Note 181 — A true and agreeable description of some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been first explored amid great danger during the voyage of Ulrich Schmidt of Straubing, and most carefully described by him.
Reading edition
St. Iago, one of the Cape Verd islands, cf. supra, p. 4. Hulsius observes that in the tropic of Capricorn, in which Surukusis is situated, the elevation of the pole is 22½°, and the constellation of Ursa Major would be visible here at its highest elevation in the sky for several hours. The author’s remark that he lost sight of this constellation at the island of St. Iago is, according to the same commentator, wholly erroneous. This island is in N. lat. 15°; the declination of the star α Ursæ Majoris, the northernmost of the group, is 62° 20′ 2″. It would therefore appear on the horizon in S. lat. 27° 40′, or 2,560 miles south of St. Iago.