experience which resulted in his invention of an instrument of inestimable value then, and for many years afterwards. So that at the very opening of maritime history we meet with a striking example of the importance of thoroughly grounding and training sailors and travellers in the knowledge that will be useful to them.

When the Spaniards began to send forth expeditions into unknown seas, and to explore the interior of vast continents, they were soon impressed with the necessity for thoroughly grounding and instructing not only their pilots and seamen, but also their explorers by land. With this object, the office of Cosmographer was established in the Council of the Indies, whose duties were not only to superintend the preparation of charts and sailing directions and to advise the Council in matters relating to navigation, but also to teach the subjects of the King of Spain. In the Royal Ordinances it was decreed that the Cosmographer, and his assistants, should deliver a course of instruction to extend over three years. The course was arranged as follows:

In the first year, from September to Christmas, the four rules of arithmetic, the rule of three, extraction of square and cube roots, and fractions were taught; as well as the Sphera Mundi" of Sacrobosco, the universal text-book in the ancient schools of navigation, which was first printed in 1472, and passed through many editions. Sacrobosco himself was, in plain English, one John Holywood, a Yorkshireman from Halifax, and his work is a paraphrased translation of part of Ptolemy's "Almagest." From Christmas to April the pupils learnt Perbach's theory of the plants, which was first published in Venice, in 1480; and from April to the midsummer holidays they studied the Alphonsine tables, the famous astronomical work of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castille, which first appeared in 1252.

The course for the second year commenced with the first

six books of Euclid. During April and May arcs and chords, right sines, tangents, and secants were learnt, and then the spherical triangles of Regiomontanus. The rest of the second year's course was devoted to a study of Ptolemy's "Almagest."

The third year was commenced with lessons in cosmography and navigation. Then the use of the astrolabe was taught, and the methods of observing the heavenly bodies and their movements. Finally, the use of the globes, and of various astronomical and mathematical instruments was explained.

Thus the Spanish candidates for appointments as pilots and captains, all went through a three years' course of study before they were considered to be qualified for any responsible post. When we read of the famous discoveries of this great people, of their successful voyages and wonderful adventures, we must remember that the Spanish discoverers and explorers were carefully instructed in all the knowledge of those days. It is to such training that a great deal of their success was mainly due; and we ought to bear this in mind when we read of, and reflect upon, the great geographical achievements of the Spaniards.

The lectures were given at the "Casa de Contratacion," in Seville, from the time of Charles V.; and some of the Cosmographers not only taught the Spanish mariners by word of mouth, but at least three of them, Alonzo de Chaves, Jeromino de Chaves, and Rodrigo Zamorano, published useful works on navigation. We are told by Richard Hakluyt, who had made diligent enquiries, that, after the pupils had completed their courses of study, there was "straight and severe examining, before the Chief Pilot, of all such masters as desired to take charge to the West Indies."

The first navigation book was the "Suma de Geografia" of Martin Fernandez Enciso; and here again we have the

case of a learned man who afterwards gained practical experience at sea which enabled him to produce a useful work. Enciso undertook a conquest of part of South America, in partnership with Alonzo de Ojeda, one of the companions of Columbus. He went through many strange adventures, and his story is mixed up with the first appearance of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro on the

stage. As an adventurer, Enciso does not appear in an amiable light, for he was an enemy of the heroic discoverer of the South Sea. But as an author his name should not be forgotten. The "Suma de Geografia" contains the art of navigation as it was then understood, tables of declination, definitions, and an account of all the countries of the known world. It was the first answer to a demand for information which arose when all Spaniards of enterprise began to crowd westward in search of adventures and of fortune. The first edition of the "Suma" appeared at Seville in 1519, the second in 1530.

But it was soon followed by two works which secured more permanent popularity. The art of navigation by Martin Cortes, which was published at Seville in 1551, and dedicated to Charles V., contains definitions, tables of minutes in a degree of longitude on each parallel of latitude, explanations of the motions of sun and moon, and of the machinery and use of clocks, construction and use of plane charts, of the compass, the astrolabe, and cross-staff. Cortes was the first to suggest a magnetic pole, different from the pole of the earth. The other work on navigation, by Pedro de Medina, appeared at Valladolid in 1545, but never attained to the same popularity as the "Arte de Navegar" of Cortes. Medina defends, while Cortes exposes, the errors of the plane chart, and the latter is more sound on the question of compass variation, concerning which Medina talks much nonsense. Later Spanish writers improved upon the works

of Cortes and Medina, and many editions were printed to meet the requirements of students.

I have referred to these Spanish works on navigation, and to the system of instruction at Seville, because it ought to be remembered that the Spaniards would never have made their great discoveries, and afterwards have surveyed and described them with such remarkable accuracy and detail, if attention had not been given to the instruction of their sailors and surveyors. They made excellent charts of the coasts of South America and Mexico, and of Magellan's Straits, and their enemy, Sir Richard Hawkins, bears testimony to the care and skill with which they navigated their ships. One reason that full justice has never been done to the Spaniards, as skilled mariners, is that their Government maintained a policy of strict secrecy. Many excellent charts and memoirs have never yet seen the light. As one out of numerous instances of unwise suppression, I may mention that, after Captain Moresby had published his discoveries at the eastern end of New Guinea in 1876, a set of accurate charts of the very same ground was discovered at Simancas, drawn by Diego de Prado y Tovar in the year 1606, from the surveys. of Torres.

But I believe I have said enough to show that Spain, in the height of her power, attached the greatest importance to the thorough training and instruction of her sailors and explorers; and that her discoveries and successes could never have been achieved without this wise and necessary provision for qualifying her sons to perform those great deeds the fame of which will endure for ages to come.

When the United Provinces began to rival Spain in maritime enterprise, the Dutch mathematicians and geographers kept pace with the sailors and explorers in their improvements and discoveries. Reinerus Gemma, a native of Friesland who lived in the first half of the sixteenth

century, was the first to suggest the method of finding longitude by means of a watch showing time at the place of departure, and of apparent time at the place of observation. He also invented a new cross-staff, and constructed astronomical instruments. His pupil, Gerard Mercator, published the famous terrestrial globe and numerous maps, while Abraham Ortelius produced the " Theatrum Orbis Terrarum,' which was the base of all subsequent geographical studies. The labours of these great men, with the treatise on navigation by Coignet and the translations of Medina, formed the materials for instructing the young sailors of Holland in the sixteenth century. Among many others who received careful instruction, the career of Lucas Wagenaar is an example of the way in which theoretical training, when united with long experience, often bears valuable fruit.

Young Wagenaar was born at Enkhuizen in about 1550, and served at sea from his boyhood. But he had received a good training in mathematics and navigation, and he became one of the best pilots in Holland. His "Spieghel der Zeevaardt," engraved at Leyden in 1584, was the first marine atlas ever published, and in subsequent editions very extensive and valuable additions were made to it, including a chart of Norway by Willem Barents. The name of this great Arctic explorer suggests an example of another Dutch worthy who had been carefully trained in the art of navigation. In his northern voyages he regularly observed with the astrolabe, cross-staff, and quadrant; and Linschoten describes him as having great knowledge of the science of navigation. He was a native of Ter Schelling, off the coast of Friesland, and this little island still has a navigation school. The Dutch, in former days, like the Spaniards, attached the greatest importance to the thorough education of their sailors and explorers; and, in like manner, it was to the