerful impression, thus produced on the minds of the people, is most clearly manifested in the fundamental dogma of their belief — the recognition of the divine in nature. The freedom from care, and the ease of supporting existence in such a climate, were also conducive to the same contemplative ten- dency. Who could devote themselves with less hindrance to a profound meditation of earthly life, of the condition of man after death, and of the divine essence, than the anchorites, dwelling amid forests,! the Brahmins of India, whose ancient * Lassen, Ind. Alterthumskunde, bd. i. s. 412-415. + Inspecting the Indian forest-hermits, Vanaprestiae (Sylvicolaa) and Sramani (a name which has been altered into Sarmani and Germani), see Lassen, " de nominibus quibus veteribus appellantur Indorum phi- losophi," in the Rhein. Museum fur Philologie, 1833, s. 178-180. Wilhelm Grimm, recognises something of Indian colouring in the de- scription of the magic forest, by a priest named Lambrecht, in the Song of Alexander, composed more than 1200 years ago, in immediate imi- tation of a French original. The hero comes to a wonderful wood, where maidens, adorned with supernatural charms, spring from large flowers. He remains so long with them, that both flowers and maidens fade away. 2D 2 404 COSMOS. schools constitute one of the most remarkable phenomena of Indian life, and must have exercised a special influence on the mental development of the whole race?" In referring here, as I did in my public lectures, under the guidance of my brother and other learned Sanscrit scholars, to individual instances of that animated and frequently expressed feeling for nature, which breathes through the descriptive portions of Indian poetry, I would begin with the Vedas, the most ancient and most valuable memorials of the civilisation o^ the East Arian nations. The main subject of these writings is the veneration and praise of nature. The hymns of the Rig- Veda contain the most charming descriptions of the " roseate hue of early dawn," and of the aspect of the " golden-handed sun." The great heroic poems of Ramayana and Mahabharata are of more recent date than the Vedas, but more ancient than the Puranas ; the adoration of nature being associated with the narrative in accordance with the character of epic creations. In the Vedas, the locality of the scenes which had been glori- fied by holy beings was seldom indicated, but in the heroie poems the descriptions of nature are mostly individual, and refer to definite localities, from whence they derive that animation and life which is ever imparted when the writer draws his materials from the impressions he has himself experienced. There is a rich tone of colouring throughout the description of the journey of Rama from Ayodhya to the residence of Dschanaka, in his life in the primitive forest, and in the picture of the anchorite life of the Panduides. The name of Kalidasa was early and widely known amongst the western nations. This great poet flourished in the highly cultivated court of Vikramaditya, and was consequently the contemporary of Virgil and Horace. The English and German translations of the Sacontala have added to the admiration which has been so freely yielded to this poet,*' whose tender- (Compare Gervinus, bd. i. s. 282, and Massmann's Denlcmaler, bd. i. &. 16.) These are the same as the maidens of Edrisi's eastern, magic island of Vacvac, called in the Latin version of the Masudi Chothbeddin,. puellas vasvakienses (Humboldt, Examen crit. de la Geographic, t. i. p. 53.) * Kalidasa lived at the court of Vikramaditya, about fifty-six years before our era. It is highly probable that the age of the two great heroic poems, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is much more ancient than NATURAL DESCRIPTIONS BY THE INDIANS. 405 ness of feeling, and richness of creative fancy, entitle him to n high place in the ranks of the poets of all nations. The charm of his descriptions of nature is strikingly exemplified In the beautiful drama of Vikrama and Urvasi, where the king wanders through the thickets of the forest in search of the nymph Urvasi; in the poem of The Seasons; and in that of The Messenger of Clouds (Meyliaduta). This last poem describes with admirable truth to nature the joy with which, after long drought, the first appearance of a rising cloud is hailed as the harbinger of the approaching season of rain. The expression, " truth to nature," of which I have just made use, can alone justify me in referring in connection with the Indian poem of The Messenger of tlie Clouds, to a picture of the beginning of the rainy season, which I sketched*' in South America, at a period when Kalidasa's Meghaduta was not known to me even through the translation of Chezy. The mysterious meteorological processes which take place in the atmosphere in the formation of vapours, in the form of the •clouds, and in the luminous electric phenomena, are the same between the tropics in both continents ; and the idealising art, whose province it is to exalt reality into a picture, will lose none of its charm from the fact that the analysing spirit of observation of a later age may have succeeded in confirming the truthfulness of an ancient and simply graphic delineation. We now turn from the East Arians or Brahminical that of the appearance of Buddha, that is to say, prior to the middle of the sixth century before Christ. (Burnouf, Bhagavata-Purana, t. i. p. cxi. and cxviii.; Lassen, Ind. Altertliuniskunde, bd. i. s. 356 and 492.) George Forster, by the translation of Sakuntala, i. e., by his elegant German translation of the English version of Sir William Jones (1791) contributed very considerably to the enthusiasm for Indian poetry which then first shewed itself in Germany. I take pleasure in recalling some admirable lines of Gothe's, which appeared in 1792:— " Willst du die Bliithe des friihen, die Friichtc des spateren Jahres, Willst du was reizt nnd entziickt, willst du, was sattigt und nlihrt. Willst du den Himmcl, die Erde mit eineni Namen begreifen ; Nenn' ich Sakontala, Dich, und so ist alles gesagt." The most recent German translation of this Indian drama is that by Otto Bohtlingk (Bonn, 1842), from the important original text dis- covered by Brockhaus. * Humboldt, (Ueber Steppen und W listen), in the Ansicliten der Xatur, 2te Ausgabe, 1826, bd. i. s. 33-37. 406 COSMOS. Indians, and the marked bent of their minds towards the contemplation of the picturesque beauties of nature,*' to the West Arians or Persians, who had separated in different parts of the Northern Zend, and who were originally disposed * In order to render more complete the small portion of the text which belongs to Indian literature, and to enable me, (as I did before with relation to Greek and Roman literature,) to indicate the different works referred to, I will here introduce some notices on the more general consideration of the love of nature evinced by Indian writers, and kindly communicated to me in manuscript by Herr Theodor Goldstucker, a dis- tinguished and philosophical scholar thoroughly versed in Indian poetiy : " Among all the influences affecting the intellectual development of the Indian nation, the first and most important appears to me to have been that which was exercised by the rich aspect of the country. A deep sentiment for nature has at all times been a fundamental characteristic of the Indian mind. Three successive epochs may be pointed out in which this feeling has manifested itself. Each of these has its determined cha- racter deep!}' implanted in the mode of life and tendencies of the people. A few examples may therefore suffice to indicate the activity of the Indian imagination, which has been evinced for nearly three thousand years. The first epoch of the expression of a vivid feeling for nature is manifested in the Yedas; and here we would refer in the Rigveda to the sublime and simple descriptions of the dawn of day (JKiffveda-Sanhitd, ed. Rosen, 1838, Hymn xlvi. p. 88; Hymn xlviii. p. 92; Hymn xoii. p. 184; Hymn cxiii. p. 233: see also Hofer, Ind. Gediclite, 1841, Lese i. s. 3) and of l the golden-handed sun,' (Rigveda- Sanlrita, Hymn xxii. p. 31; Hymn xxxv. p. 65). The adoration of nature which was connected here, as in other nations, with an early stage of the religious belief, has in the Yedas a peculiar significance, and is always brought into the most intimate connection with the external and internal life of man. The second epoch is very different. In it a popular mythology was formed, and its object was to mould the sagas contained in the Vedas into a shape more easily comprehended by an age far removed in character from that which had gone by, and to asso- ciate them with historical events which were elevated to the domain of mythology. The two great heroic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabliarata, belong to this second epoch. The last-named poem had also the additional object of rendering the Brahmins the most influen- tial of the four ancient Indian castes. The Ramayana is therefore the more beautiful poem of the two : it is richer in natural feeling, and has kept within the domain of poetry, not having been obliged to take up elements alien and almost hostile to it. In both poems, nature does not, as in the Yedas, constitute the whole picture, but only a part of it. Two points essentially distinguish the conception of nature at the period of the heroic poems from that which the Yedas exhibit, without reference to the difference which separates the language of adoration from that of narrative. One of these points is the localisation of the descriptions NATURAL DESCRIPTIONS BY THE INDIANS. 407 to combine a spiritualised adoration of nature with the dual- istie belief in Ahrimanes and Ormuzd. What we usually term Persian literature does not go further back than the time of the Sassanides ; the most ancient monuments of their as for instance, according to Wilhelm von Schlegel, in the first book of the Ramayana, or Balakanda, and in the second book, or AyodliyaTcanda : see also on the differences between these two great epics Lassen, Ind. Altertliumskunde, bd. i. s. 482. The next point, closely connected with the first, refers to the subject which has enriched the natural description. Mythical narration, especially when of a historical cha- racter, necessarily gave rise to greater distinctness and localisation in the description of nature. All the writers of great epics, whether it be Yalmiki, who sings the deeds of Rama, or the authors of the Maliablia- rata, who collected the national traditions under the collective title of Vyasa, show themselves overpowered, as it were, by emotions con- nected with their descriptions of external nature. llama's journey from Ayodhya to Dschanaka's capital, his life in the forest, his expedition to Lanka (Ceylon), where the savage Havana, the robber of his bride, Sita, dwells, and the hermit life of the Panduides, furnish the poet with the opportunity of following the original bent of the Indian mind, and of blending with the narration of heroic deeds the rich pictures of a luxuriant nature. (Ramayana, eel. Schlegel, lib. i. cap. 26, v. 13-15: lib. ii. cap. 56, v. 6-11: compare Nalus, ed. Bopp, 1832, Ges. xii. v. 1-10). Another point in which the second epoch differs from that of the Vedas in regard to the feeling for external nature, is in the greater richness of the subject treated of, which is not like the first limited to the phenomena of the heavenly powers, but comprehends the whole of nature, — the heavens and the earth, with the world of plants and of ani- mals, in all its luxuriance and variety, and in its influence on the mind of men. In the third epoch of the poetic literature of India, if we except the Pur anas, which have the particular object of developing the religious principle in the minds of the different sects, external nature exercises undivided sway, but the descriptive portion of the poems is based on scientific and local observation. By way of specifying some of the great poems belonging to this epoch, we will mention the Bliatti- Icdvya (or Bhatti's poem), which, like the Ramayana, has for its sub- ject the exploits and adventures of Kama, and in which there occur successively several admirable descriptions of a forest life during a term of banishment, of the sea and of its beautiful shores, and of the breaking of the day in Ceylon (Lanka). (Bhatti-kavya, ed. Calc. P. i. canto vii. p. 432; canto x. p. 715; canto xi. p. 814. Compare also Funf Gesdnge des Bhatti-kavya, 1837, s. 1-18, by Professor Schiitz of Biele- feld; the agreeable description of the different periods of the day in Magha's Sisupalabdha, and the Naischada-tscharita of Sri Harscha, where, however, in the story of Nalus and Damayanti, the expression of the feeling for external nature passes into a vague exaggeration. This extravagance contrasts with the noble simplicity of the Ramayana, 408 COSMOS, poetry have perished. It was not until the country had been subjugated by the Arabs, and had lost its original character- istics, that it again acquired a national literature amongst the Samanides, Gaznevides, and Seldschukes. The flourishing period of their poetry extending from Firdusi to Hafiz and Dschami, scarcely lasted more than four or five hundred years, and hardly reaches to the time of the voyage of Vasco de Gama. We must not forget in seeking to trace the love of nature evinced by the Indians and Persians, that these nations, if we judge according to the amount of cultivation by which they are respectively characterised, appear to be separated alike by time and space. Persian literature belongs as for instance where Yisvamitra is described as leading his pupil to the shores of the Sona. (Sisupaladha, ed. Calc. pp. 298 and 372; compare Schiltz, op. cit. s. 25-28; Naischada-tscharita, ed. Calc. P. 1, v. 77-129; and Ramayana, ed. Schlegel, lib. 1, cap. 35, v. 15-18.) Kalidasa, the celebrated author of Sakuntala, has a masterly manner of representing the influence which the aspect of nature exercises on the minds and feelings of lovers. The forest scene which he has pourtrayed in the drama of Vikrama and Urvasi may rank amongst the finest poetic creations of any period. (Vikramorvasi, ed. Calc. 1830, p. 71; see the translation in Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, Calc. 1827, vol. ii. p. 63.) Particular reference should be made in the poem of The Seasons, to the passages referring to the rainy season and to spring. (Ritusanhdraj ed. Bohlcn, 1840, pp. 11-18 and 37-45, and s. 80-88, 1 07--1 14 of Bohlen's translation.) In the Messenger of Clouds, likewise the work of Kalidasa, the influence of external nature on the feelings of men is also the leading subject of the composition. This poem (the Meghaduta, or Messenger of Clouds, which has been edited by Gildemeister and Wilson, and translated both by Wilson and by Chezy) describes the grief of an exile on the mountain Ramagiri. In his 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, and describes to the cloud the path which it must pursue, depicting the landscape as it would be 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 highest praise must be awarded to the Gitagovinda of Dschayadeva. (Riickert, in the Zeit- schrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, bd. i. 1837, s. 129-173; Gitagovinda Jayadevce poetce indici drama lyricum} ed. Chr. Lassen, 1836.) We possess a masterly rythmical translation of this poem by Riickert, which is one of the most pleasing, and at the same time one of the most difficult in the whole literature of the Indians. The spirit of the original is rendered with admirable fidelity, whilst a vivid concep- tion of nature animates every part of this great composition. NATURAL DESCRIPTIONS IN THE PERSIAN WRITERS. 409 to the middle ages, whilst the great literature of India apper- tains in the strictest sense to antiquity. In the Iranian elevated plateaux nature has not the same luxuriance of arborescent vegetation, or the remarkable diversity of form and colour, by which the soil of Hiudostan is embel- lished. The chain of the Vindhya, which long continued to be the boundary line of the East Arian nations, falls within the tropical region, whilst the whole of Persia is situated beyond the tropics, and a portion of its poetry belongs even to the northern districts of Balkh and Fergana. The four paradises celebrated by the Persian poets,* were the pleasant valley of Soghd uear Samarcand, Maschanrud near Ramadan, Scha'abi Bowan near KaVeh Sofid in Fars, and Ghute, the plain of Damascus. Both Iran and Turaii are wanting in woodland scenery, and also therefore in the hermit life of the forest, which exercised so powerful an in- fluence 011 the imagination of the Indian poets. Gardens refreshed by cool springs, and filled with roses and fruit-trees, can form no substitute for the wild and grand natural sceneiy of Hindostan. It is no wonder then that the descriptive poetry of Persia was less fresh and animated, and that it was often heavy and overcharged with artificial adornment. If in accordance with the opinion of the Persians themselves, we award the highest praise to that which we may designate by the terms spirit and wit, we must limit our admiration to the productiveness of the Persian poets, and to the infinite diver- sity of forms imparted to the materials which they employ; depth and earnestness of feeling are wholly absent from their writings.f Descriptions of natural scenery do but rarely interrupt the narrative in the historical or national epos of Firdusi. It seems to me that there is much beauty and local truthful- ness in the description of the mildness of the climate and the force of the vegetation, extolled in the praise of the coast-land of Mazanderan, which is put into the mouth of a wandering bard. The king Kei Kawus is represented as being excited by this praise to enter upon an expedition to the Caspian Sea, * Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of London, vol. x. 1841, pp. 2, 3; RUckert, Makamen Hariri's, s. 261. t Gothe, in his Commentar zum west-ostliclien Divan, bd. vi. 1828, A. 73, 78, and 111. 410 COSMOS. and even to attempt a new conquest.* The poems on Spring by Enweri, Dschelaleddin Riimi (who is esteemed the greatest mystic poet of the East), Adhad, and the half- Indian Feisi, generally breathe a tone of freshness and life, although a petty striving to play on words not unfrequently jars unpleasantly on the senses.f As Joseph von Hammer has remarked, in his great work on. the history of Persian poetry, Sadi in his Bostan and Gulistan (Fruit and Rose Gardens) may be regarded as indicating an age of ethical teaching, whilst Hafiz, whose joyous views of life have caused him to be compared to Horace, may be considered by his love-songs as the type of a high development of lyrical art; but that in both bombastic af- fectation too frequently mars the descriptions of nature. J The darling subject of Persian poetry, the " loves of the night- ingale and the rose," recurs with wearying frequency, and a genuine love*of nature is lost in the East amid the artificial conventionalities of the language of flowers. On passing northward from the Iranian plateaux through Turan (Tuirja§ in the Zend) to the Uralian Mountains, which separate Europe and Asia, we arrive at the primitive seat of the Finnish race ; for the Ural is as much a land of the ancient Fins as the Altai is of the ancient Turks. Among the Finnish tribes who have settled far to the west in the low- * See Le Livre des Rois, public par Jules Mohl, t. i. 1838, p. 487. ^ See Jos. von Hammer, Gesch. der schonen Redekunste Persiens, 1818, s. 96 concerning Ewhadeddin Enweri, who lived in the twelfth cen- tury, and in whose poem on the Schedschai a remarkable allusion has been discovered to the mutual attraction of the heavenly bodies; s. 183, con- cerning Dschelaleddin Rumi, the mystic; s. 259, concerning Dschelaled- din Ahdad; and s. 403, concerning Feisi, who stood forth at the court of Akbar as a defender of the religion of Brahma, and in whose Ghazids there breathes an Indian tenderness of feeling. J " Night comes on when the ink-bottle of heaven is overturned," is the inelegant 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 Asterabad, makes the disk of the moon glow with heat, and regards the evening dew as " the sweat of the moon." (Jos. von Hammer^ s, 247 and 371.) § Tuirja or Turan are names whose etymology is still unknown. Burnouf (Yacna, t. i. pp. 427-430) has acutely called attention to the Bactrian Satrapy of Turiua or Turiva mentioned in Strabo (lib. xi. p. 517, Gas.); Du Theil and Groskurd would, however, substitute the reading of Tapyria; see the work of the latter, th. ii. s. 410. NATURAL DESCRIPTIONS IN THE HEBREW WRITERS. 411 lands of Europe, Elias Lonnrot has collected from the lips of the Karelians and the country people of Olonetz, a large number of Finnish songs, in which " there breathes." accord- ing to the expression of Jacob Grimm, "an animated love of nature rarely to be met with in any poetiy but that of India."* An ancient epos containing nearly three thousand verses treats of a fight between the Fins and Laps, and the fate of a demi- god named Vaino. It gives an interesting account of Fin- nish country life, especially in that portion of the work where Ilmarine, the wife of the smith, sends her flocks into the woods, and offers up prayers for their safety. Few races exhibit greater or more remarkable differences in mental cul- tivation, and in the direction of their feelings, according as they have been determined by the degeneration of servitude, war- like ferocity, or a continual striving for political freedom, than the Fins, who have been so variously subdivided, although retaining kindred languages. In evidence of this, wre need only refer to the now peaceful population amongst whom the epos above referred to was found, to the Huns, once cele- brated for conquests that disturbed the then existing order of things, and who have long been confounded with the Monguls, and lastly, to a great and noble people — the Magyars. After having considered the extent to which intensity in the love of nature, and animation in the mode of its expres- sion may be ascribed to differences of race, to the peculiar in- fluence of the configuration of the soil, the form of govern- ment, and the character of religious belief, it now remains for us to throw a glance over those nations of Asia who offer the strongest contrast to the Arian or Indo- Germanic races, or in other words, to the Indians and Persians. The Semitic or Aramaeic nations afford evidence of a pro- found sentiment of love for nature, in the most ancient and venerable monuments of their poetic feeling and creative fancy. This sentiment is nobly and vividly manifested in their pastoral effusions, in their hymns and choral songs, in all the splendour of lyric poetry in the Psalms of David, and in the schools of the seers and prophets, whose exalted inspiration almost wholly removed from the past, turns its prophetic aspirations to the future. The Hebraic poetry, besides all its innate exalted sublimity, * Ueoer ein finnisclics Epos, Jacob Grimm, 1845, s. o. 412 COSMOS. presents the nations of the West with the special attraction of being interwoven with numerous reminiscences connected with the local seat of the religion professed by the followers of the three most widely diffused forms of belief, Judaism, Christianity, and Mahomedanism. Thus missions, favoured by the spirit of commerce, and the thirst for conquest evinced by maritime nations, have combined to bear the geographical names and natural descriptions of the East as they are pre- served to us in the books of the Old Testament, far into the forests of the New World, and to the remote islands of the Pacific. It is a characteristic of the poetry of the Hebrews, that as a reflex of monotheism it always embraces the universe in its unity, comprising both terrestrial life and the luminous realms of space. It dwells but rarely on the individuality of phenomena, preferring the contemplation of great masses. The Hebrew poet does not depict nature as a self- dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, but always as in rela- tion and subjection to a higher spiritual power. Nature is to liim a work of creation and order, the living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in the visible world. Hence the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews, from the very nature of its •subject, is grand and solemn, and when it treats of the earthly condition of mankind, is full of sad and pensive longing. It is worthy of remark that Hebrew poetry, notwithstanding its grandeur, and the lofty tone of exaltation to which it is often elevated by the charm of music, scarcely ever loses the restraint of measure, as does the poetry of India. De- voted to the pure contemplation of the Divinity, it remains clear and simple in the midst of the most figurative forms of expression, delighting in comparisons which recur with almost rhythmical regularity. As descriptions of nature, the writings of the Old Testa- ment are a faithful reflection of the character of the country in which they were composed, of the alternations of barren- ness and fruitfulness, and of the alpine forests by which the land of Palestine was characterised. They describe in their Tegular succession, the relations of the climate, the manners of this people of herdsmen, and their hereditary aversion to agri- cultural pursuits. The epic or historical narratives are marked by a graceful simplicity, almost more unadorned than those HEBREW POETRY. 413 of Herodotus, and most true to nature ; a point on which the unanimous testimony of modern travellers may be received as conclusive, owing to the inconsiderable changes effected in. the course of ages in the manners and habits of a nomadic- people. Their lyrical poetry is more adorned, and developes a rich and animated conception of the life of nature. It might almost be said that one single psalm (the 104th) represents the image of the whole Cosmos: — u Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment : who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain : Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters : who maketh the clouds his chariot : who wralketh upon, the wings of the wind : Who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever. He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field : the wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that lie may bring forth food out of the earth ; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. The trees of the Lord arc full of sap ; the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted ; Where the birds make their nests : as for the stork, the fir-trees are her house." " The great and wide sea" is then described, "wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein." The description of the heavenly bodies renders this picture of nature complete: — *' He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night : wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour unto the evening." We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole universe — the heavens and the earth — sketched with a few bold touches. The calm and toilsome labour of man, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, when his daily work is done, is here contrasted with the moving life of the elements of nature. This contrast and 414 COSMOS. generalisation in the conception of the mutual action of natural phenomena, and this retrospection of an omnipresent invisible power, which can renew the earth or crumble it to dust, constitute a solemn and exalted rather than a glowing and gentle form of poetic creation. Similar views of the Cosmos occur repeatedly in the Psalms*' (Psalm Ixv. 7-14, and Ixxiv. 15-17), and most fully perhaps in the 37th chapter of the ancient, if not ante-mosaic Book of Job. The meteorological processes which take place in the atmosphere, the formation and solution of vapour, according to the changing direction of the wind, the play of its colours, the generation of hail and of the rolling thunder are described with individualising accuracy; and many questions are pro- pounded which we in the present state of our physical knowledge may indeed be able to express under more scientific defini- tions, but scarcely to answer satisfactorily. The Book of Job is generally regarded as the most perfect specimen of the poetry of the Hebrews. It is alike picturesque in the delineation of individual phenomena, and artistically skilful in the didactic arrangement of the whole work. In all the modern languages into which the Book of Job has been translated, its images drawn from the natural scenery of the East, leave a deep im- pression on the mind. " The Lord walketh on the heights of the wraters, on the ridges of the waves towering high beneath the force of the wind." " The morning red has coloured the margins of the earth, and variously formed the covering of clouds, as the hand of man moulds the yielding clay." The habits of animals are described, as for instance those of the wild ass, the horse, the buffalo, the rhinoceros, and the croco- dile, the eagle, and the ostrich. We see " the pure ether spread during the scorching heat of the south wind, as a melted mirror over the parched desert. "f Where nature has * Noble echoes of the ancient Hebraic poetry are found in the eleventh century, in the hymns of the Spanish Synagogue poet, Salome ben Jehudah Gabirol, which contain a poetic paraphrase of the pseudo-Aris- totelian book, I)e Mundo. See Die religiose Poesie der Judcn in Spamen, by Michael Sachs, 1845, s. 7, 217, and 229. The sketches drawn from nature, and found in the writings of Mose ben Jakob ben Esra (s. 69, 77, and 285), are full of vigour and grandeur. *h I have taken the passages in the Book of Job from the translation and exposition of Umbreit (1824), s. xxix.-xlii. and 290-314. (Com- XITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 415 but sparingly bestowed her gifts, the senses of man are sharp- ened, and he marks every change in the moving clouds of the atmosphere around him, tracing in the solitude of the dreary desert, as on the face of the deep and moving sea, every phenomenon through its varied changes, back to the signs by which its coming was proclaimed. The climate of Palestine, especially in the arid and rocky portions of the country, is peculiarly adapted to give rise to such observations. The poetic literature of the Hebrews is not deficient in variety of form; for whilst the Hebrew poetry breathes a tone of warlike enthusiasm from Joshua to Samuel, the little book of the gleaner Ruth presents us with a charm- ing and exquisitely simple picture of nature. Gothe,* at the period of his enthusiasm for the East, spoke of it u as the loveliest specimen of epic and idyl poetry which we possess." Even in more recent times, we observe in the earliest literature of the Arabs, a faint reflection of that grand con- templative consideration of nature, which was an original characteristic of the Semitic races. I would here refer to the picturesque delineation of Bedouin desert life, which the gram- marian Asmai has associated with the great name of Antar, and has interwoven with other pre-mahomedan sagas of heroic deeds into one great work. The principal character in this romantic novel is the Antar (of the race of Abs, and son of the princely leader Scheddad and of a black slave,) whose verses have been preserved among the prize poems (Moallakdt\ hung up in the Kaaba. The learned English translator Terrick Hamilton, has remarked the biblical tone which breathes through the style of Antar.* Asmai makes the son of the pare generally (resenius, 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 Job, is that of the crocodile (xl. 25 — xli. 26), and yet it contains one of the evidences of the writer being him- self a native of Palestine. (Umbreit, s. xli. and 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 such strangely formed animals should have spread into the contiguous region of Palestine. * Gothe, in his Commentar zum west-ostlichen Divan, s. 8. 416 COSMOS. desert go to Constantinople ; and thus a picturesque contrast of Greek culture and nomadic ruggedness is introduced. The small space occupied in the earliest Arabic poems by natural delineations of the country, will excite but little surprise when we remember, as has been remarked by my friend Freytag of Bonn, who is so celebrated for his knowledge of this branch of literature, that the principal subjects of these poems are narrations of deeds of arms, and praise of hospitality and fidelity, and that scarcely any of the bards were natives of Arabia-Felix. A wearying uniformity of grassy plains and sandy deserts could not excite a love of nature, except under peculiar and rare conditions of mind. Where the soil is not adorned by woods and forests, the phenomena of the atmosphere, as winds, storms, and the long- wished- for rain, occupy the mind more strongly, as we have already remarked. For the sake of referring to a natural image of this kind in. the Arabian poets, I would especially notice Antar' s Moattakat, which describes the meadows ren- dered fruitful by rain, and visited by swarms of buzzing insects ; f the fine description of storms in Amru'l Kais, and in the 7th book of the celebrated Hamasa ; J and, lastly, the picture in the Nalegha Dliobyani of the rising of the Eu- phrates, when its waves bear in their course masses of reeds and trunks of trees. § The 8th book of Hamasa, inscribed " Travel and Sleepiness," naturally attracted my special atten- * 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; Rosenmiiller, in the Charakteren der vornehmsten Dichter oiler Nationen, bd. v. (1798) s. 251. •h Antar -a cum scliol. Sunsenii, ed. Menil., 1816, v. 15. J Amrulkeisi Moallakat, ed. E G. Hengstenberg, 1823; Hamasa, ed Freytag, P. i. 1828, lib. vii. p. 785. Compare also the pleasing work, entitled Amrilkais, the Poet and King, translated by Fr. Riickert, 1843, pp. 29 and 62, where southern showers of rain are twice described with exceeding truth to nature. The royal poet visited the court of the Emperor Justinian, several years before the birth of Mohammed, to seek aid against his enemies. See Le Divan d'Amro 'lka/is, accompagne d'une traduction par le Baron Mac Quckin de Slane, 1837, p. -111. § Nabtghdh, Dliobyani, in Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestom. arabe, 1806, t. iii. p. 47. On the early Arabian literature generally, see Weil's Die poet. Litteratur der Araber vor Mohammed, 1837, s. 15 and 90, as well as Freytag's Darstellung der arabLchen Verskunst, 1830, s. 372-392. We GENERAL RETROSPECT. 417 tion; I soon found, however, that " sleepiness"* was limited to the first fragment of the book, and that the choice of the subject was the more excusable, as the composition is referred to a night journey on a camel. I have endeavoured in this section to manifest in a fragment- ary manner, the different influence exercised by the external world, or the aspect of animate and inanimate nature at different periods of time, on the thoughts and mode of feeling of different races. I have extracted from the history of literature the cha- racteristic expressions of the love of nature. My object, there- fore, as throughout the \vhole of this work, has been to give general rather than complete views, by the selection of examples illustrative of the peculiar characteristics of different epochs and different races of men. I have noticed the changes manifested in the literature of the Greeks and Romans, to the gradual decay of those feelings which gave an imperishable lustre to classical an- tiquity in the West, and I have traced in the writings of the early fathers of the Christian church, the beautiful expression of a love of nature, developed in the calm seclusion of an anchorite life. In considering the Indo-Germanic races (using the term in its strictest definition), we have passed from the German poetry of the middle ages, to that of the highly civilised ancient East Arians (Indians) and of the less favoured West Arians or inhabitants of ancient Iran. After a rapid glance at the Celtic Gaelic songs, and the recently discovered Finnish epos, I have deli- neated the rich life of nature that breathes forth from the exalted compositions of the Hebrews and Arabs — races of Semitic or Aramocic origin; and thus we have traced the images reflected by the external world on the imagination of nations dwelling in the north and south-east of Europe, in Western Asia, in the Persian plateaux, and in the Indian tropical regions. I have been induced to pursue this course from the idea that in order to comprehend nature in all its vast sublimity, it would be necessary to present it under a two-fold aspect, first objectively as an actual phenomenon, and next subjectively as it is reflected in the feelings of mankind. may soon expect an excellent and complete version of the Arabian poetry descriptive of nature, in the writings of Hamasa, from our great poet "Fricdrich Ruckert. * Hamasce, Carmina, ed. Freytag, P. i. 1828, p. 788, " Here finishes," it is said in p. 796, " the chapter on travel and sleepiness." 2 E 418 COSMOS. When the glory of the Aramseic, Greek, and Roman domi- nion—or I might almost say, when the ancient world had passed away, we find in the great and inspired founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional manifestations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the terrestrial life of nature, when- ever he abstracts himself from the passionate and subjec- tive control of that despondent mysticism, which constituted the general circle of his ideas. The period in which he lived followed immediately that of the decline of the Suabian Minne- singers, of whom I have already spoken. At the close of the first canto of his Purgatorio* Dante depicts with inimitable grace the morning fragrance, and the trembling light on the mirror of the gently moved and distant sea (il tremolar delict marina}-, and in the fifth canto, the bursting of the clouds, and the swelling of the rivers, when after the battle of Cam- paldino, the body of Buonconte da Montefeltro was lost in the Arno.f The entrance into the thick grove of the terrestrial paradise, is drawn from the poet's remembrance of the pine forest near Ravenna, " la pineta in sul lito di chiassi"\ where the matin song of the birds resounds through the leafy boughs. The local fidelity of this picture of nature contrasts in the celestial paradise with the " stream of light flashing innumerable sparks, § which fall into the flowers on the shore, and then, as * Dante., Purgatorio, canto i. y. 115: — " LT alba vinceva 1' ora mattutina Che fuggia 'nnanzi, si die di lontano Conobbi il tremolar della marina" .... *f- Purg., canto v., v. 109 — 127: — "Ben sai come nell' aer si raccoglio Quell' umido vapor, che in acqua riede, Tosto che sale, dove '1 freddo il coglie" . . . . £ Purg., canto xxviii. v. 1-24. § Parad., canto xxx. v. 61-69: — "E vidi lume in forma di riviera Fulvido di fulgori intra due rive Dipinte di rnirabil primavera. Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive E d' ogni parte si mettean ne' fiori. Quasi rubin, che oro circonscrive. Poi come inebriate dagli odori, Kiprofondavan se nel miro gurge E s' una entrava, un aJtra n' uscia fuori." DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE IN EARLY ITALIAN POETS 419 if inebriated with their sweet fragrance, plunge back into the stream, whilst others rise around them." It would almost seem as if this fiction had its origin in the poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent condition of the ocean, when luminous points appear to rise from the breaking waves, and spreading themselves over the surface of the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling stars. The remarkable conciseness of the style of the Divina Corn- media adds to the depth and earnestness of the impression which it produces. In lingering on Italian ground, although avoiding the fri- gid pastoral romances, I would here refer after Dante to the plaintive sonnet in which Petrarch describes the impression made on his mind by the charming valley of Vaucluse, after death had robbed him of Laura; the smaller poems of Boiardo, the friend of Hercules d'Este; and more recently, the stanzas of Vittoria Colonna.* I do not make any extracts from the Canzones of the Vita Nuova, because the similitudes and images which they contain do not belong to the purely natural range of terrestrial phenomena. * I would here refer to Boiardo's sonnet, beginning, 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 fine and very characteristic description of the country seat of Fracas- toro on the hill of Incassi (Mons Caphius), near Verona, is given by this writer, (who was equally distinguished in medicine, mathematics, and poetry), in his Naugerius de poetica dialogue. Hieron. Fracastorii Op. 1591, P. i. pp. 321-326. See also in a didactic poem by the same writer, lib. ii. v. 208--219 (Op. p. 636), the pleasing passage on the culture of the Citrus in Italy. 1 miss with astonishment any expression of feeling connected with the aspect of nature in the letters of Petrarch, either when, in 1315, (three years, therefore, before the death of Laura), he attempted the ascent of Mont Ventour from Vaucluse, in the eager hope of beholding from thence a part of his native land; when he ascended the banks of the Rhine to Cologne ; or when he visited the Gulf of Baiae. He lived more in the world of his classical remem- brances of Cicero and the Roman poets, or in the emotions of his ascetic melancholy, than in the actual scenes by which he was sur- rounded. (See Petrarclice Epist. de rebiis familiarilus, lib. iv. 1, v. 3 and 4- pp. 119, 156, and 161, ed. Lugdun. 1601). There is, how- ever, an exceedingly picturesque description of a great tempest which he observed near Naples in 1343 (lib. v. 5, p. 165). 2 E 2 420 COSMOS. When classical literature acquired a more generally diffused vigour by the intercourse suddenly opened with the politically degenerated Greeks, we meet with the earliest evidence of this better spirit in the works of Cardinal Bembo, the friend and counsellor of Raphael, and the patron of art ; for in the JEtna Dialogus, written in the youth of the author, there is a charm- ing and vivid sketch of the geographical distribution of the plants growing on the declivities of the mountain, from the rich corn-fields of Sicily to the snow-covered margin of the crater. The finished work of his maturer age, the Histories Vendee, characterises still more picturesquely the climate and vegetation of the New Continent. Everything concurred at this period to fill the imaginations of jnen with grand images of the suddenly extended bounda- ries of the known world, and of the enlargement of human powers, which had been of simultaneous occurrence. As, in antiquity, the Macedonian expeditions to Paropamisus, and the wooded alluvial valleys of Western Asia awakened impres- sions derived from the aspect of a richly adorned exotic nature, wiiose images were vividly reflected in the works 01 highly gifted writers, even for centuries afterwards ; so, in like manner, did the discovery of America act in exercising a second and stronger influence on the western nations than that of the crusades. The tropical world, with all the luxu- riance of its vegetation on the plains, with all the gradations of its varied organisms on the declivities of the Cordilleras, and with all the reminiscences of northern climates associated with the inhabited plateaux of Mexico, New Granada, and Quito, was now first revealed to the eyes of Europeans. Fancy, without whose aid no truly great work can succeed in the hands of man, lent a peculiar charm to the delineations of nature sketched by Columbus and Vespucci. The first of these discoverers is distinguished for his deep and earnest sen- timent of religion, as we find exemplified in his description of the mild sky of Paria, and of the mass of water of the Orinoco, which he believed to flow from the eastern paradise ; while the second is remarkable for the intimate acquaintance he evinces with the poets of ancient and modern times, as shown in his description of the Brazilian coast. The reli- gious sentiment thus early evinced by Columbus became converted, with increasing years, and under the .influence of DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY COLUMBUS. 421 the persecutions which he had to encounter, into a feeling of melancholy and morbid enthusiasm. In the heroic ages of the Portuguese and Castilian races it was not thirst for gold alone, as has been asserted from ignorance of the national character at that period, but rather a general spirit of daring, that led to the prosecution of dis- tant voyages. The names of Hayti, Cubagua, and Darien, acted on the imaginations of men in the beginning of the sixteenth century in the same manner as those of Tinian and Otaheite have done in more recent times, since Anson and Cook. If the narrations of far distant lands then drew the youth of the Spanish peninsula, Flanders, Lombardy, and Southern Ger- many, to rally around the victorious standard of an imperial leader on the ridges of the Andes, or the burning plains gf Uraba and Coro, the milder influence of a more modern civi- lisation, when all portions of the earth's surface were more generally accessible, gave other motives and directions to the restless longing for distant travels. A passionate love of the study of nature, which originated chiefly in the north, glowed in the breast of all ; intellectual expansion of views became associated with enlargement of knowledge; whilst the poetic and sentimental tone of feeling, peculiar to the epoch of which we speak, has, since the close of the last century, been identified with literary compositions, whose forms were unknown to former ages. On casting a retrospective glance on the great discoveries •which prepared the way for this modern tone of feeling, our attention is especially attracted by the descriptions of nature which we owe to the pen of Columbus. It is only recently that we have been in possession of his own ship's journal, his letters to the Chancellor Sanchez, to the Donna Juana de la Torre, governess of the Infant Don Juan, and to Queen Isabella. I have already attempted, in my critical investigation of the history of the geography of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies,* to show with what depth of feeling for nature the great discoverer was endowed, and how he described the earth and the new heaven opened to his eyes, (viage nuevo al VWPVO cielo i mundo quefasta entonces estaba en occulto,} with a beauty and simplicity of expression which can only be ade- * Humboldt, Examen critique de I'histoire de la Geographic du uouveau Continent t. iii. pp. 227-248, 422 COSMOS. quately appreciated by those who are conversant with the ancient vigour of the language at the period in which ho wrote. The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation ,*' the impene- trable thickets of the forests " in which one can scarcely dis- tinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves belong," the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the humid shores, and the rose-coloured flamingoes which, fishing at early morn at the mouth of the rivers, impart animation to the scenery — all in turn arrested the attention of the old mariner as he sailed along the shores of Cuba, between the small Lucayan islands and the Jardinillos, which I too have visited. Each newly discovered land seems to him more beautiful than the one last described, and he deplores his inability to find words in which to express the sweet impres- sions awakened in his mind. Wholly unacquainted with botany (although, through the influence of Arabian and Jew- ish physicians, some superficial knowledge of plants had been diffused in Spain), he was led, by a simple love of nature, to individualise all the unknown forms he beheld. Thus, in Cuba alone, he distinguishes seven or eight different species of palms, more beautiful and taller than the date-tree (varie- dades de palmas super lores a las nuestras ensu belleza y altura). He informs his learned friend Anghiera, that he has seen pines and palms (palmeta et pinetd) wonderfully associated together in one and the same plain; and he even so acutely observed the vegetation around him, that he was the first to notice that there were pines on the mountains of Cibao, whose fruits are not fir-cones but berries like the olives of the Axarafe de Sevilla; and further, as I have already remarked, Columbus* already separated the genus Podocarpus from the family of Abietineae. " The beauty of the new land," says the discoverer, "far surpasses the Campina de Cordova. The trees are bright, with an ever- verdant foliage, and are always laden with fruit. The plants on the ground are high and flowering. The air is warm as that of April in Castile, and the nightingale sings more melodiously than words can describe. At night the song of other smaller birds resounds sweetly, and I have also beard our grasshoppers and frogs. Once I came to a deeply * See p. 285, DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY COLUMBUS. 423 enclosed harbour and saw a high mountain that had never been seen by any mortal eye, and from whence gentle waters (Lindas aguas) flowed down. The mountain was covered with firs and variously-formed trees adorned with beautiful blos- soms. On sailing up the stream which empties itself into the bay, I was astonished at the cool shade, the clear crystal- like water, and the number of the singing birds. I felt as if I could never leave so charming a spot, as if a thousand tongues would fail to describe all these things, and as if my hand were spell-bound and refused to write, (para hacer relation a los Reyes de las cosas que man no lastaran mil lenguas a referilfa, ni la mano para lo escribir, que le parecia questaba encantado}"* We here learn from the journal of a wholly unlettered sea- man the power which the beauty of nature, in its individual forms, may exercise on a susceptible mind. Feelings ennoble language ; for the style of the Admiral especially when at the age of sixty-seven, on his fourth voyago, he relates his won- derful dream,! on the shore of Veragua, if not more eloquent, is at any rate more interesting than the allegorical, pastoral romances of Boccacio, and the two poems of Arcadia by San- nazaro and Sydney, than Garcilasso's Salicio y Nemoroso, or than the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor. The elegiac idyllic element unfortunately predominated too long in the literature of the Spaniards and Italians. It required all the freshness of delineation which characterised the adventures of Cervantes' Knight of La Mancha to atone for the Galatea of the same author. Pastoral romance, however it may be ennobled by the beauty of language and tenderness of sentiment manifested in the works of the above-named great writers, must, from its very nature, remain cold and wearisome, like the allegorical and artificial productions of the middle ages. Individuality of observation can alone lead to a truthful representation of * Journal of Columbus on his first voyage (Oct. 29, 1492; Nov. 25-29; Dec. 7-16; Dec. 21); see also his letter to Dona Maria de Guz- man, ama del Principe D. Juan, Dec. 1 500, in Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viayes que hicieron por mar los Espa^oles, t. i. pp. 43, Q5, 72, 82, 92, 100, and 266. •h Navarrete, op. cit., pp. 303-304, Carlo, del Almiranle a los Reyes escrna en Jamaica a 7 de Jidio, 1503) ; Humboldt, Examen wit., i. iii. pp. 231-236. 424 COSMOS. nature; thus it is supposed that the finest descriptive stanzas in the Gerusalemma Liberated may be traced to impressions derived from the poet's recollection of the beautiful scenery of Sorrento by which he was surrounded. • The power of stamping descriptions of nature with the im- press of faithful individuality, which springs from actual observation, is most richly displayed in the great national epic of Portuguese literature. It seems as if a perfumed Eastern air breathed throughout this poem, which was written under a tropical sky in the rocky grotto near Macao, and in the Moluccas. Although I would not venture to assume that my opinion could serve as a confirmation of the bold expres- sion of Friedrich Schlegel, that " the Lusiad of Camoens far surpasses Ariosto in richness of colour and luxuriance of fancy,"! I may be permitted to add, as an observer of nature, that in the descriptive portions of the work, the enthusiasm of the poet, the ornaments of diction, and the sweet tones of melancholy never impede the accurate representation of physical phenomena, but rather, as is always the case where art draws from a pure source, heighten the animated impres- sion of the greatness and truth of the delineations. Camoens abounds in inimitable descriptions of the never-ceasing con^ nection between the air and sea — between the varying form of the cloudy canopy, its meteorological processes, and the different conditions of the surface of the ocean. He describes this surface when, curled by gentle breezes, the short waves flash beneath the play of the reflected beams of light; and again, when the ships of Coelho and Paul de Gama contend in a fearful storm against the wildly-agitated elements.]: * Tasso, canto xvi. stanze 9-16. t See Friedrich Schlegel's Sdmmtl. WerJce, 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 82-84, which have not met with sufficient admiration, to justify this mythological dualism. Tethys avows, in a naive manner, but in. verses inspired by the noblest conception of poetry, " that she herself, Saturn, Jupiter, and all the host of gods, are vain fables, created by the blind delusion of mortals, and serving only to lend a charm to song — A Sancta Providencia que em Jupiter aqui se representa"* $ Os Lusiadas de Camoes, canto i. est 19; canto vi. est. 71-32. See also the comparison in the description of a tempest raging in a forest, . est. 35. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE IN CAMOENS* LTJSIAD. 425 Camoens is, in the strictest sense of the word, a great sea- painter. He had served as a soldier, and fought in the Em- pire of Morocco, at the foot of Atlas, in the Red Sea, and on the Persian Gulf; twice he had doubled the Cape, and, inspired by a deep love of nature, he passed sixteen years in observing the phenomena of the ocean on the Indian and Chinese shores. He describes the electric fires of St. Elmo, (the Castor and Pollux of the ancient Greek mariners,) " the living light,* sacred to the seaman." He depicts the threat- ening water-spout in its gradual development, "how the cloud woven from fine vapour revolves in a circle, and, letting down a slender tube, thirstily, as it were, sucks up the water, and how when the black cloud is filled, the foot of the cone recedes, and flying upwards to the sky, gives back in its flight, as fresh water, that which it had drawn from the waves with a surging noise. "f " Let the book-learned," says the poet, and his taunting words might almost be applied to the present age, "try to explain the hidden wonders of this world, since, trusting to reason and science alone, they are so ready to pronounce as false what is heard from the lips of the sailor, whose only guide is experience." The talent of the enthusiastic poet for describing nature is not limited to separate phenomena, but is very conspicuous in the passages in which he comprehends large masses at one glance. The third book sketches, in a few strokes, the form of Europe, J from the coldest north to " the Lusitanian realm, * The fire of St. Elmo, " o lume vivo que a maritima gente tern por eanto, em tempo de tormenta," (canto v. est. 18). One flame, the Helena of the Greek mariners, brings misfortune, (Plin. ii. 37) ; two liames, Castor and Pollux, appearing with a rustling noise, " like flut- tering birds," are good omens, (Stob., Eclog. Phys., i. p. 514; Seneca, Nat. Quasi., i. 1). On the eminently graphical character of Camoens' descriptions of nature, see the great Paris edition of 1818, in the Vida. de Canines f by Dom Joze Maria de Souza, p. cii. t The waterspout in canto v. est. 19-22, may be compared with the equally poetic and faithful description of Lucretius, vi. 423-442. On the fresh water, which, towards the close of the phenomenon, appears to fall from the upper part of the column of water, see Ogden On Waterspouts, (from observations made in 1820, during a voyage from Havannah to Norfolk,) in Silliman's American Journal of Science, vol. xxix. 1836, pp. 254-260. £ Canto iii. est. 7-21. In my reference? I have always followed the text of Camoens according to the editio princeps of 1572, which has been 426 COSMOS. and the strait where Hercules achieved his last labour." Allusion is constantly made to the manners and civilisation of the nations who inhabit this diversified portion of the earth. From the Prussians, Muscovites, and the races " que o Rheno frio lava" he hastens to the glorious plains of Hellas, " que creastes os peitos eloquentes, e os juizos de alta phantasia" In the tenth book he takes a more extended view. Tethys leads Gama to a high mountain, to reveal to him the secrets of the mechanism of the earth, (machina do mundo^) and to dis- close the course of the planets (according to the Ptolemaic hypothesis).^ It is a vision in the style of Dante, and as the earth forms the centre of the moving universe, all the knowledge then acquired concerning the countries already discovered, and their produce, is included in the description of the globe. f Europe is no longer, as in the third book, the sole object of attention, but all portions of the earth are, in turns, passed in review, even " the land of the Holy Cross" (Brazil) is named, and the coasts discovered by Magellan, " by birth but not by loyalty a son of Lusitania." If I have specially extolled Camoens as a sea painter, it was in order to indicate that the aspect of terrestrial life appears to have attracted his attention less powerfully, Sis- mondi has justly remarked that the whole poem bears no trace of graphical description of tropical vegetation, and its fiven afresh in the excellent and splendid editions of Dom Joze Maria de ouza-Botelho (Paris, 1818). In the German quotations I have gene- rally used the translation of Donner (1833). The principal aim of the Lusiad of Camoens is to do honour to his nation. It would be a monu- ment, well worthy of his fame, and of the nation whom he extols, 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 talented and deceased friend Gerard, which adorn the Souza edition, were executed in large dimen- sions, in fresco, on well-lighted 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 aquetle occulto e grande Cabo, a quern cliamais v6s outros Tormentor io") ; the murd er of Ignes de Castro, and the lovely Ilha de Venus, would all pro* duce the most admirable effect. * Canto x. est. 79-90 ; Camoens, like Yespucci, speaks of the part of the heavens nearest to the southern pole as poor in stars (canto v. est. 14). He is also acquainted with the ice of the southern seas (canto v. est. 27). t Canto x. est. 91-141. DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE IN ERCILLA's ARAUCANA. 427 peculiar physiognomy. Spices and other aromatic substances, together with useful products of commerce, are alone noticed. The episode of the magic island*1 certainly presents the most charming pictures of natural scenery, but the vegetation, as befits an Ilka de Venus, is composed of " myrtles, citrons, fragrant lemon-trees, and pomegranates," all belonging to the climate of Southern Europe. We find a greater sense of en- joyment from the littoral woods, and more attention devoted to the forms of the vegetable kingdom, in the writings of the greatest navigator of his day, Columbus; but then, it must be admitted, whilst the latter notes down in his journal the vivid impressions of each day as they arose, the poem of Camoens was written to do honour to the great achievements of the Por- tuguese. The poet, accustomed to harmonious sounds, could not either have felt much disposed to borrow from the language of the natives strange names of plants, or to have interwoven them in the description of landscapes, which were designed as backgrounds for the main subjects of which he treated. By the side of the image of the knightly Camoens has often been placed the equally romantic one of a Spanish warrior, who served under the banners of the great Emperor in Peru and Chili, and sang in those distant climes the deeds in which he had himself taken so honourable a share. But in the whole epic poem of the Araucana, by Don Alonso de Ercilla, the aspect of volcanoes covered with eternal snow, of torrid sylvan valleys, and of arms of the sea extending far into the land, has not been productive of any descriptions which may be regarded as graphical. The exaggerated praise which Cervantes takes occasion to expend on Ercillo in the ingenious satirical review of Don Quixote's books, is pro- bably merely the result of the rivalry subsisting between the Spanish and Italian schools of poetry, but it wrould almost appear to have deceived Voltaire and many modern critics. The Araucana is certainly penetrated by a noble feeling of nationality. The description of the manners of a wild race, who perish in struggling for the liberty of their country, is not * Canto ix. est. 51-63. (Consult Ludwig Kriegk, ScJiriften zur allgemeinen Erdkunde, 1840, s. 338.) The whole Ilha de Venus is an allegorical fable, as is clearly shown in est. 89; but the beginning of the relation of Dom Manoel's dream describes an Indian mountain and forest district (canto iv. est. 70). 428 COSMOS. devoid of animation, but Ercilla' s style is not smooth or easy, while it is overloaded with proper names, and is devoid of all trace of poetic enthusiasm.* This enthusiastic poetic inspiration is to be traced, how- ever, in many strophes of the Itomancero Ca bailer esco ; f in * A predilection for the old literature of Spain, and for the enchanting region in which the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla y Zufiiga was com- posed, has led me to read through the whole of this poem (which, unfortu- nately, comprises 42,000 verses) on two occasions, once in Peru, and again recently in Paris, when, by the kindness of a learned traveller, M. Ternaux Compans, I received, for the purpose of comparing it with Ercilla, a very scarce book, printed in 1596 at Lima, and containing the nineteen cantos of the Arauco domado (compuesto por el Licenciado Pedro de Otia natural de los Infantes de Engol en Chile). Of the epic poem of Ercilla, which Yoltaire regarded as an Iliad, and Sismondi as a news- paper in rhyme, the first fifteen cantos were composed between 1555 and 1563, and were published in 1569; the later cantos were first printed in 1590, only six years before the wretched 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 also the principal personage. Ercilla is unaffected and true-hearted, especially in those parts of his composition which he wrote in the field, mostly on the bark of trees and the skins of animals, for want of paper. The description of his poverty, and of the ingratitude which he like others experienced at the court of King Philip, is extremely touching, particularly at the close of the 37th canto : " Climas pase, mude constelaciones, Golfos innavegables navegando, Estendiendo Senor, vuestra corona Hasta casi la austral frigida zona." ' ' The flower of my life is past ; led by a late-earned experience 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 the delineation of the ocean, (P. i. pp. 80, 135, and 173; P. ii. pp. 130 and 161, in the edition of 1733,) are wholly devoid of life and animation. Geographical registers of words are accumulated in such a manner that, in canto xxvii., twenty-seven proper names follow each other in a single stanza of eight lines. Part ii. of the Araucana is not by Ercilla, but is a continuation, in twenty cantos, by Diego de Santistevan Osorio, appended to the thirty-seven cantos of Ercilla. •{• See in Romancero de Romances cdballerescos e Mstoricos ordenado, por D. Augustin Duran, P. i. p. 189, and P. ii. p. 237, the fine strophes commencing 1 ba declinando el dia — Su curso y ligeras lioras, and those on the flight of King Rodrigo, beginning " Cuando las pintados aves Mudas estdn^ y la tierra A tenta escucha los rioz" CALDERON. 429 the religious melancholy pervading the writings of Fray Luis de Leon, as, for instance, in his description of the charming night, when he celebrates the eternal lights (resplandores eternales) of the starry heavens ;* and in the compositions of Calderon. " At the period when Spanish comedy had at- tained its fullest development," says my Mend Ludwig Tieck, one of the profoundest critics of dramatic literature, "we often find, in the romanesque and lyrical metre of Calderon and his cotemporaries, dazzlingiy beautiful desciiptions of the sea, of mountains, gardens, and sylvan valleys, but these are always so interwoven with allegorical allusions, and adorned with so much artificial brilliancy, that we feel we are reading harmoniously rhythmical descriptions, recurring continually with only slight variations, rather than as if we could breathe the free air of nature, or feel the reality of the mountain breath and the valley's shade." In the play of Life is a Dream, (la vida es sueno,) Calderon makes the Prince Sigis- muiid lament the misery of his captivity in a number of grace- fully drawn contrasts with the freedom of all organic nature. He depicts birds " which flit with rapid wings across the wide expanse of heaven ;" fishes, "which but just emerged from the mud and sand, seek the wide ocean, whose boundlessness seems scarcely sufficient for their bold course. Even the stream which winds its tortuous way among flowers finds a free passage across the meadow; and I," cries Sigismund, in despair, " I who have more life than these, and a freer spirit, must content myself with less freedom!" In the same manner Don Fernando speaks to the King of Fez, in The Steadfast Prince, although the style is often disfigured by antitheses, witty comparisons, and artificially turned phrases, from the school of Gongora.f I have referred to these indi- vidual examples because they show, in dramatic poetry, which * Fray Luis de Leon, Obras proprias y traducciones, dedicadas a Don Pedro Portocarero, 1681, p. 120: Noche serena. A deep feeling for nature also manifests itself occasionally in the ancient mystic poetry of the Spaniards (as, for instance, in Fray Luis de Granada, Santa Teresa de Jesus, and Mai on de Chaide) ; but the natural pictures are generally only the external investment under which the ideal religious conception is symbolised. + Calderon, in The Steadfast Prince, on the approach of the fleet, Act i. scene 1 ; and on the sovereignty of the wild beasts in the forests, Act iii. scene 2. 430 COSMOS. treats chiefly of events, passions, and characters, that descrip- tions become merely the reflections, as it were, of the disposi- tion and tone of feeling of the principal personages. Shake- speare who, in the hurry of his animated action, has hardly ever time or opportunity for entering deliberately into the descriptions of natural scenery, yet paints them by accidental reference, and in allusion to the feelings of the principal characters, in such a manner that we seem to see them, and live in them. Thus, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, we live in the wood; and in the closing scenes of the Merchant of Venice, we see the moonshine which brightens the warm summer's night, without there being actually any direct description of either. " A true description of nature occurs, however, in King Lear, where the seemingly mad Edgar represents to his blind father, Gloucester, while on the plain, that they are ascending Dover Cliff. The description of the view, on looking into the depths below, actually excites a feeling of giddiness."* If, in Shakespeare, the inward animation of the feelings, and the grand simplicity of the language, gave such a won- derful degree of life-like truth and individuality to the expres- sion of nature; in Milton's exalted poem of Paradise Lost the descriptions arev from the very nature of the subject, more magnificent than graphic. The whole richness of the poet's fancy and diction is lavished on the descriptions of the luxu- riant beauty of Paradise, but, as in Thomson's charming didac- tic poem of The Seasons, vegetation could only be sketched in general and more indefinite outlines. According to the judgment of critics deeply versed in Indian poetry, Kalidasa's poem on a similar subject, the Ritusanhara, which was writ- ten more than fifteen hundred years earlier, individualises, with greater vividness, the powerful vegetation of tropical regions, but it wants the charm which, in Thomson's work, springs from the more varied division of the year in northern latitudes, as the transition of the autumn rich in fruits to the winter, and of the winter to the reanimating season of spring; and from the images which may thus be drawn of the labours or pleasurable pursuits of men in each part of the year. * I have taken the passages distinguished in the text by marks of quotation, and relating to Calderon and Shakespeare, from unpublished letters, addressed to myself by Ludwig Tieck. MODERN PKOSE WRITERS. 431 If we proceed to a period nearer our own time, we observe that since the latter half of the eighteenth century delineative prose especially has developed itself with peculiar vigour. Although the general mass of knowledge has been so excessively enlarged from the universally extended study of nature, it does not appear that in those susceptible of a higher degree of poetic inspiration, intellectual contempla- tion has sunk under the weight of accumulated knowledge, but rather that as a result of poetic spontaneity, it has gained in comprehensiveness and elevation — and learning how t? penetrate deeper into the structure of the earth's crust, has explored in the mountain masses of our planet the stratified sepulchres of extinct organisms, and traced the geographical distribution of animals and plants and the mutual connection of races. Thus, amongst those who were the first by an exciting appeal to the imaginative faculties, powerfully to animate the sentiment of enjoyment derived from communion with nature, and consequently also to give impetus to its inseparable accompaniment — the love of distant travels, — we may mention in France Jean Jacques Rousseau, Buffon, and Bemardin de St. Pierre, and, exceptionally to include a still living author, I would name my old friend Auguste de Chateaubriand;* in Great Britain, the intellectual Playfair; and in Germany, Cook's companion on his second voyage of circumnavigation, the eloquent George Forster, who was endowed with so peculiarly happy a faculty of generalisation in the study of nature. It would be foreign to the present work, were I to under- take to inquire into the characteristics of these writers, and in- vestigate the causes which at one time lend a charm and grace to the descriptions of natural scenery contained in their universally diffused works, and at another disturb the impres- sions which they were designed to call forth; but as a tra- veller, who has derived the greater portion of his knowledge from immediate observation, I may perhaps be permitted to introduce a few scattered remarks on a recent, and on the whole but little cultivated, branch of literature. Buffon — great and earnest as he was — simultaneously embracing a know- ledge of the planetary structures, of organisation, and of the laws of light and magnetic forces — and far more profoundly * [This distinguished writer died July 4th of the present year (1848).] — Tr 432 COSMOS. versed in physical investigations than his cotemporaries supposed, shows more artificial elaboration of style and more rhetorical pomp than individualising truthfulness, when he passes from the description of the habits of animals to the delineation of natural scenery, inclining the mind to the re- ception of exalted impressions, rather than seizing upon the imagination by presenting a visible picture of actual nature, or conveying to the senses the echo as it were of reality. Even throughout the most justly celebrated of his works in this department of literature, we instinctively feel that he could never have left Central Europe, and that he is deficient in personal observation of the tropical world, which he believes he is correctly describing. But that which we most espe- cially miss in the writings of the great naturalist, is a har- monious mode of connecting the representation of nature with the expression of awakened feelings; he is in fact defi- cient in almost all that flows from the mysterious analogy existing between the mental emotions of the mind and the phenomena of the perceptive world. A greater depth of feeling, and a fresher spirit of anima- tion pervade the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand. If I here allude to the per- suasive eloquence of the first of those writers, as manifested in the picturesque scenes of Clarens and La Meille'rie on Lake Leman, it is because in the principal works of this zealous but ill-instructed plant- collector — which were written twenty years before BufFon's fanciful Epoques de la Nature^" * The succession in which the works referred to were published is as follows: Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1759, Nouvelle Heloise; Buifon, Epoques de la Nature, 1778, but his Histoire Naturdle, 1749-1767; Bernardin de St. Pierre, Etudes de la Nature, 1784, Paul et Vitginie, 1788, Chaumiere Indienne, 1791; George Forster, Reise nach der Kudsee, 1777, Kleine Scliriften, 1794. More than half a century before the publication of the Nouvelle Heloise, Madame de Sevigne, in her charming letters, had already shown a vivid sense of the beauty of nature, such as was rarely expressed in the age of Louis XIV. See the fine natural descriptions in the letters of April 20, May 31, Au- gust 15, September 16, and November 6, 1671, and October 23 and December 28, 1689 (Aubenas, Hist, de Madame de Sevigne, 1842, pp. 201 and 427.) My reason for referring in the text to the old German poet, Paul: Flemming, who, from 1633 to 1639, accompanied Adam Olearius on his journey to Muscovy and to Persia, is that, accord- ing to the convincing authority of my friend, Varnhagen von Ensc (BioyrapMsche Denkw. bd. iv. s. 4, 75, and 129), "the character of MODERN PROSE WRITERS. 435 —poetic inspiration shows itself principally in the innermost peculiarities of the language, breaking forth as fluently in hia prose as in the immortal poems of Klopstock, Schiller, Goethe, and Byron. Even where there is no purpose of bringing for- ward subjects immediately connected with the natural sciences, our pleasure in these studies, when referring to the limited portions of the earth best known to us, may be increased by the charm of a poetic mode of representation. In recurring to prose writers, we dwell with pleasure on the small work entitled Paul et Virginia, to which Bernardin de St. Pierre owes the fairer portion of his literary reputation. The work to which I allude, which can scarcely be rivalled by any production comprised in the literature of other coun- tries, is the simple picture of an island in the midst of a tropical sea, in which, sometimes favoured by the serenity of the sky, and sometimes threatened by the violent conflict of the elements, two charming creatures stand picturesquely forth from the wild sylvan luxuriance surrounding them as with a varie- gated flowery tapestry. Here, and in the Chaumiere Indienne, and even in his Etudes de la Nature, which are unfortunately disfigured by wild theories and erroneous physical opinions, the aspect of the sea, the grouping of the clouds, the rustling of the air amid the crowded bamboos, the waving of the leavy crown of the slender palms, are all sketched with inimitable truth. Bernardin de St. Pierre's master- work, Paul et Vir- ginie, accompanied me to the climes whence it took its origin. For many years it was the constant companion of myself and my valued friend and fellow-traveller Bonpland, and often (the reader must forgive this appeal to personal feelings) in the calm brilliancy of a southern sky, or when in the rainy season the thunder re-echoed, and the lightning gleamed through the forests that skirt the shores of the Orinoco, we felt ourselves penetrated by the marvellous truth with which tropical nature is described, with all its peculiarity of character, in this little work. A like power of grasping individualities, without destroying the general impression of the whole, and without depriving the subject of a free innate animation of poetical fancy, characterises, even in a higher degree, the intellectual and sensitive mind of the author of Atala, Rene, Les Mar tyres, Flemming's compositions is marked with a fresh and healthful vigour, whilst his images of nature are tender and full of life." 2 F 434 COSMOS. J?nd Les Voyages d T Orient. In the works of his creative fancy, all contrasts of scenery in the remotest portions of the earth are brought before the reader with the most remarkable distinctness. The earnest grandeur of historical associations could alone impart a character of such depth and repose to the impressions produced by a rapid journey. In the literature of Germany, as in that of Italy and Spain, the love of nature manifested itself too long under the artificial form of idyl-pastoral romances, and didactic poems. Such was the course too frequently pursued by the Persian traveller, Paul Flemming, by Brockes, the sensitive Ewald von Kleist, Hagedorn, Salomon Gessner, and by Haller, one of the greatest naturalists of any age, whose local descriptions possess, it must however be owned, a more clearly defined outline, and more objective truth of colouring. The elegiac-idyllic element was conspicuous at that period in the morbid tone pervading land- scape poetry, and even in Voss, that noble and profound student of classical antiquity, the poverty of the subject could not be concealed by a higher and more elegant finish of style. It was only when the study of the earth's surface acquired pro- foundness and diversity of character, and the natural sciences were no longer limited to a tabular enumeration of marvellous productions, but were elevated to a higher and more com- prehensive view of comparative geography, that this finished development of language could be employed for the purpose of giving animated pictures of distant regions. The earlier travellers of the middle ages, as for instance, John Mandeville (1353), Hans Schiltberger of Munich (1425), andBernhard von Breytenbach (1486), delight us even in the present day by their charming simplicity, their free- dom of style, and the self-confidence with which they step before a public, who, from their utter ignorance, listen with the greater curiosity and readiness of belief, because they have not as yet learnt to feel ashamed of appearing ignorant, amused, or astonished. The interest attached to the narra- tives of travels was then almost wholly dramatic, and the necessary and easily introduced admixture of the marvellous, gave them almost an epic colouring. The manners of foreign nations are not so much described, as they are rendered inci- dentally discernible by the contact of the travellers with the natives. The vegetation is unnamed and unheeded, with the TRAVELLERS OF THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES. 435 exception of an occasional allusion to some pleasantly flavoured or strangely formed fruit, or to the extraordinary dimensions of particular kinds of stems or leaves of plants. Amongst animals they describe, with the greatest predilection, first, those which exhibit most resemblance to the human form, and next, those which are the wildest and most formidable. The cotemporaries of these travellers believed in all the dangers which few of them had shared, and the slowness of navigation and the want of means of communication, caused the Indies, as all the tropical regions were then called, to appear at an immeasurable distance. Columbus* was not yet justified in writing to Queen Isabella, " the world is small, much smaller than people suppose." The almost forgotten travels of the middle ages to which we have alluded, possessed, however, with all the poverty of their materials, many advantages in point of composition over the majority of our modern voyages. They had that cha- racter of unity which every work of art requires ; everything was associated with one action, and made subservient to the narration of the journey itself. The interest was derived from the simple, vivid, and generally implicitly believed relation of dangers overcome. Christian travellers, in their ignorance of what had already been done by Arabs, Spanish Jews, and Buddhist missionaries, boasted of being the first to see and describe everything. In the midst of the obscurity in which the East and the interior of Asia were shrouded, distance seemed only to magnify the grand proportions of individual forms. This unity of composition is almost wholly wanting in most of our recent voyages, especially where their object is the acquirement of scientific knowledge. The narrative in the latter case is secondary to observations, and is almost wholly lost sight of. It Is only the relation of toilsome and frequently aininstructive mountain ascents, and above all of bold mari- time expeditions, of actual voyages of discovery in unexplored regions, or of a sojourn in the dreadful waste of the icy polar zone, that can afford any dramatic interest, or admit of any great degree of individuality of delineation; for here the deso- lation of the -scene, and the helplessness and isolation of the * Letter of the Admiral from Jamaica, July 7, 1503: "El mundoca poco ; digo que el mundo no es tan grande como dice el vulgo" (Navar- rete, Colcccion de Viages esp. t. i. p. 300.) 2 F 2 436 COSMOS. seamen individualise the picture, and excite the imagination so much the more powerfully. If from what has already been said, it be undeniably true that in modern books of travel the action is thrown in the background, being in most cases only a means of linking together successive observations of nature and of manners, yet this partial disadvantage is fully compensated for by the increased value of the facts observed, the greater expansion of natural views, and the laudable endeavour to employ the peculiar characteristics of different languages, in rendering natural descriptions clear and distinct. We are indebted to modern cultivation for a constantly advancing enlargement of our field of view, an increasing accumulation of ideas and feelings, and the powerful influence of their mutual reaction. Without leaving the land of our birth, we not only learn to know how the earth's surface is fashioned in the remotest zones, and by what animal and vegetable forms it is occu- pied, but we may even hope to have delineations presented to us, which shall vividly reflect in some degree, at least, the impressions conveyed by the aspect of external nature to the inhabitants of those distant regions. To satisfy this demand, to comply with a requirement that may be termed a species of intellectual enjoyment wholly unknown to antiquity, is an object for which modern times are striving, and it is an object which will be crowned with success, since it is the common work of all civilised nations, and because the greater perfec- tion of the means of communication by sea and land, renders the whole earth more accessible, and facilitates the comparison of the most widely separated parts. I have here attempted to indicate the direction in which the power possessed by the observer of representing what he has seen, the animating influence of the descriptive element, and the multiplication and enlargement of views opened to us on the vast theatre of natural forces, may all serve as means of encouraging the scientific study of nature, and enlarging its domain. The writer who in our German literature, ac- cording to my opinion, has most vigorously and successfully opened this path, is my celebrated teacher and friend, George Forster. Through him began a new era of scientific voyages, the aim of which was to arrive at a knowledge of the compa- rative history and geography of different countries. Gifted MODERN THAYELLEBS. 437 with delicate aesthetic feelings, and retaining a vivid impres- sion of the pictures with which Tahiti and the other then happy islands of the Pacific had filled his imagination, as in recent times that of Charles Darwin,* George Forster was the first to depict in pleasing colours the changing stages of vegetation, the relations of climate and of articles of food in their influence on the civilisation of mankind, according to differences of original descent and habitation. All that can give truth, individuality, and diatinctiveness to the delineation of exotic nature is united in his works We trace not only in his admirable description of Cook's second voyage of discovery, but still more in his smaller writings, the germ of that richer fruit which has since been matured.f But alas ! even to his noble, sensitive, and ever hopeful spirit, life yielded no hap- piness. If the appellation of descriptive and landscape poetry have sometimes been applied, as a term of disparagement, to those descriptions of natural objects and scenes, which in recent times have so greatly embellished the literature of Germany, France, England and America, its application, in this sense, must be referred only to the abuse of the supposed enlargement of the domain of art. Rhythmical descriptions of natural objects, as presented to us by Delille, at the close of a long and honourably spent career, cannot be considered as poems of nature, using the term in its strictest definition, notwithstanding the expenditure of refined rules of diction and versification. They are wanting in poetic inspiration, and consequently strangers to the domain of poetry, and are cold and dry, as all must be that shines by mere external polish. But when the so-called descriptive poetry is justly blamed as an independent form of art, such disapprobation does not certainly apply to an earnest endea- vour to convey to the minds of others, by the force of well applied words, a distinct image of the results yielded by the richer mass of modern knowledge. Ought any means to be * See Journal and Remarks, by Charles Darwin, 1832-1836, in the Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. iii. pp. 479-490, where there occurs an extremely beautiful description of Tahiti. t On the merit of George Forster as a man and a writer, see Gervinus, Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur der Deutschen, th. v. 8. 390--392. 438 COSMOS. left unemployed, by which an animated picture of a distant zone, untraversed by ourselves, may be presented to the mind with all the vividness of truth, enabling us even to enjoy some portion of the pleasure derived from the immediate contact with nature? The Arabs express themselves no less truly than metaphorically, when they say that the best description is that by which the ear is converted into an eye.* It is one of the evils of the present day, that an unhappy tendency to vapid poetic prose, and to sentimental effusions, has infected simultaneously in different countries even the style of many justly celebrated travellers and writers on natural history. Extravagancies of this nature are so much the more to be regretted, where the style degenerates into rhetorical bombast or morbid sentimentality, either from want of literary cultiva- tion, or more particularly from the absence of all genuine emotion. Descriptions of nature, I would again observe, may be denned with sufficient sharpness and scientific accuracy, with- out 011 that account being deprived of the vivifying breath of imagination. The poetic element must emanate from the intuitive perception of the connection between the sensuous and the intellectual, and of the universality and reciprocal limitation and unity of all the vital forces of nature. The more elevated the subject, the more carefully should all ex- ternal adornments of diction be avoided. The true effect of a picture of nature depends on its composition ; every attempt at an artificial appeal from the author must therefore necessarily exert a disturbing influence. He who, familiar with the great, works of antiquity, and secure in the possession of the riches of his native language, knows how to represent with the sim- plicity of individualising truth that which he has received from his own contemplation, will not fail in producing the impression he seeks to convey ; for, in describing the bound- lessness of nature, and not the limited circuit of his own mind, he is enabled to leave to others unfettered freedom of' feeling. It is not, however, the vivid description of the richly adorned lands of the equinoctial zone in which intensity of light and of humid heat accelerates and heightens the de- velopment of all organic germs, that has alone imparted tha * Frey tag's Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, 1830, s. 402. , GOETHE. 439 powerful attraction which in the present day is attached to the study of all branches of natural science. This secret charm, excited by a deep insight into organic life, is not limited to the tropical world. Every portion of the earth offers to our view the wonders of progressive formation and development, according to ever-recurring or slightly devi- ating types. Universal is the awful rule of those natural powers, which amid the clouds that darken the canopy of heaven with storms, as well as in the delicate tissues of organic substances, resolve the ancient strife of the elements into accordant harmony. All portions of the vast circuit of creation — from the equator to the coldest zones — wherever the breath of spring unfolds a blossom, the mind may rejoice in the inspiring power of nature. Our German land is espe- cially justified in cherishing such a belief, for where is the southern nation who would not envy us the great master of poesy, whose works are all pervaded by a profound veneration for nature, which is alike discernible in The Sorroivs of Werther, in the Recollections of Italy, in the Metamorphoses .of Plants, and in so many of his poems ? Who has more eloquently excited his cotemporaries to " solve the holy pro- blem of the universe," and to renew the bond which in the dawn of mankind united together philosophy, physics, and poetry? Who has drawn others with a more powerful attrac- tion to that land, the home of his intellect, where, as he sings, Ein sanfter Wind vom blauem Himmel weht, Die Myrte still, and hoch der Lorbeer steht ! 440 COSMOS. LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN ITS INFLUENCE ON THE STUDY OF NATURE GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PHY- SIOGNOMY OF PLANTS — THE CHARACTER AND ASPECT OF TEGETATION IN DIFFERENT ZONES. LANDSCAPE painting, and fresh and vivid descriptions of nature alike conduce to heighten the charm emanating from a study of the external world, which is shown us in all its diver- sity of form by both, while both are alike capable in a greater or lesser degree, according to the success of the attempt, to combine the visible and invisible in our contemplation of nature. The effort to connect these several elements, forms the last and noblest aim of delineative art, but the present pages, from the scientific object to which they are devoted, must be restricted to a different point of view. Landscape painting cannot therefore be noticed in any further relation than that of its representation of the physiognomy and cha- racter of different portions of the earth, and as it increases the desire for the prosecution of distant travels, and thus incites men in an equally instructive and charming manner to a free communion with nature. In that portion of antiquity which we specially designate as classical, landscape painting, as well as poetic delineations of places, could not, from the direction of the Greek and Roman mind, be regarded as an independent branch of art. Both were considered merely as accessories ; landscape painting being for a long time used only as the background of historical compositions, or as an accidental decoration for painted walls. In a similar manner, the epic poet delineated the locality of some historical occurrence by a picturesque description of the landscape, or of the background, I would say, if I may be per* mitted here again to use the term, in front of which the acting personages move. The history of art teaches us how gradually the accessory parts have been converted into the main subject of description, and how landscape painting has been separated from historical painting, and gradually estab- lished as a distinct form ; and lastly how human figures were employed as mere secondary parts to some mountain or forest LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 441 scene, or in some sea or garden view. The separation of these two species — historical and landscape painting — has been thus effected by gradual stages, which have tended to favour the advance of art through all the various phases of its de- velopment. It has been justly remarked, that painting generally remained subordinate to sculpture among the an- cients, and that the feeling for the picturesque beauty of scenery which the artist endeavours to reproduce from his canvass, was unknown to antiquity and is exclusively of modern origin. Graphic indications of the peculiar characteristics of a locality must, however, have been discernible in the most an- cient paintings of the Greeks, as instances of which we may mention (if the testimony of Herodotus be correct),* that Mandrocles of Samos caused a large painting of the passage of the army over the Bosphorus to be executed for the Persian King,f and that Polygnotus painted the fall of Troy in the Lesche at Delphi. Amongst the paintings described by the elder Philostratus, mention is made of a landscape in which smoke was seen to rise from the summit of a volcano, and lava streams to flow into the neighbouring sea. In this very complicated composition of a view of seven islands, the most recent commentators^ think they can recognise the actual re- presentation of the volcanic district of the uEolian or Lipari islands north of Sicily. The perspective scenic decorations which were made to heighten the effect of the representation * Herod., iv. 88. + A portion of the works of Polygnotus and Mikon (the painting of the battle of Marathon in the Pokile at Athens) was, according to the testimony of Himerius, still to be seen, at the end of the fourth century (of our era), consequently when they had been executed 850 years. (Letronne, Lettrts sur la Peinture historique murale, 1835, pp. 202 and 453.) £ Philostratorum Imagines, ed. Jacobs et Welcker, 1825, pp. 79 and 485. Both the learned editors defend, against former suspicions, the authenticity of the description of the paintings contained in the ancient Neapolitan Pinacothek (Jacobs, pp. xvii. and xlvi. ; Welcker, pp. Iv. and xlvi). Otfried Mliller conjectures that Philostratus's picture of the islands (ii. 17), as well as that1 of the marshy district of the Bosphorus (i. 9), and of the fishermen (i. 12 and 13), bore much resemblance in their mode of representation to the mosaic of Palestrina. Plato speaks, in the intro- ductory part of Critias (p. 107), of landscape painting as the art of pictorially representing mountains, rivers, ana forests. 442 COSMOS. of the master- works of JEschylus and Sophocles, gradually enlarged this branch of art,* by increasing the demand for an illusive imitation of inanimate objects, as buildings, woods, and rocks. In consequence of the greater perfection to which sceno- graphy had attained, landscape painting passed amongst the Greeks and their imitators, the Romans, from the stage to their halls, adorned with columns, where the long ranges of wall were covered, at first, with more circumscribed views,f but shortly afterwards with extensive pictures of cities, sea-shores, and wide tracts of pasture-land, on which flocks were graz- ing.:[; Although the Roman painter, Ludius, who lived in the Augustan age, cannot be said to have invented these graceful decorations, he yet made them generally popular, § animating them by the addition of small figures. || Almost at the same period, and probably even half a century earlier, we find landscape painting mentioned as a much practised art among the Indians during the brilliant epoch of Vikramaditya. In the charming drama of Sakuntala, the image of his beloved is shown to King Dushmanta, who is not satisfied with that alone, as he desires that " the artist should depict the places which were most dear to his beloved, — the Malini river, with a sandbank on which the red flamingoes are standing; a chain of hills skirting on the Himalaya, and gazelles resting on these hills." These requirements are not easy to comply with, and they at least indicate a belief in the practicability of executing such an intricate composition. In Rome, landscape painting was developed into a separate ^branch of art from the time of the Caesars ; but if we may * Particularly through Agatharcus, or at leaafc according to the rules he established. 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 also Letronne's work, op. cit. p. 271--280. t On Objects of Rlwpographia, see Welcker ad Philostr. Irnag., p. 397. £ Vitruv., lib. vii. cap. 5 (t. ii. p. 91). * § Hirt., Gescli. der Uldenden Kumte lei den Alien, 1833, s. 332; Letronne, pp. 262 and 468. II Ludius qui primus (?) instituit amosnissimam parietum picturam (Plin. xxxv. 10). The topiaria opera of Pliny, and the varietates topiorum of Yitruvius, were small decorative landscape paintings. The passage quoted in the text of Kalidasa occurs in the Sakuntala, act vi. LANDSCAPE PAINTING AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 443 judge from the many specimens preserved to us in the exca- vations of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae, these pictures of nature were frequently nothing more than bird's-eye views of the country, similar to maps, and more like a delineation of seaport towns, villas, and artificially arranged gardens, than the representation, of free nature. That which may have been regarded as the habitably comfortable element in a landscape seems to have alone attracted the Greeks and Romans, and not that which we term the wild and romantic. Their imita- tions might be so far accurate as frequent disregard of per- spective and a taste for artificial and conventional arrangement permitted, and their arabesque-like compositions, to which the critical Vitruvius was averse, often exhibited a rhythmically recurring and well- conceived representation of animal and vegetable forms ; but yet, to borrow an expression of Otfried Miiller,* " the vague and mysterious reflection of the mind, which seems to appeal to us from the landscape, appeared to the ancients, from the peculiar bent of their feelings, as incapable of artistic development, and their delineations were sketched with more of sportiveness than earnestness and sentiment." We have thus indicated the analogy which existed in the process of development of the two means — descriptive diction, and graphical representations — by which the attempt to render the impressions produced by the aspect of nature appreciable to the sensuous faculties, has gradually attained a certain degree of independence. The specimens of ancient landscape painting in the manner of Ludius, which have been recovered from the excavations at Pompeii (lately renewed with so happy a result), belong most probably to a single and very short period ; viz., that intervening * Otfried Miiller, Archdologie der Kunst, 1830, s. 609. Having already spoken in the text of the paintings found in Pompeii and Herculaneum as being compositions but little allied to the freedom of nature, I must here notice some exceptions, which may be considered as landscapes in the strict modern sense of the word. See Pitture d' Ercolano, vol. ii. tab. 45, vol. iii. tab. 53 ; and, as backgrounds in. charming historical compositions, vol. iv. tab. 61, 62, and 63. I do- not refer to the remarkable representation in the Monumenti dell' Institute di Corrispondenza archeologica, vol. iii. tab. 9, since its genuine antiquity has already been called in question by Eaoal Rochette, an archaeologist of much acuteness of observation. 444 COSMOS. between Nero and Titus,* for the city had been entirely de- stroyed by an earthquake only sixteen years before the cele- brated eruption of Vesuvius. The character of the subsequent style of painting practised by the early Christians, remained nearly allied to that of the true Greek and Roman schools of art from the time of Con- stantine the Great to the beginning of the middle ages. A rich mine of old memorials is opened to us in the miniatures which adorn splendid and well-preserved manuscripts, and in the rarer mosaics of the same period.f llumohr makes mention of a Psalter in the Barberina Library at Home, where, in a miniature, Dayid is represented " playing the harp, and surrounded by a pleasant grove, from the branches of which nymphs look forth to listen. This personification testifies to the antique nature of the whole picture." Since the middle of the sixth century, when Italy was impoverished and politically disturbed, the Byzantine art in the Eastern empire still preserved the lingering echoes and types of a better epoch. Such memorials as these form the transition to the creations of the later middle ages, when the love for illuminated manuscripts had spread from Greece, in the east, through southern and western lands into the Frankish monarchy, amongst the Anglo-Saxons, and the in- habitants of the Netherlands. It is, therefore, a fact of no * In refutation of the supposition of Du Theil (Voyage en Italie, par 1'Abbe" Barthelemy, p. 284) that Pompeii still existed in splendour under Adrian, and was not completely destroyed till towards the close of the fifth century, see Adolph von Hoff, Geschichte der Veranderungen der Erdoberflache, th. ii. 1824, s. 195--199. •f See Waagcn, Kunstwerke und Kunstler in England und Paris, th. iii. 1839, s. 195-201; and particularly s. 217-224, where he de- acribcs the celebrated Psalter of the tenth century (in the Paris Library), which proves how long the "antique mode of composition" maintained itself in Constantinople. I was indebted to the kind and valuable communications of this profound connoisseur of art (Professor Waagen, Director of the Gallery of Paintings of my native city), at the time of my public lectures in 1828, for interesting notices on the history of art after the period of the Koman empire. What I afterwards wrote on the gradual development of landscape painting, I communicated in Dresden in the winter of 1835 to Baron von Kumohr, the distinguished and too early deceased author of the Italienische Porschungen. I received from this excellent man a great number of historical illustrations,, which lie even permitted me to publish if the form of my work should render it expedient. THE BROTHERS VAN EYCK. 445 glight importance for the history of modern art that "the cele- brated brothers Hubert and Johann van Eyck belonged essen- tially to a school of miniature painters which since the last half of the fourteenth century attained to a high degree of perfection in Flanders."* The historical paintings of the brothers van Eyck present us with the first instances of carefully executed landscapes. Neither of them ever visited Italy, but the younger brother, Johann, enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the vegetation of Southern Europe, when in the year 1428 he accompanied the embassy which Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, sent to Lisbon when he sued for the hand of the daughter of King John I. of Portugal. In the Museum of Berlin are preserved the wings of the famous picture which the above-named cele- brated painters — the actual founders of the great Flemish school — executed for the cathedral at Ghent. On these wings which represent holy hermits and pilgrims, Johann van Eyck has embellished the landscape with orange and date trees and cypresses, which, from their extreme truth to nature, impart a solemn and imposing character to the other dark masses in the picture. One feels, on looking at this painting, that the artist must himself have received the impression of a vegetation fanned by gentle breezes. In considering the master- works of the brothers van Eyck we have not advanced beyond the first half of the fifteenth cen- tury, when the more highly perfected style of oil-painting, which was only just beginning to replace painting in tempera, had already attained to a high degree of technical perfection. The taste for a vivid representation of natural forms was awakened, and if we would trace the gradual extension and elevation of this feeling for nature, we must bear in mind, that Antonio di Messina, a pupil of the brothers van Eyck, transplanted the predilection for landscape painting to Venice, and that the pictures of the van Eyck school exercised a similar action in Florence on Domenico Ghirlandaio and other masters. f The * Waagcn, op. tit, th. i. 1837, s. 59; th. iii. 1839, s. 352-359. [See Lanzi's History of Painting. Bonn's Standard Library, 1847, vol. i., pp. 81-87.]— Tr. •{• " Pinturicchio painted rich and well composed landscapes as inde- pendent decorations, in the Belviderc of the Vatican. He appears to have exercised an influence on Raphael, in whose paintings there are many landscape peculiarities which cannot be traced to Perugino. In 446 COSMOS. artists at this epoch directed their efforts to a careful, but almost timid imitation of nature, and the master-works of Titian afford the earliest evidence of freedom and grandeur in the representation of natural scenes; but in this respect also, Giorgione seems to have served as a model for that great painter. I had the opportunity for many years of admiring in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris that picture of Titian which represents the death of Peter Martyr, overpowered in a forest by an Albigense, in the presence of another Domi- nican monk.* The form of the forest-trees, and their foliage, the mountainous and blue distance, the tone of colouring, and the lights glowing through the whole, leave a solemn impres- sion of the earnestness, grandeur, and depth of feelings which pervade this simple landscape composition. So vivid was Titian's admiration of nature, that not only in the pictures of beautiful women, as in the background of his exquisitely formed Venus in the Dresden Gallery, but also in those of a graver nature, as for instance, in his picture of the poet Pietro Aretino, he painted the surrounding landscape and sky in harmony with the individual character of the sub- ject. Annibal Caracci and Domenichino, in the Bolog- Pinturiccliio and his friends we also already meet with those singular, pointed forms of mountains which, in your lectures, you were disposed to derive from the Tyrolese dolomitic cones which Leopold von Buch has rendered so celebrated, and which may have produced an impression on travellers and artists from the constant intercourse, existing between Italy and Germany. I am more inclined to believe that these conical forms in the earliest Italian landscapes are either very old conventional modes of representing mountain forms, in antique bas-reliefs and mosaic works, or that they must be regarded as unskilfully foreshortened views of Soracte and similarly isolated mountains in the Campagna di Roma." (From a letter addressed to me by Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, in October 1832). In order to indicate more precisely the conical and pointed mountains in question, I would refer to the fanciful landscape which forms the background in Leonardo da Vinci's universally admired picture of Mona Lisa (the consort of Francesco del Giocondo). Among the artists of the Flemish school who have more particularly developed landscape painting as a separate branch of art, we must name Patenier's successor, Herry de Bles, named Civetta from his animal monogram, and subsequently the brothers Matthew and Paul Bril, who excited a strong taste in favour of this particular branch of art during their Bojourn in Rome. In Germany, Albrecht Altdorfer, Durer's pupil, practised landscape painting even somewhat earlier and with greater success than Patenier. * Painted for the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo at Venice. LANDSCAPE PAINTING OF 16TH AND 1?TH CENTURIES. 447 nese school, adhered faithfully to this elevation of style. If, however, the great epoch of historical painting belong to the sixteenth century, that of landscape painting appertains undoubtedly to the seventeenth. As the riches of nature be- came more known, and more carefully observed, the feeling of art was likewise able to extend itself over a greater diver- sity of objects, while at the same time the means of technical representation had simultaneously been brought to a higher degree of perfection. The relations between the inner tone of feelings and the delineation of external nature became more intimate, and by the links thus established between the two, the gentle and mild expression of the beautiful in nature was elevated, and, as a consequence of this elevation, belief in the power of the external world over the emotions of the mind was simultaneously awakened. When this excitement, in conformity with the noble aim of all art, converts the actual into an ideal object of fancy, when it arouses within our minds a feeling of harmonious repose, the enjoyment is not unaccompanied by emotion, for the heart is touched whenever we look into the depths of nature or of humanity.^ In the same century we find thronged together Claude Lor- raine, the idyllic painter of light and aerial distance; Ruys- dael, with his dark woodland scenes and lowering skies; Gaspard and Nicholas Poussin, with their nobly delineated forms of trees ; and Everdingen, Hobbima, and Cuyp, so true to life in their delineations.! In this happy period of the development of art, a noble effort was manifested to introduce all the vegetable forms yielded by the North of Europe, Southern Italy, and the Spanish Peninsula. The landscape was embellished with * Willielm von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werlce, bd. iv. s. 37; see also, on the different gradations of the life of nature, and on the tone of mind awakened by the landscape around, Carus, in his interesting work, Brief en uber die Landschaftmalerei, 1831, s. 45. *t* The great century of painting comprehended the works of Johann Breughel, 1569-1625; Kubens, 1577-1640; Domenichino, 1581-1641 ; Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674; Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1655; Gas- par 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 Hobbima, Jan Wynants, Adriaan van de Velde, 1639-1672; Carl Dujardin, 1644-1687. 448 COSMOS. oranges and laurels, with pines and date-trees; the latte* (which, with the exception of the small Chamaerops, origin- ally a native of European sea-shores, was the only member of the noble family of palms known from personal observation), was generally represented as having a snake-like and scaly trunk,*4 and long served as the representative of tropical vegetation ; as, in like manner, Pinus pinea is even still very generally supposed to furnish an exclusive characteristic of the vegetable forms of Italy. The contour of high mountain- chains was but little studied, and snow-covered peaks, which projected beyond the green Alpine meadows, were, at that period, still regarded by naturalists and landscape painters as inaccessible. The physiognomy of rocky masses seems scarcely to have excited any attempt at accurate representation, excepting where a water-fall broke in foam over the moun- tain side. We may here remark another instance of the diversity of comprehension manifested by a free and artistic spirit in its intimate communion with nature. Rubens, who, in his great hunting pieces, had depicted the fierce move- ments of wild animals with inimitable animation, succeeded, as the delineator of historical events, in representing, with equal truth and vividness, the form of the landscape in the waste and rocky elevated plain surrounding the Escurial.f The delineation of natural objects included in the branch of art at present under consideration, could not have gained in diversity and exactness, until the geographical field of view became extended, the means of travelling in foreign countries facilitated, and the appreciation of the beauty and configura- tion of vegetable forms, and their arrangement in groups of natural families, excited. The discoveries of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Alvarez Cabral, in Central America, Southern Asia, and the Brazils ; the extensive trade in spices and drugs carried on by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and Flem- ings, and the establishment of botanical gardens at Pisa, Padua, and Bologna, between 1544 and 1568, although not yet furnished with hot-houses properly so called, certainly * Some strangely fanciful representations of date palms, which have a knob in the middle of the leafy crown, are to be seen in an old pic- ture of Cima da Conegliano, of the school of Bellino (Dresden Gallery, 1835, No. 40). t Dresden Gallery, No. 917. LANDSCAPE PAINTERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 449 made artists acquainted with many remarkable forms of exotic products, including even some that belong to a tropical vege- tation. Single fruits, flowers, and branches were painted with much natural truth and grace by Johann Breughel, whose reputation had been already established before the close of the sixteenth century; but it is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that we meet with land- scapes, which reproduce the individual character of the torrid zone, as impressed upon the artist's mind by actual observa- tion. The merit of the earliest attempt at such a mode of representation belongs probably, as I find from Waagen, to the Flemish painter, Franz Post, of Haarlem, who accompa- nied Prince Maurice of Nassau to Brazil, where that Prince, who took great interest in all subjects connected with the tropical world, was Dutch Stadtholder, in the conquered Portuguese possessions, from 1637 to 1644. Post continued, for many years, to make studies from nature at Cape St. Augustine, in the Bay of All Saints, on the shores of the river St. Francisco, and at the lower course of the Amazon.* * Franz Post, or Poost, was born at Haarlem, in 1620, and died there in 1680. His brother also accompanied Count Maurice of Nassau as an architect. Of the paintings, some representing the banks of the Amazon are to be seen in the picture gallery at Schleisheim while others are at Berlin, Hanover, and Prague. The line engravings in Barlaus, Reise des Prinzen Moritz von Nassau, and in the royal collec- tion of copper-plate prints at Berlin, evince a fine conception of nature in depicting the form of the coast, the nature of the ground, and the vegetation. They represent musaceae, cacti, palms, different species of ficus, with the well known board-like excrescences at the foot of the stem, rhizophorge, and arborescent grasses. The pic- turesque Brazilian voyage is made to terminate (plate iv.), singularly enough, with a German forest of pines which surround the castle of Dillenburg. The remark' in the text, on the influence which the establishment of botanic gardens in Upper Italy, toAvards the middle of the sixteenth century, may have exercised on the knowledge of the physiognomy of tropical forms of vegetation, leads me here to draw attention to the well founded fact that, in the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus, who was equally energetic in promoting the Aristote- lian philosophy and the pursuit of the science of nature, probably had a hothouse in the convent of the Dominicans at Cologne. This cele- brated man, who was suspected of sorcery on account of his speaking machine, entertained the King of the Romans, William of Holland, on his passage through Cologne on the 6th of January, 1259, in a large space in the convent garden, where he preserved fruit trees and plants 2 G 450 COSMOS. These studies he himself partly executed as paintings, and partly etched with much spirit. To this period belong the in flower throughout the winter by maintaining a pleasant degree of heat. The account of this banquet, exaggerated into something marvellous, occurs in the Ohronica Joannis de Beka, written in the middle of the fourteenth century (Beka et Heda de Episcopis Ultrajectinis, recogn. ab. Arn. Buchelio, 1643, p. 79; Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur I 'Age des Traductions d'Aristote, 1819, p. 331; Buhle, Gesch. der Philoso- phic, th. v. s. 296). Although the ancients, as we find from the exca- vations at Pompeii, made use of panes of glass in buildings, yet nothing has been found to indicate the use of glass or hot houses in ancient hor- ticulture. The mode of conducting heat by the caldaria into baths might have led to the construction of such forcing or hothouses, but the shortness of the Greek and Italian winters must have caused the want of artificial heat to be less felt in horticulture. The Adonis gardens (KJJTTOI A.fiwvldoQ), 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 met Adonis, who was the symbol of the quickly fading bloom of youth, of luxuriant growth, and of rapid decay. The festivals of Adonis were, therefore, seasons of solemn lamentations for women, and belonged to the festivals in which the ancients lamented the decay of nature. As I have spoken in the text of hothouse plants, in contrast with those which grow naturally, I would add that the ancients frequently used the term " Adonis gardens" proverbially, to indicate something which had shot up rapidly, without promise of perfect maturity or duration. These plants, which were lettuce, fennel, barley, and wheat, and not variegated flowers, were forced, by extreme care, into rapid growth in summer (and not in the winter), and were often made to grow to- maturity in a period of only eight days. Creuzer, in his Symbolik und Mythologie, 1841, th. ii. s. 427, 430, 479, und 481, supposes " that strong: natural and artificial heat, in the room in which they were placed, was used to hasten the growth of plants in the Adonis gardens." The garden of the Dominican convent at Cologne reminds us of the Green- land or Icelandic convent of St. Thomas, where the garden was kept free from snow by being warmed by natural thermal springs, as is i elated by the brothers Zeni, in the account of their travels (1388- 1404), which, from the geographical localities indicated, must be con- sidered as very problematical. (Compare Zurla, Viaggiatori Veneziani, t. ii. pp. 63-69 ; and Humboldt, Examen critique de I' Hist, de la Geo~ graphic, t. ii. p. 127.) The introduction in our botanic gardens of regular hothouses seems to be of more recent date than is generally supposed. Ripe pineapples were first obtained at the end of the seven- teenth century (Beckmann's History of Inventions, Bohn's Standard Library, 1846, vol. i. pp. 103-106); and Linnaeus even asserts, in the Musa Cliffortiana florens Hartecampi, that the first banana which flowered in Europe was in 1731, at Vienna, in the garden of Prince Eugene. DELINEATIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY. 451 remarkably large oil pictures preserved in Denmark, in a gal- lery of the beautiful palace of Frederiksborg, which were painted by Eckhout, who, in 1641, was also on the Brazilian coast with Prince Maurice of Nassau. In these compositions, palms, papaws, bananas, and heliconias, are most characteris- tically delineated, as are also brightly plumaged birds, and small quadrupeds, and the form and appearance of the natives. These examples of a delineation of the physiognomy of natural scenery were not followed by many artists of merit before Cook's second voyage of circumnavigation. What Hodges did for the western islands of the Pacific, and my distinguished countryman, Ferdinand Bauer, for New Holland and Van Dieinen's Land, has been since done, in more recent times, on a far grander scale, and in a masterly manner, by Moritz Rugendas, Count Clarac, Ferdinand Bel- lermann, and Edward Hildebrandt; and for the tropical vege- tation of America, and for many other parts of the earth, by Heinrich von Kittlitz, the companion of the Russian Admiral Lutke, on his voyage of circumnavigation.* He who, with a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature manifested in mountains, rivers, and forest glades, has himself travelled over the torrid zone, and seen the luxuriance and diversity of vegetation, not only on the cultivated sea coasts, but on the declivities of the snow- crowned Andes, the Himalaya, or the Nilgherry mountains of Mysore, or in the primitive forests, amid the network of rivers, lying between the Orinoco and the Amazon, can alone feel what an inexhaustible treasure remains still unopened by the landscape painter, between the tropics in both continents, or in the island- world of Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines; * These views of tropical vegetation, which designate the " physiog- nomy of plants," constitute, in the Royal Museum at Berlin, (in the de- partment of miniatures, drawings, and engravings,) a treasure of art which, owing to its peculiarity and picturesque variety, is incomparably superior to any other collection. The title of the papers edited by Yon Kittlitz is Vegetations- Ansicliten der Kiistenldnder und Inseln des stillen Oceans, aufgenommen 1827-1829, auf der EntdecTcungs-reise der kais. russ. Corvette Senjdwin (Siegen, 1844). There is also great fidelity to nature in the drawings of Carl Bodmer, which are engraved in a masterly manner, and which greatly embellish the large work of the travels of Prince Maximilian of Wied in the interior of North America. 2 G 2 452 COSMOS. and how all the spirited and admirable efforts already made in this portion of art fall far short of the magnitude of those riches of nature, of which it may yet become possessed. Are we not justified in hoping that landscape painting will flourish with a new and hitherto unknown brilliancy when artists of merit shall more frequently pass the narrow limits of the Mediterranean, and when they shall be enabled, far in the interior of continents, in the humid mountain valleys of the tropical world, to seize, with the genuine freshness of a pure and youthful spirit, on the true image of the varied forms of nature ? These noble regions have hitherto been visited mostly by travellers, whose want of artistical education, and whose dif- ferently directed scientific pursuits, afforded few opportunities of their perfecting themselves in landscape painting. Only very few amongst them have been susceptible of seizing on the total impression of the tropical zone, in addition to the botanical interest excited by the individual forms of flowers and leaves. It has frequently happened that the artists ap- pointed to accompany expeditions fitted out at the national expense, have been chosen without due consideration, and almost by accident, and have been thus found less prepared than such appointments required; and the end of the voyage may thus have drawn near before even the most talented amongst them, by a prolonged sojourn amongst grand scenes of nature, and by frequent attempts to imitate what they saw, had more than begun to acquire a certain technical mastery of their art. Voyages of circumnavigation are, besides, but seldom of a character to allow of artists visiting •any extensive tracts of forest-land, the upper courses of large rivers, or the summits of inland chains of mountains. Coloured sketches, taken directly from nature, are the only means by which the artist, on his return, may reproduce the character of distant regions in more elaborately finished pic- tures; and this object will be the more fully attained, where the painter has, at the same time, drawn or painted directly from nature a large number of separate studies of the foliage of trees ; of leafy, flowering, or fruit-bearing stems ; of pros- trate trunks, overgrown with pothos and orchidese; of rocks and of portions of the shore, and the soil of the forest. The possession of such correctly drawn and well proportioned LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 453 sketches will enable the artist to dispense with all the decep- tive aid of hothouse forms, and so-called botanical delineations. A great event in the history of the world, such as the emancipation of Spanish and Portuguese America from the dominion of European rule, or the increase of cultivation in India, New Holland, the Sandwich Islands, and the southern colonies of Africa, will incontestably impart to meteorology and the descriptive natural sciences, as well as to landscape painting a new impetus and a high tone of feeling, which probably could not have been attained independently of these local relations. In South America populous cities lie at an elevation of nearly 14,000 feet above the level of the sea. From these heights the eye ranges over all the climatic grada- tions of vegetable forms. What may we not, therefore,, expect from a picturesque study of nature, if, after the settlement of social discord, and the establishment of free institutions, a feeling of art shall at length be awakened in those elevated regions? All that is expressed by the passions, and all that relates to the beauty of the human form, has attained its highest perfec- tion in the temperate northern zone under the skies of Greece and Italy. The artist, drawing from the depths of nature, no less than from the contemplation of beings of his own species, derives the types of historical painting alike from free crea- tion and from truthful imitation. Landscape painting, though not simply an imitative art, has a more material origin, and a more earthly limitation. It requires for its development a large number of various and direct impressions which, when received from external contemplation, must be fertilized by the powers of the mind, in order to be given back to the senses of others as a free work of art. The grander style of heroic landscape painting is the combined result of a pro- found appreciation of nature, and of this inward process of the mind. Everywhere, in every separate portion of the earth, nature is indeed only a reflex of the whole. The forms of organ- isms recur again and again in different combinations. Even the icy north is cheered for months together by the presence of herbs and large Alpine blossoms covering the earth, and by the aspect of a mild azure sky. Hitherto landscape paint- ing amongst us has pursued her graceful labours, familiar 454 COSMOS. only with the simpler forms of our native floras, but not, on that account, without depth of feeling and richness of creative fancy. Dwelling only on the native and indigenous forms of our vegetation, this branch of art, notwithstanding that it has been circumscribed by such narrow limits, has yet afforded sufficient scope for highly gifted painters, such as the Carracci, Gaspard Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Ruysdael, to produce the loveliest and most varied creations of art, by their magical power of managing the grouping of trees and the effects of light and shade. That progress which may still be expected in the different departments of art, and to which I have already drawn attention, in order to indicate the ancient bond which unites natural science with poetry and artistic feeling, cannot impair the fame of the master works above referred to, for, as we have observed, a distinction must be made in landscape painting, as in every other branch of art, between the elements generated by the more limited field of contemplation and direct observation, and those which spring from the boundless depth of feeling and from the force of idealising mental power. The grand conceptions which land- scape painting, as a more or less inspired branch of the poetry of nature, owes to the creative power of the mind are, like inan himself, and the imaginative faculties with which he is endowed, independent of place. These remarks especially refer to the gradations in the forms of trees from Ruysdael and Everdingen, through the works of Claude Lorraine to Poussin and Annibal Caracci. In the great masters of art there is no indication of local limitation. But an extension of the visible horizon, and an acquaintance with the nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the luxurious fulness of life in the tropical world, afford the advantage of not simply enriching the material groundwork of landscape paint- ing, but also of inducing more vivid impressions in the minds of less highly gifted painters, and thus heightening their powers of artistic creation. I would here be permitted to refer to some remarks which I published nearly half a century ago, in a treatise which has been but little read, entitled Ideen zu emer Physiognomik der Gewachse,* and which stands in the most intimate connection * Humboldt, AnsicJiten der Natur, 2te Ausgabe, 1826, bd. i. s. 7, 16, 21, 36, and 42. Compare also two very instructive memoirs, TROPICAL SCENERY. 455 with the subject under consideration. He who comprehends nature at a single glance, and knows how to abstract his mind from local phenomena, will easily perceive how organic force and the abundance of vital development increase with the increase of warmth from the poles to the equator. This charming luxuriance of nature increases, in a lesser degree, from the north of Europe to the lovely shores of the Mediter- ranean than from the Iberian Peninsula, Southern Italy, and Greece, towards the tropics. The naked earth is covered with an unequally woven, flowery mantle, thicker where the sun rises high in a sky of deep azure, or is only veiled by light and feathery clouds, and thinner towards the gloomy north, where the returning frost too soon blights the opening bud or destroys the ripening fruit. Whilst in the cold zones the bark of the trees is covered with dry moss, or with lichens, the region of palms and of feathery arborescent ferns shows the trunks of Anacarclia and of the gigantic spe- cies of Ficus, embellished by Cymbidia and the fragrant Vanilla. The fresh green of the Dracontium, and the deeply serrated leaves of the Pothos, contrast with the variegated blossoms of the Orchideae, while climbing Bauhiniae, Passi- florae, and yellow-blossomed Banisteriae, entwining the stems of forest trees, spread far and high in air, and delicate flowers are unfolded from the roots of the Theobromse, and from the thick and rough bark of the Crescentiae and the Gustaviae. In the midst of this abundance of flowers and leaves, and this luxuriantly wild entanglement of climbing plants, it is often difficult for the naturalist to discover to which stem different flowers and leaves belong; nay, one single tree adorned with Paulliniae, Bignoniae, and Dendrobia, presents a mass of vege- table forms, which, if disentangled, would cover a considerable space of ground. Each portion of the earth has, however, its peculiar and characteristic beauty: to the tropics belong diversity and grandeur in the forms of plants ; to the north, the aspect of tracts of meadow-land, and the periodic and long- desired revival of nature, at the earliest breath of the gentle breezes of spring. As in the Musaceae (Pisang) we have the greatest expansion, so in the Casuarinae and in the needle tree we have Priedrich von Martius, Physiognomic des Pflanzenreiches in Brasilie.n, 1824, and M. von Olfers, allgemeine Uebersicht von JSrasilien in Feld- aer's Reisen, 1828, th. i. s. 18-23. 456 COSMOS. the greatest contraction of the leaf vessels. Firs, Thujas, and Cypresses constitute a northern flora which is very uncom- mon in the plains of the tropics. Their ever- verdant green enlivens the dreary winter landscape, and proclaims to the inhabitants of the north, that even when snow and ice have covered the ground, the inner life of vegetation, like Prome- thean fire, is never extinguished on our planet. Every zone of vegetation has, besides its own attractions, a peculiar character, which calls forth in us special impressions. Referring here only to our own native plants, I would askr who does not feel himself variously affected beneath the, sombre shade of the beech, on hills crowned with scattered pines, or in the midst of grassy plains, where the wind rustles among the trembling leaves of the birch ? As in dif- , ferent organic beings we recognise a distinct physiognomy r and as descriptive botany and zoology are, in the strict defi- nition of the words, merely analytic classifications of animal, and vegetable forms ; so there is also a certain physiognomy 01 nature exclusively peculiar to each portion of the earth. The idea which the artist wishes to indicate by the expressions,. " Swiss nature," or "Italian skies," is based on a vague sense of some local characteristic. The azure of the sky, the form, of the clouds, the vapoury mist resting in the distance, the luxuriant development of plants, the beauty of the foliage, and the outline of the mountains, are the elements which deter- mine the total impression produced by the aspect of any particular region. To apprehend these characteristics, and to- reproduce them visibly, is the province of landscape painting; while it is permitted to the artist, by analysing the various- groups, to resolve beneath his touch the great enchantment of nature — if I may venture on so metaphorical an expression, —as the written words of men are resolved into a few simple characters. But even in the present imperfect condition of pictorial deli- neations of landscapes, the engravings which accompany, and too- often disfigure, our books of travels, have, however, contributed considerably towards a knowledge of the physiognomy of distant regions, to the taste for voyages in the tropical zones, and to a more active study of nature. The improvements in, landscape painting on a large scale, (as decorative paintings,, panoramas, dioramas and neoramas,) have also increased the generality and force of these impressions. The representations, PANORAMAS. 457 satirically described by Vitruvius and the Egyptian, Julius Pol- lux, as "exaggerated representations of rural adornments of the stage," and which, in the sixteenth century, were contrived by Serlio's arrangement of Coulisses to increase the delusion, may now, since the discoveries of Prevost and Daguerre, be made, in Barker's panoramas, to serve, in some degree, as a substitute for travelling through different regions. Panoramas are more productive of effect than scenic decorations, since the spec- tator, enclosed as it were within a magical circle, and wholly removed from all the disturbing influences of reality, may the more easily fancy that he is actually surrounded by a foreign scene. These compositions give rise to impressions which, after many years, often become wonderfully interwoven with the feelings awakened by the aspect of the scenes when actu- ally beheld. Hitherto panoramas, which are alone effective when of considerable diameter, have been applied more fre- quently to the representation of cities and inhabited districts than to that of scenes in which nature revels in wild luxuri- ance and richness of life. An enchanting effect might be produced by a characteristic delineation of nature, sketched on the rugged declivities of the Himalaya and the Cordilleras, or in the midst of the Indian or South American river valleys, and much aid might be further derived by taking photographic pictures, which, although they certainly cannot give the leafy canopy of trees, would present the most perfect representation of the form of colossal trunks, and the characteristic ramifica- tion of the different branches. All these means, the enumeration of which is specially comprised within the limits of the present work, are calculated to raise the feeling of admiration for nature; and I am of opinion that the knowledge of the works of creation, and an appreciation of their exalted grandeur, would be powerfully increased if, besides museums, and thrown open like them, to the public, a number of panoramic buildings, containing alter- nating pictures of landscapes of different geographical lati- tudes and from different zones of elevation, should be erected in our large cities. The conception of the natural unity, and the feeling of the harmonious accord pervading the universe, cannot fail to increase in vividness amongst men, in propor- tion as the means are multiplied, by which the phenomena of nature may be more characteristically and visibly manifested. 458 COSMOS. CULTIVATION OF TROPICAL PLANTS — CONTRAST AND ASSEM- BLAGE OF VEGETABLE FORMS IMPRESSIONS INDUCED BY THE PHYSIOGNOMY AND CHARACTER OF THE VEGE- TATION. LANDSCAPE painting, notwithstanding the multiplication of its productions by engravings, and by the recent improve- ments in lithography, is still productive of a less powerful effect than that excited in minds susceptible of natural beauty, by the immediate aspect of groups of exotic plants in hot- houses or in gardens. I have already alluded to the subject of my own youthful experience, and mentioned that the sight of a colossal dragon-tree and of a fan palm in an old tower of the botanical garden at Berlin, implanted in my mind the seeds of an irresistible desire to undertake distant travels. He who is able to trace through the whole course of his impressions that which gave the first leading direction to his whole career, will not deny the influence of such a power. I would here consider the different impression produced by the picturesque arrangement of plants, and their associa- tion for the purposes of botanical exposition; in the first place, by groups distinguished for their size and mass, as Musaceae and Heliconiae, growing in thick clumps, and alternating with Corypha-palms, Araucariae, and MimosaB, and moss-covered trunks, from which shoot forth Dracontia, delicately leaved Ferns, and richly blossoming Orchideae; and in the next, by an abundance of separate lowly plants, classed and cultivated in rows for the purpose of affording instruction in descriptive and systematic botany. In the first case, our attention is challenged by the luxuriant development of vegetation in Cecropiae, CaroliniaB, and light feathery Bamboos; by the picturesque association of the grand and noble forms, which embellish the shores of the Upper Orinoco, the wooded banks of the Amazon, or of the Huallaga, so vividly and admirably described by Martius and Edward Poppig ; and by the sentiment of longing for the lands in which the current of life flows more abundantly and richly, and of whose beauty a faint but still pleasing image is reflected to the mind by means of our hothouses which originally served as mere nurseries for sickly plants. CULTIVATION OF EXOTIC PLANTS. 459 It undoubtedly enters within the compass of landscape painting to afford a richer and more complete picture of nature than the most skilfully arranged grouping of cultivated plants is able to present, since this branch of art exercises an almost magical command over masses and forms. Almost unlimited in space, it traces the skirts of the forest till they are wholly lost in the aerial distance, dashes the mountain torrent from cliff to cliff, and spreads the deep azure of the tropical sky alike over the summits of the lofty palms and over the waving grass of the plain that bounds the horizon. The luminous and coloured effects imparted to all terrestrial objects by the light of the thinly veiled or pure tropical sky gives a peculiar and mysterious power to landscape painting, when the artist succeeds in reproducing this mild effect of light. The sky in the landscape, has, from a profound appreciation for the nature of Greek tragedy, been ingeni- ously compared to the charm of the chorus in its general and mediative effect.* The multiplication of means at the command of paint- ing for exciting the fancy T and concentrating the grandest phenomena of sea and land on a small space, is denied to our plantations and gardens, but this deficiency in the total effect is compensated for by the sway which reality everywhere exercises over the senses. When in the Messrs. Loddiges' palmhouse, or in the Pfauen-Insel, near Potsdam, (a monu- ment of the simple love of nature of my noble and departed sovereign,) we look down from the high gallery in the bright noonday sun on the luxuriant reed and tree -like palms below, we feel, for a moment, in a state of complete delusion as to the locality to which we are transported, and we may even believe ourselves to be actually in a tropical climate, looking from the summit of a hill on a small grove of palms. It is true that the aspect of the deep azure of the sky, and the impression produced by a greater intensity of light, are want- ing, but, notwithstanding, the illusion is more perfect, and exercises a stronger effect on the imagination than is excited by the most perfect painting. Fancy associates with every plant the wonders of some distant region, as we listen to the rustling of the fan-like leaves, and see the changing and flit- * Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his Briefwechsel mit Schiller, 1830, 8. 470. 460 COSMOS. ting effect of the light, when the tops of the palms, gently moved by currents of air, come in contact as they wave to and fro. So great is the charm produced by reality, although the recollection of the artificial care bestowed on the plants certainly exercises a disturbing influence. Perfect develop- ment and freedom are inseparably connected with nature, and in the eyes of the zealous and botanical traveller, the dried plants of an herbarium, collected on the Cordilleras of South America, or in the plains of India, are often more precious than the aspect of the same species of plants within an European hothouse. Cultivation blots out some of the original characters of nature, and checks the free development of the several parts of the exotic organisation. The physiognomy and arrangement of plants and their contrasted apposition must not be regarded as mere objects of natural science, or incitements towards its cultivation ; for the attention devoted to the physiognomy of plants is likewise of the greatest importance with reference to the art of landscape gardening. I will not yield to the temptation here held out to me of entering more fully into this subject, merely limiting myself to a reference to the beginning of this section of the present work, where as we found occasion to praise the more frequent manifestation of a profound sentiment of nature noticed amongst nations of Semitic, Indian, and Iranian descent, so also we find from history that the cultivation of parks originated in Central and Southern Asia. Semiramis caused gardens to be laid out at the foot of the Mountain Bagistanos, which have been described by Diodorus,* and whose fame induced Alexander, on his progress from Kelone to the horse pastures of Nysoca, to deviate from the direct road. The parks of the Persian kings were adorned with cypresses, whose obelisk-like forms resembled the flame of fire, and were, on that account, after the appearance of Zerduscht (Zoroaster), first planted by Gushtasp around the sacred precincts of the Temple of Firt. It is thus that the form of the tree itself has * Diodor. ii. 13. He, however, ascribes 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 gardens" — Tauk-i-bostan, (Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Grossen, 1833, EASTEEN GARDENS. 461 led to the myth of the origin of the cypress in Paradise.* The gardens of the Asiatic terrestrial paradises (7rapaS«o-oi) excited the early admiration of the inhabitants of the West;f and the worship of trees may be traced amongst the Iranians, to the remote date of the prescripts of Horn, named, in the Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. We learn from Herodotus the delight taken by Xerxes in the great plane-tree in Lydia, on which he bestowed decorations of gold, appointing one of the r< immortal ten thousand" as its special * In the Schdhnameh of Firdusi it is said, " a slender cypress, reared in Paradise, did Zerdusht plant before the gate of the temple of fire" (at Kishmeer in Khorasan). " He had written on this tall cypress, that Gushtasp had adopted the genuine faith, of which the slender tree was a testimony, and thus did God diffuse righteousness. When many years had passed away, the tall cypress spread and became so large that the hunter's cord could not gird its circumference. When its top was surrounded by many branches, he encompassed it with a palace of pure gold and caused it to be published abroad, Where is there on the earth a cypress like that of Kishmeer] From Paradise God sent it me, and said, Bow thyself from thence to Paradise." When the Caliph Motewekkil caused the cypresses, sacred to the Ma- gians, to be cut down, the age ascribed to this one was said to be 1450 years. See Vuller's Fragmente uber die Religion des Zoroaster, 1831, s. 71 und 114; and Ritter, Erdkunde, th. vi. i. s. 242. The original native place of the cypress (in Arabic arar, wood, in Persian serw kohi,) appears to be the mountains of Busih, west of Herat (GeograpMe dEdrisi, trad, par Jaubert, 1836, t. i. p. 464). + A chill. Tat., i. 25; Longus, Past. iv. p. 108; Schafer. " Gesenius, (Thes. Linguae Ilebr., t. ii. p. 1124,) very justly advances the view that the word Paradise belonged originally to the ancient Persian lan- guage, 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 corroborated 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 its signification of pleasure-garden, or garden, the word has, probably, passed from the Persian into the Hebrew (par des, Cant. iv. 13; Nehem. ii. 8 ; and Eccl. ii. 5) ; into the Arabic (firdaus, plur. faradisu, com- pare Alcoran, 23, 11, and Luc., 23, 43); into the Syrian and Arme- nian (paries, see Ciakciak, Dizionario Armeno, 1837, p. 1194; and Schroder, Thes. Ling. Armcn., 1711. prsef. p. 56). The derivation of the Persian word from the Sanscrit (praddsa, or paradesa, circuit, or district, or foreign land), which was noticed by Benfey (Griech. Wur- zellexikon, bd. i. 1839, s. 138), and previously by Bohlen and Gesenius, suits perfectly in form, but not so well in sense." — Buschmann. 462 COSMOS. guard.*' The ancient adoration of trees was connected, owing to the refreshing and hmnid shadow of the leafy canopy, with the worship of the sacred springs. To this consideration of the primitive worship of nature belongs a notice of the fame attached amongst the Hellenic races to the remarkably large palm-tree in the island of Delos, and to an ancient plane-tree in Arcadia. The Buddhists of Ceylon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree, the Banyan of Anurahdepura, which is supposed to have sprung from the branches of the original tree under which Buddha, as the inhabitant of the ancient Magadha, fell into a state of beati- tude, spontaneous extinction, nirwdna.\ As separate trees became objects of adoration from the beauty of their forms, so likewise groups of trees were venerated as groves of the gods. Pausanias speaks in high terms of admiration of a grove round the Temple of Apollo at Grynion ^iEolis,J whilst the grove of Colonus is likewise celebrated in the famous chorus of Sophocles. The feeling for nature manifested by the early cultivated East Asiatic nations, in the choice and the careful attention of sacred objects chosen from the vegetable kingdom, was most strongly and variously exhibited in their cultivation of parks. In the remotest parts of the Old Continent the Chinese gardens appear to have approached most nearly to what we are now accustomed to regard as English parks. Under the victorious dynasty of Han, gardens were so fre- quently extended over a circuit of many miles that agricul- ture was injured by them, and the people excited to revolt.§ " What is it that we seek in the possession of a pleasure gar- den?" asks an ancient Chinese writer, Lieu-tscheu. It has been universally admitted, throughout all ages, that planta- tions should compensate to man for the loss of those charms of which he is deprived by his removal from a free communion wdth nature, his proper and most delightful place of abode. * Herod., yii. 31 (between Kallatebus and Sardes). t Kilter, Erdkunde, th. iv, 2. s. 237, 251, und 681; Lassen, Indische Alterihumslcunde, bd. i. s. 260. £ Pausanius, i. 21, 9. Compare also Arboretum Sacrum, in Meursii Op. ex recensione Joann. Lami, vol. x. Florent., 1753, pp. 777-'844. § Notice historique sur les Jardins des Chinois, in the Memoires concernant les Chinois, t. viii. p. 309. CHINESE PAEKS AND GARDENS. 463 "The art of laying out gardens consists in an endeavour to combine cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by an imitation of rural nature. Diversity, which is the main advantage of free landscape, must, therefore, be sought in a judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and dis- gust will soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays constraint and art."* The description given by Sir George Staunton of the great imperial garden of Zhe-hoLf north of the Chinese wall, corresponds with these precepts of Lieu- tscheu — precepts to which our ingenious contemporary, who formed the charming park of Muskau,J will not refuse his approval. In the great descriptive poem written in the middle of the last century, by the Emperor Kien-long, in praise of the former Mantchou capital, Mukden, and of the graves of his ancestors, the most ardent admiration is expressed for free nature, when but little embellished by art. The poetic prince shows a happy power in fusing the cheerful images of the lux- uriant freshness of the meadows, of the forest-crowned hills and the peaceful dwellings of men, with the sombre picture of the tombs of his forefathers. The sacrifices which he offers in obedience to the rites prescribed by Confucius, and the pious remembrance of the departed monarchs and warriors, form the principal objects of this remarkable poem. A long enu- meration of the wild plants and animals that are natives of the region is wearisome, like every other didactic work : but the blending of the visible impressions produced by the land- scape, which serves, as it were, for the background of the pic- ture, with the exalted objects of the ideal world, with the fulfil- ment of religious duties, together with the mention of great historical events, gives a peculiar character to the whole com- position. The feeling of adoration for mountains, which was * See the work last quoted, pp. 318-320. *h Sir George Staunton, Account of the Embassy of the Earl of Macartney to China, vol. ii. p. 245. £ Prince Puckler-Muskau, Andeutungen ilber Landscliaftsgartnerei, 1834. Compare also his Picturesque Descriptions of the Old and New English Parks, as well as that of the Egyptian Gardens of Schubra. 464 COSMOS. so deeply rooted amongst the Chinese, leads Kien-long to give a careful delineation of the physiognomy of inanimate nature, for which the Greeks and Romans evinced so little feeling. The form of the separate trees, the character of their ramification, the direction of the branches, and the form of the foliage, are all dwelt on with spec&l predilection.* If I have not yielded to the distaste for Chinese literature, which is, unfortunately, disappearing too slowly from amongst us, and if I have dwelt too long on the consideration of the delineations of nature met with in the works of a contemporary of Frederick the Great, I am so much the more bound to ascend seven and a half centuries further back into the annals of time, in order to refer to the poem of the Garden, by See- ina-kuang, a celebrated statesman. The pleasure-grounds described in this poem are certainly much crowded by build- ings in the fashion of the old Italian villas, but the minister likewise celebrates a hermitage, which is situated amongst rocks and surrounded by high fir-trees. He extols the open view over the broad River Kiang, crowded with vessels, and expects, with contentment, the arrival of friends, who will read their verses to him, since they will also listen to his compositions.! See-ma-kuang wrote about the year 1086, when, in Germany, poetry was in the hands of a rude clergy, and was not even clothed in the garb of the national tongue. At this period, and probably five hundred years earlier, the Inhabitants of China, of Eastern India, and Japan, were already acquainted with a great variety of vegetable forms. The intimate connection which existed amongst the different Buddhist sacerdotal establishments contributed its influence In this respect. Temples, cloisters, and burying-places, were surrounded by gardens, adorned with exotic trees, and covered "by variegated flowers of different forms. Indian plants were early diffused over China, Corea, and Nipon. Siebold, whose writings give a comprehensive view of all matters referring to Japan, was the first to draw attention to the cause of the mixture of the floras of remotely separated Buddhist lands 4 * Eloge de la Villa de Moulcden, Po6me compose par 1'Empereur Kien-long, traduit par Ic P. Amioi, 1770, pp. 18, 22-25, 37; 63-68, 73-87, 104, and 120. •{• Memoires concernant les Chinois, t. ii. p. 643-650. ;£ Ph. Fr. von Siebold, Kruidkundige Naamlijst van japansclie en PHYSIOGNOMY OF NATUBE. 465 The rich abundance of characteristic vegetable forms pre- sented by the present age to scientific observation and to landscape painting, must act as a powerful incentive to trace the sources which have yielded us this increased knowledge and enjoyment of nature. The enumeration of these sources must be reserved for the history of the contemplation of nature in the succeeding portion of this work. Here my object has been to depict, in the reflection of the external world on the mental activity and the feelings of mankind, those means which, in the progress of civilisation, have exercised so marked and animated an influence on the study of nature. Notwithstanding a certain freedom of development of the several parts, the primitive force of organisation binds all animal and vegetable forms to fixed and constantly recurring types, determining, in every zone, the character that peculiarly appertains to it, or the physiognomy of nature. We may, there- fore, regard it as one of the most precious fruits of European civilisation, that it is almost everywhere permitted to man, by the cultivation and arrangement of exotic plants, by the charm of landscape painting, and by the inspired power of language to procure a substitute for familiar scenes during the period of absence, or to receive a portion of that enjoyment from nature which is yielded by actual contemplation during long and not unfrequently dangerous journeys through the interior of distant continents. chineesche Planten, 1844, p. 4. What a difference do we not find on comparing the variety of vegetable forms cultivated for so many cen- turies past in Eastern Asia, with those enumerated by Columella, in his meagre poem dc Cultu Hortorum, (v. 95--105, 174-176, 225-271, 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 especially in Alexandria, the more skilful gardeners appear to have devoted any great attention to variety, particularly for winter cultiva- tion. (Compare Atlien., v. p. 196.) 2H 466 COSMOS. HISTORY OF THE PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. — PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE GRADUAL DEVE- LOPMENT AND EXTENSION OF THE IDEA OF THE COSMOS AS A NATURAL UNITY. THE history of the physical contemplation of the universe is the history of the recognition of the unity of nature, the repre- sentation of the efforts made by man to comprehend the combined action of natural forces on the earth and in the regions of space; and hence it designates the epochs of ' advancement in the generalisation of views ; being a portion of the history of our world of thought, in as far as it refers to objects manifested by the senses, to the form of conglomerated matter and the forces inherent in it. In the section of the first portion of this work, relating to the limitation and scientific treatment of a physical description of the universe, I' hope I may have succeeded in developing with clearness the relation existing between the separate natural sciences and the description of the universe, (the science of the Cosmos,) and the manner in which this science simply draws from these various branches of study the mate- rials for its scientific foundation. The history of the know- ledge of the universe, of which I here ipresent the leading ideas, and which, for the sake of brevity, I name, either simply the history of the Cosmos, or the history of the physical con- templation of the universe, must not, therefore, be confounded with the history of the natural sciences, as given in many of our leading elementary works on physics and physiology, or on the morphology of plants and animals. In order to give some idea of what has been collected at separate epochs, under this point of view, it appears most desirable to adduce separate instances illustrative of the sub- jects which must either be treated of or discarded in the succeeding portions of this work. The discoveries of the compound microscope, of the telescope, and of coloured polari- sation, belong to the history of the Cosmos, since they have afforded the means of discovering that which is common to all organisms ; of penetrating into the remotest regions of space ; of distinguishing between reflected or borrowed light, and the PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 467 light of self-luminous bodies, or — in other words — determin- ing whether solar light be radiated from a solid mass or from, a gaseous envelope. The enumeration of the experiments which, since Huygens' time, have gradually led to Arago's discovery of coloured polarisation must be reserved for the history of optics. The consideration of the development of the principles, in accordance with which variously formed plants admit of being classified in families, falls, in Like man- ner, within the domain of the history of phytognosy, or botany; whilst the geography of plants, or a study of the local and climatic distribution of vegetation over the whole earth — alike over the solid portions and in the basins of the sea — consti- tutes an important section in the history of the physical con- templation of the universe. The intellectual consideration of that which has led man to an insight into the unity of nature is, as we have already observed, as little entitled to the appellation of the complete history of the cultivation of mankind as to that of a history of the natural sciences. An insight into the connection of the vital forces of the universe must certainly be regarded as the noblest fruit of human civilisation, and as the tendency to arrive at the highest point to which the most perfect develop- ment of the intellect can attain; but the subject at present under consideration must still constitute only a part of the his- tory of human civilisation, embracing all that has been attained by the advance of different nations in the pursuit of every branch of mental and moral culture. By assuming a more limited physical point of view, we necessarily become restricted to one section of the history of human knowledge, and our attention is specially directed to the relation existing between the knowledge that has been gradually acquired and the whole extent of the domain of nature; and we dwell less on the extension of separate branches of science than on the results capable of generalisation, and the material aids contributed by different ages towards a more accurate observation of nature. We must, above, all, distinguish carefully between an early presentiment of knowledge, and knowledge itself. With the increasing cultivation of the human race, much has passed from the former to the latter, and by this transition the history of discovery has been rendered indistinct. An intel- lectual and ideal combination of the facts already established 468 . COSMOS. often guides almost imperceptibly the course of presage, ele- vating it as by a power of inspiration. How much has been enounced amongst the Indians and Greeks, and during the middle ages, regarding the connection of natural phenomena, which, at first, either vague, or blended with the most un- founded hypotheses, has, at a subsequent epoch, been confirmed by sure experience, and then been recognised as a scientific truth ! The presentient fancy and the vivid activity of spirit which animated Plato, Columbus, and Kepler, must not be disregarded, as if they had effected nothing in the domain of science, or as if they tended, of necessity, to draw the mind from the investigation of the actual. As we have defined the history of the physical contempla- tion of the universe to be the history of the recognition of nature in the unity of its phenomena, and of the connection of the forces of the universe, our mode of proceeding must consist in the enumeration of those subjects by which the idea of the unity of the phenomena has been gradually developed. We would here distinguish: 1. The independent efforts of reason to acquire a knowledge of natural laws, by a meditative consideration of the pheno- mena of nature. 2. Events in the history of the world which have suddenly enlarged the horizon of observation. 3. The discovery of new means of sensuous perception, as well as the discovery of new organs by which men have been brought into closer connection, both with terrestrial objects and with remote regions of space. This threefold view serves as a guide in defining the prin- cipal epochs that characterise the history of the science of the Cosmos. For the purpose of further illustration I would again adduce some examples indicative of the diversity of the means by which mankind attained to the intellectual posses- sion of a great portion of the universe. Under this head I include examples of an enlarged field of natural knowledge, great historical events, and the discovery of new organs. The knowledge of nature, as it existed amongst the Hellenic nations under the most ancient forms of physics, was derived more from the depth of mental contemplation than from the"' sensuous consideration of phenomena. Thus the natural phi- •losophy of the Ionian physiologists was directed to the funda- PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE TJXIVEKSE. 469 mental ground of origin, and to the metamorphoses of one sole element, whilst the mathematical symbolicism of the Pythagoreans, and their consideration of numbers and forms, disclose a philosophy of measure and harmony. The Doric- Italian school, by its constant search for numerical elements, and by a certain predilection for the numerical relations of space and time, laid the foundation, as it were, of the subse- quent development of our experimental sciences. The history of the contemplation of the universe, as I interpret its limits, designates not so much the frequently recurring oscillations between truth and error, as the principal epochs of the gradual ^approximation to more accurate views regarding terrestrial forces and the planetary system. It shows us that the Py- thagoreans, according to the report of Philolaus of Croton, taught the progressive movement of the non-rotating earth, its revolution round the focus of the world (the central fire, hestia), whilst Plato and Aristotle imagined that the earth neither rotated nor advanced in space, but that, fixed to one central point, it merely oscillated from side to side. Hicetas of Syracuse, who must, at least, have preceded Theophrastus, Heraclides Ponticus, and Ecphantus, all appear to have had a knowledge of the rotation of the earth on its axis; but Aristarchus of Samos, and more particularly, Seleucus of Babylon, who lived one hundred and fifty years after Alexan- der, first arrived at the knowledge that the earth not only- rotated on its own axis, but also moved round the sun as the centre of the whole planetary system. And if, in the dark period of the middle ages, Christian fanaticism, and the linger- ing influence of the Ptolemaic school, revived a belief in the immobility of the earth, and if, in the hypothesis of the Alex- andrian, Cosmas Indicopleustes, the globe again assumed the form of the disc of Thales, it must not be forgotten that a German Cardinal, Nicholas de Cuss, was the first who had the courage and the independence of mind, again to ascribe to our planet, almost a hundred years before Copernicus, both rotation on its axis and translation in space. After Coperni- cus, the doctrines of Tycho Brahe gave a retrograde movement to science, although this was only of short duration, and when once a large mass of accurate observations had been collected, to which Tycho Brahe himself contributed largely, a correct view of the structure of the universe could, not fnil to be 470 COSMOS. speedily established. We have already shown how a period of fluctuations between truth and error is especially one of presen- timents and fanciful hypotheses regarding natural philosophy. After treating of the extended knowledge of nature as a simultaneous consequence of direct observations and ideal combinations, we have proceeded to the consideration of those historical events which have materially extended the horizon of the physical contemplation of the universe. To these belong migrations of races, voyages of discovery, and mili- tary expeditions. Events of this nature have been the means of our acquiring a knowledge of the natural character of the Earth's surface, (as, for instance, the configuration of continents, the direction of mountain chains, and the relative height of elevated plateaux), and in the case of extended tracts of land, of presenting us with materials for expound- ing the general laws of nature. It is unnecessary, in this historical sketch, to give a connected tissue of events, and it will be sufficient, in the history of the recognition of nature as a whole, to refer merely to those events which, at early periods, have exercised a decided influence on the mental efforts of mankind, and on a more extended view of the universe. Considered in this light, the navigation of ColsBus of Samos, beyond the pillars of Hercules ; the expedition of Alexander to Western India; the dominion exercised by the Homans over the then discovered portions of the world ; the extension of Arabian cultivation, and the discovery of the New Continent, must all be regarded as events of the greatest importance for the nations settled round the basin of the Mediterranean. My object is not so much to dwell on the relation of events that may have occurred, as to refer to the action exercised on the development of the idea of the Cosmos by events, whether it be a voyage of discovery, the establish- ment of the predominance of some highly developed language rich in literary productions, or the sudden extension of the knowledge of the Indo- African monsoons. As I have already incidentally mentioned the influence of language in my enumeration of heterogeneous inducements, I will draw attention generally to its immeasurable importance in two wholly different directions. Languages, when exten- sively diffused, act individually as means of communication between widely separated nations, and collectively when several PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 471 are compared together, and their internal structure and degrees of affinity are investigated, as means of promoting a more pro- found study of the history of mankind. The Greek language, which is so intimately connected with the national life of the Hellenic races, has exercised a magical power over all the foreign nations with which these races came in contact.* The Greek language appears in the interior of Asia, through the influence of the Bactrian empire, as a conveyer of knowledge, which, a thousand years afterwards, was brought back by the Arabs to the extreme West of Europe, blended with hypotheses of Indian origin. The ancient Indian and Malayan tongues furthered the advance of commerce and the intercourse of nations in the island-world of the south-west of Asia, in Madagascar, and on the eastern shores of Africa ; and it is also probable that tidings of the Indian commercial stations of the Banians, may have given rise to the adventurous expedition of Vasco de Gama. The predominance of certain languages, although it unfortu- nately prepared a rapid destruction for the idioms displaced, has operated favourably, like Christianity and Buddhism, in bringing together and uniting mankind. Languages compared together and considered as obj ects of the natural history of the mind, and when separated into families according to the analogies existing in their internal structure, have become a rich source of historical knowledge; and this is probably one of the most brilliant results of modern study in the last sixty or seventy years. From the very fact of their being products of the intellectual force of mankind, they lead us, by means of the elements of their organism, into an obscure distance, unreached by traditionary records. The comparative study of languages shows us that races now separated by vast tracts of land are allied together, and have migrated from one common primitive seat; it indicates the course and direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the leading epochs of development, recognises, by means of the more or less changed structure of the language, in the per- manence of certain forms, or in the more or less advanced destruction of the formative svstem, which race has retained * Niebuhr, Rom. Geschichte, th. i. a, 69 ; Droysen, Gesch. der Bildung des hellenistischen Staatensy stems, 1843, s. 31-34, 567-573; Fried. Cramer, de Studiis quce«veteres adaliarum Gentium contulerint Linguast 1844, pp. 2-13, 472 COSMOS. most nearly the language common to all who had migrated from the general seat of origin. The largest field for such investigations into the ancient condition of language, and consequently into the period when the whole family of man- kind was, in the strict sense of the word, to be regarded as one living whole, presents itself in the long chain of Indo- Germanic languages, extending from the Ganges to the Iberian extremity of Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape. The same comparative study of languages leads us also to the native country of certain products, which, from the earliest ages, have constituted important objects of trade and barter. The Sanscrit names of genuine Indian products, as those of rice, cotton, spikenard, and sugar, have, as we find, passed into the language of the Greeks, and, to a certain extent, even into those of Semitic origin.*4 From the above considerations, and the examples by which they have been illustrated, the comparative study of languages appears as an important rational means of assistance, by which scientific and genuinely philological investigations may lead to a generalisation of views regarding the affinity of races, and their conjectural extension in various directions from one common point of radiation. The rational aids towards * In Sanscrit, rice is vrilii, cotton karpasa, sugar 'sarkara, and spikenard nanartha; see Lassen, Indisclie Altertlmmskunde, bd. i. 1843, s. 245, 250, 270, 289, s. 425-452. (Compare with it the same author's Geographic der Griechen und Homer, th. ii. abth. 2, 1832, s. 26-36; th. iii. i. 1843, g. 86, 175, 182, 320, and 349.) The Massilians, who, under Pjtheas, advanced, according to Heeren, after the Phoenicians, as far as the Baltic, hardly penetrated beyond the mouths of the "Weser and the Elbe. Pliny (iv. 16), placed the amber islands (Glessaria, also called Aus- trania), decidedly west of the Cimbrian promontory, in the German Sea; and the connection with the expedition of Germanicus suffici- ently teaches us that the island signified is not in the Baltic. The great effect of the ebb and flood tides in the estuaries which throw up amber, where, according to the expression of Servius, " inare vicissim. turn accedit, turn recedit," applies to the coasts between the Helder and the Cimbrian Peninsula but not to the Baltic, in which the island of Baltia is placed by Timasus (Plin. xxxvii. 2). Abalus, a day's journey from an sestuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurish Nehrung ; see also, on the voyage of Pytheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the amber 494 COSMOS. JEstii on the Baltic, owed its origin to the daring per- severance of Phoenician coasting traders. Its subsequent extension affords a remarkable example in the history of the contemplation of the universe, of the influence which may be exercised on the establishment of international intercourse, and on the extension of the knowledge of large tracts of land, by a predilection for even a single product. In the same manner as the Phocaean Massillians conveyed British tin through the whole extent of Gaul to the shores of the Rhone, amber passed from people to people through Germany and the territory of the Celts, on both sides of the Alps, to the Padus, and through Pannoriia to the Borysthenes. This in- trade along the whole coast of Skage, as far as the Netherlands, Wer- lauff, Bidrag til den nordisTce Ravhandels Historic (Kopenh. 1835). In Tacitus, and not in Pliny, we find the first acquaintance with the gles- sum of the shores of the Baltic, in the land of the jEstui (^Estuorum gentium), and of the Yenedi, concerning whom the great philologist Shaf- farik (Slawische Alteritiumer, th. i. s. 151-165), is uncertain whether they were Slaves or Germani. The more active direct connection with the Samland coast of the Baltic, and with the Esthonians, by means of the overland route through Pannonia, by Carmmtum, which was first fol- lowed by a Eoman knight under Nero, appears to me to have belonged to the later times of the Eoman Caesars ( V oigt, Gesch. Preusseris, bd. i. B. 85). The relations between the Prussian coasts and the Greek colo- nies on the Black Sea are proved by fine coins, struck probably before the eighty-fifth Olympiad, which have been recently found in the Netz dis- trict (Lewezow, in the AWiandl. der Berl. Akad. der Wiss. aus dem Jahr 1833, s. 181-224). The electron, the sun-stone of the very ancient mythus of the Eridanus (Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2), the amber stranded or buried on the coast, was, no doubt, frequently brought to the south, both by land and by sea, from very different districts. The " amber -which was found buried at two places in Scythia was, in part, very dark- coloured." Amber is still collected near Kaltschedansk, not far from Kamensk, on the Ural; and we have obtained, at Katharinenburg, fragments imbedded in lignite. See G. Kose, Reise nach dem Ural, bd. i. s. 481; and Sir Koderick Murchison, in the Geology of Russia, -vol. i. p. 366. The petrified wood which frequently surrounds the amber had early attracted the attention of the ancients. This resin, which was, at that time, regarded as so precious a product, was ascribed either to the black poplar (according to the Chian Scymnus, v. 396, p. 367, Letronne), or to a tree of the cedar or pine genus (according to Mithri- dates, in Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2 and 3). The recent admirable investiga- tions of Prof. Goppert, at Breslau, have shown that the conjecture of the Roman collector was the more correct. Respecting the petrified amber- tree (Pinitessuccinifer) belonging to an extinct vegetation, see Berendt Organische Reste im Bernstein, bd. i. abth. 1, 1845, s. 89. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE TJNIVEKSE. 495 land trade thus first connected the inhabitants of the coasts of the North Sea with those living on the shores of the Adriatic and the Euxine. The Phoenicians of Carthage, and probably those inhabiting the cities of Tartessus and Gades, which had been colonised two hundred years earlier, visited a considerable portion of the north-west coast of Africa, even beyond Cape Bojador, although the Chretes of Hanno is neither the Chremetes of the Meteoro- logica of Aristotle, nor yet our Gambia.* Here were situated the numerous Tyrian cities, whose numbers were estimated by Strabo at 300, which were destroyed by Pharusians and Nigri- tians. Amongst these was Cerne (Dicuil's Gaulea according to Letronne), the principal station for ships, as well as the chief emporium of the colonies on the coast. The Canary Islands and the Azores, (which latter were regarded by Don Fernando, the son of Columbus, as the Cassiterides discovered by the Carthaginians,) and the Orkneys, Faroe Islands, and Iceland, became the respective western and northern intermediate stations for passing to the New Continent. They indicate the two directions by which the European portion of the human race first became acquainted with the natives of North and Central America. This consideration gives a great, and I might almost say, a cosmical importance to the question whether and how early the Phoenicians of the mother- country or those of the Iberian and African settlements (Gadeira, Carthage, and Cerne), were acquainted with Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canary Islands. In a long series of events we willingly seek to trace the first and guiding link of the chain. It is probable that fully 2000 years elapsed from the foundation of Tartessus and Utica by Phoenicians, to the discovery of America by the northern course, that is to say, to Eric Randau's voyage to Greenland, which was followed by voyages to North Carolina; and that 2500 years intervened before Christopher Columbus, starting from the old Phoenician settlement of Gadeira, made the passage by the south-west route.f * On the Chremetes, see Aristot., Meteor., lib. i. p. 350 (Bekk.) ; and on the most southern points of which Hanno makes mention in his hip's journal, see my Rd. Hist., t. i. p. 172; and Examen crit. de la G$og. t. i. pp. 39, 180, and 288 ; t. iii. p. 135. Gosselin, JRecherches sur la Geog. System, des Anciens, t. i. pp. 94 and 98; Ukert, th. i. 1, s. 61-66. t Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 826. The destruction of Pho3nician colonies 496 COSMOS. In accordance with the requirements for the generalisation of ideas demanded by the present work, I have considered the discovery of a group of islands, lying only 168 miles from the African shore, as the first member of a long series of similarly directed efforts, but I have made no allusion to the Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, fabled by the poetic visions of fancy, as situated on the confines of the earth, in an ocean warmed by the rays of the near setting sun. All the enjoyments of life and the choicest products of nature were supposed to be placed at the remotest distance of the terrestrial globe.* The ideal land — the geographical myth of the Elysion — -was removed further to the west, even beyond the Pillars of Her- cules, as the knowledge of the Mediterranean was extended amongst the Hellenic races. True cosmical knowledge, and the earliest discoveries of the Pho3nicians, regarding whose precise period no certain tidings have come down to us, did not probably give rise to this myth of the " Islaads of the Blessed," the application to which was made subsequently. Geographical discovery has merely embodied a phantom of the imagination to which it served as a substratum. Later writers (as an unknown compiler of the collection of wonderful relations ascribed to Aristotle, who made use of Timaeus, and more especially of Diodorus Siculus), have spoken of " Pleasant islands," which must be supposed to be the Canaries, and of the great storms to which their accidental dis- covery is due. It is said that '• Phoenician and Carthaginian vessels, which were sailing towards the settlements already then founded on the coast of Libya, were driven out to sea." This event is supposed to have occurred in the early period of the Tyrrhenian navigation, and in that of the contest between the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians and Phoenicians. Statius Sebosus by Nigritians (lib. ii. p. 131), appears to indicate a very southern locality ; more so, perhaps, than the crocodiles and elephant mentioned by Hanno, since both these were certainly, at one period, found north of the desert of Sahara, in Maurusia, and in the whole western Atlas country, as is proved 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. See, on this important subject, referring to the geography of animals, Cuvier, Ossemens fossiles, 2 £d. t. i. p. .74; and Quatremere, op. tit., pp. 391-394). * Herod, iii. 106, PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE TTNIYERSE. 497 and the Numidian King Juba first gave names to the separate islands, but, unfortunately, not Punic names, although undoubt- edly in accordance with notices taken from Punic works. As Plutarch says that Sertorius, when driven away from Spain, wished to save himself and his attendants, after the loss of his fleet, on a group of two Atlantic islands, ten thousand stadia to the west of the mouth of the Baetis, it has been supposed that he meant to designate the two islands of Porto Santo and Madeira,* which were clearly indicated by Pliny as the Pur- * I have treated in detail this often-contested subject, as well as the passages of Diodorus (v. 19 and 20), and of the Pseudo-Aristot. (Mirab. Auscult., cap. 85, p. 172, Bekk.), in another work (Examen crit., t. i. pp. 130-139; t. ii. pp. 158 and 169; t. iii. pp. 137--140). The compi- lation of the Mir ah. Auscult. appears to have been of a date prior to the end of the first Punic war, since, in cap. 105, p. 211, it describes Sardinia as under the dominion of the Carthaginians. It is also worthy of notice that the wood-clad island, which is mentioned in this work, is described as uninhabited (therefore not peopled by Guanches). The whole group of the Canary Islands was inhabited by Guanches, but not the island of Ma- deira, in which no inhabitants were found, either by John Gonzalves and Tristan Yaz, in 1519, or still earlier by Eobert Masham and Anna Dorset, (supposing their Crusoe-like narrative to possess a character of veracity.) Heeren applies the description of Diodorus to Madeira alone, yet he thinks that in the account of Festus Avienus (v. 164), who is so conversant with Punic writings, he can recognise the frequent volcanic earthquakes of the Peak of Teneriffe. (See Ideen uber Politik und Handel, th. ii. abth. i. 1826, s. 106.) To judge from the geographical connection, the description of Avienus would appear to indicate a more northern locality, perhaps even the Kronic sea. (Examen crit., t. iii. p. 138.) Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii. 1 5) also notices the Punic sources of which Juba availed himself. Respecting the probability of the Semitic origin of the appella- tion of the Canary Islands (the dog island 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. Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, in a work entitled Memoria em que se pretende prorar que os Arabes nao conheceruo as Canarias antes dos Portu- guezes, 1844, has recently collected all that has been written from the most ancient times to the middle ages, respecting the Canary Islands. "Where history, so far as it is founded on certain and distinctly expressed evidence, is silent, there remain only different degrees of probability; hut an absolute denial of all facts in the world's history, of which the evidence is not distinct, appears to me no happy application of philological and historical criticism. The many indications which have come down to us from antiquity, and a careful consideration of the rela- tions of geographical proximity to ancient undoubted settlements on the African shore, lead me to believe that the Canary Islands were known to 2 X 498 COSMOS. purariae. The strong oceanic current, which is directed beyond the Pillars of Hercules from north-west to south-east, might long have prevented the coast navigators from discover- ing the islands most remote from the continent, and of which only the smaller, Porto Santo, was found to be inhabited in the fifteenth century ; and owing to the curvature of the earth the summit of the great volcano of Teneriffe could not be seen, even with a strong refraction, by Phoenician mariners sailing along the coast; although I found, from my own observations, that it was discernible from the slight elevations that surround Cape Bojador,* especially in cases of eruption, and by the reflection of a high cloud resting over the volcano. It is even asserted that eruptions of Mount Etna have been seen, in recent times, from Mount Taygetos in Greece.f In the enumeration of the elements of an extended know- ledge of the universe, which were early brought to the Greeks from other parts of the Mediterranean basin, we have hitherto followed the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in their inter- the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans, perhaps even to the Etruscans. * Compare the calculations in my Rel. Hist., t. i. pp. 140 and 287. The Peak of Teneriffe is distant 2° 49' of an arc from the nearest point of the African coast. In assuming a mean refraction of 0'08, the summit of the Peak may be seen from a height of 1291 feet, and, therefore, from the Montanas Negras, not far from Cape Bojador. In this calculation, the elevation of the Peak above the level of the sea has been taken at 12,1 75 feet; Captain Tidal has recently determined it trigonometrically at 12,405, and Messrs. Coup vent and Dumoulin, barometrically, at 12,150. p'Urville, Voyage au Pole Sud, Hist., t. i. 1842, pp. 31, 32.) But Lancerote, with a volcano, la Corona, 1918 feet in height (Leop. v. Buch, Canarische Inseln, s. 104), and Fortaventura, lie much nearer to the mainland than Teneriffe : the distance of the first-named island being 1° 15', and that of the second 1° 2'. f Ross has only mentioned this assertion as a report (Hellenika, bd. i. s. xi). May the observation not have rested on a mere deception! If we take the elevation of Etna above the sea at 10,874 feet (lat. 37° 45', long, from Paris 12° 41% and that of the place of observation, on the Taygetos (Mount Elias), at 7904 feet (lat. 36° 57', long, from Paris 20° 1'), and the distance between the two at 352 geographical miles, we have for the point from which light was emitted above Etna, and was visible on Taygetos, fully 48,675 feet, which is four and a half times greater than the elevation of Etna. If, however, we- might assume, as my friend Professor Encke has remarked, the reflecting surface to be 184 miles from Etna and 168 miles from Taygetos, its height above the sea would only require to be 1829 feet. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 499 course with the northern tin and amber lands, as well as in their settlements near the tropics, on the west coast of Africa. It now, therefore, only remains for us to refer to a voyage of the Phoenicians to the south, when they proceeded 4000 geographical miles east of Cerne and Hanno's Western Horn, far within the tropics, to the Prasodic and Indian Seas. Whatever doubt may exist regarding the localisation of the distant gold lands (Ophir and Supara), and whether these gold lands are the western coasts of the Indian peninsula, or the eastern shores of Africa, it is, at any rate, certain that this active, enterprising Semitic race, who so early employed alphabetical writing, had a direct acquaintance with the pro- ducts of the most different climates, from the Cassiterides to the south of the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeb, far within the tropics. The Tyrian flag floated simultaneously in the British and Indian seas. The Phoenicians had commercial settlements in the northern parts of the Arabian Gulf, in the ports of Elath and Ezioii Geber, as well as on the Persian Gulf at Aradus and Tylos, where, according to Strabo, temples had been erected, which, in their style of architecture, resembled those on the Mediterranean.* The caravan trade, which was carried on by the Pho3nicians in seeking spices and incense, was directed to Arabia Felix, through Palmyra, and to the Chaldean or Nabathaeic Gerrha, on the western or Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. The expeditions sent by Hiram and Solomon, and which were undertaken conjointly by Tynans and Israelites, sailed from Ezion Geber through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to Ophir (Opheir, Sophir, Sophora, the Sanscrit Supara of Ptolemy ).f Solomon, [who loved pomp, caused a fleet to be * Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 767, Casaub. According to Polybius, it would Beem that the Euxine and the Adriatic Sea were discernible from Mount Aimon — an assertion ridiculed by Strabo (lib. vii. p. 313). Compare Scymnus, p. 93. -|« On the synonym of Ophir, see my Examen crit. de VHist. de la Geographic, t. ii. p. 42. Ptolemy, in lib. vi. cap. 7, p. 156, speaks of a Sapphara, the metropolis of Arabia; and in lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 168, of Supara, in the Gulf of Camboya (Barigazenus sinus, according to Heiy- chius),as " a district rich in gold !" Supara signifies in Indian a fair shore (Lassen, J)iss. de Taprobane, p. 18, and Indische Alterihumskunde, bd. i. s. 107; also Professor Keil of L»orpat, Ueber die monische Schiffahrt nach Ophir und Tarsis, a. 40-45). 2x2 500 COSMOS. constructed at the Red Sea, and Hiram supplied him with experienced Phoenician seamen, and Tyrian vessels, "ships of Tarshish."*' The articles of commerce which were brought from Ophir, were gold, silver, sandal -wood (al- gummin), precious stones, ivory, apes (kophim), and peacocks (thiikkiim). These are not Hebrew but Indian names.f * On the question whether ships of Tarshish mean ocean ships, or whether, as Michaelis contends, they have their name from the Phoani- cian Tarsus, in Cilicia1? see Keil, op. cit., s. 7, 15-22, and 71-84. *t* Gesenius, Thesaurus Linguce Ilebr., t. i. p. 141; and the same in the Encycl. of Ersch and Gruber, sect. iii. th. iv. s. 401 ; Lassen, 2nd. Al~ terthumsJcunde, bd. i. s. 538 ; Reinaud, Relation des Voyages f aits par les Arabes dans I'Inde et en Chine, t. i. 1845, p. xxviii. The learned Quatremere, who, in a very recently published treatise (Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xvi. pt. 2, 1845, pp. 349-402), still maintains with Heeren, that Ophir is the east coast of Africa, has explained the word thukkiim (thukkiyyim) as parrots, or Guinea-fowls, and not peacocks (p. 375). Regarding Sokotora) compare Bohlen, Das alte Indien, th. ii. s. 139, with Benfey, Indien, s. 30-32. Sofala is described by Edrisi (in Ame"dee Jaubert's translation, t. i. p. 67), and subsequently by the Portuguese, after Gama's voyage of discovery (Barros, Dec. 1 liv. x. cap. i.; pt. ii. p. 375; Kulb, Geschichte der Entdeckungsreisen, th. i. 1841, s. 236), as a country rich in gold. I have elsewhere drawn attention to the fact that Edrisi, in the middle of the twelfth century, speaks of the application of quicksilver in the gold-washings of -the negroes of this district, as a long known process of amalga- mation. When we bear in mind the great frequency of the interchange of r and I, we find that the name of the East African Sofala is perfectly re- presented by that of Sophara, which is used with several other forms, in the version of the Septuagint, for the Ophir of "Solomon and Hiram. Ptolemy also, as has been already noticed, was acquainted with a Sapphara, in Arabia (Ritter, Asien, bd. viii. 1, 1846, s. 252), and a Supara in India. The significant (Sanscrit) names of the mother country had been con- ferred on neighbouring or opposite coasts, as we find, under similar relations in the present day, in the Spanish and English parts of Ame- rica. The trade to Ophir might thus, according to my view, be extended in the same manner as a Phoanician expedition to Tartessus might touch at Gyrene and Carthage, Gadeira and Cerne ; and as one to the Cassi- terides might touch at the Artabrian, British, and East Cimbrian coasts. It is, nevertheless, remarkable, that incense, spices, silk, and cotton cloth are not named among the wares from Ophir, together with ivory, apes, and peacocks. The latter are exclusively Indian, although, on ac- count of their gradual extension to the west, they were frequently termed by the Greeks " Median and Persian birds :" the Samians even supposed them to have belonged originally to Samos, on account of their being reared by the priests in the sanctuary of Hera. From a pab- PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 501 It would appear highly probable, from the careful investiga- tions of Gesenius, Benfey, and Lassen, that the Phoenicians, who had been early made acquainted with the periodic preva- lence of the monsoons through their colonies on the Persian Gulf, and their intercourse with the inhabitants of Gerrha, must have visited the western coasts of the Indian Peninsula. Christopher Columbus was even persuaded that Ophir (the El Dorado of Solomon) and Mount Sopora were a portion of East- ern Asia, the Chersonesus Aurea of Ptolemy.* As it appears difficult to form an idea of Western India as a fruitful source of gold, it will, I think, scarcely be necessary to refer to the " gold-seeking ants" (or to the unmistakeable account given by Ctesias of a foundry in which, however, gold and iron were said, according to his account, to be fused together),! it being sufficient to direct attention to the geographical proxi- mity of Southern Arabia, of the Island of Dioscorides (the Diu Zokotora of the moderns, a corruption of the Sanscrit sage in Eustathius (Comm. in Iliad, t. iv. p. 225, ed. Lips., 1827), on the sacredness of peacocks in Libya, it has been unjustly inferred that the r«w£ also belonged to Africa. * See the remarks of Columbus on Ophir, and el Monte Sopora, "which Solomon's fleet could not reach within a term of three years," in Navarrete, Viages y Descubrimientos que hici£ron los Espaholes, t. i. p. 103. In another work, the great discoverer says, still in the hope of reaching Ophir, " the excellence and power of the gold of Ophir cannot be described; he who possesses it does what he will in this world; nay, it even enables him to draw souls from purgatory to paradise" (" llega a que echa las animas al paraiso"), Carta del Almirante, escrita en la Jamaica, 1503; Navar- rete, t. i. p. 309. (Compare my Examen critique, t. i. pp. 70 and 109; t. ii. pp. 38-44; and on the proper duration of the Tarshish voyage, see Keil, op. cit., s. 106.) "I* Ctesiae Cnidii Operum Reliquice, ed. Felix Baehr, 1824, cap. iv. and xii. pp. 248, 271, and 300. But the accounts collected by the phy- sician at the Persian Court from native sources, which are not, therefore, altogether to be rejected, refer to districts in the north of India, and from these the gold of the Daradas must have come by many circuitous routes to Abhira, the mouth of the Indus, and the coast of Malabar. (Compare my Asie centrale, t. i. p. 157, and Lassen, Ind. Alterthums- kunde, bd. i. s. 5.) May not the wonderful story related by Ctesias, of an Indian spring, at the bottom of which iron was found, which was very malleable when the fluid gold had run off, have been based on a misun- derstood account of a foundry 1 The molten iron was probably taken for gold owing to its colour, and when the yellow colour had disappeared la cooling, the black mass of iron was found below it. 502 COSMOS. Dvipa Sukhatara), cultivated by Indian colonists, and to the auriferous coast of Sofala in Eastern Africa. Arabia and the island last referred to, to the south-east of the Straits of Bab- el-Mandeb, may be regarded as affording intermediate links of connection between the Indian Peninsula and Eastern Africa, for the combined commerce of the Hebrews and Phoenicians. The Indians had, from the earliest time, made settlements in the eastern part of Africa, and on the coasts immediately opposite their native country; and the traders to Ophir might have found, in the basin of the Erythreian and Indian Seas, other sources of gold besides India itself. Less influential than the Phoenicians in extending the geo- graphical sphere of our views, and early affected by the Greek influence of a band of Pelasgian Tyrrhenians, who invaded their country from the sea, the Etruscans present themselves to our observation as a gloomy and stern race. They carried on no inconsiderable inland trade to distant amber countries, through Northern Italy and across the Alps, where a via sacra* was protected by all the neighbouring tribes. The primitive Tuscan race of the Rasense appears to have followed almost the same road on their way from Rhaetia to the Padus, and evm further southward. In accordance with our object, which is always to seize on the most general and permanent features, we would here consider the influence which the general character of the Etruscans exercised on the most ancient political institutions of Rome, and through these on the whole of Roman life. It may be said that the reflex action of this influence still persists in its secondary and remote political effects, inasmuch as, for ages, Rome stamped her character, with more or less permanence on the civilisation and mental culture of mankind.f A peculiar characteristic of the Tuscans which demands our special notice in the present work, was their inclination for cul- tivating an intimate connection with certain natural pheno- mena. Divination, which was the occupation of their eques- trian hierarchical caste, gave occasion for a daily observation, of the meteorological processes of the atmosphere. The Ful- * Aristot., Mirab. Auscult., cap. 86 and 111, pp. 175 and 225, Bekk. t Die Etruslcer, by Otfried Muller, abth. ii. s. 350; Niebuhr, Romis- die Geschichte, th. ii. s. 380. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 503 guratores, observers of lightning, occupied themselves in inves- tigating the direction of the lightning, with " drawing it down," and " turning it aside. "* They carefully distinguished between flashes of lightning, from the higher regions of the clouds, and those which Saturn, an Earth God,f caused to ascend from below, and which were called Saturnine-terres- trial lightning ; a distinction which modern physicists have * The story formerly current in Germany, and reported on the testi- mony of Father Angelo Cortenovis, that the tomb described by Yarro, of the hero of Clusium, Lars Porsena, ornamented with a bronze hat and bronze pendant chains, was an apparatus for collecting atmospherical electricity, or for conducting lightning (as were also, according to Michaelis, the metal points on Solomon's temple) was related at a time when men were inclined to attribute to the ancients the remains of a supernaturally revealed primitive knowledge of physics, which was, how- ever, soon again obscured. The most important notice of the relations between lightning and conducting metals (which it was not difficult to discover), appears to me to be that of Ctesias (Indica, cap. 4, p. 169, ed. Lion; p. 248, ed. Baehr). "He had possessed, it is said, two iron swords, presents from the King Artaxerxes Mnemon, and from Pary- satis, the mother of the latter, which, when planted in the earth, averted clouds, hail, and strokes of lightning. He had himself seen the results of this operation, for the king had twice made the experiment before his eyes/' The great attention paid by the Etruscans to the meteorological processes of the atmosphere in all that differed from the ordinary course of natural phenomena, makes it certainly a cause for regret that nothing has come down to us from the books of the Fulgura- tores. The epochs of the appearance of great comets, of the fall of meteoric stones, and of showers of falling stars, were, no doubt, recorded in them, as in the more ancient Chinese annals made use of by Edouard Biot. Creuzer (Symbolik und Mytholoyie der alien Volker, th. iii, 1842, s. 659) has endeavoured to prove that the natural features of Etruria acted on the peculiar direction of mind of its inhabitants. A "calling forth" of the lightning, which is ascribed to Prometheus, calls to mind the strange pretended "drawing down" of lightning by the Fulguratores. This operation consisted, however, in a mere conjura- tion, which was probably not more efficacious than the skinned ass's head, supposed, in accordance with Etruscan religious usages, to have the faculty of preserving against the danger of thunder storms. t Otfr. Muller, Etrusker, abth. ii. s. 162-178. It would appear that, in accordance with the very complicated Etruscan augur-theory, a distinction was made between the " soft reminding lightnings propelled by Jupiter by his own independent power, and the violent electrical means of chastisement which he could only send forth in obedience to established constitutional prescriptions, after consulting with the other twelve gods" (Seneca, Nat. Qucest., ii. p. 41). 504 COSMOS. thought worthy of especial attention. Thus were established regular official notices of the occurrence of storms.* The Aqu&licium, the art of discovering springs of waters, which was much practised by the Etruscans, and the drawing forth of water by their Aquileges, indicate a careful investigation of the natural stratification of rocks, and of the inequalities of the ground. Diodorus, on this account, extols the Etruscans as industrious inquirers of nature. We may add to this com- mendation, that the patrician and powerful hierarchical caste of the Tarquinii offered the rare example of favouring physical science. We have spoken of the ancient seats of human civilisation in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Etruria, before proceeding to the highly-gifted Hellenic races, with whose culture our own civilisation is most deeply rooted, and from whom we have derived a considerable portion of our early knowledge of other nations, and of our views regarding the universe. We have considered the basin of the Mediterranean in its characteristic configuration and position, and the influence of these relations on the commercial intercourse established with the western coasts of Africa, the extreme north, and the Indo-Arabian Sea. No portion of the earth has been the theatre of greater changes of power, or of greater or more animated activity under the in- fluence of mental guidance. This movement was transmitted far and enduringly by the Greeks and Romans, especially after the latter had destroyed the Phcenicio-Carthaginian power. That which we term the beginning of history is, therefore, only the period when later generations awoke to self-consciousness. It is one of the advantages of the present age that, by the bril- liant progress that has been made in general and comparative philology, by the careful investigation of monuments and their more certain interpretation, the views of the historical inquirer are daily enlarged, and the strata of remote antiquity gradually opened, as it were, before our eyes. Besides the civilised nations of the Mediterranean which we have just enumerated, there are many others who show traces of ancient cultivation; among these we may mention the Phrygians and Lycians in Western Asia, and the Turduli and Turdetani in the_£xtifime west.f Of the latter, Strabo observes, "they * Joh. Lydus de Ostcntis, ed. Hase, p. 18, in praefat. t Strabo, lib. iii. p. 139, Casaub. Compare Wilhelm von Humboldt, PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 505 are the most cultivated of all the Iberians ; they employ the art of writing, and have written books containing memorials of ancient times, and also poems and laws set in verse, for which they claim an antiquity of six thousand years." I have dwelt on these separate examples in order to show how much of ancient cultivation, even amongst E.uropean nations, has been lost without our being able to discover any trace of its existence, and how the history of the earliest contemplation of the uni- verse must continue to be limited to a very narrow compass. Beyond the 48th degree of latitude, north of the Sea of Azof and of the Caspian, between the Don, the Wolga, and the Jaik, where the latter flows from the southern aurtferous Uralian mountains, Europe and Asia are, as it were, fused together by flat steppes. Herodotus, in the same manner as Pherecydes of Syros had previously done, regarded the whole of northern Scythian Asia (Siberia), as belonging to Sarmatian Europe, and even as forming a portion of Europe itself.* Towards the south, our quarter of the globe is sharply separated from Asia, but the far projecting peninsula of Asia Minor, and the richly varied ^Egean Archipelago (serving as a bridge between the two separate continents), have afforded an easy passage for different races, languages, customs, and manners. West- ern Asia has, from the earliest ages, been the great thorough- fare for races migrating from the east, as was the north-west of Greece for the Illyric races. The ^Egean Archipelago-, which was in turn subject to Phoenician, Persian, and Greek dominion, was the intermediate link between Greece and the far East. When Phrygia was incorporated with Lydia, and both merged into the Persian Empire, the contact led to the gene- ral extension of the sphere of ideas amongst Asiatic and European Greeks. The Persian rule was extended by the warlike expeditions of Cambyses and Darius Hystaspes from Cyrene and the Nile to the fruitful lands of the Ueber die Urbewohner Hispaniens, 1821, s. 123 and 131-136. The Iberian alphabet has been successfully investigated in our own times by M. de Saulcy ; the Phrygian, by the ingenious discoverer of arrow-headed writing, Grotefend; and the Lycian, by Sir Charles Fellowes. (Compare Ross, Hellenika, bd. i. s. xvi.) * Herod., iv. 42 (Schweighauser ad Herod., t. v. p. 204). Company Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 54 and 577. 506 COSMOS. Euphrates and the Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, was employed to explore the course of the Indus, from the then- existing territory of Caschmeer (Kaspapyrus)* to its mouth. An active intercourse was carried on between Greece and Egypt (with Naucratis and the Pelusian arm of the Nile), before the Persian conquest, and even under Psammitichus and Amasis.f These extensive relations of intercourse with other nations drew many Greeks from their native land, not only for the purpose of establishing those distant colonies which we shall consider in a subsequent part of the present work, but also as hired soldiers who formed the nucleus of foreign armies in Carthage,J Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and in the Bactrian district of the Oxus. A deeper insight into the individuality and national charac- ter of the different Greek races has shown that, if a grave and reserved exclusiveness prevailed amongst the Dorians, and in part also amongst the ^Eolians, we must, on the other hand, ascribe to the gayer Ionic race a mobility of mind, which, under the stimulus of an eager spirit of enquiry, and an ever- wakeful activity, was alike manifested in a faculty for mental contemplation and sensuous perception. Directed by the objective bent of their mode of thought, and adorned by a luxuriance of fancy in poetry and in art, the lonians scattered the beneficent germs of progressive cultivation, wherever they established their colonies in other countries. As the landscape of Greece was so strikingly characterised by the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of land and sea, the configuration of the coast line to which this cha- racter was owing, could not fail early to awaken in the minds of the Greeks a taste for navigation, and to excite them to an active commercial intercourse and contact with foreign nations. § The maritime dominion of the Cretans and Khodians was followed by the expeditions of the Samians, Phocoeans, Taphians, and Thesprotians, which were, it must be owned, * Eegarding the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus of Heca- tseus (Fragm. ed. Klausen, No. 179, v. 94), and the Kaspatyrus of Herodotus (iii. 102, and iv. 44), see my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 101-104. *h Eegarding Psammitichus and Aahmes, see p. 489. £ Droysen, Geschichte der Bildung des heUenistiscJien Staatensys- teins, 1843, s. 23. § See p. 376. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE TJNIVEBSE. 507 originally directed to plunder and to tne capture of slaves. Hesiod's disinclination to a seafaring life is probably to be regarded merely as the expression of an individual opinion, or as the result of a timid ignorance of nautical affairs, which may have prevailed on the mainland of Greece at the early dawn of civilisation. On the other hand, the most ancient legends and myths abound in reference to distant expeditions by land and sea, as if the youthful imagination of mankind delighted in the contrast between its own ideal creations and a limited reality; in illustration of this sentiment we may mention the expeditions of Dionysus and Hercules (Melkarth in the temple at Gadeira), the wanderings of Io;* of the often- resuscitated Aristeas; and of the Hyperborean Magician, Aborts, in whose "guiding arrow"f some commentators have supposed that they recognised the compass. In these nar- ratives we trace the reciprocal reflection of passing events, and ancient cosmical views, and the progressive modification which the latter effected in these mythical representations of his- tory. In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aristonicus makes Menelaus circumnavigate Africa more than five hundred years before Neco sailed from Gadeira to India. J At the period, which we are here considering, of the his- tory of Greece, before the Macedonian expeditions into Asia, there occurred three events which exercised a special influence in extending the views of the Greeks regarding the universe. These events were the attempts to penetrate beyond the basin of the Mediterranean towards the east ; the attempts towards the west ; and the establishment of numerous colonies from the Pillars of Hercules to the north-eastern extremity of the Euxine, which, by the more varied form of their political constitution, * Volker, Mythische Geographie der Griechen und Rb'mer, th. i. 1832, s. 1-10; Klausen, Ueber die Wanderungen der lo und des Herar kles, in 2sriebuhr and Brandis Rheinische Museenfur Pkilologie, Ges- chichte und griech. Philosophic, Jahrg. iii. 1829, s. 293-323. t In the myth of Abaris (Herod., iv. 36), the magician does not travel through the air on an arrow, but he carries the arrow, " which Pythagoras gave him (Jambl., de Vita Pyihag., xxix. p. 194, Kiess- Hng), in order that it may be useful to him in all difficulties on his long journey;" Creuzer, Symbolic, th. ii. 1841, s. 660-664. On the repeat- edly disappearing and re-appearing Arimaspian bard, Aristeas of Procon- nesus, see Herod., iv. 13-15. J Strabo, lib. i. .p. 38, Casau' >. 508 COSMOS. and by their furtherance of mental cultivation, were more in- fluential than those of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the JEgean Sea, Sicily, Theria, and on the north and west coasts of Africa. The advance towards the East, about twelve centuries before our era, or one hundred and fifty years after Rameses Miamoun (Sesostris), is known in history as the expedition of the Argo- nauts to Colchis. The true version of this event, which is clothed in a mythical garb, and concealed under a blending of ideal images, is simply the fulfilment of a national desire to open the inhospitable Euxine. The myth of Prometheus, and the unbinding of the fire-kindling Titan on the Caucasus by Her- cules, during his expedition to the East; the ascent of lo from the valley of the Hybrites* to the heights of the Cauca- sus ; the myth of Phryxus and Helle ; all indicate the same direction of the course on which the early Phoenician naviga- tors had adventured. Before the migrations of the Dorians and Eolians the Boeotian Orchomenus, near the eastern extremity of the Lake of Copais, was already a rich commercial city of the Mynians. The Argonautic expedition began at lolcus, the principal seat of the Thessalian Mynians, on the Pagaseean Gulf. The locality of the myth, considered with respect to the aim of the undertaking, after having been variously modified f at different * Probably the valley of the Don, or of the Kuban; see my Asie centrale, t. ii. p. 164. Pherecydes expressly says (Fragm. 37, ex Scliol. Apollon., ii. 1214), that the Caucasus burned, and, that, therefore, Typhon fled to Italy ; a notice from which Klausen, in the work already men- tioned, s. 298, explains the ideal relation of the "fire-kindler" (rrvpKatvo), Prometheus, to the burning mountain. Although the geognostical con- stitution of the Caucasus (which has been recently so ably investigated by Abich), and its connection with the volcanic chain of the Thian- schan, in the interior of Asia (which, I think, I have shown in my Asie centrale, t. ii. pp. 55-59), render it in no way improbable that remi- niscences of great volcanic eruptions may have been preserved in the most ancient traditions of men ; yet we may rather assume that a bold and somewhat hazardous spirit of etymological conjecture may have led the Greeks to the hypothesis of the burning. On the Sanscrit etymologies of Graucasus (or shining mountain), see Bohlen's and Bur- nouf 's statements, in my Asie centrale, t. i. p. 109. t Otfried Muller, Minyer, s. 247, 254, and 274. Homer was not acquainted with the Phasis, or with Colchis, or with the Pillars of Her- cules; but the Phasis is named by Hesiod. The mythical traditions PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 509 times, was finally associated with the mouth of the Phasis (Rion), and with Colchis, a seat of ancient civilisation, instead of with the uncertain and remote land of Aea. The expedi- tions of the Milesians and their numerous colonial cities on the Euxine, enabled them to obtain a more exact knowledge of the eastern and northern limits of that sea; and thus gave a more definite outline to the geographical portion of the myth. A number of important new views was thus simul- taneously opened. The Caspian had long been known only on its western coast; and even HecataDus regarded this shore as the western boundary of the encircling Eastern Ocean.*4 The father of history was the first who taught that the Caspian Sea was a basin closed on all sides, a fact which, after him, was again contested, for six centuries, until the time of Ptolemy. At the north-eastern extremity of the Black Sea a wide field was also opened to ethnology. Astonishment was felt at the multiplicity of languages amongst the different races,f and the necessity for skilful interpreters (the first concerning the return of the Argonauts through the Phasis into the Eastern Ocean, and across the " double " Triton Lake, formed either by the conjectured bifurcation of the Ister, or by volcanic earthquakes (Asie centrale, t. i. p. 179; t. iii. pp. 135-137; Otfr. Miiller, Minyer, s. 357), are especially important in arriving at a knowledge of the earli- est views regarding the form of the continents. The geographical phan- tasies of Peisandros, Timagetus, and Apollonius of Rhodes, were continued until late in the middle ages, and showed themselves sometimes as bewil- dering and deterring obstacles, and sometimes as stimulating incitements to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity on later times, when men suffered themselves to be led more by opinions than by actual observa- tions, has not been hitherto sufficiently considered in the history of geography. My object here is not merely to present bibliographical Bources from the literature of different nations, for the elucidation of the facts advanced in the text, but also to introduce into these notes, which permit of greater freedom, such abundant materials for reflection as I have been able to derive from my own experience and from long continued literary studies. * Hecatcei, Fragm.. ed. Klausen, pp. 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, and Ibn-el- Vardi, on the Sea of Aral, and on the bifurcation of the Oxus and the Araxes, in my Asie centrale, t. ii. pp. 162-297. t Cramer, de Studiis quce veteres ad aliarum gentium contulerint linguas, 1844, pp. 8 and 17. The ancient Colchians appear to have 510 COSMOS. aids and rough instruments in a comparative study of languages) was keenly felt. The intercourse established by barter and trade was carried from the Mseotic Gulf, then sup- posed to be of very vast extent, over the Steppe where the central Kirghis horde now pasture their flocks, through a chain of the Scythio-Scolotic tribes of the Argippaeans and Issedones,* whom I regard as of Indo-Germanic origin, to the Arimaspes on the northern declivity of the Altai moun- tains, who possessed large treasures in gold.f Here, there- fore, we have the ancient realm of the Griffins, the seat of been identical with the tribe of the Lazi (Lazi, gentes Colchorum, Plin., vi. 4; the Aa£oi of Byzantine writers); see Yater (Professor in Kasan), Der Argonautenzug aus den Quellen dargestellt, 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, and Ass, may still be heard. According to the investigations begun with a truly philosophic and philological spirit by George Rosen in the valleys of the Caucasus, the language spoken by the Lazi possesses remains of the ancient Colchiau idiom. The Iberian and Grussic family of languages includes the Lazian, Georgian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, all belonging to the group of the Indo-Germanic languages. The language of the Osseti bears a greater affinity to the Gothic than to the Lithuanian. * On the relationship of the Scythians (Scolotes or Sacae), Alani, Goths, Massa-Getse, and the Yueti of the Chinese historians, see Klaproth, 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 definitely (De Bella goihico, iv. 5, ed. Bonn, 1833, vol. ii. p. 476), that the Goths were formerly called Scythians. Jacob Grimm, in his recently published work, Ueber Jornandes, 1846, s. 21, has shown the identity of the Getae and the Goths. The opinion of Niebuhr (see his Untersucliungen uber die Geten und Sarmaten, in his Kleine Tiisto- rische und philologische Schriften, Ite sammlung, 1828, s. 362, 364, and 395), that the Scythians of Herodotus belong to the family of the Mon- golian tribes, appears the less probable, since these tribes, partly under the yoke of the Chinese, and partly under that of the Hakas or Kirghia (Xtp%i£ of Menander), still lived, far in the east of Asia, round Lake Baikal, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Herodotus distin- guishes also the bald-headed Argippaeans (iv. 23), from the Scythians; and if the first named are charactised as " flat-nosed," they have, at the same time, a " long chin," which, according to my experience, is, by no means, a physiognomical characteristic of the Calmucks, or of other Mongolian races, but rather of the blonde (Germanising?) Usun and Tingling, to whom the Chinese historians ascribe " long horse faces." + On the dwelling-place of the Arimaspes, and on the gold trade of north-western Asia in the time of Herodotus, see my Asie centrale, t i pp. 389-407. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 511 the meteorological myth, of the Hyperboreans,* which has wandered with Hercules far to the west. We may conjecture that the portion of Northern Asia above alluded to, which has again, in our days, become celebrated by the Siberian gold washings, as well as the large quantity of gold accumulated, in the time of Herodotus, by the gothic tribe of the Massagetae, must have become an important source of wealth and luxury to the Greeks, by means of the intercourse opened with the Euxine. I place the locality of this source of wealth between the 53rd and 55th degrees of latitude. The region of the gold-sand, of which the travellers were informed by the Daradas (Darder or Derder), mentioned in the Mahabharata, and in the fragments collected by Megas- thenes, and which, owing to the accidental double meaning of the names of some animals,f has been associated with the often- * " The story of the Hyperboreans is a meteorological myth. The wind of the mountains (B'Oreas) is believed to issue from the Rhipean moun- tains, while beyond these mountains there prevail a calm air, and a genial climate, as on the Alpine summits, beyond the region of clouds. In this we trace the dawn of a physical science, which explains the dis- tribution of heat and the difference of climates by local causes, by the direction of predominating winds, the vicinity of the sun, and the action of a saline or humid principle. The consequence of these systematic ideas was the assumption of a certain independence supposed to exist between the climate and the latitude of the place ; thus the myth of the Hyperboreans, connected by its origin with the Dorian worship of Apollo, which was primitively Boreal, may have proceeded from the north towards the west thus following Hercules in his progress towards the sources of the Ister, to the island of Erythia, and to the gardens of the Hesperides. The Rhipes, or Rhipean mountains, have also a meteoro- logical meaning, as the word indicates. They are the mountains of im- pulsion, or of the glacial souffle (pnrrj), the place from which the Boreal tempests are unloosened." Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 392, 403. •f- In Hindostanee there are two words which might easily be con- founded, as Wilford has already remarked, one of which is tschitintd, a kind of large black ant (whence the diminutive tscliiunti, tschinti, the small common ant); the other tschitd, a spotted panther, the little hunting leopard (the Felis jubata, Schreb.) This word (tschitd) is the Sanscrit tschitra, variegated or spotted, as is shown by the Bengalee name for the animal (tschitdbdgh and tschitibdgh, from bdgh, Sanscrit wyaghra, tiger). (Buschmann.) In the Mahabharata (ii. 1860), there is a passage recently discovered in which the ant-gold is mentioned. " Wilso invenit (Journ. of the Asiat. Soc., vii. 1843, p. 143), mentionem fieri etiam in Indicis litteris bestiarum aurum effodi- entium, quas, quum terrain effodiant, eodem nomine (pipilica) atque 512 COSMOS repeated fable of the gigantic ants, is situated within a more southern latitude of 35° or 37°. This region must, according to one of two combinations, be situated either in the Thibetian highlands, east of the Bolor chain, between the Himalaya and Kouen-Lun, west of Iskardo ; or north of the latter mountain- chain towards the desert of Gobi, which has likewise been described as an auriferous district by the accurate Chinese observer and traveller Hiuen-thsang, who lived at the begin- ning of the seventh century of our era. How much more accessible must the gold of the Armiaspes and Massagaetse have been to the traders in the Milesian colonies on the northern shores of the Euxine! I have alluded to these sources of wealth for the purpose of not omitting to mention a fact which may be regarded as an important and still active result of the opening of the Euxine, and of the first advance of the Greeks towards the East. The great event of the Doric migrations, and of the return of the HeraclidaB into Peloponnesus, which was productive of such important changes, falls about one hundred and fifty years after the demi -mythical expedition of the Argonauts, which is synonymous with the opening of the Euxine to Greek navigation and commercial intercourse. This naviga- tion simultaneously gave occasion to the founding of new states and new governments, and to the establishment of a colonial system designating an important period in the life of the Hellenic races, and it has further been most influential in extending the sphere of cosmical views, based upon intellec- tual culture. Europe and Asia thus owed their more intimate connection to the establishment of the colonies, which formed a continuous chain from Sinope (Dioscurias) and the Tauric Panticapa3um to Saguntum and Cyrene, the latter of which was founded by the inhabitants of the rainless island of Thera. No nation of antiquity possessed more numerous and, on the whole, more powerful colonial cities than the Greeks. It must, however, be remembered, that a period of four hundred or five hundred years intervened between the establishment of the most ancient ^Eolian colonies, amongst which Mytilene ibrmieas Indi nuncupant." Compare Schwanbeck, in Megastli. Indicw, 1846, p. 73. It struck me to see that, in the basaltic districts of the Mexican highlands, the ants bring together heaps of shining grains of hyalite, which I was able to collect out of their hillocks. PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 513 and Smyrna were pre-eminently distinguished, to the founda- tion of Syracuse, Croton, and Gyrene. The Indians and Ma- layans made only weak attempts to found colonies on the eastern coast of Africa, in Zokotora (Dioscorides), and in the South Asiatic Archipelago. Amongst the Phoenicians a highly developed colonial system had been extended over a larger space than that occupied by the Greeks, stretching, although with wide intervals between the stations, from the Persian Gulf to Cerne on the western coast of Africa. No mother country ever established a colony which was as powerful from con- quests, and as famed for its commercial undertakings, as Car- thage. But, notwithstanding this greatness, Carthage stood far below that degree of mental and artistical cultivation which has enabled the Greek colonial cities to transmit to us so many noble and lasting forms of art. It must not be forgotten that many populous Greek cities flourished simultaneously in Asia Minor, the ^Egean Sea, Lower Italy, and Sicily; and that, like Carthage, the colonial cities of Miletus and Massilia again founded other colonies; that Syracuse, when at the zenith of her power, fought against Athens, and the army of Hannibal and Hamilkar; ami that Miletus was, for a long time, the first commercial city in the world after Tyre and Carthage. Whilst a life so rich in en- terprise was being developed externally by the activity of a people whose internal condition was frequently exposed to violent agitations, new germs of national intellectual develop- ment were continually called forth with the increase of pros- perity and the transmission to other nations of native cultiva- tion. One common language and religion bound together the most distant members of the whole body, and it was by this union that the small parent country was brought within the wider circle embraced by the life of other nations. Foreign elements were incorporated in the Hellenic world, without, on that account, depriving it of any portion of its great and characteristic independence. The influence of contact with the East, and with Egypt before it had been connected with Persia, and above one hundred years before the irruption of Cam- byses, was, no doubt, from its very nature, more permanent than the influence of the colonies of Cecrops from Sais, of Cadmus from Phoenicia, and of Danaus and Chemmis, whose 2L 514 COSMOS. existence has so often been contested, and is, at any rate, wrapped in the deepest obscurity. The characteristics by which the Greek colonies differed so widely from all others, especially from the less flexible Phoenicians, and which affected the whole organisation of their system, arose from the individuality and the primitive dif- ferences existing in the tribes which constituted the whole mother country, and thus gave occasion to a mixture of con- necting and separating forces in the colonies as well as in Greece itself. These contrasts occasioned diversities in the direction of ideas and feelings, and in the form of poetry and harmoni- ous art, and created a rich fulness of life, in which all the appa- rently hostile elements were dissolved, according to a higher law of universal order, into a gentle harmonious unison. Notwithstanding that Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon were Ionic; Cos, Rhodes, and Halicarnassus Doric; and Croton and Sybaris Achaic ; the power and the inspired poetry of the Homeric song everywhere made their power appreciable in the midst of this diversity of cultivation, and even in Lower Italy, in the many contiguous colonial cities founded by diffe- rent races. Amid the most firmly rooted contrasts in man- ners and political institutions, and notwithstanding the fluc- tuations to which the latter were subject, Greece retained its nationality unbroken, and the wide domain of ideal and artistic creations achieved by the separate tribes was regarded as the common property of the whole nation. It still remains for me to mention, in the present section, the third point which we have already indicated, as having, conjointly with the opening of the Euxine, and the establish- ment of colonies on the basin of the Mediterranean, exercised so marked an influence on the history of the contemplation of the universe. The foundation of Tartessus and Gades, where a temple was dedicated to the wandering divinity Melkart (a son of Baal), and of the colonial city of Utica, which was older than Carthage, remind us that the Phoenicians had already navigated the open sea for many centuries before the Greeks passed beyond the straits termed by Pindar the " Gadeirian Gate."* In the same manner as the Milesians in the East, * Strabo, lib. iii. p. 172 (Bokh, Pind. Fragm. v. 155). The expedi- tion of Colseus of Samos falls, according to Otfr. Miiller (Prolegomena zu ciner wissenschqftlichen Hytlioloyie), in Olymp. 31, and according to PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 515 by the way of the Euxine,* established relations of inter- national contact which laid the foundation of an inland trade between the north of Europe and Asia, and subsequently with the Oxus and Indus ; so the Samiansf and PhocaeansJ were the first among the Greeks who endeavoured to pene- trate from the basin of the Mediterranean towards the west. Colasus of Sainos sailed for Egypt, where, at that time, an intercourse had begun, under Psammitichus, with the Greeks, which probably was only the renewal of a former connec- tion. He was driven by easterly storms to the island of Platea, and from thence Herodotus significantly adds " not without divine direction," through the straits into the ocean. The accidental and unexpected commercial gain in Iberian Tartessus conduced less than the discovery of an entrance into an unknown world, (whose existence was scarcely conjec- tured, as a mythical creation of fancy,) towards giving to this event importance and celebrity wherever the Greek language was understood on the shores of the Mediterranean. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules (earlier known as the Pillars of Briareus, of -^Egajon, and of Cronos), at the western margin of the earth, on the road to Elysium and the Hesperides, the primaeval waters of the circling Oceanus§ were first seen, in whi ch the source of all rivers was then sought. Letronne's investigation (Essai sur les idees cosmograpliiques qui se rat- tachent aunom d' Atlas, p. 9), in Olymp, 35, 1, or in the year 640. The epoch depends, however, on the foundation of Cyrene, which is placed by Otfr. Miiller between Olymp. 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 not as yet known. Zumpt places the foundation of Carthage in 878, and that of Gades in 1100 B.C. * According to the manner of the ancients (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 126), I reckon the whole Euxine, together with the Mceotis (as required bv physical and geological views), to be included in the common basin of the great " Inner Sea." t Herod., iv. 152. £ Herod., i. 1G3, where even the discovery of Tartessus is ascribed to the Phocaeans; but the commercial enterprise of the Phocaeans was seventy years after the time of Colaeus of Samos, according to Ukert (Geogr. der Griechen und Romer, th. 1. i. s. 40). § According to a fragment of Phavorinus, wjcsai/oc, (and therefore cjyrjv also) are not Greek words, but merely borrowed from the barba- rians (Spohn de Nicephor. Blemm. duobus opusculis, 1818, p. 23). My brother was of opinion that they were connected with the Sanscrit roots 2i,2 516 COSMOS. At Phasis, the navigators of the Euxine again found them- selves on a coast beyond which a Sun Lake was supposed to be situated, and south of Gadeira and Tartessus their eyes, for the first time, ranged over a boundless waste of waters. It was this circumstance which, for fifteen hundred years, gave to the gate of the inner sea a peculiar character of importance. Ever striving to pass onwards, Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Catalans, Majorcans, Frenchmen from Dieppe and La Ro- chelle, Genoese, Venetians, Portuguese, and Spaniards in turn attempted to advance across the Atlantic Ocean, long held to be a miry, shallow, dark, and misty sea, Mare tenebrosum; until proceeding from station to station, as it were, these southern nations, after gaining the Canaries and the Azores, finally came to the New Continent, which, however, had already been reached by the Northmen at an earlier period and from a different direction. Whilst Alexander was opening the far east, the great Sta- girite* was led, by a consideration of the form of the earth, to conceive the idea of the proximity of India to the Pillars of Hercules; whilst Strabo had even conjectured that there might be " many other habitable tracts of land\ in the northern hemisphere, perhaps in the parallel which passes through those Pillars, the island of Rhodes and Thinae, between the coasts of Western Europe and Eastern Asia." The hypothe- sis of the locality of such lands, in the prolongation of the major axis of the Mediterranean, was connected with a grand geographical view of Eratosthenes, current in antiquity, and in accordance with which the whole of the Old Con- tinent, in its widest extension from west to east, and nearly in the 36° of latitude, was supposed to present an almost con- tinuous line of elevation. J ogha and ogli (see my Examen critique de I'hist. de la Geogr. t. i. pp. 33 and 182). * Aristot., de Ccelo, ii. 14 (p. 298, b. Bekk.); Meteor., ii. 5 (p. 362, Bekk.) Compare my Examen critique, i. i. pp. 125-130. Seneca ven- tures to say (Nat. Qucest. in prsefat. 11), " Contemnet curiosus spectator domicilii (terrae) angustias. Quantum enim est quod ab ultirnis iittori- bus Hispaniae usque ad Indos jacet? Paucissimorum dierum spatium, si navem suus ventus implevit." (Examen critique, t. i. p. 158.) t Strabo. lib. i. pp. 65 and 118, Casaub. (Examen critique, t. i. p. 152.) $ In the Diaphragma of Dicaearchus, by which the earth is divided, INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 517 The expedition of Colaeus of Samos does not, however, alone indicate an epoch in which the Hellenic races, and the nations to whom their cultivation was transmitted, developed new views that led to the extension of maritime expeditions, but it also immediately enlarged the sphere of ideas. The great natural phenomenon which, by the periodic elevation of the level of sea, exhibits the connection existing between the earth, and the sun, and moon, now first permanently arrested the attention of men. In the African Syrtic Sea this pheno- menon had appeared to the Greeks to be accidental, and had not unfrequently been attended by danger. Posidonius, who had observed the ebb and flow of the sea at Ilipa and Gadeira, compared his observations with the facts of which he was informed by the experienced Phoenicians concerning the influ- ence supposed to be exercised by the moon.* EXPEDITIONS OF THE MACEDONIANS UNDER ALEXANDER THE GREAT. CHANGES IN THE RELATIONS OF THE WORLD. FUSION OF THE WEST WITH THE EAST. THE GREEKS PROMOTE THE INTERMIXTURE OF RACES FROM THE NILE TO THE EUPHRATES, THE JAXARTES AND THE INDUS. SUDDEN EXTENSION OF COSMICAL VIEWS, BOTH BY MEANS OF DIRECT OBSERVATION OF NATURE, AND BY THE RECIPROCAL INTERCOURSE OF ANCIENT CIVILISED AND INDUSTRIAL NATIONS. THE campaigns of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great; the downfall of the Persian dominion; the rising in- tercourse with Western India; and the action of the Graeco- Bactrian empire, which continued to prevail for one hundred and sixteen years, may be regarded as amongst the most import- ant social epochs in the process of the development of the his- the elevation passes through the Taurus, the chains of Demavend and Hindoo-coosh, the Northern Thibetian Kuen-hm and the mountains of the Chinese provinces Sse-tschuan and Kuang-si, which are perpetually covered with snow. See my orographical researches on these lines of elevation in my Asie centale, t. i. pp. 104-114, 118-164; t. ii. pp. 413 and 438. * Strabo, lib. iii. p. 173 (Examen crit., t. iii. p. 98). 518 COSMOS. tory of mankind as far as it indicates a closer connection of Southern Europe, with the south-west of Asia, the Nile, and Lybia. Independently of the almost immeasurable extension opened to the sphere of development by the advance of the Macedonians, their campaigns acquired a character of profound moral greatness by the incessant efforts of the conqueror to amalgamate all races, and to establish, under the noble influence of Hellenism, a unity throughout the world.* The foundation of many new cities at points, the selection of which indicates higher aims, the arrangement and classification of an independ- ently responsible form of government for these cities, and the tender forbearance evinced by Alexander for national customs and national forms of worship, all testify that the plan of one great and organic whole had been laid. That which was perhaps originally foreign to a scheme of this kind developed itself subsequently from the nature of the relations, as is always the case under the influence of comprehensive events. If we re- member that only fifty-two Olympiads intervened, from the battle of the Granicus to the destructive irruption into Bactria of the Sacee and Tochi, we shall be astonished at the perma- nence and the magical influence exercised by the introduction from the west of Hellenic cultivation. This cultivation, blended with the knowledge of the Arabians, the modern Per- sians and Indians, extended its influence in so great a degree even to the time of the middle ages, that it is often difficult to determine the elements which are due to Greek literature, and those which have originated, independently of all admix- ture, from the inventive spirit of the Asiatic races. The principle of unity, or rather the feeling of the bene- ficent political influence incorporated in this principle, was deeply implanted in the breast of the great conqueror, as is testified by all the arrangements of his polity; and its application to Greece itself was a subject that had already early been inculcated upon him by his great teacher. In the Politico, of Aristotle we read as follows :f " The Asiatic * Droysen, Gescli. Alexanders . 100, "the parallel of Athens is read for the parallel of Thinse, as if Thinse had first been named in the Pseudo- Arrian, in the Periplus Maris Rubri" Dodwell places the Peri- plus under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Yerus, whilst according to Letronne, it was written under Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Although five passages in Strabo, according to all our manuscripts, have Thince, yet lib. ii. pp. 79, 86, 87, and above all 82, in which Eratosthenes himself is named, prove decidedly that the reading should be the " parallel of Athens and Rhodes." These two places were confounded, as old geographers made the peninsula of Attica extend too far towards the south. It would also appear surprising, supposing the usual reading Givwv KVK\O^ to be the more correct, that a particular parallel, the Dia- phragm of Dicaearchus, should be called after a place so little known as that of the Sines (Tsin). However, Cosmas Indicopleustes also connects his Tzinitza (Thinaa) with the chain of mountains which divides Persia and the Romanic districts no less than the whole habitable world into two parts, subjoining the remarkable observation, that this division is, accord- ing to the " belief of the Indian philosophers and Brahmins." Compare Cosmas, in Montfaucon, Collect, nova Patrum., t. ii. p. 137; and my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. xxiii. 120-129, and 194-203, t. ii. p. 413. Cosmas and the Pseudo-Arrian, Agathemeros, according to the learned investiga- tions of Professor Franz, decidedly ascribe to the metropolis of the Sines, a high northern latitude (nearly in the parallel of Rhodes and Athens) ; whilst Ptolemy, misled by the accounts of mariners, has no knowledge except of a Things three degrees south of the equator (Geogr., i. 17). I conjecture that Thinae merely meant generally, a Chinese emporium, a INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 55 7 temperate zone, near the parallel of Thinae or Athens, which passes through the Atlantic Ocean, besides the world we inhabit, there may be one or more other worlds peopled by beings different from ourselves." It is astonishing that this expression did not attract the attention of Spanish writers, who, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, believed that they everywhere, in classical authors, found the traces of a knowledge of the new world. " Since," as Strabo well observes, " in all works of art which are designed to represent something great, the object aimed at is not the completeness of the individual parts," his chief desire, in his gigantic work, is pre-eminently to direct attention to the form of the wrhole. This tendency towards a generalisation of ideas did not prevent him, at the same time, from prosecuting re- searches which led to the establishment of a large number of admirable physical results, referring more especially to geog- nosy.* He entered, like Posidonius and Polybius, into the con- sideration of the influence of the longer or shorter interval that occurred between each passage of the sun across the zenith ; of the maximum of atmospheric heat under the tropics and the equator ; of the various- causes which give rise to the changes experienced by the earth's surface; of the breaking forth of originally closed seas ; of the general level of the sea, which was already recognised by Archimedes; of oceanic currents; of the eruption of submarine volcanoes; of the petrifactions of shells and the impressions of fishes ; and lastly, of the periodic harbour in the land of Tsin ; and that therefore one Thinse (Tzinitza) may have been designated north of the equator, and another south of the equator. * Strabo, lib. i. pp. 49-60, lib. ii. pp. 95 and 97, lib. vi. p. 277, lib. xvii. p. 830. On the elevation of islands and of continents, see particu- larly lib. i. pp. 51, 54, and 59. The old Eleat Xenophanes was led to conclude, from the numerous fossil marine productions found at a dis- tance from the sea, that " the present dry ground had been raised from the bottom of the sea," (Origen, Philosophumena, cap. 4). Apuleius collected fossils at the time of the Antonines from the Gsetulian (Mauri- tanian) mountains, and attributed them to the Deucalion flood, to which he ascribed the same character of universality, as the Hebrews to the Deluge of Noah, and the Mexican Azteks to that of the Coxcox. Pro- fessor Franz, by means of very careful investigation, has refuted the belief entertained by Beckmann and Cuvier, that Apuleius possessed a collection of specimens of natural history. (See Beckmann's History of Inventions, Bohn's Standard Library (1840), vol. i. p. 285; ani Hist, des Sciences nat.} t. i. p. 350.) 558 COSMOS. oscillations of the earth's crust, a subject that most especially attracts our attention, since it constitutes the germ of modern geognosy. Strabo expressly remarks, that the altered limits of the sea and land are to be ascribed less to small inundations than to the upheaval and depression of the bottom, for " not only separate masses of rock and islands of different dimensions, but entire continents, may be upheaved." Strabo, like Herodotus, was an attentive observer of the descent of nations, and of the diversities of the different races of men, whom he singularly enough calls "land and air animals, which require much light."* We find the ethnological distinction of races most sharply defined in the Commentaries of Julius Csesar, and in the noble eulogy on Agricola by Tacitus. Unfortunately Strabo' s great work, which was so rich in facts, and whose cosmical views we have already alluded to, remained almost wholly unknown in Roman antiquity until the fifth century, and was not even then made use of by that universal collector, Pliny. It was not until the close of the middle ages that Strabo exercised any essential influence on the direction of ideas, and even then in a less marked degree than that of the more mathematical and more tabularly concise geo- graphy of Claudius Ptolemseus, which was almost wholly wanting in views of a truly physical character. This latter work served as a guide to travellers as late as the sixteenth century, whilst every new discovery of places was always sup- posed to be recognised in it under some other appellation. In the same manner as natural historians long continued to include all recently discovered plants and animals under the classifying definitions of Linnaeus, the earliest maps of the New Continent appeared in the atlas of Ptolemy, which Agatho- dsemon prepared at the same time that, in the remotest part of Asia among the highly civilised Chinese, the western provinces of the empire were already marked in forty-four divisions.! The universal geography of Ptolemy has indeed the advantage of presenting us with a picture of the whole world represented graphically in outlines, and numerically in determinations of places, according to their parallels of longitude and lati- tude, and to the length of the day; but, notwithstanding the constant reference to the advantages of astronomical results * Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 810. t Carl Eitter, Asien, th. r. s. £60. INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 559 over mere itinerary measurements by land and sea, it is, unfortunately, impossible to ascertain, amongst these un- certain positions (upwards of 2500 of which are given), the nature of the d»ta on which they are based, and the relative probability which may be ascribed to them, from the itinera- ries then in existence. The entire ignorance of the polarity of the magnetic needle, and consequently of the use of the compass (which, twelve cen- turies and a half before the time of Ptolemy, under the Chinese Emperor Tsingwang, had been used, together with a way mea- surer, in the construction of the magnetic cars), caused the most perfect of the itineraries of the Greeks and Romans to be extremely uncertain, owing to the deficiency of means for learning with certainty the direction or the line which formed the angle with the meridian.* In proportion as a better knowledge has been acquired, in modern times, of the Indian and ancient Persian (or Zend) languages, we are more and more astonished to find that a great portion of the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy may be regarded as an historical monument of the commercial relations existing between the west and the remotest regions of Southern and Central Asia.f We may reckon the know- * See a collection of the most striking instances of Greek and Roman errors, regarding the directions of different mountain chains, in the introduction to my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 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 JKheinische Museum fur Philologie, Jahrg., vi. 1838, s. 31 4-324. •f For examples of Zend and Sanscrit words, which have been pre- served to us in Ptolemy's Geography, see Lassen, Diss. de Taprobane insula, pp. 6, 9, and 17; Burnouf's Comment, sur le Yacna, t. i. pp. xciii. — cxx. and clxxxi. — clxxxv.; and my Examen crit. de I' Hist, de la Geogr., t. i. pp. 45--49. In a few cases Ptolemy gives both the Sanscrit names and their significations, as for the island of Java " barley island," 'Ia(3a$iov, 6 ffrjpaivti Kpidfjc vrjffOQ, Ptol. vii. 2 (Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, Uebcr die Kawi-Sprache, bd. i. s. 60-63). According to Busch- mann, the two-stalked barley, Hordeum distichon, is still termed in the principal Indian languages (as in Hindustanee, Bengalee, and Nepaulese, and in the Mahratta, Guzerat, and Cingalese languages), as well as in Persian and Malay, yava, dschav, or dschau, and in the language of Orissa, yaa. (Compare the Indian translation of the Bible, in the pas- sage Joh. vi. 9 and 13; and Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindoostan, Madras, 1813, p. 217.) 560 COSMOS. ledge of the complete insulation of the Caspian Sea as one of the most important results of these relations, but it was not until after a period of five hundred years that the accuracy of the fact was re-established by Ptolemy. Herodotus and Aris- totle entertained correct views regarding this subject, and the latter fortunately wrote his Meteorologica before the Asiatic campaigns of Alexander. The Olbiopolites, from whose lips the father of history derived his information, were well ac- quainted with the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, be- tween Cuma, the Volga (Rha), and the Jaik (Ural), but there were no indications that could lead to the supposition of its connection with the Icy Sea. Very different causes led to the deception of Alexander's army, when passing through Hecatompylos (Damaghan), to the humid forests of Mazanderan, at Zadrakarta, a little to the west of the present Asterabad, they saw the Caspian Sea stretching northward in an apparently boundless expanse of waters. This sight first gave rise, as Plutarch remarks in his Life of Alexander, to the conjecture that the sea they beheld was a bay of the Euxine.* The Macedonian expedition, although on the whole extremely favourable to the advance of geogra- phical knowledge, nevertheless gave rise to some errors which long held their ground. The Tanais was confounded with the Jaxartes (the Araxes of Herodotus), and the Caucasus with the Paropanisus (the Hindoo Coosh). Ptolemy was enabled, during his residence in Alexandria, as well as from the expedi- tions of the Aorsi, whose camels brought Indian and Babylonian goods to the Don and the Black Sea,f to obtain accurate knowledge of the countries which immediately surrounded the Caspian (as, for instance, Albania, Atropatene, and Hyrca- nia). If Ptolemy, in contradiction to the more correct know- ledge of Herodotus, believed that the greater diameter of the Caspian Sea inclined from west to east, he might, perhaps* have been misled by a vague knowledge of the former great extension of the Scythian gulf (Karabogas), and the existence of Lake Aral, the earliest definite notice of which we find in the work of a Byzantine author, Menander, who wrote a con- tinuation of Agathias. J * See my Examen crit. de I'Hist. de la Geographic, t. ii. pp. ,147-188. t Strabo, lib. xi .p. 506. J Menander, de Legationibus Barbarorum ad Romanos, et Roma* INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 561 It is to be regretted that Ptolemy, who had arrived at so correct a knowledge of the complete insulation of the Caspian (after it had long been considered to be open, in accordance with the hypothesis of four gulfs, and even according to sup- posed reflections of similar forms on the moon's disc),* should not have relinquished the myth of the unknown southland con- necting Cape Prasum with Cattigara and Thinse (Smarum metropolis), joining, therefore, Eastern Africa with the land of Tsin (China). This myth which supposes the Indian Ocean to be an inland sea, was based upon views which may be traced from Marinus of Tyre to Hipparchus, Seleucus the Babylonian, and even to Aristotle.f We must limit ourselves in these cosmical descriptions of the progress made in the con- templation of the universe, to a few examples illustrative of the fluctuations of knowledge, by which imperfectly recognised facts were so often rendered still more obscure. The more the extension of navigation and of inland trade led to a hope that the whole of the earth's surface might become known, the more earnestly did the ever- wakeful imagination of the Greeks, especially in the Alexandrian age under the Ptolemies, and under the Roman empire, strive by ingenious combinations to fuse ancient conjectures with newly acquired knowledge, and thus speedily to complete the scarcely sketched map of the earth. We have already briefly noticed that Claudius Ptolemocus, by his optical enquiries which have been in part preserved to us by the Arabians, became the founder of one branch of mathematical physics, which, according to Theon of Alexandria, had already been noticed, with reference to the refraction of rays of light, norum ad gentes, e rec. Bekkeri et Niebuhr., 1829, pp. 300, 619, 623, and 628. * Plutarch, de Facie in orbe lunce, pp. 921, 19 (compare my Examen crit., t. i. pp. 145-191). I have myself met, among highly-informed Per- sians, with a repetition of the hypothesis of Agesianax, according to which, the mark^ on the moon's disc, in which Plutarch (p. 935, 4) thought he saw " a peculiar kind of shining mountains" (volcanoes t), were merely the reflected images of terrestrial lands, seas, and isthmuses. These Persians would say, for instance, " What we see through tele- scopes on the surface of the moon are the reflected images of our own country." t Ptolem., lib. iv. cap. 9; lib. vii. cap. 3 and 5. Compare Letronne, in the Journal de Savons, 1831, pp. 476--480, and 545-555; Hum- boldt, Examen crit., t. i. pp. 144, 161, and 329; t. ii. pp. 370-373. 2 0 562 COSMOS. in the Catoptrica of Archimedes.* We may esteem it as an important advance when physical phenomena, instead of being simply observed and compared together (of which we have memo- rable examples in Greek antiquity, in the comprehensive pseudo- Aristotelian problems, and in Roman antiquity in the works of Seneca), are intentionally evoked under altered conditions, and are then measured. f This latter mode of proceeding charac- terises the investigations of Ptolemy on the refraction of rays in their passage through media of unequal density. Ptolemy caused the rays to pass from air into water and glass, and from water into glass, under different angles of incidence, and lie finally arranged the results of these physical experiments in tables. This measurement of a physical phenomenon called forth at will, of a process of nature not dependent upon a movement of the waves of light, (Aristotle, assuming a move- ment of the medium between the eye and the object,) stands wholly isolated in the period which we are now considering. J This age presents, with respect to investigation into the ele- ments of nature, only a few chemical experiments by Diosco- rides, and, as I have already elsewhere noticed, the technical art of collecting fluids by the process of distillation. § Chemis- try cannot be said to have begun until man learnt to obtain mineral acids, and to employ them for the solution and libera- tion of substances, and it is on this account that the distillation of sea water, described by Alexander of Aphrodisias under Caracalla, is so worthy of notice. It designates the path by which man gradually arrived at a knowledge of the heteroge- * Delambre, Hist, de V Astronomic 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. + It is often difficult in reading ancient works on physics, to decide whether a particular result has sprang from a phenomenon purposely called forth, or accidentally observed. Where Aristotle (De Ccdo, iv. 4) treats of the weight of the atmosphere, which, however, Ideler appears to deny (Meteor ologia veterum Grcecorum et JRomanorum, p. 23), he says distinctly, " an inflated bladder is heavier than an empty one." The experiment must have been made with condensed air, if actually tried. I Aristot., deAnima., ii. 7; Biese, Die Philosophic des Aristot., bd, ii. s. 147. § Joannis (Philoponi) Grammatici, in libr. de General., and. Alexan- dri Aphrodis., in Meteorol. Comment. (Venet. 1527), p. 97, b. Compare my Examen critique, t. ii. pp. 306-312. INFLUENCE OJF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 563 neous nature of substances, their chemical composition, and their mutual affinities. The only names which we can bring forward in connection with the study of organic nature, are the anatomist Marinus, Rufus of Ephesus who dissected apes and distinguished between nerves of sensation and of motion, and Galen of Pergamus, who eclipsed all others. The natural history of animals by ^Elian of Prameste, and the poem on fishes by Oppianus of Cilicia, contain scattered notices, but no facts based on personal examination. It is impossible to comprehend how the enormous multitudes of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopo- tamuses, elks, lions, tigers, panthers, crocodiles, and ostriches, which for upwards of four centuries were slain in the Roman circus, should have failed to advance the knowledge of com« parative anatomy.* I have already noticed the merit of Dioscorides in regard to the collection and study of plants, and it only remains therefore to observe that his works exer- cised the greatest influence on the botany and pharmaceutical chemistry of the Arabs. The botanical garden of the Roman physician Antonius Castor, who lived to be upwards of a hun- dred years of age, was perhaps laid out in imitation of the botanical gardens of Theophrastes and Mithridates, but it did not in all probability lead to any further advancement in science than did the collection of fossil bones formed by the Emperor Augustus, or the museum of objects and products of nature which has been ascribed on very slight foundation to Apuleius of Madaura.f The representation of the contributions made by the epoch of the Roman dominion to cosmical knowledge, would be incom- plete, were I to omit mentioning the great attempt made by Caius Plinius Secundus to comprise a description of the uni- verse in a work consisting of thirty-seven books. In ^the * The Numidian Metellus caused 142 elephants to be killed in the circus. In the games which Pompey gave, 600 lions and 406 panthers were assembled. Augustus sacrificed 3500 wild beasts in the national festivities, and a tender husband laments that he could not celebrate the day of his wife's death by a sanguinary gladiatorial fight at Verona, " because contrary winds had detained in port the panthers which had been bought in Africa !" (Plin., Epist., vi. 34.) t See p. 557. Yet Apuleius, as Cuvier remarks (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 Aplysiae. 2 o2 564 COSMOS. whole of antiquity nothing similar had been attempted, and, although the work grew, from the nature of the undertaking, into a species of encyclopaedia of nature and art (the author himself, in his dedication to Titus, not scrupling to apply to his work the then more noble Greek expression eyKVKAoTrcuSeta, or conception and popular sphere of universal knowledge), yet it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the deficiency of an internal connection amongst the different parts of which the whole is composed, it presents the plan of a physical descrip- tion of the universe. The Historia Naiuralis of Pliny, entitled in the tabular view which forms what is known as the first book, Historia Mundi, and in a letter of his nephew to his friend Macer still more aptly, Natures Historia, embraces both the heavens and the earth, the position and course of the heavenly bodies, the meteorological processes of the atmosphere, the form of the earth's surface, and all terrestrial objects, from the vegetable mantle with which the land is covered, and the mollusca of the ocean, up to mankind. Man is considered, according to the variety of his mental dispositions and his exaltation of these spiritual gifts, in the development of the noblest creations of art. I have here enumerated the elements of a general knowledge of nature which lie scattered irregularly throughout different parts of the work. " The path on which I am about to enter," says Pliny, with a noble self-confidence, " is untrodden (non trita auctoribus via), no one amongst my own country- men, or amongst the Greeks, has as yet attempted to treat of the whole of nature under its character of universality (nemo apud Grcecos qui unus omnia tractaverit}. If my undertaking should not succeed, it is, at any rate, both beautiful and noble (pulchrum atque magnijicum) to have made the attempt." A grand and single image floated before the mind of the intellectual author, but suffering his attention to be distracted by specialities, and wanting the living contemplation of nature, he was unable to hold fast this image. The execution was incomplete, not merely from a superficiality of views, and a want of knowledge of the objects to be treated of (here we, of course, can only judge of the portions that have come down to us), but also from an erroneous mode of arrangement. We discover in the author the busy and occupied man of rank, who prided himself on his wakefulness and nocturnal labours, INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 565 but who, undoubtedly, too often confided the loose web of an endless compilation to his ill-informed dependents, whilst he was himself engaged in superintending the management of public affairs, when holding the place of Governor of Spain, or of a superintendent of the fleet in Lower Italy. This taste for compilation, for the laborious collection of the sepa- rate observations and facts yielded by science as it then existed, is by no means deserving of censure, but the want of success that has attended Pliny's undertaking is to be ascribed to his incapacity of mastering the materials accumulated, of bringing the descriptions of nature under the control of higher and more general views, or of keeping in sight the point of view presented by a comparative study of nature. TTie germs of such nobler, not merely orographic but truly geognostic views, were to be met with in Eratosthenes and Strabo, but Pliny never made use of the works of the latter, and only on one occasion of those of the former; nor did Aristotle's his- tory of animals teach him their division into large classes based upon internal organisation, or lead him to adopt the- method of induction, which is the only safe means of generalis- ing results. Beginning with pantheistic considerations, Pliny descends from the celestial regions to terrestrial objects. He recognises the necessity of representing the forces and the glory of nature (naturae vis atque majestas) as a great and comprehen- sive whole (I would here refer to the motto on the title of my work), and at the beginning of the Third Book he distin- guishes between general and special geography; but this distinction is again soon neglected when he becomes absorbed in the dry nomenclature of countries, mountains, and rivers. The greater portions of Books VIII.-XXVIL, XXXIII. and XXXIV., XXXVI. and XXXVII., consist of categorical enumerations of the three kingdoms of nature. Pliny the Younger, in one of his letters, justly characterises the work of" his uncle as " learned and full of matter, no less various than nature herself (opus diffusum, eruditum, nee minus varium quam ipsa natura)" Many things which have been made subjects of reproach against Pliny as needless and irrelevant admixtures, rather appear to me deserving of praise. It has always afforded me especial gratification to observe that he refers so frequently, and with such evident partiality to the 5G6 COSMOS. influence exercised by nature on the civilisation and mental development of mankind. It must, however, be admitted that his points of connection are seldom felicitously chosen (as, for instance, in VII. 24-47; XXV. 2; £XVI. 1; XXXV. 2; XXXVI. 2-4; XXXVII. 1). Thus the consideration of the nature of mineral and vegetable substances leads to the intro- duction of a fragment of the history of the plastic arts, but this brief notice has become more important in the present state of our knowledge than all that we can gather regarding descriptive natural history from the rest of the work. The style of Pliny evinces more spirit and animation than true dignity, and it is seldom that his descriptions possess any degree of pictorial distinctness. We feel that the author has drawn his impressions from books and not from nature, how- ever freely it may have been presented to him in the different regions of the earth which he visited. A grave and sombre tone of colour pervades the whole composition, and this sen- timental feeling is tinged with a touch of bitterness whenever he enters upon the consideration of the conditions of man and his destiny. On these occasions, almost as in the writings of Cicero, although with less simplicity of diction,*' the aspect of the grand unity of nature is adduced as productive of encouragement and consolation to man. The conclusion of the Historia Naturalis of Pliny — the great- est Roman memorial transmitted to the literature of the middle ages — is composed in a true spirit of cosmical description. It contains, in the condition in which we have possessed it since 1831,f a brief consideration of the comparative natural history of countries in different zones, an eulogium of Southern Europe between the Mediterranean and the chain of the Alps, and a description in praise of the Hesperian sky, " where the temperate and gentle mildness of the climate had," according to a dogma of the older Pythagoreans, " early hastened the liberation of mankind from barbarism." " Est enim animorum ingeniorumque naturale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio contempiatioque naturae. Erigimur, elatiores fieri videmur, humana despicimus, cogitantesque supera atque coelestia hsec nostra, ut exigua et minima, contemnimus." (Cic., Acad.} ii. 41.) m t Plin., xxxvii. 13 (ed. Sillig., t. v. 1836, p. 320). All earlier edi- tions closed with the words " Hispaniam quacunque ambitur mari." The conclusion of the work was discovered in 1831, in a Bamberg Codex, by Herr Ludwig v. Jan, Professor at Schweinfurt. INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 567 The influence of the Roman dominion as a constant element of union and fusion required the more urgently and forcibly to be brought forward in a history of the contemplation of the universe, since we are able to recognise the traces of this influence in its remotest consequences even at a period when the bond of political union had become less compact, and was even partially destroyed by the inroads of barbarians. Clau- dian, who stands forth in the decline of literature during the latter and more disturbed age of Theodosius the Great and his sons, distinguished for the endowment of a revived poetic productiveness, still sings, in too highly laudatory strains, of the dominion of the Romans.* Hcec est, in gremium victos quce sola recepit, HumaniLmque genus communi nomine fovit, Matris, non domince, ritu; civesque vocavit Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit. Hujus pacificis debemus morions omnes Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes. . . . External means of constraint, artificially arranged civil institutions, and long continued servitude, might certainly tend to unite nations by destroying the individual existence of each one, but the feeling of the unity and common condition of the whole human race, and of the equal rights of all men, has a nobler origin, and is based on the internal promptings of the spirit and on the force of religious convictions. Christianity has materially contributed to call forth this idea of the unity of the human race and has thus tended to exercise a favourable influence on the humanisation of nations in their morals, manners, and institutions. Although closely inter- woven with the earliest doctrines of Christianity, this idea of humanity met with only a slow and tardy recognition, for at the time when the new faith was raised at Byzantium, from political motives, to be the established religion of the state, its adherents were already deeply involved in miserable party dissensions, whilst intercourse with distant nations was impeded, and the foundations of the empire were shaken in many directions by external assaults. Even the personal freedom of entire races of men long found no protection in Christian states, from ecclesiastical landowners and corporate bodies. * (Taudian in Secundum consulatum Stillichonis, Y. 150-155. £68 COSMOS. Such unnatural impediments, and many others which stand in the way of the intellectual advance of mankind and the ennoblement of social institutions, will all gradually disappear. The principle of individual and political freedom is implanted in the ineradicable conviction of the equal rights of one sole human race. Thus, as I have already remarked,* mankind presents itself to our contemplation as one great fraternity, and as one independent unity, striving for the attainment of one aim — the free development of moral vigour. This consi- deration of humanity, or rather of the tendency towards it, which sometimes checked, and sometimes advancing with a rapid and powerful progressive movement, — and by no means a discovery of recent times, — belongs, by the generalising influ- ence of its direction, most specially to that which elevates and animates cosmical life. In delineating the great epoch of the history of the universe, which includes the dominion of the Romans and the laws which they promulgated, together with the beginning of Christianity, it would have been impos- sible not to direct special attention to the manner in which the religion of Christ enlarged these views of mankind, and to the mild and long-enduring, although slowly operating, influ- ence which it exercised 011 general, intellectual, moral, and social development. * See p. 368, and compare also Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, bd. i. s. xxxviii. 569 INVASION OF THE ARABS. INTELLECTUAL APTITUDE OP THIS BRANCH OF THE SEMITIC RACES. INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN ELEMENTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN CULTURE. THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE ARABS. TENDENCY TO A COMMUNION WITH NATURE AND PHYSICAL FORCES. MEDICINE AND CHEMISTRY. EXTENSION OF PHY- SICAL GEOGRAPHY. ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES IN THE INTERIOR OF CONTINENTS. IN the preceding sketch of the history of the physical contem- plation of the universe we have already considered four principal momenta in the gradual development of the recog- nition of the unity of nature, viz. : — 1. The attempts made to penetrate from the basin of the Mediterranean, eastward, to the Euxine and Phasis; south- ward, to Ophir and the tropical gold-lands; and westward, through the Pillars of Hercules, into the "all encircling ocean." 2. The Macedonian campaign, under Alexander the Great. 3. The age of the Ptolemies. 4. The universal dominion of the Romans. We now, therefore, proceed to consider the important influence exercised on the general advancement of the physical and mathematical sciences, first, by the admixture of the foreign elements of Arabian culture with European civilisation, and, six or seven centuries later, by the mari- time discoveries of the Portuguese and Spaniards ; and like- wise their influence on the knowledge of the earth and the regions of space, with respect to form and measurement, and to the heterogeneous nature of matter, and the forces inherent in it. The discovery and exploration of the New Continent, through the range of its volcanic Cordilleras and its elevated plateaux, where climates are ranged in strata, as it were, above one another, and the development of vegetation within 120 degrees of latitude, undoubtedly indicates the period which has presented, in the shortest period of time, the greatest abundance of new physical observations to the human mind. From this period the extension of Cosmical knowledge- 570 COSMOS. ceased to be associated with separate and locally defined poli- tical occurrences. Great inventions now first emanated from spontaneous intellectual power ; and were no longer solely excited by the influence of separate, external causes. "IJhe human mind, acting simultaneously in several directions, created, by new combinations of thought, new organs, by which the human eye could alike scrutinise the remote regions of space and the delicate tissues of animal and vegetable structures which serve as the very substratum of life. Thus the whole of the seventeenth century, whose commencement was brilliantly signalised by the great discovery of the telescope, together with the immediate results by which it was attended — from Galileo's observation of Jupiter's Satellites, of the crescentic form of the disc of Venus, and the spots on the sun, to the theory of gravitation discovered by Newton — ranks as the most important epoch of a newly- created physical astronomy. This period constitutes, therefore, from the unity of the efforts made towards the observation of the heavenly bodies, and in mathematical investigations, a sharply-defined section in the great process of intellectual development, which, since then, has been characterised by an uninterrupted progress. In more recent times, the difficulty of signalising separate mo- menta increases in proportion as human activity becomes more variously directed, and as the new order of social and political relations binds all the various branches of science in one closer bond of union. In some few sciences, whose develop- ment has been considered in the history of the physical con- templation of the universe, as, for instance, in chemistry and descriptive botany, individual periods may be instanced, even in the most recent time, in which great advancement has been rapidly made, or new views suddenly opened, but, in the his- tory of the contemplation of the universe, which, from its very nature, must be limited to the consideration of those facts regarding separate branches of science, which most directly relate to the extension of the idea of the Cosmos con- sidered as one natural whole, the connection of definite epochs becomes impracticable, since that which we have named the process of intellectual development pre- supposes an uninterrupted simultaneous advance in all spheres of Cos- mical knowledge. At this important point of separation between the downfall of the universal dominion of the Romans THE ARABS. 571 and the introduction of a new and foreign element of civilisa- tion, by means of the first direct contact of our continent with the land of the tropics, it appears desirable that we should throw a general glance over the path on which we are about to enter. The Arabs, a people of Semitic origin, partially dispelled the barbarism which had shrouded Europe for upwards of two hundred years after the storms by which it had been shaken, from the aggressions of hostile nations. The Arabs lead us back to the imperishable sources of Greek philoso- phy; and besides the influence thus exercised on scientific cultivation, they have also extended and opened new paths in the domain of natural investigation. In our continent these disturbing storms began under Valentinian L, when the Huns (of Finnish, not Mongolian origin) penetrated beyond the Don in the closing part of the fourth century, and subdued, first the Alani, and subsequently, with their aid, the Ostrogoths. In the remote parts of Eastern Asia, the stream of migratory nations had already been moved in its onward course for several centuries before our era. The first impulse was given, as we have already remarked, by the attack of the Hiungnu, a Turkish race, on the fair-haired and blue-eyed Usuni, probably of Indo-Germanic origin, who bordered on the Yueti (Geti), and dwelt in the upper river valley of the Hoangho, in the north-west of China. The devastating stream of migration directed from the great wall of China, which was erected as a protection against the inroads of the Hiuugnu (214 B. c.), flowed on through Central Asia, north of the chain of the Celestial mountains. These Asiatic hordes were uninfluenced by any religious zeal before they entered Europe, and some writers have even attempted to show that the Moguls were not as yet Buddhists when they advanced victoriously to Poland and Silesia.* Wholly different rela- * If, as has often been asserted, Charles Martel, by his victory at Tours, protected Central Europe against the Mussulman invasion, it cannot be maintained, with equal justice, that the retreat of the Moguls after the battle of Liegnitz prevented Buddhism from penetrating to the shores of the Elbe and the Rhine. The Mongolian battle, which was fought in the plain of Wahlstatt, near Liegnitz, and in which Duke Henry the Pious fell fighting bravely, took place on the 9th of April, 1241, four years after Kaptschak (Kamtschatka), and Russia became subject to 572 COSMOS. tions imparted a peculiar character to the warlike aggressions of a more southern race — the Arabs. Remarkable for its form, and distinguished as a detached branch of the slightly articulated continent of Asia, is situated the peninsula of Arabia, between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates and the Syro-Mediterranean Sea.* It is the most western of the three peninsulas of Southern Asia, and its vicinity to Egypt, and to a European sea-basin, gives it signal advantages in a political no less than a commercial point of view. In the central parts of the Arabian Peninsula lived the tribe of the Hedschaz, a noble and valiant race, un- learned, but not wholly rude, imaginative, and, at the same time, devoted to the careful observation of all the processes of free nature, manifested in the ever-serene vault of heaven, and on the surface of the earth. This people, after having continued for thousands of years almost without contact with the rest of the world, and advancing chiefly in Nomadic hordes, suddenly burst forth from their former mode of life, and acquiring cultivation from the mental contact of the inhabitants of more ancient seats of civilisation, converted and subjected to their dominion the nations dwelling between the Pillars of Hercules and the Indus, to the point where the Bolor chain intersects the Hindoo Coosh. They maintained relations of commerce, as early as the middle of the ninth century, simultaneously with the northern countries of Europe, with Madagascar, Eastern Africa, India, and China ; diffused languages, money, and Indian numerals, and founded a powerful and long-enduring communion of lands united together by one common religion. In these migratory advances great provinces were often only temporarily occu- pied. The swarming hordes, threatened by the natives, only rested for awhile, according to the poetical diction of their the Asiatic horde, under Batu, the grandson of Ghengis Khan. But the earliest introduction of Buddhism among the Mongolians took place in the year 1247, when, in the east, at Leang-tscheu, in the Chinese province of Schensi, the sick Mongolian Prince Godan caused the Sakya Pandita, a Thibetian archbishop, to be sent for, in order to cure and convert him. (Klaproth in a manuscript fragment. " Ueber die Verbreitung des Buddhismm im ostlichen und nordlichen Asien") The Mongolians have never occupied themselves with the conversion cxf conquered nations. * See p. 295. THE ARABS. 573 own historians, " like groups of clouds which the winds ere long will scatter abroad." No other migratory movement has presented a more striking and instructive character ; and it would appear, as if the depressive influence, manifested in circumscribing mental vigour, and which was apparently in- herent in Islamism, acted less powerfully on the nations under the dominion of the Arabs than on Turkish races. Persecution for the sake of religion was here, as everywhere, even among Christians, more the result of an unbounded, dogmatising despotism, than the consequence of any original form of belief, or any religious contemplation existing amongst the people. The anathemas of the Koran are especially directed against superstition and the worship of idols, amongst races of Arama3ic descent.* As the life of nations is, independently of mental culture, determined by many external conditions of soil, climate, and vicinity to the sea, we must here remember the great varieties presented by the Arabian peninsula. Although the first impulse towards the changes effected by the Arabs in the three continents emanated from the Ismaelitish Hedschaz, and owed its principal force to one sole race of herdsmen, the littoral portions of the peninsula had continued for thou- sands of years, open to intercourse with the rest of the world. In order to understand the connection and existence of great and singular occurrences, it is necessary to ascend to the primitive causes, by which they have been gradually prepared. Towards the south-west, on the Erythrean Sea, lies Yemen, the ancient seat of civilisation (of Saba), the beautiful, fruit- ful, and richly cultivated land of the Joctanidce.f It pro- duced incense (the lebonah of the Hebrews, perhaps the Bos- * Hence the contrast between the tyrannical measures of Motewekkil, the tenth Caliph of the house of the Abassides, against Jews and Christians (Joseph von Hammer, Ueber die Ldnderverwaltung unter dem Chalifate, 1835, s. 27, 85, und 117), and the mild tolerance of wiser rulers in Spain (Conde, Hist, de la Domination de los Arabes en Espana, T. i. 1820, p. 67). It should also be remembered, that Omar, after the taking of Jerusalem, tolerated every rite of Christian, worship, and concluded a treaty with the Patriarch favourable to the Christians. (Fundgrubcn des Orients, Bd. v. s. 68.) •f It would appear from tradition, that a branch of the Hebrews mi- grated to southern Arabia, under the name of Jokthan (Qachthan,) be- 574 COSMOS, wellia thurifera of Colebrooke),* myrrh, (a species of amyris, first accurately described by Ehrenberg,) and the so-called balsam of Mecca, (the balsamodendron gileadense, of Kunth). These products constituted an important branch of commerce between the contiguous tribes and the Egyptians, Persians, and Indians, as well as the Greeks and Komans ; fore the time of Abraham, and there founded flourishing kingdoms. (Ewald, Geschichte des Vollces Israel, Bd. i. s. 337 und 450.) * The tree which furnishes the Arabian incense of Hadramaut, cele- brated from the earliest times, and which is never to be found in the Island of Socotora, has not yet been discovered and determined by any botanist, not even by the laborious investigator Ehrenberg. An article similar to this incense is found in eastern India, and particularly in Bundel- cund, and is exported in considerable quantities from Bombay to China. This Indian incense is obtained, according to Colebrooke (Asi- atic Researches, vol. ix. p. 377), from a plant made known by Rox- burgh, Boswellia thurifera, or serrata, (included in Kunth's family of Burseracece). As from the very ancient commercial connections between the coasts of southern Arabia and western India (Gildemeister, Scrip- torum Ardbum Loci de rebus Indicis, p. 35), doubts might be enter- tained as to whether the \if3avoQ of Theophrastus, (the thus of the Romans), belonged originally to the Arabian peninsula, Lassen's remark (Indische Alterihumskunde, Bd. i. s. 286), that incense is called " yd- wana, Javanese, i. e., Arabian," in Amara-Koscha itself becomes very im- portant apparently implying that this product is brought to India from Arabia. It is called Turuschka' pindaka' sihld, (three names signify- ing incense,) "yawand" in Amara-Koscha. (Amarakocha, publ. par A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, P. i. 1839, p. 156.) Dioscorides also distinguishes Arabian from Indian incense. Carl Ritter, in his excel- lent 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,} might be diffused from India through the south of Persia to Arabia. The American incense (Oliba- num americanum of our Pharmacopoeias,) is obtained from Idea guja* nensis, Aubl. and Idea tacamahaca, which Bonpland and myself fre- quently found growing on the vast grassy plains (Llanos) of Calaboso, in South America. Idea, like Boswellia, belongs to the family of Burseracece. 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 by Ehrenberg, near el-Gisan in Arabia, and has been described by Nees von Esenbeck from the specimens col- lected by him, under the name of Balsamodendron myrrha. The Balsamodendron Kotaf of Kunth, an Amyris of Forskaal, was long erroneously regarded as the true myrrh-tree. THE AKABS. 575 and it was owing to their abundance and luxuririance that the country acquired the designation of " Arabia Felix," which occurs as early as in the writings of Diodorus and Strabo. In the south-east of the peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, and opposite the Phoenician settlements of Aradus and Tylus, lay Gerrha, an important emporium for Indian articles of commerce. Although the greater part of the interior of Arabia may be termed a barren, treeless, and sandy waste, we yet meet in Oman, between Jailan and Basna, with a whole range of well-cultivated oases, irrigated by subterranean canals ; and we are indebted to the meritorious activity of the traveller, Wellsted, for the knowledge of three mountain chains, of which the highest and wood-crowned summit, named Dschebel- Akhdar, rises six thousand feet above the level of the sea near Maskat.* In the hilly country of Yemen, east of Loheia, and in the littoral range of Hedschaz, in Asyr, and also to the east of Mecca, at Tayef, there are elevated plateaux, whose perpetually low temperature was known to the geo- grapher, Edrisi.f The same diversity of mountain landscape characterises the peninsula of Sinai, the Copper-land of the Egyptians of the old kingdom, (before the time of the Hyksos,) and the stony valleys of Petra. I have already elsewhere spoken of the Phrenician commercial settlements on the most northern portion of the Red Sea, and of the expeditions to Ophir, under Hiram and Solomon, which started from Ezion-Geber. J Arabia, and the neighbouring island of Socotora, (the island of Dioscorides,) inhabited by Indian colonists, participated in the universal traffic with India and the eastern coasts of Africa. The natural products of these countries were interchanged for those of Hadramaut and Yemen. " All they from Sheba shall come," sings the prophet Isaiah of the drome- daries of Midiaii, " they shall bring gold and incense. "§ Petra was the emporium for the costly wares destined for Tyre and Sidon, and the principal settlement of the Nabateei, a people once mighty in commerce, whose primitive seat is * Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, 1838, vol. i. pp. 272-289. t Jomard, Etudes geogr. et hist, sur V Arable, 1839, pp. 14 and 32. $ See p. 499. § Isaiah, ch. Ix. v. 6. 576 COSMOS supposed by the philologist Quatremere, to have been situ- ated among the Gerrhcean mountains, on the Lower Euphrates. This northern portion of Arabia maintained an active con- nection with other civilised states, from its vicinity to Egypt, the diffusion of Arabian tribes over the Syro-Palestinian. boundaries and the districts around the Euphrates, as well as by means of the celebrated caravan track from Damascus through Emesa and Tadmor (Palmyra) to Babylon. Mohammed him- self, who had sprung from a noble but impoverished family of the Koreischite tribe, in his mercantile occupation, visited, before he appeared as an inspired prophet and reformer, the fair at Bosra on the Syrian frontier, that at Hadramaut the land of incense, and more particularly that held at Okadh, near Mecca, which continued during twenty days, and whither poets, mostly Bedouins, assembled annually, to take part in the lyric competitions. I mention these individual facts referring to international relations of commerce, and the causes from which they emanated, in order to give a more ani- mated picture of the circumstances which conduced to prepare the way for a universal change. The spread of Arabian population towards the north, reminds us most especially of two events, which, notwith- standing the obscurity in which their more immediate rela- tions are shrouded, testify that even thousands of years before Mohammed, the inhabitants of the peninsula had occasionally taken part in the great universal traffic, both towards the west and east, in the direction of Egypt and of the Euphrates. The Semitic or Aramseic origin of the Hyksos, who put an end to the old kingdom under the twelfth dynasty, two thou- sand two hundred years before our era, is now almost univer- sally admitted by all historians. Even Manetho says, " some maintain that these herdsmen were Arabians." Other autho- rities call them Phoenicians, a term which was extended in antiquity to the inhabitants of the valley of the Jordan, and to all Arabian races. The acute Ewald refers especially to the Amalekites, who originally lived in Yemen, and then spread themselves beyond Mecca and Medina to Canaan and Syria, appearing in the Arabian annals as rulers over Egypt, in the time of Joseph.* It seems extraordinary that the * Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, Bd. i. s. 300 und 450; Bunsen, jEgyptcn, Buch iii. s. 10 und 32. The traditions of Medes and Per- THE ARABS. 577 nomadic races of the Hyksos should have been able to subdue the ancient powerful and well- organized kingdom of the Egyp- tians. Here the more freely constituted nation entered into a successful contest with another long habituated to servitude, but yet the victorious Arabian immigrants were not then, as in more modern times, inspired by religious enthusiasm. The Hyksos, actuated by fear of the Assyrians, (races of Arpasch- schad,) established their festivals and place of arms at Avaris, on the eastern arm of the Nile. This circumstance seems to indicate attempted advances on the part of hostile warlike bodies, and a great migration westward. A second event, which occurred probably a thousand years later, is mentioned by Diodorus on the authority of Ctesias.^ Arireus, a powerful prince of the Hiinyarites, entered into an alliance with Ninus, on the Tigris, and after they had conjointly defeated the Babylonians, he returned laden with rich spoils to his home in southern Arabia. f Although a free pastoral mode of life may be regarded as predominating in the Hedschaz, and as constituting that of a great and powerful majority, the cities of Medina and of Mecca with its ancient and mysterious temple-holiness, the Kaaba, are mentioned as important places, much frequented by foreigners. It is probable that the complete and savage wildness generated by isolation, was unknown in those dis- tricts which we term river valleys, and which were contiguous to coasts or to caravansery tracks. Gibbon, who knew so well how to consider the conditions of human life, draws atten- tion to the essential differences existing between a nomadic life in the Arabian peninsula and that described' by Hero- dotus and Hippocrates, in the so-called land of the Scythians ; since, in the latter region, no portion of the pastoral people ever settled in cities ; whilst in the great Arabian peninsula, sians in northern Africa indicate very ancient migrations towards the west. They have been connected with the various versions of the myth of Hercules, and with the Phoenician Melkarth. (Compare Sallust, Bellum Jugurth. cap. 18, drawn from Punic writings, by Hiempsal; and Pliny, V. 8.) Strabo even terms the Maurusians, (inhabitants of Mar • ritania,) " Indians who had come with Hercules." * Diod. Sic. lib. ii. cap. 2 and 3. f CtesicK Cnidii Operum reliquice, ed. Baehr, Fragmenta Assyriaca, p. 421 ; and Carl Muller, in Dindorf s edition of Herodotus, (Par. 1844,> pp. 13-15. 2 P 578 COSMOS. the country people still hold communion with the inhabitants of the towns, whom they regard as of the same origin as them- selves.* In the Kirghis steppe, a portion of the plain, inha- bited by the ancient Scythians, (the Scoloti and Sacse,) and which exceeds in extent the area of Germany, there has never been a city for thousands of years, and yet at the time of my journey in Siberia, the number of the tents (Yurti or Kibitkes), occupied by the three nomadic hordes, exceeded 400,000, which would give a population of 2,000,000.f It is hardly necessary to enter more circumstantially into the consideration of the effect produced on mental culture, by such great contrasts in the greater or less isolation of a nomadic life, even where equal mental qualifications are presupposed. In the more highly-gifted race of the Arabs, natural adap- tibility for mental cultivation, the geographical relations we have already indicated, and the ancient commercial inter- course of the littoral districts with the highly civilized neigh- bouring states, all combine to explain how the irruption into Syria and Persia, and the subsequent possession of Egypt, were so speedily able to awaken in the conquerors a love for science, and a tendency to the pursuit of independent obser- vation. It was ordained in the wonderful decrees by which the course of events is regulated, that the Christian sects of Nestorians which exercised a very marked influence on the geographical diffusion of knowledge, should prove of use to the Arabs, even before they advanced to the erudite and con- tentious city of Alexandria, and that protected by the armed followers of the creed of Islam, these Nestorian doctrines of Christianity were enabled to penetrate far into Eastern Asia. The Arabs were first made acquainted with Greek literature through the Syrians, a kindred Semitic race, who had them- selves acquired a knowledge of it only about a hundred and fifty years earlier through the heretical Nestorians. J Physi- cians, who had been educated in the scholastic establishments of the Greeks, and in the celebrated school of medicine founded * Gibbon, Hist, of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. chap. 50, p. 200, (Leips. 1829.) f Humboldt, Asie centr. T. ii. p. 128. J Jourdain, Reciter dies critiques sur I' Age des Traductions d'Aristote, 1819, pp. 81 and 87. THE ARABS. 579 by the Nestorian Christians at Edessa in Mesopotamia, were settled at Mecca as early as Mohammed's time, and there lived on a footing of friendly intercourse with the Prophet and Abu-Bekr. The school of Edessa, a prototype of the Benedictine schools of Monte Cassino and Salerno, gave the first impulse to a scientific investigation of remedial agents yielded from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. When these establishments were dissolved by Christian fanaticism, under Zeno the Isau- rian, the Nestorians were scattered over Persia, where they soon attained to political importance, and founded at Dschondisapur, in Khusistan, a medical school, which was afterwards much frequented. They succeeded towards the middle of the seventh century, in extending their know- ledge and their doctrines as far as China, under the Thang dynasty, 572 years after Buddhism had penetrated thither from India. The seeds of western civilization, which had been scattered over Persia by learned monks and by fne philosophers of the last Platonic school at Athens persecuted by Justinian, had exer- cised a beneficial influence on the Arabs during their first Asiatic campaigns. However faint the sparks of know- ledge diffused by the Nestorian priesthood might have been, their peculiar tendency to the investigation of medical phar- macy, could not fail to influence a race which had so long lived in the enjoyment of a free communion with nature, and which preserved a more vivid feeling for every kind of natural investigation, than the Greek and Italian inhabitants of cities. The cosmical importance attached to the age of the Arabs depends in a great measure on the national charac- teristics, which we are here considering. The Arabs, I would again remark, are to be regarded as the actual founders of physical science, considered in the sense which we now apply to the words. It is undoubtedly extremely difficult to associate any abso- lute beginning with any definite epoch of time in the history of the mental world, and of the intimately connected ele- ments of thought. Individual luminous points of knowledge, and the processes by which knowledge was gradually attained, may be traced, scattered through very early periods of time. How great is the difference that separates Dioscorides, who 2p 2 580 COSMOS. distilled mercury from cinnabar, from the Arabian chemist, Dscheber ; how widely is Ptolemy, as an optician, removed from Alhazen ; but we must, nevertheless, date the founda- tion of the physical sciences, and even of natural science, from the point where new paths were first trodden by many dif- ferent investigators, although with unequal success. To the mere contemplation of nature, to the observation of the phenomena accidentally presented to the eye in the terres- trial and celestial regions of space, succeeds investigation into the actual, an estimate by the measurement of magnitudes and the duration of motion. The earliest epoch of such a spe- cies of natural observation, although principally limited to organic substances, was the age of Aristotle. There remains a third and higher stage in the progressive advancement of the knowledge of physical phenomena, which embraces an investigation into natural forces and the powers by which these forces are enabled to act, in order to be able to bring the substances liberated into new combinations. The means by which this liberation is effected are experiments, by which phenomena may be called forth at will. This last-named stage of the process of knowledge, which was almost wholly disregarded in antiquity, was raised by the Arabs to a high degree of development. This people belonged to a country which enjoyed, throughout its whole extent, the climate of the region of palms, and in its greater part that of tropical lands, (the tropic of Cancer intersecting the peninsula in the direction of a line running from Maskat to Mecca,) and this portion of the world was, therefore, cha- racterized by the highly developed vital force pervading vege- tation, by which an abundance of aromatic and balsamic juices was yielded to man from various beneficial and dele- terious vegetable substances. The attention of the people must early have been directed to the natural products of their native soil, and those brought as articles of commerce from the accessible coasts of Malabar, Ceylon, and Eastern Africa. In these regions of the Torrid Zone, organic forms become individualized within very limited portions of space, each one being characterised by individual products, and thus increas- ing the communion of men with nature, by a constant excitement towards natural observation. Hence arose the wish to distinguish carefully from one another these precious THE ARABS. 581 articles of commerce, which were so important to medicine, to manufactures, and to the pomp of temples and palaces; and to discover the native region of each, which was often art- fully concealed from motives of avarice. Starting from the staple emporium of Gerrha, on the Persian Gulf, and from Yemen, the native district of incense, numerous caravan- tracks intersected the whole interior of the Arabian penin- sula to Phoenicia and Syria, and thus everywhere diffused a taste for and a knowledge of the names of these powerful natural products. The science of medicine which was founded by Dioscorides in the school of Alexandria, when considered with refe- rence to its scientific development, is essentially a creation of the Arabs, to whom the oldest and, at the same time, one of the richest sources of knowledge, that of the Indian physi- cians, had been early opened.*1 Chemical pharmacy was created by the Arabs, whilst to them are likewise due the first official prescriptions regarding the preparation and ad- mixture of different remedial agents, — the dispensing recipes of the present day. These were subsequently diffused over the south of Europe by the school of Salerno. Pharmacy and Materia Medica, the first requirements of practical medicine, led simultaneously, in two directions, to the study of botany and to that of chemistry. From its narrow sphere of utility, and its limited application, botany gradually opened a wider and freer field, comprehending investigations into the struc- ture of organic tissues, and their connection with vital forces, and into the laws by which vegetable forms are associated in families, and may be distinguished geographically, accord- ing to diversities of climate and differences of elevation above the earth's surface. From the time of the Asiatic conquests, for the mainte- nance of which Bagdad subsequently constituted a central point of power and civilization, the Arabs spread themselves, * On the knowledge which the Arabs derived from the Hindoos regarding Materia Medica, see Wilson's important investigations in the Oriental Magazine of Calcutta, 1823, Feb. and March; and those of Koyle, in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, 1837, pp. 56-59, 64--6G, 73, and 92. Compare an account of Arabic phar- maceutical writings, translated from Hindostanee, in Ainslie, (Madras edition,) p. 289. 582 COSMOS. in the short space of seventy years, over Egypt, Gyrene, and Carthage, through the whole of Northern Asia to the far remote western peninsula of Iberia. The inconsiderable degree of cultivation possessed by the people and their leaders, might certainly incline us to expect every demon- stration of rude barbarism, but the mythical account of the burning of the Alexandrian Library by Amru, including the account of its application during six months, as fuel to heat 4000 bathing rooms, rests on the sole testimony of two writers who lived 580 years after the alleged occurrence took place.*' We need not here describe how, in more peaceful times, during the brilliant epoch of Al-Mansur, Haroun Al~ Raschid, Mamun, and Motasem, the courts of princes, and public scientific institutions, were enabled to draw together large numbers of the most distinguished men, although with- out imparting a freer development to the mental culture of the mass of the people. It is not my object in the present work to give a characteristic sketch of the far extended and variously developed literature of the Arabs, or to distinguish the ele- ments that spring from the hidden depths of the organiza- tion of races, and the natural unfolding of their character, from those which are owing to external inducements and accidental controlling causes. The solution of this important problem belongs to another sphere of ideas, whilst our histo- rical considerations are limited to a fragmentary enumeration of the various elements which have contributed in mathema- tical, astronomical, and physical science, towards the diffu- sion of a more general contemplation of the universe amongst the Arabs. Alchemy, magic, and mystic fancies, deprived by scho- lastic phraseology of all poetic charm, corrupted here, as elsewhere, in the middle ages, the true results of enquiry; but still the Arabs have enlarged the views of nature, and given origin to many new elements of knowledge, by their in- defatigable and independent labours, \fhile, by means of careful translations into their own tongue, they have appropriated to themselves the fruits of the labours of earlier cultivated * Gibbon, vol. ix. chap. 51, p. 392; Heeren, Gesch. des Studiwms der classischen Litter atur, bd. i. 1797, s. 44 und 72; Sacy, Abd-Allatif, p. 240; Parthey, Das alexandriniscJie Museum} 1838, s. 106. THE ARABS. 583 generations. Attention has been justly drawn to the great difference existing in the relations of civilization between im- migrating Germanic and Arabian races.* The former became cultivated after their immigration, the latter brought with them from their native country, not only their religion but a highly polished language, and the graceful blossoms of a poetry, which has not been wholly devoid of influence on the Proven9als and Minnesingers. The Arabs possessed remarkable qualifications, alike for appropriating to themselves, and again diffusing abroad, the seeds of knowledge and general intercourse, from the Euphrates to the Guadalquiver, and to the south of Central Africa. They exhibited an unparalleled mobility of cha- racter, and a tendency to amalgamate with the nations whom they conquered, wholly at variance with the repelling spirit of the Israelitish castes, while, at the same time, they adhered to their national character, and the traditional recollections of their original home, notwithstanding their constant change of abode. No other race presents us with more striking ex- amples of extensive land journeys, undertaken by private individuals, not only for purposes of trade but also with the view of collecting information, surpassing in these respects the travels of the Buddhist priests of Thibet and China, Marco Polo, and the Christian Missionaries, who were sent on an embassy to the Mongolian princes. Important ele- ments of Asiatic knowledge reached Europe, through the intimate relations existing between the Arabs and the natives of India and China, (for at the close of the seventh century, under the Caliphate of the Ommajades, the Arabs had already extended their conquests to Kaschgar, Kabul, and the Pun- jaub.)f The acute investigations of Reinaud have taught us * Heinrich Ritter, Gescli. der christlichen Philosophic, th. iii. 1844, s. 669-676. t Reinaud, in three late writings, which show how much may still be derived from Arabic and Persian, as well as Chinese sources ; Fragments Arabes et Per sans inedits relatifs a TInde anterieure- ment au Xle siecle de Tere chretienne, 1845, pp. xx.--xxxiii. ; Rela- tion des Voyages f aits par les Arabes et les Per sans dans llnde et a la Chine dans le IXe siecle de notre ere, 1845, t. i. p. xlvi. ; Memoire geog. et hist, sur I'Indc d'apres les ecrivains Arabes, Persans, et Chinois, anterieurement. au milieu du onzieme siecle de I ere dire- tienne, 1846, p. 6. The second of these memoirs of the learned 584 COSMOS. the amount of knowledge regarding India that may be derived from Arabian sources. The incursion of the Moguls into China certainly disturbed the intercourse with the nations beyond the Oxus, but the Moguls soon served to extend the international relations of the Arabs, from the light thrown on geography by their observations and careful investigations, from the coasts of the Dead Sea to those of Western Africa, and from the Pyrenees to Scherif Edrisi's marsh lands of Wangarah, in the interior of Africa.-* According to the testimony of Frahn, Ptolemy's geography was translated into Arabic by order of the Caliph Mamun, between the years 813 and 833; and it is not improbable that several fragments of Marinus Tyrius, which have not come down to us, were employed in this translation.! Of the long series of remarkable geographers, presented to us in the literature of the Arabs, it will be sufficient to name the first and last, El Istachri and Alhassan, (Johannes Leo Africanus)."! Geography never acquired a greater acquisition of facts, even from the discoveries of the Portu- guese and Spaniards. Within fifty years after the death of the Oriental scholar is based on the incomplete treatise of the Abbe" Renaudot, Anciennes Relations des Indes, et de la Chine, de deux Voyageurs Mahometans," 1718. The Arabic manuscript contains only one notice of a voyage, that of the merchant Soleiman, who em- barked on the Persian Gulf in the year 851. To this notice is added, what Abu-Zeyd-Hassan, of Syraf in Farsistan, who had never travelled to India or China, had learnt from other well-informed merchants. * Eeinaud et Fave Du Feu gregeois, 1845, p. 20(). t Ukert, Ueber Marinus Tyrius und Ptolemaus die Geographen, in the Rlieinisclie Museum fur Philologie, 1839, s. 329-332; Gilde- meister, De rebus Indicis, pars 1, 1838, p. 120; Asie centrale, t. ii. p. 191. J The " Oriental Geography of Ebn-Haukal," which Sir William Ouseley published in London in 1800, is that of Abu-Ishak el-Istachri, and, as Frahn has shown (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 afforded me much aid in my observations on the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral. (A sic centrale, t. ii. pp. 192-196). We have lately been put in possession of an edition of Istachri, and a German translation ; (Liber Climatum, cid similitudinem codicis Gothani delineandum, cur. J. H. Moellcr, . THE ARABS. 585 Prophet, the Arabs had already reached the extremest western coasts of Africa and the port of Asfi. Whether the islands of the Guansches were visited by Arabian vessels subsequently, as I was long disposed to conjecture, to the expedition of the so-called Almagrurin adventurers to the Mare tenebrosum, is a question that has again been lately regarded as doubtful.* The presence of a great quantity of Arabian coins, found buried in the lands of the Baltic, and in the extreme northern parts of Scandinavia, is not to be ascribed to direct inter- course with Arabian vessels in those regions, but to the widely-diffused inland trade of the Arabs. f Geography was no longer limited to a representation of the relations of space, and the determinations of latitude and lon- gitude, which had been multiplied by Abul-Hassan, or to a description of rirer districts and mountain chains ; but it rather led the people, already familiar with nature, to an acquaintance with the organic products of the soil, especially those of the vegetable world . J The repugnance entertained by * Compare Joaquim Jose da Costa de Macedo, Memoria em que se pretendc provar que os Arabes nao conhecerfio as Canarias antes dos Portuguezes, (Lisboa, 1844,) pp, 86-99, 205-227, with Humboklt, Examen crit. de VHist. de la Geographie, t. ii. pp. 137-141. •f Leopold von Leclebur, Ueber die in den Baltischen Ldndern gefundenen Zeugnisse eines Handels-Verkelirs mit dem Orient zur Zeit der Arabisclien Weltherrscliaft, 1840, s. 8 und 75. £ The determinations of longitude which Abul-Hassan Ali of Mo- rocco, an astronomer of the thirteenth century, has embodied in his work on the astronomical instruments of the Arabs, are all calculated from the first meridian of Arin. M. Sedillot, the younger, first directed the attention of geographers to this meridian ; I have also made it an object of careful inquiry, because Columbus, who was always guided by Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, in his phantasies regarding the differ- ence of form between the eastern and western hemispheres, makes mention of an Isla de Arin : " centro de el hemispheric del qual habla Tolomeo y ques debaxo la linea equinoxial entre el Sino Arabico y aquel de Persia." (Compare 1. 1. Se"dillot, Traite des Instrument astronomiques des Arabes, publ. par L. Am. Sedillot, t. i. 1834, pp. 312-318, t. ii. 1835, preface, with Humboldt's Examen crit. de VHist. de la Geogr. t. iii. p. 64, and Asie centrale, t. iii. pp. 593-596, in which the data occur which I derived from the Mappa Mundi of Alliacus of 1410, in the " AlpJionsine Tables" 1483, and in Madrignano's Itine- rarium Portugallensium, 1508. It is singular that Edrisi appears to know nothing of Khobbet Arin (Cancadora, more properly Kankdei). Sedillot the younger (in the Memoire sur les systemes geograpltiquts 586 COSMOS. all the adherents of Islamism towards anatomical investigations, impeded their advance in zoology. They remained contented with that which they were able to appropriate to themselves from translations of the works of Aristotle and Galen ;* but, des Grecs et des Ardbes, 1842, pp. 20--25,) places the meridian of Arin in the group of the Azores ; whilst the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Reinaud (Memoire sur I'lnde anterieurement au Xle siecle de I' ere chretienne d'apres les ecrivains Arabes et Persans, pp. 20-24), assumes that "the word Arin has originated by confusion from Azyn, Ozein, and Odjein, an old seat of cultivation, (according to Burnouf, Udjijayani in Malwa,) the 'OZrjvr) of Ptolemy. This Ozene was supposed to be in the meridian of Lanka, and in later times Arin was conjectured to be an island on the coast of Zanguebar, perhaps the Effvvvov of Ptolemy." Compare also Am. Sedillot, Mem. sur les Instr. astron. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75. * The Caliph Al-Mamun caused many valuable Greek manuscripts to be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, and to be translated direct from Greek into Arabic, in consequence of the earlier Arabic versions having long been founded on Syrian translations (Jourdain, Recherches crit. sur I'dge et sur Vorigine des traductions latines d'Aristote, 1819, pp. 85, 88, and 226). Much has thus been rescued by the exertions of Al-Mamun, which, without the Arabs, would have been wholly lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by Armenian translations, as Neumann of Munich was the first to show. Unhappily, a notice by the historian Geuzi of Bagdad, which has been preserved by the celebrated geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir entitled De viris inter Arabes illustribus, leads to the conjecture, that at Bagdad itself many Greek originals, which were believed to be use- less, were burnt ; but this passage may not perhaps refer to important manuscripts already translated. It is capable of several interpretations, as has been shown by Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech. Litter atur, th. i. s. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der classischen Lit- ter atur, bd. i. s. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle have often been found serviceable in executing Latin versions of the original ; as, for instance, the eight books of Physics, and the History of Animals ; but the larger and better part of the Latin translations have been made direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Recli. crit. sur I'dge des traductions tfAristote, pp. 230-236). An allusion to the same two-fold source may be recognized in the memorable letter of the Emperor Frederic II. of Hohenstaufen, in which he recommends the translations of Aristotle which he presents, in 1232, to his universities, and especially to that of Bologna. This letter expresses noble sentiments, and shows that it was not only the love of natural history which taught Frederic II. to . appreciate the philosophical value of the " Compilationes varias qure ab Aristotele aliisque philosophis sub grsecis arabicisque vocabulis antiquitus editse sunt." He writes as follows : " We have from our earliest youth striven to attain to a more intimate acquaintance with THE AitABS. 587 nevertheless, the zoological history of Avicenna, in the pos- session of the Royal Library at Paris, differs from Aristotle's work on the same subject.* As a botanist we must name Ibn- Baithar of Malaga, whose travels in Greece, Persia, India, and Egypt, entitle him to be regarded with admiration for the tendency he evinced to compare together, by independent observations, the productions of different zones in the east and west.f The point from whence all these efforts ema- nated was the study of medicine, by which the Arabs long ruled the Christian schools, and for the more perfect develop- ment of which Ibn-Sina, (Avicenna,) a native of Aschena near Bochara, Ibn-Roschd (Averroes) of Cordova, the younger Serapion of Syria, and Mesue of Maridin on the Euphrates, availed themselves of all the means yielded by the Arabian caravan and sea trade. I have purposely enume- rated the widely removed birth-places of celebrated Arabian literati, since they are calculated to remind us of the great science, although the cares of government have withdrawn us from it; we have delighted in spending our time in the careful reading of excel- lent works, in order that our soul might be enlightened and strengthened by exercise, without which the life of man is wanting both in rule and in freedom (ut animee clarius vigeat instrumentum in acquisitione scientiae, sine qua mortalium vita non regitur liberaliter). Libros ipsos tamquam prsemium amici Caesaris gratulantur accipite, et ipsos antiquis philosophorum operibus, qui vocis vestrse ministerio reviviscunt, aggregantes in auditorio vestro." (Compare Jourdain, pp. 169-178, and Friedrich von Eaumer's excellent work Geschichte der Hohenstaufen^ Bd. iii. 1841, s. 413.) The Arabs have served as a uniting link between ancient and modern science. If it had not been for them and their love of translation, a great portion of that which the Greeks had either formed themselves, or derived from other nations, would have been lost to succeeding ages. It is when considered from this point of view, that the subjects which have been touched upon, though apparently merely linguistic, acquire general cosmical interest. * Jourdain, in his Traductions d'Aristote, pp. 135-138, and Schneider, Adnot. ad Aristotelis de Animalibus Hist. lib. ix. cap. 15, speak of Michael Scot's translation of Aristotle's Historia Animalium, and of a similar work by Avicenna (Manuscript No. 6493, in the Paris Library). t Onlbn-Baithar, see Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzneykunde,^. ii. 1823, g. 468 ; and Eoyle, On the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p. 28. We have possessed, since 1840, a German translation of Ibn-Baithar, under the title Grosse Zusammenstellung uber die Krafte der bekannten einfachen Heil- und Nahrungs-mittel., translated from the Arabic by J. v. Sontheimer, 2 B'andes. 588 COSMOS. area over which the peculiar mental direction, and the simul- taneous a ctivity of the Arabian race, extended the sphere of ideas. The scientific knowledge of a more anciently civilized race — the Indians — was also drawn within this circle, when under the Caliphate of Harun Al-Raschid, several important works, probably those known under the half-fabulous name of Tscharaka and Susruta,* were translated from the Sanscrit into Arabic. Avicenna, who possessed a powerful grasp of mind, and who has often been compared to Albertus Magnus, affords in his work on Materia Medica a striking proof of the influence thus exercised by Indian literature. He is ac- quainted, as the learned Royle observes, with the true San- scrit name of the Deodwar of the snow-crowned Himalayan Alps, which had certainly not been- visited by any Arab in the eleventh century, and he regards this tree as an alder, a species of Juniper, from which oil of turpentine was ex- tracted.f The sons of Averroes lived at the court of the great Hohenstaufen, Frederic II., who owed a portion of his knowledge of the natural history of Indian animals and plants to his intercourse with Arabian, literati and Spanish Jews, versed in many languages . J The Caliph Abdurrahman I. , himself laid out a botanical garden at Cordova, § and caused * Royle, pp. 35-65. Susruta, the son of Visvamitra, is considered by Wilson to have been a. cotemporary of Raina. We have a Sanscrit edition of his work (The Sus'ruta, or System of Medicine taught by Dhanwantari, and composed by his disciple Sm'ruta, ed. by Sri Madhustidana Gupta, vol. i. ii., Calcutta, 1835, 1836), and a Latin translation, Susrutas. dyurvedas. Id est Medicince systema a venera- Irili Dhavantare demonstration, a Susruta discipulo compositum. Nunc pr. ex Sanskrlta in Latinum sermonem vertit Franc. Hessler, Erlangse, 1844, 1847, 2 vol. + Avicenna speaks of, the Deiudur (Deodar), of the genus 'abhel (Juniperus) ; and also of an Indian pine, which gives a peculiar milk, syr deiudar (fluid turpentine). J Spanish Jews from Cordova transmitted the opinions of Avicenna to Montpellier, and principally contributed to the establishment of its celebrated medical school, which was framed according to Arabian models, and belongs to the twelfth century. (Ciivier, Hist, des Sciences naturelles, t. i. p. 387.) § Respecting the gardens of the palace of Rissafah, whicii was built by Abdurrahman Ibn-Moawijch, see History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain extracted Jrom A limed Ibn Mohammad A l-Mak- THE ARABS. 589 rare seeds to be collected by his own travellers in Syria and other countries of Asia. He planted, near the palace of Rissafah, the first date-tree known in Spain, and sang its praises in a poem, expressive of plaintive longing for his native Damascus. The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on general natural physics was that directed to the advances of chemistry ; a science for which this race created a new era. It must be admitted that alchemistic and new Platonic fancies were as much blended with chemistry as astrology with astronomy. The requirements of pharmacy, and the equally urgent demands of the technical arts, led to discoveries which were promoted, sometimes designedly, and sometimes by a happy accident depending upon alchemistical investiga- tion into the study of metallurgy. The labours of Geber, or rather Djaber (Abu-Mussah-Dschafar-al-Kufi), and the much more recent ones of Razes (Abu Bekr Arrasi), have been attended by the most important results. This period is cha- racterized by the preparation of sulphuric and nitric acids,* aqua regia, preparations of mercury and of the oxides of other metals, and by the knowledge of the alcoholic process of fermen- tation.f The first scientific foundation, and the subsequent Icari, by Pascual de Gayangos, vol. i. 1840, pp. 209-211. "En eu Huerta planto el Key Abdurrahman una palma que era entonces (756) unica, y de ella procedieron todas las que buy en Espaila. La vista del arbol acrentaba mas que templaba su melancolia." (Antonio Conde, Hist, de la Domination de los Arabes en Espatia, t. i. p. 169.) * The preparation of nitric acid and aqua regia by Djaber (more properly Abu-Mussah-Dschafar), dates back more than five hundred years before Albertus Magnus and Raymond Lully, and almost seven hundred years before the Erfurt monk, Basilius Valentinus. The discovery of these decomposing (dissolving) acids, which constitutes an epoch in the history of science, was, however, long ascribed to the three last- named experimentalists. + For the rules given by Razes for the vinous fermentation of amy- lum 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. Vcnet. 1527, p. 97), properly speaking, only gives a circumstantial description of distillation from sea- water, he also draws attention to the fact that wine may likewise be distilled. This statement is the more remarkable, because Aristotle (Meteorol. ii. 3, p. 358, Bekker) had advanced the erroneous opinion, that in natural evaporation fresh water only rose from wine, as from the Bait water of the sea. 590 COSMOS. advances of chemistry, are so much the more important as they imparted a knowledge of the heterogeneous character of matter, and the nature of forces not made manifest by motion, but which now led to the recognition of the importance of com- position, no less than to that of the perfectibility of form assumed in accordance with the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato. Differences of form and of composition are, however, the elements of all our knowledge of matter, — the abstractions which we believe capable, by means of measurement and analysis, of enabling us to comprehend the whole universe. It is difficult, at present, to decide what the Arabian chemists may have acquired through their acquaintance with Indian literature (the writings on the Rasayand] ;* from the ancient technical arts of the Egyptians ; the new alchemistic precepts of the pseudo-Democritus and the sophist Synesius ; or even from Chinese sources, through the agency of the Moguls. According to the recent and very careful investiga- tions of a celebrated Oriental scholar, M. Reinaud, the inven- tion of gunpowder,f and its application to the discharge of hollow projectiles, must not be ascribed to the Arabs. Hassan Al-Rammah, who wrote between 1285 and 1295, was not acquainted with this application; whilst even in the twelfth century, and therefore nearly two hundred years * The chemistry of the Indians, embracing alchemistic arts, is called rasdyana (rasa, juice or fluid, also quicksilver; and ay ana, course or process), and forms, according to Wilson, the seventh division of the dyur- Veda, the "science of life, or of the prolongation of life." (Royle, Hindoo Medicine, pp. 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 is most clearly described in Pliny, lib. xxxv. cap. 11, No. 150. The word "chemistry" indicates literally " Egyptian art," the art of the black land ; for Plutarch (de Iside et Osir. cap. 33) knew that the Egyptians called their country Xij^La, from the black earth. The inscription on the Kosetta stone has Chmi. I find this word, as applied to the analytic art, first in the decrees of Diocletian against " the old writings of the Egyptians which treat of the '%?7jLua' of gold and silver," (TT^L ^fiiag apyvpov KCLI \pvoov). Compare my Examen crit. de I hist, de la Geographie et de lAstrono- mie nautique, t. ii. p. 314. •f Reinaud et Fave, du Feu, gregeois, des Feux, de guerre et des origines de lapoudre a canon, t. i. 1845, pp. 89, 97, 201 and 211; Piobert, Traite d'Artillerie, 1836, p. 25; Beckmann, Technologiet 8. 342. THE ABABS. 591 before Berthold Schwarz, a species of gunpowder was used to blast the rock in the Rammelsberg, in the Harz mountains. The invention of an air thermometer is also ascribed to Avicenna from a notice by Sanctorius, but this notice is very obscure, and six centuries passed before Galileo, Cornelius Drebbel, and the Academia del Cimento, by the establishment of an exact measurer of heat, created an important means for penetrating into a world of unknown phenomena, and com- prehending the cosmical connection of effects in the atmosphere, the superimposed strata of the ocean, and the interior of the earth; thus revealing phenomena whose regularity and periodicity excite our astonishment. Among the advances which science owes to the Arabs, it will be sufficient to mention Alhazen's work on refraction, partly borrowed, perhaps, from Ptolemy's Optics, and the knowledge and first application of the pendulum as a means of measuring time, due to the great astronomer, Ebn-Junis.* * Laplace, Precis de I Hist, de I' Astronomic, 1821, p. 60; and Am. Sedil- Memoire sur les Instrumens astr. des Arabes, 1841, p. 44. Thomas Young (Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts, 1807, vol. i. p. 191) does not either doubt that Ebn-Jimis, at the end of the tenth 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, therefore forty-four years before Huygens. With reference to the very elaborately constructed clock included in the presents which Haroun Al-Raschid, or rather the Caliph Abdallah, sent, two hundred years earlier, from Persia to Charlemagne at Aix-la- Chapelle, Eginhard distinctly says, that it was moved by water, (Horolo- gium ex aurichalco arte mechanica mirifice compositum, in quo duode- cim horarum cursus ad clepsidram vertebatur); EinJiardi Annales, in Partz's Monumenta Germanics. Historica, scriptorum, t. i. 1826, p. 195. Compare H. Mutius, De Germanorum origine, gestis, &c. Chronic, lib. viii. p. 57, in Pistorii Germanicorum scriptorum, t. ii. Francof. 1584; Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, t. v. pp. 333 and 354. The hours were indicated by the sound of the fall of small balls, and by the coming forth of small horsemen from as many opening doors. The manner in which the water acted in such clocks may indeed have been very different among the Chaldeans, who " weighed time " (determining it by the weight of fluids), and in the clepsydras of the Greeks and the Indians; for the hydraulic clockwork of Ctesibius, under Ptolemy Euergetes II., which marked the (civil) hours throughout the year at Alexandria, was never known, according to Ideler, under the common denomination of K\t-^vdpa. (lde\QY's>ffandbuch der Chronologic, 1825, bd. i. s. 231.) According to the description of Vitruvius (lib. ix. 592 COSMOS. Although the purity and rarely disturbed transparency of the sky of Arabia, must have especially directed the attention of the people, in their early uncultivated condition, to the motions of the stars, as we learn from the fact that the stellar worship of Jupiter, practised under the Lachmites by the race of the Asedites, included Mercury, which, from its proximity to the sun, is less frequently visible ; it would, nevertheless, appear that the remarkable scientific activity manifested by the Arabs in all branches of practical astro- nomy, is to be ascribed less to native than to Chaldean and cap. 4), it was an actual astronomical clock, a "horologium ex aqua/' a very complicated " machina hydraulica," working by toothed wheels (versatilis tympani denticuli aequales alius alium impellentes). It is therefore not improbable, that the Arabs who were acquainted with the improved mechanical constructions in use under the Roman empire, may have succeeded in constructing an hydraulic clock with wheel- work, (tympana quaB nonnulli rotas appellant, Grseci autam TrcpiVoxa. Vitruvius, x. 4.) Leibnitz (Annales Imperil Occidentis Brunsvicenses, ed. Pertz, t. i. 1843, p. 247) expresses his admiration of the construction of the clock of Haroun Al-Raschid (Abd-Allatif, trad, par Silvestre de Sacy, p. 578). The piece of mechanism which the Sultan sent from Egypt, in 1232, to the Emperor Frederic II., seems, however, to have been much more remarkable. It was a large tent, in which the sun and moon were moved by mechanism, and made to rise and set, and show the hours of the day and night at correct intervals of time. In the Annales Gode- fridi Monaclii S. Pantaleonis apv.d Coloniam Agrippinam, it is said to have been a " tentorium, in quo imagines solis et lunse artificialiter motaa cursum suum certis et debitis spaciis peragrant, et horas diei et noctis infallibiliter indicant." (Frelieri rerum germanicarum scriptores, t. i. Argcntor. 1717, p. 398.) The monk Godefridus, or whoever else may have written the annals of those years in the chronicle composed for the convent of St. Pantaleon at Cologne, which was probably the work of many different authors, (see Bohmer, Fontes rerum germanicarum, bd. ii. 1845, s. xxxiv.-xxxvii.), lived in the time of the great Emperor Frederic II. himself. The emperor caused this curious work, the value of which was estimated at 20,000 marks, to be preserved at Venusium, with other treasures. (Fried, von Raumer, Gesch. der Holienstaufeny bd. iii. s. 430.) That a movement like that of the vault of heaven should have been given to the whole tent, as has often been asserted, appears to me very improbable. In the Chronica Monasterii Hirsaugiensist edited by Trithemius, we find scarcely anything beyond a me-re repe- tition of the passage in the Annales Godefridi, without any information regarding the mechanical construction. (Joh.Trithemii Opera historica, P. ii. Francof. 1601, p. 180.) Reinaud says that the movement was imparted " par des ressorts cache's." (Extraite des Historiens Arabes relatifs aux guerres des Croisades, 1829, p. 435.} THE ARABS. 593 Indian influences. Atmospheric conditions merely favoured that which had been called forth by mental qualifications, and by the contact of highly-gifted races with more civilized neigh- bouring nations. How many rainless portions of tropical America, as Cumana, Coro, and Payta, enjoy a still more transparent atmosphere than Egypt, Arabia, and Bockhara ! A tropical sky, and the eternal clearness of the heavens, radiant in stars and nebulous spots, undoubtedly every- where exercise an influence on the mind, but they can only lead to thought, and to the solution of mathematical pro- positions, where other internal and external incitements, independent of climatic relations, affect the national character, and where the requirements of religious and agricultural pursuits make the exact division of time a necessity prompted by social conditions. Among calculating commercial nations (as the Phoenicians) ; among constructive nations, partial to ar- chitecture and the measurement of land (as the Chalda3ans and Egyptians), empirical rules of arithmetic and geometry were early discovered; but these are merely capable of preparing the way for the establishment of mathematical and astrono- mical science. It is only in the later phases of civilization that the established regularity of the changes in the heavens is known to be reflected, as it were, in terrestrial phenomena, and that, in accordance with the words of our great poet, we seek the " fixed pole." The conviction entertained in all climates of the regularity of the planetary movements, has contributed more than anything else to lead man to seek similar laws of order in the moving atmosphere, in the oscil- lations of the ocean, in the periodic course of the magnetic needle, and in the distribution of organisms over the earth's surface. The Arabs were in possession of planetary tables* as early as the close of the eighth century. We have already ob- served that the Susmta* the ancient incorporation of all the * On the Indian tables which Alphazari and Alkoresmi translated into Arabic, see Chasles, Reclierclics sur I' Astronomic Indienne, in the Comptes rendus des Seances de I' A cad. des Sciences, t. xxiii. 1846, pp. 846-850. The substitution of the sine for the arc, which is usually ascribed to Albategnius, in the beginning of the tenth century, also belongs originally to the Indians; tables of sines are to be found in the Surya-Siddhanta. 2Q 594 COSMOS. medical knowledge of the Indians, was translated by learned men belonging to the court of the Caliph Harun Al-Raschid, — a proof of the early introduction of Sanscrit literature. The Arabian mathematician Albiruni even went to India for the purpose of studying astronomy. His writings, which have only recently been made accessible to us, prove how intimately he had made himself acquainted with the country, traditions, and comprehensive knowledge of the Indians.* However much the Arabian astronomers may have owed to the earlier civilized nations, and especially to the Indian and Alexandrian schools, they have, nevertheless, considerably extended the domain of astronomy by their own practical endowments of mind; by the number and direction of their ob- servations; the improvement of their instruments for angular measurement; and their zealous efforts to rectify the older tables by a comparison with the heavens. In the seventh book of the Almagest of Abul Wefa, Sedillot found a notice of the important inequality in the moon's longitude, which disappears at the syzygies and quadratures, attains its maxi- mum at the octants, and has long been regarded, under the name of variation, as the discovery of Tycho Brahe.f The observations of Ebn-Junis in Cairo, have become extremely important with reference to the perturbations and secular changes of the orbits of the two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn. J The measurement of a degree, which the Caliph Al-Mamun caused to be made in the great plain of Sindschar, * Keinaud, Fragments Ardbes relatifs a I'Inde, pp. 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, and a friend of Avicenna, with whom he lived at the Arabian academy which had been formed in Charezm. His stay in India, and the composition of his history of that country (Tarikhi-Hind), of which Reinaud has made known the most remarkable fragments, belong to the years 1030-1032. •f Sedillot, Materiaux pour servir a IHistoire comparee des Sciences Mathematiques chez les Grecs et les Orientaux, t. i. pp. 50-89; also in the Comptes rendus de I'Acad. des Sciences, t. ii. 1836, p. 202, t. xvii. 1843, pp. 163-173, t. xx. 1845, p. 1308. In opposition to this opinion Biot maintains that the fine discovery of Tycho Brahe by no means belongs to Abul- Wefa, and that the latter was acquainted, not with the "variation," but only with the second part of the "evection." Journal des Savans, 1843, pp. 513-532, 609-626, 719-737; 1845, pp. 146-166; and Comptes rendus, t. xx. 1845, pp. 1319-1323.) J Laplace, Expos, du Syst&m du Monde, note 5, p. 407. THE ABABS. 595 between Tadmor and Rakka, by observers whose names have been transmitted to us by Ebn-Junis, has proved less im- portant in its results than by the evidence which it affords of the scientific culture of the Arabian race. We must regard among the results yielded by the reflection of this culture, in the west, the astronomical congress held at Toledo, in Christian Spain, under Alfonso of Castille, in which the Rabbin Isaac Ebn Sid Hazan played an important part ; and in the far east, the observatory founded by Ilschan Holagu, the grandson of the great conqueror Kenghis Khan, on a hill near Meraghar, and supplied with many instruments. It was here that Nassir Eddin of Tus, in Khorasan, made his observations. These individual facts deserve to be noticed in a history of the contemplation of the universe, since they tend vividly to remind us of how much the Arabs have effected in diffusing knowledge over vast tracts of territory and in accumulating those numerical data which contributed in a great degree during the important period of Kepler and Tycho, to lay the foundation of theoretical astronomy, and of correct views of the movements of the heavenly bodies. The spark kindled in those parts of Asia which were peopled by Tartars spread, in the fifteenth century, westward to Samar- cand, where Ulugh Beig, of the race of Timour, esta- blished, besides an observatory, a gymnasium after the manner of the Alexandrian Museum, and caused a catalogue of stars to be drawn up, which was based on wholly new and independent observations.* Besides making laudatory mention of that which we owe to the natural science of the Arabs in both the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we must likewise allude to their con- tributions in separate paths of intellectual development to the general mass of mathematical science. According to the most recent works which have appeared in England, France, and Germany f on the history of mathematics, we learn that "the * On the observatory of Meragha, see Delambre, Histoire de V Astro- nomie du Moyen Age, pp. 198-203 ; and Am. Sedillot, Mem, sur lea Instrumens Arabes, 1841, pp. 201-205, where the gnomon is described with a circular opening. On the peculiarities of the star catalogue of Ulugh Beig, see J. J. Se"dillot, Traite des Instrumens Astronomiques des Arabes, 1834, p. 4. •f Colebrooke, Algebra with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the 2Q2 596 COSMOS. algebra of the Arabs originated from an Indian and a Greek source, which long flowed independently of one another." The Compendium of Algebra which the Arabian mathema- tician, Mohammed Ben-Musa (the Chorowazneir), framed by command of the Caliph Al-Mamun, was not based on Dio- phantus, but on Indian science, as has been shown by my lamented and too- early deceased friend, the learned Friedrich Rosen ;* and it would even appear that Indian astronomers had been called to the brilliant court of the Abassides, as early as the close of the eighth century under Almansor. Diophantus was, according to Castri and Colebrooke, first translated into Arabic by Abul-Wefa Buzjani, towards the close of the tenth century. The process of establishing a conclusion by a progressive advance from one proposition to another, which seems to have been unknown to the ancient Indian Algebraists, was acquired by the Arabs from the Alexandrian school. This noble inheritance, enriched by their additions, passed in the twelfth century, through Johannes Hispalensis and Gerhard of Cremona, into the European literature of the middle ages.f " In the algebraic works of the Indians, we find the general solution of indeterminate equations of the first degree, and a far more elaborate mode of treating those of the second, than has been transmitted to us in the writings of the Alexandrian philosophers; there is, therefore, no doubt that if the works of the Indians had reached us two hundred years earlier, and were not now first made known to Europeans, they might have acted very bene- ficially in favouring the development of modern analysis." The same channels and the same relations which led the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara, Lond. 1817. Chasles, Aper$u liistorique sur Vorigine et le developpement des methodes en Geo- metrie, 1837, pp. 416-502; Kesselmann, Versuch einer Jcritischen Geschichte der Algebra, th. i. s. 30-61, 273-276, 302-306. * Algebra of Mohammed Ben Musa, edited and translated by F. Kosen, 1831, pp. viii. 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. Eeinaud, Relation des Voyages fails par lesArabes dans I'lnde et a la Chine, t. i. p. cix.; t. ii. p. 36. t Chasles, Histoire de I'Algebre, in the Comptes rendus,\>, xiii. 1841, pp. 497-524, 601-626; compare also Libri, in the same volume, pp, 559-563. THE ARABS. 597 Arabs to a knowledge of Indian algebra, enabled them also to obtain, in the ninth century, Indian numerals from Persia and the shores of the Euphrates. Persians were established at that period as revenue-collectors on the Indus, and the use of Indian numerals was gradually transmitted to the revenue officers of the Arabs in Northern Africa, opposite the shores of Sicily. Nevertheless, the important historical in- vestigations of the distinguished mathematician Chasles,* have rendered it more than probable, according to his correct interpretation of the so-called Pythagorean table in the Geometry of Boethius, that the Christians in the west were familiar with Indian numerals even earlier than the Arabs, and that they were acquainted with the use of nine figures or characters, according to their position-value, under the name of the system of the abacus. The present is not a fitting place to enter more fully into the consideration of this subject, which I have already treated of in two papers (written in 1819 and 1829,) and presented to the Academic des Inscriptions at Paris, and the Academy of Sciences at Berlin,f but in our attempts to solve a historical * Chasles, Apercu historique des Methodes en Geometric, 1837, pp. 464-472; also in the Comptes rendus de I'Acad. des Sciences, t. viii. 1839, p. 78; t. ix. 1839, p. 449; t. xvi. 1843, pp. 156-173, and 218--246; t. xvii. 1843, pp. 143-154. + Humboldt, Ueber die bei verschiedenen Volkern ublichen Systeme von Zalilezeichen und uber den Ursprung des Stellenwerthcs in den indisclien Zalden, in CreWs Journal fur die reine und angewandte Mathematik, bd. iv. (1829), s. 205-231 ; compare also my Examen crit. de mist, de la Geographic, t. iv. p. 275. The simple enumeration of the different methods which nations, to whom the Indian arithmetic by position was unknown, employed for expressing the multiplier of the fundamental groups, furnishes, in my opinion, an explanation of the gradual rise or origin of the Indian system. If we express the number 3568, either perpendicularly or horizontally, by means of " indicators," corresponding to the different divisions of the abacus, (thus, M3C X6!8), we shall easily perceive that the group-signs (MCXI) might be omitted. But our Indian numbers are, however, nothing more than these indi- cators— the multipliers of the different groups. We are also reminded of this designation by indicators by the ancient Asiatic Suanpan (the reckoning machine which the Moguls introduced into Russia), which has successive rows of strings, to represent thousands, hundreds, tens, and units. These strings would bear in the numerical example just cited, 3, 5, 6, and 8 balls. In the Suanpan there is no apparent group-sign; the group-signs are the positions themselves; and these 598 COSMOS. problem, concerning which much yet remains to be elucidated, the question arises, whether position-value — the ingenious application of position — which occurs in the Tuscan abacus, and in the Suampan of Inner Asia, has been twice indepen- positions (strings) are occupied by units (3, 5, 6, and 8) as multipliers or indicators. In both ways, whether by the figurative (the written) or by the palpable arithmetic, we arrive at the value of position, and at the simple use of nine numbers. If a string be without any ball the place will be left blank in writing. If a group (a member of the progression) be wanting, the vacuum is graphically filled by the symbol of a vacuum (sfi,nya, sifron, tzuphra}. In the " Method of Eutocius" I find in the group of the myriads, the first trace of the exponential or indicational system of the Greeks, which was so influential in the east: Ma, M&, M7, designate 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. That which is here alone applied to the myriads, passes among the Chinese and the Japanese, who derived their knowledge from the Chinese, two hundred years before the Chris- tian era, through all the multiples of the groups. In the Gobar, the Arabian " dust writing," (discovered 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 zeros or ciphers; for in India, Thibet, and Persia, zeros and points are identical. In the Gobar, 3- is written for 30; 4" for 400; and 6'"' for 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 Pehlwi numbers. The conjecture of the successive improvements that have been made in the Indian notation, appears to me to be supported by the Tamul system, which expresses units by nine characters, and all other values by group- signs for 10, 100, and 1000, with multipliers added to the left. The singular aptfytoi ivdiicol in a scholium of the monk Neophytos, dis- covered by Prof. Brandis in the library of Paris, and kindly communi- cated to me for publication, appear to corroborate the opinion of such a gradual process of improvement. The nine characters of Neophytes are, with the exception of the 4, quite similar to the present Persian; but the value of these nine units is raised 10, 100, 1000 fold by writing one, two, or three ciphers or zero signs above them; as 2 for 20, 24 for 24, 5 for 500, and 3 6 for 306. If we suppose points to be used instead of zeros, we have the Arabic dust- writing, Gobar. As my brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt, has often remarked of the Sanscrit, that it is very inappropriately designated by the terms " Indian " and " ancient Indian" language, since there are in the Indian peninsula several very ancient languages not at all derived from the Sanscrit; so the expression, Indian or ancient Indian arithmetical characters, is also very vague, and this vagueness applies both to the form of the characters and to the spirit of the methods, which sometimes consist in mere juxta- position, sometimes in the employment of coefficients and indicators, THE ARABS. 599 dently invented in the east under the Ptolemies and in the west ? or, whether the system of position- value may not have been transferred by the direction of universal traffic, from the Indian western peninsula to Alexandria, and subsequently have been given out amid the renewed dreams of the Pythagoreans, as an invention of the founder of their sect ? The bare possi- bility of ancient and wholly unknown combinations anterior to the sixtieth Olympiad, is scarcely worthy of notice. Wherefore should a feeling of similar requirements not have severally given rise, among highly-gifted nations of different origin, to combinations of the same ideas ? Whilst the algebra of the Arabs, by means of that which they had acquired from the Greeks and Indians, combined with the portions due to their own invention, acted so beneficially on the brilliant epoch of the Italian mathematicians of the middle ages, notwithstanding a great deficiency in sym- bolical designations, we likewise owe to the same people the merit of having furthered the use of the Indian numerical system from Bagdad to Cordova by their writings and their extended commercial relations. Both these effects — the simultaneous diffusion of the knowledge of the science of num- bers and of numerical symbols with value by position — have variously, but powerfully favoured the advance of the mathe- matical portion of natural science, and facilitated access to the and sometimes in the actual value of position. Even the existence of the cipher or zero is, as the scholium of Neophytos shows, not a necessary condition of the simple position-value in Indian numerical characters. The Indians who speak the Tamul language, have arithmetical symbols which differ from their alphabetical characters, and of which 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 comparison proves that the Tamul arithmetical characters are derived from the Tamul alphabetical writing. According to Carey the Cingalese are still more different from the Devanagari characters. In the Cingalese and in the Tamul, there is no position- value or zero sign, but symbols for the groups of tens, hundreds, and thousands. The Cingalese work, like the Komans, by juxta-position, the Tamuls by coefficients. Ptolemy uses the present zero sign to represent the descending negative scale for degrees and minutes, both in his Almagest and in his Geography. The zero sign was consequently in use in the west much earlier than the epoch of the invasion of the Arabs. (See my work above cited, and the memoir printed in Crell's Mathematical Journal, pp. 215, 219, 223, and 227.) 600 COSMOS. more abstruse departments of astronomy, optics, physical geography, and the theories of heat and magnetism, which, without such aids, would have remained unopened. The question has often been asked, in the history of nations, what would have been the course of events if Carthage had conquered Rome, and subdued the west? "We may ask, with equal justice," as Wilhelm von Humboldt*' observes, "what would be the condition of our civilization at the present day, if the Arabs had remained, as they long did, the sole possessors of scientific knowledge, and had spread them- selves permanently over the west? A less favourable result would probably have supervened in both cases. It is to the same causes which procured for the Romans a dominion over the world — the Roman spirit and character — and not to external and merely adventitious chances, that we owe the influence exercised by the Romans on our civil institutions, our laws, languages, and culture. It was owing to this bene- ficial influence, and to the intimate alliance of races, that we were rendered susceptible to the influence of the Greek mind and language ; whilst the Arabs directed their consideration principally only to those scientific results of Greek investiga- tion, which referred to the description of nature, and to physical, astronomical, and purely mathematical science." The Arabs, by carefully preserving the purity of their native tongue and the delicacy of their figurative modes of ex- pression, were enabled to impart the charm of poetic colouring to the expression of feeling and of the noble axioms of wisdom ; but to judge from what they were under the Abbassides, had they built on the same foundation with which we find them familiar, it is scarcely probable that they could have produced those works of exalted poetic and creative art, which, fused together in one harmonious accord, are the glorious fruits of the mature season of our European culture. * Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, bd. i. s. cclxiu Compare also the excellent description of the Arabs in Herder's Ideen zur Gesch. der Menscheit, be Vk xix. 4 and 5. 601 PERIOD OF OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. — OPENING OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EXTENSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, AND THOSE EVENTS WHICH LED TO OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. COLUMBUS, SEBASTIAN CABOT AND GAMA. AMERICA AND THE PACIFIC. CABRILLO, SEBASTIAN VIZCAINO, MENDANA AND QUIROS. THE RICHEST ABUNDANCE OF MATERIALS FOR THE FOUN- DATION OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IS PRESENTED TO THE NATIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE. THE fifteenth century belongs to those remarkable epochs in which all the efforts of the mind indicate one determined and general character, and one unchanging striving towards the same goal. The unity of this tendency, and the results by which it was crowned, combined with the activity of whole races, give to the age of Columbus, Sebastian Cabot and Gama a character both of grandeur and enduring splendour. In the midst of two different stages of human culture, the fifteenth century may be regarded as a period of transition, which belongs both to the middle ages and to the beginning of more recent times. It is the age of the greatest discoveries in space, embracing almost all degrees of latitude and all elevations of the earth's surface. While this period doubled the number of the works of creation known to the inhabitants of Europe, it likewise offered to the intellect new and powerful incitements towards the improvement of natural sciences, in the departments of physics and mathematics.* The world of objects now, as in Alexander's campaigns, although with still more overwhelming power, manifested itself to the combining mind in individual forms of nature, and in the concurrent action of vital forces. The scattered images of sensuous perception were gradually fused together into one concrete whole, notwithstanding their abundance and diver- sity, and terrestrial nature was conceived in its general character, and made an object of direct observation, and not of vague presentiments, floating in varying forms before the imagination. The vault of heaven revealed to the eye, which * Compare Humboklt, Examen crit. de I Hist, de la G$ograp7iie, t i pp. viii. and xix. i 602 COSMOS. was as yet unaided by telescopic powers, new regions, un- known constellations, and separate revolving nebulous masses. At no other period, as we have already remarked, were a greater abundance of facts, and a richer mass of materials for the establishment of comparative physical geography, presented to any one portion of the human race. At no other period have discoveries in the material world of space called forth more extraordinary changes in the manners and well-being of men, and in the long-enduring condition of slavery of a portion of the human race, and their late awakening to political freedom; nor has any other age afforded so large an extension to the field of view by the multiplication of products and objects of barter, and by the establishment of colonies, of a magnitude hitherto unknown. On investigating the course of the history of the universe, we shall discover that the germ of those events which have imparted any strongly marked progressive movement to the human mind, may be traced deeply rooted in the track of preceding ages. It does not lie in the destinies of mankind, that all should equally experience mental obscuration. A principle of preservation fosters the eternal vital process of advancing reason. The age of Columbus attained the object of its destination so rapidly because a track of fruitful germs had already been cast abroad by a number of highly, gifted men, who formed, as it were, a lengthened beam of light amid the dark- ness of the middle ages. One single century — the thirteenth •—shows us Roger Bacon, Nicolaus Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Vincentius of Beauvais. The mental activity once awakened, was soon followed by an extension of geographical knowledge. When Diego Bibero returned, in the year 1525, from the geographical and astronomical congress which had been held at the Puente de Caya, near Yelves, for the purpose of settling the contentions that had arisen regarding the boundaries of the two empires of the Portuguese and the Spaniards, the outlines of the new continent had been already laid down from Terra del Fuego to the coasts of Labrador. On the western side of America opposite to Asia, the advance was, of course, less rapid; although Rodriguez Cabrillo had penetrated further northward than Monterey as early as 1543; and notwithstanding that this great and daring mariner met his death in the canal of Santa Barbara, in New California, OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 603 the pilot, Bartholomeus Ferreto, conducted the expedition to the 43rd degree of latitude, where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is situated. The emulous enterprise of the Spaniards, English, and Portuguese, directed to one and the same object, was then so great, that fifty years sufficed to determine the external configuration or the general direction of the coasts of the countries in the western hemisphere. Although the acquaintance of the nations of Europe with the western part of the earth is the main subject of our con- sideration in this section, and that around which the nume- rous relations of a more correct and a grander view of the universe are grouped, we must yet draw a strong line of separation between the undoubted first discovery of America, in its northern portions, by the Northmen, and its subsequent re-discovery in its tropical regions. Whilst the Caliphate still flourished under the Abassides at Bagdad, and Persia was under the dominion of the Samanides, whose age was so favourable to poetry, America was discovered in the year 1000 by Leif, the son of Eric the Red, by the northern route, and as far as 41° 30' north latitude.* The first, although accidental, incitement towards this event emanated from Norway. Towards the close of the ninth century Naddod was driven by storms to Iceland whilst attempting to reach the Faroe Islands, which had already been visited by the Irish. The first settlement of the Northmen was made in 875 by Ingolf. Greenland, the eastern peninsula of a land which appears to be everywhere separated by the sea from America Proper, was early seen,f although it was first * Parts of America were seen, although no landing was made on, them, fourteen years before Leif Eiricksson, in the voyage which Bjarne Herjulfsson undertook from Greenland to the southward, in 986. Leif first saw the land at the island of Nantucket, 1° 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 the great River St. Lawrence, was called by the Northmen, who had settled in Iceland and Greenland, Markland's Gulf. See Caroli Christiani JRafn Antiquitates Ameri- cana, 1845, pp. 4, 421, 423, and 463. t Gunnbjorn was wrecked, in 876 or 877, on the rocks subsequently called by his name, which were lately re-discovered by Captain Graah. Qunnbjorn saw the east coast of Greenland, but did not land upon it. (Ram, Antiquit. Amer., pp. * 1, 93, and 304.) 604 COSMOS. peopled from Iceland a hundred years later (983). The colonisation of Iceland, which Naddod first called Snow-land, Snjoland, was carried through Greenland in a south-western direction to the New Continent. The Faroe Islands and Iceland must be considered as intermediate stations and starting points for attempts made to reach Scandinavian America. In a similar manner the set- tlement at Carthage served the Tyrians in their efforts to reach the Straits of Gadeira, and the Port of Tartessus ; and thus, too, Tartessus, in its turn, led this enterprising people from station to station on to Cerne, the Gauleon (Ship Island) of the Carthaginians.* Notwithstanding the proximity of the opposite shores of Labrador (Helluland it mikla\ one hundred and twenty-five years elapsed from the first settlement of the Northmen in Iceland to Leif's great discovery of America. So small were the means possessed by a noble, enterprising, but not wealthy race for furthering navigation in these remote and dreary regions of the earth. The littoral tracts of Vinland, so called by the German Tyrker from the wild grapes which were found there, delighted its discoverers by the fruitfulness of the soil, and the mildness of its climate, when compared with Iceland and Greenland. This tract, which was named by Leif the " Good Vinland " ( Vinland it goda\ comprised the coast line between Boston and New York, and consequently parts of the present States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita Vecchia, and Terracina, which, however, correspond there only to mean annual temperatures of 47°* 8 and 52°*l.f This was the prin- cipal settlement of the Northmen. The colonists had often * See p. 494. f These mean annual temperatures of the eastern coast of America, under the parallels of 42° 25' and 41° 15', correspond in Europe to the latitudes of Berlin and Paris, places which are situated 8° or 10° more to the north. Besides the decrease of mean annual temperature, from lower to higher latitudes is here so rapid that, in the interval of lati- tude between Boston and Philadelphia, which is 2° 41', an increase of one degree of latitude corresponds to a decrease in the mean annual tempe- rature of almost 3°. 6, while, according to my researches, on the system of isothermal lines in Europe, the same decrease of temperature scarcely amounts to half a degree for the same interval. (A sie centrale, t. iii. p. 227.) OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 605 & to contend with a very warlike race of Esquimaux, who then extended further to the south under the name of the Skra- linger. The first Bishop of Greenland, Eric Upsi, an Ice- lander, undertook, in 1121, a Christian mission to Vinland; and the name of the colonised country has even been dis- covered in old national songs of the inhabitants of the Faroe , Islands.* The activity and bold spirit of enterprise manifested by the Greenland and Icelandic adventurers are proved by the cir- cumstance that, after they had established settlements south of 41° 30' north latitude, they erected three boundary pillars on the eastern shores of Baffin's Bay, at the latitude of 72° 55', on one of the Woman's Islands,! north-west of the present most northern Danish colony of Upernavick. The Runic inscriptions, which were discovered in the autumn of the year 1824, contain, according to Rask and Finn Mag- nusen, the date 1135. From this eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, more than six hundred years before the bold expeditions of *Parry and Ross, the colonists very regularly visited Lan- caster Sound and a part of Barrow's Straits for the purpose of fishing. The locality of the fishing ground is very definitely described, and Greenland priests, from the Bishopric of Gardar, conducted the first voyage of discovery (1266). This north-western summer station was called the Kroksfjar- dar Heath. Mention is even made of the drift wood (un- doubtedly from Siberia) collected there, and of the abundance of whales, seals, walrusses, and sea bears.J * See Carmen Fceroicum in quo Virilandice mentio Jit. (Ram, Antiquit. Amer., pp. 320-332.) f 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 conversion to Christianity, was changed into a Christian, festival. (Rstfn,Antiquit. Amer., pp. 347-355.) On the doubts which Brynjulfsen, Mohnike, and Klaproth, express respecting the Runic num- bers, see my Examen crit., t. ii. pp. 97-101 ; yet, from other indica- tions, Brynjulfsen and Graah are led to regard the important monument on the Woman's Islands (as well as the Runic inscriptions found at Igalikko and Egegeit, lat. 60° 51' and 60° 0', and the ruins of buildings near Upernavik, lat. 72° 50') as belonging undoubtedly to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. £ Rafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp. 20, 274, and 415-418 (Wilhelmi, uber Island, Hvitramannaland, Greenland, und Vinland, s. 117-121). 606 COSMOS. Certain accounts of the intercourse maintained between the extreme north of Europe or between Greenland and Ice- land with the American Continent, properly so called, do not extend beyond the fourteenth century. In the year 1347 a ship was sent from Greenland to Markland (Nova Scotia), to collect building timber and other necessary articles. On the return voyage the ship encountered heavy storms, and was obliged to take refuge at Straumfjord in the west of Iceland. These are the latest accounts preserved to us by ancient Scan- dinavian authorities of the visits of Northmen to America.* We have hitherto kept strictly on historical ground. By means of the critical and highly praiseworthy efforts of Christian Kafn, and of the Royal Society of Northern Antiqui- ties at Copenhagen, the sagas and narratives of the voyages According 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 73° 16', where my friend Col., then Capi, Sabine made his pendulum observations, and where there is a very dreary cape bearing my name. Eafn, (Antiquit. Amer., p. 303, and Apercu de I'ancienne Geographie des Regions arctiques de VAmerique, 1847, p. 6.) * Wilhelmi, op. cit., s. 226; Kafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp, 264 and 453. The settlements on the west coast of Greenland, which, until the middle of the fourteenth century, were in a very flourishing condition, fell gradually to decay, from the ruinous operation of commercial monopolies, from the attacks of Esquimaux (Skralinger), the " black death" which, according to Hecker, depopulated the north during the years 1347 to 1351, and from the invasion of a hostile fleet, regarding whose course nothing is known. At the present day no faith is any longer attached to the meteorological myth of a sudden alteration of climate, and of the formation of a barrier of ice, which was immediately followed by the entire separation from their mother country of the colonies established in Greenland. As these colonies were only on the more temperate district of the west coast of Greenland, it cannot be possible that a Bishop of Skalholt, in 1540, should have seen " shep- herds feeding their flocks" on the east coast of Greenland, beyond the icy wall. 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 coast line, and on the direction of the oceanic current. This state of things cannot be solely referred to the close of the fourteenth or the be- ginning of the fifteenth century. As Sir John Barrow has very justly shown, it has been subject to many accidental alterations, particularly in the years 1815-1817. (See Barrow, Voyages of Discovery within the Arctic Regions, 1846, pp. 2-6.) Pope Nicholas V. appointed a bishop for Greenland as late as 1448. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 607 of the Northmen to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland (the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia), and to Vinland (Massachusetts), have been separately printed, accompanied by able commentaries/* The length of the voyage, the direction of its course, and the times of the rising and setting of the sun, are all minutely detailed. Less certainty appertains to the traces which have been supposed to be found of a discovery of America before the year 1000 by the Irish. The Skralinger related to the Northmen settled in Vinland, that further southward, beyond the Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt " white men, who clothed themselves in long, white garments, carried before them poles to which cloths were attached, and called with a loud voice." This account was interpreted by the Christian Northmen to indicate processions, in which banners were borne accom- panied by singing. In the oldest sagas, the historical narra- tions of Thorfinn Karlsefne, and the Icelandic Landnama book, these southern coasts, lying between Virginia and Florida, are designated under the name of the Land of the White Men. They are expressly called Great Ireland (Irland it mikla\ and it is maintained that they were peopled by the Irish. According to testimonies which extend to 1064, before Leif discovered Vinland, and probably about the year 982, Ari Marsson of the powerful Icelandic race of Ulf the squint- eyed, was driven in a voyage from Iceland to the south by storms on the coasts of the Land of the White Men, and there baptised in the Christian faith ; and not being allowed to depart, was recognised by men from the Orkney Islands and Iceland.f An opinion has been advanced by some northern antiqua- rians that, as in the oldest Icelandic documents the first * The main sources of information are the historic narrations of Eric the Bed, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandsson, probably writ- ten in Greenland itself as early as the twelfth century, and partly by descendants of settlers born in Vinland (Eafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp. vii. xiv. and xvi). The care with which genealogical tables were kept was BO great that that of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son, Snorre Thorbrands- Bon, was born in America, has been brought down from 1007 to 1811. f Hvitramannaland, the land of the white men. Compare the original sources of information, in Rafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp. 203-206, 211, 446-451 ; and Wilhelmi, Ueber Island, Hvitramannaland, &cv s. 75-81. 608 COSMOS. inhabitants of the island are called " west men, who had come across the sea" (emigrants settled in Papyli on the south-east coast, and on the neighbouring small island of Papar), Ice- land was not at first peopled directly from Europe but from Virginia and Carolina, (Great Ireland, the American White Men's Land,) by Irishmen, who had earlier emigrated to America. The important work, de Mensura Orbis Terrce, composed by the Irish monk Dicuil about the year 825, and, therefore, thirty-eight years before the Northmen acquired their knowledge of Iceland from Naddod, does not, however, confirm this opinion. Christian anchorites in the north of Europe, and pious Buddhist monks in the interior of Asia, explored and opened to civilisation regions that had previously been inaccessible. The eager striving to diffuse religious opinions has sometimes paved the way for warlike expeditions, and sometimes for the introduction of peaceful ideas, and the establishment of rela- tions of commerce. Religious zeal, which so strongly charac- terises the doctrines promulgated in the systems of India, Palestine, and Arabia, and which is so widely opposed to the indifference of the ancient polytheistic Greeks and Romans, was the means of furthering the advance of geographical know- ledge in the earlier portions of the middle ages. Letronne, the commentator on Dicuil, has shown much ingenuity in his attempts to prove that after the Irish missionaries had been driven from the Faroe Islands by the Northmen, they began, about the year 795, to visit Iceland. The Northmen, when they first reached Iceland, found Irish books, mass bells, and other objects, which had been left by the earlier settlers, called Papar. These Papce, fathers, are the Clerici of Dicuil.* If, as his testimony would lead us to conclude, these objects had belonged to Irish monks, who had come from the Faroe Islands, the question naturally arises, why these monks (Papar) should be termed in the native sagas Westmen (Vestmenn), who had " come from the west across the sea? (Kommir til vestan um Jiaf.y The deepest obscurity still shrouds everything con- nected with the voyage of the Gaelic chief, Madoc, son of Owen Guineth, to a great western land in the year 1170, and the * Letronne, Reclierclies geogr. et crit. sur le Livre " de Mensura Orbis Terrce," compose" en Irlanele, par Dicuil, 1814, pp. 129--146. Compare iny Examcn crit. de I' Hist, de Iff, Geogr., t. ii. pp. 87-91. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 609 connection of this event with the Great Ireland of the Ice- landic Saga. In like manner the race of Celto- Americans, whom credulous travellers have professed to discover in many parts of the United States, have also disappeared since the establishment of an earnest and scientific ethnology, based not on accidental similarities of sounds, but on grammatical forms and organic structure.* * The statements which have been advanced from the time of Raleigh, of natives of Virginia speaking pure Celtic; of the supposition of the Gaelic salutation, hao, Jiui, iach, having been heard there; of Owen. Chapelain, in 1669, saving himself from the hands of the Tuscaroras, who were about to scalp him, " because he addressed them in his native Gaelic," have all been appended to the ninth book of my travels (Rela- tion historique, t. iii. 1825, p. 159). These Tuscaroras of North Caro- lina are now, however, distinctly recognised by linguistic investigations, as an Iroquois tribe. See . Albert Gallatin on Indian Tribes, in the ArchcBologia Americana, vol ii. (1836), pp. 23 and 57. An extensive catalogue of Tuscarora words is given by Catlin, one of the most admirable observers of manners who ever lived amongst the aborigines of America. He, however, is inclined to regard the rather fair, and often blue-eyed, nation of the Tuscaroras, as a mixed people, descended from the ancient Welsh, and from the original inhabitants of the American continent. See his Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions, of the North American Indians, 1841, vol. i. p. 207; vol. ii. pp. 259 and 262-265. Another catalogue of Tuscarora words is to be found in my brother's manuscript notes respecting lan- guages, in the Royal Library at Berlin. " As the structure of American idioms appears remarkably strange to nations speaking the modern lan- guages of Western Europe, and who readily suffer themselves to be led away by some accidental analogies of sound, theologians have gene- rally believed that they could trace an affinity with Hebrew, Spanish colonists with the Basque, and the English or French settlers with Gaelic, Erse, or the Bos Breton. I one day met on the coast of Peru a Spanish naval officer and an English whaling captain, the former of whom declared that he had heard Basque spoken at Tahiti, and the other Gaelic, or Erse, at the Sandwich Islands." Uumboldt, Voyage aux Regions Equinoctiales, Relat. hist., t. iii. 1825, p. 160. Although no connection of language has yet been proved, I by no means wish to deny that the Basques and the people of Celtic origin inhabiting Ireland and Wales, who were early engaged in fisheries on the most remote coasts, may have been the constant rivals of the Scan- dinavians 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 sound and severe spirit of criticism, devoid of a character of contempt, prevails, the old investiga- tions of Powel and Richard Hakluy t ( Voyages and Navigations, vol. 2 B 610 COSMOS. That this first discovery of America, in or before the eleventh century, should not have produced the important and permanent results yielded to the physical contemplation of the universe by the re-discovery of the same continent by Colum- bus at the close of the fifteenth century, was the necessary consequence of the uncivilized condition of the people, and the nature of the countries to which the early discoveries were limited. The Scandinavians were wholly unprepared, by pre- vious scientific knowledge, for exploring the countries in which they settled, beyond what was absolutely necessary for the satisfaction of their immediate wants. Greenland and Iceland, which must be regarded as the actual mother countries of the new colonies, were regions in which man had to contend with all the hardships of an inhospitable climate. The wonderfully organized free state of Iceland, neverthe- less, maintained its independence for three centuries and a half, until civil freedom was annihilated, and the country became subject to Hako VI. King of Norway. The flower of Icelandic literature, its historical records, and the collection of the Sagas and Eddas appertain to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is a remarkable phenomenon in the history of the culti- vation of nations, that when the safety of the national treasures of the most ancient records of Northern Europe was en- dangered at home by domestic disturbances, they should have been transported to Iceland, and have been there carefully pre- served, and thus rescued for posterity. This rescue, the remote iii. p. 4), might be resumed in England and in Ireland. Is the state- ment based on fact, that the wanderings of Madoc were celebrated in the poems of the Welsh bard Meredith, fifteen years before Columbus' discovery? I do not participate in the rejecting spirit which has, but too often, thrown popular traditions into obscurity, but I am, on the contrary, firmly persuaded that, by greater diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which relate to the maritime expedi- tions of the early part of the middle ages ; to the striking identity 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 civilisation in Aztlan, Quivira, and Upper Louisiana, as well as in the elevated plateaux of Cundinamarca and Peru, will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts with which we have hitherto been entirely unacquainted. See my Examen crit. de THist. de la Geogr. du Nouveau Continent, t. ii. pp. 142-149. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 611 consequence of Ingolf 's first colonization in Iceland, in the year 875, has proved, amid the vague and misty forms of Scandi- navian myths and symbolical cosmogonies, an event of great importance in its influence on the poetic fancy of mankind. It was natural knowledge alone that acquired no enlargement. Icelandic travellers certainly occasionally visited the univer- sities of Germany and Italy, but the discoveries of the Green- landers in the South, and the inconsiderable intercourse main- tained with Vinland, whose vegetation presented no remark- able physiognomical character, withdrew colonists and mariners so little from their European interests, that no knowledge of these newly colonised countries seems to have been diffused amongst the cultivated nations of southern Europe. It would even appear that no tidings of these regions reached the great Genoese navigator in Iceland. Iceland and Greenland had then been separated upwards of two hundred years, since 1261, when the latter country had lost its republican form of government, and when, on its becoming a fief of the crown of Norway, all intercourse with foreigners and even with Iceland was interdicted to it. Christopher Columbus, in a work "On the five habitable zones of the earth," which has now become extremely rare, says that in the month of February 1477, he visited Iceland, "where the sea was not at that time covered with ice, and which had been resorted to by many traders from Bristol."* If he had there heard tidings of the earlier coloni- sation of an extended and continuous tract of land, situated on * Whilst this circumstance of the absence of ice in February 1477, lias been brought forward as a proof that Columbus' Island of Thule could not be Iceland, Finn Magnusen found in ancient historical sources, that until March 1477, there was no snow in the northern part of Ice- land, 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 remark- able, that Columbus, in the same " Tratado de las cinco zonas hdbi- tables" mentions a more southern island, Frislanda ; a name which is not in the maps of Andrea Bianco (1436), or in that of Fra Mauro (1457-1470), but which plays a great part in the travels, mostly regarded as fabulous, of the brothers Zeni (1388-1404). (Compare Examen crit., t. ii. pp. 114-126.) Columbus cannot have been acquainted with the travels of the Fratelli Zeni, as they even remained unknown to the Yenetian family until the year 1558, in which Marcolini first published them, fifty-two years after the death of the great admiral. Whence came the admiral's acquaintance with the name Frislanda ? 2 R 2 612 COSMOS. the opposite coast, Helluland it mikla, Markland and the good Vinland, and if he connected this knowledge of a neighbouring continent with those projects which had already engaged his attention since 1470 and 1473, his voyage to Thule (Iceland) would have been made so much the more a subject of consi- deration during the celebrated law- suit regarding the merit of an earlier discovery, which did not end till 1517, since the suspicious fiscal officer mentions a map of the world (mappa mundo] which had been seen at Rome by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and on wrhich the New Continent was supposed to be marked. If Columbus had desired to seek a continent of which he had obtained information in Iceland, he would assuredly not have directed his course south-west from the Canary Islands. Commercial relations were maintained between Bergen and Greenland until 1484, and, therefore, until seven years after Columbus' voyage to Iceland. Wholly different from the first discovery of the New Conti- nent in the eleventh century, its re-discovery by Christopher Columbus and his explorations of the tropical regions of Ame- rica, have been attended by events of cosmical importance, and by a marked influence on the extension of physical views. Although the mariners who conducted this great expedition at the end of the fifteenth century, were not actuated by the design of attempting to discover a new quarter of the world, and although it would appear to be proved that Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci died in the firm conviction that they had merely touched on portions of Eastern Asia,*' yet the expedi- * See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy documents, for Columbus, in the Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 233, 250, and 261, and for Vespucci, t. v. p. 182-185. Columbus was so fully convinced that Cuba was part of the continent of Asia, and even the south part of Khatai (the province of Mango), that on the 12th of June, 1494, he caused all the crews of his squadron (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 Indias y fin a quien en estas partes quisiere venir de Espaiia por tierra"); and that "if any who now swore io should at any future day maintain the contrary, they would have to expiate their perjury, by receiving one hundred stripes, and having the tongue torn out." (See Information del Escribano publico, Fernando Perez de Luna, in Navar^te, Viages y Descubrimientos de las Espa- noles, t. ii. pp. 143, 149.) When Columbus was approaching the island of Cuba on his first expedition, he believed himself to be opposite tha OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 613 tion manifested the perfect character of being the fulfilment of a plan sketched in accordance with scientific combinations. The expedition was safely conducted westward, through the gate; opened by the Tyrians and Colams of Samos, across the immeasurable dark sea, mare tenebrosum, of the Arabian geogra- phers. They strove to reach a goal, with the limits of which they believed themselves acquainted. They were not driven accidentally thither by storms, as Nacldod and Gardar had been borne to Iceland, and Gunlijorn, the son of Ulf Kraka, to Greenland. Nor were the discoverers guided on their course by intermediate stations. The great cosmographer, Martin Behaim of Niimberg, who accompanied the Portuguese Diego Cam on his important expedition to the western coasts of Africa, lived four years, from 1486 to 1490, in the Azores; but it was not from these islands, which lie between the coasts of Spain and Maryland, and only at -|th the distance from the latter, that America was discovered. The preconception of this event is celebrated with rich poetical fancy in those stanzas of Tasso, in which he sings of the deeds which Her- cules ventured not to attempt. Non oso di tentar 1'alto Occano : Segnd le mete, en troppo breve chiostri, L'ardir ristrinse dell'ingegno umano, Tempo verra che nan d'Ecole i segni Pavola vile ai naviganti industri Un uom dellci Liguria aviit ardimento All' incognito corso esporsi in prima. Tasso, xv. st. 25, 30 et 31. Chinese commercial cities of Zaitun and Quinsay (y es cicrto, dice el A Imirante questa es la tierra jirme y que estoy, dice el, ante Zayto y Guinsay). " He intends to present the letters of the Catholic Monarchs to the great Mogul Khan (Gran Can) in Khatai ; and to return imme- diately to Spain (but by sea), as soon as he shall have thus discharged the mission entrusted to him. He subsequently sends on shore a baptized Jew, Luis de Torres, because he understands Hebrew, Chaldce, and some Arabic," Avhich are languages in use in Asiatic trading cities. (See Columbus' Journal of his Voyages, 1492, in Navarrete, Viages y Descu- trim., t. i. pp. 37, 44 and 46.) Even in 1533, the astronomer Schoner maintained that the whole of the so-called New World was a part of Asia (superioris Indiae), and that the city of Mexico (Temistitan), con- quered by Cortes, was no other than the Chinese commercial city of Quinsay, so excessively extolled by Marco Polo. (See Joannis Sclioneri Carlosladii Opusculum geograpliicum, Norimb. 1533, para ii. cap 1-20.) 614 COSMOS. And yet it was of this " uom delta Liguria" that the great Portuguese historical writer, Johannes Barros*, whose first decade appeared in 1552, simply remarked that he was a vain and fanciful babbler (homem fallador e glorioso em mostrar suas habiltdades, e mais fantastico, e de imaginagoes com sua Ilka Cypango). Thus, through all ages and through all stages of civilization, national hatred has striven to obscure the glory of honourable names. The discovery of the tropical regions of America by Chris- topher Columbus, Alonso de Hojeda, and Alvarez Cabral, cannot be regarded in the history of the contemplation of the universe as one isolated event. Its influence on the extension of physical science, and on the increase of materials yielded to the ideal world generally, cannot be correctly understood without entering into a brief consideration of the period which separates the epoch of the great maritime expeditions from that of the maturity of scientific culture amongst the Arabs. That which imparted to the age of Columbus its peculiar character of uninterrupted and successful efforts towards the attainment of new discoveries and extended geographical knowledge, was prepared slowly and in various ways. The means which contributed most strongly to favour these efforts were a small number of enterprising men, who early excited a simultaneous and general freedom of thought, and an independence of investigation into the sepa- rate phenomena of nature; the influence exercised on the deepest sources of mental vigour by the renewed acquaintance formed in Italy with the works of ancient Greek literature ; the discovery of an art which lent to thought at once wings of speed and powers of perpetuity; and the more extended knowledge of Eastern Asia acquired by travelling merchants, and by monks who had been sent on embassies to the Mogul rulers, and which was diffused by them amongst those nations of the south-west of Europe who maintained extensive com- mercial relations with other countries, and who were there- fore most anxious to discover a nearer route to the Spice Islands. To these means, which most powerfully facilitated the accomplishment of the wishes so generally entertained at the close of the fifteenth century, we must add the advance in * Da Asia de Joao de Barros e de Diego de Couto, dec. i. liv. iiL cap. 11 (Parte i. Lisboa, 1778, p. 250). OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 615 the art of navigation, the gradual perfection of nautical instruments, both magnetic and astronomical, and finally, the application of certain methods for the determination of the ship's place, and the more general use of the solar and lunar ephemerides of Regiomontanus. Without entering into the details of the history of science, which would be foreign to the present work, I would enu- merate amongst those who prepared the way for the epoch of Columbus and Gama, three great names — Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and Vincenzius of Beauvais. I have named them according to time, but the most celebrated, influential and intellectual, was Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk of Ilchester, who devoted himself to the study of science at Oxford and Paris. All the three were in advance of their age, and acted influentially upon it. In the long and generally unfruitful contests of the dialectic speculations and logical dogmatism of a philosophy which has been designated by the indefinite and equivocal name of scholastic, we cannot fail to recognise the beneficial influence exercised by what may be termed the reflex-action of the Arabs. The peculiarity of their national character, already described in a former section, and their predilection for communion with nature, procured for the newly translated works of Aristotle an extended diffusion which was most instrumental in furthering the establishment of the experimental sciences. Until the close of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, misconceived dogmas of the Platonic philosophy prevailed in the schools. Even the fathers of the church believed that they could trace in them the prototypes of their own religious views.* Many of the symbolising physical fancies of Timaeus were eagerly taken up, and erroneous cosmical views, whose groundlessness had long been shown by the mathematical school of Alexandria, were revived under the sanction of Christian authority. Thus the dominion of Platonism, or, more correctly speak- ing, the new adaptations of Platonic views, were propagated far into the middle ages, under varying forms, from * Jourdain, Reck, crit. sur les traductions d'Aristote, pp. 230-234, and 421-423 ; Letronne, Des opinions cosmographiques des Peres de VEglise, rapprochees des doctrines pJiilosopliiques de la Gr&ce, in the Revue des deux Mondes, 1834, t. i. p. 632. 616 COSMOS. Augustine to Alcuin, Johannes Scotus, and Bernhard of Chartres.* When the Aristotelian philosophy gained the ascendancy by its controlling influence over the direction of the human mind, its effect was manifested in the two-fold channel of investigation into speculative philosophy and a philosophical elaboration of empirical natural science. Although the former of these directions may appear foreign to the object I have had in view in the present work, it must not be passed without notice, since in the midst of the age of dialectic scholastics, it incited some few noble and highly-gifted men to the exercise of free and independent thought in the most various departments of science. An extended physical con- templation of the universe not only requires a rich abundance of observation as the substratum for a generalization of ideas, but also a preparatory and invigorating training of the human mind, by which it may be enabled, unappalled amid the eternal contest between knowledge and faith, to meet the threatening impediments which, even in modern times, present themselves at the entrance of certain departments of the experimental sciences, and would seem to render them inaccessible. There are two points in the history of the development of man, which must not be separated — the con- sciousness of man's just claims to intellectual freedom, and his long unsatisfied desire of prosecuting discoveries in remote regions of the earth. These free and independent thinkers form a series, which begins in the middle ages with Duns Scotus, Wilhelm of Occam, and Nicolas of Cusa, and leads from Ramus, Campanella, and Giordano Bruno to Des- cartes, f The seemingly impassable gulf between thought and actual being — the relations between the mind that recognises and * Friedrich von Raumer, Ueber die Philosophic des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, in his Hist. Taschenbuch, 1840, s. 468. On the ten- dency towards Platonism in the middle ages, and on the contests of the schools, see Heinrich Bitter, Gesch. der christl. Philosophic, tfr. ii. a. 159; th. iii. s. 131-160, and 381-417. t Cousin, GOUTS del' Hist, de la Philosophic, t. i. 1829, pp. 360 and 389-436; Fragmens de Philosophic cartesienne, pp. 8-12* and 403. Compare also the recent ingenious work of Christian Bartholomes, entitled Jordano Bruno, 1847, t. i. p. 308; t.ii. pp. 409-416. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 617 the object that is recognised — separated the dialectics into the two celebrated schools of realists and nominalists. The almost forgotten contests of these schools of the middle ages deserve a notice here, because they exercised a special influence on the final establishment of the experimental sciences. The nominalists, who ascribed to general ideas of objects only a subjective existence in the human mind, finally remained the dominant party in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after having undergone various fluctuations of success. From their greater aversion to mere empty abstractions, they urged before all the necessity of experiment, and of the increase of the materials for establishing a sensuous basis of knowledge. This direction was at least influential in favouring the culti- vation of empirical science ; but even among those with whom the realistic views were maintained, an acquaintance with the literature of the Arabs had successfully opposed a taste for natural investigation against the all-absorbing sway of theology. Thus we see that in the different periods of the middle ages, to which we have perhaps been accustomed to ascribe too strong a character of unity, the great work of discoveries in remote parts of the earth, and their happy adaptation to the extension of the cosmical sphere of ideas, were gradually being prepared on wholly different paths and in purely ideal and empirical directions. Natural science was intimately associated with medicine and philosophy amongst the learned Arabs, and in the Christian middle ages with theological polemics. The latter from their tendency to assert an exclusive influence, repressed empirical enquiry in the departments of physics, organic morphology, and astronomy, which was for the most part closely allied to astrology. The study of the comprehensive works of Aristotle which had been introduced by Arabs and Jewish Rabbis, had tended to lead to a philosophical fusion of all branches of study ;*4 and hence Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn-Roschd (Averroes), Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon, passed for the representatives of all the knowledge of their time. The fame which in the middle ages surrounded the names of these great men was proportionate to the general diffusion of this opinion of their endowments. * Jourdain, Sur Us trad. d'Aristote, p. 236; and Michael Sachs, J>ie religiose Poesie der Judenin Spanien, 1845, s. 180-200. 618 COSMOS. Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstadt, must also be mentioned as an independent observer in the domain of analytic chemistry. It is true that his hopes were directed to the transmutation of the metals, but in his attempts to fulfil this object, he not only improved the practical manipu- lation of ores, but he also enlarged the insight of men into the general mode of action of the chemical forces of nature. His works contain some extremely acute observations on the organic structure and physiology of plants. He was ac- quainted with the sleep of plants, the periodical opening and closing of flowers, the diminution of the sap during evaporation from the surfaces of leaves, and with the influence of the distribution of the vascular bundles on the indentations of the leaves. He wrote commentaries on all the physical works of the Stagirite, although in that on the history of animals he followed the Latin translation of Michael Scotus from the Arabic.* The work of Albertus Magnus, entitled Liber cosmo- graphicus de natura locorum, is a kind of physical geography. I have found in it observations, which greatly excited my surprise, regarding the simultaneous dependence of climate on latitude and elevation, and the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays in heating the earth's surface. Albertus probably owes the praise conferred on him by Dante, less to himself than to his beloved pupil St. Thomas Aquinas, who accompanied him from Cologne to Paris in 1245, and returned with him to Germany in 1248. * The greater share of merit in regard to the history of animals belongs to the emperor Frederic II. We are indebted to him for important independent observations on the internal structure of birds. (See Schneider, in Reliqua librorum Frederici II. imperatoris de arte venandi cum avibus, t. i. 1788, in the Preface.) Cuvier also calls this prince of the Hohenstaufen line, the " first independent and original zoologist of the scholastic middle ages." On the correct view of Albert Magnus, on the distribution of heat over the earth's surface under dif- ferent latitudes and at clifl'crent seasons, see his Liber cosmograpMcus de natura locorum, Argent. 1515, fol. 14b. and 23a. (Examen crit., t. i. pp. 5-4-58.) In his own observations, we, however, unhappily too often find, that Albertus Magnus shared in 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 hewn down, a birch wood will spring up from the decayed matter; and that from oak-branches stuck into the earth vines arise." (Compare also Ernst Meyer, Ueber die Botanik des 13ten Jahrhunderts, in the Linncea, bd. x. 1836, s. 719.) OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 619 Questi, che m'6 a destra piu vicino, Prate e maestro fummi; ed esso Alberto E' di Cologna, ed io Thomas d' Aquino. II Paradise, x. 97-99. In all that has directly operated on the extension of the natural sciences, and on their establishment on a mathematical basis, and by the calling forth of phenomena by the process of experiment, Roger Bacon, the contemporary of Albertus of Bollstadt, may be regarded as the most important and influential man of the middle ages. These two men occupy almost the whole of the thirteenth century; but to Roger Bacon belongs the merit that the influence which he exercised on the form of the mode of treating the study of nature, lias been more beneficial and lasting than the various discoveries which, with more or less justice, have been ascribed to him. Stimulating the mind to independence of thought, he severely condemned the blind faith attached to the authority of the schools, yet, far from neglecting the investigations of the ancient Greeks, he directed his attention simultaneously to philological researches,* and the application of mathematics and of the Scientia experimentalis, to which last he devoted a special section of the Opus majus.\ Protected and favoured by one Pope (Clement IV.), and accused of magic and im- prisoned by two others (Nicholas III. and IV.), he experienced the changes of fortune common to great minds in all ages. He was acquainted with the Optics of Ptolemy, J and with * So many passages of the Opus majus show the respect which Roger Bacon entertained for 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 I V., " to burn the works of Aristotle, in order to stop the diffusion of error among the scholars," as referring to the bad Latin translations from the Arabic. *!• Scientia experimentalis a vulgo studentium penitus ignorata ; duo tamen sunt modi cognoscendi, scilicet per argumentum et experien- tiam (the ideal path, and the path of experiment). Sine experientia nihil sufficienter sciri potest. Argumentum concludit, sed non certificat, neque removet duditationem ; et quiescat animus in intuita veritatis, nisi earn inveniat via experientise." (Opm majus, pars. vi. cap. 1.) I have collected all the passages relating to Roger Bacon's physical know ledge, and to his proposals for various inventions, in the Examen crit. de VHist. de la Geoyr., t. ii. pp. 295-299. Compare also Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 323-337. J See vol. ii. p. 562. I find Ptolemy's Optics cited in the Opus 620 COSMOS. the Almagest. As he, like the Arabs, always calls Hip- parchus, Abraxis, we may conclude that he also made use of only a Latin translation from the Arabic. Next to Bacon's chemical experiments on combustible explosive mixtures, his theoretical optical works on perspective, and the position of the focus in concave mirrors, are the most important. His profound Opus majus contains proposals and schemes of practicable execution, but no clear traces of successful optical discoveries. Profoundness of mathematical knowledge can- not be ascribed to him. That which characterizes him is rather a certain liveliness of fancy, which, owing to the impression excited by so many unexplained great natural phenomena, and the long and anxious search for the solution of mysterious problems, was often excited to a degree of morbid excess in those monks of the middle ages who devoted themselves to the study of natural philosophy. Before the invention of printing, the expense of copyists, rendered it difficult, in the middle ages, to collect any large number of separate manuscripts, and thus tended to produce a great predilection for encyclopaedic works after the extension of ideas in the thirteenth century. These merit special consider- ation, because they led to a generalisation of ideas. There ap- peared the twenty books de rerum natura of Thomas Cantipra- tensis, Professor at Louvain (1230); The Mirror of Nature (speculum naturale), written by Vincenzius of Beauvais (Bello- vacensis) for St. Louis and his consort Margaret of Provence (1250); The Book of Nature, by Conrad von Meygenberg, a priest at Ratisbon (1349) ; and the Picture of the World (Imago mundi) of Cardinal Petrus de Alliaco, Bishop of Cambray (1 41 0), majus (ed. Jebb, Lond. 1733), pp. 79, 288, and 404. It has been justly denied (Wilde, Geschichte der Optik, th. i. s. 92-96) that the knowledge derived from Alhazen, of the magnifying power of segments of spheres, was actually the means of leading Bacon to construct spectacles. This invention would appear to have been known as early as 1299, or to belong to the Florentine, Salvino degli Arinati, who was buried, in 1317, in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Florence. If Roger Bacon> who completed his Opus majus in 1267, speaks of instruments by means of which small letters appear large, "utiles senibus habentibus oculos .debiles," his words prove, as do also the practically erroneous considera- tions which he subjoins, that he cannot himself have executed that which obscurely floated before his mind as possible. OCEANIC 13I5COVERIES. 621 each work being in a great measure based upon the preceding ones. These encyclopaedic compilations were the forerunners of the great work of Father Reisch, the Margerita philosophica, the first edition of which appeared in 1486, and which for half a century operated in a remarkable manner on the dif- fusion of knowledge. I must here pause for a moment, to consider the "Picture of the World" of Cardinal Alliacus (Pierre d'Ailly). I have elsewhere shown that the work en- titled " Imago Mundi," exercised a greater influence on the discovery of America, than did the correspondence with the learned Florentine Toscanelli.* All that Columbus knew of Greek and Roman writers, all those passages of Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca, on the proximity of Eastern Asia to the Pillars of Hercules, which, as his son Fernando says, were the means of inciting him to discover the Indian lands (autoridad de los escritores para mover al Almirante d descubrir las Indias), were gathered by the Admiral from the writings of the Cardinal. He must have carried these works with him on his voyages, for in a letter which he addressed to the Spanish monarchs from the Island of Haiti, in the month of October 1498, he translated word for word a passage from Alliacus' treatise, de quantitate terrce habitabilis^ which appears to have made a deep impression on his mind. Columbus probably did not know that Alliacus had also transcribed verbatim from an earlier work, the Opus majus of Roger Bacon.f Sin- gular age, when the combined testimony of Aristotle and Averroes (Avenryz), of Esdras, and of Seneca, regarding the small extent of the ocean in comparison with continental masses, could serve to convince monarchs of the expediency of a costly enterprise ! I have already drawn attention to the marked predilection manifested at the close of the thirteenth century for the study of natural forces, and the progressive and philosophical direc- * Seemy Examen crit., t. i. pp. 61, 64-70, 96-108; t. ii. p. 349. *' There are five memoirs de Concordantia astronomia cum theologies, by Pierre d'Ailly, whom Don Fernando Colon always calls Pedro de Helico. These essays remind us of some very recent ones on the Mosaic Geology, published four hundred years after the Cardinal's." *h Compare Columbia's letter, Navarrete, Viages y Descubrimientos, t. i. p. 244, with the Imago mundi of Cardinal d'Ailly, cap. 8, and Roger Bacon's Opuz majus, p. 183. 622 COSMOS. tion assumed by this study in its scientific establishment on the basis of experiment. It still remains briefly to consider the influence exercised by the revival of classical literature, at the close of the fourteenth century, on the deepest sources of the mental life of nations, and, therefore, on the general con- templation of the universe. The individuality of certain highly-gifted men had contributed to increase the rich mass of facts possessed by the world of ideas. The susceptibility of a freer intellectual development already existed when Greek literature, driven from its ancient seats, acquired a firm footing in western lands, under the favouring action of apparently accidental relations. The Arabs in their classical studies had remained strangers to all that appertains to the inspiration of language ; their studies being limited to a very small number of the writers of antiquity, and in accordance with their strong national predilection for natural investigation, principally to the physi- cal books of Aristotle, to the Almagest of Ptolemy, the bota- nical and chemical treatises of Dioscorides, and the cosmologi- cal fancies of Plato. The dialectics of Aristotle were blended by the Arabs with the study of Physics, as in earlier times, in the Christian medieval age they were with that of theology. Men borrowed from the ancients what they judged susceptible of special application, but they were far removed from appre- hending the spirit of Hellenism in its general character, from penetrating to the depths of the organic structure of the lan- guage, from deriving enjoyment from the poetic creations of the Greek imagination, or of seeking to trace the marvellous luxuriance displayed in the fields of oratory and historical composition. Almost two hundred years before Petrarch and Boccacio, John of Salisbury and the Platonic Abelard had already exer- cised a favourable influence with reference to an acquaintance with certain works of classical antiquity. Both possessed the power of appreciating the charm of writings in which freedom and order, nature and mind, were constantly associated together; but the influence of the aesthetic feeling awakened by them, vanished without leaving a trace, and the actual merit of having prepared in Italy a permanent resting place for the muses exiled from Greece, and of having contributed most powerfully to re-establish classical literature, belongs of right to OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 623 two poets, linked together by the closest ties of friendship, Petrarch and Boccacio. A monk of Calabria, Barlaam, who had long resided in Greece under the patronage of the Emperor Andronicus, was the instructor of both*1. They were the first to begin to make a careful collection of Roman and Greek manu- scripts ; and a taste for a comparison of languages had even been awakened in Petrarchf, whose philological acumen seemed to strive towards the attainment of a more general contempla- tion of the universe. Emanuel Chrysoloras, who was sent as Greek ambassador to Italy and England (1391), Cardinal Bessarion of Trebisond, Gemistus Pietho, and the Athenian Demetrius Chalcondylas, to whom we owe the first printed edition of Homer, wrere all valuable promoters of the study of the Greek writers J. All these came from Greece before the eventful taking of Constantinople, (29th May 1453;) Con- stantine Lascaris alone, whose forefathers had once sat on the Byzantine throne, came later to Italy. He brought with him a precious collection of Greek manuscripts, now buried in the rarely used library of the Escurial§. The first Greek book wras printed only fourteen years before the discovery of America, although the invention of printing, was pro- bably made simultaneously and wholly independently, by Gut- tenberg in Strasburg and Mayence, and by Lorenz Yausson Koster at Haarlem, between 1436 and 1439, and, therefore, in the fortunate period of the first immigration of the learned Greeks into Italy. || * Heeren, Gesch. der dassisclien Litteratur, bd. i. s. 284-290. t Klaproth, Memoir es relatives a I'Asie, t. iii. p. 113. £ The Florentine edition of Homer of 1488; but the first printed Greek book was the grammar of Constantine Lascaris, in 1476. § Villemain, Melanges historiques et litteraires, t. ii. p. 135. II The result of the investigations of the librarian Ludwig Wachlcr, at Breslau (see his Geschichte der Litteratur, 1833, th. i. s. 12-23). Printing without moveable types does not go back, even in China, be- yond the beginning of the tenth century of our era. The first four books of Confucius were printed, according to Klaproth, in the province of Szlitschun, between 890 and 925 ; and the description of the technical manipulation of the Chinese printing press might have been read in / western countries even as early as 1310, in Easchid-eddin's Persian his-^ tory of the rulers of Khatai. According to the most recent results of s the important researches of Stanislas Julien, however, an ironsmith in / China itself, between the years 1041 and 1048 A.D., or almost 400 years before Quttenberg, would seem to have used moveable types, made of VM-* 624 COSMOS. Two centuries before the sources of Greek literature were opened to the nations of the west, and twenty-five years before the birth of Dante—one of the greatest epochs in the history of the civilization of Southern Europe,— events occurred in the interior of Asia as well as in the east of Africa, which, by ex- tending commercial intercourse, accelerated the period of the circumnavigation of Africa and the expedition of Columbus. The advance of the Moguls in twenty-six years from Pekin and the Chinese wall, to Cracow and Liegnitz, terrified Christ- endom. A number of able monks were sent forth as mission- aries and ambassadors : John de Piano Carpini and Nicholas Ascelin to Batu Khan, and Ruisbrock (Rubruquis) to Mangu Khan at Karakorum. The last-named of these travelling mis- sionaries has left us many clear and important observations on the distribution of languages and races of men in the middle of the thirteenth century. He was the first who recognized that the Huns, the Baschkirs (inhabitants of Paskatir, the Baschgird of Ibn Fozlan), and the Hungarians, were of Finnish (Uralian) race ; and he even found Gothic tribes who still re- tained their language, in the strongholds of the Crimea.* Rubruquis excited the eager cupidity of the great maritime nations of Italy — the Venetians and Genoese — by his de-' scriptions of the inexhaustible treasures of Eastern Asia. He is acquainted with the "silver walls and golden towers" of Quinsay, the present Hangtscheufu, although he does not men- tion the name of this great commercial mart, which twenty- five years later acquired such celebrity from Marco Polo, the greatest traveller of any age.f Truth and naive error are burnt clay. This is the invention of Pi-sching, but it was not brought into application. * See the proofs in my Examen crit., t. ii. pp. 316-320. Josafat Barbaro (1436), and Ghislin von Busbech (1555), still found, between Tana (Asof), Caffa, and the Erdil (the Volga), Alani and Gothic tribes speaking German. (Ramusio, Delle navigationi et viaggi, vol. ji. pp. 92b and 98a.) Roger Bacon merely terms Rubruquis frater Williel- mus, quern dominus Rex Franciee misit ad Tartaros. f The grea land admirable work of Marco Polo (II Milione di Messer Marco Polo), as we possess it in the correct edition of Count Baldelli, is inappropriately termed the narrative of " Travels.'7 It is for the most part a descriptive, one might say, a statistical, work, in which it is diffi- cult to distinguish what the traveller had seen himself and what be had learnt from others, and what he derived from topographical descriptions, OCEANIC DISCOVEKIES. 625 are singularly intermixed in the Journal of Rubruquis, which has been preserved to us by Roger Bacon. Near Khatai, which is bounded by the Eastern Sea, he describes a happy land, where, on their arrival from other countries, all men and women cease to grow old."* More credulous than the monk of Brabant, and, therefore, perhaps far more generally read, was the English knight, Sir John Mandeville. He describes India and China, Ceylon and Sumatra. The comprehensive scope and the individuality of his narratives (like the itineraries of Balducci Pegoletti and the travels of Roy Gonzalez de Clavijo) have contributed con- siderably to increase a disposition towards a great and general intercourse among different nations. It has often and with singular pertinacity been maintained, that the admirable work of the truthful Marco Polo, and more particularly the knowledge which it diffused regarding the Chinese ports and the Indian Archipelago, exercised great in- fluence on Columbus, who is even asserted to have had a copy in which the Chinese literature is so rich, and which might be accessible to him through his Persian interpreter. The striking similarity pre- sented by the narratives of the travels of Hiuan-thsung, the Buddhistic pilgrim of the seventh century, to that which Marco Polo found in 1277 (respecting the Pamir-Highland), early attracted my whole attention. Jacquet, who was unhappily too early removed by a premature death, from the investigation of Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth and my- self, was long occupied with the work of the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me, as follows, shortly before his decease : " I am as much struck as yourself by the composition of the Milione. It is undoubtedly founded on the direct and personal observation of the traveller, but he probably also made use of documents either officially or privately com- municated to him. Many things appear to have been borrowed from Chinese and Mongolian works, although it is difficult to determine their precise influence on the composition of the Milione; owing to the suc- cessive translations from which Polo took his extracts. Whilst our modern travellers are only too well pleased to occupy their readers with their personal adventures, Marco Polo takes pains to blend his own. observations with the official data communicated to him, of which, as Governor of the city of Yangui, he was able to have a large number." (See my Asie centrale, t. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the celebrated traveller, likewise explains the possibility of his being able to dictate his book 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.) * Purchas, Pilgrims, part iii. ch. 28 and 56 (pp. 23 and 34). 2 s 626 COSMOS. of Marco Polo's narratives in his possession during his first voyage of discovery.* I have already shewn that Christopher Columbus and his son Fernando make mention of the Geo- graphy of Asia by ./Eneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II), but never of Marco Polo or Mandeville. What they knew of Quinsay, Zaitun, Mango and Zipangu may have been learnt from the celebrated letter of Toscanelli in 1474, on the facility of reaching Eastern Asia from Spain, and from the relations of Nicolo de Conti, who was engaged during twenty-five years in travel* ling over India and the southern parts of China, and not through any direct acquaintance with the 68th and 77th chapters of the second book of Marco Polo. The first printed edition of these travels was no doubt the German translation of 1477, which must have been alike unintelligible to Columbus and to Toscanelli. The possibility of a manuscript copy of the nar- rative of the Venetian traveller being seen by Columbus between the years 1471 and 1492, when he was occupied by his project of " seeking the east by the west," (buscar el levante por el poniente, pasar a donde nacen las especerias, navegando al occidente) cannot certainly be denied ;f but wherefore in a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella from Jamaica, on the 7th of June, 1503, in which he describes the coast of Veragua as a part of the Asiatic Ciguare near the Ganges, and expresses his hope of seeing horses with golden harness, should he not rather refer to the Zipangu of Marco Polo, than to that of Pope Pius ? Whilst the diplomatic missions of Christian monks, and the mercantile expeditions by land, which were prosecuted at a period when the universal dominion of the Moguls had made the interior of Asia accessible from the Dead Sea to the Wolga, were the means of diffusing a knowledge of Khatai and Zipangu (China and Japan) amongst the great sea-faring * Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espaholes, t. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History of the life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828, vol. iv. p. 297. f Examen crit. de Vhist. de la Geog., t. i. pp. 63 and 215; t. ii. p. 350. Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, pp. Ivii. Ixx. and Ixxv. The first German Nuremberg version of 1477 (das puck des edeln Hitters un landtfarers Marcho Polo] appeared in print in the lifetime of Colum- bus; the first Latin translation in 1490, and the first Italian and Portu- guese translations in 1496 and 1502. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 627 nations of Europe ; the mission of Pedro de Covilham and Alonso de Payva (in 1^87), which was sent by King John II. to seek for the African Pfester John, prepared the way, if not for Bartholomew Diaz, at all events, for Vasco de Gama.^ Trust- ing t the reports brought by Indian and Arabian pilots to Calicut, Goa, and Aden, as well as to Sofala, on the eastern shores of Africa, Covilham sent word to King John II., by two Jews from Cairo, that, if the Portuguese would prosecute their voyages of discovery southward, along the west coast, they would reach the termination of Africa, from whence the navigation to the Moon Island, the Magastar of Polo, to Zan- zibar and to Sofala, " rich in gold," would be extremely easy. But before this news reached Lisbon, it had been already long known there, that Bartholomew Diaz had not only made the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo tormentoso) but that he had also sailed round it, although only for a short dis- tance.f Accounts of the Indian and Arabian trading-places on the eastern shores of Africa, and of the configuration of the southern extremity of the continent, may, indeed, early in * Barros, dec. i. liv. iii. cap. 4, p. 190, says expressly, that Bartholomew- Diaz, "e os de sua companhia per causa dos perigos e tormentas, que em o dobrar delle passaram, Ihe pazeram nome Tormentoso." The merit of first doubling the Cape does not, therefore, belong, as usually stated, to Yasco de Gama. Diaz was at the Cape in May 1487, nearly, therefore, at the same time that Pedro de Covilham and Alonso de Payva set forth from Barcelona on their expedition. In December of the same year (1487), Diaz brought the news of this important discovery to Portugal. t The planispherium of Sanuto, who speaks of himself as " Marinus Sanuto, dictus Torxellus de Veneicis," appertain to the work, entitled Secreta Jidelium Crucis. "Marinus ingeniously preached a crusade in the interest of commerce, with a desire of destroying the prosperity cf Egypt, and directing the course of trade in such a manner as to carry the products of India through Bagdad, Bassora, and Tauris (Tebriz), to Kaffa, Tana (Azow), and the Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean. Sanuto, who was the cotemporary and compatriot of Polo, with whose Milione he was, however, unacquainted, was characterised by grand views regarding commercial policy. He may be regarded as the Raynal of the middle ages, without the incredulity of the philosophical abbe" of the eighteenth century." (Examen critique, t. i. pp. 231, 333-348.) The Cape of Good Hope is set down as Capo di Diab on the map of Fra Mauro, compiled between the years 145*7 and 1459. Consult the learned treatise of Cardinal Zurla, entitled II Mappamundo di Fra Mauro Camaldolese, 1806, § 54. 2 s2 628 COSMOS. the middle ages, have been transmitted to Venice through Egypt, Abyssinia, and Arabia. The triangular form of Africa is indeed distinctly delineated as early as 1306, on the planispherium of Sanuto, in the Genoese Portulano della Mediceo-Laurenziana of 1351, discovered by Count Baldelli; and on the map of the world by Fra Mauro. I have briefly alluded to these facts, since the history of the contemplation of the universe should indicate the epochs at which the prin- cipal details of the configuration of great continental masses were first recognised. Whilst the gradually developed knowledge of relations in space incited men to think of shorter sea routes, the means for perfecting practical navigation were likewise gradually increased by the application of mathematics and astronomy, the invention of new instruments of measurement, and by a more skilful employment of magnetic forces. It is extremely probable that Europe owes the knowledge of the northern and southern directing powers of the magnetic needle, — the use of the mariner's compass,— to the Arabs, and that these people were, in turn, indebted for it to the Chinese. In a Chinese work (the historical Szuki of Szumathsian, a writer who lived in the earlier half of the second century before our era) we meet with an allusion to the "magnetic cars," which the Emperor Tschingwang, of the ancient dynasty of the Tscheu, had given more than nine hundred years earlier to the ambas- sadors from Tunkin and Cochin China, that they might not miss their way on their return home. In the third century of our era, under the dynasty of Han, there is a description given in Hiutschins dictionary Schuewen, of the manner in which the property of pointing with one end towards the south, may be imparted to an iron rod by a series of methodical blows. Owing to the ordinary southern direction of navigation at that period, the south-pointing of the magnet is always the one especially mentioned. A century later, under the dynasty of Tsin, Chinese ships employed the magnet to guide their course safely across the open sea; and it was by means of these ves- sels that the knowledge of the compass was carried to India, and from thence to the eastern coasts of Africa. The Arabic designations Zohron and Aphron (south and north),* which * Avron, or avr (aur), is a more rarely employed term for north, used instead of the ordinary " schemdl;" the Arabic Zohron, or Zohr, OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 629 Vincenzius of Beauvais gives in his " Mirror of Nature1' to the two ends of the magnetic needle, indicate, like many Arabic names of stars which we still employ, the channel, and the people from whom western countries received the elements of their knowledge. In Christian Europe the first mention of the use of the magnetic needle occurs in the politico- satirical poem, called La Bible, by Guyot of Provence, in 1190, and in the description of Palestine by Jacobus of Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais, between 1204 and 1215. Dante (in his Parad.9 xii. 29) refers, in a simile, to the needle (ago\ " which points to the star." The discovery of the mariner's compass was long ascribed to Flavio Gioja of Positano, not far from the lovely town of Amalfi, which was rendered so celebrated by its widely ex- tended maritime laws ; and he may, perhaps, have made some improvement in its construction (1302). Evidence of the earlier use of the compass in European seas, than at the begin- ning of the fourteenth century, is furnished by a nautical trea- tise of Raymond Lully of Majorca, the singularly ingenious and eccentric man whose doctrines excited the enthusiasm of Giordano Bruno when a boy,*4 and who was at once a philo- sophical systematiser and an analytic chemist, a skilful from which Klaproth erroneously endeavours to derive the Spanish sur> and the Portuguese ml, which, without doubt, like the German sudt are true German words, does not properly refer to the particular desig- nation of the quarter indicated; it signifies only the time of high noon; south is dschenub. On the early knowledge possessed by the Chinese, of the south pointing of the magnetic needle, see Klaproth's important investigations in his Lettre a M . A. de Humboldt, sur V invention de la Boussole, 1834, pp. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79, and 90; and the treatise of Azuni of Nice, which appeared, in 1805, under the name of Disserta- tion sur Torigine de la Boussole, pp. 35, and 65-68. Navarrete, in his Discurso Jiistorico sobre los progresos delArtede Navegar enEspana, 1802, p. 28, recals a remarkable passage in the Spanish Leyes de las. Partidas (II. tit. ix. ley 28), of the middle of the thirteenth century : — " The needle, which guides the seaman in the dark night, and shows him, both in good and in bad weather, how to direct his course, is the intermediary agent (medianera) between the loadstone (la piedra) and the north star " See the passage in Las siete Partidas del sabio Rey Don Alonso el IX. (according to the usually adopted chro- nological" order Alonso the Xth.), Madrid, 1829, t. i. p. 473. * Jordano Bruno , par Christian Bartholomes, s. 1847, t. ii. pp. 181-187. 630 COSMOS. mariner and a successful propagator of Christianity. In his book entitled Fenix de las maravillas del orbe, and published in 1286, Lully remarks, that the seamen of his time employed "instruments of measurement, sea charts, and the magnetic needle."* The early voyages of the Catalans to the north coast of Scotland and the western shores of tropical Africa (Don Jayme Ferrer reaching the mouth of the Rio de Ouro, in the month of August 1367), and the discovery of the Azores (the Bracir Islands, on the Atlas of Picigano, 1367) by the Northmen, remind us that the open western ocean was navi- gated long before the time of Columbus. The voyages prose- cuted under the Roman dominion in the Indian Ocean, between Ocelis and the coasts of Malabar, in reliance on the regularity of the direction of the winds,! were now conducted by the guidance of the magnetic needle. The application of astronomy to navigation was prepared by the influence exercised in Italy, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, by Andalone del Nero and John Bianchini, the corrector of the Alphonsine tables, and in Germany by Nicolaus de Cusa, J George von Peuerbach, and Regiomontanus. Astrolabes designed for the determination of time and of geographical latitudes by meridian altitudes, and capable of being employed at sea, underwent gradual improvement from the time that the astrolabium of the Major can pilots was in use, which is described by Raymond Lully,§ in 1295, in \ * " Tenian los mareantes instrumento, carta, compas y aguja." Sala- zar, Discurso sobre los progresos de la Hydrografia en Espana, 1809, p. 7. t See p. 538. £ Regarding Cusa (Nicolaus of Cuss, properly of Cues, on the Moselle), see p. 469, and also Clemens' treatise, Ueber Giordano Bruno und Nicolaus de CiLsa, s. 97. where there is given an important fragment, written by Cusa's own hand, and discovered only three years since, respecting a threefold movement of the earth. (Compare also Chasles, Aper$u sur Torigine des methodes en Geometric, 1807, p. 529.) > § Navarrete, Dissertation Jiistorica sobre la parte que tuvieron los Espanoles en las guerrasde Ultramar 6 de las Cruzadas, 1816, p. 100; and Examen crit., t. i. pp. 274-277. An important improvement in observation by the use of the plummet, has been ascribed to George von. Peuerbach, the instructor of Regiomontanus. The plummet had, how- ever, long been employed by the Arabs, as we learn from Abul-Hassan- Ali's description of astronomical instruments, written in the thirteenth century. Se"dillot, Traite des instrumens astronomiques des Arabes, 1835, p. 379; 184L #. 205. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 631 his Arte de navegar, till the invention of the instrument made by Martin Behaim 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, who was himself a navigator, established an academy for pilots at Sagres, Maestro Jayme of Majorca was named its director. Martin Behaim received a charge from King John II. of Portugal to compute tables for the sun's declination, and to teach pilots to " navigate by the altitudes of the sun and stars." It cannot at present be decided whether, at the close of the fifteenth century, the use of the log was known as a means of estimating the distance traversed whilst the direction is indicated by the compass ; but it is certain that Pigafetta, the companion of Magellan, speaks of the log (la catena a poppa), as of a well-known means of measuring the course passed over.* * In all the writings on the art of navigation which I have examined, I have found the erroneous opinion that the log for the measurement of the distance traversed, was not used before the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the Encyclopedia Britannica (seventh edition, 1842), vol. xiii. p. 416, it is further stated, <( 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 Indian voyage published by Purchas." This year is also named in all earlier and later dictionaries as the extreme limit (Gehler, bd. vi. 1831, s. 450). Navar- rete alone, in the Dissertation sobre los progresos del Arte de Navegar, 1802, places the use of the log-line in English ships in the year 1577. J (Duflot de Mofras, Notice biographique sur Mendoza et Navarrete, I 1845, p. 64.) Subsequently, in another place (Coleccion de los Viages ' de los Espanoles, t. iv. 1837, p. 97), he asserts that, "in Magellan's time the speed of the ship was only estimated by the eye (a o}o}, until, in the sixteenth century, the corredera (the log) was devised." The measurement of the distance sailed over by means of throwing the log, although this means must, in itself, be termed imperfect, has become of such great importance towards a knowledge of the velocity and direction of oceanic currents, that I have been led to make it an object of careful investigation. I here give the principal results which are contained in the sixth (still unpublished) volume of my Examen critique de lliistoire de la Geographic et des progres de I'Astronomie nautique. The Romans, in the time of the republic, had in their ships way-measurers, which consisted of wheels four feet high, provided with paddles attached to the outside of the ship, exactly 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 632 COSMOS. The influence exercised by Arabian civilisation through the astronomical schools of Cordova, Seville, and Granada, on the navigation of the Spaniards and Portuguese, cannot be over- looked. The great instruments of the schools of Bagdad and Charles Y. (Arago, Annuaire du Bur. des Long., 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 fecerimus) is described in detail by Vitruvius (lib. x. cap. 14), the credit of whose Augustan antiquity 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 single opening, the number of revolutions of the outside wheels which dipped in the sea, and the num- ber of miles passed over in the day's voyage were given. Vitruvius does not say whether these hodometers, which might afford "both use and pleasure," were much used in the Mediterranean. In the biography of the Emperor Pertinax, by Julius Capitolinus, mention is made of the sale of the effects left by the Emperor Commodus, among which was a travelling carriage, provided with a similar hodometric apparatus, (cap. 8 in Hist. Augmtce Script, ed. Lugd. Bat., 1671, t. i. p. 554.) The wheels indicated both " the measure of the distance passed over, and the duration of the journey, " in hours. A much more perfect way-measurer, used both on the water and on land, has been described by Hero of Alexandria, the pupil of Ctesibius, in his still inedited Greek manu- script on the Dioptra. (See Venturi, Comment supra la Storia dell' Ottica, Bologna, 1814, t. i. pp. 134-139.) There is nothing to be found 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 Navigazione, probably before 1530); Francisco Falero (1535 a brother of the astronomer Ruy Falero, who was to have accompanied Magellan, on his voyage round the world, and left behind him a " Regimiento para observar la longitud en la mar"); Pedro de Medina of Seville (Arte de Navegar, 1545); Martin Cortes of Bujalaroz (Breve Compendia de Id esfera, y de la arte de Navegar, 1551) ; and Andres Garcia de Cespedes (Regimiento de Navigacion y Hidrograjia, 1606). From almost all these works, some of which have become extremely rare, as well as from the Suma de Geografia, which Martin Fernandez de Enciso had pub- lished in 1519, we learn, most distinctly, that the "distance sailed over" is learnt, in Spanish and Portuguese ships, not by any distinct measurement, but only by estimation by the eye, according to certain established principles. Medina says (libro iii. cap. Hand 12), "in order 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 the vessel has made according to hours (i.e., guided by the hour-glass, ampol- leta) ; 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." Ces- OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 633 Cairo were imitated, on a small scale, for nautical purposes. Their names even were transferred; thus, for instance, that of " astrolabon," given by Martin Behaim to the mainmast, belongs originally to Hipparchus. When Yasco de Gama pedes (Regimiento, pp. 99 and 156) calls this mode of proceeding " echar ptmto 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 Colum- bus' ship's journal, reference is frequently made to the dispute with Alonso Pinzon, as to the distance passed over since their departure from Palos. The hour or sand-glasses, 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. We find in this important journal of Colum- bus (as, for example, on the 22nd 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.) No mention is ever made of the log (la corredera). Are we to assume that Columbus was acquainted with and employed it, and that he did not think it necessary to name it, owing to its being already in very general use, in the same way that Marco Polo has not mentioned tea, or the great wall of China? Such an assumption appears to me very improbable, because I find in the proposals made by the pilot, Don Jayme Ferrer, 1495, for the exact determination of the position of the Papal line of demarcation, that when there is a question regarding the distance sailed over, the appeal is made only to the accordant judgment (juicio) of twenty very experi- enced seamen (" que apunten en su carta de 6 en6 horas el camino que. la nao fara segun su juicio"). If the log had been in use, no doubt Ferrer would have indicated how often it should be thrown. I find the first mention of the application of the log in a passage of Piga- fetta's Journal of Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, which long lay buried among the manuscripts in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It is there said, 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" (Amorelli, Primo Viaggio intorno al Olobo terracqueo, ossia Navigazionefatta dal Cavalier e 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 through- out the entire voyage to measure the way," have been, except an apparatus similar to our log] No special mention is made of the log-line divided into knots, the ship's log, and the half-minute or log-glass, but this 634 COSMOS. landed on the eastern coast of Africa he found that the Indian pilots at Melinde were acquainted with the use of astrolabes and ballestilles.*' Thus by the more general inter- course consequent on increasing cosmical relations, by original inventions, and by the mutual fructification afforded by the mathematical and astronomical sciences, were all things gra- dually prepared for the discovery of tropical America ; the rapid determination of its configuration; the passage round the southern point of Africa to India ; and, finally, the first circumnavigation of the globe — great and glorious events which, in the space of thirty years (from 1492 to 1522), contributed so largely in extending the general knowledge of the regions of the earth. The minds of men were rendered more acute and more capable of comprehending the vast abundance of new phenomena presented to their considera- tion, of analysing them, and by comparing one with another, of employing them for the foundation of higher and more general views regarding the universe. It will be sufficient here to touch upon the more prominent elements of these higher views, which were capable of lead- ing men to a clearer insight into the connection of pheno- mena. On entering into a serious consideration of the original works of the earliest writers of the history of the Conquista, we are surprised so frequently to discover the germ of important physical truths in the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century. At the sight of a continent in the vast waste of waters which appeared separated from all other regions in creation, there presented themselves to the excited curiosity, both of the earliest travellers themselves and of those who collected their narratives, many of the most important questions which occupy us in the present day. Among these were questions regarding the unity of the human race, and its varieties from one common original type ; the migrations of nations, and the affinity of languages, which frequently mani- fest greater differences in their radical words than in their inflections or grammatical forms ; the possibility of the migra- silence need not surprise us when reference is made to a long-known matter. In the part of the Trattato di Navigazione of the Cavalier Pigafetta, given by Amoretti in extracts, amounting, indeed, only to ten pages, the " catena della poppa" is not again mentioned. * Barros, Dec. 1, liv. iv. p. 320. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 635 tion of certain species of plants and animals ; the cause of the trade winds, and of the constant oceanic currents ; the regu- lar decrease of temperature on the declivities of the Cordil- leras, and in the superimposed strata of water in the depths of the ocean; and the reciprocal action of the volcanoes occurring in chains, and their influence on the frequency of earthquakes, and on the extent of circles of commotion. The groundwork of what we at present term physical geo- graphy, independently of mathematical considerations, is con- tained in the Jesuit Joseph Acosta's work, entitled Historia natural y moral de las Indicts, and in the work by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviodo, which appeared hardly twenty years after the death of Columbus. At no other period since the origin of society, had the sphere of ideas been so suddenly and so wonderfully enlarged in reference to the external world and geographical relations ; never had the desire of observing nature at different latitudes and at different elevations above the sea's level, and of multiplying the means by which its phenomena might be investigated, been more powerfully felt. We might, perhaps, as I have already elsewhere remarked,^ be led to adopt the erroneous idea, that the value of these great discoveries, each one of which reciprocally led to others, and the importance of these twofold conquests in the physical and the intellectual world, would not have been duly appreciated before our own age, in which the history of civilisation has happily been subjected to a philosophical mode of treatment. Such an assumption is, however, refuted by the cotemporaries of Columbus. The most talented amongst them foresaw the influence which the events of the latter years of the fifteenth century would exercise on humanity. " Every day," writes Peter Martyr de Anghiera,f in his letters written in the years * Examen crit., t. i. pp. 3-6 and 290. t Compare Opus Epistolarum Petri Martyris Anglerii Mediola- nensis, 1670, ep. cxxx. and clii. " Prae laatitia prosiliisse te vixque a lachrymis prae gaudio temperasse quando literas adspexisti meas, quibus de Antipodium Orbe, latent! hactenus, te certiorem feci, mi suavissime Pompom, insinuasti. Ex tuis ipse literis colligo, quid senseris. Sen- sisti autem, {antique rem fecisti, quanti virum summa doctrina insigni- turn decuit. Quis namque cibus sublimibus praestari potest ingeniis isto suavior? quod condimentum gratius? a me facio conjecturam. Beari sentio spiritus meos; quauao accitos alloquor prudentes aliquos ex 636 COSMOS. 1493 and 1494, " bring us new wonders from a new world — from those antipodes of the west — which a certain Genoese (Christophorus quidam, vir Ligur\ has discovered. Although sent forth by our monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, he could, with difficulty, obtain three ships, since what he said was re- garded as fabulous. Our friend, Pomponius Lsetus (one of the most distinguished promoters of classical learning, and persecuted at Rome for his religious opinions), could scarcely refrain from tears of joy, when I communicated to him the first tidings of so unhoped for an event." Anghiera, from whom we take these words, was an intelligent statesman at the Court of Ferdinand the Catholic and of Charles V., once ambassador at Egypt, and the personal friend of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Sebastian Cabot, and Cortes. His long life embraced the discovery of Corvo, the westernmost island of the Azores, the expeditions of Diaz, Columbus, Gama, and Magellan. Pope Leo X. read to his sister and to the car- dinals, " until late in the night," Anghiera' s Oceanica. " I would wish never more to quit Spain," writes Anghiera, " since I am here at the fountain head of tidings of the newly discovered lands, and where I may hope, as the historian of such great events, to acquire for my name some renown with posterity. "* Thus clearly did cotemporaries appreciate the glory of events which will survive in the memory of the latest ages. Columbus in sailing westward from the meridian of the his qui ab ea redeunt provincia (Hispaniola insula)." The expression, " Christophorus quidam Colonus," reminds us, I will not say of the too often and unjustly cited "nescio quis Plutarchus" of Aulus Gellius (Noct. Atticce, xi. 16), hut certainly of the "quodam Cornelio scribente," in the answer written by the King Theodoric to the Prince of the JEstyaiis, who was to be informed of the true origin of amber, as recorded in Tacitus, Germ., cap. 45. * Opus Epistol., ~No. ccccxxxvii. and Dlxii. The remarkable and intelligent Hieronymus Cardanus, a magician, a fantastic enthusiast, and at the same time an acute mathematician, also draws attention in his " physical problems," to how much of our knowledge of the earth was derived from facts, to the observation of which one man has led. Car- dani Opera, ed. Lugden. 1663, t. ii. probl. pp. 630 and 659, at mine quibus te laudibus afferam Christophore Columbi, non families tantum, non Genuensis urbis, non Italias Provincise, non Europae, partis orbis solum, sed humani generis decus. I have been led to compare the " problems" of Cardanus with those of the later Aristotelian school, because it appears to me remarkable, and characteristic of the sudden OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 637 Azores, through a wholly unexplored ocean, and applying the newly improved astrolabe, for the determination of the ship's place, sought eastern Asia by a western course, not as a mere adventurer, but under the guidance of a systematic plan. He certainly had with him the sea-chart which the Florentine physician and astronomer, Paolo Toscanelli, had sent him in 1477, and which, fifty-three years after his death, was still in the possession of Bartholomew de las Casas.* It enlargement of geography at that epoch, that, amidst the confusion and the feebleness of the physical explanations which prevail almost equally in both collections, the greater part of these problems relate to compa- rative meteorology. I allude to the considerations on the warm insular climate of England contrasted with the winter at Milan; on the depend- ence of hail on electric explosions; on the cause and direction of oceanic currents; on the maxima of atmospheric heat and cold occurring after the summer and winter solstices ; on the elevation of the region of snow under the tropics; on the temperature dependent on the radiation of heat from the sun and from all the heavenly bodies ; on the greater intensity of light in the southern hemisphere, &c. " Cold is merely absence of heat. Light and heat are only different in name, and are in themselves inseparable." Cardani Opp., t. i. de vita propria, p. 40; t. ii. Probl. 621, 630-632, 653, and 713; t. iii. de suUilitate, p. 417. * See my Examen crit., t. ii. pp. 210-249. According to the manu- script, Historia general de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 12, " la carta de marear que Maestro Paulo Fisico (Toscanelli) cnvio a Colon," was in the hands of Bartholome de las Casas when he wrote his work. Colum- bus' ship's journal, of which we possess an extract (Navarrete, t. i., p. 13), does not entirely agree with the relation which I find in a manu- script of Las Casas, for a communication of which I am indebted to M. Ternaux-Compans. The ship's journal says, " Iba hablando el Almi- rante (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 parece tenia pintados el Almirante ciertas islas por aquella mar " In the manuscript of Las Casas (lib. i. cap. 12), we find, on the other hand, as follows : — " La carta de marear que embi6 (Toscanelli al Almirante,) yo que esta historia escrivo 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 Alonzo Pinzon con su caravela Pinta a hablar con Chris- tobal Colon, sobre una carta de marear que Christobal Colon le avia embiado Esta carta es la que leembio Paulo Fisico el Florentin la qual yo tengo en mi poder con otras cosas del Almirante y escrituras de su misma mano que traxeron d 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 reach, or would " tenia pintadas" merely mean that " the Admiral had a map on which these were painted . . . . T 638 COSMOS. would appear from Las Casas' manuscript history, which. I have examined, that this was the same " carta de marear," which the admiral shewed to Martin Alonzo Pinzon on the 25th of September, 1492, and on which many prominent islands were delineated. Had Columbus, however, alone followed the chart of his counsellor and adviser, Toscanelli, he would have kept a more northern course in the parallel of Lisbon; but instead of this, he steered half the way in the latitude of Gomera, one of the Canaries, in the hope of more speedily reaching Zipangu (Japan) ; and subsequently keep- ing a less high latitude, he found himself on the 7th of Octo- ber, 1492, in the parallel of 25° 30'. Uneasy at not disco- vering the coast of Zipangu, which, according to his reckon- ing, ought to lie 216 nautical miles further to the east, he yielded, after long contention, to the commander of the caravel Pinta, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, of whom we have already spoken (one of three wealthy and influential brothers, hostile to him), and steered towards the south-west. This change of direction led, on the 12th of October, to the dis- covery of Guanahani. We must here pause to consider the wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances which undeniably exercised an influence on the course of the world's destiny. The talented and ingenious Washington Irving has justly observed, that if Columbus had resisted the counsel of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and continued to steer westward, he would have entered the Gulf Stream, and been borne to Florida, and from thence probably to Cape Hatteras and Virginia, — a circumstance of incalculable im- portance, since it might have been the means of giving to the United States of North America a catholic Spanish popu- lation, in the place of the protestant English one by which those regions were subsequently colonized. " It seems to me like an inspiration," said Pinzon to the Admiral, " that my heart dictates to me (el corazon me da) that we ought to steer in a different direction." It was on the strength of this circumstance, that in the celebrated lawsuit which Pinzon carried on against the heirs of Columbus, between 1513 and 1515, he maintained that the discovery of America was alone due to him. This inspiration, emanating from the heart, Pinzon owed, as was 'related by an old sailor of Moguez, at the same trial, to the flight of a flock of parrots which he had OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 639 observed in the evening flying towards the south-west, in order, as he might well have conjectured, to roost on trees on the land. Never has a flight of birds been attended by more important results. It may even be said that it has decided the first colonization in the new continent, and the original distribution of the Roman and Germanic races of man.* The course of great events, like the results of natural pheno- mena, is ruled by eternal laws, with few of which we have any perfect knowledge. The fleet which Emanuel, king of Portu- gal, sent to India, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, on the course discovered by Gama, was unexpectedly driven on the coast of Brazil on the 22nd of April, 1500. From the zeal which the Portuguese had manifested since the expe- dition of Diaz in 1487, to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope, a recurrence of fortuitous circumstances similar to those exercised by oceanic currents on Cabral's ships, could hardly fail to manifest itself. The African discoveries would thus probably have brought about that of America south of the equator ; and thus Robertson was justified in saying that it was decreed in the destinies of mankind, that the new con- tinent should be made known to European navigators before the close of the fifteenth century. Among the characteristics of Christopher Columbus we must especially notice the penetration and acuteness with which, without intellectual culture, and without any know- ledge of physical and natural science, he could seize and com- bine the phenomena of the external world. On his arrival in a new world, and under a new heaven,f he examined with care the form of continental masses, the physiognomy of vegetation, the habits of animals, and the distribution of heat * Navarrete, Documentos, 'No. 69, in t. iii. of the Viages y Discvibr., pp. 565-171 ; Examen crit., t. i. pp. 234-249 and 252 ; t. iii. pp. 158-165 and 224. On the contested spot of the first landing in the West Indies, see t. iii. pp. 1 86-222. The map of the world of Juan de la Cosa, made six years before the death of Columbus, which was discovered by Walckenaer and myself in the year 1832, during the cholera epidemic, and has since acquired so much celebrity, has thrown new light on these mooted questions. t On the graphical and often, poetical descriptions of nature found in Columbus, see pp. 421-423. 640 COSMOS. and the variations in terrestrial magnetism. Whilst the old admiral strove to discover the spices of India, and the rhubarb (ruibarba), which had already acquired a great celebrity through the Arabian and Jewish physicians, and through the account of Rubruquis and the Italian travellers, he also examined with the greatest attention, the roots, fruits, and leaves of the different plants. In drawing attention to the influence exercised by this great age of nautical disco- verers on the extension of natural views, we impart more animation to our descriptions, by associating them with the individuality of one great man. In the journal of his voyage, and in his reports, which were first published from 1825 to 1829, we find almost all those circumstances touched upon, to which scientific enterprise was directed in the latter half of the fifteenth and throughout the whole of the sixteenth centuries. We need only revert generally and cursorily to the exten- sion imparted to the geography of western nations from the period when the Infante Dom Henrique the navigator, at his country-seat of Ter$a Naval, on the lovely Bay of Sagres, sketched his first plan of discovery, to the expeditions of Gaetano and Cabrillo to the South Sea. The daring expe- ditions of the Portuguese, Spaniards, and English, evince the suddenness with which a new sense, as it were, was opened for the appreciation of the grand and the boundless. The advance of nautical science and the application of astrono- mical methods to the correction of the ship's reckoning, favoured the efforts which gave to this age its peculiar cha- racter, and revealed to men the image of the earth in all its completeness of form. The discovery of the mainland of tropical America (on the 1st of August, 1498,) occurred seventeen months after Cabot reached the Labrador coast of North America. Columbus did not see the terra firma of South America on the mountainous shores of Paria, as has generally been supposed, but at the Delta of the Orinoco, to the east of Cano Macateo,* Sebastian Cabotf landed on the * See the results of my investigations, in the Relation hist, du Voyage fiux, Regions equinoxiales du nouveau Continent, t. ii. p. 702 ; and in the Examen crit. de I'Hist. de la Geographic, t. i. p. 309. t Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, 1831, pp. 52-61; Examen crit., t. iv. p. 231. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 641 24th of June, 1497, on the coast of Labrador, between 56° and 58° north latitude. It has already been noticed that this inhospitable region had been visited by the Icelander Lief Erikson, five hundred years earlier. Columbus attached more importance on hi s third voyage to the circumstance of finding pearls in the islands of Margarita and Cabagua, than to the discovery of the tierra jirme, for he continued firmly persuaded to the day of his death, that he had already touched a portion of the continent of Asia, when on his first voyage he reached Cuba, in November, 1492.* From this point, as his son Don Fernando, and his friend the Cura de los Palacios, relate, he proposed, if he had provisions enough, " to continue his course westward, and to return to Spain, either by water, by way of Ceylon (Taprobane) rode- ando todo la tierra de los Negros, or by land, through Jerusa- lem and Jaffaf." Such were the projects by which the admiral, in 1494, proposed to circumnavigate the globe, four years before Vasco de Gama, and twenty- seven years before Magellan and Sebastian de Elcano. The preparations for Cabot's second voyage, in which he penetrated through blocks of ice to 67° 30' north latitude, and endeavoured to find a north- west * In a portion of Columbus' Journal, Nov. 1, 1492, to which but little attention has been directed, it is stated, " I have (in Cuba) opposite and near to me, Zayto y Guinsay (Zaitun and Quinsay, Marco Polo, ii. 77) of the Gran Can." Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim. de los Espa- noles, t. i. p. 46. The curvature 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 Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 246-250. Anghiera (Epist., clxviii. ed. Amst. 1670, p. 96) writes as follows: " Putat (Colonus) regiones has (Pariaa) esse Cubaa contiguas et adhaerentes : ita quod utrseque sint Indiae Gangetidis continens ipsum " *t* See the important manuscript of Andres Bernaldez, Cura de la villa de los Palacios (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. 123). This history comprises the years from 1488 to 1513. Bernaldez had received Colum- bus into his house, in 1496, on his return from his second voyage. Through the special kindness of M. Ternaux-Compans, to whom the History of the Conquista owes much important elucidation, I was enabled at Paris, in Dec. 1838, to make a free use of this manuscript, which was in the possession of my distinguished friend the historio- grapher, Don Juan Bautista Mufioz. (Compare Fern. Colon, Vida del Almirante, cap, 56.) 2 T 642 COSMOS. passage to Cathai (China), led him to think at "some future time of an expedition to the north pole" (6. lo del polo arctico}.* The more it became gradually recognised that the newly- discovered land constituted one connected tract, extending from Labrador to the promontory of Paria, and as the recently found map of Juan de la Cosa (1500) testified, beyond the equator, far into the southern hemisphere, the more intense became the desire of finding some passage either in the south or in the north. Next to the re-discovery of the continent of America and the knowledge of the extension of the new hemisphere southwards from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, discovered by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa,f the knowledge of the South Pacific, which bathes the western shores of America, was the most important cosmical event of the great epoch which we are here describing. Ten years before Balboa, on the 25th of September, 1513, first caught sight of the Pacific from the heights of the Sierra de Quarequa at the Isthmus of Panama, Columbus distinctly learnt when he was coasting along the eastern shores of Ve- ragua, that to the west of this land there was a sea " which in less than nine days' sail would bear ships to the Cher- sonesus aurea of Ptolemy and to the mouth of the Ganges." In the same Carta rarissima, which contains the beautiful and poetic narration of a dream, the admiral says, that " the opposite coasts of Veragua, near the Rio de Belen, are situated relatively to one another as Tortosa on the Mediterranean, * Examen crit., t. iii. pp. 244-248. •^ Cape Horn was discovered by Francisco de Hoces in February, 1526, in the expedition of the Commendador Garcia de Loaysa, which, following that of Magellan, was destined to proceed to the Moluccas. Whilst Loaysa was passing 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 Espcbholes, t. v. pp. 28 and 404--488.) Fleurieu maintains that Hoces only saw the Cabo del Buen Successo, west of Staten Island. Towards the end of the sixteenth century such a strange uncertainty again prevailed respecting the form of the land, that the author of the Araucana (canto i. oct. 9) believed that the Magellanic Straits had closed by an earthquake, and by the upheaval of the bottom of the sea; whilst, on the other hand, Acosta (Historia natural y moral de laslndias, lib. iii. -cap. 10) regarded the Terra del Fuego as the beginning of a great south polar land. (Com- pare also p. 428.> OCEAN re ^DISCOVERIES. 643 and Fuenterrabia in Biscay, or as Venice and Pisa." The great ocean, the South Pacific, was even at that time regarded as merely a continuation of the Sinus magnus (fjieyas Ko\7ros) of Ptolemy, situated before the golden Chersonesus, whilst Cattigara and the land of the Sines (Thina?) were supposed to constitute its eastern boundary. The fanciful hypothesis of Hipparchus, according to which this eastern shore of the great gulf was connected with the portion of the African continent which extended far towards the east,*4 and thus supposed to make a closed inland sea of the Indian Ocean, was but little regarded in the middle ages, notwithstanding the partiality to the views of Ptolemy; — a fortunate circum- stance, when we consider the unfavourable influence which it would doubtlessly have exercised on the direction of great maritime enterprises. The discovery and navigation of the Pacific indicate an epoch which was so much the more important with respect to the recognition of great cosmical relations, since it was owing to these events, and therefore scarcely three centuries and a half ago, that not only the configuration of the western coast of the new, and the eastern coast of the old continent were determined ; but also, what is far more important to meteorology, that the numerical relations of the area of land and water upon the surface of our planet, first began to be freed from the highly erroneous views with which they had hitherto been regarded. The magnitude of these areas, and their relative distribution, exercise a powerful influence on the quantity of humidity contained in the atmosphere, the alternations in the pressure of the air, the force and vigor of vegetation, the gi eater or lesser distribution of certain species of animals, and on the action of many other general pheno- mena and physical processes. The larger area apportioned to the fluid over the solid parts of the earth's crust (in the ratio of 2£ to 1 ), does certain y diminish the habitable surface for the settlements of the human race, and for the * "Whether the isthmus hypothesis, according to which Cape Prasum, on the eastern shore of Africa, was connected with the eastern Asiatic isthmus of Thinae, is to be traced to Marinus of Tyre, or to Hipparchus, or to the Babylonian Seleucus, or rather to Aristotle, de Ccdo (ii. 14), is a question treated in detail in another work, Examen crit., t. i. pp. 144, 161, and 329; t ii. pp. 370-372. 2 T 3 644 COSMOS. nourishment of the greater portion of mammalia, birds, and reptiles ; but it is nevertheless, in accordance with the existing laws of organic life, a beneficent arrangement, and a necessary condition for the preservation of all living beings inhabiting continents. When at the close of the fifteenth century a keen desire was awakened for discovering the shortest route to the Asiatic spice lands, and when the idea of reaching the east by sailing to the west simultaneously awoke in the minds of two intellectual men of Italy, — the navigator Christopher Columbus, and the phy- sician and astronomer Paul Toscanelli,* — the opinion esta- blished in Ptolemy's Almagest still prevailed, that the old continent occupied a space extending over 180 equatorial degrees from the western shore of the Iberian peninsula to the meridian of eastern Sinae, or that it extended from east to west over half of the globe. Columbus, misled by a long- series of false inferences, extended this space to 240 degrees, and in his eyes the desired eastern shores of Asia appeared to advance as far as the meridian of San Diego in New California. He therefore hoped that he should only have to sail 120 degrees, instead of the 231 degrees at which the wealthy Chinese commercial city of Quinsay is actually situ- ated to the west of the extremity of the Spanish penin- sula. Toscanelli, in his correspondence with the Admiral, diminished the expanse of the fluid element in a manner still more remarkable and more favourable to his designs. According to his calculations, the extent of the sea between Portugal and China was limited to 52 degrees, so that in conformity with the expression of the prophet Esdras, six- sevenths of the earth were dry. Columbus, at a subsequent period, in a letter which he addressed to Queen Isabella from Haiti, immediately after the completion of his third voyage, showed himself the more inclined to these views, because they * Paolo Toscanelli was so greatly 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 enough to enjoy the pleasure of le^rr>dng the discovery of the Cape of Good Hops by Diaz, and thr»t of tjui tropical part of the new continent by Columbus. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 645 had been defended in the Imago Mundi by Cardinal d'Aillv, whom he regarded as the highest authority*. Six years after Balboa, sword in hand, and wading to his knees through the waves, claimed the possession of the Pacific * As the old continent, from the western extremity of the Iberian peninsula to the coast of China, comprehends almost 130° of longitude, there remain about 230° for the distance which Columbus would have had to traverse if he wished to reach Cathai (China) ; but less if he only desired to reach Zipangi (Japan). This difference of 230°, which I have here indicated, depends on the position of 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). The Synonyms for Quinsay, in the province of Tschekiang are Kanfu, Hangtscheufu, Kingszu. The East Asiatic general com- merce was shared in the thirteenth century between Quinsay and Zaitun (Pinghai or Sscuthung), opposite to the island of Formosa (then Tung- fan), in 25° 5' N. lat. (see Klaproth, Tableaux hist, de I'Asie, p. 227). The distance of Cape St. Vincent from Zipangi (Niphon) is 22° of longitude less than from Quinsay, therefore about 209°, instead of 230° 53'. It is striking that the oldest statements, those of Eratos- thenes and Strabo (lib. i. p. 64) come through accidental compensations within 10° of the above-mentioned result of 129° for the difference of longitude of the ofcov/itvjj. Strabo, in the same passage in which he alludes to the possible existence of two great habitable continents in the northern hemisphere, says that our olKov^tf.vjj in the parallel of Thinas, Athens (see p. 557), constitutes more than one-third of the earth's circumference. Marinus the Tyrian, misled by the length of the time occupied in the navigation from Myos Hormos to India, by the erro- neously assumed direction of the major axis of the Caspian from west to east, and by the over estimation of the length of the land route to the country of the Seres, gave to the old continent a breadth of 225°, in- stead of 129°. The Chinese coast was thus advanced 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 the Almagest (II. 1), places the coast of Sinae at 180°, and in his Geography (lib. i. cap. 12), at 177^°. As Columbus estimated the navigation from Iberia to Sinae, at 120°, and Toscanelli at only 52 °, they might certainly, estimating the length of the Mediterranean at about 40°, have called this apparently hazardous enterprise a " brevissimo cainino." Martin Behaim, also, on his " World apple" the celebrated globe which he completed in 1492, and which is still preserved in the Behaim house at Nuremberg, places the coast of China, (or the throne of the King of Mango, Cambalu, and Cathai,) at only 100° west of the Azores, — i. c., as Behaim lived four years at Fayal, and pro- bably calculated the distance from that point — 119° 40' west of Cape 646 COSMOS. for Castille, and two years after his head had fallen by the hand of the executioner in the revolt against the tyrannical Pedrarias Davila,* Magellan appeared in the Pacific (27th of November, 1520), and traversing the vast ocean from south-east to north-west, in a course of more than ten thousand geographical miles, by a singular chance, before he dis- covered the Marianas (his Islas de los Ladrones, or de las Velas Latinas) and the Philippines, saw no other land but two small uninhabited islands (the Desventuradas, or unfortunate islands), one of which, if we may believe his journal and his ship's reckoning, lies east of the Low Islands, and the other St. Yincent. Columbus was probably acquainted with Behaim at Lisbon, where both lived from 14SO to 1484 (see my Examen crit. de I' Hist, de la Geographic, t. ii. pp. 357-369). The many wholly erro- neous numbers which we find in all the writings on the discovery of America, and the then supposed extent of Eastern Asia, have induced me more carefully to compare the opinions of the middle ages with those of classical antiquity. * The eastern portion of the Pacific was first navigated by white men in a boat, when Alonso Martin de Don Benito (who had seen the sea* horizon with Yasco Nunez de Balboa on the 2 5th September, 1513, from the little Sierra de Quarequa) descended a few days afterwards to the Golfo de San Miguel, before Balboa enacted the strange ceremony of taking possession of the ocean. Seven months before, in the month of January, 1513, 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 anda brava como la mar de nuestra banda" (de las Antillas). The name Oceano Pacifico was, however, as Pigafetta tells us, first given by Magellan to the Mar del Sur (Balboa). Before Magellan's expedition (in August, 1519), the Spanish Go- vernment, which was not wanting in watchful activity, had given secret orders, in November, 1514, to Pedrarias Davila, Governor of the province of Castilla del Oro (the most north-western part of South America), and to the great navigator Juan Diaz de Solis : — for the former to have four caravels built in the Golfo de San Miguel, " to make discoveries in the newly-discovered South Sea ;" and to the lat- ter, 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 western portion of Castilla del Oro, which was surrounded by the sea. The expedition of Solis (Octo- ber, 1515, to August, 1516) led him far to the south, and to the dis- covery of the Eio de la Plata, long called the Eio de Solis. (Compare, .on the little known first discovery of the Pacific, Petrus Martyr, Epist* dxl. p. 296, with the documents of 1513--1515, in Navarrete, t. iii pp. 134 and 357 ; also my Examen crit., t. i. pp. 320 and 350). OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 647 somewhat to the south-west of the Archipelago of Mendana.** Sebastian de Elcano completed the first circumnavigation of the earth in the Victoria after Magellan's murder on the Island of Zebu, and obtained as his armorial bearings a globe, with the glorious inscription, Primus circumdedisti me. He en- tered the harbour of San Lucar in the month of September, 1522, and scarcely had a year elapsed before the Emperor Charles, stimulated by the suggestions of cosmographers, urged, in a letter to Hernan Cortez, the discovery of a passage "by which the distance to the spice lands would be shortened by two-thirds." The expedition of Alvaro de Saavedra was despatched to the Moluccas from a port of the province Zaca- tula, on the western coast of Mexico. Hernan Cortez writes in 1527 from the recently conquered Mexican capital, Te- nochtitlan " to the Kings of Zebu and Tidor in the Asiatic island world." So rapidly did the sphere of cosmical views enlarge, and with it the animation of general intercourse ! Subsequently, the conqueror of New Spain himself entering upon a course of discoveries in the Pacific, proceeded from thence in search of a north-east passage. Men could not habituate themselves to the idea that the continent extended uninterruptedly from such high southern to such high northern latitudes. When tidings arrived from the coast of California, that the expedition of Cortez had perished, the wife of the hero, Juana de Zuniga, the beauiful daughter of the Count d'Aguilar, caused two ships to be fitted out and sent forth to * On the geographical position of the Desventuradas (San Pablo, S. lat. 16|°, long. 135|° west of Paris; Isla de Tiburones, S. lat. 10^°, "W. long. 145°,) see my Examen crit., t. i. p. 286 ; and Navarrete, t. iv. p. lix. 52, 218 and 267. The great period of geographical discoveries gave occasion to many illustrious heraldic bearings, similar to the one men- tioned in the text as bestowed on Sebastian de Elcano and his descend- ants, (the terrestrial globe, with the inscription, " Primus circumdedisti me.") The arms which were given to Columbus as early as May, 1493, to honour his person " 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 ; Navar- rete, 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 lived in tropical America uninterruptedly for thirty-four years, from 1513 to 1547), the four beautiful stars of the southern cross, as armorial bearings. (Oviedo, lib. ii. cap. 11, fol. 16, b.) 648 COSMOS. ascertain its fate*'. California was already, in 1 541 , recognised to be an arid, woodless peninsula, — a fact that was forgot- ten in the seventeenth century. We moreover gather from the narratives of Balboa, Pedrarias Davila, and Hernan Cortez, that hopes were entertained at that period, of finding in the Pacific, then considered to be a portion of the Indian Ocean, groups of islands, rich in spices, gold, precious stones, and pearls. Excited fancy urged men to undertake great enter- prises, and the daring of these undertakings, whether suc- cessful or not, reacted on the imagination, and excited it still more powerfully. Thus, notwithstanding the thorough "ab- sence of political freedom, many circumstances concurred at this remarkable age of the Conquista, — a period of over- wrought excitement, violence, and of a mania for discove- ries by sea and land,— to favour individuality of character, and to enable some highly- gifted minds to develope many noble germs drawn from the depths of feeling. They err who believe that the Conquistadores were incited by love of gold and religious fanaticism alone. Perils always exalt the poetry of life ; and, moreover, the remarkable age whose influence on the development of cosmical ideas we are now depicting, gave to all enterprises, and to the natural impres- sions awakened by distant travels, the charm of novelty and surprise, which is beginning to fail us in the present well- instructed age, when so many portions of the earth are opened to us. Not only one hemisphere, but almost two- thirds of the earth, were then a new and unexplored world, — as unseen as that portion of the moon's surface which the law of gravitation constantly averts from the glance of the inha- bitants of the earth. Our deeply-inquiring age finds in the increasing abundance of ideas presented to the human mind a compensation for the surprise formerly induced by the novelty of grand, massive, and imposing natural phenomena, — a com- pensation which will, it is true, long be denied to the many, but is vouchsafed to the few familiar with the condition of science. To them the increasing insight into the silent operation of natural forces, whether in electro-magnetism or in the polarisation of light, in the influence of diathermal * 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. pp. 271 and 336. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 649 substances or in the physiological phenomena of vital or- ganisms, gradually unveils a world of wonders, of which we have scarcely reached the threshold. The Sandwich Islands, Papua or New Guinea, and some portions of New Holland, were all discovered in the early half of the sixteenth century.* These discoveries prepared the way for those of Cabrillo, Sebastian Vizcaino, Mendana and Quiros, whose Sagittaria is Tahiti, and whose Archipelago del Espiritu Santo is the same as the New Hebrides of Cook.f Quiros was accompanied by the bold navigator who subsequently gave his name to the Torres Straits. The Pacific no longer appeared as it had done to Magellan, a desert waste ; it was now animated by islands, which, however, for want of exact astronomical ob- servations, appeared to have no fixed position, but floated from place to place over the charts. The Pacific remained for a long time the exclusive theatre of the enterprises of the Spaniards and Portuguese. The important South Indian Malayan Archipelago, dimly described by Ptolemy, Cosrias, and Polo, unfolded itself in more distinct outlines after Albu- querque had established himself in 1511 in Malacca, and after the expedition of Anton Abreu. It is the special merit of the classical Portuguese historian, Barros, the cotemporary of Magellan and Camoens, to have so truly recognised the phy- * Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich Islands in 1542. Respect- ing the voyage of Don Jorge de Menezes (1526) and that of Alvaro de Saavedra (1528), to the Jlhas 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. t After the death of Mendafia, his wife, Dona Isabela Baretos, a woman distinguished for personal courage and great mental endowments, undertook in the Pacific the command of the expedition which did not terminate until 1596 (Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp., t. iv. p. 111). Quiros practised in his ships the distillation of fresh from salt water, on a considerable scale, and his example was followed in several instances (Navarrete, t. i. p. liii). The entire operation, as I have elsewhere shown on the testimony of Alexander of Aphrodisias, was known as etuiy as the third century of our era, although it was not then practised in ships. 650 COSMOS. sical and ethnological character of this archipelago, as to be the first to propose that the Australian Polynesia should be dis- tinguished as a fifth portion of the earth. It was not until the Dutch power acquired the ascendancy in the Moluccas, that Australia began to emerge from its former obscurity and to assume a definite form in the eyes of geographers.* Now began the great epoch of Abel Tasman. We do not purpose here to give the history of individual geographical discoveries, but simply to refer to the principal events by which, in a short space of time and in continuous connexion, two -thirds of the earth's surface were opened to the apprehension of men, in consequence of the suddenly awakened desire to reach the wide, the unknown, and the remote regions of our globe. An enlarged insight into the nature and the laws of physical forces, into the distribution of heat over the earth's surface, the abundance of vital organisms and the limits of their distribution, was developed simultaneously with this extended knowledge of land and sea. The advance which the different branches of science had made towards the close of the middle ages, (a period which, in a scientific point of view, has not been sufficiently estimated,) facilitated and furthered the sensuous apprehension and the comparison of an unbounded mass of physical phenomena now simultaneously presented to the observation of men. The impressions were so much the deeper and so much the more capable of leading to the estab- lishment of cosmical laws, because the nations of western Europe, even before the middle of the sixteenth century, had explored the new continent, at least along its coasts, in the most different degrees of latitude in both hemispheres ; and because it was here that they first became firmly settled in the region of the equator, and that, owing to the singular configu- ration of the earth's surface, the most striking contrasts of vegetable organisations and of climate were presented to them at different elevations within very circumscribed limits of space. If I again take occasion to allude to the advantages presented by the mountainous districts of the equinoctial zone, I would observe, in justification of my reiteration of the same sentiment, that to the inhabitants of these regions alone * See the excellent work of Professor Meinicke of Prenzlau, entitled Das Festland Austr alien, eine geogr. Monographic, 1837, th. i. s. 2-10. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 651 it is granted to behold all the stars of the heaven, and almost all families and forms of vegetation — but to behold is not to ob- serve by a mental process of comparison and combination. Although in Columbus, as I hope I have succeeded in shew- ing in another work, a capacity for exact observation was developed in manifold directions, notwithstanding his entire deficiency of all previous knowledge of natural history, and solely by contact with great natural phenomena, we must by no means assume a similar development in the rough and war- like body of the Conquistadores. Europe owes to another and more peaceful class of travellers, and to a small number of distinguished men among municipal functionaries, eccle- siastics and physicians, that which it has unquestionably ac- quired by the discovery of America, in the gradual enrich- ment of its knowledge regarding the character and composition / of the atmosphere, and its action on the human organisation ; the distribution of climates on the declivities of the Cordilleras; the elevation of the line of perpetual snow in accordance with the different degrees of latitude in both hemispheres ; the suc- cession of volcanoes ; the limitation of the circles of commotion in earthquakes ; the laws of magnetism ; the direction of oceanic currents; and the gradations of new animal and vegetable forms. The class of travellers to whom we have alluded, by residing in native Indian cities, some of which were situated twelve or thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, were enabled to observe with their own eyes, and by a continued residence in those regions, to test and to combine the observa- tions of others, to collect natural products, and to describe and transmit them to their European friends. It will suffice here to mention Gomara, Oviedo, Acosta, and Hernandez. Colum- bus brought home from his first voyage of discovery some natural products, as for instance, fruits and the skins of ani- mals. In a letter written from Segovia (August 1494), Queen Isabella enjoins on the Admiral to persevere in his collections; and she especially requires of him that he should bring with him specimens of " all the coast and forest birds peculiar to countries which have a different climate and different seasons.'* .Little attention has hitherto been given to the fact that Martin - Behaim's friend, Cadamosto,. procured for the Infante Henry the Navigator, black elephants' hair, a palm and a half in length, from the same western coast of Africa, whence Hanno almost 652 COSMOS. two thousand years earlier, had Brought the "tanned skins of wild women," (of the large Gorilla apes) in order to suspend them in a temple. Hernandez, the private physician of Philip II., and sent by that monarch to Mexico, in order to have all the vegetable and zoological curiosities of the country depicted in accurate and finished drawings, was able to enlarge his col- lection by copies of many very carefully executed historical pictures, which had been painted at the command of Neza- hualcoyotl, a king of Tezcuco,^ half a century before the arrival of the Spaniards. Hernandez also availed himself of a collec- tion of medicinal plants which he found still growing in the celebrated old Mexican garden of Huaxtepec, which owing to its vicinity to a newly established Spanish hospital,f the Con- quistadores had not laid waste. Almost at this time the fossil mastodon bones on the elevated plateaux of Mexico, New Granada and Peru, which have since become so important with respect to the theory of the successive elevation of mountain chains, were collected and described. The designa- tions of giant bones and fields of Giants ( Campos de Gigantes] sufficiently testily the fantastic character of the early interpre- tation applied to these fossils. * This king died in the time of the Mexican king Axayaeatl, who reigned from 1464 to 1477. The learned native historian, Fernando de Alva Jxtlilxochitl, whose manuscript chronicle of the Chichimeque, I saw in 1803, in the palace of the Viceroy of Mexico, and of which, Mr. Prescott has so ably availed himself in his work (Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. pp. 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, means Vanilla face. M. Ternaux-Compans, in 1840, caused a French translation of this manuscript to be printed in Paris. The notice of the long elephants' hair collected by Cadamosto occurs in Ramusio, vol. i. p. 109, and in Grynoeus, cap. 43, p. 33. t Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico (Cesena, 1780), t. ii. p. 153. There is no doubt from the accordant testimonies of Hernan Cortes in his reports to the Emperor Charles V., of Bernal Diaz, Gomara, Oviedo and Hernandez, that at the time of the conquest of Mon- tezuma's empire, there were no menageries and botanic gardens in any part of Europe which could be compared with those of Huaxtepec, Cha- poltapec, Iztapalapan, and Tezcuco. (Prescott, op. cit. vol. i. p. 178; vol.ii. pp. 66 and 117-121 ; vol. iii. p. 42). On the early attention which is mentioned in the text as having been paid to the fossil bones in the ''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. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 653 One circumstance which specially contributed to the exten- sion of cosmical views at this enterprising period, was the immediate contact of a numerous mass of Europeans with the free and grand exotic forms of nature, on the plains and mountainous regions of America, and, (in consequence of the voyage of Vasco de Gama), on the eastern shores of Africa and Southern India. Even in the beginning of the sixteenth century, a Portuguese physician, Garcia de Orta, under the protection of the noble Martin Alfonso de Sousa, established, on the present site of Bombay, a botanical garden, in which he cultivated the medicinal plants of the neighbour- hood. The muse of Camoens has paid Garcia de Orta the tribute of patriotic praise. The impulse to direct observation was now everywhere awakened, whilst the cosmographical writings of the middle ages were to be regarded less as the result of actual observation than as mere compilations, re- flecting the opinions of classical antiquity. Two of the greatest men of the sixteenth century, Conrad Gessner and Andreas Csesalpinus, have the high merit of having opened a new path to zoology and botany. In order to give a more vivid idea of the early influence exercised by oceanic discoveries on the enlarged sphere of the physical and astronomical sciences connected with navi- gation, I will call attention, at the close of this description, to some luminous points, which we may already see glimmering through the writings of Columbus. Their first faint light deserves to be traced with so much the more care, because they contain the germs of general cosmical views. I will not pause here to consider the proofs of the results which I have enumerated, since I have given them in detail in another • work, entitled Examen critique de rhistoire de la geographic { du nouveau continent et des progres de V astronomic nautique ^ aux xve et xvic siecles. But in order to avoid the imputation - of undervaluing the views of modern physical knowledge, in comparison with the observations of Columbus, I will give tha literal translation of a few lines contained in a letter which the Admiral wrote from Haiti in the month of October, 1498. He writes as follows: "Each time that I sail from Spain to India, as soon as I have proceeded about a hun- dred nautical miles to the west of the Azores, I per- ceive an extraordinary alteration in the movement of the <" 654 COSMOS, heavenly bodies, in the temperature of the air, and in the character of the sea. I have observed these alterations with especial care, and I notice that the mariner's compass (agujas de mar ear), whose declination had hitherto been north-east, was now changed to north-west ; and when I had crossed this line (ray a), as if in passing the brow of a hill, (como quien traspone una cuesta,) I found the ocean covered by such a mass of sea- weed, similar to small branches of pine covered with pistachio nuts, that we wereapprehensive that, for want of a sufficiency of water, our ships would run upon a shoal. Before we reached the line of which I speak, there was no trace of any such sea-weed. On the boundary line, one hundred miles west of the Azores, the ocean becomes at once still and calm, being scarcely ever moved by a breeze. On my passage from the Canary Islands to the parallel of Sierra Leone, we had to endure a frightful degree of heat, but as soon as we had crossed the above-mentioned line (to the west of the meridian of the Azores,) the climate changed, the air became temperate, and the freshness increased the further we advanced." This passage, which is elucidated by many others in the writings of Columbus, contains views of physical geography, observations on the influence of geographical longitude on the declination of the magnetic needle, on the inflection of the isothermal lines between the western shores of the old and the eastern shores of the new continent, on the position of the Great Saragossa bank in the basin of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the relations existing between this part of the ocean and the superimposed atmosphere. Erroneous observa- tions made in the vicinity of the Azores, on the movement of the polar star,*4 had misled Columbus during his first voyage, from the inaccuracy of his mathematical knowledge, to enter- tain a belief in the irregularity of the spheroidal form of the earth. In the western hemisphere, the earth, according 'to his views, " is more swollen, so that ships gradually arrive nearer the heavens on reaching the line (ray a), where the magnetic needle points due north, and this elevation (cuesta) is the cause * 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 erit., t. iii. pp. 17-20, 44-51, and 56-61. (Compare also Navarrete, in Columbus' Journal of 16th. to 30th of September, 1492, pp. 9, 15, and 254.) OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 655 of the cooler temperature." The solemn reception of the Admiral in Barcelona took place in April, 1493, and as early as the 4th of May of the same year, the celebrated bull was signed by Pope Alexander VI., which " establishes to all eternity," the line of demarcation^ between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, at a distance of one hundred miles to the west of the Azores. If we consider further, that Columbus, immediately after his return from his first voyage of discovery, proposed to go to Rome, in order, as he said, to "give the Pope notice of all that he had discovered," and if the importance attached by the cotemporaries of Co- lumbus to the discovery of the line of no variation, be further borne in mind, it will be admitted, that I was justified in advancing the historical proposition, that the Admiral, at the moment of his highest court favour, strove to have a "phy- sical line of demarcation converted into apolitical one.''9 The influence which the discovery of America, and the * On the singular differences of the " Bula de concesion a los Keyes Catolicos de las Indias descubiertas y que se descubieren," of May 3, 1493, and the "Bula do 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. pp. 52-54. Very different from this line of demarcation is that settled in the " Capitula- cion de la particion del Mar Oceano entre los Reyes Catolicos y Don Juan, Rey de Portugal," of the 7th June, 1494, 370 leagues (174 to an equatorial degree) west of the Cape Verd Islands. (Compare Navar- rete, Coleccion de los Viages y descub. de los Esp., t. ii. pp. 28-35, 116-143, and 404 ; t. iv. pp. 55 and 252.) This last-named line, which led to the sale of the Moluccas (de el Moluca) to Portugal, 1529, for the sura of 350,000 gold ducats, did not stand in any connection with magnetical or meteorological fancies. The papal lines of demarcation deserve, however, more careful consideration in the present work, be- cause, as I have mentioned in the text, they exercised great influence on the endeavours to improve nautical astronomy, and especially on the methods attempted for the determination of the longitude. It is also very deserving of notice, that the capitulation of June 7, 1494, affords the first example of a proposal for the establishment of 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," that some signal or tower be erected wherever the dividing meridian, whether in the eastern or the western hemisphere, intersects an island or a continent in its course from pole to pole. In the continents, the rayas were to be marked at proper intervals, by a series of such marks or towers, which would indeed have be«n no slight undertaking. 656 COSMOS. oceanic enterprises connected with, that event, so rapidly exercised on the combined mass of physical and astrono- mical science, is rendered most strikingly manifest, when we recal the earliest impressions of those who lived at this period, and the extended range of those scientific efforts, of which the more important are comprehended in the first half of the sixteenth century. Christopher Columbus has not only the merit of being the first to discover a line without magnetic va- riation, but also of having excited a taste for the study of ! terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by means of his observations on the progressive increase of western declination in rece- ding from that line. The fact that almost everywhere the ends of a freely moving magnetic needle, do not point ex- actly to the geographical north and south poles, must have repeatedly been recognised, even with very imperfect in- struments, in the Mediterranean, and at all places where, in the twelfth century, the declination amounted to more than eight or ten degrees. But it is not improbable that the Arabs or the Crusaders, who were brought in contact with the east between the years 1096 and 1270, might, while they spread the use of the Chinese and Indian mariner's compass, also have drawn attention to the north-east and north-west pointing of the magnetic needle in different regions of the earth, as to a long known phenomenon. We learn positively from the Chinese Penthsaoyan, which was written under the dynasty of Song,* between 1111 and 1117, * It appears to be a remarkable fact, that the earliest classical writer on terrestrial magnetism, William Gilbert, who cannot be supposed to have had the slightest knowledge of Chinese literature, should regard the mariner's compass as a Chinese invention, which had been brought to Europe by Marco Polo. " Ilia 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." (Guili- elmi Gilberti Colcestrensis, Medici Londinensis de Magnete Physio- logia nova, Lond. 1600, p. 4.) The idea of the introduction of the compass by Marco Polo, whose travels occurred in the interval between 1271 and 1295, and who, therefore, returned to Italy after the mariner's compass had been mentioned as a long-known instrument by Guyot de Provins in his poem, as well as by Jacques de Vitry and Dante, is not supported by any evidence. Before Marco Polo set out on his travels in the middle of the thirteenth century, Catalans and Basques already made use of the compass. (See Raymond Lully, in the Treatise Dt Contemplation?,, written in 1272.) OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 657 that the mode of measuring the amount of western declina- tion had long been understood. The merit due to Columbus is not to have made the first observation of the existence of magnetic variation, since we find, for example, that this is set down on the chart of Andrea Bianco, in 1436, but that he was the first who remarked, on the 13th of September, 1492, that " 2°^ east of the island of Corvo, the magnetic variation changed and passed from N.E. to N.W." This discovery of a magnetic line without variation marks a memorable epoch in nautical astronomy. It was celebrated with just praise by Oviedo, Las Casas, and Herrera. We can- not assume with Livio Sanuto, that this discovery is due to the celebrated navigator, Sebastian Cabot, without entirely losing sight of the fact, that Cabot's first voyage, made at the expense of some merchants of Bristol, and distinguished for its success in reaching the continent of America, was not accomplished until five years after the first expedition of Co- lumbus. The great Spanish navigator has not only the merit of having discovered a region in the Atlantic Ocean, where at that period the magnetic meridian coincided with the geo- graphical, but also that of having made the ingenious observa- tion, that magnetic variation might likewise serve to deter- \ mine the ship's place with respect to longitude. In ih£.J journal of the second voyage (April, 1496), we find that the Admiral actually determined his position by the observed de- cimation. The difficulties were, it is true, at that period still unknown, which oppose this method of determining longi- tude,— especially where the magnetic lines of declination are so much curved as to follow the parallels of latitude for consi- derable distances, instead of coinciding with the direction of the meridian. Magnetic and astronomical methods were anxiously sought, in order to determine on land and at sea, those points which are intersected by the ideal line of demarcation. The Imperfect condition of science, and of all the instruments used at sea in 1493% to measure space and time, were un- - equal to afford a practical solution to so difficult a problem. Under these circumstances, Pope Alexander VI. actually ren- dered, without knowing it, an essential service to nautical astronomy and the physical science of terrestrial magnetism, by his presumption in dividing half the globe between two powerful states. From that time forth the maritime powers 2 u 658 COSMOS. were continually beset by a host of impracticable proposals. Sebastian Cabot, as we learn from his friend, Richard Eden, boasted on his death-bed, of having had a " divine revelation made to him of an infallible method of finding geographical longitude." This revelation consisted in a firm conviction that magnetic declination changed regularly and rapidly with the meridian. The cosmographer, Alonso de Santa Cruz, •y one of the instructors of Charles V., undertook, although cer- tainly from very imperfect observations, to draw up the first general variation chart ',* in the year 1530, and, therefore, one hundred and fifty years before Halley. The advance or movement of the magnetic lines, the know- ledge of which has generally been ascribed to Gassendi, was not even conjectured by William Gilbert, although Acosta, " from the instruction of Portuguese navigators," had at a much earlier period assumed that there were four lines without decli- nation over the earth's surface. f No sooner was the dipping- needle invented in England, in 1576, by Robert Norman, than Gilbert boasted that, by means of this instrument, he could determine a ship's place in dark starless nights (aere calignoso).^ Immediately after my return to Europe I showed * In corroboration of this statement regarding Sebastian Cabot on his death-bed, see the well written and critically historical work by Biddle, entitled. A Memoir of Sebastian Cabo, (p. 222). " We do not know with certainty," says Biddle, " neither the year of the death or 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." On the materials according to which the variation chart of Alonzo de Santa Cruz was compiled, as well as on the variation-compass, whose construction allowed alti- tudes of the sun to be taken at the same time, see Navarrete, Noticia biografica del cosmografo Alonso de Santa Cruz, pp. 3-8. The first / variation-compass was constructed before 1525, by an ingenious apothe- / cary of Seville, Felipe Guillen. The endeavours to learn more exactly Wthe direction of the curves of magnetic declination were so earnest, that, in 1585, Juan Jayme sailed with Francisco Gali from Manila to Aca- pulco, merely for the purpose of trying in the Pacific a declination in- strument which he had invented. See my Jlssai politique sur ia Nouvelle Espagne, t. iv. p. 110. t Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indias, lib. i. cap 17. These four magnetic lines without variation led Halley, by the contests between Henry Bond and Beckborrow, to the theory of four magnetic poles. % Gilbert, de Magnete Physiologia nova, lib. v. cap. 8. p. 200. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 659 from my own observations in the Pacific, that under certain local relations, as for instance during the season of the con- stant mist (garua), on the coasts of Peru, the latitude might be determined from the magnetic inclination with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of navigation. I have purposely dwelt at length on these individual points, in order to show in our con- sideration of an important cosmical event, that with the ex- ception of measuring the intensity of magnetic force, and the horary variations of the declination, all those questions were broached in the sixteenth century, with which the physicists of the present day are still occupied. On the remarkable chart of America, appended to the edition of the geography of Pto- lemy, published at Rome in 1508, we find the magnetic pole marked as an insular mountain, north of Gruentlant (Green- land), which is represented as a part of Asia. Martin Cortez in t\\e Breve Compendia de laSphera (1545), and Livio Sanuto in the Geographia di Tolomeo (1588), place it further to the south. The latter writer entertained a prejudice, which has unfortunately survived to the present time, that "if we were so fortunate as to reach the magnetic pole (il calamitico), we should there experience some miraculous effects (alcun mira- culoso stupendo effetto") Attention was directed at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, in reference to the distribution of heat and meteorology, to the decrease of heat with the increase of western longitude* (the curvature of the isothermal lines) ; to the law of rotation of the winds, generalized by Lord Bacon ; f to the decrease of humidity * In the temperate and cold zones, this inflection of the isothermal lines is general between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of North America, but within the tropical zone the isothermal lines run almost parallel to the equator; and in the hasty conclusions into which Columbus was led, no account was taken of the difference between sea and land climates, or between east and west coasts, or of the influence of latitudes and winds, — as, for instance, those blowing over Africa. (Compare the remarkable considerations on climates which are brought together in the Vida del Almirante cap 66). The early conjecture of Columbus regarding the curvature of the isothermal lines in the Atlantic Ocean was well founded, if limited to the extra-tropical (tem- perate and cold) zones. •f An observation of Columbus, (Vida del Almirante, cap. 55; Examen crit., t. iv. p. 253; and see also vol. i. p. 322 J 2 u 2 660 COSMOS. in the atmosphere, aiad of the quantity of rain owing to the destruction of forests ;* to the decrease of heat with the increase of elevation above the level of the sea ; and to the lower limit of the line of perpetual snow. The fact of this limit being a function of geographical latitude was first recognized by Peter Martyr Anghiera in 1510. Alonso de Hojeda and Amerigo Vespucci had seen the snowy mountains of Santa Marta (Tierras nevadas de Citarma), as early as the year 1500; Rodrigo Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa examined them more closely in 1501 ; but it was not until the pilot Juan Vespucci, nephew of Amerigo, had communicated to his friend and patron Anghiera, an account of the expedition of Colme- nares, that the tropical snow region visible on the mountainous shore of the Caribbean Sea, acquired a great and, we might say, a cosmical importance. A connexion was now established between the lower limit of perpetual snow and the general re- lations of the decrease of heat and the differences of climate. Herodotus, (ii. 22,) in his investigations on the rising of the Nile, wholly denied the existence of snowy mountains south of the tropic of Cancer. Alexander's campaigns indeed led the Greeks to the Nevados of the Hindoo Coosh range (opp dydwKpa}, but this is situated between 34° and 36° north latitude. The only notice of snow in the equatorial region with which I am acquainted, before the discovery of America, and prior to the year 1500, and which has been but little re- garded by physicists, is contained in the celebrated inscrip- tion of Adulis, which is considered by Niebuhr to be later than Juba and Augustus. The knowledge of the dependence of the lower limit of snow on the latitude of the place,f the first in- sight into the law of the vertical decrease of temperature and * The Admiral, says Fernando Colon (Vida del Aim. cap. 58), as- scribed the extent and denseness of the forests which clothed the ridges of the mountains, to the many refreshing falls of rain, which cooled the air whilst he continued to sail along the coast of Jamaica. He remarks in his ship's journal, on this occasion, that "formerly the quantity of rain was equally great in Madeira, the Canaries 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 cen- turies and a half. t See vol i. p. 386, 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 " Abyssinian snow, in which the traveller sinks up to the knees," OCEANIC DISCOVEK1ES. 661 the sinking of an almost equally cold upper stratum of air from the equator towards the poles, designate an important epoch in the history of our physical knowledge. If on the one hand, accidental observations, having a wholly unscientific origin, favoured this knowledge in the suddenly enlarged spheres of natural investigation, the age we are de- scribing was, on the other hand, from an unfortunate combina- tion of circumstances, singularly deficient in the advantages arising from a purely scientific impulse. Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest physicist of the fifteenth century, who combined an enviable insight into nature with distinguished mathema- tical knowledge, was the cotemporary of Columbus, and died three years after him. Meteorology, as well as hydraulics and optics, had occupied the attention of this celebrated artist. The influence which he exercised during his life, was made manifest by his great works in painting, and by the elo- quence of his discourse, and not by his writings. Had the physical views of Leonardo da Vinci not remained buried in his manuscripts, the field of observation opened by the new world, would in a great degree have been worked out in many departments of science, before the great epoch of Galileo, Pascal, and Huygens. Like Francis Bacon, and a whole cen- tury before him, he regarded induction as the only sure method of treating natural science ("dobbiamo cominciare dalV esperienza, e per mezzo di questa scoprirne la regions"} * As we find, notwithstanding, the want of instruments of measurement, that the questions of climatic relations in the tropical mountainous regions, — the distribution of heat, the extremes of atmospheric dryness, and the frequency of electric explosions, — were frequently discussed in the accounts of the first land journeys; so also it appears that mariners very early acquired correct views of the direction and rapidity of the * Leonardo da Vinci correctly observes of this proceeding, " qtiesto e il methodo daosservarsi nella ricerca de' fenomeni della natura." See Venturi, Essai sur les Ouvrages physico-mathematiques de Leonardo da Vinci, 1797, p. 31; Amoretti, Memorie storiche su la Vita di Lio- nardo da Vinci, Milano, 1804, p. 143 (in his edition of Trattato della Pittura, t. xxxiii of the Classic! Italiani); Whewell, Pliilos. of the Inductive Sciences, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 368-370 ; Brewster, Life of Nevj- ton, p. 332. Most of Leonardo da Vinci's physical works bear the data, of the year 1498. 662 COSMOS. currents which traverse the Atlantic Ocean, like rivers of very variable breadth. The actual equatorial current, the movement of the waters between the tropics, was first des- cribed by Columbus. He expresses himself most positively and generally, on the subject, on his third voyage, saying, " the waters move with the heavens (con los cielos) from east to west." Even the direction of separate floating masses of sea- weed confirmed this view.* A small pan of tinned iron, wrhich he found in the hands of the natives of the island of Guadaloupe, confirmed Columbus in the idea that it might be of European origin and obtained from the remains of a shipwrecked vessel, borne by the equatorial current from Spain to the coasts of America. In his geognostic fancies, he regarded the existence of the series of the smaller Antilles and the peculiar configuration of the larger islands, or, in other words, the correspondence in the direction of their * The great attention paid by the early navigators to natural pheno- mena may be seen in the oldest Spanish accounts. Diego de Lepe, for instance, found, in 1499 (as we learn from a witness in the law-suit against the heirs of Columbus), by means of a vessel having valves, which did not open until it had reached the bottom, that at a distance from the mouth of the Orinoco, a stratum of fresh water of 6 fathoms depth flowed above the salt water (Navarrete, Viages y Descubrim., t. iii. p. 549). Columbus drew milk-white sea water, (" white as if meal had been mixed with it,") on the south coast of Cuba and carried it to Spain in bottles (Vida del Almirante, p. 56). I have myself been at the same spots, for the purpose of determining longitudes, and it surprised me to think that the milk-white colour of sea-water, so common on shoals, should have been regarded by the experienced Admiral as a new and un- expected phenomenon. With reference to the gulf-stream itself, which must be regarded as an important cosmical phenomenon, many effects had been observed long before the discovery of America, produced by the sea washing on shore at the Canaries and the Azores stems of bam- boos, trunks of pines, corpses of strange aspect from the Antilles, and even living men in canoes "which could never sink.*' These effects were however then attributed solely to the strength of the westerly gales ( Vida del Almirante, cap. 8; Herrera, Dec. i. lib. i. cap. 2, lib. ix. cap. !J2); whilst the movement of the waters, which is wholly independent of the direction of the winds — the returning stream of the oceanic current, which brings every year tropical fruits from the West Indian Islands to the coasts of Ireland and Norway, was not accurately recognized. Compare the memoir of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, On the Possibility of a North- west Passage to Cathay, in Hakylut, Navigations and Voyages, vol. iii. p. 14; Herrera, Dec. i. lib. ix. cap. 12; and Examencrit., t. ii. pp. 247- 257 ; t. iii. pp. 99-108. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 663 coasts with that of their parallels of latitude, as the long con- tinued action of the movement of the sea between the tropics from east to west. When the Admiral on his fourth and last voyage discovered the inclination from north to south of the coasts of the conti- nent from Cape Gracias a Dios to the Laguna de Chiriqui, he felt the action of the violent current which runs N. and N.N.W., and is induced by the contact of the equatorial cur- rent with the opposite dyke-like projecting coast line. Anghiera survived Columbus sufficiently long to become ac- quainted with the deflection of the waters of the Atlantic throughout their whole course, and to recognize the existence of the rotatory movement in the Mexican Gulf, and the pro- pagation of this movement to the Tierra de los Bacallaos (Newfoundland) and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. I have elsewhere circumstantially considered how much the expedi- tion of Ponce de Leon, in the year 1512, contributed to the establishment of more exact ideas, and have shown that in a treatise written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert between the years 1567 and 1576, the movement of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean from the Cape of Good Hope to the banks of New- foundland, is treated according to views which coincide al- most entirely with those of my excellent deceased friend, Major Rennell. At the same time that the knowledge of oceanic currents was generally diffused, men also became acquainted with those great banks of sea- weed, (Fucus natans,) — the oceanic meadows which presented the singular spectacle of the accumulation of a social plant over an extent of space almost seven times greater than the area of France. The great Fucus Bank, the Mar de Sargasso, extends between 19° and 34° north latitude. The major axis is situated about 7° west of the island of Corvo. The lesser Fucus Bank lies in the space between the Bermudas and the Bahamas. Winds and partial currents variously affect, according to the character of the season, the length and circumference of these Atlantic fucoid meadows, for the first description of which we are indebted to Columbus. No other sea in either hemisphere presents an accumulation of social plants on so large a scale."*4 * Examen crit., t. iii. pp. 26 and 66-99; and see also, Cosmos, p. 313. 664 COSMOS. The important era of geographical discoveries and of the sudden opening of an unknown hemisphere, not only extended our knowledge of the earth, but it also expanded our views of the whole universe, or in other words, of the visible vault of heaven. Since man, to borrow a fine expression of Garci- laso de la Vega, in his wanderings to distant regions sees " lands and stars simultaneously change,"*' the advance to the equator on both coasts of Africa and even beyond the southern extremity of the New Continent, must have pre~ sented to travellers by sea and land, the glorious aspect of the southern constellations, longer and more frequently than could have been the case at the time of Hiram and the Ptolemies, or during the Roman dominion, and the period in which the Arabs maintained commercial intercourse with the nations dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea or of the Indian Ocean, between the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and the western peninsula of India. Amerigo Vespucci, in his letters, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, Pigafetta, the companion of Magel- lan and Elcano, and Andrea Corsali, in his voyage to Cochin in the East Indies, in the beginning of the sixteenth century y gave the first and most animated accounts of the southern sky (beyond the feet of the Centaur and the glorious constellation Argo). Amerigo, who had higher literary acquirements, and whose style was also more redundant than that of the others,, extolls, not ungracefully, the glowing richness of the light and the picturesque grouping and strange aspect of the constella- tions that circle round the southern pole, which is surrounded by so few stars. He maintains in his letters to Pierfrancesco de' Medici, that he had carefully devoted his attention, on his third voyage, to the southern constellations, having made drawings of them and measured their polar distances. His communica- tions regarding these observations do not indeed leave much cause to regret that any portion of them should have been lost. I find that the first mention of the mysterious black specks (coal-bags) was made by Anghiera, in the year 1510. They had already been observed in 1499 by the companions- of Vicente Yanez Pinzon, on the expedition dispatched from Palos, and which took possession of the Brazilian Cape San * Alonso de Ercilla has imitated the passage of Garcilaso in the Araucana : "Climas passe, mudb constclaciones." — See Cosmos, p. 42£^ OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 665 Augustin.* The Canopo fosco ( Canopus niger) of Amerigo, is probably also one of these coal-bags. The intelligent Acosta compares them to the darkened portion of the moon's disc (in partial eclipses), and appears to ascribe them to a void in the heavens, or to an absence of stars. Rigaud has shown how the reference to the coal-bags, of which Acosta says- positively, that they are visible in Peru (and not in Europe), and move round the south pole, has been regarded by a cele- brated astronomer as the first notice of spots on the sun.f The knowledge of the two Magellanic clouds, has been un- justly ascribed to Pigafetta, for I find that Anghiera, on the observations of Portuguese seamen, mentions these clouds fully eight years before the termination of Magellan's voy- age of circumnavigation. He compares their mild efful- gence to that of the milky way. The larger cloud did not, however, escape the vigilance of the Arabs, and it is proba- bly the white ox (El Bakar] of their southern sky, the white sfwt of which the astronomer Abdurrahman Sofi says that it could not be seen at Bagdad or in northern Arabia, but at Tehama, and in the parallel of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. The Greeks and Romans, who followed the same path under the Lagides and later, did not observe, or at least make no- mention in their extant writings, of a cloud of light which, nevertheless, between 11° and 12° north latitude, rose three degrees above the horizon, at the time of Ptolemy, and more than four degrees in that of Abdurrahman, in the year 1000. J. At the present day, the altitude of the central part of the * Petr. Mart. Ocean., Dec. i. lib .ix. p. 96; Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 221 and 317. t Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indicts, lib. i. cap. 2; Rigaud, Ac- count of Harriot's Astron. Papers, 1833, p. 37. I 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. (According to the events referred to by Angliicra, Dec. ii. lib. x. p. 204, and Dec. iii. lib. x. p. 232, the pas- sage in 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 letter to Giuliano de Medici, the- rotatory and translator^ movement of " due nugolette di ragionevol gran- dezza." The star which he represents between Nubecula major and minor appears to me to be ft Hydrse ; Examen crit., t. v. pp. 234-238). Regarding Petrus Theodori of Embden, and Houtmann, the pupil of the mathematician Plancius, see an historical article by Olbers, iiv Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 1840, s. 249. 666 COSMOS. Nulecula major may be about 5° at Aden. The reason that seamen usually first see the Magellanic clouds in much more southern latitudes, as, for instance, near the equator, or even far to the*- south of it, is probably to be ascribed to the character of the atmosphere, and to the vapours near the horizon, which reflect white light. In southern Arabia, especially in the interior of the country, the deep azure of the sky, and the great dryness of the atmosphere, must favour the recognition of the Magellanic clouds, as we see exemplified by the visibility of comets' tails at daylight, be- tween the tropics and in very southern latitudes. The arrangement of the stars near the antarctic pole into new constellations was made in the seventeenth century. The observations made with imperfect instruments by the Dutch navigators, Petrus Theodori of Embden, and Fried- rick Houtmann, who was a prisoner in Java and Sumatra to the King of Bantam and Atschin (1596-1599), were incor- porated in the celestial charts of Hondius Bleaw (Jansonius Csesius,) and Bayer. The less regular distribution of masses of light gives to the zone of the southern sky situated between the parallels of 50° and 80°, which is so rich in crowded nebulous spots and starry masses, a peculiar, and one might almost say pictu- resque character, depending on the grouping of the stars of the first and second magnitudes, and their separation by intervals, which appear to the naked eye desert and devoid of radiance. These singular contrasts, — the milky way, which presents numerous portions more brilliantly illumined than the rest, and the insulated, revolving, rounded Magellanic clouds, and the coalbags, the larger of which lies close upon a beautiful constellation, — all contribute to augment the diversity of the picture of nature, and rivet the attention of the susceptible mind to separate regions on the confines of the southern sky. One of these, the constellation of the Southern Cross, has acquired a peculiar character of importance from the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, owing to the religious feelings of Christian navigators and missionaries, who have visited the tro- pical and southern seas, and both the Indies. The four principal stars of which it is composed, are mentioned in the Almagest, and, therefore, were regarded in the time of Adrian and Anto- ninus Pius, as parts of the constellation of the Centaur.* It * Compare the researches of Delambre and Encke with Ideler, OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 667 seems singular, that since the figure of this constellation is so striking, and is so remarkably well defined and individualized, in the same way as those of the Greater and Lesser Bear, the Scorpion, Cassiopea, the Eagle, and the Dolphin, these four stars of the Southern Cross should not have been earlier sepa- rated from the large ancient constellation of the Centaur ; and this is so much the more remarkable, since the Persian Kazwini, and other Mahomedan astronomers, took pains to discover crosses in the Dolphin and the Dragon. Whether the courtly flattery of the Alexandrian literati, who converted Canopus into a Ptolemccon likewise included the stars of our Southern Cross, for the glorification of Augustus, in a Ccesaris thronon, never visible in Italy, is a question that can- not now be very readily answered.f At the time of Claudius Ptolemaeus, the beautiful star at the base of the Southern Cross had still an altitude of 6° 10' at its meridian passage at Alexandria, whilst in the present day it culminates there several degrees below the horizon. In order at this time (1847) to see a Crucis at an altitude of 6° 10', it is neces- sary, taking the refraction into account, to be ten degrees south of Alexandria, in the parallel of 21° 43' north latitude. In the fourth century the Christian anchorites in the Thebaid desert might have seen the Cross at an altitude of ten degrees. I doubt, however, whether its designation is due to them, for Dante, in the celebrated passage of the Purgatorio : — lo mi volsi a man destra, e posi mente All'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai fuor ch' alia prima gente ; and Amerigo Vespucci, who, at the aspect of the starry skies of the south, first called to mind this passage on his third voyage, and even boasted that he now " looked on the four stars never seen till then by any save the first human pair," were both unacquainted with the denomination of the Southern Cross. Amerigo simply observes, that the four stars form a rhomboidal figure (ima mandorla), and this remark was made in the year 1501. The more frequently the maritime expe- ditions on the routes opened by Gama and Magellan, round the Cape of Good Hope and through the Pacific, were multi- Ursprung der Sternnamen, s. xlix. 263 und 277; also my Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 319-324; t. v. pp. 17-19, 30 and 230-234. f Plin. ii. 70; Ideler, Sternnamcn, s. 260 und 295. 668 COSMOS. plied, and as Christian missionaries penetrated into the newly discovered tropical lands of America, the fame of this constel- lation continually increased. I find it mentioned first by the Florentine, Andrea Corsali, in 1517, and subsequently, in 1520, by Pigafetta, as a wonderful cross (croce maravigliosa), more glorious than all the constellations in the heavens. The learned Florentine extols Dante's " prophetic spirit," as if the great poet had not as much erudition as creative imagination, and as if he had not seen Arabian celestial globes, and con- versed with many learned oriental travellers of Pisa.*1 Acosta, in his Historia natural y moral de las Indlas\ remarks, that in the Spanish settlements of tropical America, the first set- tlers were accustomed, even as is now done, to use, as a celes- tial clock, the Southern Cross, calculating the hour from its inclined or vertical position. * I have elsewhere attempted to dispel the doubts which several distinguished commentators of Dante have advanced 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. 1. v. 22-24), with the other passages \-Purg. 1. v. 37; viii. v. 85-93; xxix. v. 121 ; xxx. v. 97; xxxi. v. 106; and Inf. xxvi. v. 117 and 127. The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three "facelle" (" Di che il polo di qua. tutto quanto arde," and which set when the four stars of the Cross rise,) to be Canopus, Achernar, and Fomalhaut. I have endeavoured to solve these difficulties by the following considera- tions. " The philosophical and religious mysticism which penetrates and vivifies the grand composition of Dante, assigns to all objects, besides their real or material existence, an ideal one. It seems almost as if we beheld two worlds reflected in one another. The four stars represent, in their moral order, the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, strength, and temperance ; and they, therefore, merit the name of the holy lights, " luci sante." The three stars, which light the pole, represent the theo- logical virtues, faith, hope, and charity. The first of these beings themselves reveals their double nature, chanting, ' Here we are nymphs, in heaven we are stars/ Noi sem qui ninfe, e nel cielo semo stelle. In the land of truth, in the terrestrial paradise there are seven nymphs. In cerchio faceran di se claustro le sette ninfe. This is the imion of all the cardinal and theological virtues. Under these mystic forms, we can scarcely recognise the real objects of the firmament, separated from each other, according to the eternal laws of the celestial mechanism. The ideal world is a free creation of the soul, the product of poetic inspiration." (Examen crit., t. iv. pp. 324-332.) + Acosta, lib. i. cap. 5. Compare my Relation historique, t. i. p. 209. As the stars a and y of the Southern Cross have almost the- same right ascension, the Cross appears perpendicular when passing the meridian; but the natives too often forget that this celestial clock OCEANIC DISCOYEKIES. 669 In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the starry heavens are continually changing their aspect from every portion of the earth's surface. The early races of mankind beheld in the far north the glorious constellation of our southern hemisphere rise before them, which, after remaining long invisible, will again appear in those latitudes after the lapse of thousands of years. Canopus was fully 1° 20' be- low the horizon at Toledo (39° 54' north latitude), in the time of Columbus ; and now the same star is almost as much above the horizon at Cadiz. While at Berlin, and in the northern latitudes the stars of the Southern Cross, as well as a and /3 Centauri, are receding more and more from view, the Magellanic clouds are slowly approaching our latitudes. Canopus was at its greatest northern approximation during the last century, and is now moving nearer and nearer to the south, although very slowly, owing to its vicinity to the south pole of the ecliptic. The Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52° 30' north latitude 2900 years before our era, since, according to Galle, this constellation might previously have reached an altitude of more than 10°. When it disappeared from the horizon of the countries on the Baltic, the great pyramid of Cheops had already been erected more than five hundred years. The pastoral tribe of the Hyksos made their incursion seven hundred years earlier. The past seems to be visibly nearer to us when we connect its measure- ment with great and memorable events. The progress made in nautical astronomy, that is to say, in the improvement of methods of determining the ship's place (its geographical latitude and longitude), was simultane- marks the hour each day 3' 56" earlier. I am indebted to the commu- nications of my friend, Dr. Galle, by whom Le Terrier's planet was first discovered in the heavens, for all the calculations respecting the visi- bility of southern stars in northern latitudes. " The inaccuracy of the calculation, according to which the star a of the Southern Cross, taking refraction into account, would appear to have begun to be invi- sible in 52° 25' north latitude, about the year 2900 before the Christian era, may perhaps amount to more than 100 years, and could not be altogether set aside, even by the strictest mode of calculation, as the proper motion of the fixed stars is probably not uniform for such long intervals of time. The proper motion of a Crucis is about one-third of a second annually, chiefly in right ascension. It may be presumed that the uncertainty produced by neglecting this, does not exceed the above-mentioned limit." 670 COSMOS. ous with the extension of a knowledge of the regions of space, although this knowledge was more the result of sensuous ob- servation than of scientific induction. All that was able in the course of ages to favour advance in the art of navigation — the compass and the more correct acquaintance with magnetic Inclination; the measurement of a ship's speed by a more careful construction of the log and by the use of chronometers and lunar observations ; the improved construction of ships ; the substitution of another force for that of the wind; and lastly, and most especially, the skilful application of astronomy to the ship's reckoning, — must all be regarded as powerful means towards the opening of the different portions of the earth, the more rapid and animated furtherance of general intercourse, and the acquirement of a knowledge of cosmical relations. Assuming this as one point of view, we would again observe, that even in the middle of the thirteenth century nau- tical instruments capable of determining the time by the altitude of the stars, were in use among the seamen of Catalonia and the Island of Majorca, arid that the astrolabe described by Ray- mond Lully in his Arte de Navegar, was almost two hundred years older than that of Martin Behaim. The importance of | astronomical methods was so thoroughly appreciated in I Portugal, that towards the year 1484, Behaim was nominated President of a Junta de Mathematicos, who were to form tables of the sun's declination, and, as Barros observes, to teach pilots the method of navigating by the sun's altitude, \ maniera de navegar por altura del Sol.* This mode of navi- gating by the meridian altitude of the sun was even at that time clearly distinguished from that by the determination of the longitude, por la altura del Este-0este.\ The importance of determining the position of the papal line of demarcation, and of thus fixing the limits between the possessions of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in the newly discovered land of Brazil, and in the group of islands in the South Indian Ocean, increased, as we have already observed, the desire for ascertaining a practical method for determining the longitude. Men perceived how rarely the ancient and imperfect method of lunar eclipses * Barros, da Asia, Dec. i. liv. iv. cap. 2 (1788), p. 282. + Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que Jiicieron por mar los Espanoles, t. iv. p. xxxii. (in the Noticia biographica de Fernando de Magellanes.) OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 671 employed by Hipparchus could be applied, and the use of lunar distances was recommended as early as 1514 by the Nuremburg astronomer, Johann Werner, and soon afterwards by Orontius Finaeus and Gemma Frisius. Unfortunately, however, these methods also remained impracticable, until after many fruitless attempts with the instruments of Peter Apianus, (Bienewitz,) and Alonso de Santa Cruz, the mirror sextant was invented by. the ingenuity of Newton, in 1 700, and was brought in to use amongst seamen by Hadley in 1731. The influence of the Arabian astronomers acted, through the Spaniards, on the general progress of nautical astronomy. Many methods were certainly attempted for determining the ^ longitude which did not succeed ; and the fault of the want of success was less rarely ascribed to the incorrectness of the observation, than to errors of printing in the astronomical ephe- merides of Regiomontanus which were then in use. The Por- tuguese even suspected the correctness of the astronomical data as given by the Spaniards, whose tables they accused of being falsified from political grounds.*' The suddenly awakened desire for the auxiliaries which nautical astronomy promised, at any rate theoretically, is most vividly expressed in the narrations of the travels of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Pigafetta, and of Andreas de San Martin, the celebrated pilot of the Magellanic expedition, who was in possession of the methods ......of Ruy Falero for determining the longitude. Oppositions of planets, occultations of the stars, differences of altitude between the moon and Jupiter, and changes in the moon's declination, were all tried with more or less success. We possess observations of conjunction by Columbus, on the night of the 13th of January, 1493, at Hayti. The necessity for attaching a special and well-informed astronomer to every great expedition was so generally felt, that Queen. Isabella wrote to Columbus on the 5th of September, 1493, " that although he had shown in his undertakings that he knew more than any other living being (que ninguno de los nacidos), she counselled him, nevertheless, to take with him Fray Antonio j de Marchena, as being a learned and skilful astronomer." » Columbus writes in the narrative of his fourth voyage, that " there was only one infallible method of taking a ship's reckoning, viz., that employed by astronomers. He who understands it, may rest satisfied; for that which it yields is * Barros, Dec. iii. parte 2. pp. 050 and 658-662. 672 COSMOS. like unto a prophetic vision (vision profetica)"* Our ignorant * The queen writes to Columbus : " Nosotros mismos y no otro alguno, habemos visto algo del libro que nos dejustcs," " we ourselves, and no one else, have seen the book you have sent us," (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 plati- -camos y vemos, conocemos cuan gran cosa ha seido este negocio vuestro, y que habeis sabido en ello mas que nunca se penso que pudiera saber ninguno de los nacidos. 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 conformaba con vuestro parecer." " The more we have examined it, the more we have appreciated your undertaking, and the more we have felt that you have shown by it, that you know more than any human being could be supposed to know. It appears to us that it would be well for you to take with you some astrologer, and that Fray Antonio de Marchena would be a very suitable person for such a pur- pose." Kespectirig this Marchena, who is identical with Fray Juan Perez, the guardian 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. pp. 597 and 603. (Munoz, Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, lib. iv. § 24.) Columbus, in a letter from Jamaica, to the Christianisimos Monarcas, July 7, 1503, calls the astronomical ephe- merides, "una vision profetica." (Navarrete, t. i. p. 306.) The Por- tuguese astronomer, Buy Falero, a native of Cubilla, nominated by Charles Y., in 1519, Caballero de la Orden de Santiago, at the same time as Magellan, played an important part in the preparations for Magel- lan'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. pp. 276 and 302; t. iv. p. 315), probably the same which were printed at Seville by John Escomberger in 1535. Navarrete (Obra postuma $obre la Hist, de la Nautica y de las ciencias matematicas, 1846, p. 147) had not been able to find the book even in Spain. Respect- ing the four methods of determining the longitude which Falero had received from the suggestions of his " Demonio familiar," see Herrera, Dec. 11, lib. ii. cap. 19; and Navarrete, t. v. p. Ixxvii. Subse- quently the cosmographer Alonso de Santa Cruz, the same who (like the apothecary of Seville, Felipe Guillen, 1525) attempted to determine the longitude by means of the variation of the magnetic needle, made im- practicable proposals for accomplishing the same object by the con- veyance of time; but his chronometers were sand-and-water clocks, wheel works moved by weights, and even by wicks " dipped in oil," which were consumed in very equal intervals of time ! Pigafetta {Transunto del Trattato di Navigazione, p. 219) recommends altitudes of the moon at the meridian. Amerigo Vespucci, speaking of the method of determining longitude by lunar distances, says with great naivete and truth, that its advantages arise from the " corso piti leggier de la lunaSy (Canovai, Viaggi, p. 57.) 673 pilots, when they have lost sight of land for several days know not where they are. They would not be able to find the countries again which I have discovered. To navigate a ship requires the compass (compas y arte), and the know- 1 ledge or art of the astronomer." I have given these characteristic details in order more clearly to show the manner in which nautical astronomy — the powerful instrument for rendering navigation more secure, and thereby of facilitating access to all portions of the earth — was first developed in the period of time under consider- ation, and how, in the general intellectual activity of the age, men perceived the possibility of establishing methods which could not be made practically applicable until im- provements were effected in solar and lunar tables, and in the construction of time-pieces and instruments for measuring angles. If the character of an age be " the manifestation of the human mind in any definite epoch," the age of Columbus and of the great nautical discoveries must be regarded as having given a new and higher impetus to the acquirements of succeeding centuries, whilst it increased in an unexpected manner the objects of science and contemplation. It is the peculiar attribute of important discoveries at once to extend the domain of our possessions, and the prospect into the new territories which yet remain open to conquest. Weak minds complacently believe that in their own age humanity has reached the culminating point of intellectual progress ; for- getting that by the internal connection existing among all natural phenomena, in proportion as we advance, the field to be traversed acquires additional extension, and that it is bounded by an horizon which incessantly recedes before the eyes of the enquirer. Where, in the history of nations, can we find an epoch similar to that in which events so fraught with important results as the discovery and first colonisation of America, the passage to the East Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, and Magellan's first circumnavigation, occurred simultaneously with the highest perfection of art, with the attainment of intellectual and religious freedom, and with the sudden enlargement of the knowledge of the earth and the heavens ? Such an age owes a very inconsiderable portion of its greatness to the distance at which we contemplate it, or to the circum- 2x 674 COSMOS. stance of its appearing before us amid the records of history, and free from the disturbing reality of the present. But here too, as in all earthly things, the brilliancy of greatness is dimmed by the association of emotions of profound sorrow. The advance of cosmical knowledge was bought at the price of the violence and revolting horrors which conquerors — the so-called civilisers of the earth — spread around them. But it were irrational and rashly bold to decide dogmatically on the balance of blessings and evils* in the interrupted history of the development of mankind. ( It becomes not man to pro- nounce judgment 011 the great events of the world's history, which slowly developed in the womb of time belong but partially to the age in which we place them. The first discovery of the central and southern portions of the United States of America by the Northmen coincides very nearly with the mysterious appearance of Manco Capac in the elevated plateaux of Peru, and is almost two hundred years prior to the arrival of the Azteks in the valley of Mexico. The foundation of the principal city (Tenochtitlan) occurred fully three hundred and twenty -five years later. If these Scandinavian colonisations had been attended by permanent results, if they had been maintained and protected by a powerful mother- country, the advancing Germanic races would still have found many unsettled hordes of hunters in those regions where the Spanish conquerors met with only peacefully settled agriculturists.^ * The American race, which was the same from 65° north latitude to 55° south latitude, passed directly from the life of hunters to that of cultivators of the soil, without undergoing the intermediate gradation of a pastoral life. This circumstance is so much the more remarkable, because the bison, which is met with in enormous herds is susceptible of domestication, and yields an abundant supply of milk. Little attention has been paid to an account given in Gornara (Hist. gen. de las Indias, cap. 214); according to which it would appear that in the sixteenth century there was a race of men living in the north-west of Mexico, in about 40° north latitude, whose greatest riches consisted in herds of tamed bisons (bueyes con una giba). From these animals the natives obtained materials for clothing, food, and drink, which was probably the blood, (Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 416,) for the dislike to milk, or at least its non- employment appears, before the arrival of Europeans, to have been common to all the natives of the new continent, as well as to the inha- bitants of China and Cochin-China. There were certainly, from the earliest times, herds of domesticated llamas in the mountainous parts of OCEANIC DISCOVEKIES. 675 The age of the Conquista, which comprises the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, indi- cates a remarkable concurrence of great events in the political and social life of the nations of Europe. In the same month in which Hernan Cortez, after the battle of Otumba, advanced upon Mexico, with the view of besieging it, Martin Luther burnt the Pope's bull at Wittenberg, and laid the founda- tion of the Reformation which promised to the human mind both freedom and progress on paths which had hitherto been almost wholly untrodden.* Still earlier, the noblest forms of ancient Hellenic art, the Laocoon, the Torso, the Apollo de Belvidere and the Medicean Venus, had been resuscitated as it were from the tombs in which they had so long been buried. There flourished in Italy, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and Raphael; and in Germany, Holbein and Albert Durer. The Copernican system of the universe was discovered, if not made generally known, in the year in which Columbus died, and fourteen years after the discovery of the new continent. The importance of this discovery, and of the first coloni- sation of Europeans involves a consideration of other fields of enquiry besides those to which these pages are devoted, and Quito, Peru, and Chili. These herds constituted the riches of the nations who were settled there, and were engaged in the cultivation of the soil; in the Cordilleras of South America there were no "pastoral nations/' and '•'pastoral life" was not known. What are the "tame deer," near the Punt a de St. Helena, which are mentioned in Herrera Dec. II. lib. x. cap. 6, (T. I. p. 471, ed. Amberes, 1728)? These deer are said to have given milk and cheese, " ciervos que dan leche y queso y se crian en casa r From what source is this notice taken1? It cannot have arisen from a confusion with the llamas (having neither horns nor antlers) of the cold mountainous region, of which Garcilaso affirms that in Peru, and especially on ttie plateau of Collao, they were used for ploughing. (Comment reales, P. I. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 133. Compare also Pedro de Cieca de Leon. Chronica del Peru, Sevilla, 15o3, cap. 110, p. 264.) This employment of llamas appears, however, to have been a rare excep- tion, and a merely local custom. In general the American races were remarkable for their deficiency of domesticated animals, and this had a profound influence on family life. * On the hope which Luther in the execution of his great and free- minded work, placed especially on the younger generation, the youth of Germany, see the remarkable expressions in a letter written in June, 1518. (>Teander; de Vicelio, p. 7.) 2x2 676 COSMOS. closely bears upon the intellectual and moral influences exer- cised on the improvement of the social condition of mankind by the sudden enlargement of the accumulated mass of new ideas. We would simply draw attention to the fact, that since this period, a new and more vigorous activity of the mind and feelings, animated by bold aspirations and hopes which can scarcely be frustrated, has gradually penetrated through all grades of civil society ; that the scanty population of one-half of the globe, especially in the portions opposite to Europe, has favoured the settlements of colonies, which have been converted by their extent and position into independent states, enjoying unlimited power in the choice of their mode of free government; and finally that religious reform— the precursor of great political revolutions — could not fail to pass through the different phases of its development in a portion of the earth which had become the asylum of all forms of faith, and of the most different views regarding divine things. The daring enterprise of the Genoese seaman is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these momentous events. Accident, and not fraud and dissensions, deprived the continent of America of the name of Columbus.^ The * I have shown elsewhere how a knowledge of the period at which Yespucci was named royal chief pilot, alone refutes the accusation first brought against 'him by the astronomer Schoner, of Nuremberg, in 1533., of having artfully inserted the words "Terra di Amerigo" in charts which he altered. The high esteem which the Spanish court paid to the hydrographical and astronomical knowledge of Amerigo Vespucci, is clearly manifested in the instructions (Real titulo con extensas facul- tades) which were given to him when he was appointed piloto mayor, on the 22nd of March, 1508. (Navarrete, t. iii. pp. 297-302.) He was placed at the head of a true Deposito hydrografico, and was to prepare for the Casade Contratacion in Seville, (the central point of all oceanic expeditions,) a general description of coasts and account of positions, (Padron general) in which all new discoveries were to be annually entered. But even as early as 1507, the name of "Americi terra" had been proposed for the new continent, by a person whose existence even was undoubtedly unknown to Vespucci, the geographer Waldsee-muller (Martinus Hyla- comylus) of Freiburg, in the Breisgau, (the director of a printing establishment at St. Die in Lorraine,) in a small work intitled Cosmo- graphics Introductio, insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii Navigationes (impr. in oppido S. Deodati, 1507). Ringmann, professor of cosmo- graphy at Basle, (better known under the name of Philesius) Hyla- comylus, and Father Gregorius Eeisch, who edited the Margarita OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 677 new world continuously brought nearer to Europe during the last half century, by means of commercial intercourse Philosophica, were intimate friends. In the last-named work we find a treatise written in 1509 by Hylacomylus on architecture and perspective. {Examen crit. t. iv. p. 112.) Laurentius Phrisius of Metz, a friend of Hylacomylus, and like him patronised by Duke Bene, of Lorraine, who maintained a correspondence with Vespucci, in the Strasburg edition of Ptolemy, 1522, speaks of Hylacomylus as deceased. In the map of the new continent contained in this edition, and drawn by Hylacomylus, the name of America occurs for the first time in the editions of Ptolemy's Geography. According to my investigations, a map of the world by Petrus Apianus, which was once included in Cra- inefs edition of Solinus, and a second time in the Vadian edition of Mela, and represented, like more modern Chinese maps, the Isthmus of Panama broken through, had appeared two years earlier. (Examen crit. t. iv. pp. 99-124; t. v. pp. 168-176.) It is a great error to regard the map of 1527, obtained from the Ebner library at Nuremberg now in Weimar, and the map of 1529 of Diego Ribero, which differs from the former and is engraved by Gussefeld, as the oldest maps' of the new continent, (Op. cit. t. ii. p. 184; t. iii. p. 191). Vespucci had visited the coasts of South America in the expedition of Alonso de Hojeda, a year after the third voyage of Columbus, in 1499, in company with Juan de la Cosa, whose map, drawn at Puerto de Santa Maria in 1500, fully six years before Columbus' death, was first made known by m^gfilL / Vespucci could not have had any motive for feigning a voyage in the year 1497, for he, as well as Columbus, was firmly persuaded, until his death, that only parts of Eastern Asia had been reached. (Compare the letter of Columbus, February, 1502, to Pope Alexander VI., and another, July, 1503, to Queen Isabella, in Navarrete, t. i. p. 304, t. ii.p. 280; and Vespucci's letter to Pierfrancesco de' Medici, in Bandini's Vita e Letter e di Amerigo Vespucci, pp. 66 and 83.) Pedro de Ledesma, the pilot of Columbus on his third voyage, says even in 1513, in the lawsuit against the heirs, " that Paria is regarded as a part of Asia, la tierra jirme que dicese que es de Asia." Navarrete, t. iii. p. 539. The frequent periphrases, Hondo nouvo, alter Orbis, Colonus novit Orbis repertor, are not at variance with this, as they only denote regions not before seen, and are so used by Strabo, Mela, Tertullian, Isidore of N ) Seville, and Cadamosto. (Examen crit. t. i. p. 118; t. v. pp. 182-184.) For more than twenty years after the death of Vespucci, which occurred in 1512, and until the calumnious charges of Schoner, in the Opusculum geographicum, 1533, and of Servet, in the Lyons' edition of Ptolemy's ^Geography of 1535, we find no complaint against the Florentine navi- gator. Christopher Columbus, a year before his death, calls him inucho hombre de bien, a man of worth, " worthy of all confidence," and " always inclined to render him service." (Carta a mi muy caro jijo D. Diego, in Navarrete, t. i. p. 351.) Fernando Colon expresses the Isame goodwill towards Vespucci; he wrote the life of his father in 1535, 678 COSMOS. and the improvement of navigation, has exercised an im- in Seville, four years before his death, and with Juan Vespucci, a nephew of Amerigo's, attended the astronomical junta of Badajoz, and the pro- ceedings respecting the possession of the Moluccas; similar feelings were entertained by Petrus Martyr de Anghiera, the personal friend of the admiral, whose correspondence goes down to 1525; by Oviedo, who seeks for everything which can lessen the fame of Columbus; by Ramusio; and by the great historian Guiccardini. 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 second began. The confusion of dates in the many different translations of his voyages is not to be attributed to him, as he did not himself publish any of these accounts. Such con- fusions of figures were, besides, very frequently to be met with in writings printed in the sixteenth century. Oviedo had been present, as one of the Queen's pages, at the audience at which Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1493, received Columbus with much pomp on his return from his first voyage of discovery. Oviedo has three times stated in print that this audience took place in the year 1496, and even that America was dis- covered in 1491. Gomara had the same printed, not in numerals but in words, and placed the discovery of the tierrajirme of America in 1497, in the very year, therefore, which proved so fatal to Amerigo Vespucci's reputation. (Examen crit. t. v. pp. 196-202.) The wholly irreproachable conduct of the Florentine, (who never attempted to attach his name to the new continent, but who, in the grandiloquent accounts which he addressed to the Gonfalionere Piero Goderini, to Pierfrancesco de' Medici, and to Duke Rene II., of Lorraine, had the misfortune of drawing upon himself the attention of posterity more than he deserved) is most positively proved by the lawsuit which the fiscal authorities carried on from 1508 to 1527 against the heirs of Christopher Columbus, for the purpose of withdrawing from them the rights and privileges which had been granted 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 began He lived at Seville during four years of this suit, in which it was to be decided what parts of the new continent had been first reached by Columbus. The most miserable reports found a hearing, and were converted into subjects of accusation by the fiscal; witnesses were sought for at St. Domingo, and all the Spanish ports, at Moguer, Palos, and Seville, and even under the eyes of Amerigo Vespucci and his nephew Juan. The Mundus novm, printed by Johann Otmer, at Augsburg, in 1504; the Raccolta di Vicenza, (Hondo novo e paesi novamente retrovati daAlberico Vespuzio Florentine,} byAlessandro Zorzi, in 1507, and generally ascribed to Fracanzio di Montalboddo; and the Quatuor Navigationes of Martin Waldsee-muller (Hylacomylus) had already appeared ; since 1520, maps had been constructed on which was marked the name of America, which had been proposed by Hylacomylus in 1507, and praised by Joachim Vadius in a letter addressed to Eudolphus OCEANIC DISCOVEKIES. 679 portant influence on the political institutions, the ideas and Agricola from Vienna, in 1512; and yet the person to whom widely- circulated writings in Germany, France, and Italy, attributed a voyage of discovery in 1497, to the tierrafirme of Paria, was neither cited by the fiscal as a witness in the lawsuit which had been begun in 1508, and was continued during nineteen years, nor was he even spoken of as the predecessor or the opponent of Columbus. Why, after the death of Amerigo Vespucci (22nd Feb. 1512, in Seville), was not his nephew, Juan Vespucci, called upon to show (as Martin Alonso, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, Juan de la Cosa and Alonso de Hojeda had done) that the coast of Paria, which did not derive its importance from its being "part of the main land of Asia," but on account of the productive pearl fishery in its vicinity, had been already reached by Amerigo, before Columbus landed there on the 1st of August 1498. The disregard of this most important testimony is inexplicable if Amerigo Vespucci had ever boasted of having made a voyage of discovery in 1497, or if any serious import had been attached at that time to the confused dates and mistakes in the print- ing of the " QuatuorNavigationes" The great and still unprinted work of a friend of Columbus, Fra Bartholome' de las Casas (the Historia, general de las Indias), was written, as we know with certainty, at very different periods. It was not begun until fifteen years after the death of Amerigo in 1527, and was finished in 1559, seven years before the death of the aged author, in his 92nd year. Praise and bitter blame are strangely mingled in it. We see that dislike and suspicion of fraud augmented in proportion 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 our Indies, but he appears to have passed over many circumstances, whether designedly (d saviendas] or because he did not attend to them. This circumstance has led some to attribute to him that which is due to others, and which ought not to be taken from them." The judgment pronounced in the 1st book (chap. 140) is equally moderate: "Here I must speak of the injustice which Amerigo, or perhaps those who printed (6 los que impri- mieron) the Quatuor Navigationes, appear to have committed towards the Admiral. To Amerigo alone, without naming any other, the dis- covery of the continent is ascribed. He is also said to have placed the name of America in maps, thus sinfully failing towards the admiral. As Amerigo was learned and had the power of writing eloquently (era latino y eloquente], he represented himself in the letter to King Eene as the leader of Hojeda's expedition; yet he was only one of the seamen, although experienced in seamanship and learned in cosmo- graphy (hombre entendido en las cosas de la mar y dodo en Cos- mograpliia) . . In the world the belief prevails that he was the first to set foot on the mainland. If he purposely gave currency to this belief, it was great wickedness ; and if it was not done intentionally it looks like it (clara pareze la falsedad: y si fue de industria liecha maldad grandefue ; yyaquenolofuese}almenosparezelo). . . Amerigo 680 COSMOS. feelings of those nations who occupy the eastern shores of the Atlantic, the boundaries of which appear to be constantly brought nearer and nearer to one another. (See my Examen crit.de VHist. de la Geographic, t. iii. pp. 154-158 and 225-227.) is represented as having sailed in the year 7 (1497) : a statement that seems indeed to have been only an oversight in writing, and not an intentional false statement (pareze aver avido yerro de pendola y no malicia), because he is stated to have returned at the end of eighteen months. The foreign writers call the country America ; it ought to be called Columba." This passage shows clearly that up to that time Las Casas had not accused Amerigo of having himself brought the name America into usage. He says, an tornado los escriptores estrangeros de nombrar la nuestra Tierrajirme America, como si Americo solo y no otro con el y antes que todos la oviera descubierto. In lib. i. cap. 164--169, and in lib. ii. cap. 2, of the work, his hatred is fully expressed ; nothing is now attributed to erroneous dates, or to the partiality of foreigners for Amerigo; all is intentional deseit, of which Amerigo himself is guilty (de industries lo hizo . . . persisito en elengano „ . . de falsedad csta claramente convencido). Bartholome de las Casas takes pains, more- over, in two passages to show especially that Amerigo, in his accounts, falsified the succession of the occurrences of his first two voyages, placing many things which belonged to the second voyage in the first, and vice versa. It seems very strange to me that the accuser does not appear to have felt how much the weight of his accusations is diminished by the circumstance that he himself speaks 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 hostilely disposed against his father and himself. " I cannot but wonder," says Las Casas (cap. 164), "that Hernando Colon, a clear-sighted man, who, as I cer- "tainly know, had in his hands Amerigo's accounts of his travels, should not have remarked in them any deceit or injustice towards the Admiral." As I had a fresh opportunity, a few months ago, of examining the rare manuscript of Bartholome de las Casas, I would wish to em- body in this long note what I did not employ in 1839, in my Examen -critique, i. v. pp. 178-217. The conviction which I then expressed, in the same volume, pp. 217 and 224, has remained unshaken. "Where the designation of a large continent generally adopted as such, and con- secrated by the usage of many ages, presents itself to us as a monument of human injustice, it is natural that we should at first sight attribute the cause to the person who would appear most interested in the matter. A careful study of the documentary evidence has, however, shown that this supposition in the present instance is devoid of foundation, and that the name of America has originated in a distant region (as for instance in France and Germany), owing to many concurrent circumstances which appear to remove all suspicion from Vespucci. Here historical criticism 681 GREAT DISCOVERIES IN THE HEAVENS BY THE APPLICA- TION OF THE TELESCOPE. PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY AND MATHEMATICS, FROM GALILEO AND KEPLER TO NEWTON AND LEIBNITZ. LAWS OF THE PLANETARY MOTIONS AND GENERAL THEORY OF GRAVITATION. AFTER having endeavoured to enumerate the most distinctly defined periods and stages of development in the history of the contemplation of the universe, we have proceeded to delineate the epoch in which the civilized nations of one hemisphere became acquainted with the inhabitants of the other. The period of the greatest discoveries in space over the surface of our planet was immediately succeeded by the revelations of the telescope, through which man may be said to have taken possession of a considerable portion of the heavens. The application of a newly created organ — an instrument possessed of the power of piercing the depths of space — calls forth a new world of ideas. Now began a brilliant stops, for the field of unknown causes and possible moral contingencies does not come within the domain of positive history. We here find a man, who during a long life enjoyed the esteem of his contemporaries, raised by his attainments in nautical astronomy to an honourable employment. The concurrence of many fortuitous circumstances gave him a celebrity which has weighed upon his memory, and helped to throw discredit on his character. Such a position is indeed rare in the history of human misfortunes, and affords an instance of a moral stain deepened by the glory of an illustrious name. It seems most desirable, to examine, amid this mixture of success and adversity, what is owing to the navigator himself, to the accidental errors arising from a hasty supervision of his writings, or to the indiscretion of dangerous friends." Copernicus himself contributed to this dangerous celebrity; for he also ascribes the discovery of the new part of the globe to Vespucci. In discussing the " centrum gravitatis" and " centrum magnitudinis" of the continent, he adds; "magis id erit clarum, si addentur insulae setate nostra sub Hispa- niarum Lusitaniaeque Principibus repertse et pnesertim America ab inventore denominata navium prsefecto, quern, ob incompertam ejus •adhuc magnitudinem, alterum orbem terrarum putant." (Nicolai Copernici de Eevolutionibus orbium ccelestium, libri sex, 1543, p. 2, a.) 682 COSMOS. age of astronomy and mathematics; and in the latter the long series of profound enquirers leading us on to the " all transforming" Leonhard Euler, the year of whose birth, (1707) is so near that of the death of Jacques Bernouilli. A few names will suffice to give an idea of the gigantic strides with which the human mind advanced in the seven- teenth century, especially in the development of mathematical induction, under the influence of its own subjective force rather than from the incitement of outward circumstances. The laws which control the fall of bodies and the motions of the planets were now recognised. The pressure of the atmosphere ; the propagation of light, and its refraction and polarisation, were investigated. Mathematical physics were created, and based on a firm foundation. The invention of the infinitesimal calculus characterises the close of the century; and strengthened by its aid, human understanding has been enabled, during the succeeding century and a half, successfully to venture on the solution of the problems pre- sented by the perturbations of the heavenly bodies; by the polarisation and interference of the waves of light; by the radiation of heat; by electro-magnetic re-entering cur- rents; by vibrating chords and surfaces; by the capillary attraction of narrow tubes ; and by many other natural phe- nomena. Henceforward the work in the world of thought progresses uninterruptedly, each portion continually contributing its aid to the remainder. None of the earlier germs are stifled. With the abundance of the materials to be elaborated, strictness in the methods and improvements in the instruments of obser- vation are simultaneously increased. We will here limit ourselves more especially to the seventeenth century, the age of Kepler, Galileo, and Bacon, of Tycho Brahe, Descartes and Huygens, of Fermat, Newton, and Leibnitz. The labours of these distinguished enquirers are so generally known, that slight references will be sufficient to point out those portions by which they have most brilliantly contributed to the enlargement of cosmical views. We have already shown* how the discovery of telescopic vision gave to the eye — the organ of the sensuous contempla- tion of the universe — a power from whose limits we are still * See Cosmos, p. 67. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 683 far removed, and which in its first feeble beginning, when scarcely magnifying thirty-two linear diameters,* was yet enabled to penetrate into depths of space which until then had remained closed to the eyes of man. The exact know- ledge of many of the heavenly bodies which belong to our solar system, the eternal laws which regulate their revolution in their orbits, and the more perfect insight into the true structure of the universe, are the characteristics of the age which I am here delineating. The results produced by this epoch determine the principal outlines of the great natural picture of the Cosmos, and add to the earlier investigated contents of terrestial space the newly acquired knowledge of the contents of the celestial regions, at least with reference to the well-organised arrangement of one planetary group. In my desire of assuming only general views, I will confine myself to the consideration of the most important objects of the astronomical labours of the seventeenth century. I would here refer to their influence in powerfully inciting to great and unexpected mathematical discoveries, and to more comprehensive and grander views of the universe. I have already remarked that the age of Columbus, Gama, and Magellan — the age of great maritime enterprises — coin- cided in a most wonderful manner with many great events, with the awakening of a feeling of religious freedom, with the development of nobler sentiments for art, and with the diffu- sion of the Copernican views regarding the system of the uni- verse, Nicolaus Copernicus (who in two letters still extant calls himself Koppernik,) had already attained his twenty-first year, and was engaged in making observations with the astronomer Albert Brudzewski, at Cracow, when Columbus discovered America. Hardly a year after the death of the great disco- verer, and after a six years' residence at Padua, Bologna, and Rome, we find him returned to Cracow, and busily engaged in bringing about a thorough revolution in the astronomical views of the universe. By the favour of his uncle, Lucas * " The telescopes which Galileo constructed, and others of which he made use for observing Jupiter's satellites, the phases of Venus, and the solar spots, possessed the gradually increasing powers of magnifying four, seven, and thirty-two linear diameters, but they never had a higher power. (Arago, in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour Ian 1842, p. 268.) 684 COSMOS. Waisselrode of Allen, bishop of Ermland, lie was nominated, in 1510, canon of Frauenburg, where he laboured for thirty- three years on the completion of his work, entitled De Revo- lutionibus orbium ccBlestmm* The first printed copy was brought to him, when, shattered in mind and body, he was preparing himself for death. He saw it and touched it, but his thoughts were no longer fixed on earthly things, and he died — not as Gassendi says — a few hours, but several days afterwards (on the 24th of March, 1543f). Two years earlier * Westphal, in his Biographic des Copernicus (1822, g. 33), dedicated to the great astronomer of Konigsberg, Bessel, calls the Bishop of Ermland Lucas Watzelrodt vo» 111 en, as does also Gassendi. According to explanations which I have very recently obtained, through the kind- ness of the learned historian of Prussia, Voigt, Director of the Archives, *'the family of the mother of Copernicus is called in original documents Weiselrodt, Weisselrot, Weiselrodt, and most commonly Waisselrode. His mother was undoubtedly of German descent, and the family of Waisselrode, who were originally distinct from that of \on Allen, which had flourished at Thorn from the beginning of the 15th century, probably took the latter name in addition to their own, through adoption, or from family connections." Sniadecki and Czynski, {Kopernik ct ses Travaux, 1847, p. 26) call the mother of the great Copernicus Barbara Wasselrode, and state that she was married at Thorn, in 1464, to his father, whose family they believe to be of Bohemian origin. The name of the astronomer, which Gassendi writes Tornaeus Borussus, Westphal, and Czynksi write Kopernik, and 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 Prussise patriaa suse, iniquam esse puto, eum post obitum carere honor esepulchri sive monument!." + Thus Gassendi, in Nicolai Copcrnici Vita, appended to his biography of Tycho, (Tyclionis Bralici Vita, 1655, Hagas Comitum, p. 320 : " eodem die et horis non multis priusquam animam efflaret." It is only Schubert, in his Astronomy, th. i. s. 115, and Eobert Small, in the very learned Account of the Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler, 1804, p. 92, who maintain that Copernicus died "a few days after the appearance of his work." This is also the opinion of Voigt the Director of the Archives at Konigsberg ; because, in a letter which George Donner, canon of Ermland, wrote to the Duke of Prussia shortly after the death of Copernicus, it is said, that "the estimable and worthy Doctor Nicolaus Koppernick sent forth his work, like the sweet song of the •swan, a short time before his departure from this life of sorrows." According to the ordinarily received opinion, (Westphal, Nikola/us Kopernikus, 1822, s. 73 and s. 82,) the work was begun in 1507, and DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 685 an important part of his theory had been made known by the publication of a letter of one of his most zealous pupils and adherents, Joachim Rhoeticus to Johann Schoner, Pro- fessor at Nuremberg It was not, however, the propagation of the Copernican doctrines, the renewed opinion of the existence of one central sun, and of the diurnal and annual movement of the earth, which somewhat more than half a century after its first promulgation led to the brilliant as- tronomical discoveries that characterise the commencement of the seventeenth century; for these discoveries were the result of the accidental invention of the telescope, and were the means of at once perfecting and extending the doctrine of Copernicus. Confirmed and extended by the results of physical astronomy (by the discovery of' the satellite- system of Jupiter and the phases of Venus) the fundamental views of Copernicus have indicated to theoretical astronomy paths which could not fail to lead to sure results, and to the solution of problems which of neces- sity demanded, and led to a greater degree of perfection in the analytic calculus. While George Peurbach and Regio- montanus (Johann Miiller, of Konigsberg in Franconia) exer- cised a beneficial influence on Copernicus and his pupils Rhocticus, Reinhold, and Mostlin, these in their turn in- fluenced in a like manner, although at longer intervals of time, the works of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. These arc was so far completed in 1530, that only a few corrections were subsequently added. The publication was hastened by a letter from Cardinal Schonberg, written from Rome in 1536. The cardinal wishes to have the manuscript copied and sent to him by Theodor von Reden. We learn from Copernicus himself, in his dedication to Pope Paul III., that the performance of the work has lingered on into the quartum nove.nnium. If we remember how much time was required for print- ing a work of 400 pages, and that the great man died in May, 1543, it may be conjectured that the dedication was not written in the last- named year; which, reckoning backwards thirty-six years, would not give us a later, but an earlier year than 1507. Herr Voigt doubts- whether the aqueduct and hydraulic works at Frauenburg, generally ascribed to Copernicus, were really executed in accordance with his designs. He finds that, so late as 1571, a contract was concluded be- tween the Chapter and the " skilful master Valentine Lendel, manager of the water-works, at Breslau," to bring the water to Frauenburg, from the mill-ponds to the houses of the canons. Nothing is said of any previous waterworks, and those which exist at present cannot have been commenced until twenty-eight years after the death of Copernicus. 686 COSMOS. the ideal links which connect the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and we cannot delineate the extended astronomical views of the latter of these epochs, without taking into consi- deration the incitements yielded to it by the former. An erroneous opinion unfortunately prevails even in the present day,* that Copernicus, from timidity and from appre- hension of priestly persecution, advanced his views regarding the planetary movement of the earth, and the position of the sun in the centre of the planetary system as mere hypotheses which fulfilled the object of submitting the orbits of the hea- venly bodies more conveniently to calculation, " but which need not necessarily either be true or even probable." These sin- gular words certainly do occur in the anonymous preface f * Delambre, Histoire de I'Astronomie Moderne, t. i. p. 140. •f- " Neque enim necesse est, eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne veri- similes quidem, sed sufficit hoc unum, si calculum observationibus con- gruentem exhibeant," says the preface of Osiander. tf 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 the permission of having it printed fully in accordance with his own free pleasure. He sent it first to Rhseticus, Professor at Wittenberg, who had until recently been living for a long time with his teacher at Frauenburg. Rhaeticus considered Nuremberg as the most suitable place for its publication, and entrusted the superintendence of the printing to Professor Schoner and to Andreas Osiander." (Gassendi, Vita Copernici, p. 319.) The expressions of praise pronounced on the work, at the close of the preface, might be sufficient, to show without the express testimony of Gassendi, that the preface was by another hand. Osiander has used an expression, on the title of the first edition, (that of Nuremberg, 1543,) which is always carefully avoided in all the writings of Copernicus, " motus stellarum novis insuper ac admirabilibus hypo- thesibus ornati," together with the very ungentle addition, " Igitur studiose lector, erne, lege, fruere." In the second Basle edition of 1566, which I have very carefully compared with the first Nuremberg edition, there is no longer any reference in the title of the book to the "admirable hypothesis;" but Osiander's Prcefatiuncula de Hypothe- sibus hujus Operis" as Gassendi calls the intercalated preface, is pre- served. That Osiander, without naming himself, meant to show that the Prcefatiuncula was by a different hand from the work itself, appears very evident, from the circumstance of his designating the dedication to Paul III. as the " Prcefatio Authoris" The first edition has only 196 leaves; the second 213, on account of the Narratio Prima of the astro- nomer George Joachim Ehscticus, and a letter addressed to Schoner, which, as I have remarked in the text, was printed in 1541 by the in- tervention of the mathematician Gassarus of Basle, and gave to the DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 687 attached to the work of Copernicus, and inscribed De Hypo- thesibus kujus operis ; but they are quite contrary to the opinions expressed by Copernicus, and in direct contradiction with his dedication to Pope Paul III. The author of these prefatory remarks was, as Gassendi most expressly says, in his Life of the great astronomer, a mathematician then living at Nuremberg, and named Andreas Ossiander, who, together with Schoner, superintended the printing of the work De Revolutionibus, and who, although he makes no express decla- ration of any religious scruples, appears nevertheless to have thought it expedient to speak of the new views as of an hypothesis, and, not like Copernicus, as of demonstrated truth. The founder of our present system of the universe (for to him incontestibly belong the most important parts of it, and the grandest features of the design) was almost more distinguished, if possible, by the intrepidity and confidence with which he expressed his opinions, than for the knowledge to which they owed their origin. He deserves to a high degree the fine eulogium passed upon him by Kepler, who, in the introduction to the Rudolphine Tables, says of him, " Vir fuii maxima ingenio et quod in hoc exercitio (combating prejudices) magni momenti est, animo liber." When Coper- nicus is describing, in his dedication to the Pope, the origin of his work, he does not scruple to term the opinion generally expressed amongst theologians of the immobility and central position of the earth "an absurd acroama," and to attack the stupidity of those who adhere to so erroneous a doctrine. " If even," he writes, "any empty-headed babblers (/xar learned world the first accurate knowledge of the Copernican system. Khaaticus had resigned his professional chair at Wittenberg, in order that he might enjoy the instructions of Copernicus at Frauenburg itself. (Compare, on these subjects, Gassendi, pp. 310 — 319.) The explana- tion of what Osiander was induced to add from timidity, is given by Gassendi: "Andreas porro Osiander fuit, qui lion modo operaruni inspector (the superintendent of the printing) fuit, sed Prsefatiunculam quoque ad lectorem (tacito licet nomine) de Hypothesibus operis adhibuit. Ejus in ea consilium fuit, tit, tametsi Copernicus Motum Terras habuisset, non solum pro Hypothesi, sed pro vero etiam placito , ipse tamen ad rem, ob illos, qui hinc offenderentur, leniendam, excu- satum eum faceret, quasi talem motura non pro dogmate, sed pro Hypothesi mera assumpsisset." 688 COSMOS. ignorant of all mathematical science, should take upon them- selves to pronounce judgment on his work through an inten- tional distortion of any passage in the holy Scriptures (prcpter aliquem locum scripturce male ad suum propositum detortum,} he should despise so presumptuous an attack. It was, indeed, universally known that the celebrated Lac- tantius, who however could not be reckoned among mathema- ticians, had spoken childishly (pueriliter') of the form of the earth, deriding those who held it to be spherical. On mathe- matical subjects one should write only to mathematicians. In order to show that, deeply penetrated with the truth of his own deductions, he had no cause to fear the judgment that might be passed upon him, he turned his prayers from a remote corner of the earth to the head of the Church, begging that he would protect him from the assaults of calumny, since the Church itself would derive advantage from his investigations on the length of the year, and the movements of the moon." Astrology and improvements in the calendar long procured protection for astronomy from the secular and ecclesiastical powers, as chemistry and botany were long esteemed as purely subservient auxiliaries to the science of medicine. The strong and free expressions employed by Copernicus sufficiently refute the old opinion, that he advanced the system which bears his immortal name as an hypothesis con- venient for making astronomical calculations, and one which might be devoid of foundation. " By no other arrangement," he exclaims with enthusiasm, "have I been able to find so admirable a symmetry of the universe, and so harmonious a connection of orbits, as by placing the lamp of the world, (lucernam mundi,*) the sun, in the midst of the beautiful temple of nature as on a kingly throne, ruling the whole family of circling stars that revolve around him (circumayentem gubernans as- trorum familiam.y^" Even the idea of universal gravitation or * Quis enim in hoc pulcherrimo templo lampadem hanc in alio vel meliori loco poneret, quam uncle totum simul possit illuminare] Si- quidem non inepte quidam lucernam mundi, alii mentem, alii rectorem vocant. Trismegistus visibilem Deum, Sophoclis Electra intucntem omnia. Ita profecto tanquam in solio regali Sol residens circuma- gentem gubernat Astrorum farniliam : Tellus quoque minime fraudatur lunari ministerio, sed ut Aristoteles de aninialibus ait, maximam Luna cum terra cognationem habet. Concepit interea a Sole terra, et im- pregnatur annuo partu. Invenimus igitur sub hac ordinatione admi- DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 689 attraction (appetentia quondam naturalis partibus indita] towards the sun as the centre of the world (centrum mimdi,) and which is inferred from the force of gravity in spherical bodies, seems to have hoveied before the mind of this great man, as is proved by a remarkable passage in the 9th chapter of the 1st Book De Revolutionibus* On considering the different stages of the development of cosmical contemplation, we are able to trace from the earliest ages faint indications and presentiments of the attraction of masses, and of centrifugal forces. Jacobi, in his researches on randam mundi symmetriam ac certum harmonise nexum motus et mag- nitudinis orbium : qualis alio modo reperiri non potest. (Nicol. Copern. De Revol. Orbium Ccelestium, lib. i. cap. 10, p. 9 b.) In this passage, which is not devoid of poetic grace and elevation of expression, we recog- nise, as in all the works of the astronomers of the 17th century, traces of long acquaintance with the beauties of classical antiquity. Copernicus had in his mind Cic. Somn. Scip. c. 4; Plin. ii. 4; and Mercur. Tris- meg., lib. v. (ed. Cracov, 1586,) pp. 195 and 201. The allusion to the Electro, of Sophocles is obscure, as the sun is never anywhere expressly termed " all-seeing," as in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and also in the Choephorce of ^Eschylus, (v. 980,) which Copernicus would not probably have called Electro,. According to Bockh's conjecture, the allusion is to be ascribed to an imperfect recollection of verse 869 of the (Edipus Coloneus of Sophocles. It very singularly happens that quite lately, in an otherwise instructive memoir (Czynski, Kopernik et ses Travaux, 1847, p. 102), the Electro, of the tragedian is confounded with electric currents. The passage of Copernicus, quoted above, is thus rendered : " If we take the sun for the torch of the universe, for its spirit and its guide — if Trismegistes call it a God, and if Sophocles consider it to be an electrical power which animates and contemplates all that is con- tained in creation ." * Pluribus ergo existentibus centris, de centro quoque mundi non temere quis dubitabit, an videlicet fuerit istud gravity tis terrenae, an aliud. Equidem existimo, gravitatem non aliud esse, quam appeten- tiam quandam naturalem partibus inditam a divina providentia officis universorum, ut in unitatem integritatemque suam sese conferant in formam globi coeuntes. Quam affectionem credibile est etiam Soli, Lunse, caeterisque errantium fulgoribus inesse, ut ejus efficacia in ea qua se reprresentant rotunditate permaneant, quaa nihilominus multis modifc suos efficiunt circuitus. Si igitur et terra faciat alios, utpote secundum centrum (mundi), necesse erit eos esse qui similiter extrinsecus in multis apparent, in quibus invenimus annuum circuitum. Ipse denique Sol medium mundi putabitur possidere, quae omnia ratio ordinis, quo ilia sibi invicem succedunt, et mundi totius harmonia nos docet, si modo rem ipsam ambobus (ut aiunt) oculis inspiciamus." (Copern. De Revol. orb. coil, lib. i. cap. 9, p. 7, b.) 2 Y 699 COSMOS. the mathematical knowledge of the Greeks, (unfortunately still in manuscript,) justly comments on " the profound consi- deration of nature evinced by Anaxagoras, in whom we read with astonishment a passage, asserting that the moon, if its centrifugal force ceased, would fall to the earth like a stone from a sling. "* I have already, when speaking of aerolites, noticed similar expressions of the Clazomenian and of Diogenes of Apollonia on the "cessation of the rotatory force."f Plato truly had a clearer idea than Aristotle of the attractive force exercised by the earth's centre on all heavy masses removed from it, for the Stagyrite was indeed acquainted, like Hipparchus, with the acceleration of falling bodies, although he did not correctly understand the cause. In Plato, and according to Democritus, attraction is limited to bodies having an affinity for one ano- ther— or, in other words, to those in which there exists a tendency of the homogeneous elementary substances to combine together. J John Philoponus, the Alexandrian, a pupil of Am- monius, the son of Hermias, who probably lived in the sixth century, was the first who ascribed the movement of the hea- venly bodies to a primitive impulse, connecting with this idea * Pint, de facie in orbeLunce, p. 923. (Compare Ideler, Meterologia veterum Grcecorum et JRomanorum, 1832, p. 6.) In the passage of Plutarch, Anaxagoras is not named; but that the latter applied the same theory of " falling where the force of rotation had been intermitted" to all (the material) celestial bodies, is shown in Diog. Laert. ii. 12, and by the many passages which I have collected (p. 122.). Compare also Aristot. de Ccelo, 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 "non-falling of heavenly bodies" is noticed " when the rotatory force predominates over the actual falling force or downward attraction." With these ideas, which also partially belong to Empedocles and Democritus, as well as to Anaxagoras may be connected the instance adduced by Simplicius, (1. c.) " that water in a phial is not spilt when the movement of rotation is more rapid than the downward movement of the water," rrj£ iiri TO KCLTU) rov vdarog 0ap5c. t See Cosmos, p. 122. (Compare Letronne, Des opinions cosmogra- phiques des Peres de VEglise, in the Revue des deux Mondesf 1834^ Cosmos, t. i. p. 621.) £ See, regarding all that relates to the ideas of the ancients on attraction, gravity, and the fall of bodies, the passages collected with great industry and discrimination, by Th. Henri Martin, Etudes sur le Timee de Platon, 1841, t. ii. pp. 272—280, and 341. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 691 that of the fall of bodies, or the tendency of all substances, whether heavy or light, to reach the ground.*1 The idea conceived by Copernicus, and more clearly expressed by Kepler, in his admirable work De Stella Martis, who even applied it to the ebb and flow of the ocean, received in 1666 and 1674 a new impulse and a more extended application through the sagacity of the ingenious Robert Hooke ;f New- ton' s theory of gravitation, which followed these earlier ad- vances, presented the grand means of converting the whole of physical astronomy into a true mechanism of the heavens. \ Copernicus, as we find not only from his dedication to the Pope, but also from several passages in the work itself, had a tolerable knowledge of the ideas entertained by the ancients of the structure of the universe. He, however, only names in the period anterior to Hipparchus, Hicetas (or, as he always calls him Nicetas,) of Syracuse, Philolaus the Pytha- gorean, the Timseus of Plato, Ecphantus, Heraclides of Pon- tus, and the great geometrician Apollonius of Perga. Of the two mathematicians, Aristarchus of Samos, and Seleucus of Babylon, whose systems came most nearly to his own, he mentions only the first, making no reference to the second. § It has often been asserted that he was not ac- * Job. Philoponus de creatione mundi, lib. i. cap. 12. 1" He subsequently relinquished the correct opinion (Brewster, Mar- tyrs of Sciences, 1346, p. 211); but the opinion 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 squares of the distances or in direct ratio, was expressed by Kepler, in the Harmonices Mundi, completed in 1618. % See Cosmos, pp. 28 and 45. § See op. cit. p. 544. The scattered passages to be found in the work of Copernicus, relating to the Ante-Hipparchian system of the structure of the universe are, exclusive of the dedication, 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). Everywhere Copernicus shows a predilection for, and a very accurate acquaintance with, the views of the Pythagoreans, or, to speak less definitely, with those which were attributed to the most ancient among them. Thus, for instance, he was acquainted, as may be seen by the beginning of the dedica- tion, with the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus, which, indeed, shows that the Italian school in its love of mystery, intended only to communicate its opinions to friends, " as had also at first been the purpose of Coper- nicus." The age in which Lysis lived is somewhat uncertain ; he i» 2 Y 2 692 COSMOS. quainted with the views of Aristarchus of Samos, regarding the central sun, and the condition of the earth as a planet, because the Arenarius, and all the other works of Archimedes, appeared only one year after his death, and a whole century after the invention of the art of printing ; but it is forgotten that Copernicus, in his dedication to Pope Paul III., quotes a long passage on Philolaus, Ecphantus, and Heraclides of Poiitus, from Plutarch's work on The Opinions of Philoso- phers, (III. 13) and therefore that he might have read in the same work (II. 24), that Aristarchus of Samos regards the sun as one of the fixed stars. Amongst all the opinions of the sometimes spoken of as an immediate disciple of Pythagoras himself; sometimes, and with more probability, as a teacher of Epaminondas (Bockh, Pliilolaos, s. 8 — 15). The letter of Lysis to Hipparchus, an old Pythagorean, who had disclosed the secrets of the sect, is, like many similar writings, a forgery of later times. It had probably be- come known to Copernicus from the collection of Aldus Manutius, Epistola 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 Con- yregazione dell' Indice of the 5th of March, 1616, the new system of the universe is expressly designated as "falsa ilia doctrina Pythagorica, Divinse Scripture omnino adversans." The important passage on Aristarchus of Samos, of which I have spoken in the text, occurs in the Arenarius, p. 449 of the Paris edition of Archimedes of 1615, by David Rivaltus. 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 astronomers who supposed the earth to be immoveable in the centre of the universe. The sun, which con- stituted this centre, was immoveable like the other stars, while the earth revolved round the sun." In the work of Copernicus, Aristarchus is twice named, pp. 69 b and 79, without any reference being made to his system. Ideler, in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum der A Iterthum's- Wissenschaft (Bd. ii. 1808, s. 452), asks whether Copernicus was ac- quainted with Nicolaus de Cusa's work, De docta ignorantia. The first Paris edition was indeed published in 1514, and the expression "jam nobis manifestum est terram in veritate moveri," from a platonising cardinal, might certainly have made 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) by Clemens in the library of the Hospital at Cues, proves sufficiently, as does the work De venatione sapiential, cap. 28, that Cusa imagined that the earth did not move round the sun, but that they moved together, though more slowly, " round the constantly changing pole of the uni- verse." (Clemens, in Giordano Bruno, and Nicol. von Cusa, 1847, & 97-100.) DISCOVERIES IX THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 693 ancients, those which appeared to exercise the greatest influence on the direction and gradual development of the ideas of Copernicus, are expressed, according to Gassendi, in a passage in the encyclopaedic work of Martianus Mineus Capella, written in a half- barbarous language, and in the System of the World of Apollonius of Perga. According to the opinions described by Martianus Mineus of Madaura, and which have been veiy confidently ascribed, sometimes to the Egyptians, and sometimes to the Chaldeans,* the earth is immovcably * See the profound treatment of this subject in Martin, Etudes sur Timee, t. ii. p. Ill Cosmographie des Egyptiens], and pp. 129-133 (Antecedents du Systeme de Copernic). The assertion of this learned philologist, that the original system of Pythagoras differed from that of Philolaus, and that it regarded the earth as fixed in the centre of the universe, does not appear to me to be entirely conclusive (t. ii. pp. 103 and 107). I would here explain myself more fully respecting the remark- able statement of Gassendi, regarding the similarity of the systems of Tycho Brahe and Apollonius of Perga, to which I have referred in the text. We find the following passage in Gassendi's biographies : — " Magnam imprimis ratiouem habuit Copernicus duarum opinionum affinium, quarum unain Martiano Capellse, alteram Apollonio Pergaco 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 Terrum, ut circa centrum, quod foret Afiixarum mundique centrum, moverentur; quse deinceps quoque opinio Tychonis propemodum fuit. Rationem autem magnam harum opinionum Copernicus habuit, quod utraque eximie Mercurii ac Veneris circuitiones rcprajsentaret, eximieque causam retrogradationum, direc- tionum, stationum in iis apparentium exprimeret et posterior (Pergsei) quoque in tribus Planetis superioribus prsestaret." (Gassendi, Tychonis JSrahei Vita, p. 296.) My friend the astronomer Galle, to whom I applied for information, agrees with me in thinking that nothing could justify Gassendi's decided statement. " In the passages" he writes to me, "to which you refer in Ptolemy's Almagest (in the commence- ment 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), the onjy questions considered are the retrogressions and stationary conditions of the planets in which Apollonius' assumption of their revolution round the sun, is indeed referred to, (and Copernicus himself mentions expressly the assumption of the earth's standing still) but it cannot be deter- mined when he became acquainted with what he supposes to have been derived from Apollonius. We can only therefore conjecture that he assumed, on some later authority, that Apollonius of Perga had con- structed a system similar to that of Tycho> . although I do not find, even in Copernicus, any clear exposition of such a system, or any reference to ancient passages in which it may be spoken of. If lib. XH. of the 694 COSMOS. fixed in a central point, while the sun revolves around it as a circling planet, attended by two satellites, Mercury and Venus. Such a view of the structure of the world might, indeed, prepare the way for that of the central force of the sun. There is, however, nothing in the Almagest, or in the works of the ancients generally, or in the work of Copernicus De Revolutionibus, which justifies the assertion so confidently maintained by Gassendi, of the perfect resemblance existing between the system of Tycho Brahe and that which has been ascribed to Apollonius of Perga. After Bockh's complete investigation, nothing further need be said of the confusion of the Copernican System with that of the Pythagorean, Phi- lolaus, according to which, the non-rotating earth (the Antichthon or opposite earth, being not in itself a planet, but merely the opposite hemisphere of our planet) moves like the sun itself round the focus of the world,- — the central fire, or vital flame of the whole planetary system. The scientific revolution originated by Nicolaus Coper- nicus has had the rare fortune (setting aside the temporary retrograde movement imparted by the hypothesis of Tycho Brahe) of advancing without interruption to its object,-— the discovery of the true structure of the universe. The rich abundance of accurate observations furnished by Tycho Brahe himself, the zealous opponent of the Copernican sys- tem, laid the foundation for the discovery of those eternal laws of the planetary movements which prepared imperish- able renown for the name of Kepler, and which, interpreted Almagest should be the only source from whence the complete Tychonie view is ascribed to Apollonius, we may consider that Gassendi has gone too far in his suppositions, and that the case is precisely the same as that of the phases of Mercury and Venus, of which Copernicus spoke (lib. i. cap. 10, p. 7,b, and 8, a,) without decidedly applying them, to his system. Apollonius may, perhaps, in a similar manner have treated mathematically the assumption of the retrogressions of the planets under the idea of a revolution round the sun, without adding anything definite 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 likewise explained the inequalities of the movements. The remark of Robert Small, that the idea which forms the basis of Tycho's system was by no means unfamiliar to the mind of Copernicus, but had rather served him as a point of transition to his own system, appears to me well founded." DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 695 by Newton, and proved to be theoretically and necessarily true, have been transferred into the bright and glorious domain of thought, as the intellectual recognition of nature. It has been ingeniously said, although, perhaps, with too feeble an estimate of the free and independent spirit which created the theory of gravitation, that " Kepler wrote a code of laws, and Newton the spirit of those laws.*'* The figurative and poetical myths of the Pythagorean and Platonic pictures of the universe, changeable as the fancy from which they emanated,! may still be traced partially reflected in Kepler ; but while they warmed and cheered his often saddened spirit, they never turned him aside from his earnest course, the goal of which he reached in the memorable night of the 15th of May, 1618, twelve years before his death.]; Copernicus had furnished a satisfactory explana- * Schubert, Astronomic, th. i. s. 124. In the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 282. Whewell, in his Inductive Table of Astronomy, has given an exceedingly good and complete view of the astronomical contemplation of the structure of the universe, from the earliest ages to Newton's system of gravitation. •f Plato in the Phcedrus adopts the system of Philolaus ; but in the Timceus, that according to which the earth is immoveable in the centre, and which was subsequently called the Hipparchian, or the Ptolemaic. (Bockh, De Platonico systemate ccdestium globorum, et de vera indole astronomies Philolaicce, pp. xxvi.-xxxii. ; the same author in the Phi- lolaos, s. 104-108. Compare also Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, bd. i. s. 325-347, with Martin's Etudes sur Timee, t. ii. pp. 64-92.) The* astronomical vision, in which the structure of the universe is shrouded, at the end of the Book of the Republic, reminds us at once of the inter- calated spherical systems of the planets, and of the concord of tones, " the voices of the Sirens moving in concert with the revolving spheres." (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.) £ Kepler, Harmonices Mundi, libri quinque, 1619, p. 189. " On the 8th of March, 1618, it occurred to Kepler, after many unsuccessful attempts, to compare the squares of the times of revolution of the planets with the cubes of the mean distances ; but he made an error in his calculations, and rejected this idea. On the 15th of May, 1618, he again reverted to it, and calculated correctly. The third law of Kepler was now discovered." This discovery, and those related to it, coincide with the unhappy period when this great man, who had been exposed from early childhood to the hardest blows of fate, was striving to save from the tor- ture find the stake his mother, who, at the age of seventy years, in a trial for witchcraft, which lasted six years, had been accused of poison- 696 COSMOS. tion of the apparent revolution of the heaven of flie fixed stars by the diurnal rotation of the earth round its axis; and by its annual movement round the sun he had afforded an equally perfect solution of the most striking movements of the planets (their stationary conditions and their retro- gressions), and thus given the true reason of the so-called second inequality of the planets. The fast inequality, or the unequal movement of the planets in their orbits, he left unexplained. True to the ancient Pythagorean principle of the perfectibility inherent in circular movements, Co- pernicus thought that he required for his structure of the universe some of the epicycles of Apollonius of Perga, besides the eccentric circles having a vacuum in their centre. How- ever bold was the path adventured on, the human mind could not at once emancipate itself from all earlier views. The equal distance at which the stars remained, while the whole vault of heaven seemed to move from east to west, had led to the idea of a firmament and a solid crystal sphere, — in which Anaximenes (who was probably not much later than Pythagoras), had conjectured that the stars were rivetted like nails.* Geminus of Rhodes, the cotemporary of Cicero, doubted whether the constellations lay in one uniform plane ; mixing, inability of shedding tears, and of sorcery. The suspicion was increased from the circumstance that her own son, the wicked Christo- pher Kepler, a worker in tin, was her accuser ; and that she had been brought up by an aunt, who was burnt at Weil as a witch. See an ex- ceedingly interesting work, but little known in foreign countries, drawn from newly-discovered manuscripts by Baron von Breitschwert, entitled "Joliann Keppler's Leben und Wirken" 1831, s. 12, 97-147, and 196. According to this work, Kepler, who in German letters always signed his name Keppler, was not born on the 21st December, 1571, in the Imperial town of Weil, as is usually supposed, but on the 2 7th of Decem- ber, 1571, in the village of Magstadt, in Wurtemberg. It is uncertain whether Copernicus was born on the 19th of January, 1472, or on the 19th February, 1473, as Mostlin asserts, or (according to Czynski) on the 12th February of the same year. The year of Columbus' "birth was long undetermined within nineteen years. Eamusio places it in 1430, Bernaldez, the friend of the discoverer, in 1436, and the celebrated histo- rian Mufioz, in 1446. * Plat., Deplac. Philos., ii. 14; Aristot. Meteorol. xi. 8; De Ccelo.ii, 8. On the theory of spheres generally, and on the retrograding spheres of Aristotle in particular, see Ideler's Vorlesung uber Eudoxus. 1828. B. 49-60. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 697 being of opinion that some were higher and others lower than the r'est. The idea formed of the heaven of the fixed stars was extended to the planets ; and thus arose the theory of the eccentric intercalated spheres of Eudoxus and Menoechmus, and of Aristotle, who was the inventor of retrograde spheres. The theory of epicycles, — a construction which adapted itself most readily to the representation and calculation of the planetary movements, — was, a century afterwards, made by the acute mind of Apollonius to supersede solid spheres. However much I may incline to mere ideal abstraction, I here refrain from attempting to decide historically whether, as Ideler believes, it was not until after the establishment of the Alexandrian Museum that " a free movement of the planets in space was regarded as possible," — or whether before that period the intercalated transparent spheres (of which there were twenty- seven according to Eudoxus, and fifty-five according to Aris- totle), as well as the epicycles which passed from Hipparchus and Ptolemy to the middle ages, were regarded generally not as solid bodies of material thickness, but merely as ideal abstractions. It is more certain that in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the theory of the seventy-seven ho- mocentric spheres of the learned writer, Girolamo Fracas- toro, found general approval ; and when, at a later period, the opponents of Copernicus sought all means of upholding the Ptolemaic system, the idea of the existence of solid spheres, circles, and epicycles, which was especially favoured by the Fathers of the Church, was still very widely diffused. Tycho Brahe expressly boasts that his considerations oil the orbits of comets first proved the impossibility of solid spheres, and thus destroyed the artificial fabrics. He filled the free space of heaven with air, and even believed that the resisting medium when disturbed by the revolving heavenly bodies, might generate tones. The un-imagina- tive Rothmann believed it necessary to refute this renewed Pythagorean myth of celestial harmony. Kepler's great discovery that all the planets move round the sun in ellipses, and that the sun lies in one of the foci of these ellipses, at length freed the original Copernican system from eccentric circles and all epicycles.* The planetary structure * A better insight into the free movement of bodies, and into the inde- pendence of the direction once given to the earth's axis, and into the 698 COSMOS. of the world now appeared objectively, and as it were archi- tecturally, in its simple grandeur ; but it remained for Isaac Newton to disclose the play and connection of the internal forces which animate and preserve the system of the universe. We have already often remarked in the history of the gra- dual development of human knowledge, that important but apparently accidental discoveries, and the simultaneous ap- pearance of many great minds, are crowded together in a short period of time ; and we find this phenomenon most strikingly manifested in the first ten years of the seventeenth century ; for Tycho Brahe (the founder of modern astronomical calculations), Kepler, Galileo, and Lord Bacon, were cotempo- raries. All these, with the exception of Tycho Brahe, were enabled, in the prime of life, to benefit by the labours of Des- cartes and Fermat. The elements of Bacon's Instauratio Magna appeared in the English language in 1605, fifteen years before the Novum Or g anon* The invention of the telescope, and the greatest discoveries in physical astronomy (viz., Jupiter's satellites, the sun's spots, the phases of Venus, and the remarkable form of Saturn), fall between the years 1609 and 1612. Kepler's speculations on the elliptic orbit of Mars,* were began in 1601, and gave occasion, eight years after, to the completion of the work entitled Astronomia nova seu Physica celestis. " By the study of the orbit of Mars," writes Kepler, " we must either arrive at a knowledge of the secrets of astronomy, or for ever remain ignorant of them. I have succeeded, by untiring and continued labour, in sub- jecting the inequalities of the movement of Mars to a natural law." The generalization of the same idea led the highly- gifted mind of Kepler to the great cosmical truths and pre- sentiments which, ten years later, he published in his work entitled Harmonices Mundi libri quinque. " I believe," he well observes in a letter to the Danish astronomer Longo- rotatory and progressive movement of the terrestrial planet 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 Re- volut. orb. ccd., lib. i. cap. 11, triplex motus telluris.) The parallelism of the earth's axis is maintained in the annual revolution round the sun, in conformity with the law of inertia, without the application of a correcting epicycle. * Delambre, Hist, del' Astronomic ancienne, t. ii. p. 381. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 699 montanus, " that astronomy and physics are so intimately associated together, that neither can be perfected without the other." The results of his researches on the structure of the eye and the theory of vision, appeared in 1604 in the Para- lipomena ad Vitelliomm, and in 1611* in \hsDioptrica. Thus were the knowledge of the most important objects in the perceptive world and in the regions of space, and the mode of apprehending these objects by means of new discoveries, alike rapidly increased in the short period of the first ten or twelve years of a century which began with Galileo and Kep- ler, and closed with Newton and Leibnitz. The accidental discovery of the power of the telescope to penetrate through space, originated in Holland, probably in the closing part of the year 1608. From the most recent investigations it would appear that this great discovery may be claimed by Hans Lippershey, a native of Wesel and a spectacle-maker at Middleburg ; by Jacob Adriaansz, surnamed Metius, who is said also to have made burning-glasses of ice ; and by Zacharias Jansen.f The first-named is always called * See Sir David Brewster's judgment on Kepler's optical works, in the "Martyrs of Science" 1846, pp. 179--182. (Compare Wilde, Gesch. der Optik, 1838, th. i. s. 182--210.) If the law of the refraction of the rays of light belong to Willebrord Snellius, professor at Leyden, (1626), who left it behind him buried in his papers, the publication of the law in a trigonometrical form was, on the other hand, first made by Descartes. See Brewster, in the North British Review, vol. vii. p. 207; Wilde, Gesch. der Optik, th. i. s. 227. t Compare two excellent treatises on the discovery of the telescope, by Professor Moll of Utrecht, in the Journal of the Royal Institution, 1831, vol. i. p. 319; and by Wilde, of Berlin, in his Gesch. der Optik, 1838, th. i. s. 138-172. The work referred to, and written in the Dutch language, is entitled " Geschiedkundig Onderzoek naar de eerste Uitfindera der Vernkykers, uit de Aunekenningen van wyle den Hoogl. van Swin- den zamengesteld door, G. Moll/' Amsterdam, 1831. Albers has given an extract from this interesting treatise in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fur 1843, s. 56-65. The optical instruments with which Jansen furnished Prince Maurice of Nassau, and the Archduke Albert, (the latter gave his to Cornelius Drebbel), were (as is shown by the letter of the ambas- sador Boreel, who, when a child, had been often in the house of Jansen, the spectacle-maker, and who subsequently saw the instruments in the shop), microscopes eighteen inches in length, " through which small objects were wonderfully magnified when one looked down at them from above." The confusion between the microscope and the telescope has 700 COSMOS. Laprey in the important letter of the Dutch ambassador Boreel to the physician Borelli, the author of the treatise De vero telescopii inventor e (1655). If the claim of priority be determined by the periods at which offers were made to the General States, the honour belongs to Hans Lippershey ; for, on the 2nd of October, 1608, he offered to the government three instruments " by which one might see objects at a dis- tance." The offer of Metius was made on the 17th of Octo- ber of the same year; but he expressly says, "that he has rendered the history of the invention of both instruments obscure. 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 instruments, Yicenzio Antinori, in the Saggi di Natural* Esperienze fatte nell" Accademia del Cimento, 1841, pp. 22-26. Even Huygens, who was born scarcely twenty-five years after the conjectural date of the invention of the telescope, does not venture to decide with certainty on the name of the first inventor (Opera reliqua, 1728, vol. ii. p. 125). According to the researches made in pub- lic archives by Yan Swiden and Mole, Lippershey was not only in posses- sion of a telescope made by himself as early as the 2nd of October, 1608, but the French ambassador at the Hague, President Jeannin, wrote, on the 28th 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 Genzen- hausen, one of the discoverers of Jupiter's satellites) even relates that a telescope was offered for sale in the autumn of 1608, at Frankfort-on- Maine by a Belgian, to his friend Fuchs of Bimbach, Privy Councillor of the Margrave of Ansbach. Telescopes were made in London in February, 1610, therefore a year after Galileo had completed his own. (Kigaud, On Harriot's Papers, 1833, pp. 23, 26, and 46.) They were at first called cylinders. Porta, the inventor of the camera obscura, like Francastero, the cotemporary of Columbus, Copernicus and Cardanus, at earlier periods, had merely spoken of the possibilit}^ " of seeing all things larger and nearer" by means of convex and concave glasses being placed on each other (duo specilla ocularia alterum alteri superposita) ; but we cannot ascribe the invention of the telescope to them (Tirabos- chi, Storia della Letter., ital. t. xi. p. 467; Wilde, Gescli. der Optilc, th. i. s. 121). Spectacles had been known in Haarlem since the begin- ning of the fourteenth century ; and an epitaph in the church of Maria Maggiore, at Florence, names Salvino degli Armati, who died in 1317, as the inventor (inventore degli occhiali). Some apparently authentic notices of the use of spectacles by aged persons are to be met with as early as 1299 and 1305. The passages of Roger Bacon refer to the magnifying power of spherical segments of glass. Sec Wilde, GescJi. def Optik, th. i. s. 93-96 ; and above, p. 619. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 701 already for two years constructed similar instruments, through industry and thought.'' Zacharias Jansen, (who like Lip- pershey, was a spectacle-maker at Middleburg), invented, in conjunction with his father Hans Jansen, towards the end of the sixteenth century, and probably after 1590, the compound microscope, the eye-piece of which is a concave lens ; but, as we learn from the ambassador Boreel, it was not until 1610 that he discovered the telescope, which he and his friends directed to distant terrestrial, but not toward celestial objects. The influence which has been exercised by the microscope in. giving us a more profound knowledge of the conformation and movement of the separate parts of all organic bodies, and by the telescope in suddenly opening to us the regions of space, has been so immeasurably great, that it seems requi- site to enter somewhat circumstantially into the history of these discoveries. When, in May, 1609, the news of the discovery made in Holland of telescopic vision reached Venice, Galileo, who wras accidentally there, conjectured at once what must be the essential points in the construction of a telescope, and imme- diately completed one for himself at Padua.* This instrument * The above-named physician and mathematician of the Margravate of Ansbach, Simon Marius, after receiving a description of the action of a Dutch telescope, is likewise believed to have constructed one himself as early as the year 1608. — On Galileo's earliest observation of the mountainous regions in the moon, to which I have referred in the text, compare Nelli, Vita di Galilei, vol. i. pp. 200-206; Galilei, Opere, 1744, t. ii. pp. 60, 403, and (Lettera al Padre Cristoforo Grienberger, in materia delle Montuosita delta Luna, pp. 409-424.) Galileo found in the moon some circular districts, surrounded on all sides by moun- tains similar to the form of Bohemia. " Eundem facit aspectum Lunse locus quidam, ac faceret in terris regio consimilis Boemia}, si montibus altissimis, inque peripheriam perfect! circuli dispositis occluderetur undique" (t. ii. p. 8). The measurements of the mountains were made by the method of the tangents of the solar ray. Galileo, as Helvetius did 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 was first struck by the solar ray. I find no obser- vation of the lengths of the shadows of the mountains. He found the summits " incirca miglia quattro " in height, and " much higher than the mountains on our earth." The comparison is remarkable, since, ac- cording to Riccioli, very exaggerated ideas of the height of our mountains were then entertained, and one of the principal or most celebrated of these elevations, the Peak of Teneriffe, was first measured trigonometri- 702 COSMOS. he first directed towards the mountainous parts of the moon, and showed how their summits might be measured, whilst he, like Leonardo da Vinci and Mostlin, ascribed the ash- coloured light of the moon to the reflection of solar light from the earth to the moon. He observed with low magnifying powers the group of the Pleiades, the starry cluster in Can- cer, the Milky Way, and the group of stars in the head of Orion. Then followed in quick succession the great discove- ries of the four satellites of Jupiter, the two handles of Saturn (his indistinctly-seen rings, the form of which was not recognised), the solar spots, and crescent shape of Venus. The moons of Jupiter, the first of all the secondary planets discovered by the telescope, were first seen, almost simul- taneously and wholly independently, on the 29th of Decem- ber, 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 Siderius (1610), preceded the Mundus Jovialis (1614), of Simon Marius,* cally, with some degree of exactness, byFeuille'e, in 1724, Galileo, like all other observers up to the close of the eighteenth century, believed in the existence of many seas and of a lunar atmosphere. * I here again find occasion (Cosmos, p. 179) to refer to the proposition laid down by Arago : — "The only rational and just method of writing the history of science is to base it exclusively on works, the date of whose publication is certain. All beyond this must be confused and ob- scure."— The singularly-delayed publication of the Frankische Kalender or Practica (1612), and of the astronomically important memoir entitled "Mundus Jovialis anno 1609 detectus ope perspicilli Belgici (Feb. 1614)," may indeed have given occasion to the suspicion that Marius had drawn his materials from the Nuncius Sidereus of Galileo, the dedication of which is dated March, 1610, or even from earlier manu- script communications. Galileo, irritated by the still remembered law- suit against Balthasar Capra, a pupil of Marius, calls him the usurper of the system of Jupiter, "Usurpatore del sistema di Giove," and he even accuses the heretical Protestant astronomer of Gunzenhausen, of having founded his apparently earlier observation on a confusion be- tween the calendars. " Tace il Mario di far cauto il lettore, come essendo egli separate della chiesa nostra, ne avendo accettato 1'emenda- tione gregoriana, il giorno 7 di gennaio del 1610, di noi cattolici (the day on which Galileo discovered the satellites) e 1'istesso, che il di 28 di Decembre del 1609, di loro eretici, e questa e tutta la precedeuza delle sue finte osservationi" (Venturi, Memoire e Letter e di G. Galilei, 1818, P. i. p. 279 ; and Delambre, Hist. dcVAstr. mod. t. i. p. 696). According to a letter written by Galileo in 1614, to the Accademia di Lincei, it would DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 703 who had proposed to give to Jupiter's satellites the name of Sidera Brandenburgica ; whilst Galileo preferred the names Sidera Cosmica or Medicea, of which the latter found most approval at the court of Florence. This collective appel- lation did not satisfy the yearnings of flattery. Instead of designating the satellites by numbers, as we do at present, Marius had named them lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Cal- listo ; but for these mythological designations Galileo's no- menclature substituted the family names of the ruling house of Medici, — Catherina, Maria, Cosimo the elder, and Cosimo the younger. appear that he attempted somewhat unphilosophically, to direct his com- plaint against Marius to the Marchese di Brandeburgo. On the whole, however, Galileo continued well-disposed towards the German astrono- mers. He writes, in March, 1611, " Gli ingegnisingolari, che in gran nu- mero fioriscono nelT Alemagna, mi hanno lungo tempo tenuto in desiderio di vederla" (Opere, t. ii. p. 44). It has always appeared very remarkable to me, that if Kepler in a conversation with Marius, was playfully adduced as a sponsor for these mythological designations of lo and Callisto, there should be no mention of his countryman, either in the Commentary published in Prague, in April, 1610, to the Nuncius Side- rius, nuper ad mortales a Galilceo missus, or in his letters to Galileo, or in those addressed to the Emperor Rudolph in the autumn of the same year; but that on the contrary Kepler should everywhere speak of "the glorious discovery of the Medicean stars by Galileo." In publishing his own observations on the satellites, from the 4th to the 9th of Septem- ber, 1610, he gives to a little memoir which appeared at Frankfort in 1611, the title, " Kepleri Narratio de observatis a se quatuor Jovis satellitibus erronibus quos Galilceus Mathematicus Florentinus jure in- ventionis Medicea Sidera nuncupavit" A letter from Prague, October 25, 1610, addressed to Galileo, concludes with the words "neminem habes, quern metuas amulum." Compare Venturi, P. 1. pp. 100, 117, 139, 144, and 149. Misled by a mistake, and after a very careless examination of the valuable manuscripts preserved at Petworth, the seat of Lord Egremont, Baron yon Zach asserted that the distinguished astronomer and Virginian traveller, Thomas Harriot, had discovered the satellites of Jupiter simultaneously with, or even earlier than Galileo. A more careful examination of Harriot's manuscripts, by Rigaud, has shown that his observations began, not on the 16th of January, but only on the 17th of October, 1610, nine months after Galileo and Marius. (Compare Zach, Corr. Astron., vol. vii. p. 105. Rigaud, Account of Harriot's Astron. Papers, Oxf., 1833, p. 37; Brewster, Martyrs of Science, 1846, p. 32.) The earliest original obser- vations of Jupiter's satellites made by Galileo and his pupil Renieri, were only discovered two years ago. 704 COSMOS. The knowledge of Jupiter's satellite-system, and of the phases of Venus, has exercised the most marked influence on the establishment and general diffusion of the Copernican system. The little world of Jupiter (Mundus Jovialis] pre- sented to the intellectual contemplation of men a perfect image of the large planetary and solar systems. It was recognised, that the secondary planets obeyed the laws dis- covered by Kepler ; and it was now first observed that the squares of their periodic times were as the cubes of the mean distances of the satellites from the primary planets. It was this which led Kepler, in the Harmonices Mundi, to state, with the firm confidence and security of a German spirit of philosophical independence, to those whose opinions bore sway beyond the Alps ; " eighty years have elapsed,* during which the doctrines of Copernicus, regarding the movement of the earth, and the immobility of the sun, have been promulgated without hinderance, because it is deemed allowable to dis- pute concerning natural things, and to elucidate the works of God; and now that new testimony is discovered in proof of the truth of those doctrines — testimony which was not known to the spiritual judges — ye would prohibit the promulgation of the true system of the structure of the universe !" Such a prohibition — a consequence of the old contest between natural science and the Church — Kepler had early encountered in Protestant Germany.f The discovery of Jnpiter's satellites marks an ever-memo- rable epoch in the history and the vicissitudes of astro- nomy. J The occultations of the satellites, or their entrance into Jupiter's shadow, led to a knowledge of the velocity of light (1675), and, through this knowledge, to the expla- nation of the aberration-ellipse of the fixed stars (1727), in which the great orbit of the earth, in its annual course round the sun, is, as it were, reflected on the vault of heaven. These discoveries of Homer and Bradley have been justly termed "the keystone of the Copernican sys~ * It should be seventy- three years ; for the prohibition of the Coper- nican system, by the Congregation of the Index, was promulgated on the 5th of March, 161 6. + Freiherr von Breitschwert, Keppler's Leben, s. 36. $ Sir John Herschcl, Astron., s. 465. DISCOVERIES IX THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 705 tern," the perceptible evidence of the translatatory motion of the earth. Galileo had also early perceived (September 1612), the importance of the occultations of Jupiter's satellites for geo- graphical determinations of longitude on land. He pro- posed this method, first to the Spanish court, in 1616, and afterwards to the States General of Holland, with a view of its being applied to nautical purposes,-^ little aware, as it would appear, of the insuperable difficulties presented to its practical application on the unstable element. He wished to go himself, or to send his son Vicenzio, to Spain, with a hun- dred telescopes, which he would prepare. He required as a recompense " una, croce di San Jago," and an annual payment of 4000 scudi, a small sum, he says, considering that hopes had been given to him, in the house of Cardinal Borgia, of receiving 6000 ducats annually. The discovery of the secondary planets of Jupiter was soon followed by the observations of the so-called triple form of Saturn as a planeta tergeminus. As early as November * Galilei, Opere, t. ii. (Longitudine per via de' Pianeti Mcdicei) pp. 435-506; Nelli, Vita vol. ii. pp. 656-688; Venturi, Memorie e Lettere di G. Galilei, P. i. p. 177. As early as 1612, or scarcely two years after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, Galileo boasted, some- what prematurely indeed, of having completed tables of those secondary satellites "to within V of time." A long diplomatic correspondence was carried on with the Spanish ambassador in 1616, and with the Dutch ambassador in 1636, but without leading to the desired object. The telescopes were to magnify from forty to fifty times. In order more easily to find the satellites when the ship is in motion, and (as he believed) to keep them in the field, he invented, in 1617 (Nelli, vol. ii. p. 663), the binocular telescope, which has generally been ascribed to the Capucine monk, Schyrleus de Rheita, who had much experience in optical matters, and who endeavoured to construct telescopes magnify- ing four thousand times. Galileo made experiments with his binocular (which he also called a celatone or testiera), in the harbour of Leghorn, while the ship was violently moved by a strong wind. He also caused a contrivance to be prepared in the arsenal at Pisa, by which the observer of the satellites might be protected from all motion, by seating himself in a kind of boat, floating in another boat filled with water or with oil (Letter a al Picchena de''Z2 Marzo, 1617; Nelli, Vita, vol. i. p. 281; Galilei, Opere, t. ii. p. 473 ; Lettera a Lorenzo JRealio del 5 Giugno, 1637). The proof which Galileo (Opere, t. ii. p. 454) brought forward of the advantage to the naval service of his method over Morin's method of lunar distances is very striking. 2z 706 COSMOS. 1610, Galileo informed Kepler that " Saturn consisted of three stars, which were in mutual contact with one another." In this observation lay the germ of the discovery of Saturn's ring. Hevelius, in 1656, described the variations in its form, the unequal opening of the handles (ansa3), and their occa- sional total disappearance. The merit of having given a scientific explanation of all the phenomena of Saturn's ring belongs, however, to the acute observer Huygens, who, in 1655, in accordance with the suspicious custom of the age, and like Galileo, concealed his discovery in an anagram of eighty-eight letters. Dominicus Cassini was the first who observed the black stripe on the ring, and, in 1684, he recog- nised that it is divided into at least two concentric rings. I have here collected together what has been learnt during a century regarding the most wonderful and least anticipated of all the forms occurring in the heavenly regions, — a form which has led' to ingenious conjectures regarding the original mode of formation of the secondary and primary planets. The spots upon the sun were first observed through tele- scopes by Johann Fabricius of East Friesland, and by Galileo (at Padua or Venice as is asserted) ; in the publication of the discovery, in June 1611, Fabricius incontestibly preceded Galileo by one year, since his first letter to the Burgomaster, Marcus Welser, is dated the 4th of May, 1612. The earliest observations of Fabricius were made, according to Arago's careful researches in March 1611,*' and, according to Sir David Brewster, even as early as towards the close of the year 1610 ; while Christopher Scheiner did not carry his own observations back to an earlier period than April 1611, and it is probable that he did not seriously occupy himself with the solar spots until the October of the same year. Concerning Galileo we * See Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, pp. 460-476 (Decouvertes des taches Solaires et de la ^Rotation du Soleil). Brewsler -(Martyrs of Science, pp. 36 and 39), places 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 Eigaud, pp. 32 and 38. The Jesuit Scheiner, who was summoned from Gratz to Rome, has been accused of striving to revenge himself on Galileo, on account of the literary contest regarding the dis- covery of the solar spots, by getting it whispered to Pope Urban VIII., through another Jesuit, Grassi, that he (the Pope), in the Dialoghi delle Scienze Nuove, was represented as the foolish and ignorant Simplicio (Nelli, vol. ii. p. 515). DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 707 possess only very obscure and discrepant data on this subject. It is probable that he recognised the solar spots in April 1611, for he showed them publicly at Rome in Cardinal Ban- dini's garden on the Quirinal, in the months of April and May of that year. Hariot, to whom Baron Zach ascribes the dis- covery of the sun's spots, (16th of January, 1610), certainly saw three of them on the 8th of December, 1610, and noted them down in a register of observations; but he was ignorant that they were solar spots; thus, too, Flamstead, on the 23rd of December, 1690, and Tobias Mayer, on the 25th of Septem- ber, 1756, did not recognise Uranus as a planet when it passed across the field of their telescope. Hariot first observed the solar spots on the 1st of December, 1611, five months, therefore, after Fabricius had published his discovery. Gali- leo had made the observation that the solar spots, " many of which are larger than the Mediterranean, or even than Africa and Asia," form a definite zone on the sun's disk. He occa- sionally noticed the same spots return, and he was convinced that they belonged to the sun itself. Their differences of dimension in the centre of the sun, and, when they disap- peared on the sun's edge, especially attracted his attention, but still I find nothing in his second remarkable letter of the 14th of August, 1612, to Marcus Welser, that would indicate his having observed an inequality in the ash-coloured margin on both sides of the black nucleus when approaching the sun's edge (Alexander Wilson's accurate observation in 1773). The Canon Tarde, in 1620, and Malapertus in 1633, ascribed all obscurations of the sun to small cosmical bodies revolving around it and intercepting its light, and named the Bourbon and Austrian stars* (Borbonia et Austriaca Sidera). Fabri- cius recognised, like Galileo, that the spots belonged to the sun itself;f he also noticed that the spots he had seen vanish all re -appear ; and the observation of these phenomena taught him the rotation of the sun, which had already been conjec- tured by Kepler before the discovery of the solar spots. The most accurate determinations of the period of rotation were, however, made in 1630, by the diligent Scheiner. Since the strongest light ever produced by man, Drummond's incan- * Delambe, Hist, de I' Astronomic moderne, t. i. p. 690. f The same opinion is expressed in Galileo's Letters to Prince Cesi (May 25, 1612); Venturi, P. i. p. 172. 2z2 708 COSMOS. descent lime -ball appears inky black when thrown on the sun's disk, we cannot wonder that Galileo, who undoubtedly, first described the great solar faculce, should have regarded the light of the nucleus of the sun's spots as more intense than that of the full moon, or the atmosphere near the sun's disk.* Fanciful conjectures regarding the many envelopes of air, clouds, and light, which surround the black earth-like nucleus of the sun, may be found, in the writings of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century. f To close our consideration of the cycle of remarkable dis- coveries which scarcely comprised two years, and in which the great and undying name of the Florentine shines pre- eminent, it still remains for us to notice the observation of the phases of Venus. In February 1610, Galileo observed the cresoentic form of this planet, and, on the llth of De- cember, 1610, in accordance with a practice already alluded to, he concealed this important discovery in an ana- gram, of which Kepler makes mention in the preface to his Dioptrica. We learn also, from a letter of his to Benedetto Castelli (30th of December, 1610), that he believed, notwith- standing the low magnifying power of his telescope, that he could recognise changes in the illumined disk of Mars. The discovery of the moon-like or crescent shape of Venus was the triumph of the Copernican system. The founder of that sys- tem could scarcely fail to recognise the necessity of the exist- ence of these phases ; and, we find, that he discusses circum- stantially, in the tenth chapter of his first book, the doubts which the more modern adherents of the Platonic opinions advance against the Ptolemaic system on account of these phases. But, in the development of his own system, he does not speak expressly of the phases of Venus, as is stated by Thomas Smith in his Optics. The enlargement of cosmical knowledge, whose description cannot, unhappily, be wholly separated from unpleasant dis- sensions regarding the right of priority to discoveries, excited, * See some ingenious and interesting considerations on this subject by Arago, in the Annuaire pour Van 1842, pp. 481-488. Sir John Herschel, in his Astronomy, §. 334, speaks of the experiments with Drummond's light projected on the sun's disk. t Giordano Bruno und Nic. von Cusa vergliclien, von J. Clemens, 1847, s. 101. On the phases of Venus, see Galilei, Opere, t. ii. p. 53, and Nelli, Vita, vol. i. pp. 213-215. DISCOVEEIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 709 like all that refers to physical astronomy, more general atten- tion, from the fact that several great discoveries in the heavens had aroused the attention of the public mass at the respective periods of thirty-six, eight, and four years prior to the inven- tion of the telescope in 1608, viz., the sudden apparition and disappearance of three new stars, one in Cassiopea in 1572, another in the constellation of the Swan in 1600, and the third in the foot of Ophiuchus in 1604. All these stars were brighter than those of the first magnitude, and the one observed by Kepler in the Swan continued to shine in the heavens for twenty-one years, throughout the whole period of Galileo's discoveries. Three centuries and a half have now nearly passed since then, but no new star of the first or second magnitude has appeared; for the remarkable event witnessed by Sir John Herschel in the southern hemisphere (in 1837),* was a great increase in the intensity of the light of a long known star of the second magnitude (77 Argo), which had not until then been recognised as variable. The writings of Kepler and our own experience of the effect pro- duced by the appearance of comets visible to the naked eye, will teach us to understand how powerfully the appearance of new stars, between the years 1572 and 1604, must have arrested attention, increased the general interest in astrono- mical discoveries, and excited the minds of men to the com- bination of imaginative conjectures. Thus, too, terrestrial natural events, as earthquakes in regions where they have been but seldom experienced; the eruption of volcanoes that had long remained inactive ; the sounds of aerolites traversing our atmosphere and becoming ignited within its confines, impart a new stimulus, for a certain time, to the general interest in problems, which appear to the people at large even more mysterious than to the dogmatising physicist. My reason for more particularly naming Kepler in these remarks on the influence of direct sensuous contemplation, has been to point out how, in this great and highly-gifted man, a taste for imaginative combinations was combined with a remarkable talent for observation, an earnest and severe method of induction, a courageous and almost unparalleled perseverance in calculation, and a mathematical profoundness of mind, which revealed, in his Stereometria doliorum, exer- * Compare Cosmos., pp. 54, and 363. 710 COSMOS. cised a happy influence on Fermat, and, through him, on the invention of the theory of the infinitesimal calculus. ^ A man endowed with such a mind was pre-eminently qualified by the richness and mobility of his ideas,f and by the bold cosmical conjectures which he advanced, to animate and augment the movement which led the seventeenth century uninterruptedly forward to the exalted object presented in an extended con- templation of the universe. The many comets visible to the naked eye, from 1577 to the appearance of Halley's comet in 1607 (eight in number), and the sudden apparition already alluded to of three stars almost at the same period, gave rise to speculations on the origin of these heavenly bodies from a cosmical vapour filling the regions of space. Kepler, like Tycho Brahe, believed that the new stars had been conglomerated from this vapour, and that they were again dissolved in it.J Comets to which, before the discovery of the elliptic orbit of the planets, he ascribed a rectilinear and not a closed revolving course, were regarded by him, in 1608, in his "new and singular discourse on the hairy stars," as having originated from " celestial air." He even added, in accordance with ancient fancies on spon- taneous generation, that comets arise " as a herb springs from * Laplace says of Kepler's theory of the measurement of casks (Stereometria doliorum,) 1615, "which, like the sand-reckoning of Archimedes, develops elevated ideas on a subject of little importance;" " Kepler pre"sente dans cet ouvrage des vues sur Tinfini qui ont influe" sur la revolution que la Geometric a eprouvee & la fin du I7me sieele; et Permat, que Ton doit regarder comme le veritable inventeur du calcul differentiel, a fonde sur elles sa belle methode de maximis et minimis. (Precis de I' hist, de T Astronomic, 1821, p. 95)." On the geometrical power manifested by Kepler in the five books of his Harmonices Mundi, see Chasles, Apercu hist, des Methodes en Geometric, 1837, pp. 482-487. t Sir David Brewster elegantly remarks, in the account of Kepler's method of investigating truth, that " the influence of imagination as an instrument 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). J Arago, in the Annuaire, 1842, p. 434 (De la transformation des Nebuleuses et de la matiere diffuse en etoiles). Compare Cosmos, pp. 134 and 142. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 711 the earth without seed, and as fishes are formed in the sea by a generatio spontanea Happier in his other cosmical conjectures, Kepler ha- zarded the following propositions: — that all the fixed stars are suns like our own luminary, and surrounded by planetary systems ; that our sun is enveloped in an atmosphere which appears like a white corona of light during a total solar eclipse; that our sun is so situated in the great cosmicai island as to constitute the centre of the compressed stellar ring of the milky way ;* that the sun itself, whose spots had not then been discovered, together with all the planets and fixed stars, rotates on its axis ; that satellites, like those dis- covered by Galileo round Jupiter, will also be discovered round Saturn and Mars; and that in the much too great interval of space between Mars and Jupiter, f where we are now acquainted with seven asteroids (as between Venus and Mercury), there revolve planets which, from their smallness alone, are invisible to the naked eye. Presentient proposi- tions of this nature, felicitous conjectures of that which was subsequently discovered, excited general interest, whilst none of Kepler's cotcmporaries, including Galileo, conferred any adequate praise on the discovery of the three laws, which, since Newton and the promulgation of the theory of gravita- tion, have immortalised the name of Kepler. J Cosmical con- siderations, even when based merely on feeble analogies and * Compare the ideas of Sir John Herschel on the position of our planetary system, vol. i. p. 141, also Strave, Etudes d' Astronomic stellaire, 1847, p. 4. •f .A pelt says (Epoclien der Geschichte der Mcmchheit, bd. i. 1845, s. 223) : " The remarkable law of the distances, which is usually known under the name of Bo4e's law (or that of Titius), is the discovery of Kepler, who, after many years of persevering industry, deduced it from the observations of Tycho de Brahe." See Harmonices Mundi libri quinque, cap. 3. Compare also Cournot's Additions to his French Translation of Sir John Herschel's Astronomy, 1834, § 434, p. 324, and Fries, Vorlesungen uber die Sternkunde, 1813, s. 325 (On the Law of the distances in the secondary planets). < 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; and in Brandis. Geschichte der Griechisch- Romisclien Philosophic, th. ii. abth. i. 1844, s. 364. J Delambre, Hist, de VAstronomie moderne, t. i. p. 360. 712 COSMOS. not on actual observations, ri vetted the attention more power- fully then, as they still frequently do, than the most important lesults of calculating astronomy. After having described the important discoveries which in so small a cycle of years extended the knowledge of the regions of space, it still remains for me to revert to the advances in physical astronomy, which characterise the latter half of this great century. The improvement in the construc- tion of telescopes led to the discovery of Saturn's satellites. Huygens, on the 25th of March, 1655, forty-five years after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, discovered the sixth of these bodies through an object-glass which he had himself polished. Owing to a prejudice which he shared with other astronomers of his time, that the number of the secondary planetary bodies could not exceed that of the primary planets,* he did not seek to discover other satellites of Saturn. Domi- nicus Cassini discovered four of these bodies, the Sidera Lodivicea, viz., the seventh and outermost, (in 1671) which exhibits great alternation of light, the fifth in 1672, and the fourth and third, in 1684, through Campani's object-glass, having a focal length of 100-136 feet ; the two innermost, the first and second, were discovered more than a century later (1788 and 1789), by William Herschel through his colossal telescope. The last-named of these satellites presents the remarkable phenomenon of accomplishing its revolution round the primary planet in less than one day. Soon after Huygens' discovery of a satellite of Saturn, Childrey first observed the zodiacal light, between the years 1658 and 1661, although its relations in space were not deter- mined until 1683 by Dominicus Cassini. The latter did not regard it as a portion of the sun's atmosphere, but believed, with Schubert, Laplace, and Poisson, that it was a detached revolving nebulous ring.f Next to the recognition of the existence of secondary planets, and of the free and concen- trically divided rings of Saturn, the conjecture of the probable existence of the nebulous zodiacal light belongs incontestibly to the grandest enlargement of our views regarding the planetary system, which had previously appeared so simple. In our own time the intersecting orbits of the small planets * Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, pp. 560--564; also Cosmos, p. 82, •j* Compare Cosmos, pp. .126 — 134. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 713 between Mars and Jupiter, the interior comets, which were first proved to be such by Encke, and the swarms of falling stars associated with definite days, (since we cannot regard these bodies in any other light than as such cosmical masses moving with planetary velocity,) have enriched our views of the universe with a remarkable abundance of new objects. During the age of Kepler and Galileo our ideas were very considerably enlarged regarding the contents of the regions of space, or, in other words, the distribution of all created matter beyond the outermost circle of the planetary bodies, and beyond the orbit of any comet. In the same period of which (1572-1604) three new stars of the first magnitude suddenly appeared in Cassiopea, Cygnus, and Ophiuchus, David Fabricius, pastor at Ostell in East Friesland (the father of the discoverer of the sun's spots), in 1596, and Johann Bayer at Augsburg in 1603, observed in the neck of the constellation Cetus, another star which again dis- appeared, whose changing brightness was first recognised by Johann Phocylides Holwarda, Professor at Franeker (in 1638 and 1639), as we learn from a treatise of Arago which has thrown much light on the history of astronomical discove- ries.* The phenomenon was not singular in its occurrence, for, during the last half of the seventeenth century, variable stars were periodically observed in the head of Medusa, in Hydra, and in Cygnus. The manner in which accurate observations of the alternations of light in Algol are able to lead directly to a determination of the velocity of the light of this star has been ably shown by the treatise to which I have alluded, and which was published in 1842. * Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour Van 1842, pp. 312-353 (Etoiles changeantes ou periodiques). In the seventeenth century there were recognised, as variable stars, besides Mira Ceti (Holwarda, 1638), a Hydrae (Montanari, 1672), (3 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 Systema Saturninum, refers most distinctly to the nebula in the sword of Orion, in saying of nebulae generally : — " Cui certe simile aliud nusquam apud reliquas fixas potui animadvertere. Nam cetera nebulosae olim existimatae atque ipsa via lactea, perspicillis inspectae, nullas nebulas habere com- periuntur, neque aliud esse quam plurhim stellarum congeries et fre- quentia." It is seen from this passage that the nebula in Andromeda, which was first described by Marius, had not been attentively considered by Huygens any more than by Galileo. 714 COSMOS, The use of the telescope now excited astronomers to the earnest observation of a class of phenomena, some of which could not even escape the naked eye. Simon Marius des- cribed in 1612 the nebula in Andromeda, and Huygens in 1656, drew the figure of that in the stars of the sword of Orion. Both nebula3 might serve as types of a more or less advanced condensation of nebulous cosmical matter. Marius, when he compared the nebula in Andromeda, to " a wax-taper seen through a semi-transparent medium," indicated very forcibly the difference between nebulsB generally and the stellar masses and groups in the Pleiades and in Cancer, examined by Galileo. As early as the sixteenth century Spanish and Por- tuguese sea-farers, without the aid of telescopic vision, had noticed with admiration the two Magallenic clouds of light, revolving round the south-pole, of which one, as we have ob- served, was known as " the white spot," or " white ox," of the Persian astronomer, Abdurrahman Sufi, who lived in the middle of the tenth century. Galileo in the nuncius Siderius uses the terms, " stellce nebulosce" and " nebulosce" to desig- nate clusters of stars, which, as he expresses it, like areolce sparsim per athera subfulgent. As he did not bestow any especial attention on the nebula in Andromeda, which although visible to the naked eye, had not hitherto revealed any star under the highest magnifying powers, he regarded all nebu- lous appearances, all his nebulosce, and the milky way itself, as luminous masses formed of closely-compressed stars. He did not distinguish between the nebula and star, as Huygens did in the case of the nebulous spot of Orion. These are the feeble beginnings of the great works on Nebula, which have so honourably occupied the first astronomers of our own time, in both hemispheres. Although the seventeenth century owes its principal splen- dour at its beginning to the sudden enlargment afforded to the knowledge of the heavens, imparted by the labours of Galileo and Kepler, and at its close to the advance in mathematical science, due to Newton and Leibnitz, yet the greater number of the physical problems, which occupy us in the present day, likewise experienced beneficial consideration in the same cen- tury. In order not to depart from the character peculiarly appropriate to a history of the contemplation of the universe, I limit myself to a mere enumeration of the works which have DISCOVEBIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 715 exercised direct and special influence on general, or in other words, on cosmical views of nature. With reference to the pro- cesses of light, heat, and magnetism, I would first name Huy- gens, Galileo, and Gilbert. While Huygens was occupied with the double refraction of light in crystals of Iceland spar, i. 0., with the separation of the pencils of light into two parts, he also discovered in 1 678 that kind of polarisation of light which bears his name. The discovery of this isolated phenomenon, which was not published till 1690, and consequently only five years before the death of Huygens, was followed, after the lapse of more than a century, by the great discoveries of Malus, Arago, Fresnel, Brewster, and Biot.* Malus, in 1808, discovered polarisation by reflection from polished surfaces, and Arago in 1811, made the discovery of coloured polarisation. A world of wonder composed of manifold modified waves of light, having new properties, was now revealed. A ray of light which reaches our eyes, after traversing millions of miles, from the remotest regions of heaven, announces of itself in Arago' s polariscope, whether it is reflected or refracted, whe- ther it emanates from a solid, or fluid, or gaseous body ; an- nouncing even the degree of its intensity. f By pursuing this course, which leads us back through Huygens to the seven- teenth century, we are instructed concerning the constitution of the solar body and its envelopes; the reflected or the pro- per light of cometary tails and the zodiacal light ; the optical properties of our atmosphere; and the position of the four neutral points of polarisation J which Arago, Babinet, and Brewster discovered. Thus does man create new organs which when skilfully employed, reveal to him new views of the universe. Next to polarisation, I should name the interference of light, —the most striking of all optical phenomena, faint traces of which were also observed in the seventeenth century by Gri- maldi in 1665, and by Hooke, although without a proper * On the important law discovered by Brewster, of the connection between the angle of complete polarisation and the index of refraction, see Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the year 1815, pp. 125-159. t See Cosmos, pp. 18 and 33. J Sir David Brewster, in Berghans and Johnson's Physical Atlas, 1847, part vii. p. 5 (Polarisation of the Atmosphere). 716 COSMOS. understanding of its original and causal conditions.* Modern times owe the discovery of these conditions, and the clear in- sight into the laws, according to which (unpolarised) rays of light emanating from one and the same source, but with a different length of path, destroy one another and produce darkness, to the successful penetration of Thomas Young. The laws of the interference of polarised light were discovered in 1816, by Arago and Fresnel. The theory of undulations advanced by Huygens and Hooke, and defended by Leonhard Euler, was at length established on a firm and secure basis. Although the latter half of the seventeenth century acquired distinction from the attainment of a successful insight into the nature of double refraction, by which optical science was so much enlarged; its greatest splendour was derived from New- ton's experimental researches and Olaus Romer's discovery, in 1675, of the measurable velocity of light. Half a century afterwards, in 1728, this discovery enabled Bradley to regard the variation he had observed in the apparent place of the stars as a conjoined consequence of the movement of the earth in its orbit, and of the propagation of light. Newton's splendid work on Optics did not appear in English till 1704, having been deferred, from personal considerations, till two years after Hooke's death; but it would seem a well attested fact that even before the years 1666 and 1667f he was in possession of the principal points of his optical researches, his theory of gravitation and differential calculus (method of fluxions). * On Grimaldi's and Hooke's attempt to explain the polarisation 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). f Brewster, The Life of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 17. The date of the year 1665 has been adopted for that of the invention of the method of flux- ions, 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 differential method, excepting the name and mode of notation." With reference to the whole unhappy contest on the subject of priority with Leibnitz, in which, strange to say, accusations against Newton's orthodoxy were even advanced, see Brewster, pp. 189-21 8. The fact 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 Yossius, (who was afterwards a Canon at Windsor,) in a remarkable me- DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 717 In order not to sever the links which hold together the general primitive phenomena of matter in one common bond, I would here immediately, after my succinct notice of the optical disco- veries of Huygens, Grimaldi, and Newton, pass to the consider- ation of terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric temperature, as far as these sciences are included in the century which we have attempted to describe. The able and important work on mag- netic and electric forces, the Physiologia nova de Magnete, by William Gilbert, to which I have frequently had occasion to allude,* appeared in the year 1600. This writer, whose sagacity of mind was so highly admired by Galileo, conjectured many things of which we have now acquired certain knowledge.! Gilbert regarded terrestrial magnetism and electricity as two emanations of a single fundamental force pervading all matter, and he therefore treated of both at once. Such obscure con- jectures, based on analogies of the effect of the Heraclean magnetic stone on iron, and the attractive force exercised oil dry straws by amber, when animated, as Pliny expresses it, with a soul by the agency of heat and friction, appertain to all ages and all races, to the Ionic natural philosophy, no less than to the science of the Chinese physicists. J According to Gilbert's idea, the earth itself is a magnet, whilst he considered that moir, entitled " De Lucis natura et proprietate," (Amstelod., 1662,) for the knowledge of which I was indebted two years ago, to M. Arago, at Paris. Brandis treats of this memoir in the new edition of Gehler's pliy- sikalisclie Wo'rterbuch, bd. iv. (1827,) s. 43, and Wilke notices it very fully, in his Gescli. der Optilc, th. i. (1838,) s. 223, 228, and 317. Isaac Vossius, however, considered the fundamental substance of all colours (cap. 25, p. 60,) to be sulphur, which forms, according to him, a component part of all bodies. In Vossii Responsum ad objecta, Joh. de Bruyn, Professoris Trajectini, et Petri Petiti 1663, it is said, p. 69 — Kcc lumen ullurn 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). * Cosmos, pp. 170, 172, and 656. f Lord Bacon, whose comprehensive and generally speaking, free and methodical views, were unfortunately accompanied by very limited mathematical and physical knowledge, even for the age at which he lived, was very unjust to Gilbert. " Bacon showed his inferior aptitude for physical research, in rejecting the Copernican doctrine which William Gilbert adopted" (Whewell, Philosophy of tfte Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 378). J Cosmos, p. 194. 718 COSMOS. the inflections of the lines of equal decimation and inclina- tion depend upon the distribution of mass, the configuration of continents, or the form and extent of the deep intervening oceanic basins. It is difficult to connect the periodic varia- tions which characterise the three principal forms of mag- netic phenomena (the isoclinal, isogonic, and isodynamic lines), with this rigid system of the distribution of force and mass, unless we represent to ourselves the attractive force of the material particles modified by similar periodic changes of temperature in the interior of the terrestrial planet. In Gilbert's theory, as in gravitation, the quantity of the material particles is merely estimated, without regard to the specific heterogeneity of substances. This circumstance gave his work, at the time of Galileo and Kepler, a charac- ter of cosmical greatness. The unexpected disco veiy of rota- tion-magnetism, by Arago in 1825, has shown practically, that every kind of matter is susceptible of magnetism ; and the most recent investigations of Faraday on dia-magnetic substances have, under especial conditions of meridian or equatorial direction, and of solid, fluid, or gaseous inactive conditions of the bodies, confirmed this important result. Gil- bert had so clear an idea of the force imparted by telluric magnetism, that he ascribed the magnetic condition of iron rods on crosses of old church towers to this action of the earth.* The increased enterprise and activity of navigation to the higher latitudes, and the improvement of magnetic instruments to which had been added since 1576, the dipping needle (incli- natorium) constructed by Robert Norman of Ratcliff, were the means, during the course of the seventeenth century, of extending the general knowledge of the periodical advance of a portion of the magnetic curves or lines of no vari- ation. The position of the magnetic equator which was be- lieved to be identical with the geographical equator, remained * The first observation of the kind was made (1590,) on the tower of the church of the Augustines at Mantua. Grimaldi and Gassendi wero acquainted with similar instances, all occurring in geographical latitudes where the inclination of the magnetic needle is very considerable. On the first measurements of magnetic intensity by the oscillation of a needle, compare my Relation hist., t. i. pp. 260-264, and Cosmos, pp. 179 — 181. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 719 uninvestigated. Observations of inclination were only carried on in a few of the capital cities of Western and Southern Europe; Graham, it is true, attempted in London in 1723, to measure by the oscillations of a magnetic needle, the intensity of the magnetic terrestrial force, which varies both with space and time, but since Borda's fruitless attempt on his last voy- age to the Canaries, in 1776, Lemanon was the first who succeeded in La Perouses's expedition, in 1785, in comparing the intensity in different regions of the earth. In the year 1683, Edmund Halley sketched his theory of four magnetic poles or points of convergence, and of the periodical movement of the magnetic line without declination, basing his theory on a large number of existing observations of de- clination of very unequal value, by Baffin, Hudson, James Hall, and Schouten. In order to test this theory, and render it more perfect by the aid of new and more exact observations, the English Government permitted him to make three voyages (1698-1702) in the Atlantic Ocean, in a vessel under his own command. In one of these he reached 52° S. lat. This expedi- tion constituted an epoch in the history of telluric magnetism. Its result was the construction of a general variation chart, on which the points at which navigators had found an equal amount of variation were connected together by curved lines. Never before, I believe, had any government fitted out a naval expedition for an object whose attainment promised such ad- vantages to practical navigation, while at the same time it deserved to be regarded as peculiarly scientific and physico- mathematical. As no phenomenon can be thoroughly investigated by a careful observer, without being considered in its relation to other phenomena, Halley, on his return from his voyage hazarded the conjecture that the northern light was of a magnetic origin. I have remarked, in the general picture of nature, that Faraday's brilliant discovery (the evolution of light by magnetic force) has raised this hypothesis, enounced as early as in the year 1714, to empirical certainty. But if the laws of terrestrial magnetism are to be thoroughly investigated — that is to say, if they are to be sought in the great cycle of the periodic movement in space of the three varieties of magnetic curves, it is by no means sufficient that the diurnal regular or disturbed course of the needle should be 720 COSMOS. observed at the magnetic stations which, since 1828, have begun to cover a considerable portion of the earth's surface, both in. northern and southern latitudes;*' but four times in every cen- tury an expedition of three ships should be sent out, to examine as nearly as possible at the same time the state of the mag- netism of the earth, so far as it can be investigated in those parts which are covered by the ocean. The magnetic equator, or the curve at which the inclination is null, must not merely be inferred from the geographical position of its nodes (the intersections with the geographical equator) ; but the course of the ship should be made continually to vary according to the observations of inclination, so as never to leave the tract of the magnetic equator for the time being. Land expeditions should be combined with these voyages, in order, where masses of land cannot be entirely traversed, to determine at what points of the coast-line the magnetic (*urves (especially those having no variation) enter. Special attention might also perhaps be deservedly directed to the movement and gradual changes in the oval configuration, and almost concentric curves of variation of the two isolated closed systems in Eastern Asia, and in the South Pacific in the meridian of the Marquesas Group.f Since the memo- rable Antarctic expedition of Sir James Clarke Ross, (1839 — 1843,) fitted out with admirable instruments, has thrown so much light over the polar regions of the southern hemisphere, and has determined empirically the position of the magnetic south pole ; and since my honoured friend, the great mathe- matician, Frederick Gauss, has succeeded in establishing the first general theory of terrestrial magnetism, we need not renounce the hope that the many requirements of science and navigation will lead to the realisation of the plan I have already proposed. May the year 1850 be marked as the first normal epoch in which the materials for a magnetic chart shall be collected ; and may permanent scientific institutions (Academies) impose upon themselves the practice of reminding every twenty-five or thirty years governments, favourable to the advance of navigation, of the importance of an under- taking whose great cosmical importance depends on its long continued repetition. * Cosmos, pp. 184 — 186. t Op. tit., p. 175. DISCOVEHIES IN THE C1L1LESTIAL SPACES. 721 The invention of instruments for measuring temperature (Galileo's thermoscopcs of 1593 and 1602,* depending simultaneously on the changes in the temperature and the external pressure of the atmosphere,) gave origin to the idea of determining the modifications of the atmosphere by a series of connected and successive observations. We learn from the Diario ddl Academia del Cimento, which exercised so happy an influence on the taste for experiments conducted in a regular and systematic method during the brief term of its activity, that observations of the temperature were made with spirit-thermometers similar to our own at a great num- ber of stations, amongst others at Florence, in the convent Degli Angeli, in the plains of Lombardy, on the mountains near Pistoja, and even in the elevated plain of Innspruck, as early as 1641, and five times daily. f The Grand Duke Ferdinand II. employed the monks in many of the monasteries of his states to perform this task.J The temperature of mineral springs was also determined at that period, and thus gave occasion to many questions regarding the temperature of the earth. As all natural phenomena — all the changes to which terrestrial matter is subject — are connected with modifications of heat, light, and electricity, whether at rest or moving in currents, and as likewise the phenomena of temperature acting by the force of expansion, are most easily discernible by the sensuous perceptions ; the invention and improvement of thermometers must necessarily, as I have already elsewhere observed, indicate a great epoch in the general progress of natural science. The range of the applicability of the tlier- * On the oldest thermometers, see Nelli, Vita e commercio let- terario di Galilei (Losanna, 1793), vol. i. pp. 88-94; Operedi Galilei (Padovo, 1744), t. i. p. Iv. ; Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques en Italic, t. iv. (1841,) pp. 185 — 197. As evidences of first comparative observations on temperature, we may instance the letters of Gianfrancesco Sagredo, and Benedetto Castelli in 1613, 1615, and 1633, given in Venturi, Memorle e Lettere inedite di Galilei, P. i. 1818, p. 20. + Vinccnzio Antinori, in the Saggi di Naturali Esperienze, fatte nell1 Accademia del Cimento, 1841, pp. 30 — 44. % On the determination of the thermometric scale of the Accademia del Cimento, and on the meteorological observations continued for six- teen years by a pupil of Galileo, Father Raineri, 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 ct de la Vegetation de I'ltalie, 1839, pp. 99—106. 3 A 722 COSMOS. mometer, and the rational deductions to be arrived at from its indications, are as immeasurable as the sphere of those natural forces which exercise their dominion over the atmosphere, the solid portions of the earth, and the superimposed strata of the ocean — alike over inorganic substances, and the chemi- cal and vital processes of organic matter. The action of radiating heat was likewise investigated, a century before the important labours of Scheele, by the Florentine members of the Academia del Cimento by remark- able experiments with concave mirrors against which non- luminous heated bodies, and masses of ice, weighing 5001bs. actually and apparently radiated.* Mario tte, at the close of the seventeenth century, entered into investigations regard- ing the relations of radiating heat in its passage through glass plates. It has seemed necessary to allude to these isolated experiments, since in more recent times the doctrine of the radiation of heat has thrown great light on the cooling of the ground, the formation of dew, and many general climatic modifications, and has led, moreover, through Mel- loni's admirable sagacity, to the contrasting diathermism of rock-salt and alum. To the investigations on the changes in the temperature of the atmosphere, depending on the geographical latitude, the seasons of the year, and the elevation of the spot, were soon added other enquiries into the variation of pressure and the quantity of vapour in the atmosphere, and the often observed periodic results, known as the law of rotation of the winds. Galileo's correct views respecting the pressure of the atmo- sphere led Torricelli, a year after the death of his great teacher, to the construction of the barometer. It would appear that the fact that the column of mercury in the Torricellian column stood higher at the base of a tower or hill than at its summit, was first observed- at Pisa by Claudio Beriguardi;f and five years later in France, at the suggestion of Pascal by Perrier, the brother-iii- law of the latter, when he ascended the Puy de Dome, which is nearly one thousand feet higher than Vesuvius. The idea of employing barometers for measuring elevations * Antinori, Saggi dell' Accad. del Cim. 1841, p. 114, and in the Aggiunte at the end of the book, p. Ixxvi. t Antinori, p. 29, DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 723 now presented itself readily ; it may perhaps have been sug- gested to Pascal, in a letter of Descartes*'. It is not neces- sary to enter into any especial explanation of the influence exercised on the enlargement of physical geography and meteorology by the barometer when used as a hypsometrical instrument in determining the local relations of the earth's surface ; and as a meteorological instrument in ascertaining the influence of atmospheric currents. The theory of the atmospheric currents already referred to, was established on a solid foundation before the close of the seventeenth century. Bacon had the merit, in 1664, in his celebrated work entitled Historia naturalis et experimentalis de ventis,] of considering the direction of the winds in their dependence on thermome- tric and hydrometric relations; but unmathematically deny- ing the correctness of the Copernican system, he conjectured the possibility " that our atmosphere may daily turn round the earth like the heavens, and thus occasion the tropical east wind." Hooke's comprehensive genius here also diffused order and light. ;[ He recognised the influence of the rotation of the earth, and the existence of the upper and lower currents of warm, and cold air which pass from the equator to the poles, and return from the poles to the equator. Galileo, in his last Dialogo, had indeed also regarded the trade winds as the consequence of the rotation of the earth ; but he ascribed the detention of the particles of air within the tropics (when compared with the velocity of the earth's rotation) to a va- pouiiess purity of the air in the tropical regions. § Hooke's * Ren. Cartesii Epistolce, (Amstelod. 1682). P. iii. Ep. 67. f Bacon's Works by Shaw, 1733, vol. iii. p. 441. (See Cosmos, pp. 321. J Hooke's Posthumous Works, p. 364. (Compare my Relat. Jtisto- rique, T. 1, p. 199.) Hooke, however, like Galileo, unhappily assumed a difference in the velocity of the rotation of the earth and of the at- sphere : see Posth. Works, pp. 88 and 363. § Although, according to Galileo's views, the detention of the particles of air, is one of the causes of the trade winds, yet his hypothesis ought not to be confounded, as has recently been done, with that of Hooke and Had- ley. Galileo, in the Dialogo quarto (Opere, t. iv. p. 311), makes Salviati say : " Dicevamo pur' ora che' 1'aria, come corpo tenue, c fluido, e non saldamente congiunto alia terra, pareva che non avesse necessity d'obbedire al suo moto, se non in quanto 1' asprezza della superficie ter- restre ne rapisce, e seco porta una parte a se contigua, che di non molto 3 A 2 724 COSMOS. more correct view was taken up by Halley late in the eighteenth century, and was then more fully and satisfactorily explained with reference to the action of the velocity of rota- tion peculiar to each parallel of latitude. Halley, prompted by his long sojourn in the torrid zone, had even earlier (1686) published an admirable empirical work on the geo- graphical extension of trade winds and monsoons. It is sur- prising that he should not have noticed, in his magnetic expe- ditions, the law of rotation of the winds, which is so important for the whole of meteorology, since its general features had been recognised by Bacon and Johann Christian Sturm of .Hippolstein (according to Brewster, the actual discoverer of the differential thermometer.*) In the brilliant epoch characterised by the foundation of mathematical natural philosophy, experiments were not want- ing for determining the connection existing between the humidity of the atmosphere, and the changes in the tem- perature and the direction of the winds. The Academia del Cimento had the felicitous idea of determining the quantity of intervallo sopravanza le maggiori altezze delle montagne ; la qual pozzion d'aria tanto meno dovra esser renitente alia conversion terrestre, quanto che ella e ripiena di vapori, fumi, ed esalazioni, materie tutte participant! delle qualita terrene : e per conseguenza atte nate per lor natura (?) a i medesimi movimenti. Ma dove, mancassero le cause del moto, cioe dova la superficie del globo avesse grancli spazii piani, e merio vi fusse della mistione de i vapori terreni, quivi cesserebbe in parte la causa, per la qtiale V aria ambiente dovesse totalmente obbedire al rapimento della conversion terrestre ; si che in tali uoghi, mentre che la terra si volge verso Oriente, sidovrebbe sentir continuamente un vento, che si ferisse, spirando da Levante verso Ponente ; e tale spiramento dovrebbe farsi piu sensibile, dove la vertigine del globo fusse piu veloce : il che sarebbe ne i luoghi piu remoti da i Poli, e vicini al cerchio massimo della diurna conversione. L'esperienza applaude molto a questo filosofico discorso, poiche ne gli ampi mari sottoposti alia Zona torrida, dove anco 1'evaporazioni terrestri mancano (?) si sente una perpetua aura muovere da Oriente " * 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 was first extended to both zones, and recognised in its ultimate connection with the causes of all atmospheric currents, by Dove, see the detailed trea- tise of Muncke, in the new edition of Gehler's Physical. Wo'rterbucli, Bd. x. S. 2003—2019 and 2030—2035. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 725 vapour by evaporation and precipitation. The oldest Flo- rentine hygrometer was accordingly a condensation-hygro- meter,— an apparatus in which the quantity of the discharged precipitated water was determined by weight.* In addition to the condensation-hygrometer, which, by the aid of the ideas of Le Roy in our own times, has gradually led to the exact psychrometrical methods of Dalton, Daniell, and August, we have (in accordance with the examples set by Leo- nardo da Vinci f), the absorption-hygrometer, composed of substances taken from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, made by Santori (1625), Torricelli (1646), and Molineux. Cat- gut and the spikes of grasses were employed almost simul- taneously. Instruments of this kind, which were based on the absorption by organic substances of the aqueous vapour con- tained in the atmosphere, were furnished with indicators or pointers, and small counter-weights, very similar in their construction to the hair and whalebone hygrometers of Saus- sure and Deluc. The instruments of the seventeenth century were, however, deficient in the fixed points of dryness and humidity so necessary to the comparison and comprehension of the results, and which were at length determined by Reg- nault ; (setting aside the susceptibility acquired by time in the hygrometrical substances employed.) Pictet found the hair of a Guanche mummy from Teneriffe, which was perhaps a thou- sand years old, sufficiently susceptible in a Saussure's hygro- meter. J The electric process was recognised by William Gilbert as the action of a proper natural force allied to the magnetic force. The book in which this view is first expressed, and in which the words electric force, electric emanations, and elec- tric attraction are first used, is the work of which I have already frequently spoken, § and which appeared in the year * Antinori, p. 45, and even in the Saggi, p. 17-19. f Yenturi, Essai sur les ouvragcs physico-maihematiques de Leo- nard de Vinci, 1797, p. 28. £ Bibliotheque universelle de Geneve, T. xxvii. 1824, p. 120. § Gilbert, de Magncte, lib. ii. cap. 2-4, p. 46-71. With respect to- the interpretation of the nomenclature employed, he already said: — Electrica quae attrahit eadem ratione ut electrum ; versorium non mag- neticuin ex quovis metallo, inserviens electricis experimentis. In the text itself we find as follows: — Magnetice ut ita dicam, vel electrice attrahere (vim illam electricam nobis1 placet appellare . . . .) (p. 52);.; 726 COSMOS. 1600, under the title of " Physiology of magnets and of the earth as a great magnet (de magno magnete tellure.)" " The property," says Gilbert, " of attracting light substances, when rubbed, be their nature what it may, is not peculiar to amber, which is a condensed earthy juice cast up by the waves of the sea, and in which flying insects, ants, and worms lie entombed as in eternal sepulchres (a3ternis sepul- chris). The force of attraction belongs to a whole class of very different substances, as glass, sulphur, sealing-wax, and all resinous substances, rock crystal, and all precious stones, alum, arid rock salt." Gilbert measured the strength of the excited electricity by means of a small needle, not made of iron, which moved freely on a pivot (versorium eleclricum}, and perfectly similar to the apparatus used by Hauy and Brewster in testing the electricity excited in minerals by heat and friction. " Friction," says Gilbert further, " is produc- tive of a stronger effect in dry than in humid air ; and rub- bing with silk cloths is most advantageous. The globe is held together as by an electric force (?) Globus telluris per effluvia electrica, attractiones electricae. We do not find either the abstract expression electricitas, or the barbarous word magnetismus introduced in the eighteenth century. On the derivation of -ijXtKrpov. "the attractor and the attracting stone/' from «X£Elian, description of the Vale of Tempe, 380; Natural History, 563. jEolians, their mental characteristics, 506. Africa, early colonisation of its northern coast, 480 — 482; early circumnavi- gation, 489 ; settlements of the Phoc- nicians, 405 ; earHest comparison of the African races with the Arian races and the Indian aborigines, 531. Agathodsemon, 558. Agesinax, hypothesis of the marks on the moon's disc, 561. Albertus, Magnus, 396, 449, 450, 602, 615, 617; lits scientific researches and writings, 618; commendation of, by Dante, 618, 619, Albinovanus, Pedo, heroic poem on the deeds of Germanicus, 388, 389. Albiruni (Arabian mathematician), History of India, by, 594. Alexander the Great/magnitude of the inftuence of his campaigns, 516, 517,519, 520; their rapidity, 519; unity and grandeur of his polity, 518; diversity of the countries he traversed, 520, 522 ; views respecting Alexandria and Babylon, 537. Alexandria, its commercial greatness, 537; Alexandrian school of philoso- phy, 482; its scientific characteris- tics, 541; museum and libraries, 542, 543; myth of the burning of its library, 582. Alexander of Aphrodisias, on distilla- tion of sea-water, 562, 589, 649. Alexander VI. (Pope), his ' line of de- marcation,' 655 Alhassen, Arabian geographer, 584, 591,620. Alliacus, Cardinal, his 'Picture of the World,' 620, 621, 645. Al-Mamun (Caliph), translation of numerous works from the Greek, &c., 586, 587; measurement of a degree, 594. Alphabets, ancient, investigation of, 505. Alphabetical writing, spread of, by the Phoenicians, its powerful influence on civilisation and higher results, 490, 491. Amber coast, visited by the Phoeni- cians, its probable locality, 492,493; amber trade, its origin and extension, 493, 494. Amenemha III. formed Lake Moeris, 486. America, discovery of, its influence on men's imaginations, 420, 421, 635, 636; on the physical and mathe- matical sciences, 569, 570, 612 — 615, 650—680; accidental discovery by the Northmen, 603 ; dates of its discovery by the Spaniards and Portuguese, 640 — 643 ; supposed discovery by Madoc, 608 — 610; im- portant results of trivial circum- stances in its discovery, 638, 639; its discoverers and adventurers, Ame- rigo Vespucci, 612 — 681; Balboa, 642 — 646, 648; Columbus, 636— 663; Cortez, 647, 648, 675; Gama,. 039 ; accidents which led to the naming of America, 676 — 681. Anghiera, correspondence and writings of, 422, 635, 636, 646, 660, 663- 665, 678. Anglo-Saxon poem, on the names of the Runes, 401. Animal Epos (the German), its genuine delight in nature, 401, 402. Antar, early Bedouin poem, 415, 416. Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, his em- bassy to China, 554. Apollotmis Myndius, on comets, 533. Apollonius, of Perga, 546, 696; simi- larity of his ' System of the World' to that of Tycho Brahe, 693, 694. Appianus, of Cilicia, poem on fishes, 563. Apuleius, his conjectures on fossils, 557, 563. Aquinas (St. Thomas), 618, 619. Arabian Gulf, its geognostic pheno- mena, 484, 485. Arabs, their poetry, in relation to nature, 415; its characteristics, 416; influence of their invasions on the advancement of the physical and mathematical sciences, 569 — 600, 615 — 618; their incursions, com- merce, &c., 572, 573; configuration of Arabia and its natural productions, 573 — 575; their nomadic life as compared with that of the Scythians, 577, 578; intercourse with the Nes- torians, 578, 579; their knowledge of botany and the science of medi- cine, 580 — 581 ; scientific qualifi- cations, 583, 584 ; their geographers, 584 — 586; repugnance to anatomy, 586; valuable translations from Greek, Syriac, Indian, &c., 586, 588 ; their botanists and school of medicine, 587 ; chemistry and phar- macy, 589 — 591 ; astronomy, 592 — 596,*665 ; algebra, 596 — 599 ; general results of their scientific researches, 600. Arago, on the magnifying power of Galileo's telescope, 683; true method of writing the history of science, 702 ; treatise on changing or periodic stars, 713; discovery of coloured polarisation, 715, 716. Archimedes, 546, 557 ; his ' Catoptrica,1 562. Argonautic expedition to Colchis, elu- cidation of the myth, 508. Aristarchus, of Samos, his correct knowledge of the Earth's structure, 469; of astronomy, 544, 545; ac- quaintance of Copernicus with his writings, 691 — 694. Aristobulus, 520, 523. Aristotle, noble passage on the effect of natural scenery, 381 ; on Empedo- cles, 383; on Ramses the Great, 488; his idea of the proximity of India to the Pillars of Hercules, 616; on the advantages of political unity, 518, 519; his doctrines and expositions, 525 ; Dante on, 525 ; his ' Historia Animalium ' and * Meteorologica/ 526 — 528, 560, 565; his zoological specimens and collection of books, 528; anatomical dissection, 528, 529; his school and leading fol- lowers, 529, 530; important results of his teaching, 541, 543; on the weight of the atmosphere, 562; Ara- bic translations of, 586; letter of the Emperor Frederick II. on, 586, 587 ; influence of his philosophy in the middle ages, 616. 617; imperfect ideas on attraction, 690; inventor of retrograde spheres, 697. Aryabhatta, Indian mathematician, 555. Arystillus, early Alexandrian astrono- mer, 544, 545. Astrolabes, use of, in navigation, 630 —638. Astronomy, knowledge of, by the Chal- deans, 532—534; Greeks, 532, 533, 543 — 546 ; Arabs, 592 — 595 ; obser- vations by the discoverers of Ame- rica, 664 — 673 ; application of, to navigation, 630—638, 669—674 ; brilliant progress from the discovery of the telescope, 681 — 687. Augustus, his collection of fossils', 563. Ausonius, descriptions of nature, in his poem ' Mosella,' 388. Australia, discovery of, 649, 650. Avicenna, Zoological History of, 587; work on Materia Medica, 588. Avienus Festus, writings of, 497. Bacon, Lord, 'InstauratioMagna,' 698; conjectures on atmospheric currents, 723. C 3 Bacon, Roger, 396, 602, 615, 617, 700 ; his scientific writings and their influence on the extension of the natural sciences, 619, 620. Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, his naviga- tion of the Pacific, 642 — 646, 648. Banana (the), the aricna of Pliny, 524, 525. Barometer, invention of, 722; hypso- metrical uses, 723. Barros, Johannes, Portuguese histo- rian, writings of, 614, 649, 650, 670, 672. Basil the Great, simple and beautiful description of Nature in his letter to Gregory of Nazianzum, 393 — 394; his Hexameron, 395. Behairn, Martin, of Nurnberg, 613, 631, 645—616, 670. Bembo, Cardinal, his JEtim Dialogus, 387, 420; Historic Veneta3, 420. Berghaus, Professor, on the extent of the Roman Empire, 548. Beriguardi, Claudio, first observed the pressure of the atmosphere at varying altitudes, 722. Bernaldez, Andres, MS. writings of, 641. Bluitti-Kavya, Indian poem, 407. Bles, Henry de, Flemish landscape painter, 446. Boccaccio, a reviver of the study of classical literature, 622, 623. Bockh, on the ' Adonis Gardens ' of the ancients, 450 ; on the knowledge of the Pythagoreans of the ' preces- sion,' 545. Bodner, Carl, fidelity of his drawings to nature, 451. Boethius, Geometry of, 597. Boiardo, smaller poems of, 419. Boreas, meteorological myth of, 511. Botanical knowledge of the Arabs, 581, 587; of the Mexicans, 652. Brahnmgupta, Indian mathematician, 555. Brahmins, and Brahminical districts, 534, 535. Breughel, Joiiann, his fruit and flower pieces, 449. Brewster, Sir David, on Kepler's me- thod of investigating truth, 710; im- portant discovery of the connection between the angle of complete pola- risation ana the index of refraction, 715; on the date of Newton's optical discoveries, 716. Breytenlach, Bernhard von, early tra- veller, 434. Bril, Matthew and Paul, Flemish landscape painters, 446. Brongniart, Alexander, palocontolo- gical researches of, 733. Bruchium, Library of, 542. Bucolic poetry, its characteristics, 378. Buffon, 431 ; deficiency of personal observation in his writings, 431, 432. Bunsen, Chevalier, note from his ' Egypt,' 486. Byron, Lord, his poetry, 433. Cabot, Sebastian, voyages and disco- veries of, 640—642, 657, 658. Cabral, Alvarez, 614, 639. Cabrillo, Rodriguez, 602, 649. Cajsar, Julius, writings of, 388, 391, 558. Calderon, dazzling descriptions of na- ture, in his writings, 429. Callimachus, gloomy descriptions of Nature, in his ' Hymn on Delos,' 377. Callisthenes of Olynthus, 529, 530, 532. Camoens, faithful individuality of na- ture in his ' Lusiad,' and its inimi- table description of physical pheno- mena, 424 — 427. Canary Islands, regarded by Don Fernando, son of Columbus* as the Cassiterides, of the Carthagenians, 495 ; supposed ' happy islands ' of the ancients, 496 : early notices of, 497. Caravan trade, of the Phoanicians, 492, 493; of Western Asia, 536, 537; Egypt, 538. Cardanus Hieronymus, writings of, 636, 637. Carthage, its geographical site, 481 ; navigation, 405; greatness, 513. See Phoenicians. Carus, on the tone of mind, awakened by landscape, 447. Caspian Sea, 508, 509; Chinese expe- dition to, 553. Cassini, Dominicus, his observations on Saturn's ring, 706, 712; Zodiacal light, 712, r 4 Cassius, Mount, the probable ' amber coast of the Phoenicians, 492, 493. Castilian heroic ages, impulses of, 421. Castor, Antonius, botanical gardens of, 563. Catlin, on the language and descent of the Indian tribe of the Tuscaroras, 609. Caucasus, Grecian myths respecting, 508. Celto-Irisb poems, 402. Cervantes, his Don Quixote, and Ga- latea, 423, 427. Choeremon, his remarkable love of nature compared by Sir William Jones, to that of the Indian poets, 380. Chaldean astronomers and mathema- ticians, 532, 533, 544. Charlemagne, Arabian presents sent to, 591. Charles V., letter to Cortez, 647. Chateaubriand, Augusts de, 431 — 434. Chemistry, pneumatic, dawn of, 729 — 731 : chemical knowledge of the Romans, 562, 563; of the Arabs, 581, 582,589. Childrey, first observed the Zodiacal light, 712. Chinese, their pleasure-gardens, and passages from their writers on the subject, 462 — 464 ; antiquity of their chronology, 475, 476 ; warlike expe- dition to the Caspian, 553, Roman embassy to China, 554, 555; early use of the magnetic needle, 559, 628 ; of moveable types in printing, 623. Chivalric poetry of the thirteenth cen- tury, 400. Christianity, results of its diffusion in the eximnsion of the views of men, in their communion with nature, 392; its humanisation of nations, 567, 568. Chrysostom.his eloquent admiration of nature, 396. Cicero, on the golden flow of Aristo- tle's eloquence, 381 ; his keen sus- ceptibility for the beauties of nature, 383, 384, 385; on the ennobling results of its contemplation, 566. Cimento, Accademia del, scientific re- searches of, 721—728, Civilization, early centres of, 475,"476, 478, 484 Classical literature, why so termed, 548; influence of its revival on the contemplation of nature, 622 — 624. Claude, Lorraine, his landscapes, 447, 454. Claudian, quotation from, on the domi- nion of the Romans, 567. Colceus, of Samos, his passage through the pillars of Hercules, into the Western Ocean, 514, 515, 517. Colchis, Argonautic expedition to, 508, 509. Colebrooke, on the epochs of the In- dian mathematicians, 555; on the inoense of Arabia, 574; Arabic translation of Diophantus, 596. Colonna, Vittoria, her poems, 419. Columbus, peculiar charm lent to his delineations of nature, 420; their religious sentiment, 420, 421 ; their beauty and simplicity, 422; his acute and discriminating observation of nature, 422, 423 ; his dream on the shore of Veragua, 423 ; letter to Queen Isabella, 435 ; on the land of Ophir, 501; visit to Iceland, 611, 612; died in the belief that the lands discovered in America were portions of Eastern Asia, 612, 613, 641 ; made use of the writings of Cardinal Alliacus, 623, 626; his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, on the coast of Veragua, 626; on his knowledge of the log, 633 ; scientific characteristics, 63^, 640, 651 ; erro- neous views on the extent of the old continent, 644, 645 ; heraldic bear- ings bestowed on, 647; physical ob- servations in his letter from Hayti, October, 1498, 653, 654; discovery of the magnetic line of no variation, 654,657; first described the equa- torial current, 662, 663;' the Mar de Sargasso, 663 ; on the method of taking a ship's reckoning, 671 — 673. Compass, its discovery and employ- ment, 628 — 630; transmission through the Arabs to Europe from the Chinese, 628—630. Conquista, age of the, great events it embraced, 675. Conquistadores, impulses which ani- mated them, 648, 649. Copernicus, 681 ; greatness of his epoch, 683; his life and studies, 684, 685; grandeur of his views, and boldness of his teaching, 686 — 689 ; his eloquent description of his system, 688, 689; knowledge of the ideas of the ancients on the struc- ture of the universe, 69 1 , 692. Cortenovis, Father Angelo, story re- lated by, on the tomb of Lars Por- sena, 503. Cortez, Hernan, expeditions of, 647 —648, 675. Cosa, Juan de la, map of the world. 639, 642, 677. Cosmas, Indicopleustes, 556, 557, 649. Cosmos, its science and historv discri- minated, 466, 468. Coupvent and Dumoulin, on the height of the Peak of Tenerifie, 498. Covilham, Pedro de, and Alonso de Pavya, embassy to Prester John, 627: Crenzer, on the < Adonis Gardens ' of the ancients, 450. Crusades, sli^htness of their influence on the minne-singers, 400, 401. Ctesias, his account of an Indian spring, 501 ; on the relations be- tween lightning and conducting metals, 503; on India, 619, 521, 523. Ctesibus, hydraulic clock of, 545, 591. Curtius, fine natural picture, in his writings, 388, 389. Cuss, Nicholas de, a German cardinal, revived the doctrine of the earth's rotation on its axis, and translation in space, 469. Cuvier, his lite of Aristotle, 525 — 528; on the scientific merits of Frederick II., 618; palreontological researches, 733. Cuyp, his landscapes, 447. Dante, ' southern stars,' quotation, 371; instances of his deep sensibilitv to the charms of nature, 418, 419; no- tices in his poetry— on Aristotle, 525 ; on Albertus Magnus, 619; on the magnetic needle, 629; on the con- stellation of the southern cross, 667 668. Darwin, Charles, vivid pictures in his writings, 437. Delille, his poems on nature, 437. Dschayadeva, Indian poet, his ' Gita- govinda,' 408. Diaz, Bartholomew, his discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, 627. Dictf>archus, diaphragm, of, 516, 517. 544. Dicuil, Irish monk, his work ' De Men- sura Orbis Teme, 608. Diodorus, on the Gardens of Semi, ramis, 460, praise of the Etrus- cans, 504. Diophantus, the arithmetician and al- gebraist, 551, 555, 596. Dioscorides of Cilicia, botanical inves- tigations of, 550, 562, 563, 574, 580, 581. Distillation of a fluid, first mention of, 528. Dorians, their mental characteristics, 506; migrations, 512—514. Drummond's incandescent lime-hall, 707, 708. Dschebar, Arabian chemist, 580, 589. Duran D. Augustin, his Romancero, 428. Ebn-Junis, first employed a pendulum to measure time, 691 ; his astrono- mical observations, 694, 595. Eckhout, his large pictures of tropical productions, 451. Eginhard, on the Arabian clock sent to Charlemagne, 591. Egypt, its chronological data, 475, 485 — 490; civilization, 487 — 490; monuments of its kings, 485, 486 ; victories and distant expeditions of Ramses Miamen, 486 — 488; Egyp- tian navigation, 487 — 490; founda- tion of a permanent foreign com- merce introduced with Greek hired troops, and its results, 489, 490, 501; its greatness under the Ptolemies, 536 — 546; intercourse with distant countries, 538 — 540. Ehrenberg, on the incense and myrrh of Arabia, 574. Elcano, Sebastian de, completed the first circumnavigation of the globe after the death of Magellan, 647. Electrical science, gradual dawn of. 725—728. Elephants, African and Indian, 540 541 ; immense armies of 541 I 6 ] El Tstachri, Arabian geographer, 584. Elliptic movement of the planets, dis- covery of, 795 — 799. Elmo, St., fire of, 425. Elysium, or ' Islands of the Blessed,' of the ancients, 496. Empedocles, his poems ' on Nature,' 375. Encke, Professor, on the distance at which eruptions of Etna are visible 498. Encyclopaedic, scientific works of the Middle Ages, 620, 621. Epochs, early comparisons of among civilized nations, 475, 476. Epochs, great, in the advancement of human knowledge, 683, 698. Equatorial current, first described by Columbus, 662, 663. Eratosthenes, 516, 518, 521, 556 on the number of peninsulas in the Me- diterranean, 482; his geographical labours, 543, 544; conjecture of the -equal level of the whole external sea, 543 ; measurement of degrees, 544; enlarged physical and geog- nostic opinions, 543 — 545, 565. Ercilla, Don Alonso de. his Epic poem 'Araucana.' 427, 428, 642, 664. Eric Upsi, first bishop of Greenland, 605. Etna, Mount, on the distance at which its eruptions are visible, 498. Etruscans, the, their inland traffic, 502; influence of their character on Home, and her political institutions, 502 ; their notice of the meteorolo- gical processes of nature, 502 — 504. Euclid, 546. Eudoxus, his attempted circumnavi- gation of Cyzicus, 489. Euripides, picturesque descriptions of nature in his writings, 377, 378; prophecy in the chorus of his Medea, 549. •Eutocius, method of. See Numerals. Everdingen, his landscapes, 447, 454. Eyck, Hubert and Johann van, land- scapes in their paintings, 445. Fabricius, Johann, first observed the solar spots, 706, 707. falero, Kuy, Portuguese astronomer, 672. Faraday, investigations on dia-magnetic substances, 718; discovery of the evolution of light by magnetic force, 719, 727. Ferdinandea, volcanic island of, 481. Finnish Tribes, their poetry, in rela- tion to nature, 411. Firdusi, Persian poet, 409 ; myth of the origin of the cypress in Paradise, 461. Flemming, Paul, old German poet, 432—434. Forster's ' Delineations of the South Sea Islands,' its effect on the au- thor's mind, 372 ; his translation of Sacontala, 405 ; his merits as a writer, 436, 437. Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen, letter of, to his universities, on the transla- tion of Aristotle, 586, 587; inter- course with Arabian and Spanish literati, 588; curious piece of me- chanism presented to him, 592; re- searches in natural history, 618. Freytag, remark on the Arabic poetrv, 416. Fulgatores, the, of the Etruscans, 502 —504. Galen, of Pergarnus, his scientific re- searches, 550, 563. Galileo, 591,700, 701; his telescopic discoveries, 700 — 714; of the moun- tains in the moon, 701, 702; satel- lites of Jupiter, 702 — 704 ; ring of Saturn, 706,707; solar spots, 706 — 70S; crescent shape of Venus, 708, 709 ; conjectures on nebulae, 714 ; his invention of the binocular teles- cope, 705 ; thermoscopes, 721 ; on the origin of the trade winds, 723. Galle, Dr., on the constellation of the Southern Cross, 669. Gardens, pleasure derived from, 462 — 463 ; arrangement, 463, 464 ; extent and character of the Chinese gar- dens, 462, 463; Roman, 563. Gassendi, on Copernicus, 684, 693 ; on the similarity of the systems of Apollonius of Perga and Tycho Brahe, 693, 694. Gauss, Frederick, 720. Geography, as blended with national myths, 482, 483. Geographies, maps and charts of the ancients and the writers of the mid- dle ages, — Universal Geography of Eratosthenes, 543 — 545 ; ' Map of the World' of Hipparchus, 545; Geographies, — of Strabo, 555 — 558 ; of Claudius Ptolemams, 558 — 562 ; of El Istachri and Alhassen, 584, 585; of Dicuil, 608; of Aloertus Magnus, 618; Picture of the World of Cardinal Alliaco, 620, 621 ; Plani- spherium of Sanuto, 627, 628 ; Sea- chart of Paolo Toscanelli, 637, 638; Map of the World by Juan de la Cosa, 639 ; World-apple of Martin Eehaim, 645, 646 ; Hydrography of Joh. Rotz, 649; Variation chart of Santa Cruz, 658. Gerard, his illustrations to the 'Lusiad' of Camoens, 426. Germanic nations, their poetry, 397 — 400; love of nature in the Minne- singers, 399, 400; their 'Animal Epos,' its genuine delight in nature, 401, 402. Gibbon, his estimate of the extent of the lloman empire, 548; on the nomadic life of the Arabs as com- pared with that of the Scythians, 577, 578. Gilbert, William, of Colchester, on the compass, 656, 658; magnetic dis- coveries, 717, 718; observations on electricity, 725 — 727. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 662, 663. Giorgione, 446. Gobar (Arabian ' dust writing'), 598. Goethe, his fine distichs on the appear- ance of Forster's translation of the Sacontala, 405 ; profound veneration for Nature in his works, 439. Gold-sand, region of, in Northern Asia, its locality, 511, 512. Goldstacker, Herr Theodor, MS. Notes on Indian Literature, 406 — 408. Gravitation, general discovery of, 690, 691. Greece, peculiar charm of its scenery, 376, 506; heightened by its deeply indented shore line, 377, 506. Greeks, infrequency of a poetic treat- ment of nature in their writings, 373, 374; mythical treatment of the vegetable world, 377; decay of the true Hellenic poetry in the time of Alexander, 378 ; deep feeling fur nature in the Greek anthology, 379; Greek prose writers, 380, 381; Givek fathers, descriptions of Na- ture in their writings, 393 — 396; landscape painting, 440 — 444 ; Greek language, its magical power over all kindred and foreign nations, 471 ; their voyages of discovery, 481 ; intercourse with Egypt, 489, 490, 506 ; mental characteristics of the Greek races, 506; their early maritime expeditions, 481, 506, 507; elucida- tion of the myths of the Argonautic expedition, Prometheus, lo, and others, 508—511; colonies, 512 — 515; mental and artistical cultiva- tion, 613, 514; important results of the campaigns of Alexander, 517 — 535, 560; celebrated scientific wri- ters, 550, 551; revival of the study of Greek literature in the middle ages, 622, 623. Gregory of Nazianzum, letter of Basil the Great to, 393, 394 ; his beauti- ful poem * On the nature of Man/ 395. Gregory of Nyssa, plaintive expressions regarding nature in his writings, 395. Greenland, first colonisation of, 603, 604—606. Grimm, Wilhelm, on the Minne- singers, 399, 400. Gudrun, old German epos, 399. Guerike, Otto von, discoverer of the air-pump, 727. Guillen, Felipi, constructed the first variation-compass, 658, 672. Gunpowder, its invention discussed 590, 591. Hafiz, Persian poet, 410. Haller, his local descriptions, 434. Halley, Edmund, theory of four mag- netic poles, 719; on the northern lights, 719 ; atmospheric currents, 724. Hamamat, sculptural inscriptions of, 488. Happy Islands, of the ancients, 496. Haroun Al-Raschid, curious clock, pre- sented by, to the Emperor Frederick II., 591,' 592. Harriott, Thomas, observations by, of L the satellites of Jupiter, 703 ; on the solar spots, 707. Heat, gradual investigations of its phenomena, 721 — 725. Hebrews, profound feeling for nature in their most ancient poetry, 373, 411 — 415 ; its special at;raction for the nations of the West, 412 ; its charac- teristics, 412; Us bold and faithful descriptions, 412 — 413. Hedschaz, Arabian tribe of, 572, 577. Heeren, on the circumnavigation of Libya, 488; on Madeira, 497; on Ophir, 500; writings of Ctesias, 521 ; extent of the Roman empire, 548. Hellenic. See Greece, Greeks. Helmont, Johann Baptiste von, one of the founders of pneumatic chemistry, 728, 729. Heraclidavtheir return into Peloponne- sus, 512. Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiaj, landscape paintings discovered at, 442, 443. Hernandez, physician to Philip II., 652. Herodotus, account of ancient paint- ings, 441 : delight taken by Xerxes in the great plane-tree ol'Lydia, 461; his notices of the memorial pillars of the victories of Ramses Miamen, 486 — 489 ; notices on the circum- navigation of Lydia, 489; of the expeditions and conquests of Ramses Miamen, 486—488; regarded Scy- thian Asia as a portion of Europe, 505; myth of Aristeas, 507; accu- rate knowledge of the configuration of the Caspian Sea, 509, 560; his description of the Indian races, 530 ; canal completed by Darius Hys- taspes, 539. Herschel, Sir William, his discovery of the two innermost satellites of Saturn, 712. Hesiod, his ' Works and Pays,' 374 ; doctrine of four ages of the world, 621. Hicetas of Syracuse, his knowledge of the earth's rotation on its axis, 469. Himerius, the Sophist, Eclogues of, 379. Hippalus, 539. Hipparchus, his isthmus-hypothesis, 489, 643, 644; the originator of astronomical tables, and the disco- verer of the precession of the equi- noxes, 545, 555. Hiram, ruler of Tyre, 499, 500. Hirt, on the origin of the French style of gardening, 390. Historical events which have extended the horizon of the physical contem- plation of the universe, 470. Hiuen-thsang, early Chinese traveller, 512, 625. Hiungnu (a Turkish race), migrations of, 554, 571. Hobbima, landscapes of, 447. Hoces, Francisco de, discovery of Cape Horn, 642. Hoffmeister, Dr., girth of the trunk of the Cedrus deodvara, 534. Hogeda, Alonso de, 614, 660, 677, 679. Homer and the Homeric songs, their beautiful and sublime descriptions of nature, 375, 376, 399 — 400. Hooke, Robert, 691, 715 ; correct views on the rotation of the earth, 723 — 724; observed the existence of ni- trous particles in the air, 730. Humboldt, Alexander von, works by, quoted in various notes : — Ansichten der Natur, 454. Asie Centrale, 482, 501, 506, 508 —51 1,517, 522—523, 526, 534, 537, 544, 556, 559, 578, 584— 585, 604, 625, 660. De distributione Geographica Plantarum, 523, 524. Essai Geognostique, sur le Gise- ment des Roches, 732. Politique, sur la Nouvelle Espagne, 524, 648—649, 658. Exarnen Critique de 1'Histoire de la Geographic, 450, 480, 483, 489, 497, 499, 501, 516, 528, 531, 544, 556, 560, 562, 585, 590,597, 601, 608—612, 619, 621, 627, 631, 637, 639, 640 —647, 653, 655, 659, 660—663, 665—668, 672, 677, 678, 680. Recueil d'Observations Astrono- miques, 550. Relation Historique du Voyage aux Regions equinoxiales, 371, 480, 493, 498, 524, 609, 640, 668, 718, 723. Vues des Cordilleres, 125. L 9 I Humboldt, Wilhelm von, comparison of the works of Lucretius, with an Indian epic, 383; the sky in the landscape compared in its effect to the charm of the chorus in the Greek tragedy, 459 ; irresistible charm of mathematical studies, 737. Huygens, first explained the phenom- ena of Saturn's ring, 706, 712; on the nebulae in the sword of Orion, 713; his researches on light, 715— 717. Hygrometers, invention of, 725. Hyksos, the, their Semitic origin and migration, 576, 577. Hyperboreans, the, meteorological myth of, 510, 511. Ibn-Baithar, Arabian botanist, 587. Iceland, its discovery and colonization by the Northmen, 603, 604; its early free constitution and literature, 610. Ilschan Holagu, observatory founded by, 595. Incense of Arabia, researches on the, 573, 574. India, expedition of Alexander to, and its important results on physical and geographical science, 517 — 523. Indians, profound feeling of nature in their most ancient poetry, 373, 460 ; its influence on the imagination of the East Avian nations, 397, 402 — 405 ; its characteristics, 406 — 408; their knowledge of landscape painting, 442; numerical system, 535, 597 — 698; their chemistry, 590; planetary tables, 593, 594 ; algebra, 590—599. Inductive reasoning, 546. Infinitesimal Calculus, results of its in- vention, 737. Ingolf, his colonisation of Iceland, 607, 611. lonians, their mental characteristics, 506. Irish, conjectures on their early dis- covery of America, 607 — 610. Isabella, Queen, letters to Columbus, 651, 671, 672, Isaiah, quotation from his prophecies, 575. Islands of the Blessed, myth of the an- cients, 496. Italian poetry, as descriptive of nature, 418—420' Ivory, commerce in, 540, 541, Jansen, Zacharias, optical instruments invented by, 699—701. Job, book of, its impressive descriptions of the natural scenery of the East, 414, 415. John of Salisbury, 622. Jupiter, controversy on the disco very of his satellites, and marked influence of the discovery on the extension of the Copernican system, 702 — 704. Kalidasa, Indian poet, 404—408; his Sakuntala, 404, 405, 442 ; Vikrama and Urvasi, 405, 408; The Seasons, 405, 408, 430 ; Messenger of Clouds, 405, 408. Kepler, his eulogium on Copernicus, 687 ; ideas on gravitation, 691 ; great discovery of the elliptic mo- tion of the planets round the sun, 695 — 699 ; astronomical writings, 698, 699 ; on the Papal prohibition of the Copernican system, 704 ; his great mental and scientific charac- teristics, 709, 710; on comets and fixed stars, 710 — 712; Brewster, Chasles, and Laplace, on his writings and theories, 710. Kien-Long, Chinese Emperor, de- scriptive poem bv, 463, 464. Kirghis Steppe, its extent and popula- tion, 578. Klaproth, his researches on the Iiido- Germanic races, 554; letter to Humboldt on the invention of the compass, 629. Klopstock, 433. Lagides, the. See Ptolemies. Lambrecht, his rSong of Alexander 403. Landscape painting. See Painting. Languages, their value and importance in the history of the physical con- templation of the universe, 470 — 473. Laplace, on Kepler's theory of the measurement of casks, 710; on the zodiacal light, 712. Las Casas, Bartholomew de, 637, 638, 679, 680. Lasseri, author's correspondence with on the ariena of Pliny, 524; on the C 10 ] black Asiatic races, 531; oil the in- cense of Arabia, 574. Leibnitz, character of his Protogoea, 734, 735. Leif, his discovery of America, 603, 604, 607. Lepsius, his chronological data for Egypt, 475, 486; on the monuments of the distant expeditions of Ramses Miamen, 487; on the Semitic writ- ten characters, 491. Letronne, on the Greek Zodiac, 533, 534; on the canal of the Red Sea, 540; on the epoch of Diophantus, 551 ; on the early discoveries of the Irish, 608. Leignitz, Mongolian battle at, 571, 624. Lieu-tscheu, ancient Chinese writer, on the pleasure felt in the possession of gardens, 462, 463. Light, gradual discovery of its pheno- mena, 715 — 717. Lippershey, Hans, his claims to the discovery of the telescope discussed, 699—701. Lister, early researches by, in palaeon- tology, 733. Livy, writings of, 388. Log, use of in navigation, and date of its introduction, 631—634. Longinus, 531. Longus, his pastoral romance, ' Daphnis et Chloe,' 880. Lonnrott, Elias, collection of Finnish songs, 411. Lucan, vivid description of nature in his works, 387. Lucius the younger, his didactic poem of^Etna, 387. Lucretius, his great poem, ' De Na- tura,' 382, 383, 425. Ludius, ancient Roman painter, 442. Luis, Fray de Leon, description of night, 429. Lully, Raymond, scientific acquire- ments of, 629, 630. Lusiad, of Camoens, its truth to nature, 424—427. Maoedo, J. J. da Costa de,work on the discovery of the Canaries, 497. Macedonians, influence of their cam- paigns under Alexander the Great, 517, 518, 560. Macpherson's Ossian, 402. Madeira, supposed notice of in Plu- tarch, 497. Madoc, western voyage of, 608, 609 610. Magellan, navigation and discoveries of, in the Pacific, 646, 647. Magellanic clouds, first notices of, 665y 666, 714. Magnetism, observations and disco- veries in the middle ages — of Colum- bus, 654—657; Cabot, 657, 658; Gassendi, 658; Robert Norman, 658, 718; modern researcnes, — Wil- liam Gilbert's, 717. 718; Arago, 718; Faraday, 718, 719; Edmund Halley, 719 ; Frederick Gauss, 720, Antarctic expeditions, 719, 720. Mahabharata, Indian heroic poem, 404, 406, 407, 511, 521. Mains, discovery of polarisation by, 715, 727. Mandeville, John, his travels, 434; their characteristics, 625. Manetho, Egyptian dynasty of, 486. Marco Polo, his travels and admirable narrative, 624 — 626; early editions of, and whether known to Columbus, 626. Marinus Sanuto, writings of 627, 628. Marinus of Tyre, his isthmus hypo- thesis, 489, 643; myth on the Indian Ocean, 561 ; on the breadth of the old continent, 645. Marias, Simon, on the invention of the telescope, 700, 701; discovered the moons of Jupiter simultaneously with Galileo, 702, 703; nebula in An- dromeda, 714. Martel, Charles, on the results of his victory over the Moslems at Tours, 571. Masudi, Arabian historian, account of the remains of a ship of the Red Sea, 489. Materia Medica, Hindoo and Arabic knowledge of, 581. Mathematicians, Grecian, 529, 530, 543—546; Babylonian, 533; Indian 535, 596, 597; "Arabic, 596; of the middle apes, 619, 620, 630, 661, modern, 683—737. Mayow, on the influence of nitrous particles in the air, 730. Mediterranean, its geographical posi- L tion and configuration, 480; its triple construction, 481, 482. Megasthenes, 520; his descriptive ac- curacy, 621; embassies, 535. Meleager, of Gadara, his Idyl, ' on Spring,' 379. Men nder, the rhetorician, his severe cri icism on the poems of Empe- docles, 382, 383. . Messina, Antonio di, transplanted the predilection for landscape painting to Venice, 445. Microscope, its discovery and scientific results, 166, 167, 699^ 700. Migration, direction of its early im- pulses, 554, 571. Miletus, 513. Milton, character of the descriptions of nature in his ' Paradise Lost,' 430. Minnesingers, love of nature as ex- pressed in their poetry, 398 — 400. Minucius, Felix, early Christian writer on nature, 392, 393. Missals, landscape illustrations in, 444. Mohammed, 576, 579. Mohammed Ben-Musa, his compen- dium of Algebra, 596. Mongolians, battle at Leignitz, 571, 624 ; Buddhism, 572. Monsoons, known to the companions of Alexander, 538, 539. Monsoon, Indian, causes of, 485. Mosaics, Byzantine, 444. Miiller, Johannes. See Regiomonta- nus. Miiller, Otfried, on the characteristics of the landscape paintings of the an- cients, 443 ; on the myth of the de- struction of Lyktonia, 482 ; on na- tional myths blended with history and geography, 483; date of the Doric immigration into the Pelopon- nesus, 486. Museum of Alexandria, 543, 543. Naddod, his discovery of Iceland, 603 —604. Nature, incitements to the study of, 370; inducements, three different kinds, 38, 370, 371 ; i. Poetical de- scriptions of nature, 372 — 439; ii. Landscape painting, 440 — 457, 459 ; iii. Cultivation of tropical plants, 458 — 465 ; powerful effect in after years of striking impressions \n TOL. II. 3 childhood, 371; an increased impulse lent to the study of nature, by the discovery of America, 420, 421; modern descriptive and landscape poetry, 437, 438. Nautical astronomy, 630 — 638, 669 — 680. Nearchus, 520, 538. Neku, commenced the canal of the lied Sea, 539. Neophytes, numeral characters of, 598. Nestorians, their intercourse with the Arabs and Persians, and its results, 578, 579. Newton, Sir Isaac, his invention of the mirror sextant, 671 ; discovery of the law of gravitation, 695, 698, 714,735,736; experiments on the velocity of light, 716, 717; early electrical experiment, 727. Niebelungen, absence of any descrip- tion of natural scenery in, 399. Nominalists, school of, in the Middle Ages, 617. Nonnus, his Dionysiaca, 378, 379. Norman, Robert, his invention of the dipping needle, 658, 718. North, nations of, their love of nature, 397. Northmen, dates af their discovery and colonization of America, Greenland, and Iceland, 603—605. Numerals, Indian, 535; spread of, 597 — 599; early methods of ex- pressing the multiplier of the funda- mental groups, 597, 598; ' Suanpan,' ' Method of Eutocius,' ' Gobar,' Ara- bian 'dust writing,' characters of Neophytos, 597—599. Oceanic discoveries, 601 — 680. Omar, Caliph, his religious toleration, 573. Onesicritus, on the Indian fig-tree, 521; on the Indian races, 530. Ophir, conjecture on its locality, 499 — 501; its exports, 500. Optical instruments, dates of their dis covery, 699 — 701; optical experi- ments of Claudius Ptolema3us, 550 — 551, 561, 562. Osiander Andreas, his preface to the writings of Copernicus, 686, 687. Ossian, and the Celto-Irish poems, 402, Ovid, his vivid pictures of nature, 386. Oxygen and its properties, first notices of, 730, 731. Pacific, discovery and navigation of, 642 — 650 ; its results on the exten- sion of cosmical knowledge, 643, 644. Painting, Landscape, its influence on the study of nature, 440—457; early paintings of the Greeks, 441, 442; of the Romans, 442 — 444; of the Indians, 442 ; paintings found at Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabise, 443'; missals and mosaics of By- zantine art, 444; Flemish school of the Van Eycks, 445; Venetian and Bolognese schools, 446, 447; Claude and the Landscape painters. 447, 448; early paintings of tropical scenery, 449 — 451; advantages of- fered to the artist by the landscapes and vegetation of the tropics, 451 — 453; panoramas, dioramas, and neo- ramas, their scenic effect, 456, 457. Palseoutological science, dawn of, 731 —734. Panoramas, more productive of effect than scenic decorations, 457; sug- gestions for their increase, 457. Pantschab, Chinese expedition under, to the shores of the Caspian, 553. Parks of the Persian kings, 461, 462. Pastoral romances, their defects, 423. Pendulum, earliest use as a time mea- surer, 591 ; modern, 735. Persia, extension of its rule, 505, 506. Persians, their poetry in relation to nature, 397, 398, 402, 403, 406— 410,460 — 462; its characteristics, 409; the four paradises celebrated "by the Persian Poets, 409; parks of the Persian kings, 460. Petrarch, his sonnet * on the death of Laura,' 419; revival of the study of classical literature, 622, 623. Phoenicians, their position among the non-Hellenic civilized nations, on the shores of the Mediterranean, their colonies, commerce, and navi- gation, 480 — 502; use of weights and measures, and metallic coinage, 490; of alphabetical writing, 490, 491 ; extent of their navigation and caravan trade, 492,493,499; amber trade, 493—495. Pharmacy, chemical, first created by the Arabs, 581 . Philostratus, his mention of ancien; paintings, 441. Pigafetta, Antonio, nautical works of 631—634, 664, 665, 668, 671. Pindar, his descriptions of nature 376. Pinturicchio, landscapes of, 445,446. Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, his disputes with Columbus, 633, 638, 639. Plato, character of his descriptions of nature, 381 — 384; on landscape painting, 441 ; limits of the Medi- terranean, 480 ; value of his doc- trines in the dark ages, 542, 543; misconceived dogmas, 615,616; his ideas on attraction, 690, 691 ; on the structure of the universe, 695. Playfair, 431. Pliny, the elder, his great work on Nature, 389; its arrangement and style, 563— 566; on the locality of the amber islands, 493; his descrip- tion of the ariena (banana) of India 624; on the benefits of civilization, 552, 553. Pliny, the younger, descriptions of na- ture in his letters, 385, 390, 391 ; on the 'History of Nature,' by his uncle, 565. Plutarch, notice of two Atlantic islands, in his works, supposed to be Porto Santo and Madeira, 497; on the marks on the moon's disc, 561; work on ' The Opinions of Philo- sophers,' 692. Poetry, modern, descriptive, and land- scape, its defects, 437 — 439. Polarisation of light, discovery of, 715. Polybius, on the number of peninsulas in the Mediterranean, 482; "on Af- rican and Indian elephants, 540, 541. Polygnotus, paintings of, 441. . Porsena, Lars, tradition on his tomb 503 Porto Santo, 497, 498. See Plutarch. Portuguese heroic ages, impulses of, 421 ; faithful individuality of na- ture in their great epic poet, Ca- moens, 424, 427. Posidonius, his comparison of the tides with the moon's supposed influence, 617. Post, Franz, his paintings of South American landscapes, 449, 450. Poussin, Gaspard and Nicholas, their landscapes, 447, 454. Printing, invention of, 623. Prometheus, myth of, 508. Psalms, the, their sublime poetic feel- ing for nature, 411, 413. 414. Ptolemaeus, Claudius, on the locality of Siipphara, 499, 500 ; influence of his Universal Geography, its merits and defects, 558—560; researches on optical refraction, 550, 551, 561, 562; geographical and mathematical knowledge, 550, 551, 555; on the configuration of the Caspian, 560, 661. JPtolemies, the, important result of their rule in Egypt, 536—546; their in- tercourse with distant countries, 538 — 540; scientific expeditions, 540, 541; peculiar character of the Pto- lemaic period, 541; accessions to general knowledge, 543; to astrono- mical knowledge, 544 — 546; ma- thematical investigations, 546. Ptolemy, Philadelphus, his restoration of the canal of Darius Hystaspes, 539; scientific researches, 540, 641. Punic, see Carthage, Phoenicians; Punic work on agriculture, 653. Pythagoreans, their views on the struc- ture of the universe, 469; on the motion of the planets, 695 — 697. Quatremere, Etienne, on the circum- navigation of Libya, 489; on the locality of Ophir, 500. Quinsay, Chinese city, as described by Rubruquis, 624; erroneous views of Columbus on its geographical lo- cality, 644, 645. Rachias, his embassy from Ceylon to Rome, 554. Rafn, Christian, American antiquities of, 603, 606, 607. Ramayana, Indian heroic poem, 404, 406, 407. Ramses Miamen, King of Egypt, his expeditions, victories, and achieve- ments, 486, 487, 539. Razes, Arabian Chemist, 589. Realists, school of, in the middle ages, 617. 3 Red Sea, canal of, early attempts at its construction, 539. Regiomontanus (Johann. Miiller), 630, 644, 685 ; on the anatomical dissec- tions of Aristotle, 529; on the drawings of petrifactions by Scilla, 733 ; me- teoroscope of, 631; astronomical ephemerides, 671. Reisch, Gregory, Margarita Philoso- phica, 621, 67*6, 677. Remusat, Abel, researches ou the Indo-Germanic races, 654. Renaud, his researches on the inter- course of the Arabs and Persians with India, 583, 584. Reubens, truth and vividness of his landscapes, 448. Rey, Jean, one of the founders of pneumatic chemistry, 728; experi- ments by, 729 Rhakotis, library of, 542. Ritter, Carl, his monograph on incense, 574. Romans, the, rarity of their poetic de- scriptions of nature, 382; their landscape paintings, 442 — 444; in- fluence of their universal dominion, 647 — 568; extent of their empire and its diversity, 548, 549; their expeditions and statistical labours, 549; (on the superior scientific knowledge of the Hellenic races, 550, 551 ;) causes of the rise and fall of their universal sway, 551, 552; embassy to China, 554, 555; use of way measurers in their navigation, 631, 632. Romer, Olaus, discovery of the mea- surable velocity of light, 716. Rosen, Friedrich, translated the Algebra of Mohammed Ben-Musa, 596. Ross, Sir James Clark, Antarctic ex- pedition of, 720. Ross, Ludwig, on the early intercourse between Greece and Egypt, 490. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 431, 432. Riickert, his translations from Eastern literature, 408, 416. Rufus, of Ephesus, early anatomist, 563. Ruisbrock (Rubruquis), travels of, and results of his narrative, 624, 626, 640. Rumohr, Baron von, description of an early Psalter, 444 ; on conical forms c 2 of mountains in early Italian land- scapes, 445, 446. Ruth, book of, its naive simplicity, 4L5. Ruysdael, his landscapes, 447, 454. Sadi, Persian Poet, 410. Ste. Croix, 519. St. Pierre, Bernardin de, 400, 431, 432; inimitable truth to nature of his writings, 433. Sanctorius, 591. Sanscrit language, its intermixture with the Greek, 472. Santa Cruz, Alonzo de, his general variation chart, 658; proposals for determining longitudes, 672. Saturn, gradual discovery of its ring, 705, 706; Kepler's conjectures, 711; discovery of its satellites, 712. Scheiner, Christopher, his observations on the solar spots, 706—708. Schiller, on the rarity of descriptions of nature in the poetry of Greece, 372, 373. ' Schiltberger, Hans, of Munich, early traveller, 434. Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, 519, 527. Schoner, Johann, of Nuremberg, ca- lumnies on Amerigo Vespucci, 676, 680 ; superintended the publication of the writings of Columbus, 686, 687. Scilla, drawings by, of the petrifactions of Calabria and Malta, 733. Scotus, Nicolaus, 602. Scylax, of Karyanda, explored the course of the Indus, 506. Scythians, the, investigations on their relationship to the Goths, 510. Sedillot, M., on the astronomical in- struments of the Arabians, 585, 594 —595, 630. See-ma kuang (early Chinese states- man), his poem of 'the Garden,' 464. Seleucidse, 536. Seleucus of Babylon, his correct know- ledge of the earth's structure, 469, 691; of astronomy, 544, 545. Seleucus Nicator, 535, 537. Seneca, Etruscan Augur-theory, 503, narrow confines of the earth, 516. Sevigne, Madame de, letters of, 432. Sextus Empiricus, 550 Shakspeare, powerful descriptions of natural scenery in his writings, 430. Sidonians, their commerce, knowledge of astronomy, arithmetic, and navi- gation, 492. See Phoenicians. Silius, Italicus, scenery of the Alps and Italy, 391. Simplicius, on the date of Babylonian astronomical notices, 476. Sismondi, on Camoens, 426; Ercilla, 428. Solis, Juan Diaz de, discovery of the Rio de la Plata, 646. Solomon, route of his maritime expe- ditions, 499, 500. Sophocles, beautiful descriptions of nature, in his ' CEdipus Colonos/ 377, 462. Sousa, Martin Alfonso de, botanic garden at Bombay, 653. Southern Cross, constellation of, early notices, 666 — 669. Spanish writers of the 16th century, characteristics of, 634 — 640. Staunton, Sir George, description of the imperial garden of Zhehol, 463. Steno, on the substances contained in rocks, 732. Strabo, on the Mediterranean coast line, 481, 482; on Ramses the Great, 488; on the circumnavigation of Libya, 489 ; on the Sidonians, 492; on the Tyrian cities of the North-west Coast of Africa, 405; Phosnician commercial settlements in the Persian Gulf, 499 ; on the Tur- duli and Turdetani, 504, 505 ; con- jecture of undiscovered lands in the Northern hemisphere, 516; on the passage of Alexander's army across the mountainous district of the Pa- ropanisadse, 522 ; his great work on Geography, 555 — 558 ; supposed existence of another continent be- tween the west of Europe and Asia, 556, 557, 645. Sturm, Johann Christian, discoverer of the differential thermometer, 724. Suanpan, Mogul reckoning machine, 597. Syracuse, 513 Tacitus, descriptions of nature in his C 15 J •writings, 388 ; acquaintance with the glessuin of the shores of the Baltic, 494; discrimination of human* races, 558. Tasso, his 'Jerusalem Liberated,' 424 ; stanza on the discovery of America, 613. _ Tenerifle, volcano of, 498. Telescope, results of its invention, 681 . — 683, 739, 740; date of its accidental discovery discussed, 699 — 701. Theocritus, his idyls, 378. Theophrastes, 550, 563. Thermometers, invention of, 721—723. Thomson, his ' Seasons,' 430. Tibullus, his ' Lustration of the Fields,' 386, 387. Tieck, Ludwig, quotation from, on Calderon, 429; on Shakspeare, 430. Timochares, early Alexandrian astro- nomer, 544, 545. Tin, early commerce for, 492, 493. Titian, landscapes in his pictures, 446. Toledo, astronomical congress of, 595. Torricelli. his invention of the baro- meter, 722. Toscanelli, letters of, 621, 626; sea- chart, 637, 638; scientific acquire- ments, 644. Travels and travellers of the middle ages, 434, 435, 624—628, 634, 635 ; character of their narratives com- pared with those of modern times, 435, 436. Tropics, luxuriant beauty of the land- scapes, 455 ; cultivation of exotic plants, 458 — 465 ; paintings of tropi- cal sceneiy, 449 — 451; why more accurate and beautiful paintings may be anticipated, 458 ; associations connected with descriptions of tropi- cal scenery, 458. Troy, data of its destruction, 476. Tscheu-kung, early measurement of the length of the solstitial shadow, 475. Tsing-wang (Chinese Emperor), use of the compass and ' magnetic cars/ 559, 628. Tuscaroras, on the language and des- cent of, 609. Tycho Brahe, 469, 694, 697; his as- tronomical discovery of the ' varia- tion,' 594, Tyre, Tyrians. See Phosnicians. Ukert, on the amber trade of the an- cients, 493. Ulugh Beig, observatory and gymna- sium founded by, 595. Vedas, Indian hymns, in praise of na- ture, 404. Vegetation of the eold and tropical zones, 455, 456. Venus, discovery of its crescent shape, 708, 709. Vespucci, Amerigo, 612, 660, 664, 667, 671, 672; peculiar charm lent to his delineations of nature, 420 ; ex- amination of the accidental causes which led to the naming of the New World, 676—681. Vidal, Capt., height of the Peak of Tenerifte, 498. Vincentius of Beauvais, 602,615; hi* ' Mirror of Nature,' 620, 629. Vinci, Leonardo da, landscape in his picture of Mona Lisa, 446; attain- ments in physical science, 661 ; on, the ash-coloured light of the moon, 702; geognostic conjectures, 732. Vinland, early American settlement of the Northmen, 603—605, 612. Virgil, beauty of his descriptions of nature, 385. Vitruvius, 443, 456, 457, 632. Voltaic pile, its discovery compared with that of the telescope, 741. Voltaire, on the ' Araucana,' of Er- cilla, 427, 428. Vossius, Isaac, researches on light, 716,717. Waagen, Professor, notes on early paintings, 444, 446. \Varahamihara, Indian mathematician, 555. Wellsted, first reported the existence of three mountain chains in Arabia, 575. Weilauff, on the amber trade, 493, 494. Xenophanes, his geognostic conjec- tures, 557 L 16 ] Yemen, its natural products, 573 — 575. Young, Robert, his discoveiy of the interference of light, 716, 727. Zeni, the Fratelli, travels of, 611. Zodiacal light, its discovery and scien* tific results, 712, 713. Zuniga, Juana de, wife of Cortez, 647, 648. LONDON : BY HARRISON AND SON, ST. MARTIN'S LANS. 6 & RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW AU8 i Q 1996 MAY 1 7 2Q03 YB 17549 GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. 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