Astronomy and Navigation are carried to so high a pitch of perfection, that it may reasonably
be expected we shall soon have an exact knowledge of the whole surface of the globe. The ancients knew only a small part of it, because they had not the mariner's compass. Some people have pretended that the Arabs invented the compass, and used it a long time before we did, to trade on the Indian sea, as far as China; but this opinion has always appeared destitute of all probability; for there is no word in the Arab, Turkish, or Persian languages, which signifies the compass; they make use of the Italian word Bossola; they do not even at present know how to make a compass, nor give the magnetical quality to the needle, but purchase them from the Europeans. Father Maritini says, that the Chinese have been acquainted with the compass for upwards of 3000 years; but if that was the case, how comes it that they have made so little use of it? Why did they, in their voyages to Cochinchina, take a course much longer than was necessary? And why did they always confine themselves to the same voyages, the greatest of which were to Java and Sumatra? And why did not they discover, before the Europeans, an infinity of fertile islands, bordering on their own country, if they had possessed the art of navigating
in the open seas? For a few years after the discovery of this wonderful property of the loadstone, the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, traversed the African and Indian seas, and Christopher Columbus made his voyage to America.
By a little consideration, it was easy to divine there were immense spaces towards the west; for, by comparing the known part of the globe, as for example, the distance of Spain to China, and attending to the revolution of the Earth and Heavens, it was easy to see that there remained a much greater extent towards the west to be discovered, than what they were acquainted with towards the east. It, therefore, was not from the defect of astronomical knowledge that the ancients did not find the new world, but only for want of the compass. The passages of Plato and Aristotle, where they speak of countries far distant from the Pillars of Hercules, seem to indicate that some navigators had been driven by tempest as far as America, from whence they returned with much difficulty; and it may be conjectured, that if even the ancients had been persuaded of the existence of this continent, they would not have even thought it possible to strike out
the road, having no guide nor any knowledge of the compass.
I own, that it is not impossible to traverse the high seas without a compass, and that very resolute people might have undertaken to seek after the new world by conducting themselves simply by the stars. The Astrolabe being known to the ancients, it might strike them they could leave France or Spain, and sail to the west, by keeping the polar star always to the right, and by frequent soundings might have kept nearly in the same latitude; without doubt the Carthaginians, of whom Aristotle makes mention, found the means of returning from these remote countries by keeping the polar star to the left; but it must be allowed that a like voyage would be looked upon as a rash enterprize, and that consequently we must not be astonished that the ancients had not even conceived the project.
Previous to Christopher Columbus's expedition, the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira were discovered. It was remarked, that when the west winds lasted a long time, the sea brought pieces of foreign wood on the coast of these islands, canes of unknown species,
and even dead bodies, which by many marks were discovered to be neither European nor African. Columbus himself remarked, that on the side of the west certain winds blew only a few days, and which he was persuaded were land winds; but although he had all these advantages over the ancients, and the knowledge of the compass, the difficulties still to conquer were so great, that there was only the success he met with which could justify the enterprise. Suppose, for a moment, that the continent of the new world had been 1000 or 1500 miles farther than it in fact is, a thing with Columbus could neither know nor foresee, he would not have arrived there, and perhaps this great country might still have remained unknown. This conjecture is so much the better founded, as Columbus, although the most able navigator of his time, was seized with fear and astonishment in his second voyage to the new world; for as in his first, he only found some islands, he directed his course more to the south to discover a continent, and was stopt by currents, the considerable extent and direction of which always opposed his course, and obliged him to direct his search to the west; he imagined that what had hindered him from
advancing on the southern side was not currents, but that the sea flowed by raising itself towards the heavens, and that perhaps both one and the other touched on the southern side. True it is, that in great enterprises the least unfortunate circumstance may turn a man's brain, and abate his courage.