[5] The Straits were the pivot of Cicero’s cosmography. In the Tusculan Disputations, commemorating the wonders of nature, he speaks of “_the globe of the Earth standing forth out of the Sea_, fixed in the middle space of the universal World, habitable and cultivated in two distant regions; that which we inhabit being placed under the axis towards the seven stars; the other region, the Australian, unknown to us; the remainder uncultivated, stiffened with cold, or burnt up with heat.” [6] Ὑμεἴς δ’, ὥ μοῦσαι, σκολίας ἐνέποιτε κελεύθους Ἀρξάμεναι στοιχηδὸν ἀφ’ ἑσπέρου Ὠκεανοῖο. Ἔνθά τε καὶ στῆλαι περὶ τέρμασιν Ἡρακλῆος Ἑστῦσιν, μέγα θαῦμα παρ’ ἐσχατόεντα Γἀδειρα, Μακρὸν ὑπὸ πρηῶνα πολυσπέρεων Ἀτλάντων, Ἡχί τε καὶ χάλκειος ἐς οὐρανὸν ἔδραμε κίων, Ἡλίβατος, πυκινοῖσι καλυπτόμενος νεφέεσσι. DIONYSIUS AFRICANUS. [7] Philostratus, in the life of Apollonius, mentions that he himself had seen the ebb and flow, which he ascribes to the true cause. “All the phases of the moon during the increase, fulness and wane, are to be observed in the sea. Hence it comes to pass that the ocean follows the changes of the moon by increasing and decreasing with it.” [8] By the rediscovery of the mariner’s compass, the voyage along the Western coast of Africa became practicable, and to this is owing the passage by the Cape to India, as well as the discovery of America. Without Columbus that discovery would have been made. The Portuguese, in their second expedition to India, fell on the Brazils just as the Chinese junk on its way to England was forced to America. [9] Ὠκεανός τε πέριξ ἐν ὔδασι γαῖαν Ἑἱλἰσσων. _Song of Orpheus._ Ὁς περικυμαίνει γαίης περιτέρμονα κύκλον. _Id._ [10] Eratosthenes of Cyrene measured the terrestrial meridian by the problem worked out from the well of Syene. To predict eclipses the mechanism of the heavens must be known. They were predicted by the ancients, _e.g._ Thales in the seventh century before Christ, Eparcus of Mycea, in the second; Hellico of Cyzycus, and Eudemus. Anaxagoras of Clasomene narrowly escaped death for explaining their cause. Among the Romans, Sulpicius Gallus predicted an eclipse during the war against Perseus; and Drusus, by doing so, quelled an insurrection (Tacit. Annals. I. 28). Pythagoras taught publicly that the earth was a sphere, and the centre of the universe; but he communicated to the initiated its double motion round its axis and the sun. Cicero was the friend of the man who calculated the exact distance of the moon, and approached to that of the sun. [11] “Morgante Maggiore,” Canto xxv. stanza 205-9. [12] The proposition of Columbus was, “Buscar el levante por el ponente.” To find the east by the west. This was precisely the mistake made by the Greeks, who had gained the idea of the spherical form of the east without the knowledge of its dimensions. It was, in fact, the repetition of the words of Aristotle--