His Death, Which Took Place
In One Of These Islands, Put An End To These Projects.
They are supposed to
be the easternmost of the Papua Archipelago, afterwards visited by
Carteret, Bougainville, and other navigators.
Mendana, during his last
voyage, discovered a group of islands to which he gave the name of
Marquesas de Mendoza.
This group properly belongs to Polynesia: of the other islands in this
quarter of the globe, which were discovered prior to the eighteenth
century, Otaheite is supposed to have been discovered by Quiros in 1606.
His object was to discover the imagined austral continent; but his
discoveries were confined to Otaheite, which he named Sagittaria, and an
island which he named Terra del Esperitu Sancto, which is supposed to be
the principal of the New Hebrides. The Ladrones were discovered by Magellan
in 1521. The New Philippines, or Carolinas, were first made known by the
accidental arrival of a family of their natives at the Philippines in 1686.
Easter island, a detached and remote country, which, however, is inhabited
by the Polynesian race, was discovered by Roggewein in 1686.
Having thus exhibited a brief and general sketch of the progress of
discovery, from the period when the Portuguese first passed the Cape of
Good Hope to the beginning of the eighteenth century, we shall next, before
we give an account of the state and progress of commerce during the same
period, direct our attention to the state of geographical science in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
We have already stated that the astrolobe, which had been previously
applied only to astronomical purposes, was accommodated to the use of
mariners by Martin Behaim, towards the end of the fifteenth century. He was
a scholar of Muller, of Koningsberg, better known under the name of
Regiomontanus, who published the Almagest of Ptolemy. The Germans were at
this time the best mathematicians of Europe. Walther, who was of that
nation, and the friend and disciple of Regiomontanus, was the first who
made use of clocks in his astronomical observations. He was succeeded by
Werner, of Nuremberg, who published a translation of Ptolemy's Geography,
with a commentary, in which he explains the method of finding the longitude
at sea by the distance of a fixed star from the moon. The astronomical
instruments hitherto used were, with the exception of the astrolobe, those
which had been employed by Ptolemy and the Arabians. The quadrant of
Ptolemy resembled the mural quadrant of later times; which, however, was
improved by the Arabians, who, at the end of the tenth century, employed a
quadrant twenty-one feet and eight inches radius, and a sextant fifty-seven
feet nine inches radius, and divided into seconds. The use of the sextant
seems to have been forgotten after this time; for Tycho Brahe is said to
have re-invented it, and to have employed it for measuring the distances of
the planets from the stars. The quadrant was about the same time improved
by a method of subdividing its limbs by the diagonal scale, and by the
Vernier. The telescope was invented in the year 1609, and telescopic sights
were added to the quadrant in the year 1668. Picard, who was one of the
first astronomers who applied telescopes to quadrants, determined the
earth's diameter in 1669, by measuring a degree of the meridian in France.
The observation made at Cayenne, that a pendulum which beat seconds there,
must be shorter than one which beat seconds at Paris, was explained by
Huygens, to arise from the diminution of gravity at the equator, and from
this fact he inferred the spheroidal form of the earth. The application of
the pendulum to clocks, one of the most beautiful and useful acquisitions
which astronomy, and consequently navigation and geography have made, was
owing to the ingenuity of Huygens. These are the principal discoveries and
inventions, relating to astronomy, which were made prior to the eighteenth
century, so far as they are connected with the advancement of the art of
navigation and the science of geography.
The discoveries of Columbus and Gama necessarily overturned the systems of
Ptolemy, Strabo, and the other geographers of antiquity. The opinion that
the earth was a globe, which had been conjectured or inferred prior to the
voyage of Magellan, was placed beyond a doubt by that voyage. The heavenly
bodies were subjected to the calculations of man by the labours of
Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo. Under these circumstances it was
necessary, and it was easy, to make great improvements in the construction
of maps, in laying down the real form of the earth, and the relative
situations of the countries of which it is formed, together with their
latitudes and longitudes. The first maps which displayed the new world were
those of the brothers Appian, and of Ribeiro: soon afterwards a more
complete and accurate one was published by Gemma Frisius. Among the
geographers of the sixteenth century, who are most distinguished for their
science, may be reckoned Sebastian Munster; for though, as we have already
mentioned, he joins Greenland to the north of Lapland in his map, yet his
research, labour, and accuracy were such, that he is compared by his
contemporaries to Strabo. Ortelius directed his studies and his learning to
the elucidation of ancient geography; and according to Malte Bran, no
incompetent judge, he may yet be consulted on this subject with advantage.
But modern geography may most probably be dated from the time of Mercator:
he published an edition of Ptolemy, in which he pointed out the
imperfection of the system of the ancients. The great object at this time,
was to contrive such a chart in plano, with short lines, that all places
might be truly laid down according to their respective longitudes and
latitudes. A method of this kind had been obscurely pointed at by Ptolemy;
but the first map on this plan was made by Mercator, about the year 1550.
The principles, however, on which it was constructed, were not demonstrated
till the year 1559, when Wright, an Englishman, pointed them out, as well
as a ready and easy way of making such a map.
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