COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

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 Home, 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 Columbus
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 "physical
line of demarcation converted into a political one."
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 3, 1493,
descubieren," of May
and the "Bula de Alexandra VI., sobre la particion del
in the Bula de estension of the
oceano," of May 4, 1493, (elucidated
25th of September, 1493) see Examen crit., t. iii. pp. 52-54. Verydifferent
from this line of demarcation is that settled in the " Capitulacion
de la particion del Mar Oceano entre los Reyes Catolicos y Don
Juan, Key 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. 2S--35,
116-143, and 404; t. iv. pp. 55 and 252.) This last-named line, which
led to tho sale of the Moluccas (de el Moluca) to Portugal, 1529, for
the sum 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 beon no slight undertaking.