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The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525

Note 99 — Chapter II · 1295-1487.

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Joam II. of Portugal reigned from 1481 to 1495.

“Astrolabes designed for the determination of time and geographical latitudes by meridian altitudes, and capable of being employed at sea, underwent gradual improvement from the time that the astrolabium of the Majorican pilots was in use, which is described by Raymond Lully, in 1295, in his Arte de navegar, till the invention of the instrument made by Martin Behaim, in 1484, at Lisbon, and which was, perhaps, only a simplification of the meteoroscope of his friend Regiomontanus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. pp. 630, 631.

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