ARTICLE VI.
GEOGRAPHY
The surface of the Earth, like that of Jupiter, is not divided by bands alternative and parallel to the equator; on the contrary, it is divided from one pole to the other, by two bands of earth, and two of sea; the first and principal is the ancient continent, the greatest length of which is found to be in a line, beginning on the east point of the northern part of Tartary, and extending from thence to the land which borders on the gulph of Linchidolkin, where the Muscovites fish for whales; from thence to Tobolski, from Tobolski to the Caspian sea, from the Caspian sea to Mecca, and from Mecca to the western part of the country inhabited by the Galli, in Africa; afterwards to Monoemuci or Monomotapa, and at last to the Cape of Good Hope; this line, which is the greatest length of the old continent, is about 3600 leagues, Paris measure; it is only interrupted by the Caspian and Red seas, the breadths of which are not very considerable, and we must not pay any regard to these interruptions, when it is considered, the surface of the globe is divided only in four parts.
This greatest length is found by measuring the old continent diagonally; for if measured according to the meridians, we shall find that there are only 2500 leagues from the northernmost Cape of Lapland to the Cape of Good Hope; and that the Baltic and Mediterranean cause a much greater interruption than is met with in the other way. With respect to all the other distances that might be measured in the old continent under the same meridian, we shall find them to be much smaller than this; having, for example, only 1800 leagues from the most southern point of the island of Ceylon to the northernmost coast of Nova Zembla. Likewise, if we measure the continent parallel to the equator, we find that the greatest uninterrupted length is found from Trefna, on the western coast of Africa, to Ninpo, on the eastern coast of China, and that it is about 2800 leagues. Another course may be measured from the point of Brittany near Brest, extending to the Chinese Tartary; about 2300 leagues. From Bergen, in Norway, to the coast of Kamschatka, is no more than 1800 leagues. All these lines have much less length than the first, therefore the greatest extent of the old continent, is, in fact, from the eastern point of Tartary to the Cape of Good Hope, that is about 3600 leagues.
There is so great an equality of surface on each side of this line, which is also the longest, that there is every probability to suppose it really divides the contents of the ancient continent; for in measuring on one side is found 2,471,092-3/4 square leagues, and on the other 2,469,687.
Agreeable to this, the old continent consists of about 4,940,780 square leagues, which is nearly one-fifth of the whole surface of the globe, and has an inclination towards the equator of about 30 degrees.
The greatest length of the new continent may be taken in a line from the mouth of the river Plata to the lake of Assiniboils. From the former it passes to the lake Caracara; from thence to Mataguais, Pocona, Zongo, Mariana, Morua, St. Fe, and Carthagena; it then proceeds through the gulph of Mexico, Jamaica, and Cuba, passes along the peninsula of Florida, through Apolache, Chicachas, and from thence to St. Louis, Fort le Suer, and ends on the borders of lake Assiniboils; the whole extent of which is still unknown.
This line, which is interrupted only by the Mexican gulph (which must be looked upon as a mediterranean sea) may be about 2500 leagues long, and divides the new continent into nearly two equal parts, the left of which contains about 1,069,286-5/6 leagues square, and that on the right about 1,070,926-1/12; this line, which forms the middle of the band of the new continent, is inclined to the equator about 30 degrees, but in an opposite direction, for that of the old continent extends from the north-east to the south-west, and that of the new continent from the north-west to the south-east. All those lands together of the old and new continent, make about 7,080,993 leagues square, which is not near the third of the whole surface, which contains 25 millions of square leagues.
It must be remarked, that these two lines, which divide the continents into two equal parts, both terminate at the same degree of southern and northern latitude, and that the two continents make opposite projections, which exactly face each other; to wit, the coasts of Africa, from the Canary islands to the coasts of Guinea, and those of America from Guiana to the mouth of Rio Janeiro.
It appears, therefore, that the most ancient land of the globe, is on the two sides of these lines, at the distance of from 2 to 250 leagues on each side. By following this idea, which is founded on the observations before related, we shall find in the old continent that the most ancient lands of Africa are those which extend from the Cape of Good Hope to the Red Sea, as far as Egypt, about 500 leagues broad, and that, consequently, all the western coasts of Africa, from Guinea to the straits of Gibraltar, are the newest lands. So likewise we shall discover that in Asia, if we follow the line on the same breadth, the most ancient lands are Arabia Felix and Deserta, Persia, Georgia, Turcomania, part of Tartary, Circassia, part of Muscovy, &c. that consequently Europe, and perhaps also China, and the eastern part of Tartary, are more modern. In the new continent we shall find the Terra Magellanica, the eastern part of Brasil, the country of the Amazons, Guiana, and Canada, to be the new lands, in comparison with Peru, Terra Firma, the islands in the gulph of Mexico, Florida, the Mississippi, and Mexico.
To these observations we may add two very remarkable facts, the old and new continent are almost opposite each other; the old is more extensive to the north of the equator than the south; the new is more to the south than the north. The centre of the old continent is in the 16th or 18th degree of north latitude, and the centre of the new is in the 16th or 18th degree south latitude, so that they seem to be made to counterbalance each other. There is also a singular connexion between the two continents, although it appears to be more accidental than those which I have spoken of, which is, that if the two continents were divided into two parts, all four would be surrounded by the sea, if it were not for the two small isthmuses, Suez and Panama.
This is the most general idea which an attentive inspection of the globe furnishes us with, on the division of the earth. We shall abstain from forming hypotheses thereon, and hazarding reasonings which might lead into false conclusions; but no one as yet having considered the division of the globe under this point of view, I shall submit a few remarks. It is very singular that the line which forms the greatest length of the terrestrial continents divides them also into two equal parts; it is no less so that these two lines commence and end at the same degrees of latitude, and are both alike inclined to the equator. These relations may belong to some general conclusions, but of which we are ignorant. The inequalities in the figure of the two continents we shall hereafter examine more fully: it is sufficient here to observe, that the most ancient countries are the nearest to these lines, and are the highest; that the more modern lands are the farthest, and also the lowest. Thus in America, the country of the Amazons, Guiana and Canada will be the most modern parts; by casting our eyes on the map of this country we see the waters on every side, and that they are divided by numberless lakes and rivers, which also indicates that these lands are of a late formation; while on the other hand Peru and Mexico are high mountains, and situate at no great distance from the line that divides the continent, which are circumstances that seem to prove their antiquity. Africa is very mountainous, and that part of the world is also very ancient. There are only Egypt, Barbary, and the western coasts of Africa, as far as Senegal, in this part of the globe, which can be looked upon as modern countries. Asia is an old land, and perhaps the most ancient of all, particularly Arabia, Persia, and Tartary; but the inequalities of this vast part of the globe, as well as those of Europe, we will consider in a separate article. It might be said in general, that Europe is a new country, and such position would be supported both by the universal traditions relative to the emigrations of different people, and the origin of arts and sciences. It is not long since it was filled with morasses, and covered with forests, whereas in the land anciently inhabited, there are but few woods, little water, no morasses, much land, and a number of mountains, whose summits are dry and barren; for men destroy the woods, drain the waters, confine rivers, dry up morasses, and in time give a different appearance to the face of the earth, from that, of uninhabited or newly-peopled countries.
The ancients were acquainted with but a small part of the globe. All America, the Magellanic, and a great part of the interior of Africa, was entirely unknown to them. They knew not that the torrid zone was inhabited, although they had navigated around Africa, for it is 2200 years since Neco, king of Egypt, gave vessels to the Phenicians, who sailed along the Red Sea, coasted round Africa, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and having employed two years in this voyage, the third year they entered the straits of Gibraltar.13 The ancients were unacquainted with the property of the loadstone, if turned towards the poles, although they knew that it attracted iron. They were ignorant of the general cause of the flux and reflux of the sea, nor were they certain the ocean surrounded the globe; some indeed suspected it might be so, but with so little foundation, that no one dared to say, or even conjecture, it was possible to make a voyage round the world. Magellan was the first who attempted it in the year 1519, and accomplished the great voyage in 1124 days. Sir Francis Drake was the second in 1577, and he performed it in 1056 days; afterwards Thomas Cavendish made this great voyage in 777 days, in the year 1586. These celebrated navigators were the first who demonstrated physically the sphericity and the extent of the earth's circumference; for the ancients had no conception of the extent of this circumference, although they had travelled a great deal. The trade winds, so useful in long voyages, were also unknown to them; therefore we must not be surprised at the little progress they made in geography. Notwithstanding the knowledge we have acquired by the aid of mathematical sciences, and the discovery of navigators, many things remain still unsettled, and vast countries undiscovered. Almost all the land on the side of the Atlantic pole is unknown to us; we only know that there is some, and that it is separated from all the other continents by the ocean. Much land also remains to be discovered on the side of the Arctic pole, and it is to be regretted that for more than a century the ardour of discovering new countries is extremely abated. European governments seem to prefer, and possibly with reason, increasing the value of those countries we are acquainted with to the glory of conquering new ones.
Nevertheless, the discovery of the southern continent would be a great object of curiosity, and might be useful. We have discovered only some few of its coasts; those navigators who have attempted this discovery, have always been stopt by the ice. The thick fogs, which are in those latitudes, is another obstacle; yet, in defiance of these inconveniencies, it is probable that by sailing from the Cape of Good Hope at different seasons, we might at last discover a part of these lands, which hitherto make a separate world.
There is another method, which possibly might succeed better. The ice and fogs having hitherto prevented the discovery, might it not be attempted by the Pacific Sea; sailing from Baldivia, or any other port on the coast of Chili, and traversing this sea under the 50th degree south latitude? There is not the least appearance that this navigation is perilous, and it is probable would be attended with the discovery of new countries; for what remains for us to know on the coast of the southern pole, is so considerable, that we may estimate it at a fourth part of the globe, and of course may contain a continent, as large as Europe, Asia, and Africa, all together.
As we are not at all acquainted with this part of the globe, we cannot justly know the proportion between the surface of the earth and that of the sea; only as much as may be judged by inspection of what is known, there is more sea than land.
If we would have an idea of the enormous quantity of water which the sea contains, we must suppose a medium depth, and by computing it only at 200 fathom, or the sixth part of a league, we shall find that there is sufficient to cover the whole globe to the height of 600 feet of water, and if we would reduce this water into one mass, it would form a globe of more than 60 miles diameter.
Navigators pretend, that the latitudes near the south pole are much colder than those of the north, but there is no appearance that this opinion is founded on truth, and probably has been adopted, because ice is found in latitudes where it is scarcely ever seen in the southern seas; but that may proceed from some particular cause. We find no ice in April on this side 67 and 68 degrees northern latitude: and the savages of Arcadia and Canada say, when it is not all melted in that month, it is a sign the rest of the year will be cold and rainy. In 1725 there may be said to have been no summer, it rained almost continually; and the ice of the northern sea was not only not melted in April in the 67th degree, but even it was found the 15th of June towards the 41st and 42d degree14.
A great quantity of floating ice appears in the northern sea, especially at some distance from land. It comes from the Tartarian sea into that of Nova Zembla, and other parts of the Frozen Ocean. I have been assured by people of credit, that an English Captain, named Monson, instead of seeking a passage between the northern land to go to China, directed his course strait to the pole, and had approached it within two degrees; that in this course he had found an open sea, without any ice, which proves that the ice is formed near land, and never in open sea; for if we should suppose, against all probability, that it might be cold enough at the pole to freeze over the surface of the sea, it is still not conceivable how these enormous floating mountains of ice could be formed, if they did not find a fixed point against land, from whence afterwards they were loosened by the heat of the sun. The two vessels which the East India Company sent, in 1739, to discover land in the South Seas, found ice in the latitude of 47 and 48 degrees, but this ice was not far from shore, that being in sight although they were unable to land. This must have been separated from the adjoining lands of the south pole, and it may be conjectured that they follow the course of some great rivers, which water the unknown land, the same as the Oby, Jenisca, and other great floods, which fall into the North Seas, carry with them the ice, which, during the greatest part of the year, stops up the straits of Waigat, and renders the Tartarian sea unnavigable by this course; whereas beyond Nova Zembla, and nearer the poles, where there are few rivers, and but little land, ice is not so frequently met with, and the sea is more navigable; so that if they would still attempt the voyage to China and Japan by the North Seas, we should possibly, to keep clear from the land and ice, shape our course to the pole, and seek the open seas, where certainly there is but little or no ice; for it is known that salt water can, without freezing, become colder than fresh water when frozen, and consequently the excessive cold of the pole may possibly render the sea colder than the ice, without the surface being frozen: so much the more as at 80 or 82 degrees, the surface of the sea, although mixed with much snow and fresh water, is only frozen near the shore. By collecting the testimonies of travellers, on the passage from Europe to China, it appears that one does exist by the north sea; and the reason it has been so often attempted in vain is, because they have always feared to go sufficiently far from land, and approach the pole.
Captain William Barents, who, as well as others, run aground in his voyage, yet did not doubt but there was a passage, and that if he had gone farther from shore, he should have found an open sea free from ice. The Russian navigators, sent by the Czar to survey the north seas, relate that Nova Zembla is not an island, but belonging to the continent of Tartary, and that to the north of it is a free and open sea. A Dutch navigator asserts, that the sea throws up whales on the coasts of Corea and Japan, which have English and Dutch harpoons on their backs. Another Dutchman has pretended to have been at the pole, and asserts it is as warm there as it is at Amsterdam in the middle of the summer. An Englishman, named Golding, who made more than thirty voyages to Greenland, related to King Charles II. that two Dutch vessels with which he had sailed, having found no whales on the coast of the island of Edges, resolved to proceed farther north, and that upon their return at the expiration of fifteen days, they told him that they had been as far as 89 degrees latitude (within one degree of the pole), and that they found no ice there, but an open deep sea like that of the Bay of Biscay, and that they shewed him the journals of the two vessels, as a proof of what they affirmed. In short, it is related in the Philosophical Transactions that two navigators, who had undertaken the discovery of this passage, shaped a course 300 leagues to the east of Nova Zembla, but that the East India Company, who thought it their interest this passage should not be discovered, hindered them from returning15. But the Dutch East India Company thought, on the contrary, that it was their interest to find this passage; having attempted it in vain on the side of Europe, they sought it by that of Japan, and they would probably have succeeded, if the Emperor of Japan had not forbidden all strangers from navigating on the side of the land of Jesso. This passage, therefore, cannot be found but by sailing to the pole, beyond Spitzbergen, or by keeping the open sea between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen under the 79th degree of latitude. We need not fear to find it frozen even under the pole itself, for reasons we have alledged; in fact, there is no example of the sea being frozen at a considerable distance from the shore; the only example of a sea being frozen entirely over, is that of the Black Sea, which is narrow, contains but little salt, and receives a number of rivers from the northern countries, and which bring ice with them: and if we may credit historians, it was frozen in the time of the Emperor Copronymus, thirty cubits deep, without reckoning twenty cubits of snow above the ice. This appears to be exaggerated, but it is certain that it freezes almost every winter; whereas the open seas, a thousand leagues nearer the pole, do not freeze at all: this can only proceed from the saltness, and the little ice which they receive, in comparison with that transported into the Black Sea.
This ice, which is looked upon as a barrier that opposes the navigation near the poles, and the discovery of the southern continent, proves only that there are large rivers adjacent to the places where it is met with; and indicates also there are vast continents from whence these rivers flow; nor ought we to be discouraged at the sight of these obstacles; for if we consider, we shall easily perceive, this ice must be confined to some particular places; that it is almost impossible that it should occupy the whole circle which encompasses, as we suppose, the southern continent, and therefore we should probably succeed if we were to direct our course towards some other point of this circle. The description which Dampier and some others have given of New Holland, leads us to suspect that this part of the globe is perhaps a part of the southern lands, and is a country less ancient than the rest of this unknown continent. New Holland is a low country, without water or mountains, but thinly inhabited, and the natives without industry; all this concurs to make us think that they are in this continent nearly what the savages of Amaconia or Paraguais are in America. We have found polished men, empires, and kings, at Peru and Mexico, which are the highest, and consequently the most ancient countries of America. Savages, on the contrary, are found in the lowest and most modern countries; therefore we may presume that we should also find men united by the bands of society in the upper countries, from whence these great rivers, which bring this prodigious ice to the sea, derive their sources.
The interior parts of Africa are unknown to us, almost as much as they were to the ancients: they had, like us, made the tour of that vast peninsula, but they have left us neither charts, nor descriptions of the coasts. Pliny informs us, that the tour of Africa was made in the time of Alexander the Great, that the wrecks of some Spanish vessels had been discovered in the Arabian sea, and that Hanno, a Carthaginian general, had made a voyage from Gades to the Arabian sea, and that he had written a relation of it. Besides that, he says Cornelius Nepos tells us that in his time one Eudoxus, persecuted by the king Lathurus, was obliged to fly from his country; that departing from the Arabian gulph, he arrived at Gades, and that before this time they traded from Spain to Ethiopia by sea16. Notwithstanding these testimonies of the ancients, we are persuaded that they never doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and the course which the Portuguese took the first to go to the East-Indies, was looked upon as a new discovery; it will not perhaps, therefore, be deemed amiss to give the belief of the 9th century on this subject.
"In our time an entire new discovery has been made, which was wholly unknown to those who lived before us. No one thought, or even suspected, that the sea, which extends from India to China, had a communication with the Syrian sea. We have found, according to what I have learnt, in the sea Roum, or Mediterranean, the wreck of an Arabian vessel, shattered to pieces by the tempest, some of which were carried by the wind and waves to the Cozar sea, and from thence to the Mediterranean, and was at length thrown on the coast of Syria. This proves that the sea surrounds China and Cila, the extremity of Turqueston and the country of the Cozars; that it afterwards flows by the strait till it has washed the coast of Syria. The proof is drawn from the construction of the vessel; for no other vessels but those of Siraf are built without nails, which, as was the wreck we speak of, are joined together in a particular manner, as if they were sewed. Those, of all the vessels of the Mediterranean and of the coast of Syria, are nailed and not joined in this manner17."
To this the translator of this ancient relation adds. —
"Abuziel remarks, as a new and very extraordinary thing, that a vessel was carried from the Indian sea, and cast on the coasts of Syria. To find a passage into the Mediterranean, he supposes there is a great extent above China, which has a communication with the Cozar sea, that is, with Muscovia. The sea which is below Cape Current, was entirely unknown to the Arabs, by reason of the extreme danger of the navigation, and from the continent being inhabited by such a barbarous people, that it was not easy to subject them, nor even to civilize them by commerce. From the Cape of Good Hope to Soffala, the Portuguese found no established settlement of Moors, like those in all the maritime towns as far as China, which was the farthest place known to geographers; but they could not tell whether the Chinese sea, by the extremity of Africa, had a communication with the sea of Barbary, and they contented themselves with describing it as far as the coast of Zing, or Caffraria. This is the reason why we cannot doubt but that the first discovery of the passage of this sea, by the Cape of Good Hope, was made by the Europeans, under the conduct of Vasco de Gama, or at least some years before he doubled the Cape, if it is true there are marine charts of an older date, where the Cape is called by the name of Frontiera du Africa. Antonio Galvin testifies, from the relation of Francisco de Sousa Tavares, that, in 1528, the Infant Don Ferdinand shewed him such a chart, which he found in the monastery of Acoboca, dated 120 years before, copied perhaps from that said to be in the treasury of St. Mark, at Venice, which also marks the point of Africa, according to the testimony of Ramusio, &c."
The ignorance of those ages, on the subject of the navigation around Africa, will appear perhaps less singular than the silence of the editor of this ancient relation on the subject of the passages of Herodotus, Pliny, &c. which we have quoted, and which proves the ancients had made the tour of Africa.
Be it as it may, the African coasts are now well known; but whatever attempts have been made to penetrate into the inner parts of the country, we have not been able to attain sufficient knowledge of it to give exact relations18. It might, nevertheless, be of great advantage, if we were, by Senegal, or some other river, to get farther up the country and establish settlements, as we should find, according to all appearances, a country as rich in precious mines as Peru or the Brazils. It is perfectly known that the African rivers abound with gold, and as this country is very mountainous, and situated under the equator, it is not to be doubted but it contains, as well as America, mines of heavy metals, and of the most compact and hard stones.
The vast extent of north and east Tartary has only been discovered in these latter times. If the Muscovite maps are just, we are at present acquainted with the coasts of all this part of Asia; and it appears that from the point of eastern Tartary to North America, it is not more than four or five hundred leagues: it has even been pretended that this tract was much shorter, for in the Amsterdam Gazette, of the 24th of January, 1747, it is said, under the article of Petersburgh, that Mr. Stalleravoit had discovered one of these American islands beyond Kamschatca, and demonstrated that we might go thither from Russia by a shorter tract. The Jesuits, and other missionaries, have also pretended to have discovered savages in Tartary, whom they had catechised in America, which should in fact suppose that passage to be still shorter19. This author even pretends, that the two continents of the old and new world join by the north, and says, that the last navigations of the Japanese afford room to judge, that the tract of which we have spoken is only a bay, above which we may pass by land from Asia to America. But this requires confirmation, for hitherto it has been thought that the continent of the north pole is separated from the other continents, as well as that of the south pole.
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.