ver myself-little I!-at this moment the progenitor, prototype, and precursor of them all, posted at the head of this host of literary worthies, with my book under my arm, and New-York on my back, pressing forward, like a gallant commander, to honour and immortality. Such are the vain-glorious imaginings that will now and then enter into the brain of the authorthat irradiate, as with celestial light, his solitary chamber, cheering his weary spirits, and animating him to persevere in his labours. And I have freely given utterance to these rhapsodies whenever they have occurred; not, I trust, from an unusual spirit of egotism, but merely that the reader may for once have an idea, how an author thinks and feels while he is writing-a kind of knowledge very rare and curious, and much to be desired. BOOK I. CONTAINING DIVERS INGENIOUS THEORIES AND PHILOSOPHIC SPECULATIONS, CONCERNING THE CREATION AND POPULATION OF THE WORLD, AS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF NEW-YORK. of infinite CHAPTER I. Description of the World. space. ACCORDING to the best authorities, the world in which we dwell is a huge, opaque, reflecting, inanimate mass, floating in the vast ethereal ocean It has the form of an orange, being an oblate spheroid, curiously flattened at opposite parts, for the insertion of two imaginary poles, which are supposed to penetrate and unite at the centre; thus forming an axis on which the mighty orange turns with a regular diurnal revolution. The transitions of light and darkness, whence proceed the alternations of day and night, are produced by this diurnal revolution successively pre 32 DERSCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. senting the different parts of the earth to the rays of the sun. The latter is, according to the best, that is to say, the latest accounts, a luminous or fiery body, of a prodigious magnitude, from which this world is driven by a centrifugal or repelling power, and to which it is drawn by a centripetal or attractive force; otherwise called the attraction of gravitation; the combination, or rather the counteraction of these two opposing impulses producing a circular and annual revolution. Rence result the different seasons of the year, viz. spring, summer, autumn, and winter. This I believe to be the most approved modern theory on the subject—though there be many philosophers who have entertained very different opinions; some, too, of them entitled to much deference from their great antiquity and illustrious characters. Thus it was advanced by some of the ancient sages, that the earth was an extended plain, supported by vast pillars; and by others, that it rested on the head of a snake, or the back of a huge tortoise--but as they did not provide a resting place for either the pillars or the tortoise, the whole theory fell to the ground, for want of proper foundation. The Brahmins assert, that the heavens rest upon the earth, and the sun and moon swim therein like fishes in the water, moving from east to west by day, and gliding along the edge of the horizon DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. 33 to their original stations during the night ;* while, according to the Pauranicas of India, it is a vast plain, encircled by seven oceans of milk, nectar, and other delicious liquids; that it is studded with seven mountains, and ornamented in the centre by a mountainous rock of burnished gold; and that a great dragon occasionally swallows up the moon, which accounts for the phenomena of lunar eclipses.† Beside these, and many other equally sage opinions, we have the profound conjectures of ABOUL-HASSAN-ALY, son of Al Khan, son of Aly, son of Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of Masoud-el-Hadheli, who is commonly called MASOUDI, and surnamed Cothbeddin, but who takes the humble title of Laheb-ar-rasoul, which means the companion of the ambassador of God. He has written a universal history, entitled "Mouroudgeed-dharab, or the Golden Meadows, and the Mines of Precious Stones." In this valuable work he has related the history of the world, from the creation down to the moment of writing; which was under the Khaliphat of Mothi Billah, in the month Dgioumadi-el-aoual of the 336th year of the Hegira or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth is a huge bird, Mecca and Medina consti * Faria y Souza. Mick. Lus. note b. 7. 34 DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. tuting the head, Persia and India the right wing, the land of Gog the left wing, and Africa the tail, He informs us, moreover, that an earth has existed before the present, (which he considers as a mere chicken of 7000 years) that it has undergone divers deluges, and that, according to the opinion of some well-informed Brahmins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every seventy thousandth hazarouam; each hazarouam consisting of 12,000 years. These are a few of the many contradictory opinions of philosophers concerning the earth, and we find that the learned have had equal perplexity as to the nature of the sun, Some of the ancient philosophers have affirmed that it is a vast wheel of brilliant fire ;* others that it is merely a mirror or sphere of transparent crystal; and a third class, at the head of whom stands Anaxagoras, maintained that it was nothing but a huge ignited mass of iron or stone-indeed, he declared the heavens to be merely a vault of stone--and that the stars were stones whirled upward from the earth, and set on fire by the velocity of its revolutions. But I give little attention to the doctrines of this philosopher, the people of Athens having fully refuted * Plutarch de placitis Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 20. † Achill. Tat. Isag. cap. 19. Stob. Eclog. Phys. lib. i. p. 56. Ap. Petav. t. iii. p. 81. Diogenes Laertius in Anaxag. I. ii. sec. 8. Plat. Apol. t. i. p. 26. Plut. de Plac. Philo. Xenoph. Mem. 1. iv. p, 815. |