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As I know, if I remember right, that your excellency understands something of cosmography, I intend to describe to you our progress in our navigation, by the latitude and longitude. We sailed so far to the south that we entered the torrid zone and penetrated the circle of Cancer.
The strong currents deceived Juan Serrano, chief pilot of the flag-ship, and his colleagues, though they boasted that they were well acquainted with the nature of these currents. In one night, and contrary to the general expectation, they made forty leagues. The time has come, Most Holy Father, to philosophise a little, leaving cosmography to seek the causes of Nature's secrets.
Ramusio in omitting the cosmography and confining his version to the narrative would have left the letter without any designation of the northerly limit reached by Verrazzano, had he not transferred to the narrative, the statement of the latitude attained, namely, the fiftieth degree, from the cosmographical part; which was therefore properly done; though as an editor he should have stated the fact.
It is described by Jean Alfonse, the chief pilot of Roberval, from an exploration which he made along the coast on the occasion of Roberval's expedition to Canada, in 1542. MS. cosmography of Alfonse, in Bib. He particularly describes it in the manuscript just cited, which Hakluyt had before him, as the ruttier of Alfonse which he publishes is found in that manuscript.
"Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting forth The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has its source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it has golden sands, etc.
There were professors of cosmography and astronomy in the university, familiar with the works of Alfraganus and Regiomontanus. It is likely that it was at this time that Columbus became possessed of d'Ailly's 'Imago Mundi', which little volume contained a popular resume of the scientific views of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, and others, and was from this time forth Columbus's constant companion.
History is here in the same situation as cosmography, geology, the science of animal species: it is not the abstract knowledge of the general relations between facts, it is a study which aims at explaining reality. Now, reality exists but once. There has been but a single evolution of the world, of animal life, of humanity.
This idea took possession of his mind, and insensibly had a marked effect in his studies, giving them a special direction; although he was not aware of this fact himself. As he had made up his mind to travel, he commenced to study cosmography and nautical matters; in fact, everything that was taught in the school for marines.
Translation Narrative. After sailing between east and north the distance of one hundred and fifty leagues more and finding our provisions and naval stores nearly exhausted, we took in wood and water, and determined to return to France having discovered VII that is 700 leagues of unknown lands. * Cosmography. VERSION OF RAMUSIO, Narrative.
But Captain Servadac was no meteorologist, and it is to be doubted whether, since leaving school, he had ever opened his "Course of Cosmography." Besides, he had other thoughts to occupy his mind. The prospects of the morrow offered serious matter for consideration.
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