UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON 

 

 
 A. ^ 
 
 y^ 5 -
 
 HISTOEY 
 
 THE EARTH 
 
 ANIMATED NATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIYEE GOLDSMITH, M.B. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 WITH CORRECTIONS AND ALTERATIONS. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 R. WORTHINGTON, 770 BROADWAY. 
 
 1881
 
 OL50 
 
 CONTENTS. . 
 
 ' / oo I 
 
 v.l 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PIP 
 
 CHAP. I. A Sketch of the Universe 9 
 
 HAP. II. A short survey of the Globe, from the light of Astronomy, Mid 
 
 ' Geography 11 
 
 OH A?. III. A view of the surface of the Earth 14 
 
 C^TAP. IV. A review of the different Theories of the Earth 16 
 
 ChAP. V. Fossil-shells and other extraneous Fossils 23 
 
 CHAP. VI. The internal structure of the Earth . 27 
 
 CHAP. VII. Caves and Subterraneous Passages that sink, but not perpendicu- 
 larly, into the Earth 32 
 
 CHAP. VIII. Mines, Damps, and Mineral Vapours 36 
 
 CHAP. IX. Volcanoes and Earthquakes 41 
 
 CHAP. X. Earthquakes 47 
 
 CHAP. XL The appearance of Islands and Tracts; and of the disappearing 
 
 of others 55 
 
 CHAP XII. Mountains 59 
 
 CHAP XIII. Waters 69 
 
 CHAP. XIV. The origin of Rivers , 81 
 
 CHAP. XV. The Ocean in general ; and of its Saltness 94 
 
 CHAP XVI. The Tides, Motion, and Currents of the Sea ; with their effects 102 
 
 CHAP. XVII. The changes produced by the Sea upon the Earth 110 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. A summary account of the mechanical properties f.-( the air . 121 
 
 CHAP. XIX. An Essay towards a natural history of the Air 126 
 
 CHAP. XX. Winds regular and irregular . . . . 135 
 
 CHAP. XXI. Meteors, and such appearances as result from a combination of 
 
 the Elements 147 
 
 CHAP. XXII. The conclusion 157 
 
 PART II. 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 CHAP. I. A comparison of Animals, with the inferior ranks of Creation . . 61 
 
 CEIAP. II. The generation of Animals . . 166 
 
 CHAP. III. The infancy of Man 179 
 
 CHAP. IV. Puberty 186 
 
 CHAP. V. The Age of Manhood 189 
 
 HAP. VI. Sleep and Hunger 206 
 
 CHAP. VII. Seeing 214 
 
 CHAP. VIII. Hearing 221 
 
 CHAP. IX. Smelling, Feeling, and Tasting 227 
 
 CHAP. X. Old age and Death 232 
 
 CHAP. XI. The varieties in the Human Race 239 
 
 CHAP. XII. Monsters 251 
 
 CHAP. XIII. Mummies, Wax-works, &c 260 
 
 CHAP XIV. Animals 267 
 
 CHAP. XV. Qu;n!rupeds in general, compared to Man 275 
 
 431709 (3>
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY, considered in its utmost extent, comprehends 
 two objects. First, that of discovering, ascertaining, and naming all 
 he various productions of Nature. Secondly, that of describing the 
 properties, manners, and relations which they bear to us, and to each 
 other. The first, which is the most difficult part of this science, is 
 systematical, dry, mechanical, and incomplete. The second is more 
 amusing, exhibits new pictures to the imagination, and improves our 
 relish for existence, by widening the prospect of Nature around us. 
 
 Both, however, are necessary to those who would understand this 
 pleasing science, in its utmost extent. The first care of every inquir- 
 er, no doubt, should be, to see, to visit, and examine every object, be- 
 fore he pretends to inspect its habitudes or its history. From seeing 
 and observing the thing itself, he is most naturally led to speculate 
 upon its uses, its delights, or its inconveniences. 
 
 Numberless obstructions, however, are found in this part of his pur 
 suit, that frustrate his diligence, and retard his curiosity. The objects 
 in Nature are so many, and even those of the same kind are exhibited 
 in such a variety of forms, that the inquirer finds himself lost in the 
 exuberance before him, and, like a man who attempts to count the stars, 
 unassisted by Art, his powers are all distracted in the barren superfluity. 
 
 To remedy this embarrassment, artificial systems have been devised, 
 which grouping into masses those parts of Nature more nearly resem- 
 bling each other, refer the inquirer for the name of the single object 
 he desires to know, to some one of those general distributions, where 
 it is to be found by further examination. 
 
 If, for instance, a man should, in his walks, meet with an animal, 
 the name, and consequently the history of which, he desires to know, he 
 is taught by systematic writers of natural history, to examine its most ob- 
 vious qualities, whether a quadruped, a bird, a fish, or an insect. Having 
 determined it, for explanation sake, to be an insect, he examines 
 whether it has wings; if he finds it possessed of these, he is taught to 
 examine whether it has two or four; if possessed of four, he is taught 
 to observe, whether the two upper wings are of a shelly hardness, and 
 serve as cases to those under them ; if he finds the wings composed 
 in this manner, he is then taught to pronounce, that this insect is one 
 of the beetle kind : of the beetle kind, there are three different classes, 
 distinguishee? from each other by their feelers; he examines the insect 
 before him, and finds that the feelers are clavated or knobbed at the 
 ends ; of beetles, with feelers thus formed, there are ten kinds ; and, 
 among those, he is taught to look for the precise name of that which is 
 before him. If, for instance, the knob be divided at the ends, and the 
 belly be streaked with white, it is no other than the Dor or the May- 
 bug ; an animal, the noxious qualities of which give it a very distin- 
 guished rank in the history of the insect creation. In this manner a 
 system of natural history .may, in some measure, be compared to a dic- 
 tionary of words. Both are solely intended to explain the names of things;
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 but with this difference, that in the dictionary of words we are led from 
 the name of the thing to its definition ; whereas in the system of na- 
 tural history, we are led from the definition to find out the name. 
 
 Such are the efforts of writers, who have composed their works with 
 great labour and ingenuity, to direct the learner in his progress 
 through Nature, and to inform him of the name of every animal, plant, 
 or fossil substance, that he happens to meet with ; but it would be only 
 deceiving the reader, to conceal the truth, which is, that books alone 
 can never teach him this art in perfection; and the solitary student can 
 never succeed. Without a master, and a previous knowledge of many 
 of the objects of Nature, his book will only serve to confound and dis- 
 gust him. Few of the individual plants or animals, that he may hap- 
 pen to meet with, are in that precise state of health, or that exact period 
 of vegetation, from whence their descriptions were taken. Perhaps he 
 meets the plant only with leaves, but the systematic writer has describ- 
 ed it in a flower. Perhaps he meets the bird before it has moulted its 
 first feathers, while the systematic description was made in its state of 
 full perfection. He thus ranges without an instructor, confused, and 
 with sickening curiosity from subject to subject, till at last he gives 
 up the pursuit, in the multiplicity of his disappointments. 
 
 Some practice, therefore, much instruction, and diligent reading, 
 are requisite to make a ready and expert naturalist, who shall be able, 
 even by the help of a system, to find out the name of every object he 
 meets with. But when this tedious, though requisite part of study is 
 attained, nothing but delight and variety attend the rest of his jour- 
 ney. Wherever he travels, like a man in a country where he hag 
 many friends, he meets with nothing but acquaintances and allure- 
 ments in all the stages of his way. The mere uninformed spectator 
 passes on in gloomy solitude ; but the naturalist, in every plant, in every 
 insect, and every pebble, finds something to entertain his curiosity, 
 and excite his speculation. 
 
 From hence it appears, that a system may be considered as a dic- 
 tionary in the study of Navure. The ancients, however, who have all 
 written most delightfully on this subject, seem entirely to have rejected 
 those humble and mechanical helps to science. They contented 
 themselves with seizing upon the great outlines of history, and pass- 
 ing over what was common, as not worth the detail, they only dwelt 
 upon what was new, great and surprising, and sometimes even warm- 
 ed the imagination at the expense of truth. Such of the moderns as 
 revived this science in Europe, undertook the task more methodically, 
 though not in a manner so pleasing. Aidrovandus, Gesner, and John- 
 son seemed desirous of uniting the entertaining and rich descriptions of 
 the ancients with the dry and systematic arrangement, of which they 
 were the first projectors. This attempt, however, was extremly im- 
 perfect, as the great variety of Nature was, as yet, but very inadequately 
 known. Nevertheless, by attempting to carry on both objects at once, 
 first of directing us to the name of the thing, and then giving the detail 
 of its history, they drew out iheir works into a tedious and unreasonable 
 length ; and thus, mixing incompatible aims, they have left their labours 
 rather to be occasionally consulted, than read with delight, by posterity. 
 
 The later moderns, with that good sense which they have carried 
 int" every other part of science, have taken a different method
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 cultivating natural history. They have been content to give, not only 
 the orevity, but also the dry and disgusting air of a dictionary to theii 
 systems. Ray, Klin, Brisson, and Linnaeus, have had only one aim 
 that of pointing out the object in Nature, of discovering its name, and 
 where it was to be found in those authors that treated of it in a more 
 prolix and satisfactory manner. Thus natural history, at present, is 
 carried on in two distinct and separate channels, the one serving to 
 lead us to the thing, the other conveying the history of the thing, as 
 supposing it already known. 
 
 The following Natural History is written, with only such an atten- 
 tion to system as serves to remove the reader's embarrassments, and 
 allure him to proceed. It can make no pretensions in directing him 
 to the name of every object he meets with ; that belongs to works of 
 a very different kind, and written with very different aims. It will ful- 
 ly answer my design, if the reader, being already possessed of the name 
 of any animal, shall find here a short, though satisfactory history of its 
 habitudes, its subsistence, its manners, its friendships, and hostilities. 
 My aim has been to carry on just as much method as was sufficient to 
 shorten my description, by generalizing them, and never to follow order 
 where the art of writing, which is but another name for good sense 
 informed me that it would only contribute to the reader's embarrassment. 
 
 Still, however, the reader will perceive, that I have formed a kind 
 of system in the history of every part of Animated Nature, directing 
 myself by the great obvious distinctions that she herself seems to 
 have made ; wliich, though too few to point exactly to the name 
 are yet sufficient to illuminate the subject, and remove the reader's 
 perplexity. Mr. Buffon indeed, who has brought greater talents to 
 this part of learning than any other man, has almost entirely rejected 
 method in classing quadrupeds. This, with great deference to such 
 a character, appears to me running into the opposite extreme; and, as 
 some moderns have of late spent much time, great pains, and some 
 learning, all to very little purpose, in systematic arrangement, he seems 
 so much disgusted by their trifling, but ostentatious efforts, that he 
 describes his animals almost in the order they happen to come before 
 him. This want of method seems to be a fault ; but he can lose little 
 by a criticism which every dull man can make, or by an error in ar- 
 rangement, from which the dullest are the most usually free. 
 
 In other respects, as far as this able philosopher has gone, I have 
 taken him for my guide. The warmth of his style, and the brilliancy 
 of his imagination, are inimitable. Leaving him, therefore, without a 
 rival in these, and only availing myself of his information, I have been 
 content to describe things in my own way ; and though many of the 
 materials are taken from him, yet I have added, retrenched, and al- 
 tered, as I thought proper. It was my intention, at one time, when- 
 ever I differed from him, to have mentioned it at the bottom of the 
 page ; but this occurred so often, that I soon found it would look like 
 envy, and might, perhaps, convict me of those very errors which I 
 was wanting to lay upon him. I have, therefore, as being every way 
 his debtor, concealed my dissent, where my opinion was different , 
 but wherever I borrow from him, I take care at the bottom of the 
 page to express my obligations. But though my obligations to this 
 writer are many, they extend but to the smallest part of the WOIK, as
 
 rill PREFACE. 
 
 he has hitherto completed only the history of quadrupeds- 1 was 
 therefore, left to my own reading alone, to make out the history 
 of birds, fishes, and insects, of which the arrangement was so dil 
 ricult, and the necessary information so widely diffused, and so ob- 
 scurely related when found, that it proved by much the most labori- 
 ous part of the undertaking. Thus having made use of Mr. Buffon's 
 lights in the first part of the work, I may, with some share of confidence, 
 recommend it to the public. But what shall I say to that part, 
 where I have been entirely left without his assistance? As I would 
 affect neither modesty nor confidence, it would be sufficient to say 
 that my reading upon this part of the subject has been very exten- 
 sive ; and that I have taxed my scanty circumstances in procuring 
 books, which are on this subject, of all others, the most expensive. In 
 consequence of this industry, I here offer a work to the public, of a 
 kind which has never been attempted in ours, or any other modern 
 language that I know of. The ancients, indeed, and Pliny in partic- 
 ular, have anticipated me in the present manner of treating natural his- 
 tory. Like those historians who describe the events of a campaign, 
 they have not condescended to give the private particulars of every in- 
 dividual that formed the army ; they were content with characterizing 
 the generals, and describing their operations, while they left it to 
 meaner hands to carry the muster-roll. 1 have followed their manner, 
 rejecting the numerous fables which they adopted, and adding the im- 
 provements of the moderns, which are so numerous, that they actually 
 make up the bulk of natural history. 
 
 The delight which I found in reading Pliny, first inspired me with 
 the idea of a work of this nature. Having a taste rather classical than 
 scientific, and having but little employed myself in turning over the 
 dry labours of modern system-makers, my earliest intention was to 
 translate this agreeable writer, and by the help of a commentary to make 
 my work as amusing as I could. Let us dignify natural history nev- 
 er so much with the grave appellation of an useful science, yet still we 
 must confess that it is the occupation of the idle and the speculative, 
 more than the busy, and the ambitious part of mankind. My inten- 
 tion, therefore, was to treat what I then conceived to be an idle sub- 
 ject, in an idle manner; and not to hedge round plain and simple 
 narratives with hard words, accumulated distinctions, ostentatious 
 learning, and disquisitions that produced no conviction. Upon the 
 appearance, however, of Mr. Buffon's work, I dropped my former plan, 
 and adopted the present, being convinced, by his manner, that the best 
 imitation of the ancients was to write from our own feelings, and to 
 imitate Nature. 
 
 It will be my chief pride, therefore, if this work may be found an 
 innocent amusement for those who have nothing else to employ them 
 or who require a relaxation from labour. Professed naturalists wil 1 , 
 no doubt, find it superficial ; and yet 1 should hope that even these 
 will discover hints and remarks gleaned from various readings, not 
 wholly trite or elementary. I would wish for their approbation. But 
 my chief ambition is to drag up the obscure and gloomy learning of 
 the cell to open inspection : to strip it from its garb of austerity and 
 to show the beauties of that form, which only the industrious anJ thfi 
 inquisitive have been hitherto permitted to approach.
 
 HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 THE World may be considered as one vast mansion, where man ha 
 been admitted to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The first de- 
 sires of savage nature are merely to gratify the importunities of sen- 
 sual appetite, and to neglect the contemplation of things, barely satis- 
 fied with their enjoyment : the beauties of nature, and all the wonders 
 of creation, have but little charms for a being taken up in obviating the 
 wants of the day, and anxious for precarious subsistence. 
 
 Philosophers, therefore, who have testified such surprise at the want 
 of curiosity in the ignorant, seem not to consider that they are usually 
 employed in making provisions of a more important nature ; in pro- 
 viding rather for the necessities than the amusements of life. It is 
 not till our more pressing wants are sufficiently supplied, that we can 
 attend to the calls of curiosity ; so that in every age scientific refine- 
 ment has been the latest effort of human industry. 
 
 But human curiosity, though at first slowly excited, being at last 
 possessed of leisure for indulging its propensity, becomes one of the 
 greatest amusements of life, and gives higher satisfactions than what 
 even the senses can afford. A man of this disposition turns all nature 
 into a magnificent theatre, replete with objects of wonder and surprise, 
 and fitted up chiefly for his happiness and entertainment : he indus 
 triously examines all things, from the minutest insect to the most 
 finished animal ; and, when his limited organs can no longer make the 
 disquisition, he sends out his imagination upon new inquiries. 
 
 Nothing, therefore, can be more august and striking than the idea 
 
 hich his reason, aided by his imagination, furnishes of the universe 
 around him. Astronomers tell us, that this earth which we inhabit 
 forms but a very minute part in that great assemblage of bodies 
 of which the world is composed. It is a million of times less than the 
 sun, by which it is enlightened. The planets also, which, like it, are 
 subordinate to the sun's influence, exceed the earth a thousand times 
 in magnitude. These, which were at first supposed to wander in the 
 heavens without any fixed path, and that took their name from their 
 apparent deviations, have long been found to perform their circuits 
 with great exactness and strict regularity. They have been discover- 
 ed as forming, with our earth, a system of bodies circulating round the 
 sun, all obodient to one law, and impelled by one common influenr r>.
 
 10 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Modern philosophy has taught us to believe, that when the great 
 Author of nature began the work of creation, he chose to operate by 
 second causes ; and that, suspending the constant exertion of his pow- 
 er, he endued, matter with, a. Quality, -by which the universal economy 
 of nature might b 'continued: tyftfipuj his immediate assistance. This 
 quality is called* attraction ; Vso'rt'of^ approximating influence, which 
 all bodies, .wh^titer '.tgr/eStKal or e'elestjal, are found to possess , and 
 which in all' increases' 'as the l quantity of matter in each increases. 
 The sun, by far the greatest body in our system, is, of consequence, 
 possessed of much the greatest share of this attracting power ; and 
 all the planets, of which our earth is one, are, of course, entirely subject 
 to its superior influence. Were this power, therefore, left uncontrolled 
 by the other, the sun must quickly have attracted all the bodies of our 
 celestial system to itself; but it is equally counteracted by another pow- 
 er of equal efficacy ; namely, a progressive force, which each planet 
 received when it was impelled forward by the divine Architect, upon 
 its first formation. The heavenly bodies of our system being thus 
 acted upon by two opposing powers ; namely, by that of attraction^ 
 which draws them towards the sun ; and that of impulsion, which drives 
 them straight forward into the great void of space ; they pursue a track 
 between these contrary directions ; and each, like a stone whirled 
 about in a sling, obeying two opposite forces, circulates round its great 
 centre of heat and motion. 
 
 In this manner, therefore, is the harmony of our planetary system 
 preserved. The sun, in the midst, gives heat, and light, and circular 
 motion to the planets which surround it : Mercury, Venus, the Earth, 
 Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel or the Georgium Sidus, perform 
 their constant circuits at different distances, each taking up a time to 
 complete its revolutions proportioned to the greatness of the circle 
 which it is to describe. The lesser planets also, which are attendants 
 upon some of the greater, are subject to the same laws ; they circu- 
 late with the same exactness ; and are, in the same manner, influ- 
 enced by their respective centres of motion. 
 
 Besides those bodies which make a part of our peculiar system, and 
 which may be said to reside within its great circumference, there are 
 others that frequently come among us, from the most distant tracts 
 of space, and that seem like dangerous intruders upon the beautiful 
 simplicity of nature. These are comets, whose appearance wia 
 once so terrible to mankind ; and the theory of which is so little un- 
 derstood at present : all we know is, that their number is much greater 
 than that of the planets ; and that, like these, they roll in orbits, in 
 orae measure obedient to solar influence. Astronomers have en- 
 deavoured to calculate the returning periods of many of them ; but 
 experience has not, as yet, confirmed the veracity of their investiga- 
 tions. Indeed, who can tell, when those wanderers have made their 
 excursions into other worlds and distant systems, what obstacles may 
 be found to oppose their progress, to accelerate their motions, or 
 retard their return ? 
 
 But what we have hitherto attempted to sketch, is but a small part 
 \if that great fabric in which the Deity has thought proper to manifesi 
 his wisdom and omnipotence. There are multitudes of other bod/e...
 
 THE EARTH. 11 
 
 dispersed over the face of the heavens, that lie too remote for e-\ami- 
 aation : these have no motion, such as the planets are found to possess, 
 and are therefore called fixed stars; and from their extreme bril- 
 liancy, and their immense distance, philosophers have been induced 
 to suppose them to be suns, resembling that which enlivens our system. 
 As the imagination also, once excited, is seldom content to stop, it has 
 furnished each with an attendant system of planets belonging to itself, 
 and has even induced some to deplore the fate of those systems, whose 
 imagined suns, which sometimes happens, have become no longer 
 visible. 
 
 But conjectures of this kind, which no reasoning can ascertain, nor 
 experiment reach, are rather amusing than useful. Though we see 
 the greatness and wisdom of the Deity in all the seeming worlds that 
 surround us, it is our chief concern to trace Him in that which we in- 
 habit. The examination of the earth, the wonders of its contrivance, 
 the history of its advantages, or of the seeming defects in its forma- 
 tion, are the proper business of the natural historian. A description 
 of this earth, its animals, vegetables, and minerals, is the most delight- 
 ful entertainment the mind can be furnished with, as it is the most in- 
 teresting and useful. I would beg leave, therefore, to conclude these 
 common-place speculations, with an observation, which, I hope, is not 
 entirely so. 
 
 A use, hitherto not much insisted upon, that may result from the 
 contemplation of celestial magnificence is, that it will teach us to 
 make an allowance for the apparent irregularities we find below. 
 Whenever we examine the works of the Deity at a proper point of dis- 
 tance, so as to take in the whole of his design, we see nothing but uni- 
 formity, beauty, and precision. The heavens present us with a plan, 
 which, though inexpressibly magnificent, is yet regular beyond the 
 power of invention. Whenever, therefore, we find any apparent de- 
 fects in the Earth, which we are about to consider, instead of attempt- 
 ing to reason ourselves into an opinion that they are beautiful, it will 
 be wiser to say, that we do not behold them at the proper point of dis- 
 tance, and that our eye is laid too close to the objects to take in the 
 regularity of their connexion. In short, we may conclude, that God, 
 who is regular in his GREAT productions, acts with equal uniformity in 
 the LITTLE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A SHORT SURVEY OP THE GLOBE, FROM THE LIGHT OF ASTRONOMY AND 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ALL the sciences are in some measure linked with each other, and 
 before the one is ended, the other begins. In a natural history, there- 
 fore, of the earth, we must begin with a short account of its situation 
 and form, as given by astronomers and -geographers : it will be suffi- 
 cient, however, upon this occasion, just to hint to the imagination, 
 what they, by the most abstract reasonings, have forced upon the un- 
 derstanding. The earth which we inhabit is, as has been said before.
 
 12 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 one of those bodies which circulate in our solar system ; it is place/d 
 at a happy middle distance from the centre ; and even seems, in this 
 respect, privileged beyond all other planets that depend upon our grea* 
 luminary for their support. Less distant from the sun than Herschel 
 or the Georgium Sidus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and yet less parched 
 up than Venus and Mercury, that are situate too near the violence 
 of its power, the Earth seems in a peculiar manner to share the boun- 
 ty of the Creator : it is not, therefore, without reason, that mankind 
 consider themselves as the peculiar objects of his providence and 
 regard. 
 
 Besides that motion which the earth has round the sun, the circuit 
 of which is performed in a year, it has another upon its own axle, 
 which it performs in twenty-four hours. Thus, like a chariot-wheel, it 
 has a compound motion ; for while it goes forward on its journey, it is 
 nil the while turning round upon itself. From the first of these two 
 arise the grateful vicissitude of the seasons ; from the second, that 
 of day and night. 
 
 It may be also readily conceived, that a body thus wheeling in cir- 
 cles will most probably be itself a sphere. The earth, beyond all pos- 
 sibility of doubt, is found to be so. Whenever its shadow happens to 
 fall upon the moon, in an eclipse, it appears to be always circular, in 
 whatever position it is projected : and it is easy ** prove, that a body 
 which in every position makes a circular shadow, must itself be round. 
 The rotundity of the earth may be also proved from the meeting of two 
 ships at sea : the top-masts of each are the first parts that are discover- 
 ed by both, the under parts being hidden by the convexity of the globe 
 which rises between them. The ships, in this instance, may be resem- 
 bled to two men who approach each other on the opposite sides of a 
 hill : their heads will first be seen, and gradually as they come nearer 
 they will come entirely into view. 
 
 However, though the earth's figure is said to be spherical, we ought 
 only to conceive it as being nearly so. It has been found in the last 
 age to be rather flatted at both poles, so that its form is commonly re- 
 sembled to that of a turnip. The cause of this swelling of the equator 
 is ascribed to the greater rapidity of the motion with which the parts 
 of the earth are there carried round ; and which, consequently, en- 
 deavouring to fly off, act in opposition to central attraction. The 
 twirling of a mop may serve as a homely illustration ; which, as every 
 one has seen, spreads and grows broader in the middle as it continues 
 to be turned round. 
 
 As the earth receives light and motion from the sun, so it de- 
 rives much of its warmth and power of vegetation from the same 
 beneficent source. However, the different parts of the globe par- 
 ticipate of these advantages in very different proportions,, and accord- 
 ingly put on very different appearances ; a polar prospect, and a land- 
 scape at the equator, are as opposite in their appearances as in the'u 
 vituation. 
 
 The polar regions, that receive the solar beams in a very oblique 
 direction, and that continue for one half of the year in night, receive 
 but few of the genial comforts that other parts of the world enjoy. 
 Nothing can be more mournful or hideous than the picture which
 
 THE EARTH. 13 
 
 travellers present of those wretched regions. The ground,* which is 
 rocky and barren, rears itself in every place in lofty mountains and 
 inaccessible cliffs, and meets the mariner's eye at even forty leagues 
 from shore. These precipices, frightful in themselves, receive an 
 additional horror from being constantly covered with ice and snow, 
 which daily seem to accumulate, and fill all the valleys with increasing 
 desolation. The few rocks and cliffs, that are bare of snow, look at a 
 distance of a dark brown colour, and quite naked. Upon a nearer ap- 
 proach, however, they are found replete with many different veins 
 of coloured stone, here and there spread over with a little earth, and a 
 scanty portion of grass and heath. The internal parts of the country 
 are still more desolate and deterring. In wandering through these 
 solitudes, some plains appear covered with ice, that, at first glance, 
 seem to promise the traveller an easy journey, f But these are even 
 more formidable and more unpassable than the mountains themselves, 
 being cleft with dreadful chasms, and every where abounding with 
 pits that threaten certain destruction. The seas that surround these 
 inhospitable coasts, are still more astonishing, being covered with 
 flakes of floating ice, that spread like extensive fields, or that rise out 
 of the water like enormous mountains. These, which are composed 
 of materials as clear and transparent as glass, J assume many strange 
 and phantastic appearances. Some of them look like churches or 
 castles, with pointed turrets ; some like ships in full sail ; and people 
 have often given themselves the fruitless toil to attempt piloting the 
 imaginary vessels into the harbour. There are still others that appear 
 like large islands, with plains, valleys, and hills, which often rear their 
 heads two hundred yards above the level of the sea, and although the 
 height of these be amazing, yet their depth beneath is still more so; 
 some of them being found to sink three hundred fathom under water. 
 The earth presents a very different appearance at the equator, 
 where the sun-beams, darting directly downwards, burn up the lighter 
 soils into extensive sandy deserts, or quicken all the moister tracts 
 with incredible vegetation. In these regions, almost all the same in- 
 conveniences are felt from the proximity of the sun, that in the former 
 were endured from its absence. The deserts are entirely barren, ex- 
 cept where they are found to produce serpents, and that in such 
 quantities, that some extensive plains seem almost entirely covered 
 with them. 
 
 It not unfrequently happens also, that this dry soil, which is so 
 parched and comminuted by the force of the sun, rises with the 
 smallest breeze of wind ; and the sands being composed of parts, al- 
 most as small as those of water, they assume a similar appearance, roll- 
 ing onward in waves like those of a troubled sea, and overwhelming 
 all they meet with inevitable destruction. On the other hand, those 
 tracts which are fertile teem with vegetation even to a noxious degree. 
 The grass rises to such a height as often to require burning ; the forests 
 are impassable from underwoods, and so matted above, that even the 
 sun, fierce as it is, can seldom penetrate. || These are so thick as 
 
 * Crantz's History of Greenland, p. 3. f Ibid, p. 22. \ Ibid, p. 27. 
 Adanson's Description of Senegal. | Linnsei Amsenit. vol. vi. p. 67.
 
 14 A HISTORY OF 
 
 scarcely to be extirpated ; for the tops being so bound together by the 
 climbing plants that grow round them, though a hundred should be cut 
 at the bouom, yet not one would fall, as they mutually support each 
 other. Jn these dark and entangled forests, beasts of various kinds, in- 
 sects in astonishing abundance, and serpents of surprising magnitude, 
 find a quiet retreat from man, and are seldom disturbed except by each 
 other. 
 
 In this manner the extremes of our globe seem equally unfitted for 
 the comforts and conveniences of life : and although the imagination 
 may find an awful pleasure in contemplating the frightful precipices 
 of Greenland, or the luxurious verdure of Africa, yet true happiness 
 can only be found in the more moderate climates, where the gifts of na- 
 ture may be enjoyed, without incurring danger in obtaining them. 
 
 It is in the temperate zone, therefore, that all the arts of improving 
 nature, and refining upon happiness, have been invented : and this 
 part of the earth is, more properly speaking, the theatre of natural 
 history. Although there be millions of animals and vegetables in the 
 unexplored forests under the line, yet most of these may for ever con- 
 tinue unknown, as curiosity is there repressed by surrounding danger. 
 But it is otherwise in these delightful regions which we inhabit, and 
 where this art has had its beginning. Among us there is scarce a shrub, 
 a flower, or an insect, without its particular history ; scarce a plant that 
 could be useful, which has not been propagated ; nor a weed that 
 could be noxious, which has not been pointed out. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A VIEW OP THE SURFACE OP THE EARTH. 
 
 WHEN we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe, a thou- 
 sand objects offer themselves, which, though long known, yet still de- 
 mand our curiosity. The most obvious beauty that every where 
 strikes the eye, is the verdant covering of the earth, which is forn>ed 
 by a happy mixture of herbs and trees of various magnitudes and uses. 
 It has been often remarked, that no colour refreshes the sight so much 
 as green : and it may be added, as a further proof of the assertion, 
 that the inhabitants of those places where the fields are continually 
 white with snow, generally become blind long before the usual course 
 of nature. 
 
 This advantage, which arises from the verdure of the fields, is not a 
 little improved by their agreeable inequalities. There are scarcely 
 two natural landscapes that offer prospects entirely resembling each 
 other ; their risings and depressions, their hills and valleys, are never 
 entirely the same, but always offer something new to entertain and re- 
 fresh the imagination. 
 
 But to increase the beauties of the face of nature, the landscape is 
 enlivened by springs and lakes, and intersected by rivulets. These 
 'end a brightness to the prospect ; give motion and coolness to the air ; 
 and, what is much more important, furnish health and subsistence tc 
 animated nature.
 
 THE EARTH. 15 
 
 Such aie the most obvious and tranquil objects that every where 
 offer : but there are others of a more awful and magnificent kind ; the 
 Mountain rising above the clouds, and topped with snow ; the Rivet 
 pouring down its sides, increasing as it runs, and losing itself, at last, in 
 the ocean ; the Ocean spreading its immense sheet of waters over one 
 half of the globe, swelling and subsiding at well-known intervals, and 
 forming a communication between the most distant parts of the earth. 
 
 If we leave those objects that seem to be natural to our earth, and 
 keep the same constant tenor, we are presented with the great irregu- 
 larities of nature. The burning mountain ; the abrupt precipice ; the 
 unfathomable cavern ; the headlong cataract ; and the rapid whirlpool, 
 
 If we carry our curiosity a little further, and descend to the objects 
 immediately below the surface of the globe, we shall there find won- 
 ders still as amazing. We first perceive the earth for the most part ly- 
 ing in regular beds or layers, every bed growing thicker in proportion 
 as it lies deeper, and its contents more compact and heavy. We shall 
 find, almost wherever we make our subterranean inquiry, an amazing 
 number of shells that once belonged to aquatic animals. Here and 
 there, at a distance from the sea, beds of oyster-shells, several yards 
 thick, and many miles over ; sometimes testaceous substances of vari- 
 ous kinds on the tops of mountains, and often in the heart of the hard- 
 est marble. These, which are dug up by the peasants in every coun- 
 try, are regarded with little curiosity ; for being so very common, they 
 are considered as substances entirely terrene. But it is otherwise with 
 the inquirer after nature, who finds them, not only in shape but in 
 substance, every way resembling those that are found in the sea ; and 
 he, therefore, is at a loss to account for their removal. 
 
 Yet not one part of nature alone, but all her productions and vari- 
 eties, become the object of the speculative man's inquiry : he takes 
 different views of nature from the inattentive spectator ; and scarce 
 an appearance, how common soever, but affords matter for his con- 
 templation : he inquires how and why the surface of the earth has 
 those risings and depressions which most men call natural ; he de- 
 mands in what manner the mountains were formed, and in what con- 
 sists their uses ; he asks from whence springs arise, and how rivers 
 flow round the convexity of the globe ; he enters into an examination 
 of the ebbings and flowings, and the other wonders of the deep ; he 
 acquaints himself with the irregularities of nature, and endeavours to 
 investigate their causes ; by which, at least, he will become better 
 versed in their history. The internal structure of the globe becomes 
 an object of his curiosity ; and, although his inquiries can fathom but 
 a very little way, yet, if possessed with a spirit of theory, his imagina- 
 tion will supply the rest. He will endeavour to account for the situa- 
 tion of the marine fossils that are found in the earth, and for the ap- 
 pearance of the different beds of which it is composed. These have 
 been the inquiries that have splendidly employed many of the philoso- 
 phers of the last and present age,* and, to a certain degree, they must 
 be serviceable. But the worst of it is, that, as speculations amuse the 
 
 Buffon, Woodward, Burnet, Whiston, Kircher, Bourquat, Leibnitz, Steno, 
 *ay, Sic.
 
 It A HISTORY OT 
 
 writer mure than facts, they may be often carried to an extravagant 
 length ; and that time may be spent in reasoning upon nature, which 
 might be more usefully employed in writing her history. 
 
 Too much speculation in natural history is certainly wrong ; but 
 there is a defect of an opposite nature that does much more preju- 
 dice ; namely, that of silencing all inquiry by alleging the benefits we 
 receive from a thing, instead of investigating the cause of its produc- 
 tion. If I inquire how a mountain came to be formed ; such a rea- 
 soner, enumerating its benefits, answers, because God knew it would 
 be useful. If I demand the cause of an earthquake, he finds some 
 good produced by it, and alleges that as the cause of its explosion. 
 Thus such an inquirer has constantly some ready reason for every ap- 
 pearance in nature, which serves to swell his periods, and. give splen- 
 dour to his declamation : every thing about him is, on some account 
 or other, declared to be good ; and he thinks it presumption to scru- 
 tinize into its defects, or to endeavour to imagine how it might be bet- 
 ter. Such writers, and there are many such, add very little to the ad- 
 vancement of knowledge. It is finely remarked by Bacon, that the 
 investigation of final causes* is a barren study ; and, like a virgin 
 dedicated to the Deity, brings forth nothing. In fact, those men who 
 want to compel every appearance and every irregularity in nature into 
 our service, and expatiate on their benefits, combat that very morality 
 which they would seem to promote. God has permitted thousands 
 of natural evils to exist in the world, because it is by their interven- 
 tion that man is capable of moral evil ; and he has permitted that we 
 should be subject to moral evil, that we might do something to deserve 
 eternal happiness, by showing that we had the rectitude to avoid it. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A REVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OF THE EARTH. 
 
 HUMAN invention has been exercised for several ages to account for 
 the various irregularities of the earth. While those philosophers, 
 mentioned in the last chapter, see nothing but beauty, symmetry, and 
 order ; there are others, who look upon the gloomy side of nature, 
 enlarge on its defects, and seem to consider the earth, on which they 
 tread, as one scene of extensive desolation.t Beneath its surface the) 
 observe minerals and waters confusedly jumbled together ; its differ- 
 ent beds of earth irregularly lying upon each other ; mountains rising 
 from places that once were level ;f and hills sinking into valleys ; whole 
 regions swallowed by the sea, and others again rising out of its bosom. 
 All these they suppose to be but a few of the changes that have been 
 wrought in our globe ; and they send out the imagination to describe 
 its primaeval state of beauty. 
 
 Of those who have written theories describing the manner of the 
 original formation of the earth, or accounting for its present appear 
 
 Mnvestigatio causarum finalium sterilis est, et vcluti virgo Deo dicata nil puit 
 t Buffbn's second Discourse. t Senec. Qua;st. lib. vi. cap. 21
 
 THE EARTH. 1? 
 
 races, the most celebrated are Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, and 
 Bufibn. As speculation is endless, so it is not to be wondered that 
 all these differ from each other, and give opposite accounts of the 
 several changes, which they suppose our earth to have undergone. 
 As the systems of each have had their admirers, it is, in some measure, 
 incumbent upon the natural historian to be acquainted, at least, with 
 their outlines ; and, indeed, to know what others have even dreamed 
 in matters of science, is very useful, as it may often prevent us from 
 indulging similar delusions ourselves, which we should never have 
 adopted, but because we take them to be wholly our own. However, 
 as entering into a detail of these theories, is rather furnishing a history 
 of opinions than things, I will endeavour to be as concise as I can. 
 
 The first who formed this amusement of earth-making into system, 
 was the celebrated Thomas Burnet, a man of polite learning and rapid 
 imagination. His Sacred Theory, as he calls it, describing the changes 
 which the earth has undergone, or shall hereafter undergo, is well 
 known for the warmth with which it is imagined, and the weakness with 
 which it is reasoned ; for the elegance of its style, and the mean- 
 ness of its philosophy. " The earth," says he, " before the deluge, 
 was very differently formed from what it is at present : it was at 
 first a fluid mass ; a chaos composed of various substances, differing 
 both in density and figure : those which were most heavy sunk 
 to the centre, and formed in the middle of our globe a hard solid 
 body ; those of a lighter nature remained next ; and the waters, 
 which were lighter still, swam upon its surface, and covered the 
 earth on every side. The air, and all those fluids which were 
 lighter than water, floated upon this also ; and in the same manner 
 encompassed the globe ; so that between the surrounding body of wa- 
 ters, and the circumambient air, there was formed a coat of oil, and 
 other unctuous substances, lighter than water. However, as the air 
 was still extremely impure, and must have carried up with it many 
 of those earthy particles with which it once was intimately blended, 
 it soon began to defecate, and to depose these particles upon the oily 
 surface already mentioned, which soon uniting, the earth and oil 
 formed that crust, which soon became a habitable surface, giving life 
 to vegetation, and dwelling to animals. 
 
 " This imaginary antideluvian abode was very different from what 
 we see it at present. The earth was light and rich ; and formed of a 
 substance entirely adapted to the feeble state of incipient vegetation : 
 it was a uniform plain, every where covered with verdure ; without 
 mountains, without seas, or the smallest inequalities. It had no dif- 
 ference of seasons, for its equator was in the plane of the ecliptic, or, 
 in other words, it turned directly opposite to the sun, so that it enjoy, 
 ed one perpetual and luxuriant spring. However, this delightful face 
 of nature did not long continue in the same state ; for, after a time, 
 it began to crack and open in fissures ; a circumstance which always 
 succeeds when the sun exhales the moisture from rich or marshy situ- 
 ations. The crimes of mankind had been for some time preparing to 
 draw down the wrath of Heaven ; and they, at length, induced the 
 Deity to defer repairing these breaches in nature. Thus the chasms 
 of the earth every day became wider, and, at length, they penetrated 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 13 A HISTORY OF 
 
 to the great abyss of waters ; and the whole earth, in a manner, fell 
 in. Then ensued a total disorder in the uniform beauty of the first 
 creation, the terrene surface of the globe being broken down ; as it 
 sunk the waters gushed out into its place ; the deluge became univer- 
 sal ; all mankind, except eight persons, were destroyed, and their posr 
 ferity condemned to toil upon the ruins of desolated nature." 
 
 It only remains to mention the manner in which he relieves the 
 earth from this universal wreck, which would seem to be as difficult a 
 even its first formation : " These great masses of earth falling into the 
 abyss, drew down with them vast quantities also of air ; and, by dash- 
 ing against each other, and breaking into small parts by the repeated 
 violence of the shock, they, at length, left between them large cavities, 
 filled with nothing but air. These cavities naturally offered a bed to re- 
 ceive the influent waters ; and in proportion as they filled, the face of the 
 earth became once more visible. The higher parts of its broken sur- 
 face, now become the tops of the mountains, were the first that ap- 
 peared ; the plains soon after came forward, and, at length, the whole 
 globe was delivered from the waters, except the places in the lowest 
 situations ; so that the ocean and the seas are still a part of the ancient 
 abyss, that have not had a place to return. Islands and rocks are 
 fragments of the earth's former crust ; kingdoms and continents are 
 larger masses of its broken substance ; and all the inequalities that are 
 to be found on the surface of the present earth, are owing to the acci- 
 dental confusion into which both earth and waters were then thrown." 
 
 The next theorist was Woodward, who, in his Essay towards a 
 Natural History of the Earth, which was only designed to precede a 
 greater work, has endeavoured to give a more rational account of its 
 appearance; and was, in fact, much better furnished for such an un- 
 dertaking than any of his predecessors, being one of the roost assidu- 
 ous naturalists of his time. His little book, therefore, contains many 
 important facts, relative to natural history, although his system may be 
 weak and groundless. 
 
 He begins by asserting that all terrene substances are disposed in 
 beds of various natures, lying horizontally one over the other, some- 
 what like the coats of an onion : that they are replete with shells, and 
 ither productions of the sea; these shells being found in the deepest 
 "iivities, and on the tops of the highest mountains. From these obser- 
 vations, which are warranted by experience, he proceeds to observe, 
 that these shells and extraneous fossils are not productions of the earth, 
 but are all actual remains of those animals which they are known to 
 resemble; that all the beds of the earth lie under each other, in the 
 order of their specific gravity ; and that they are disposed as if they 
 had been left there by subsiding waters. All these assertions he af- 
 firms with much earnestness, although daily experience contradict* 
 him in some of them ; particularly we find layers of stone often over 
 the lightest soils, and the softest earth under the hardest bodies. How- 
 ever, having taken it for granted, that all the layers of the earth are 
 found in the order of their specific gravity, the lightest at the top, and 
 the heaviest next the centre, he consequently asserts, and it will not 
 improbably follow, that all the substances of which the earth is com- 
 posed were once in an actual state of dissolution. This universal clis
 
 THE EARTH. 19 
 
 solution he takes to have happened at the time of the flood. He sup 
 poses, that at that time a body of water, which was then in the centre 
 of the earth, uniting with that which was found on the surface, so far 
 separated the terrene parts as to mix all together in one fluid mass ; 
 the contents of which afterwards sinking according to their respective 
 gravities, produced the present appearances of the earth. Being 
 aware, however, of an objection, that fossil substances are not found 
 dissolved, he exempts them from this universal dissolution, and, for 
 that purpose, endeavours to show that the parts of animals have a 
 stronger cohesion than those of minerals ; and that, while even the 
 hardest rocks may be dissolved, bones and shells may still continuw 
 entire. 
 
 So much for Woodward ; but of all the systems which were pub- 
 lished respecting the earth's formation, that of Whiston was most ap- 
 plauded, and most opposed. Nor need we wonder: for being sup- 
 ported with all the parade of deep calculation, it awed the ignorant, and 
 produced the approbation of such as would be thought otherwise ; as 
 it implied a knowledge of abstruse learning, to be even thought capa- 
 ble of comprehending what the writer aimed at. In fact, it is not easy 
 to divest this theory of its mathematical garb ; but those who have 
 had leisure, have found the result of our philosopher's reasoning to be 
 thus : He supposes the earth to have been originally a comet ; and he 
 considers the history of the creation, as given us in scripture, to have 
 its commencement just when it was, by the hand of the Creator, to be 
 more regularly placed as a planet in our solar system. Before that 
 time he supposes it to have been a globe without beauty or proportion ; 
 a world in disorder; subject to all the vicissitudes which comets endure ; 
 some of which have been found, at different times, a thousand times 
 hotter than melted iron ; at others, a thousand times colder than ice. 
 These alternations of heat and cold, continually melting and freezing 
 the surface of the earth, he supposes to have produced, to a certain 
 depth, a chaos entirely resembling that described by the poets, stir 
 rounding the solid contents of the earth, which still continued unchanged 
 in the midst, making a great burning globe of more than two thousand 
 leagues in diameter. This surrounding chaos, however, was far from 
 being solid : he resembles it to a dense though fluid atmosphere, com- 
 posed of substances mingled, agitated, and shocked against each other ; 
 and in this disorder he describes the earth to have been just at the 
 eve of creation. 
 
 But upon its orbit being then changed, when it was more regularly 
 wheeled round the sun, every thing took its proper place ; every part 
 of the surrounding fluid then fell into a situation, in proportion as U 
 was light or heavy. 
 
 The middle, or central part, which always remained unchangeJ, 
 still continued so, retaining a part of that heat which it received 
 n its primeval approaches towards the sun : which heat, he cal- 
 culates, may continue for about six thousand years. Next to this 
 fell the heavier parts of the chaotic atmosphere, which serve to 
 sustain the lighter : but as in descending they coord not entirely 
 be separated from many watery parts, with which they were in- 
 timately mixed, they drew down a part of these also with them ;
 
 20 A HISTORY OF 
 
 and tlie^e could not mount again after the surface of the earth was 
 consolidated : they, therefore, surrounded the heavy first descending 
 parts, in the same manner as these surround the central globe. Thus 
 the entire body of the earth is composed internally of a great burn- 
 ing globe ; next which is placed a heavy terrene substance, that en- 
 compasses it ; round which also is circumfused a body of water. Up- 
 on this body of water, the crust of earth, which we inhabit, is placed : 
 so that, according to him, the globe is composed of a number of coats, 
 or shells, one within the other, all of different densities. The body 
 of the earth being thus formed, the air, which is the lightest substance 
 of all, surrounded its surface ; and the beams of the sun, darting 
 through, produced that light which, we are told, first obeyed the Cre- 
 ator's command. 
 
 The whole economy of the creation being thus adjusted, it only re- 
 mained to account for the risings and depressions on the surface of the 
 earth, with the other seeming irregularities of its present appearance. 
 The hills and valleys are considered by him as formed by their press- 
 ing upon the internal fluid, which sustains the outward shell of earth, 
 with greater or less weight : those parts of the earth which are hea- 
 viest sink into the subjacent fluid more deeply, and become valleys : 
 those that are lightest, rise higher upon the earth's surface, and are 
 called mountains. 
 
 Such was the face of nature before the deluge ; the earth was then 
 more fertile and populous than it is at present ; the life of man and 
 animals was extended to ten times its present duration ; and all these 
 advantages arose from the superior heat of the central globe, which 
 ever since has been cooling. As its heat was then in full power, the 
 genial principle was also much greater than at present ; vegetation 
 and animal increase were carried on with more vigour ; and all nature 
 seemed teeming with the seeds of life. But these physical advan- 
 tages were only productive of moral evil ; the warmth which invigo- 
 rated the body increased the passions and appetites of the mind ; and, 
 as man became more powerful he grew less innocent. It was found 
 necessary to punish this depravity ; and all living creatures were over- 
 whelmed by the deluge in universal destruction. 
 
 This deluge, which simple believers are willing to ascribe to a mira- 
 cle, philosophers have long been desirous to account for by natural 
 causes : they have proved that the earth could never supply from 
 any reservoir towards its centre, nor the atmosphere by any dis- 
 charge from above, such a quantity of water as would cover the sur- 
 face of the globe to a certain depth over the tops of tmr highest 
 mountains. Where, therefore, was all this water to be found ? 
 Whiston has found enough, and more than a sufficiency, in the tail of a 
 comet ; for he seems to allot comets a very active part in the great 
 operations of nature. 
 
 He calculates, with great seeming precision, the year, the month, 
 and the day of the week, on which this comet (which has paid the earth 
 some visits since, though at a kinder distance) involved our globe in 
 its tail. The tail he supposed to be a vaporous fluid substance, exhaled 
 from the body of the comet by the extreme heat of the sun, and increas- 
 ing in proportion as it approached that great luminary. It was in this
 
 THE EARTH. 21 
 
 that our globe was involved at the time of the deluge ; and, as the 
 earth still acted by its natural attraction, it drew to itself all the wa- 
 tery vapours which w?3re in the comet's tail ; and the internal waters 
 being also at the same time let loose, in a very short space the tops 
 of the highest mountains were laid under the deep. 
 
 The punishment of the deluge being thus completed, and all the 
 guilty destroyed, the earth, which had been broken by the eruption 
 of the internal waters, was also enlarged by it ; so that, upon the 
 comet's recess, there was found room sufficient in the internal abyss 
 for the recess of the superfluous waters ; whither they all retired, and 
 left the earth uncovered, but in some respects changed, particularly 
 in its figure, which, from being round, was now become oblate. In 
 this universal wreck of nature, Noah survived, by a variety of happy 
 causes, to re-people the earth, and to give birth to a race of men slow 
 in believing ill-imagined theories of the earth. 
 
 After so many theories of the earth, which had been published, ap- 
 plauded, answered, and forgotten, Mr. Euffon ventured to add one 
 more to the number. This philosopher was, in every respect, better 
 qualified than any of his predecessors for such an attempt, being fur- 
 nished with more materials, having a brighter imagination to find new 
 proofs, and a better style to clothe them in. However, if one so ill 
 qualified as I am may judge, this seems the weakest part of his admi- 
 rable work ; and I could wish that he had been content with giving us 
 f acts instead of systems ; that, instead of being a reasoner, he had 
 contented himself with being merely a historian. 
 
 He begins his system by making a distinction between the first part 
 of it and the last ; the one being founded only on conjecture, the other 
 depending entirely upon actual observation. The latter part of his 
 theory may, therefore, be true, though the former should be found 
 erroneous. 
 
 " The planets," says he, " and the earth among the number, might 
 have been formerly (he only offers this as conjecture) apart of the body 
 of the sun, and adherent to its substance. In this situation, a comet 
 falling in upon that great body, might have given it such a shock, and 
 so shaken its whole frame, that some of its particles might have been 
 driven off like streaming sparkles from red-hot iron ; and each of these 
 streams of fire, small as they were in comparison of the sun, might have 
 been large enough to have made an earth as great, nay, many times great- 
 er than ours. So that in this manner the planets, together with the globe 
 which we inhabit, might have been driven off from the body of the 
 sun by an impulsive force : in this manner also they would continue 
 to recede from it for ever, were they not drawn back by its superior 
 power of attraction ; and thus, by the combination of the two motions, 
 they are wheeled round in circles. 
 
 " Being in this manner detached at a distance from the body of the 
 sun, the planets, from having been at first globes of liquid fire, gradu- 
 ally became cool. The earth also having been impelled obliquely 
 forward, received a rotatory motion upon its axis at the very instant 
 vf its formation ; and this motion being greatest at the equator, the 
 jarts there acting against the force of gravity, they must have vollen 
 >ut, and given the eaj th an oblate or flatted figure.
 
 22 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 " As to its internal substance, our globe, having once belonged to the 
 sun, it continues to be a uniform mass of melted matter, very proba- 
 bly vitrified in its primeval fusion. But its surface is very differently 
 composed. Having been in the beginning heated to a degree equal to, 
 if not greater than what comets are found to sustain ; like them it had 
 an atmosphere of vapours floating round it, and which cooling by de- 
 grees, condensed and subsided upon its surface. These vapours form- 
 ed, according to their different densities, the earth, the water, and the 
 air ; the heavier parts falling first, and the lighter remaining still 
 suspended." 
 
 Thus far our philosopher is, at least, as much a system-maker as 
 Winston or Burnet ; and, indeed, he fights his way with great perse- 
 verance and ingenuity, through a thousand objections that naturally 
 arise Having, at last, got upon the earth, he supposes himself on 
 firmer ground, and goes forward with greater security. Turning his 
 attention to the present appearance of things upon this globe, he pro- 
 nounces from the view, that the whole earth was at first under water. 
 This water he supposes to have been the lighter parts of its former 
 evaporation, which, while the earthy particles sunk downwards by their 
 natural gravity, floated on the surface, and covered it for a considera- 
 ble space of time. 
 
 " The surface of the earth," says he,* " must have been in the be* 
 ginning much less solid than it is at present ; and, consequently, the 
 same causes which at this day produce but very slight changes, must 
 then, upon so complying a substance, have had very considerable ef 
 fects. We have no reason to doubt but that it was then covered with 
 the waters of the sea ; and that those waters were above the tops 
 of our highest mountains : since, even in such elevated situations, we 
 find shells and other marine productions in very great abundance. It 
 appears also that the sea continued for a considerable time upon the 
 face of the earth : for as these layers of shells are found so very fre- 
 quent at such great depths, and in such prodigious quantities, it seems 
 impossible for such numbers to have been supported all alive at one 
 time : so that they must have been brought there by successive depo- 
 sitions. These shells are also found in the bodies of the hardest 
 rocks, where they could not have been deposited, all at once, at the 
 time of the del..ge, or at ar such instant revolution ; since that would 
 be to suppose, ..Aat all the rocks in which they are found, were, at 
 that instant, in a state of dissolution, which would he absurd to assert. 
 The sea, therefore, deposited them wheresoever they are now to bo 
 founH, and that by slow and successive degrees. 
 
 " It will appear also, that the sea covered the whole earth, from the 
 appearance of its layers, which lying regularly one above the other, 
 seem all to resemble the sediment formed at different times by the ocean. 
 Hence, by the irregular force of its waves, and its currents driving 
 the bottom into sand-banks, mountains must have been gradually 
 formed within this universal covering of waters ; and these sue 
 cessively raising their heads above its surface, must, in time, have 
 formed the highest ridges of mountains upon land, together with con 
 
 Theorie de la Terre, vol. i. p. 111.
 
 THE EARTH. 23 
 
 tinents, islands, and low grounds, all in their tui ns. This opinion will 
 receive additional weight by considering, that in those parts of the 
 earth where the power of the ocean is greatest, the '^equalities on 
 the surface of the earth are highest. The ocean's po Ver is great- 
 est at the equator, where its winds and tides are most constant ; and, 
 in fact, the mountains at the equator are found to be higher than in 
 any other part of the world. The sea, therefore, has produced the 
 principal changes in our earth : rivers, volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, 
 and rain, having made but slight alterations, and only such as have 
 affected the globe to very inconsiderable depths." 
 
 This is but a very slight sketch of Mr. Buffon's Theory of the 
 Earth ; a theory which he has much more powerfully supported, than 
 happily invented ; and it would be needless to take up the reader's 
 time from the pursuit of truth in the discussion of plausibilities. In 
 fact, a thousand questions might be asked this most ingenious philoso- 
 pher, which he would not find it easy to answer ; but such is the lot 
 of humanity, that a single Goth can in one day destroy the fabric 
 which Caesars were employed an age in erecting. We might ask, 
 how mountains, which are composed of the most compact and pon- 
 derous substances, should be the first whose parts the sea began to le- 
 move ? We might ask, how fossil-wood is found deeper even than 
 shells ? which argues, that trees grew upon the places he suppose* 
 once to have been covered with the ocean. But we hope this excel> 
 lent man is better employed than to think of gratifying the petulance 
 of incredulity, by answering endless objections. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OP FOSSIL-SHELLS, AND OTHER EXTRANEOUS FOSSILS. 
 
 WE may affirm of Mr. Buffon, that which has been said of the 
 chymists of old ; though he may have failed in attaining his principa 
 aim, of establishing a theory, yet he has brought together such a mul 
 titude of facts relative to the history of the earth, and the nature of its 
 fossil productions, that curiosity finds ample compensation, even while 
 it feels the want of conviction. 
 
 Before, therefore, I enter upon the description of those parts of the 
 earth, which seem more naturally to fall within the subject, it will not 
 be improper to give a short history of those animal productions that 
 are found in such quantities, either upon its surface, or at different 
 depths below it. They demand our curiosity ; and, indeed, there is 
 nothing in natural history that has afforded more scope for doubt, 
 conjecture, and speculation. Whatever depths of the earth we examine, 
 or at whatever distance within land we seek, we most commonly find 
 a number of fossil-shells, which being compared with others from the 
 sea, of known kinds, are found to be exactly of a similar shape and 
 nature.* They are found at the very bottom of quarries and mines, 
 in the retired and inmost parts of the most firm and solid rocks, upoc 
 
 * Woodward's Essay towards a Natural History, p. 16.
 
 24 A HISTORY. OF 
 
 the tc-ps of even the highest hills and mountains, as well as in the valleys 
 and plains : and this not in one country alone, but in all places where 
 tliere is any digging for marble, chalk, or any other terrestrial matters, 
 that are so compact as to fence off the external injuries of the air, 
 and thus preserve these shells from decay. 
 
 These marine substances, so commonly diffused, and so generally to 
 be met with, were for a long time considered by philosophers as pro- 
 ductions, not of the sea, but of the earth. " As we find that spars," 
 said they, " always shoot into peculiar shapes, so these seeming 
 snail, cockle, and muscle-fhells, are only sportive forms that nature 
 assumes amongst others of its mineral varieties : they have the 
 shape of fish, indeed, but they have always been terrestrial sub- 
 stances."* 
 
 With this plausible solution mankind were for a long time content ; 
 but, upon closer inquiry, they were obliged to alter their opinion. It 
 was found that these shells had in every respect the properties of ani- 
 mal, and not of mineral nature. They were found exactly of the same 
 weight with their fellow shells upon shore. They answered all the 
 chymical trials in the same manner as sea-shells do. Their parts, 
 when dissolved, had the same appearance to view, the same smell and 
 taste. They had the same effects in medicine, when inwardly ad- 
 ministered : and, in a word, were so exactly conformable to marine 
 bodies, that they had all the accidental concretions growing to them, 
 (such as pearls, corals, and smaller shells,) which are found in shells just 
 gathered on the shore. They were, therefore, from these considera 
 tions, given back to the sea ; but the wonder was, how to account for 
 their coming so far from their own natural element upon land.t 
 
 As this naturally gave rise to many conjectures, it is not to be won- 
 dered that some among them have been very extraordinary. An 
 Italian, quoted by Mr. Buffon, supposes them to have been dep9sited 
 in the earth at the time of the crusades, by the pilgrims who returned 
 from Jerusalem ; who gathering them upon the sea-shore, in their re- 
 turn carried them to their different places of habitation. But this 
 conjecturer seems to have but a very inadequate idea of their num- 
 bers. At Touraine, in France, more than a hundred miles from the 
 sea, there is a plain of about nine leagues long, and as many broad, 
 whence the peasants of the country supply themselves with marl for 
 manuring their lands. They seldom dig deeper than twenty feet, and 
 the whole plain is composed of the same materials, which are shells 
 of various kinds, without the smallest portion of earth between them. 
 Here then is a large space, in which are deposited millions of tons 
 of shells, that pilgrims could not have collected, though their whole 
 employment had been nothing else. England is furnished with its 
 beds, which, though not quite so extensive, yet are equally wonderful. 
 " Near Reading, in Berkshire, for many succeeding generations, a coiv. 
 tinued body of oyster-shells has been found through the whole cir- 
 cumference of live or six acres of ground. The foundation of these 
 shells is a hard rocky chalk ; and above this chalk, the oyster-shells 
 lie in a bed of green sand, upon a level, as nigh as can possiblj 
 
 Txiwtb's Abridgment Phil Trans, vol p. 426 f Woodwa d, p. 43
 
 n Sheep, p. 44 
 
 Gnu Aniitiiipe. or Bubalus, p. 53 
 
 Nvl Ghau, p II, vol. iii.
 
 THE EARTH. 23 
 
 e judged, and about two feet in thickness."* These shells are in their 
 natural state, but they are found also petrified, and almost in equal 
 abundancet in all the Alpine rocks, in the Pyrenees, on the hills 
 of France, England, and Flanders. Even in all quarries from whence 
 marble is dug, if the rocks be split perpendicularly downwards, petri- 
 fied shells and other marine substances will be plainly discerned. 
 
 " About a quarter of a mile from the river Medway, in the county 
 of Kent, after the taking off the coping of a piece of ground there, 
 the workmen came to a blue marble, which continued for three feet 
 and a half deep, or more, and then beneath appeared a hard floor, or 
 pavement, composed of petrified shells crowded closely together. 
 This layer was about an inch deep, and several yards over ; and it 
 could be walked upon as upon a beach. These stones, of which it 
 was composed, (the describer supposes them to have always been 
 stones,) were either wreathed as snails, or bivalvular like cockles. 
 The wreathed kinds were about the size of a hazel-nut, and were 
 filled with a stony substance of the colour of marl ; and they them- 
 selves, also, till they were washed, were of the same colour : but when 
 cleaned, they appeared of the colour of bezoar, and of the same polish. 
 After boiling in water they became whitish, and left a chalkiness apon 
 the fingers." 
 
 In several parts of Asia and Africa, travellers have observed theso 
 shells in great abundance. In the mountains of Castravan, which lie 
 above the city Barut, they quarry out a white stone, every part of which 
 contains petrI5ed fishes in great numbers, and of surprising diversity. 
 They also seem to continue in such preservation, that their fins, scales, 
 and all the minutest distinctions of their make, can be perfectly dis 
 cerned. 
 
 Fro.m all these instances we may conclude, that fossils are very nu- 
 merous ; and, indeed, independent of their situation, they afford no 
 small entertainment to observe them as preserved in the cabinets of the 
 curious. The varieties of their kinds are astonishing. Most of the 
 sea-shells which are known, and many others to which we are entirely 
 strangers, are to be seen either in their natural state, or in various de- 
 grees of petrifaction. || In the place of some we have mere spar, or 
 stone, exactly expressing all the lineaments of animals, as having been 
 wholly formed from them. For it has happened, that the shells dis- 
 solving by very slow degrees, and the matter having nicely and exactly 
 filled all the cavities within, this matter, after the shells have perished, 
 has preserved exactly and regularly the whole print of their internal sur- 
 face. Of these there are various kinds found in our pits ; many of them 
 resembling those of our own shores ; and many others that are only 
 *o be found on the coasts of other countries. There are some shells 
 resembling those that are never stranded upon our coasts,^ but always 
 remain in the deep :** and many more there are which .we can assimi- 
 late with no shells that are known amongst us. But we find not only 
 shells in our pits, but also fishes and corals in great abundance ; to- 
 gether with almost every sort of marine productions. 
 
 * Phi.. Trans, vol. ii. p. 427. t Buffon, vol i. p. 407. J Phil. Trans, p. 42fi 
 } Buffon. vol. i. p. 408. |] Hill, p. 646. 1 Litti lies. ** Pela^ii.
 
 96 A HISTORY OF 
 
 It is extraordinary enough, however, that the common red coral, 
 though so very frequent at sea, is scarcely seen in the fossil world, 
 nor is there any account of its having ever been met with. But to com- 
 pensate for this, there are all the kinds of the white coral now known, 
 and many other kinds of that substance with which we are unac- 
 quainted. Of animals there are various parts : the vertebras of whales, 
 and the mouths of lesser fishes ; these, with teeth also of various 
 kinds, are found in the cabinets of the curious ; where they receive 
 long Greek names, which it is neither the intention nor the province 
 of this work to enumerate. Indeed, few readers would think themselves 
 much improved, should I proceed with enumerating the various classes 
 of Conicthyodontes, Polyleptoginglimi, or the Orthoceratites. These 
 names, which mean no great matter when they are explained, may 
 serve to guide in furnishing a cabinet ; but they are of very little 
 service in furnishing the page of instructive history. 
 
 From all these instances we see in what abundance petrifactions 
 are to be found ; and, indeed, Mr. BuflTon, to whose accounts we have 
 added some, has not been sparing in the variety of his quotations, 
 concerning the places where they are mostly to be found. However, 
 I am surprised that he should have omitted the mention of one, which, 
 in some measure, more than any of the rest, would have served to 
 strengthen his theory. We are informed, by almost every traveller,* 
 that has described the pyramids of Egypt, that one of them is entire- 
 ly built of a kind of free-stone, in which these petrified shells arc 
 found in great abundance. This being the case, it may be conjectur- 
 ed, as we have accounts of these pyramids among the earliest records 
 of mankind, and of their being built so long before the age of Herodo* 
 tus, who lived but fifteen hundred years after the flood, that even the 
 Egyptian priests could tell neither the time nor the cause of their erec- 
 tion ; I say, it may be conjectured that they were erected but a short 
 time after the flood. It is not very likely, therefore, that the marine 
 substances found in one of them, had time to be formed into a part 
 of the solid stone, either during the deluge, or immediately after it ; 
 and, consequently, their petrifaction must have been before that pe- 
 riod. And this is the opinion Mr. Buffon has so strenuously endea- 
 voured to maintain ; having given specious reasons to prove, that 
 such shells were laid in the beds where they are now found, not only 
 before the deluge, but even antecedent to the formation of man, at 
 the time when the whole earth, as he supposes, was buried beneath 
 a covering of waters. 
 
 But while there are many reasons to persuade us that these ex- 
 traneous fossils have been deposited by the sea, there is one fact 
 that will abundantly serve to convince us, that the earth was habita- 
 ble, ft" not inhabited, before these marine substances came to be thus 
 deposited. For we find fossil-trees, which no doubt once grew upon 
 the earth, as deep, and as much in the body of solid rocks, as these 
 shells are found to be. Some of these fallen trees also have lain at 
 feast as ong, if not longer, in the earth, than the shells, as they have 
 been found sunk deep in a marly substance, composed of decayed 
 and other marine productions. Mr. Buffon has proved, thai 
 Hasselmiist, Sandys.
 
 THE EARTH. ?7 
 
 fossil-shells could not have been deposited in such quantities all a\ 
 once by the flood ; and I think, from the above instance, it is prettv 
 plain, that, howsoever they were deposited, the earth was coverea 
 with trees before their deposition ; and, consequently, that the sea 
 could not have made a very permanent stay. How then shall we ac- 
 count for these extraordinary appearances in nature ? A suspension 
 of all assent is certainly the first, although the most mortifying con- 
 duct. For my own part, were I to offer a conjecture, and all that has 
 been said upon this subject is but conjecture, instead of supposing 
 them to be the remains of animals belonging to the sea, I would con- 
 sider them rather as bred in the numerous fresh-water lakes, that, in 
 primeval times, covered the face of uncultivated nature. Some of these 
 shells we know to belong to fresh waters ; some can be assimilated to 
 none of the marine shells now known ;* why, therefore, may we not 
 as well ascribe the productions of all to fresh waters, where we do not 
 find them, as we do that of the latter to the sea only, where we never 
 find them ? We know that lakes, and lands also, have produced ani- 
 mals that are now no longer existing ; why, therefore, might not these 
 fossil productions be among the number ? I grant that this is making 
 a very harsh supposition ; but I cannot avoid thinking, that it is not 
 attended with so many embarrassments as some of the former, and 
 that it is much easier to believe that these shells were bred in fresh 
 water, than that the sea had for a long time covered the tops of the 
 highest mountains. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OP THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OP THE EARTH. 
 
 HAVING, in some measure, got free from the regions of conjecture, 
 let us now proceed to a description of the earth as we find it by ex- 
 amination, and observe its internal composition, as far as it has been 
 the subject of experience, or exposed to human inquiry. These in- 
 quiries, indeed, have been carried but to a very little depth below its 
 surface, and even in that disquisition men have been conducted more 
 by motives of avarice than of curiosity. The deepest mine, which is 
 tb at of Cotteberg in Hungary ,t reaches not more than three thousand 
 feet deep ; but what proportion does that bear to the depth of the ter- 
 restrial globe, down to the centre, which is above four thousand miles ? 
 All, therefore, that has been said of the earth, to a deeper degree, is 
 merely fabulous or conjectural ; we way suppose with one, that it is a 
 globe of glass ;| with another, a sphere of heated iron ; with a third, 
 a great mass of waters ;|| and with a fourth, one dreadful volcano ;fl 
 but let us at the same time show our consciousness, that all these are 
 but suppositions. 
 
 Upon examining the earth, where it has been opened to any depth, 
 the first thing that occurs, is the different layers or beds of which it ii 
 
 Hill's Fossils, p. 641. f Boyle, vol. iii. p. 240. J Buflui } Whigtan, 
 j| liurnfit. If Kirr.her
 
 28 A HISTORY OF 
 
 composed -, these all lying horizontally one over the other, like the 
 leaves of a book, and each of them composed of materials that increase 
 in weight in proportion as they lie deeper. This is, in general, the 
 disposition of the different materials, where the earth seems to have 
 remained unmolested ; but this order is frequently inverted ; and we 
 cannot tell whether from its original formation, or from accidental 
 causes. Of different substances, thus disposed, tlfe far greatest part 
 of our globe consists, from its surface downwards to the greatest 
 depths we ever dig or mine * 
 
 The first layer that is most commonly found at the surface, is that 
 light coat of blackish mould, which is called by some garden earth. 
 With this the earth is every where invested, unless it be washed off by 
 rains, or removed by some other external violence. This seems to 
 have been formed from animal and vegetable bodies decaying, and 
 thus turning into its substance. It also serves again as a storehouse, 
 from whence animal and vegetable nature are renewed, and thus are 
 all vital blessings continued with unceasing circulation. This earth, 
 however, is not to be supposed entirely pure, but is mixed with much 
 stony and gravelly matter from the layers lying immediately beneath 
 it. It generally happens, that the soil is fertile in proportion to the 
 quantity that this putrified mould bears to the gravelly mixture ; and 
 as the former predominates, so far is the vegetation upon it more lux- 
 uriant. It is this external covering that supplies man with all the true 
 riches he enjoys. He may bring up gold and jewels from greater 
 depths ; but they are merely the toys of a capricious being, things up- 
 on whrch he has placed an imaginary value, and for which fools alone 
 part with the more substantial blessings of life. " It is this earth," 
 says Pliny ,t " that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and 
 sustains us when born. It is this alone, of all the elements around us, 
 that is never found an enemy to man. The body of waters deluge 
 him with rains, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inunda- 
 tions. The air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up 
 the volcano ; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to 
 the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers, and his table with 
 plenty ; returns with interest every good committed to her care ; and 
 though she produces the poison, she still supplies the antidote ; though 
 constantly teazed more to furnish the luxuries of man "than his neces 
 sities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, and, 
 when life is over, she piously covers his remains in her bosom." 
 
 This external and fruitful layer which covers the earth, is, as was 
 said, in a state of continual change. Vegetables, which are naturally 
 fixed and rooted to the same place, receive their adventitious nourish- 
 ment from the surrounding earth and water ; animals, which change 
 from place to place, are supported by these, or by each other. Both, 
 however, having for a time enjoyed a life adapted to their nature, 
 give back to the earth those spoils, which they had borrowed for a 
 very short space, yet still to be quickened again into fresh existence. 
 But the deposits they make are of very dissimilar kinds, and the earth 
 \n very differently enriched by their continuance : those countries that 
 
 * Woodward, p. 9. f Plinii Naturalis Historia. lio. li. rp. 6*.
 
 THE EARTH. 29 
 
 have for a long time supported men and other animals, having been 
 observed to become every day more barren ; while, on the contrary, 
 those desolate places, in which vegetables only are abundantly pro- 
 duced, are known to be possessed of amazing fertility. " In regions 
 which are uninhabited,"* says Mr. Buffon, " where the forests are not 
 cut down, and where animals do not feed upon the plants, the bed 
 of vegetable earth is constantly increasing. In all woods, and even 
 in those which are often cut, there is a layer of earth of six or eight 
 inches thick, which has been formed by the leaves, branches, and 
 bark, which fall and rot upon the ground. I have frequently observed 
 on a Roman way, which crosses Burgundy for a long extent, that there 
 is a bed of black earth, of more than a foot thick, gathered over the 
 stony pavement, on which several trees, of a very considerable size, 
 are supported. This I have found to be nothing else than an earth 
 formed by decayed leaves and branches, which have been converted 
 by time into a black soil. Now as vegetables draw much more of their 
 nourishment from the air and water than they do from the earth, it 
 must follow, that in rotting upon the ground, they must give more to 
 the soil than they have taken from it. Hence, therefore, in woods 
 kept a long time without cutting, the soil below increases to a con- 
 siderable depth ; and such we actually find the soil in those American 
 wilds, where the forests have been undisturbed for ages. But it is 
 otherwise where men and animals have long subsisted ; for as they 
 make a considerable consumption of wood and plants, both for firing 
 and other uses, they take more from the earth than they return to it ; 
 it follows, therefore, that the bed of vegetable earth, in an inhabited 
 country, must be always diminishing ; and must at length resemble 
 the soil of Arabia Petrea, and other provinces of the East, which 
 having been long inhabited, are now become plains of salt and sand ; 
 the fixed salt always remaining while the other volatile parts have 
 flown away." 
 
 If from this external surface we descend deeper, and view the earth 
 cut perpendicularly downwards, either in the banks of great rivers, or 
 steepy sea-shores ; or, going still deeper, if we observe it in quarries 
 or mines, we shall find its layers regularly disposed in their proper 
 order. We must not expect, however, to find them of the same kind 
 or thickness in every place, as they differ in different soils and situa- 
 tions. Sometimes marl is seen to be over sand, and sometimes under 
 it. The most common disposition is, that under the first earth is found 
 gravel or sand, then clay or marl, then chalk or coal, marbles, ores, 
 sands, gravels, and thus an alternation of these substances, each grow- 
 ing more dense as it sinks deeper. The clay, for instance, found . at 
 the depth of a hundred feet, is usually more heavy than that found 
 not far from the surface. In a well which was dug at Amsterdam, to 
 the depth of two hundred and thirty feet, the following substances 
 were found in succession :t seven feet of vegetable earth, nine 
 of turf, nine of soft clay, eight of sand, four of earth, ten of clay, four 
 rf earth, ten of sand, two of clay, four of white sand, one of soft 
 earth, fourteen of sand, eight of clay mixed with sand, four of sea* 
 
 Buffon, vJl. \ p. 353. t Varenius, as quoted by Mr. Buffon, p. 358.
 
 SO A HISTORY OF 
 
 sand mixed with shells, then a hundred and two feet of soft clay, and 
 chen thirty-one feet of sand. 
 
 In a well dug at Marly, to the depth of a hundred feet, Mr. Buffon 
 gives us a still more exact enumeration of its layers of earth. " Thirteen 
 of a reddish gravel, two of gravel mingled with a vitrifiable sand, three 
 of mud or slime, two of marl, four of marly stone, five of marl in dust 
 mixed with vitrifiable sand, six of very fine vitrifiable sand, three 
 of earthy marl, three of hard marl, one of gravel, one of eglantine, a 
 stone of the hardness and grain of marble, one of gravelly marl, one 
 of stony marl, one of a coarser kind of stony marl, two of a coarser 
 kind still, one of vitrifiable sand mixed with fossil-shells, two of fine 
 gravel, three of stony marl, one of coarse powdered marl, one of stone, 
 calcinable like marble, three of gray sand, two of white sand, one of red 
 sand streaked with white, eight of gray sand with shells, three of very 
 fine sand, three of a hard gray stone, four of red sand streaked with 
 white, three of white sand, and fifteen of reddish vitrifiable sand." 
 
 In this manner the earth is every where found in beds over beds ; and, 
 what is still remarkable, each of them, as far as it extends, always main- 
 tains exactly the same thickness. It is found also, that as we proceed 
 to considerable depths, every layer grows thicker. Thus in the ad- 
 duced instances we might have observed, that the last layer was fif- 
 teen feet thick, while most of the others were not above eight, and 
 this might have gone much deeper, for ought we can tell, as before 
 they got through it the workmen ceased digging. 
 
 These layers are sometimes very extensive, and often are found to 
 spread over a space of some leagues in circumference. But it must 
 not be supposed that they are uniformly continued over the whole 
 globe without any interruption : on the contrary, they are ever, at 
 small intervals, cracked through as it were by perpendicular fissures ; 
 the earth resembling, in this respect, the muddy bottom of a pond, 
 from whence the water has been dried off by the sun, and thus gaping 
 in several chinks, which descend in a direction perpendicular to its 
 surface. These fissures are many times found empty, but oftener* 
 closed up with adventitious substances, that the rain, or some 
 other accidental causes, have conveyed to fill their cavities. Their 
 openings are not less different than their contents, some being not 
 above half an inch wide, some a foot, and some several hund-ed yards 
 asunder. These last form those dreadful chasms that are to be found 
 in the Alps, at the edge of which the traveller stands dreading to look 
 down at the immeasurable gulf below. These amazing clefts are well 
 known to such as have passed these mountains, where a chasm fre- 
 quently presents itself several hundred feet deep, and as many over, 
 at the edge of which the way lies. It often happens also, that the 
 road leads along the bottom, and then the spectator observes on each 
 side frightful precipices several hundred yards above him ; the sides 
 of which correspond so exactly with each other, that they evidently 
 seem torn asunder. 
 
 But these chasms, to be found in the Alps, are nothing to what 
 Ovalle tells us are to be seen in the Andes. These amazing moun- 
 tains, in comparison of which the former are but little hills, have their 
 fissures in proportion to their greatness. In some places they are 9
 
 THE EARTH. 51 
 
 mile wide, and deep in proportion ; and there are some others, that, 
 running under ground, in extent resemble a province. 
 
 Of this kind also is that cavern called Eldenhole, in Derbyshire, 
 which Dr. Plott tells us, was sounded by a line of eight and twenty 
 hundred feet, without finding the bottom, or meeting with water : and 
 yet the mouth at the top is not above forty yards over.* This im- 
 measurable cavern runs perpendicularly downward ; and the sides 
 of it seem to tally so plainly as to show that they once were united. 
 Those who come to visit the place, generally procure stones to be 
 thrown into its mouth ; and these are heard for several minutes, fall- 
 ing and striking against the sides of the cavern, producing a sound 
 that resembles distant thunder, dying away as the stone goes deeper. 
 
 Of this kind also is that dreadful cavern described by ./Elian ; his 
 account of which the reader may not have met with.t " In the coun- 
 try of the Arrian Indians, is to be seen an amazing chasm, which is 
 called, The Gulf of Pluto. The depth and the recesses of this hor- 
 rid place, are as extensive as they are unknown. Neither the natives, 
 nor the curious who visit it, are able to tell how it was first made, or 
 to what depths it descends. The Indians continually drive thither 
 great multitudes of animals, more than three thousand at a time, of dif- 
 ferent kinds, sheep, horses, and goats ; and, with an absurd supersti- 
 tion, force them into the cavity, from whence they never return. 
 Their several sounds, however, are heard as they descend ; the bleat 
 ing of sheep, the lowing of oxen, and the neighing of horses, issuing 
 up to the mouth of the cavern. Nor do these sounds cease, as the 
 place is continually furnished with a fresh supply." 
 
 There are many more of these dreadful perpendicular fissures in 
 different parts of the earth ; with accounts of which Kircher, GafFa- 
 rellus, and others who have given histories of the wonders of the sub- 
 terranean world, abundantly supply us. The generality of readers, 
 however, will consider them with less astonishment, when they are in- 
 formed of their being common all over the earth ; that in every field, 
 in every quarry, these perpendicular fissures are to be found, either 
 still gaping, or filled with matter that has accidentally closed their in- 
 terstices. The inattentive spectator neglects the inquiry, but their 
 being common is part.V the cause that excites the philosopher's at- 
 tention to them ; the irregularities of nature he is often content to let 
 pass unexamined ; but when a constant and common appearance pre- 
 sents itself, every return of the object is a fresh call to his curiosity ; 
 and the chink in the next quarry becomes as great a matter of wonder 
 as the chasm in Eldenhole. Philosophers have long, therefore, en- 
 deavoured to find out the cause of these perpendicular fissures, which 
 our own countrymen, Woodward and Ray, were the first that found to 
 be so common and universal. -Mr. Buffbn supposes them to be cracks 
 made by the sun, in drying up the earth immediately after its emer 
 sion from the deep. The heat of the sun is very probably a princi- 
 pal cause ; but it is not right to ascribe to one only, what we find may 
 be the result of many. Earthquakes, severe frosts, bursting waters, 
 and storms, tearing up the roots of trees, have, in our own times, pro 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 370. f .Elian, Var. Hist. lib. x\\. cap. 16.
 
 32 A HISTORY OF 
 
 duced them : and to this variety of causes, we must, at present, b 
 content to assign those that have happened before we had opportuni- 
 ties for observation. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Or CAVES AND SUBTERRANEOUS PASSAGES, THAT SINK, BUT NOT 
 PERPENDICULARLY, INTO THE EARTH. 
 
 IN surveying the subterranean wonders of the globe, besides those 
 fissures that descend perpendicularly, we frequently find others that de- 
 scend but a litle way, and then spread themselves often to a great ex- 
 tent below the surface. Many of these caverns, it must be confessed, 
 may be the production of art and human industry ; retreats made to 
 protect the oppressed, or shelter the spoiler. The famous labyrinth 
 of Candia, for instance, is supposed to be entirely the work of art. 
 Mr. Tournefort assures us, that it bears the impression of human in- 
 dustry, and that great pains have been bestowed upon its formation. 
 The stone-quarry of Maastricht is evidently made by labour : carts en- 
 ter at its mouth, and load within, then return and discharge their 
 freight into boats that lie on the brink of the river Maese. This quar- 
 ry is so large, that forty thousand people may take shelter in it : and 
 it in general serves for this purpose, when armies march that way ; 
 becoming then an impregnable retreat to the people that live there- 
 about. Nothing can be more beautiful than this cavern, when lighted 
 up with torches ; for there are thousands of square pillars, in large 
 level walks, about twenty feet high ; and all wrought with much neat- 
 ness and regularity. In this vast grotto there is very little rubbish ; 
 which shows both the goodness of the stone, and the carefulness of the 
 workmen. To add to its beauty, there also are, in various parts of it, 
 little pools of water, for the convenience of the men and cattle. It 
 is remarkable also, that no droppings are seen to fall from the roof, 
 nor are the walks any way wet under foot, except in cases of great 
 rains, where the water gets in by the air-shafts. The salt-mines in 
 Poland are still more spacious than these. Some of the catacombs, 
 both in Egypt and Italy, are said to be very extensive. But no part 
 of the world has a greater number of artificial caverns than Spain, 
 which were made to serve as retreats to the Christians against tlte lu- 
 ry of the Moors, when the latter conquered that country. However, 
 an account of the works of art does not properly belong to a natural 
 history. It will be enough to observe, that though caverns be found 
 in every country, far the greatest part of them have been fashioned 
 by the hand of nature only. Their size is found beyond the power 
 of man to have effected, and their forms but ill adapted to the con 
 veniences of a human habitation. In some places, indeed, we find 
 mankind still make use of them as houses ; particularly in those 
 countries where the climate is very severe ;* but in general they are 
 tleserttd by every race of meaner animals, except the bat ; these rtoc- 
 
 Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p 368.
 
 THE EARTH. 33 
 
 turnai solitary creatures are usually the only inhabitants ; and taese 
 only in such whose descent is sloping, or, at least, not directly per- 
 pendicular. 
 
 There is scarcely a country in the world without its natural caverns ; 
 and many new ones are discovered every day. Of those in England, 
 Oakey-hole, the Devil's-hole, and Penpark-hole, have been often de- 
 scribed. The former, which lies on the south side of Mendip-hills,* 
 within a mile of the town of Wells, is much resorted to by travellers. 
 To conceive a just idea of this, we must imagine a precipice of more 
 than a hundred yards high, on the side of a mountain which shelves 
 away a mile above it. In this is an opening not very large, into which 
 you enter, going along upon a rocky uneven pavement, sometimes as- 
 cending, and sometimes descending. The roof of it, as you advance, 
 grows higher : and, in some places, is fifty feet from the floor. In 
 some places, however, it is so low that a man must stoop to pass. It 
 extends itself, in length, about two hundred yards ; and from every 
 part of the roof, and the floor, there are formed sparry concretions 
 of various figures, that by strong imaginations have been likened to 
 men, lions, and organs. At the farthest part of this cavern rises a 
 stream of water, well stored with fish, large enough to turn a mill, and 
 which discharges itself near the entrance. 
 
 Penpark-hole, in Gloucestershire, is almost as remarkable as the 
 former. Captain Sturmey descended into this by a rope, twenty-five 
 fathoms perpendicular, and at the bottom found a very large vault in 
 the shape of a horseshoe. The floors consisted of a kind of white 
 stone enamelled with lead ore, and the pendent rocks were glazed 
 with spar. Walking forward on this stony pavement, for some time, 
 he came to a great river, twenty fathoms broad, and eight fathoms 
 deep ; and having been informed that it ebbed and flowed with the 
 sea, he remained in this gloomy abode for five hours, to make an ex- 
 act observation. He did not find, however, any alteration whatsoever 
 in its appearance. But his curiosity was ill requited ; for it cost this 
 unfortunate gentleman his life : immediately after his return he was 
 seized with an unusual and violent headach, which threw him into a 
 fever, of which he died soon after. 
 
 But of all the subterranean caverns now known, the grotto of Anti- 
 paros is the most remarkable, as well for its extent, as for the beauty 
 of its sparry incrustations. This celebrated cavern was first discover- 
 ed by one Magni, an Italian traveller, about a hundred years ago, at 
 Anliparos, an inconsiderable island of the Archipelago.t The account 
 he gives of it is long and inflated, but upon the whole amusing. 
 l( Having been informed," says he, " by the natives of Paros, that in 
 the little island of Antiparos, which lies about two miles from the 
 former, of a gigantic statue that was to be seen at the mouth of a cavern 
 in that place, it was resolved that we (the French consul and himself ) 
 should pay it a visit. In pursuance of this resolution, after \ve had 
 landed on the island, and walked about four miles through the midst 
 
 Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 368. 
 
 f Kiroher Mund. sub. 112. I have translated a part of Kircher's description, rather th 
 Touniefort's, as the latter was written to support a Hypothesis. 
 
 voi i. C
 
 34 A HISTORY OF 
 
 of beautiful plains, and sloping woodlands, we at length came to a lit- 
 tle hill, on the side of which yawned a most horrid cavern, that with 
 its gloom at first struck us with terror, and almost repressed curiosity. 
 Recovering the first surprise, however, we entered boldly ; and hart 
 not proceeded above twenty paces, when the supposed statue of the 
 giant presented itself to our view. We quickly perceived, that what 
 the ignorant natives had been terrified at as a giant, was nothing more 
 than a sparry concretion, formed by the water dropping from the 
 roof of the cave, and by degrees haidening into a figure that their 
 fears had formed into a monster. Incited by this extraordinary ap- 
 pearance, we were induced to proceed still farther, in quest of new 
 adventures in this subterranean abode. As we proceeded, new won- 
 ders offered themselves ; the spars, formed into trees and shrubs, pre- 
 sented a kind of petrified grove ; some white, some green ; and all 
 receding in due perspective. They struck us with the more amaze- 
 ment, as we knew them to be mere productions of nature, who, 
 hitherto in solitude, had, in her playful moments, dressed the scene as 
 if for her own amusement. 
 
 " But we had as yet seen but a few of the wonders of the place ; 
 and were introduced only into the portico of this amazing temple. In 
 one corner of this half-illuminated recess, there appeared an opening 
 of about three feet wide, which seemed to lead to a place totally dark, 
 and that, one of the natives assured us, contained nothing more than 
 a reservoir of water. Upon this we tried, by throwing down some 
 stones, which rumbled along the sides of the descent for some time, 
 the sound seemed at last quashed in a bed of water. In order, how- 
 ever, to be more certain, we sent in a Levantine mariner, who, by the 
 promise of a good reward, with a flambeau in his hand, ventured in- 
 to this narrow aperture. After continuing within it for about a quar- 
 ter of an hour, he returned, carrying some beautiful pieces of white 
 spar in his hand, which art could neither imitate nor equal. Upon 
 being informed by him that the place was full of these beautiful in- 
 crustations, I ventured in once more with him for about fifty paces, 
 anxiously and cautiously descending by a steep and dangerous way. 
 Finding, however, that we came to a precipice which led into a spa- 
 cious amphitheatre, if I may so call it, still deeper than any other part, 
 we returned, and being provided with a ladder, flambeaux, and other 
 things to expedite our descent, our whole company, man by man, ven- 
 tured into the same opening, and descending one after another, we at 
 last saw ourselves all together in the most magnificent part of the 
 cavern. 
 
 " Our candles being now all lighted up, and the whole place com- 
 pletely illuminated, never could the eye be presented with a more 
 glittering, or a more magnificent scene. The roof all hung with solid 
 icicles, transparent as glass, yet solid as marble. The eye could scarce- 
 ly reach the lofty and noble ceiling : the sides were regularly formed 
 with spars ; and the whole presented the idea of a magnificent thea- 
 tre, illuminated with an immense profusion of lights. The floor con- 
 sisted of solid marble ; and in several places magnificent columns, 
 thrones, altars, and other objects, appeared, as if nature had design 
 d to mock the curiosities of art. Our voices, upon speaking oi
 
 THE EARTH g, 
 
 singing, were redoubled to an astonishing loudntss ; and upon the 
 firing of a gun, the noise and reverberations were almost deafening. 
 In the midst of this grand amphitheatre rose a concretion of about fif- 
 teen feet high, that, in some measure, resembled an altar ; from which 
 taking the hint, we caused mass to be celebrated there. The beauti- 
 ful columns that shot up round the altar, appeared like candlesticks ; 
 and many other natural objects represented the customary ornaments 
 of this sacrament. 
 
 " Below even this spacious grotto there seemed another cavern ; 
 down which I ventured with my former mariner, and descended about 
 fifty paces by means of a rope. I at last arrived at a small spot of level 
 ground, where the bottom appeared different froir that of the amphi- 
 theatre, being composed of soft clay, yielding to the pressure, and in 
 which I thrust a stick to about six feet deep. In this however, as 
 above, numbers of the most beautiful crystals were formed ; one 
 of which particularly resembled a table. Upon our egress from this 
 amazing cavern, we perceived a Greek inscription upon a rock at the 
 mouth, but so obliterated by time, that we could not read it. It seem- 
 ed to import that one Antipater, in the time of Alexander, had come 
 thither ; but whether he had penetrated into the depths of the cavern, 
 he does not think fit to inform us." 
 
 Such is the account of this beautiful scene, as communicated in a 
 letter to Kircher. We have another, and a more copious description 
 of it, by Tournefort, which is in every body's hands ; but I have 
 given the above, both because it was communicated by the first dis- 
 coverer, and because it is a simple narrative of facts, without any rea- 
 soning upon them. According to Tournefort's account, indeed, we 
 might conclude, from the rapid growth of the spars in this grotto, that 
 it must every year be growing narrower, and that it must in time 
 be choked up with them entirely ; but no such thing has happen- 
 ed hitherto, and the grotto at this day continues as spacious as we 
 ever knew it. 
 
 This is not a place for an inquiry into the seeming vegetation of those 
 stony substances, with which this and almost every cavern are incrust- 
 ed ; it is enough to observe in general, that they are formed by an 
 accumulation of that little gritty matter, which is carried thither by the 
 waters, and which in time acquires the hardness of marble. What 
 in this place more imports us to know is, how these amazing hollows 
 in the earth came to be formed. And I think, in the three instances 
 above mentioned, it is pretty evident, that their excavation has been 
 owing to water. These, finding subterraneous passages under the earth, 
 and by long degrees hollowing the beds in which they flowed,, the 
 ground above them has slipped down closer to their surface, leaving the 
 upper layers of the earth or stone still suspended : the ground that 
 sinks upon the face of the waters forming the floor of the cavern ; the 
 ground, or rock, that keeps suspended, forming the roof: and indeed 
 there are but few of these caverns found without water, either wilhio 
 iiem, or near enough to point out their formation.
 
 96 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF MINES, DAMPS, AND MINERAL VAPOURS. 
 
 THE caverns, which we have been describing, generally carry us but 
 a very little way below the surface of the earth. Two hundred feet, 
 at the utmost, is as much as the lowest of them is found to sink. The 
 perpendicular fissures run much deeper ; but few persons have been 
 iiold enough to venture down to their deepest recesses ; and some few 
 tttio have tried, have been able to bring back no tidings of the place, 
 fir unfortunately they left their lives below. The excavations of art 
 have conducted us much further into the bowels of the globe. Some 
 mines in Hungary are known to be a thousand yards perpendicularly 
 downwards ; and I have been informed, by good authority, of a coal 
 mine in the north of England, a hundred yards deeper still. 
 
 It is beside our present purpose to inquire into the peculiar con- 
 struction and contrivance of these, which more properly belongs to the 
 history of fossils. It will be sufficient to observe in this place, that as 
 we descend into the mines, the various layers of earth are seen as we 
 have already described them ; and in some of these are always found 
 the metals or minerals for which the mine has been dug. Thus fre- 
 quently gold is found dispersed and mixed with clay and gravel ;* some- 
 times it is mixed with other metallic bodies, stones, or bitumens ;t and 
 sometimes united with that most obstinate of all substances, platina, 
 from which scarce any art can separate it. Silver is sometimes found 
 quite pure,f sometimes mixed with other substances and minerals. 
 Copper is found in beds mixed with various substances, marbles, sul- 
 phurs, and pyrites. Tin, the ore of which is heavier than that of any 
 other metal, is generally found mixed with every kind of matter : lead 
 is also equally common ; and iron we well know can be extracted 
 from all the substances upon earth. 
 
 The variety of substances which are thus found in the bowels of the 
 earth, in their native state, have a very different appearance from what 
 they are afterwards taught to assume by human industry. The rich- 
 est metals are very often less glittering and splendid than the most use- 
 less marcasites ; and the basest ores are in general the most beautiful 
 to the eye. 
 
 This variety of substances, which compose the internal parts of our 
 globe, is productive of equal varieties, both above and below its sur- 
 face. The combination of the different minerals with each other, the 
 heats which arise from their mixture, the vapours they diffuse, the fires 
 which they generate, or the colds which they sometimes produce, are 
 ail either noxious or salutary to man ; so that in this great elaborato- 
 ry of nature, a thousand benefits and calamities are forging, of which 
 we are wholly unconscious ; and it is happy for us that we are so. 
 
 Upon our descent into mines of considerable depth, the cold seems 
 to increase from the mouth as we descend ;|| but after passing very low 
 we begin by degrees to come into a warmer air, which sensibly 
 
 Ulloa, vol. ii. p. 470. f Ulloa, ibid. } Macquer's Chymistry, vol. i. p. 316. 
 J Hill's Fossils, p. 623. || Boylej vol. iii. p. 232.
 
 THE EARTH. 3? 
 
 grows hotter as we go deeper, till, at last, the labourers can scarce 
 bear any covering as they continue working. 
 
 This difference in the air was supposed by Boyle to proceed from 
 magazines of fire that lay nearer the centre, and that diffused theii 
 heat to the adjacent regions. But we now know that it may be as- 
 cribed to more obvious causes. In some mines, the composition of the 
 earth all around is of such a nature, that upon the admission of water 
 or air, it frequently becomes hot, and often bursts out into eruptions. 
 Besides this, as the external air cannot readily reach the bottom, or 
 be renewed there, an observable heat is perceived below, without t he- 
 necessity of recurring to the central heat for an explanation. 
 
 Hence, therefore, there are two principal causes of the warmth at 
 the bottom of mines : the heat of the substances of which the sides 
 are composed ; and the want of renovation in the air below. Any 
 sulphureous substance, mixed with iron, produces a very great heat, 
 by the admission of water. If, for instance, a quantity of sulphur be 
 mixed with a proportionable share of iron filings, and both kneaded 
 together into a soft paste, with water, they will soon grow hot, and at 
 last produce a flame. This experiment, produced by art, is very com- 
 monly effected within the bowels of the earth by nature. Sulphurs and 
 irons are intimately blended together, and want only the mixture 
 of water or air to excite their heat ; and this, when once raised, is 
 communicated to all bodies that lie within the sphere of their opera- 
 tion. Those beautiful minerals called marcasites and pyrites, are often 
 of this composition ; and wherever they are found, either by imbibing 
 the moisture of the air, or having been by any means combined with 
 water, they render the mine considerably hot.* 
 
 The want of fresh air also, at these depths, is, as we have said, 
 another reason for their being found much hotter. Indeed, without 
 the assistance of art, the bottom of most mines would, from this cause, 
 be insupportable. To remedy this inconvenience, the miners are 
 often obliged to sink, at some convenient distance from the mouth 
 of the pit, where they are at work, another pit, which joins the former 
 below, and which, in Derbyshire, is called an air-shaft. Through 
 this the air circulates; and thus the workmen are enabled to breathe 
 freely at the bottom of the place ; which becomes, as Mr. Boyle 
 affirms, very commodious for respiration, and also very temperate 
 as to heat and cold.t Mr. Locke, however, who has left us an 
 account of the Mendip mines, seems to present a different picture. 
 " The descent into these is exceedingly difficult and dangerous ; for 
 they are not sunk like wells, perpendicularly, but as the crannies of 
 the rocks happen to run. The constant method is to swing down 
 by a rope placed under the arms, and clamber along by applying both 
 feet and hands to the sides of the narrow passage. The air is con- 
 veyed into them through a little passage that runs along the sides from 
 the top, where they set up some turfs, on the lea-side of the hole, to 
 catch and force it down. These turfs being removed to the windy 
 side, or laid over the mouth of the hole, the miners below presently 
 want breath, and faint ; and if sweet-smelling flowers chance to be 
 
 Kircher Mand. Subt. vol. ii. p. 216. t Boyle, vol. iii. p. 258.
 
 38 A HISTORY OF 
 
 placed vhere, they immediately lose their fragrancy, and stink 'ikt 
 carrion." An air so putrifying can never be very commodious for 
 respiration. 
 
 lodeed, if we examine the complexion of most miners, we shall be 
 very well able to form a judgment of the unwholesomeness of the 
 place where they are confined. Their pale and sallow looks show how 
 much the air is damaged by passing through those deep and winding 
 ways, that are rendered humid by damps, or warmed with noxious ex- 
 halations. But although every mine is unwholesome, all are not equal- 
 ly so. Coal-mines are generally less noxious than those of tin ; tin 
 than those of copper ; but of all, none are so dreadfully destructive as 
 those of quicksilver. At the mines near the village of Idra, nothing 
 can adequately describe the deplorable infirmities of such as fill the 
 hospital there ; emaciated and crippled, every limb contracted or con- 
 vulsed, and some in a manner transpiring quicksilver at every pore. 
 There was one man, says Dr. Pope,* who was not in the mines above 
 half a year, and yet whose body was so impregnated with this mine- 
 ral, that putting a piece of brass money in his mouth, or rubbing it 
 between his fingers, it immediately became as white as if it had been 
 washed over with quicksilver. In this manner all the workmen are 
 killed sooner or later ; first becoming paralytic, and then dying con- 
 sumptive : and all this they sustain for the trifling reward of seven- 
 pence a day. 
 
 But these metallic mines are not so noxious from their own vapours, 
 as from those of the substances with which the ores are usually united, 
 such as arsenic, cinnabar, bitumen, or vitriol. From the fumes of these, 
 variously combined, and kept inclosed, are produced those various 
 damps, that put on so many dreadful forms, and are usually so fatal. 
 Sometimes those noxious vapours are perceived by the delightful fra- 
 grance of their smell,t somewhat resembling the pea-blossom in bloom, 
 from whence one kind of damp has its name. The miners are not 
 deceived, however, by its flattering appearances, but as they thus have 
 timely notice of its coming, they avoid it while it continues, which is 
 generally during the whole summer season. Another shows its ap- 
 proach by the burning of the candles, which seem to collect their flame 
 into a globe of light, and thus gradually lessen, till they are quite ex- 
 tinguished. From this also, the miners frequently escape ; however, 
 such as have the misfortune to be caught in it, either swoon away, and 
 are suffocated, or slowly recover in excessive agonies. Here also is 
 a third, called the fulminating damp, much more dangerous than either 
 of the former, as it strikes down all before it like a flash of gunpow 
 der, without giving any warning of its approach. But there is still 
 another, more deadly than all the rest, which is found in those places 
 where the vapour has been long confined, and has been, by some ac- 
 cident, set free. The air rushing out from thence, always goes upon 
 deadly errands ; and scarce any escape to describe the symptoms of its 
 operations. 
 
 Some colliers in Scotland, working near an old mine that had been 
 )'Dg closed up, happened, inadvertently, to open a hole into it, fro*t 
 
 . Phil. Trans, vol. i'.. p. 578. f Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 375
 
 THE EARTH. 39 
 
 *f. e pit where they were then employed. By great good fortune, thej 
 at that time perceived their error, and instantly fled for their lives 
 The next day, however, they were resolved to renew their work in the 
 same pit, and eight of them ventured down, without any great appre- 
 hensions ; but they had scarce got to the hottom of the stairs that le<? 
 to the pit, when, coming within the vapour, they all instantly dropped 
 down dead, as if they had been shot. Amongst these unfortunate poor 
 men, there was one whose wife was informed he was stifled in the 
 mine ; and, as he happened to be next the entrance, she so far ven- 
 tured down as to see where he lay. As she approached the place, 
 the sight of her husband inspired her with a desire to rescue him, 
 if possible, from that dreadful situation ; though a little reflection 
 might have shown her it was then too late. But nothing could deter 
 her ; she ventured forward, and had scarce touched him with her 
 hand, when the damp prevailed, and the misguided, but faithful crea- 
 ture, fell dead by his side. 
 
 Thus the vapours found beneath the surface of the earth, are very 
 various in their effects upon the constitution : and they are not less in 
 their appearances. There are many kinds that seemingly are no way 
 prejudicial to health, but in which the workmen breathe freely; and 
 yet in these, if a lighted candle be introduced, they immediately take 
 fire, and the whole cavern at once becomes one furnace of flame. In 
 mines, therefore, subject to damps of this kind, they are obliged to 
 have recourse to a very peculiar contrivance to supply sufficient 
 light for their operations. This is by a great wheel ; the circumfer- 
 ence of which is beset with flints, which, striking against steels placed 
 for that purpose at the extremity, a stream of fire is produced, which 
 affords light enough, and yet which does not set fire to the mineral va- 
 pour. 
 
 Of this kind are the vapours of the mines about Bristol: on the 
 contrary, in other mines, a single spark struck out from the collision 
 of flint and steel, would set the whole shaft in a flame. In such, 
 therefore, every precaution is used to avoid collision ; the workmen 
 making use only of wooden instruments in digging ; and being cau- 
 tious, before they enter the mine, to take out even the nails 
 from their shoes. Whence this strange difference should arise, that 
 the vapours of some mines catch fire with a spark, and others only 
 with a flame, is a question that we must be content to leave in ob- 
 scurity, till we know more of the nature both of mineral vapour 
 and of fire. This only we may observe, that gunpowder will readi- 
 ly fire with a spark, but not with the flame of a candle : on the 
 other hand, spirits of wine will flame with a candle, but not with 
 a spark; but even here the cause of this difference as yet remains 
 a secret. 
 
 As from this account of mines, it appears that the internal parts 
 of the globe are filled with vapours of various kinds, it is not surpris- 
 ing that they should, at different times, reach the surface, and there 
 put on various appearances. In fact, much of the salubrity, and much 
 of the unwholesomeness of climates and soils, is to be ascribed to 
 these vapours, which make their way frorc the bowels of the earth 
 upwards, and refresh or taint the air with their exhalations. S.'iri
 
 40 A HISTORY OF 
 
 mines, being naturally cold,* send forth a degree of coldness to the 
 external air, to comfort and refresh it: on the contrary, metallic mmes 
 are known, not only to warm it with their exhalations, but often ii 
 destroy all kinds of vegetation hy their volatile, corrosive fumes. In 
 some mines dense vapours are plainly perceived issuing from their 
 mouths, and sensibly warm to the touch. In some places, neither 
 snow nor ice will continue on the ground that covers a mine ; and 
 over others the fields are found destitute of verdure.t The inhabi 
 tants, also, are rendered dreadfully sensible of these subterraneous 
 exhalations, being affected with such a variety of evils proceeding en- 
 tirely from this cause, that books have been professedly written upon 
 this class of disorders. 
 
 Nor are these vapours, which thus escape to the surface of the earth, 
 entirely unconfined; for they are frequently, in a manner, circumscribed 
 to a spot. The grotto Del Cane, near Naples, is an instance of this ; 
 the noxious effects of which have made that cavern so very famous. 
 This grotto, which has so much employed the attention of travellers, 
 lies within four miles of Naples, and is situated near a large lake 
 of clear and wholesome water.J Nothing can exceed the beauty of the 
 landscape which this lake affords ; being surrounded with hills covered 
 with forests of the most beautiful verdure, and the whole bearing a 
 kind of amphitheatrical appearance. However, this region, beautiful 
 as it appears, is almost entirely uninhabited ; the few peasants that 
 necessity compels to reside there, looking quite consumptive and ghast- 
 ly, from the poisonous exhalations that rise from the earth. The 
 famous grotto lies on the side of a hill, near which place a peasant 
 resides, who keeps a number of dogs for fhe purpose of showing the 
 experiment to the curious. These poor animals always seem perfect- 
 ly sensible of the approach of a stranger, and endeavour to get out 
 of the way. However, their attempts being perceived, they are taken 
 and brought to the grotto ; the noxious effects of which they have 
 so frequently experienced. Upon entering this place, which is a little 
 cave, or hole rather, dug into the hill, about eight feet high, and twelve 
 feet long, the observer can see no visible mark of its pestilential va- 
 pour ; onlv to about a foot from the bottom, the wall seems to be 
 tinged with a colour resembling that which is given by stagnant wa- 
 ters. When the dog, this poor philosophical martyr, as some have 
 called him, is held above this mark, he does not seem to feel the small- 
 est inconvenience ; but when his head is thrust down lower, he strug- 
 gles to get free for a little; but in the space of four or five minutes 
 he seems to lose all sensation, and is taken out seemingly without 
 life. Being plunged in the neighbouring lake, he quickly recovers, 
 and is permitted to run home, seemingly without the smallest injury 
 
 This vapour, which thus for a time suffocates, is of the humid kind, 
 as it extinguishes a torch, and sullies a looking-glass ; but there are 
 other vapours perfectly inflammable, and that only require the ap- 
 proach of a candle to set them blazing. Of this kind was the burn- 
 ing well at Brosely, which is now stopped up ; the vapour of which, 
 
 Phil, Trans, vol. ii. p. 523. f Boyle, vol. Hi. \>. 238 
 
 J Kircher, Mund. Subt. vol. i. p. 191.
 
 THE EARTH. 41 
 
 arhen t candle was brought within about a foot of the surface < f the 
 water, caught flame like spirit of wine, and continued blazing for several 
 hours after. Of this kind, also, are the perpetual fires in the king- 
 dom of Persia. In that province, where the worshippers of fire hold 
 their chief mysteries, the whole surface of the earth, for some extent, 
 seems impregnated with inflammable vapours. A reed stuck into the 
 ground continues to burn like a flambeau; a hole made beneath the 
 surface of the earth, instantly becomes a furnace, answering all the 
 purposes of a culinary fire. There they make lime by merely bury- 
 ing the stones in the earth, and watch with veneration the appearances 
 of a flame that has not been extinguished for times immemorial. How 
 different are men in various climates! This deluded people worship 
 the vapours as a deity, which, in other parts of the world are consider- 
 ed as one of the greatest evils. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OP VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES. 
 
 MINES and caverns, as we have said, reach but a very little way 
 under the surface of the earth, and we have hitherto had no oppor- 
 tunities of exploring farther. Without all doubt, the wonders that are 
 still unknown surpass those that have been represented, as there are 
 depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. 
 The only tidings we have from these unfathomable regions are by means 
 of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their 
 materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.* A volcano may be 
 considered as a cannon of immense size, the mouth of which is often 
 near two miles in circumference. From this dreadful aperture are 
 discharged torrents of flame and sulphur, and rivers of melted metal. 
 Whole clouds of smoke and ashes, with rocks of enormous size, are dis- 
 charged to many miles distance ; so that the force of the most power- 
 ful artillery, is but as a breeze agitating a feather in comparison. In 
 the deluge of fire and melted matter which runs down the sides of the 
 mountain, whole cities are sometimes swallowed up and consumed. 
 Those rivers of liquid fire are sometimes two hundred feet deep ; and 
 when they harden, frequently form considerable hills. Nor is the 
 danger of these confined to the eruption only ; but the force of the 
 internal fire struggling for vent, frequently produces earthquakes 
 through the whole region where the volcano is situated. So dreadful 
 have been these appearances, that men's terrors have added new hor- 
 rors to the scene, and they have regarded as prodigies, what we know 
 to be the result of natural causes. Some philosophers have consider- 
 ed them as vents communicating with the fires of the centre ; and the 
 ignorant, as the mouths of hell itself. Astonishment produces fear, 
 and fear superstition : the inhabitants of Iceland believe the bellow- 
 ings of Hecla are nothing else but the cries of the damned, and lhat 
 its eruptions are contrived to increase their tortures. 
 
 Buffon, vol . p. 291.
 
 42 A HISTORY OF 
 
 But if we regard this astonishing scene of terror with a more trail 
 quil and inquisitive eye, we shall find that these conflagrations are 
 produced by very obvious and natural causes. We have already been 
 apprised of the various mineral substances in the bosom of the earth, 
 and their aptness to burst out into flames. Marcasites and pyrites, in 
 particular, by being humified with water or air, contract this heat, and 
 often endeavour to expand with irresistible explosion. These, there- 
 fore, being lodged in the depths of the earth, or in the bosom of moun 
 tains, and being either washed by the accidental influx of waters be 
 low, or fanned by air, insinuating itself through perpendicular fissures 
 from above, take fire at first by only heaving in earthquakes, but at 
 length by bursting through every obstacle, and making their dreadful 
 discharge in a volcano. 
 
 These volcanoes are found in all parts of the earth : in Europe 
 there are three that are very remarkable : ./Etna in Sicily, Vesuvius 
 in Italy, and Hecla in Iceland. ./Etna has been a volcano for ages 
 immemorial. Its eruptions are very violent, and its discharge has 
 been known to cover the earth sixty-eight feet deep. In the year 
 1537) an eruption of this mountain produced an earthquake through 
 the whole island for twelve days, overturned many houses, and at last 
 formed a new aperture, which overwhelmed all within five leagues round. 
 The cinders thrown up were driven even into Italy, and its burnings 
 were seen at Malta at the distance of sixty leagues. " There is nothing 
 more awful," says Kircher, " than the eruptions of this mountain, nor 
 nothing more dangerous than attempting to examine its appearances, 
 even long after the eruption has ceased. As we attempt to clamber 
 up its stcepy sides, every step we take upward, the feet sink back 
 half way. Upon arriving near the summit, ashes and snow, with an 
 ill-assorted conjunction, present nothing but objects of desolation. 
 Nor is this the worst, for, as all places are covered over, many caverns 
 are entirely hidden from the sight, into which if the inquirer happens 
 to fall, he sinks to the bottom, and meets inevitable destruction. Upon 
 coming to the edge of the great crater, nothing can sufficiently repre- 
 sent the tremendous magnificence of the scene. A gulf two miles 
 over, and so deep that no bottom can be seen ; on the sides pyramidi- 
 cal rocks starting out between apertures that emit smoke and flame ; 
 nil this accompanied with a sound that never ceases, louder than 
 thunder, strikes the bold with horror, and the religious with venera- 
 tion for HIM that has power to control its burnings." 
 
 In the descriptions of Vesuvius, or Hecla, we shall find scarcely any 
 thing but a repetition of the same terrible objects, but rather lessened, 
 as these mountains are not so large as the former. The crater of Ve- 
 suvius is but a mile across, according to the same author ; whereas 
 that of ./Etna is two. On this particular, however, we must place no 
 dependence, as these caverns every day alter ; being lessened by the 
 mountain's sinking at one eruption, and enlarged by the fury of another. 
 It is not one of the least remarkable particulars respecting Vesuvius, 
 that Pliny the naturalist was suffocated in one of its eruptions ; for his 
 curiosity impelling him too near, he found himself involved in smoke 
 and cinders when it was too late to retire ;- and his companions hard- 
 ly escaped to give an account of the misfortune. It was in that dread
 
 THE EARTH. 43 
 
 fnl eruption that the city of Herculaneum was overwhelmed ; the ru- 
 ms of which have lately been discovered at sixty feet distance below 
 ;ne surface, and, what is still more remarkable, forty feet below the 
 bed of the sea. One of the most remarkable eruptions of this moun- 
 tain was in the year 1707) which is finely described by Valetta ; a 
 part of whose description I shall beg leave to translate. 
 
 " Towards the latter end of summer, in the year 1707) the Mount 
 Vesuvius, that had for a long time been silent, now began to give some 
 signs of commotion. Little more than internal murmurs at first were 
 heard, that seemed to contend within the lowest depths of the mountain ; 
 no flame, nor even any smoke, was as yet seen. Soon after some smoke 
 appeared by day, and a flame by night, which seemed to brighten all 
 the campania. At intervals, also, it shot off substances with a sound 
 very like that of artillery, but which, even at so great a distance 
 as we were at, infinitely exceeded them in greatness. Soon after it 
 began to throw up ashes, which becoming the sport of the winds, fell 
 at great distances, and some many miles. To this succeeded showers 
 of stones, which killed many of the inhabitants of the valley, but 
 made a dreadful ravage among the cattle. Soon after a torrent 
 of burning matter began to roll down the sides of the mountain, at 
 first with a slow and gentle motion, but soon with increased celerity. 
 The matter thus poured out, when cold, seemed upon inspection to be 
 of vitrified earth, the whole united into a mass of more than stony 
 hardness. But what was particularly observable was, that upon the 
 whole surface of these melted materials, a light spongy stone seemed 
 to float, while the lower body was of the hardest substance of which 
 our roads are usually made. Hitherto there were no appearances but 
 what had been often remarked before ; but on the third or fourth day, 
 seeming flashes of lightning were shot forth from the mouth of the 
 mountain, with a noise far exceeding the loudest thunder. These 
 flashes, in colour and brightness, resembled what we usually see in 
 tempests, but they assumed a more twisted and serpentine form. Af- 
 ter this followed such clouds of smoke and ashes, that the whole city 
 of Naples, in the midst of the day, was involved in nocturnal darkness, 
 and the nearest friends were unable to distinguish each other in this 
 frightful gloom. If any person attempted to stir out without torch- 
 light, he was obliged to return, and every part of the city was filled 
 with supplications and terror. At length, after a continuance of some 
 hours, about one o'clock at midnight, the wind blowing from the north, 
 the stars began to be seen ; the heavens, though it was night, began 
 to grow brighter ; and the eruptions, after a continuance of fifteen 
 days, to lessen. The torrent of melted matter was sees to extend 
 from the mountain down to the shore ; the people began to return to 
 their former dwellings, and the whole face of nature to resume its, 
 former appearance." 
 
 The famous Bishop Berkeley gives an account of one of these erup- 
 tions in a manner something different from the former.* ' v In the 
 year 1717, and the middle of April, with much difficulty I reached the 
 top of Mount Vesuvius, in which I saw a vast aperture fu.l of smoke 
 
 PhiL Trans, vol. ii. p. 209.
 
 44 A HISTORY OF 
 
 which hindered me from seeing its depth and figure. I heard within 
 that horrid gulf certain extraordinary sounds, which seemed to pro- 
 ceed from the bowels of the mountain ; a sort of murmuring., sighing, 
 dashing sound ; and, between whiles, a noise like that of thunder or 
 cannon, with a clattering like that of tiles falling from the tops 
 of houses into the streets. Sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke 
 grew thinner, discovering a very ruddy flame, and the circumference 
 of the crater streaked with red and several shades of yellow. Af- 
 ter an hour's stay, the smoke, being moved by the wind, gave us 
 short and partial prospects of the great hollow ; in the flat bottom 
 of which I could discern two furnaces almost contiguous ; that on the 
 left seeming about three yards over, glowing with ruddy flame, and 
 throwing up red-hot stones with a hideous noise, which, as they fell 
 back, caused the clattering already taken notice of. May 8, in the 
 morning, I ascended the top of Vesuvius a second time, and found a 
 different face of things. The smoke ascending upright, gave a full 
 prospect of the crater, which, as I could judge, was about a mile in cir- 
 cumference, and a hundred yards deep. A conical mount had been 
 formed, since my last visit, in the middle of the bottom, which I could 
 see was made by the stones, thrown up and fallen back again into the 
 crater In this new hill remained the two furnaces already mentioned. 
 The one was seen to throw up every three or four minutes, with a dread- 
 ful sound, a vast number of red-hot stones, at least three hundred feet 
 higher than my head, as I stood upon the brink ; but as there was no wind, 
 they fell perpendicularly back from whence they had been discharged. 
 The other was filled with red-hot liquid matter, like that in the fur- 
 nace of a glass-house, raging and working like the waves of the sea, 
 with a short abrupt noise. This matter would sometimes boil over, 
 and run down the side of the conical hill, appearing at first red-hot, 
 but changing colour as it hardened and cooled. Had the wind driven 
 in our faces, we had been in no small danger of stifling by the sul- 
 phureous smoke, or being killed by the masses of melted minerals that 
 were shot from the bottom. But as the wind was favourable, I had 
 an opportunity of surveying this amazing scene for above an hour and 
 a half together. On the fifth of June, after a horrid noise, the moun- 
 tain was seen at Naples to work over; abd about three days after, 
 its thunders were renewed so, that not only the windows in the city, 
 but all the houses, shook. From that time it continued to overflow, 
 and sometimes at night were seen columns of fire shooting upward 
 from its summit. On the tenth, when all was thought to be over, the 
 mountain again renewed its terrors, roaring and raging most violently. 
 One cannot form a juster idea of the noise, in the most violent fits 
 of it, than by imagining a mixed sound made up of the raging of a tem- 
 pest, the murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and 
 artillery confused all together. Though we heard this at the distance 
 of twelve miles, yet it was very terrible. I therefore resolved to ap- 
 proach nearer to the mountain ; and, accordingly, three or four of us 
 got into a boat, and were set ashore at a little town situated at the 
 foot of the mountain. From thence we rode about four or five miles., 
 before we came to the torrent of fire that was descending from th* 
 side of the volcano ; and here the roaring grew exceedingly )<id anil
 
 THE EARTH. 43 
 
 errib\e as we approached. I observed a mixture of colours in the 
 cloud, above the crater, green, yellow, red, and blue. There was like- 
 wise a ruddy dismal light in the air, over that tract where the burn- 
 ing river flowed. These circumstances, set off and augmented by thu 
 horror of the night, made a scene the most uncommon and astonish- 
 ing I ever sa^v ; which still increased as we approached the burning 
 river. Imagine a vast torrent of liquid fire, rolling from the top, 
 down the side of the mountain, and with irresistible fury bearing down 
 and consuming vines, olives, and houses ; and divided into different 
 channels, according to the inequalities of the mountain. The largest 
 stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and five miles long. I walked 
 so far before my companions up the mountain, along the side of the 
 river of fire, that I was obliged to retire in great haste, the sulphure- 
 ous steam having surprised me, and almost taken away my breath. 
 During our return, which was about three o'clock in the morning, the 
 roaring of the mountain was heard all the way, while we observed it 
 throwing up huge spouts of fire and burning stones, which falling, re- 
 sembled the stars in a rocket. Sometimes I observed two or three 
 distinct columns of flame, and sometimes one only that was large 
 enough to fill the whole crater. These burning columns, and fiery 
 stones, seemed to be shot a thousand feet perpendicular above the 
 summit of the volcano ; and in this manner the mountain continued 
 raging for six or eight days after. On the 18th of the same month, 
 the whole appearance ended, and the mountain remained perfectly 
 quiet, without any visible smoke or flame." 
 
 The matter which is found to roll down from the mouth of all vol- 
 canoes in general, resembles the dross that is thrown from a smith's 
 forge. But it is different, perhaps, in various parts of the globe ; for, 
 as we have already said, there is not a quarter of the world that has 
 not its volcanoes. In Asia, particularly in the islands of the Indian 
 Ocean, there are many. One of the most famous is that of Albouras, 
 near Mount Taurus, the summit of which is continually on fire, and 
 covers the whole adjacent country with ashes. In the island of Ter- 
 nate there is a volcano, which, some travellers assert, burns most furi- 
 ously in the times of the equinoxes, because of the winds which then 
 contribute to increase the flames. In the Molucca islands, there are 
 many burning mountains ; they are also seen in Japan, and the islands 
 adjacent; and in Java and Sumatra, as well as in other of the Philip- 
 pine islands. In Africa there is a cavern, near Fez, which contimi 
 ally sends forth either smoke or flames. In the Cape de Verde islands, 
 one of them, called the Island del Fuego, continually burns ; and the 
 Portuguese, who frequently attempted a settlement there, have as 
 often been obliged to desist. The Peak of Teneriffe is, as every bodv 
 knows, a volcano, that seldom desists from eruptions. But of all parts 
 of the earth, America is the place where those dreadful irregularities- 
 of nature are the most conspicuous. Vesuvius, and ./Etna itself, are 
 but mere fire-works in comparison to the burning mountains of the 
 Andes ; which, as they are the highest mountains of the world, so 
 also are they the most formidable for their eruptions. The moun- 
 tain of Arequipa in Peru, is one of the most celebrated ; Tarassa. 
 nd Malahallo, are very considerable ; but that of Co*opaxi, in ft***
 
 46 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 province of Quito, exceeds any thing we have hitherto read or heard of 
 The mountain of Cotopaxi, as described by Ulloa,* is more than thre-*j 
 miles perpendicular from the sea; and it became a volcano at the 
 time of the Spaniards' first arrival in that country. . A new eruption 
 of it happened in the year 1743, having been some days preceded by 
 a continual roaring in its bowels. The sound of one of these moun- 
 tains is not, like that of the volcanoes in Europe, confined to a province, 
 but is heard at a hundred and fifty miles distance.! " An aperture 
 was made in the summit of this immense mountain; and three moro 
 about equal heights, near the middle of its declivity, which was at 
 that time buried under prodigious masses of snow. The ignited sub- 
 stances ejected on that occasion, mixed with a prodigious quantity of ice 
 and snow, melting amidst the flames, were carried down with such 
 astonishing rapidity, that in an instant the valley from Callo to Lata- 
 cunga was overflowed ; and besides its ravages in bearing down the 
 houses of the Indians, and other poor inhabitants, great numbers 
 of people lost their lives. The river of Latacunga was the channel 
 of this terrible flood ; till being too small for receiving such a pro- 
 digious current, it overflowed the adjacent country, like a vast lake 
 near the town, and carried away all the buildings within its reach. 
 The inhabitants retired into a spot of higher ground behind the town, 
 of which those parts which stood within the limits of the current were 
 totally destroyed. The dread of still greater devastations did not sub- 
 side for three days ; during which the volcano ejected cinders, while 
 torrents of melted ice and snow poured down its sides. The erup- 
 tion lasted several days, and was accompanied with terrible roarings 
 of the wind, rushing through the volcano, still louder than the former 
 rumblings in its bowels. At last all was quiet, neither fire nor smoke 
 to be seen, nor noise to be heard ; till, in the ensuing year, the flames 
 again appeared with recruited violence, forcing their passage through 
 several other parts of the mountain, so that in clear nights the flames 
 being reflected by the transparent ice, formed an awfully magnificent 
 illumination." 
 
 Such is the appearance and the effect of those fires which proceed 
 from the more inward recesses of the earth : for that they generally 
 come from deeper regions than man has hitherto explored, I cannot 
 avoid thinking, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Buffbn, who supposes 
 them rooted but a very little way below the bed of the mountain. 
 " We can never suppose," says this great naturalist, " that these sub- 
 stances are ejected from any great distance below, if we only consider 
 the great force already required to fling them up to such vast heights 
 above the mouth of the mountain ; if we consider the substances 
 thrown up, which we shall find upon inspection to be the same with 
 those of the mountain below ; if we take into our consideration, that 
 air is always necessary to keep up the flame; but, most of all, if we 
 attend to one circumstance, which is, that if these substanceswereex- 
 ploded from a vast depth below, the same force required to shoot 
 them up so high, would act against the sides of the volcano, and tear 
 the whole mountain in pieces." To all this specious reasoning, ^ar- 
 
 * Ulloa, vol. i. p. 442. f Utto*, vol. i. p. 442
 
 THE EARTH 47 
 
 ticular answers might be easily given ; as, that the length of the funnel 
 increases the force of the explosion ; that the sides of the funnel are 
 actually often burst with the great violence of the flame ; that air 
 may be supposed at depths at least as far as the perpendicular fissures 
 descend. But the best answer is a well-known fact ; namely, that the 
 quantity of matter discharged from jEtna alone, is supposed, upon a 
 moderate computation, to exceed twenty times the original bulk of the 
 mountain.* The greatest part of Sicily seems covered with its erup- 
 tions. The inhabitants of Catanea have found, at the distance of seve- 
 ral miles, streets and houses sixty feet deep, overwhelmed by the lava 
 or matter it has discharged. But what is slill more remarkable, the 
 walls of these very houses have been built of materials evidently 
 thrown up by the mountain. The inference from all this is very ob- 
 vious ; that the matter thus exploded cannot belong to the mountain 
 itself, otherwise it would have been quickly consumed ; it cannot be 
 derived from moderate depths, since its amazing quantity evinces, that 
 all the places near the bottom must have long since been exhausted ; 
 nor can it have an extensive, and, if I may so call it, a superficial 
 spread, for then the country round would be quickly undermined ; it 
 must, therefore, be supplied from the deeper regions of the earth ; 
 those undiscovered tracts where the Deity performs his wonders in 
 solitude, satisfied with self-approbation ! 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 OF EARTHQUAKES. 
 
 HAVING given the theory of volcanoes, we have, in some measure, 
 given also that of earthquakes. They both seem to proceed from the 
 same cause, only with this difference, that the fury of the volcano is 
 spent in the eruption ; that of an earthquake spreads wider, and acts 
 more fatally by being confined. The volcano only affrights a province, 
 earthquakes have laid whole kingdoms in ruin. 
 
 Philosophers! have taken some pains to distinguish between the va- 
 rious kinds of earthquakes, such as the tremulous, the pulsative, the 
 perpendicular, and the inclined ; but these are rather the distinctions 
 of art than of nature, mere accidental differences arising from the 
 situation of the country or of the cause. If, for instance, the confined 
 fire acts directly under a province or a town, it will heave the earth 
 perpendicularly upward, and produce a perpendicular earthquake. 
 If it acts at a distance, it will raise that tract obliquely, and thus the 
 inhabitants will perceive an inclined one. 
 
 Nor does it seem to me that there is much greater reason for Mr. 
 ^uffon's distinction of earthquakes. One kind of which he supposes^ 
 to be produced by fire in the manner of volcanoes, and confined to 
 but a very narrow circumference. The other kind he ascribes to the 
 struggles of confined air, expanded by heat in the bowels of the earth, 
 and endeavouring to get free. For how do these two causes differ ? 
 
 Kircher, Mund. Subt. vol. i. p. 202. \ Aristotle, Agricola, Buffon. { Buffon, vol. ii. p. 32S
 
 48 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Fire is an agent of no power whatsoever without air. It is the air, 
 which being at first compressed, and then dilated in a cannon, that 
 drives the ball with such force. It is the air struggling for vent in 
 a volcano, that throws up its contents to such vast heights. In 
 short, it is the air confined in the bowels of the earth, and acquiring 
 elasticity by heat, that produces all those appearances which are gene- 
 rally ascribed to the operation of fire. When, therefore, we are told 
 that there are two causes of earthquakes, we only learn that a greater 
 or smaller quantity of heat produces those terrible effects ; for air is 
 the only active operator in either. 
 
 Some philosophers, however, have been willing to give the air as 
 great a share in producing these terrible effects as they could ; and, 
 magnifying its powers, have called in but a very moderate degree 
 of heat to put it in action. Although experience tells us that the earth 
 is full of inflammable materials, and that fires are produced wherever 
 we descend ; although it tells us that those countries where there are 
 volcanoes are most subject to earthquakes ; yet they step out of their 
 way, and so find a new solution. These only allow but just heat 
 enough to produce the most dreadful phenomena, and backing their 
 assertions with long calculations, give theory an air of demonstration 
 Mr. Amontons* has been particularly sparing of the internal heat in 
 this respect ; and has shown, perhaps accurately enough, that a very 
 moderate degree of heat may suffice to give the air amazing powers 
 of expansion. 
 
 It is amusing enough, however, to trace the progress of a philo- 
 sophical fancy let loose in imaginary speculations. They run thus : 
 " A very moderate degree of heat may bring the air into a condition- 
 capable of producing earthquakes ; for the air, at the depth of torty- 
 three thousand five hundred and twenty-eight fathom below the sur- 
 face of the earth, becomes almost as heavy as quicksilver. This, 
 however, is but a very slight depth in comparison of the distance to 
 the centrf ; and is scarce a seventieth part of the way. The air, there- 
 fore, at the centre, must be infinitely heavier than mercury, or any 
 body that we know of. This granted, we shall take something more, 
 and say, that it is very probable there is nothing but air at the centre. 
 Now let us suppose this air heated, by some means, even to the de- 
 gree of boiling water, as we have proved that the density of the air is 
 here very great, its elasticity must be in proportion ; a heat, therefore, 
 which at the surface of the earth would have produced but a slight 
 expansive force, must, at the centre, produce one very extraordinary, 
 ana, K short, be perfectly irresistible. Hence this force may, wilh 
 great ease, produce earthquakes ; and, if increased, it may convulse 
 the globe ; it may (by only adding figures enough to the calculation) 
 destroy the solar system, and even the fixed stars themselves." These 
 reveries generally produce nothing ; for, as I have ever observed, in- 
 creased calculations, while they seem to tire the memory, give the 
 reasoning faculty perfect repose. 
 
 However, as earthquakes are the most formidable ministers of na- 
 ture, it is not to be wondered that a multitude of writers have been 
 
 * Memoires de 1' Academic des Sciences. An. 1703.
 
 THE EARTH. 4? 
 
 curiously ^nployed in their consideration. Woodward has ascribed 
 the cause to a stoppage of the waters below the earth's surface by some 
 accident. These being thus accumulated, and yet acted upon by fires, 
 which he supposes still deeper, both contribute to heave up the earth 
 uoon their bosom. This, he thinks, accounts for the lakes of water 
 pioduced in an earthquake, as well as for the fires that sometimes 
 burst from the earth's surface upon those dreadful occasions. There 
 are others still who have supposed that the earth may be itse'f the 
 cause of its own convulsions. u When," say they, " the roots or basis 
 of some large tract is worn away by a fluid underneath, the earth sink- 
 ing therein, its weight occasions a tremor of the adjacent parts, some- 
 times producing a noise, and sometimes an inundation of water." Not 
 to tire the reader with a history of opinions instead of facts, some 
 have ascribed them to electricity, and some to the same causes that 
 produce thunder. 
 
 It would be tedious, therefore, to give ail the various opinions that 
 have employed the speculative upon this subject. The activity of the 
 internal heat seems alone sufficient to account for every appearance 
 that attends these tremendous irregularities of nature. To conceive 
 this distinctly, let us suppose, at some vast distance under the earthj 
 large quantities of inflammable matter, pyrites, bitumens, and marca- 
 sites, disposed, and only waiting for the aspersion of water, or the 
 humidity of the air, to put their fires in motion : at last, this dreadful 
 mixture arrives ; waters find their way into those depths, through the 
 perpendicular fissures; or air insinuates itself through the same minute 
 apertures : instantly new appearances ensue ; those substances, which 
 for ages before lay dormant, now conceive new apparent qualities; 
 they grow hot, produce new air, and only want room for expansion. 
 However, the narrow apertures by which the air or water had at first 
 admission, are now closed up; yet as new air is continually generated, 
 and as the heat every moment gives this air new elasticity, it at length 
 bursts, and dilates all round ; and, in its struggles to get free, throws 
 all above it into similar convulsions. Thus an earthquake is produced, 
 more or less extensive, according to the depth or the greatness of the 
 cause. 
 
 But before we proceed with the causes, let us take a short view 
 jf the appearances which have attended the most remarkable earth- 
 quakes. By these we shall see how far the theorist corresponds with 
 the historian. The greatest we find in antiquity is that mentioned by 
 Pliny,* in which twelve cities in Asia Minor were swallowed up in 
 one night: he tells us also of another, near the lake Thrasymene, 
 which was not perceived by the armies of the Carthaginians and Ro- 
 mans, that were then engaged near that lake, although it shook the 
 greatest part of Italy. Jn another placet he gives the following ac- . 
 count of an earthquake of an extraordinary kind. " When Lucius 
 Marcus and Sextus Julius were consuls, there appeared a very strange 
 prodigy of the earth, (as I have read in the books of ./Etruscan disci- 
 pline) "which happened in the province of Mutina. Two mountains 
 shocked against each other, approaching and retiring with the most 
 
 * Pl'n lib. ii. cap. 86. f Ibid. lib. hi. cap. 85. 
 
 voi. i. D
 
 1>0 A HISTORY OF 
 
 dreadful noise. They, at the same time, and in the midst of the da\ 
 appeared to cast forth fire and smoke, while a vast number of Komuu 
 knights and travellers from the ^Emilian Way, stood and continued 
 amazed spectators. Several towns were destroyed by this shock ; and 
 all the animals that were near them were killed." In the time of Tra- 
 jan, the city of Antioch, and a great part of the adjacent country, \vas 
 buried by an earthquake. About three hundred years after, in the 
 times of Justinian, it was once more destroyed, together with forty 
 thousand inhabitants ; and, after an interval of sixty years, the same 
 ill-fated city was a third time overturned, with the loss of not less 
 than sixty thousand souls. In the year 1182, most of the cities of Sy- 
 ria, and the kingdom of Jerusalem, were destroyed by the same acci- 
 dent. In the year 1594, the Italian historians describe an earthquake 
 at Puteoli, which caused the sea to retire two hundred yards from its 
 former bed. 
 
 But one of those most particularly described in history, is that of the 
 year 1693; the damages of which were chiefly felt in Sicily, but its 
 motion perceived in Germany, France, and England. It extended to 
 a circumference of two thousand six hundred leagues ; chiefly affect- 
 ing the sea-coasts, and great rivers ; more perceivable also upon the 
 mountains than in the valleys. Its motions were so rapid, that those 
 who lay at their length were tossed from side to side, as upon a roll- 
 ing billow.* The walls were dashed from their foundations ; and nc 
 less than fifty-four cities, with an incredible number of villages, were 
 either destroyed or greatly damaged. The city of Catanea, in par- 
 ticular, was utterly overthrown. A traveller, who was on his way 
 thither, at the distance of some miles, perceived a black cloud, like 
 iiight, hanging over the place. The sea, all of a sudden, began to 
 roar ; Mount ./Etna to send forth great spires of flame ; and soon after 
 a shock ensued, with a noise as if all the artillery in the world had 
 been at once discharged. Our traveller, being obliged to alight, in- 
 stantly felt himself raised a foot from the ground ; and turning his 
 eyes to the city, he, with amazement, saw nothing but a thick cloud 
 of dust in the air. The birds flew about astonished; the sun was 
 darkened; the beasts ran howling from the hills; and, although the 
 shock did not continue above three minutes, yet near nineteen thou- 
 sand of the inhabitants of Sicily perished in the ruins. Catanea, to 
 which city the describer was travelling, seemed the principal scene 
 of ruin ; its place only was to be found ; and not a footstep of its for 
 mer magnificence was to be seen remaining. 
 
 The earthquake which happened in Jamaica, in 1G92, was very ter- 
 rible, and its description sufficiently minute. " In two minutes' time il 
 destroyed the town of Port-Royal, and sunk the houses in a gulf for 
 ty fathoms deep. It was attended with a hollow rumbling noise, 
 like that of thunder ; and, in less than a minute, three parts of the 
 houses, and their inhabitants, were all sunk quite underwater. Whilo 
 they were thus swallowed up on one side of the street, on the other 
 the houses were thrown into heaps; the sand of the street rising lik 
 be waves of the sea, lifting up those that stood upon it, and immedi 
 
 * Phil. Trans.
 
 THE EARTH. 51 
 
 ately overwhelming them in pits. All the wells discharged their w^ 
 ters with the most vehement agitation. The sea felt an equal shar* 
 of turbulence, and, bursting over its mounds, deluged all that came in 
 its way. The fissures of the earth were, in some places, so great, that 
 one of the streets appeared twice as broad as formerly. In many 
 places, however, it opened and closed again, and continued this agita- 
 tion for some time. Of these openings, two or three hundred might 
 be seen at a time ; in some whereof the people were swallowed up ; 
 in others, the earth closing, caught them by the middle, and thus 
 crushed them instantly to death. Other openings, still more dreadful 
 than the rest, swallowed up whole streets ; and others, more formida- 
 ble still, spouted up whole cataracts of water, drowning such as the 
 earthquake had spared. The whole was attended with the most 
 noisome stench; while the thundering of the distant falling mountains, 
 the whole sky overcast with a dusky gloom, and the crash of falling 
 habitations, gave unspeakable horror to the scene. After this dread- 
 ful calamity was over, the whole island seemed converted into a scene 
 of desolation; scarce a planter's house was left standing; almost all 
 were swallowed up ; houses, people, trees, shared one universal ruin ; 
 and in their places appeared great pools of water, which, when dried 
 up by the sun, left only a plain of barren sand, without any vestige 
 of former inhabitants. Most of the rivers, during the earthquake, 
 were stopt up by the falling in of the mountains; and it was not till 
 after some time that they made themselves new channels. The moun- 
 tains seemed particularly attacked by the force of the shock; and it 
 was supposed that the principal seat of the concussion was among 
 them. Those who were saved got on board ships in the harbour, 
 where many remained above two months ; the shocks continuing, 
 during that interval, with more or less violence every day." 
 
 As this description seems to exhibit all the appearances that usually 
 make up the catalogue of terrors belonging to an earthquake, I will 
 suppress the detail of that which happened at Lisbon, in our own 
 times, and which is too recent to require a description. In fact, 
 there are few particulars, in the accounts of those who were present 
 at that scene of desolation, that we have not more minutely and accu- 
 rately transmitted to us by former writers, whose narratives I have 
 for that reason preferred. I will therefore close this description of hu- 
 man calamities, with the account of the dreadful earthquake at Cala- 
 bria, in 1638. It is related by the celebrated Father Kircher, as it 
 happened while he was on his journey to visit Mount ./Etna, and the 
 rest of the wonders that lie towards the south of Italy. I need scarce 
 inform the reader, that Kircher is considered, by scholars, as one 
 rff the greatest prodigies of learning. 
 
 " Having hired a boat, in company with four more, two friars of the 
 order of St. Francis, and two seculars, we launched, on the twenty- 
 fourth of March, from the harbour of Messina, in Sicily, and arrived 
 the same day at the promontory of Pelorus. Our destination was for 
 me city of Euphsemia, in Calabria, where we had some business to 
 transact, and where we designed to tarry for some time. However, 
 Providence seemed willing to cross our design ; for we were obliged 
 *o continue for three days at Pelorus, upon account of the weather ;
 
 *2 A HISTORY OF 
 
 and t\ough we often put out to sea, yet we were as often driven back 
 At length, however, wearied with the delay, we resolved to prosecute 
 our voyage ; and, although the sea seemed more than usually agitated, 
 yet we ventured forward. The gulf of Charybdis, which we ap 
 proached, seemed whirled round in such a manner, as to form a vast 
 hollow, verging to a point in the centre. Proceeding onward, and 
 turning my eyes to Jtna, I saw it cast forth large volumes of smoke, 
 of mountainous sizes, which entirely covered the whole island, and blot- 
 ted out the very shores from my view. This, together with the dread- 
 ful noise, and the sulphureous stench, which was strongly perceived, fill- 
 ed me with apprehensions that some more dreadful calamity was im- 
 pending. The sea itself seemed to wear a very unusual appearance j 
 those who have seen a lake in a violent shower of rain covered ah 
 over with bubbles, will conceive some idea of its agitations. My sur- 
 prise was still increased by the calmness and serenity of the weather ; 
 not a breeze, not a cloud, which might be supposed to put all nature 
 thus into motion. I therefore warned my companions that an earth- 
 quake was approaching ; and, after some time, making for the shore 
 with all possible diligence, we landed at Tropaia, happy and thankful 
 for having escaped the threatening dangers of the sea. 
 
 " But our triumphs at land were of short duration ; for we had 
 scarce arrived at the Jesuits' College in that city, when our ears were 
 stunned with a horrid sound, resembling that of an infinite number 
 of chariots driven fiercely forward, the wheels rattling, and the thongs 
 cracking. Soon after this, a most dreadful earthquake ensued, so that 
 the whole tract upon which we stood seemed to vibrate, as if we were 
 in the scale of a balance that continued wavering. This motion, how- 
 ever, soon grew more violent ; and being no longer able to keep my 
 legs, I was thrown prostrate upon the ground. In the mean time, the 
 universal ruin round me redoubled my amazement. The crash of fall- 
 ing houses, the tottering of towers, and the groans of the dying, all 
 contributed to raise my terror and despair. On every side of me I 
 saw nothing but a scene of ruin, and danger threatening wherever I 
 should fly. I commended myself to God, as my last great refuge. At 
 that hour, O how vain was every sublunary happiness ! wealth, honour, 
 empire, wisdom, all mere useless sounds, and as empty as the bubbles 
 in the deep. Just standing on the threshold of eternity, nothing but 
 God was my pleasure ; and the nearer I approached, I only loved him 
 the more. After some time, however, finding that I remained unhurt 
 amidst the general concussion, I resolved to venture for safety, and 
 running as fast as I could, reached the shore, but almost terrified out 
 of my reason. I did notsearch long here till I found the boat in which 
 I had landed, and my companions also, whose terrors were even 
 greater than mine. Our meeting was not of that kind where every 
 one is desirous of telling his own happy escape ; it was all silence, 
 and a gloomy dread of impending terrors. 
 
 " Leaving this seat of desolation, we prosecuted our voyage along 
 the coast ; and the next day came to Rochetta, where we landed, al- 
 though the earth still continued in violent agitations. But we were 
 scarce arrived at our inn, when we were once more obliged to return 
 to the boat, and in about half an hour we saw the greatest nart of tho
 
 THE EARTH. t>3 
 
 town, and the inn at which we had set up, dashed to the ground, and 
 burying all its inhabitants beneath its ruins. 
 
 " In this manner, proceeding onward in our little vessel, finding 
 no safety at land, and yet, from the smallness of our boat, having but 
 a very dangerous continuance at sea, we at length landed at Lopizi- 
 um, a castle midway between Tropasa and Euphaemia, the city to 
 which, as I said before, we were bound. Here, wherever I turned 
 my eyes, nothing but scenes of ruin and horror appeared ; towns 
 and castles levelled to the ground ; Strombalo, though at sixty miles 
 distance, belching forth flames in an unusual manner, and with a noise 
 which I could distinctly hear. But my attention was quickly turned 
 from more remote to contiguous danger. The rumbling sound of an 
 approaching earthquake, which we by this time were grown acquaint- 
 ed with, alarmed us for the consequences ; it every moment seemed 
 to grow louder, and to approach more near. The place on which we 
 stood now began to shake most dreadfully, so that being unable to 
 stand, my companions and I caught hold of whatever shrub grew next 
 us, and supported ourselves in that manner. 
 
 " After some time, this violent paroxysm ceasing, we again stood 
 up, in order to prosecute our voyage to Euphaemia, that lay within 
 sight. In the mean time, while we were preparing for this purpose, 
 I turned my eyes towards the city, but could see only a frightful dark 
 cloud that seemed to rest upon the place. This the more surprised 
 us, as the weather was so very serene. We waited, therefore, till the 
 cloud was past away ; then turning to look for the city, it was totally 
 sunk. Wonderful to tell ! nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was 
 seen where it stood. We looked about to find some one that could 
 tell us of its sad catastrophe, but could see none ! All was become a 
 melancholy solitude ! a scene of hideous desolation ! Thus proceed- 
 ing pensively along, in quest of some human being that could give us 
 some little information, we at length saw a boy sitting by the shore, and 
 appearing stupified with terror. Of him, therefore, we inquired con- 
 cerning the fate of the city, but he could not be induced to give us 
 an answer. We intreated him with every expression of tenderness 
 and pity to tell us : but his senses were quite wrapt up in contempla- 
 tion of the danger he had escaped. We offered him some victuals, 
 but he seemed to loathe the sight. We still persisted in our offices 
 of kindness ; but he only pointed to the place of the city, like one 
 out of his senses ; and then running up into the woods, was never 
 heard of after. Such was the fate of the city of Euphaemia ! and as 
 we continued our melancholy course along the shore, the whole coast, 
 for the space of two hundred miles, presented nothing but the remains 
 of cities, and men scattered, without a habitation, over the fields. 
 Proceeding thus along, we at length ended our distressful voyage by 
 arriving at Naples, after having escaped a thousand dangers both at 
 sea and land." 
 
 The reader, I hope, will excuse me for this long translation from a 
 favourite writer, and that the sooner, as it contains some particulars 
 relative to earthquakes not to be found elsewhere. From the whole 
 f these accounts we may gather, that the most concomitant circuiD' 
 stances are these :
 
 54 A HISTORY OF 
 
 A jumbling sound before the earthquake. This proceeds from the 
 air or fire> or both, forcing their way through the chasms of the earth, 
 and endeavouring to get free, which is also heard in volcanoes. 
 
 A violent agitation or heaving of the sea, sometimes before and 
 sometimes after that at land. This agitation is only a similar effect 
 produced on the waters with that at land, and may be called, for the 
 sake of perspicuity, a seaquake ; and this also is produced by volca- 
 noes. 
 
 A spouting up of waters to great heights. It is not easy to describe 
 the manner in which this is performed ; but volcanoes also perform 
 the same : Vesuvius being known frequently to eject a vast body 
 of water. 
 
 A rocking of the earth to and fro, and sometimes a perpendicular 
 bouncing, if it may be so called, of the same. This difference chiefly 
 arises from the situation of the place with respect to the subterranean 
 fire. Directly under, it lifts ; at a farther distance, it rocks. 
 
 Some earthquakes seem to travel onward, and are felt in different 
 countries at different hours the same day. This arises from the great 
 shock being given to the earth at one place, and that, being commu- 
 nicated onward by an undulatory motion, successively affects different 
 regions in its progress. As the blow given by a stone falling in a 
 lake, is not perceived at the shores till some time after the first con- 
 cussion. 
 
 The shock is sometimes instantaneous, like the explosion of gun- 
 powder ; and sometimes tremulous, and continuing for several minutes. 
 The nearer the place where the shock is first given, the more instan- 
 taneous and simple it appears. At a greater distance, the earth re- 
 doubles the first blow with a sort of vibratory continuation. 
 
 As waters have generally so great a share in producing earthquakes, 
 it is not to be wondered that they should generally follow those breach- 
 es made by the force of fire, and appear in the great chasms which the 
 earthquake has opened. 
 
 These are some of the most remarkable phenomena of earthquakes, 
 presenting a frightful assemblage of the most terrible effects of air, 
 earth, fire, and water. 
 
 The valley of Solfatara, near Naples, seems to exhibit, in a minuter 
 degree, whatever is seen of this horrible kind on the great theatre 
 of nature. This plain, which is about twelve hundred feet long, and 
 a thousand broad, is embosomed in mountains, and has in the middle 
 of it a lake of noisome blackish water, covered with a bitumen, that 
 floats upon its surface. In every part of this plain, caverns appear 
 smoking with sulphur, and often emitting flames. The earth, wherever 
 we walk over it, trembles beneath the feet. Noises of flames, and the 
 hissing of waters, are heard at the bottom. The water sometimes 
 spouts up eight or ten feet high. The most noisome fumes, fetid 
 water, and sulphureous vapours, offend the smell. A stone thrown 
 into any of the caverns, is ejected again with considerable violence. 
 These appearances generally prevail when the sea is any way dis 
 lurbed ; and the whole seems to exhibit the appearance of an earth- 
 quake in miniature. However, in this smaller scene of wonders, a* 
 well as in the greater, there aie many appearances for which, perhaps
 
 THE EARTH. 55 
 
 we shall never account; and many questions may be asked, which 
 no conjectures can thoroughly resolve. It was the fault of the phi- 
 losophers of the last age, to be more inquisitive after the causes 
 of things than after the things themselves. They seemed to tlunk 
 that a confession of ignorance cancelled their claims to wisdom ; they, 
 therefore, had a solution for every demand. But the present age has 
 grown, if not more inquisitive, at least more modest; and none am 
 now ashamed of that ignorance, which labour can neither remedy nor 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OF THE APPEARANCE OP NEW ISLANDS AND TRACTS ; AND OP THE 
 DISAPPEARANCE OF OTHERS. 
 
 HITHERTO we have taken a survey only of the evils which are pro 
 duced by subterranean fires, but we have mentioned nothing of th 
 benefits they may possibly produce. They may be of use in warm- 
 ing and cherishing the ground, in promoting vegetation, and giving a 
 more exquisite flavour to the productions of the earth. The imagina- 
 tion of a person who has never been out of our own mild region, can 
 scarcely reach to that luxuriant beauty with which all nature appears 
 clothed in those very countries that we have just now described as 
 desolated by earthquakes, and undermined by subterranean fires. It 
 must be granted, therefore, that though in those regions they have a 
 greater share in the dangers, they have also a larger proportion in the 
 benefits of nature. 
 
 But there is another advantage arising from subterranean fires, 
 which, though hitherto disregarded by man, yet may one day become 
 serviceable to him ; I mean, that while they are found to swallow up 
 cities and plains in one place, they are also known to produce promon- 
 tories and islands in another. VVe have many instances of islands be- 
 ing thus formed in the midst of the sea, which though for a long time 
 barren, have afterwards become fruitful seats of happiness and in- 
 dustry. 
 
 New islands are formed in two ways ; either suddenly, by the ac- 
 tion of subterranean fires ; or more slowly, by the deposition of mud, 
 carried down by rivers, and stopped by some accident.* With re- 
 spect particularly to the first, ancient historians, and modern travellers, 
 give us such accounts as we can have no room to doubt of. Seneca as- 
 sures us, that in his time the island of Therasia appeared unexpected- 
 ly to some mariners, as they were employed in another pursuit. Pliny 
 assures us, that thirteen islands in the Mediterranean appeared at onca 
 emerging from the water ; the cause of which he ascribes rather to 
 the retiring of the sea in those parts, than to any subterraneous eleva- 
 tion. However, he mentions the island of Hiera, near that of Thera- 
 sia. as formed by subterraneous explosions ; and adds to his list several 
 others formed in the same manner. In one of which he relates that 
 
 * BufFon. ol. ii. p. 347.
 
 56 A HISTORY OF 
 
 fish *n great abundance were found, and that all those who eat of t Vr* 
 died shortly after. 
 
 "On the twenty-fourth of May,* in the year 1707, a slight earth- 
 quake was perceived at Santorin ; and the day following, at sun-rising,' 
 an object was seen by the inhabitants of that island, at two or three 
 miles distance at sea, which appeared like a floating rock. Some per- 
 sons, desirous either of gain, or incited by curiosity, went there, and 
 found, even while they stood upon this rock, that it seemed to rise 
 beneath their feet. They perceived also, that its surface was covered 
 with pumice-stones and oysters, which it had raised from the bottom. 
 Every day after, until the fourteenth of June, this rock seemed con- 
 siderably to increase ; and then \vas found to be half a mile round, 
 and about thirty feet above the sea. The earth of which it was com- 
 posed seemed whitish, with a small proportion of clay. Soon after 
 this the sea again appeared troubled, and steams arose which were 
 very offensive to the inhabitants of Santorin. But on the sixteenth 
 of the succeeding month, seventeen or eighteen rocks more were seen 
 to rise out of the sea, and at length to join together. All this was 
 accompanied with the most terrible noise, and fires that proceeded 
 from the island that was newly formed. The whole mass, however, 
 of all this new formed earth, uniting, increased every day, both in 
 height and breadth, and, by the force of its explosions, cast forth 
 rocks to seven miles distance. This continued to bear the same dread- 
 ful appearances till the month of November in the same year ; and it 
 is at present a valcano which sometimes renews its explosions. It is 
 about three miles in circumference ; and more than from thirty-five 
 to forty feet high." 
 
 It seems extraordinary, that about this place in particular, islands 
 have appeared at different times, particularly that of Hiera, mentioned 
 above, which has received considerable additions in succeeding ages. 
 Justin tells us,t that at the time the Macedonians were at war with 
 the Romans, a new island appeared between those of Theramenes 
 and Therasia, by means of an earthquake. We are told that this be- 
 came half as large again about a thousand years after, another island 
 rising up by its side, and joining to it, so as scarce at present to be 
 distinguished from the former. 
 
 A new island was formed, in the year 1720, near that of Tercera, 
 near the continent of Africa, by the same causes. In the beginning 
 of December, at night, there was a terrible earthquake at that place, 
 and the top of a new island appeared, which cast forth smoke in vast 
 quantities. The pilot of a ship, who approached it, sounded on "ne 
 side of this island, and could not find ground at sixty fathom: at the 
 other side the sea was totally tinged of a different colour, exhibit- 
 ing a mixture of white, blue, and green ; and was very shallow 
 This island, on its first appearance, was larger than it is at present 
 for it has since that time sunk in such a manner, as to be scarcely above 
 water. 
 
 A traveller, whom these appearances could not avoid affecting, 
 apeaks of them in this manner :| " What can be more surprising than 
 
 Hist. -Icl Acad an. 1708, p. 23. f Justin, lib. xxx. cap. 4 f Phil, ^rai s. voJ p. l'J7.
 
 THE EARTH. 57 
 
 lo see fire not only break out of the bowels of the fcarth, but also 
 make itself a passage through the waters of the sea ! What can be 
 more extraordinary, or foreign to our common notions of things, 
 than to see the bottom of the sea rise up into a mountain above 
 the water, and become so firm an island as to be able to resist thts 
 violence of the greatest storms ! I know that subterraneous fires, 
 when pent in a narrow passage, are able to raise up a mass of earth as 
 large as an island : but that this should be done in so regular and ex- 
 act a manner that the water of the sea should not be able to pene- 
 trate and extinguish those fires ; that after having made so many pas- 
 sages, they should retain force enough to raise the earth ; and, in fine, 
 after having been extinguished, that the mass of earth should not fall 
 down, or sink again with its own weight, but still remain in a manner 
 suspended over the great arch below ! This is what to me seems more 
 surprising than any thing that has been related of Mount JEtna, Vesu- 
 vius, or any other volcano." 
 
 Such are his sentiments ; however, there are few of these appear- 
 ances any way more extraordinary than those attending volcanoes and 
 earthquakes in general. We are not more to be surprised that inflam- 
 mable substances should be found beneath the bottom of the sea, than at 
 similar depths at land. These have all the force of fire giving ex- 
 pansion to air, and tending to raise the earth at the bottom of the 
 sea, till it at length heaves above water. These marine volcanoes are 
 not so frequent ; for, if we may judge of the usual procedure of nature- 
 it must very often happen, that, before the bottom of the sea is ele- 
 vated above the surface, a chasm is opened in it, and then the water 
 pressing in, extinguishes the volcano before it has time to produce its 
 effects. This extinction, however, is not effected without very great 
 resistance from the fire beneath. The water, upon dashing into the 
 cavern, is very probably at first ejected back with great violence ; and 
 thus some of those amazing water-spouts are seen, which have so often 
 astonished the mariner, and excited curiosity. But of these in their 
 place. 
 
 Besides the production of those islands by the action of fire, there 
 are others, as was said, produced by rivers or seas carrying mud, 
 earth, and such like substances, along with their currents; and at last 
 depositing them in some particular place. At the mouths of most 
 great rivers, there are to be seen banks, thus formed by the sand and 
 mud carried down with the stream, which have rested at that place*, 
 where the force of the current is diminished by its junction with tin; 
 soa. These banks, by slow degrees, increase at the bottom of the 
 deep: the water in those places, is at first found by mariners to grow 
 more shallow ; the bank soon heaves up above the surface ; it is con- 
 tfklered, for a while, as a tract of useless and barren sand : but the 
 seeds of some of the more hardy vegetables are driven thither by the 
 wind, take root, and thus binding the sandy surface, the whole spot 
 s clothed in time with a beautiful verdure. In this manner there are 
 delightful and inhabited islands at the mouths of many rivers, particu- 
 larly the Nile, the Po, the Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Senegal. 
 There has been, in the memory of man, a beautiful and large island 
 formed in this manner, at the mouth of the river Nanquin, in China
 
 58 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 made fiom depositions of mud at its opening : it is not less than sixty 
 miles long, and about twenty broad. La Loubeie informs us,* in his 
 voyage to Siam, that these sand-banks increase every day, at the 
 mouths of all the great rivers in Asia : and hence, he asserts, that the 
 navigation up these rivers becomes every day more difficult, and will, 
 at one time or other, be totally obstructed. The same may be re- 
 marked with regard to the Wolga, which has at present seventy open- 
 ings into the Caspian sea ; and of the Danube, which has seven into 
 the Euxine. We have had an instance of the formation of a new 
 island not very long since at the mouth of the Humber, in England. 
 "It is yet within the memory of man," says the relator,t "since it 
 began to raise its head above the ocean. It began its appearance at 
 low water, for the space of a few hours, and was buried again till the 
 next tide's retreat. Thus successively it lived and died, until the year 
 1666, when it began to maintain its ground against the insult of the 
 waves, and first invited the aid of human industry. A bank was 
 thrown about its rising grounds, and being thus defended from the in- 
 cursions of the sea, it became firm and solid, and, in a short time, 
 afforded good pasturage for cattle. It is about nine miles in circum- 
 ference, and is worth to the proprietor about eight hundred pounds 
 a year." It would be endless to mention all the islands that have 
 been thus formed, and the advantages that have been derived from 
 them. However, it is frequently found, that new islands may be often 
 considered as only turning the rivers from their former beds ; so that 
 in proportion as land is gained at one part, it is lost by the overflow- 
 ing of some other. 
 
 Little, therefore, is gained by such accessions ; nor is there much 
 more by the new islands which are sometimes formed from the spoils 
 of the continent. Mariners assure us, that there are sometimes whole 
 plains unrooted from the main lands, by floods and tempests. These 
 being carried out to sea, with all the trees and animals upon them, 
 are frequently seen floating in the ocean, and exhibiting a surprising 
 appearance of rural tranquillity in the midst of danger. The great- 
 est part, however, having the earth at their roots at length washed 
 away, are dispersed, and their animals drowned ; but now and then 
 some are found to brave the fury of the ocean, till being struck either 
 among rocks or sands, they again take firm footing, and become per- 
 manent islands. 
 
 As different causes have thus concurred to produce new islands, so 
 we kave accounts of others that the same causes have contributed to 
 destroy. We have already seen the power of earthquakes exerted in 
 Milking whole cities, and leaving lakes in their room. There have 
 been islands, and regions also, that have shared the same fate; and 
 have sunk with their inhabitants never more to be heard of. Thus 
 Pausanias| tells us of an island, called Chryses, that was sunk near 
 Lemnos. Pliny mentions several; among others, the island Cea, for 
 thirty miles, having been washed away, with several thousands of its in- 
 babitants. But of all the noted devastations of this kind, the total 
 
 Tettrcs Curicuses et Edifiantes, sec. xi. p. 234. f Phil. Trans, vol. iv. p. 2^1 
 
 t Tausanias, 1. 8. in A read. p. 500.
 
 THE EARTH. 59 
 
 submersion ->f the island of Atalantis, as mentioned by Plato, has bouo 
 most the subject of speculation. Mankind, in general, now consider 
 the whole of his description as an ingenious fable ; but when fables 
 are grown famous by time and authority, they become an agreeable, 
 if not a necessary part of literary information. 
 
 " About nine thousand years are passed," says Plato,* " since the 
 island of Atalantis was in being. The priests of Egypt were well ac- 
 quainted with it: and the first heroes of Athens gained much glory in 
 their wars with the inhabitants. This island was as large as Asia Mi- 
 nor and Syria united ; and was situated beyond the Pillars of Hercu- 
 les, in the Atlantic ocean. The beauty of the buildings, and the fer- 
 tility of the soil, were far beyond any thing a modern imagination can 
 conceive ; gold and ivory were every where common ; and the fruits 
 of the earth offered themselves without cultivation. The arts and 
 courage of the inhabitants were not inferior to the happiness of their 
 situation ; and they were frequently known to make conquests, and 
 overrun the continents of Europe and Asia." The imagination of the 
 poetical philosopher riots in the description of the natural and acquired 
 advantages, which they long enjoyed in this charming region. " If," 
 says he, " we compare that country to our own, ours will appear a 
 mere wasted skeleton, when opposed to it. The mountains to the 
 very tops were clothed with fertility, and poured down rivers to enrich 
 the plains below." 
 
 However, all these beauties and benefits were destroyed in one day 
 by an earthquake sinking the earth, and the sea overwhelming it. At 
 present not the smallest vestiges of such an island are to be found ; 
 Plato remains as the only authority for its existence: and philosopheis 
 dispute about its situation. It is not for me to enter into the contro- 
 versy, when there appears but little probability to support the fact ; 
 and, indeed, it would be useless to run back nine thousand years in 
 earch of difficulties, as we are surrounded with objects that more 
 closely affect us, and that demand admiration at our very doors. 
 When I consider, as Lactantius suggests, the various vicissitudes of na 
 ture ; lands swallowed by yawning earthquakes, or overwhelmed in 
 the deep ; rivers and lakes disappearing, or dried away ; mountains 
 levelled into plains; and plains swelling up into mountains; I cannot 
 help regarding this earth as a place of very little stability ; as a tran 
 sient abode of still more transitory beings 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 HAVING at last, in some measure, emerged from the deeps of the 
 earth, we come to a scene of greater splendour ; the contemplation 
 of its external appearance. In this survey, its mountains arc the first 
 objects that strike the imagination, and excite our curiosity. There 
 is not, perhaps, anv thing in all nature that impresses an unpcc:itemd 
 
 Plato in Critia.
 
 *0 A HISTORY OF 
 
 spectator with such ideas of awful solemnity, as these immense pilM 
 of Nature's erecting, that seem to mock the minuteness of human 
 magnificence. 
 
 In countries where there are nothing but plains, the smallest eleva- 
 tions are apt to excite wonder. In Holland, which is all a flat, they 
 show a little ridge of hills, near the sea-side, which Boerhaave generally 
 marked out to his pupils, as being mountains of no small considera- 
 tion. What would be the sensations of such an auditory, could they 
 at once be presented with a view of the heights and precipices of the 
 Alps or the Andes ! Even among us in England, we have no ade- 
 quate ideas of a mountain-prospect ; our hills are generally sloping 
 from the plain, and clothed to the very top with verdure ; we can 
 scarce, therefore, lift our imaginations to those immense piles, whose 
 tops peep up behind intervening clouds, sharp and precipitate, and 
 reach to heights that human avarice or curiosity have never been able 
 to ascend. 
 
 We, in this part of the world, are not, for that reason, so imme- 
 diately interested in the question which has so long been agitated 
 among philosophers, concerning what gave rise to these inequalities 
 on the surface of the globe. In our own happy region, we generally 
 see no inequalities but such as contribute to use and beauty ; and we, 
 therefore, are amazed at a question, inquiring how such necessary in- 
 equalities came to be formed, and seeming to express a wonder how 
 the globe comes to be so beautiful as we find it. But though with us 
 there may be no great cause for such a demand, yet in those places 
 where mountains deform the face of nature, where they pour down 
 cataracts, or give fury to tempests, there seems to be good reason for 
 inquiry either into their causes or their uses. It has been, therefore, 
 asked by many, in what manner mountains have come to be formed ; 
 or for what uses they are designed ? 
 
 To satisfy curiosity in these respects, much reasoning has been em- 
 ployed, and very little knowledge propagated. With regard to the 
 first part of the demand, the manner in which mountains were formed, 
 we have already seen the conjectures of different philosophers on that 
 dead. One supposing that they were formed from the earth's broken 
 shell at the time of the deluge ; another, that they existed from the 
 creation, and only acquired their deformities in process of time ; a 
 third, that they owed their original to earthquakes ; and still a fourth, 
 with much more plausibility than the rest, ascribing them entire- 
 ly to the fluctuations of the deep, which he supposes in the beginning 
 to have covered the whole earth. Such as are plensed with disquisi- 
 tions of this kind, may consult Burnett, Whiston, Woodward, or Buf- 
 fon. Nor would I be thought to decry any mental amusements, that 
 at worst keep us innocently employed ; but for my own part, I cannot 
 help wondering how the opposite demand has never come to be made ; 
 and why philosophers have never asked how we come to have plains ? 
 Plains are sometimes more prejudicial to man than mountains. Upon 
 plains, an inundation has greater power ; the beams of the sun are 
 often collected there with suffocating fierceness ; they are sometimes 
 found desert for several hundred miles together, as in the country east 
 of the Caspian sea, although otherwise fruitful, merely because therr,
 
 THE EARTH. 61 
 
 are no risings nor depressions to form reservoirs, or collect the small- 
 est rivulet of water. The most rational answer, therefore, why eithei 
 mountains or plains were formed, seems to be that they were thus 
 fashioned by the hand of Wisdom, in order that pain and pleasure should 
 be so contiguous, as that mortality might be exercised either in bear- 
 ing the one, or communicating the other. 
 
 Indeed, the more I consider this dispute respecting the formation 
 of mountains, the more I am struck with the futility of the question. 
 There is neither a straight line nor an exact superficies, in all nature. 
 If we consider a circle, even with mathematical precision, we shall 
 find it formed of a number of small right lines, joining at angles to- 
 gether. These angles, therefore, may be considered in a circle as 
 mountains are upon our globe ; and to demand the reason for the one 
 being mountainous, or the other angular, is only to ask, why a circle 
 is a circle, or a globe is a globe. In short, if there be no surface 
 without inequality in nature, why should we be surprised that the 
 earth has such ? It has often been said, that the inequalities of its 
 surface are scarce distinguishable, if compared to its magnitude ; and 
 I think we have every reason to be content with the answer. 
 
 Some, however, have avoided the difficulty by urging the final cause. 
 They allege that mountains have been formed merely because they 
 are useful to man. This carries the inquirer but a part of the way ; 
 for no one can affirm, that in all places they are useful. The contrary 
 is known, by horrid experience, in those valleys that are subject to 
 their influence. However, as the utility of any part of our earthly 
 habitation is a very pleasing and flattering speculation to every phi- 
 losopher, it is not to be wondered that much has been said to prove the 
 usefulness of these. For this purpose, many conjectures have been 
 made, that have received a degree of assent even beyond their evi- 
 dence ; for men were unwilling to become more miserably wise. 
 
 It has been alleged, a one principal advantage that we derive from 
 them, that they serve like hoops or ribs, to strengthen our earth, and to 
 bind it together. In consequence of this theory, Kircher has given 
 us a map of the earth, in this manner hooped with its mountains ; which 
 might have a much more solid foundation, did it entirely correspond 
 with truth. 
 
 Others have found a different use for them, especially when they 
 run surrounding our globe ; which is, that they stop the vapours which 
 are continually travelling from the equator to the poles ; for these be- 
 ing urged by the heat of the sun, from the warm regions of the line, 
 must all be accumulated at the poles, if they were not stopped in their 
 way by those high ridges of mountains which cross their direction. 
 But an answer to this may be, that all the great mountains in Ameri- 
 ca lie lengthwise, and therefore do not cross their direction. 
 
 But to leave these remote advantages, others assert, that not only the 
 animal but vegetable part of the creation would perish for want of con- 
 venient humidity, were it not for their friendly assistance. Their sum- 
 mits are, by these, supposed to arrest, as it were, the vapours which 
 float in the regions of the air. Their large inflections and channels 
 are considered as so many basins prepared for the reception ' f those 
 thick vapours, and impetuous rains, which descend ; nto them. T5i
 
 62 A HISTORY OF 
 
 huge caverns beneath are so many magazines or conservatories of wa- 
 ter for the peculiar service of man ; and those orifices by which the 
 water is discharged upon the plain, are so situated as to enrich and 
 render them fruitful, instead of returning through subterraneous chan- 
 nels to the sea, after the performance of a tedious and fruitless circu- 
 lation.* 
 
 However this be, certain it is, that almost all our great rivers tinrl 
 . their source among mountains ; and, in general, the more extensive 
 the mountain, the greater the river : thus the river Amazons, the 
 greatest in the world, has its source among the Andes, which are the 
 highest mountains on the globe ; the river Niger travels a long course 
 of several hundred miles from the Mountains of the Moon, the high- 
 est in all Africa ; and the Danube and the Rhine proceed from the 
 Alps, which are probably the highest mountains of Europe. 
 
 It need scarce be said, that, with respect to height, there arc 
 many sixes of mountains, from the gentle rising upland, to the tall 
 craggy precipice. The appearance is in general different in those 
 of different magnitudes. The first are clothed with verdure to the 
 very tops, and only seem to ascend to improve our prospects, or sup- 
 ply us with a purer air : but the lofty mountains of the other class 
 have a very different aspect. At a distance their tops are sec'ti, in 
 wavy ridges, of the very colour of the clouds, and only to be distin- 
 guished from them by their figure ; which, as I have said, resemble the 
 billows of the sea.t As we approach, the mountain assumes a decpei 
 colour : it gathers upon the sky, and seems to hide half the horizon 
 behind. Its summits also are become more distinct, and appear with a 
 broken and perpendicular line. What at first seemed a single hill, is now 
 found to be a chain of continued mountains, whose tops running aloug 
 in ridges, are embosomed in each other ; so that the curvatures of one 
 are fitted to the prominences of the opposite side, and form a winding 
 valley between, often of several miles in extent ; and all the way con- 
 tinuing nearly of the same breadth. 
 
 Nothing can be finer, or more exact, than Mr. Pope's description 
 of a traveller straining up the Alps. Every mountain he comes to 
 he thinks will be the last; he finds, however, an unexpected hill rise 
 before him ; and that being scaled, he finds the highest summit almost 
 at as great a distance as before. Upon quitting the plain, he might 
 have left a green and fertile soil, and a climate warm and pleasing. 
 As he ascends, the ground assumes a more russet colour; the grass 
 becomes more mossy, and the weather more moderate. Still as he 
 ascends, the weather becomes more cold, and the earth more barren, 
 In this dreary passage he is often entertained with a little valley of sur- 
 prising verdure, caused by the reflected heat of the sun collected into 
 a narrow spot on the surrounding heights. But it much more fre- 
 quently happens that he sees only frightful precipices beneath, and lakes 
 of amazing depths, from whence rivers are formed, and fountains derhe 
 their original. On those places next the highest summits, vegetation 
 is scarcely carried on ; here and there a few plants of the most hardy 
 kind appear. The air is intolerably cold ; either continually refrige- 
 
 Nature Displayed, vol. iii. p. 88. f Lettres Philosophiqiies sur la Fotmafio:i,&c. n. 196
 
 THE EARTH. . 63 
 
 rated with frosts, or disturbed with tempests. All the ground hero. 
 wears an eternal covering of ice, and snows that seem constantly ac- 
 cumulating. Upon emerging from this war of the elements, he ascends 
 into a purer and serener region, where vegetation is entirely ceased ; 
 where the precipices, composed entirely of rocks, rise perpendicular- 
 ly above him ; while he views beneath him all the combat of the ele- 
 ments; clouds at his feet, and thunders darting upwards from their 
 bosoms below.* A thousand meteors, which are never seen on the 
 plain, present themselves. Circular rainbows ^ mock suns ; the shadow 
 of the mountain projected upon the body of the air;t and the travel- 
 ler's own image, reflected as in a looking-glass, upon the opposite 
 
 Such are, in general, the wonders that present themselves to a 
 traveller in his journey either over the Alps or the Andes. But we 
 must not suppose that this picture exhibits either a constant or an in- 
 variable likeness of those stupendous heights. Indeed, nothing can 
 be more capricious or irregular than the forms of many of them. 
 The tops of some run in ridges for a considerable length, without in- 
 terruption ; in others, the line seems indented by great valleys to an 
 amazing depth. Sometimes a solitary and a single mountain rises 
 from the bosom of the plain; and sometimes extensive plains, and 
 even provinces, as those of Savoy and Quito, are found embosomed 
 near the tops of mountains. In general, however, those countries 
 that are most mountainous, are the most barrenand uninhabitable. 
 
 If we compare the heights of mountains with each other, we shall find 
 that the greatest and highest are found under the line.|| It is thought 
 by some, that the rapidity of the earth's motion in these parts, to- 
 gether with the greatness of the tides there, may have thrown up those 
 stupendous masses of earth. But, be the cause as it may, it is a re- 
 markable fact, that the inequalities of the earth's surface are greatest 
 there. Near the poles, the earth, indeed, is craggy and uneven enough ; 
 out the heights of the mountains there, are very inconsiderable. On 
 the contrary, at the equator, where nature seems to sport in the 
 amazing size of all her productions, the plains are extensive, and the 
 mountains remarkably lofty. Some of them are known to rise three 
 aiiles perpendicular above the bed of the ocean. 
 
 To enumerate the most remarkable of these, according to their size, 
 vr, shall begin with the Andes, of which we have an excellent descrip- 
 tion hv Ulloa, who went thither by command of the king of Spain, 
 <n company with the French Academicians, to measure a degree of the 
 mr.ruiian. His journey up these mountains is too curious not to give 
 an extract from it. 
 
 After many incommodious days, sailing up the river Guayquil,he ar 
 rived at Caracol, a town situated at the foot of the Andes. Nothing 
 could exceed the inconveniences which he experienced in his voyage, 
 from the flies and moschitoes (an animal resembling our gnat.) " We 
 were the whole day," says he, " in continual motion to keep them ofT; 
 but at night our torments were excessive. Our gloves, indeed, were 
 some defence to our hands ; but our faces were entirely exposed ; nor 
 
 Ulloa, vol. i. f ibid- I Phil. Trans, vol. v. p. 152. { Ulloa, vol. i. || Buflbn, fassun
 
 64 A HISTORY OF 
 
 were our clothes a sufficient defence for the rest of our bodies ; foi 
 their stings penetrating through the cloth, caused a very painful and 
 fiery itching. One night, in coming to an anchor near a large and 
 handsome house that was uninhabited, we had no sooner seated our- 
 selves in it, than we were attacked on all sides by swarms of moschi- 
 toes, so that it was impossible to have one moment's quiet. Those 
 who had covered themselves with clothes made for this purpose, 
 found not the smallest defence ; wherefore, hoping to find some re- 
 lief in the open fields, they ventured out, though in danger of suffer- 
 ing in a more terrible manner from the serpents. But both places 
 were equally obnoxious. On quitting this inhospitable retreat, we the 
 next night took up our quarters in a house that was inhabited; the 
 host of which being informed of the terrible manner we had past the 
 night before, he gravely told us, that the house we so greatly com- 
 plained of, had been forsaken on account of its being the purgatory 
 of a soul. But we had more reason to believe that it was quitted on 
 account of its being the purgatory of the body. After having jour- 
 neyed for upwards of three days, through boggy roads, in which the 
 mules at every step sunk up to their bellies, we began at length to 
 perceive an alteration in the climate ; and having been long accus- 
 tomed to heat, we now began to feel it grow sensibly colder. 
 
 " It is remarkable, that at Tariguagua we often see instances of the 
 effects of two opposite temperatures, in two persons happening to 
 meet ; one of them leaving the plains below, and the other descend- 
 ing from the mountain. The former thinks the cold so severe, that 
 he wraps himself up in all the garments he can procure ; while the 
 latter finds the heat so great, that he is scarce able to bear any clothes 
 whatsoever. The one thinks the water so cold, that he avoids being 
 sprinkled by it ; the other is so delighted with its warmth, that he 
 uses it as a bath. Nor is the case very different in the same person, 
 who experiences the same diversity of sensation upon his journey up, 
 and upon his return. This difference only proceeds from the change 
 naturally felt at leaving a climate to which one has been accustomed, 
 and coming into another of an opposite temperature. 
 
 " The ruggedness of the road from Tariguagua, leading up the 
 mountain, is not easily described. In some parts, the declivity is so 
 Croat, that the mules can scarce keep their footing; and in others, 
 t'ho acclivity is equally difficult. The trouble of having people going 
 before to mend the road, the pains arising from the many falls and 
 bruises, and the being constantly wet to the skin, might be supported, 
 wore not these inconveniences augmented by the sight of such fright- 
 ful precipices, and deep abysses, as must fill the mind with ceaseless 
 terror. There are some places where the road is so steep, and yet 
 so narrow, that the mules are obliged to slide down, without making 
 any use of their feet whatsoever. On one side of the rider, in this 
 situation, rises an eminence of several hundred yards ; and on the 
 other, an abyss of equal depth ; so that if he in the least checks his 
 mule, so as to destroy the equilibrium, they both must unavoidably 
 perish. 
 
 " After .laving travelled about nine days in this manner, slowly 
 winding along the side of the mountain, we began to find the whole
 
 THE EARTH. 65 
 
 country covered with a hoar frost : and a hut, in which we lay, nad 
 ice on it. Having escaped many perils, we at length, after a journey 
 of fifteen days, arrived upon the plain, on the extremity of which 
 stands the city of Quito, the capital of one of the most charming re- 
 gions upon earth. Here, in the centre of the torrid zone, the heat is 
 not only very tolerable, but in some places the cold also is painful. 
 Here they enjoy all the temperature and advantages of perpetual 
 ?i>ring ; their fields being always covered with verdure, and enamel- 
 led with flowers of the most lively colours. However, although this 
 beautiful region be higher than any other country in the world, and 
 although it took up so many days of painful journey in the as- 
 cent, it is still overlooked by tremendous mountains ; their sides cover- 
 ed with snow, and yet flaming with volcanoes at the top. These 
 seemed piled one "ipon the other, and rise to a most astonishing, 
 height, with great cujdness. However, at a determined point above 
 the surface of the sea, the congelation is found at the same height in 
 all the mountains. Those parts which are not subject to a continual 
 frost, have here and there growing upon them a rush, resembling the 
 genista, but much more soft and flexible, Towards the extremity 
 of the part where the rush grows, and the cold begins to increase, is 
 found a vegetable, with a round bulbous head, which, when dried, be- 
 comes of amazing elasticity. Higher up. the earth is entirely bare 
 of vegetation, and seems covered with eternal snow. The most re- 
 markable mountains are, that of Cotopaxi (already described as a vol- 
 cano,) Chimborazo, and Pichincha. Cotopaxi is more than three 
 geographical miles above the surface of the sea : the rest are not 
 much inferior. On the top of the latter was my station for measuring 
 a degree of the meridian ; where I suffered particular hardships, from 
 the intenseness of the cold, and the violence of the storms. The sky 
 around was, in general, involved in thick fogs, which, when they clear- 
 ed away, and the clouds, by their gravity, moved nearer to the surface 
 of the earth, they appeared surrounding the foot of the mountain, at 
 a vast distance below, like a sea, encompassing an island in the midst 
 of it. When this happened, the horrid noises of tempests were heard 
 from beneath, then discharging themselves on Quito, and the neigh- 
 bouring country. I saw the lightnings issue from the clouds, and heard 
 the thunders roll far beneath me. All this time, while the tempest 
 was raging below, the mountain top, where I was placed, enjoyed a 
 delightful serenity ; the wind was abated ; the sky clear ; and the en- 
 livening rays of the sun moderated the severity of the cold. How- 
 ever, this was of no very long duration, for the wind returned with all 
 its violence, and with such velocity as to dazzle the sight ; whilst my 
 fears were increased by the dreadful concussions of the precipice, and 
 the fall of enormous rocks ; the only sounds that were heard in this 
 frightful situation." 
 
 Such is the animated picture of these mountains, as given us by 
 this ingenious Spaniard : and I believe the reader will wish that I had 
 made The quotation still longer. A passage over the Alps, or a jour- 
 ney across the Pyrennees, appear petty trips or excursions in the con>- 
 |>a*ison; and yet these are the most lofty mountains we know of in 
 Europe. 
 
 VOL. f. K
 
 cV> A HISTORY OF 
 
 If wo '-umpire the Alps with the mountains already described, wo 
 shall find them but little more than one half of the height of the for- 
 mer. The Andes, upon being measured by the barometer, are found 
 ibove three thousand one hundred and thirty-six toises or fathoms 
 above the surface of the sea.* Whereas the highest points of the 
 Alps is not above sixteen hundred. The one, in other words, is above 
 three miles high ; the other about a mile and a half. The highest 
 mountains in Asia are, Mount Taurus, Mount Immaus, Mount Cauca- 
 sus, and the mountains of Japan. Of these, none equals the Andes in 
 height : although Mount Caucasus, which is the highest of them, 
 makes very near approaches. Father Verbiest tells of a mountain 
 in China, which he measured, and found a mile and a half high.t In 
 Africa, the Mountains of the Moon, famous for giving source to the 
 Niger and the Nile, are rather more noted than known. Of the Peak 
 of Teneriffe, one of the Canary Islands that lie off this coast, we 
 have more certain information. In the year 1727 , it was visited by 
 a company of English merchants, who travelled up to the top, where 
 they observed its height, and the volcano on its very summit.^ They 
 found it a heap of mountains, the highest of which rises over the rest 
 like a sugar-loaf, and gives a name to the whole mass. It is com- 
 puted to be a mile and a half perpendicular from the surface of the 
 sea. Kircher gives us an estimate of the heights of most of the other 
 great mountains i"n the world ; but as he has taken his calculations in 
 general from the ancients, or from modern travellers, who had not the 
 art of measuring them, they are quite incredible. The art of taking 
 the heights of places by the barometer, is a new and an ingenious in- 
 vention. As the air grows lighter as we ascend, the fluid in the tube 
 rises in due proportion: thus the instrument being properly marked, 
 gives the height with a tolerable degree of exactness ; at least enough 
 to satisfy curiosity. 
 
 Few of our great mountains have been estimated in this manner ; 
 travellers having, perhaps, been deterred, by a supposed impossibility 
 of breathing at the top. However, it has been invariably found, that 
 the air in the Highest that our modern travellers have ascended, is not 
 at all too fine for respiration. At the top of the Peak of Teneriffe. 
 there was found no other inconvenience from the air, except its cold- 
 ness ; at the top of the Andes, there was no difficulty of breathing 
 perceived. The accounts, therefore, of those who have asserted that 
 they were unable to breathe, although at much less heights, are groat 
 ly to be suspected. In fact, it is very natural for mankind to paint 
 those obstacles as insurmountable, which they themselves have not had 
 the fortitude or perseverance to surmount. 
 
 The difficulty and danger of ascending to the tops of mountains, 
 proceeds from other causes, not the thinness of the air. For instance, 
 some of the summits of the Alps have never yet been visited by man. 
 But the reason is, that they rise with such a rugged and precipitate 
 ascent, that they are utterly inaccessible. In some places they appear 
 like a great wall of six or seven hundred feet high ; in others, there 
 lick out enormous rocks, that hang upon the brow of the steep, and 
 very moment threaten destruction to the traveller below. 
 
 Ulloa, vo.. .. p. 442 f Verbiest, alia Chine. J P-.il. Trans. voL ?.
 
 THE EARTH. 6? 
 
 In this manner almost all the tops of the highest mountains are bar 
 and pointed. And this naturally proceeds from their being so continu- 
 ally assaulted by thunder and tempests. All the earthy substances 
 with which they might have been once covered, have for ages been 
 washed away from their summits ; and nothing is left remaining but 
 immense rocks, which no tempest has hitherto been able to destroy. 
 
 Nevertheless, time is every day, and every hour, making depreda- 
 tions ; and huge fragments are seen tumbling down the precipice, 
 either loosened from the summit by frost or rains, or struck down by 
 lightning. Nothing can exhibit a more terrible picture than one 
 of these enormous rocks, commonly larger than a house, falling from 
 its height, with a noise louder than thunder, and rolling down the side 
 of the mountain. Doctor Plot tells us of one in particular, which be- 
 ing loosened from its bed, tumbled down the precipice, and was part- 
 ly shattered into a thousand pieces. Notwithstanding, one of the larg- 
 est fragments of the same, still preserving its motion, travelled over the 
 plain below, crossed a rivulet in the midst, and at last stopped on the 
 other side of the bank ! These fragments, as was said, are often struck 
 off by lightning, and sometimes undermined by rains ; but the most 
 usual manner in which they are disunited from the mountain, is by 
 frost : the rains insinuating between the interstices of the mountain, 
 continue there until there comes a frost, and then, when converted 
 into ice, the water swells with an irresistible force, and produces the 
 same effect as gunpowder, splitting the most solid rocks, and thus 
 shattering the summits of the mountain. 
 
 But not rocks alone, but whole mountains are, by various causes, 
 disunited from each other. We see in many parts of the Alps, amaz- 
 ing clefts, the sides of which so exactly correspond with the opposite, 
 that no doubt can be made of their having been once joined together. 
 At Cajeta,* in Italy, a mountain was split in this manner by an earth- 
 quake ; and there is a passage opened through it, that appears as 
 if elaborately done by the industry of man. In the Andes these 
 breaches are frequently seen. That at Thermopylae, in Greece, has 
 been long famous. The mountain of the Troglodytes, in Arabia, has 
 thus a passage through it : and that in Savoy, which Nature began, 
 and which Victor Amadeus completed, is an instance of the same kind. 
 
 We have accounts of some of these disruptions, immediately after 
 their happening. " In the month of June,t in the year 1714, a part 
 of the mountain of Diableret, in the district of Valais, in France, sud- 
 denly fell down, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, the 
 weather being very calm and serene. It was of a conical figure, and 
 destroyed fifty-five cottages in the fall. Fifteen persons, together 
 with about a hundred beasts, were also crushed beneath its ruins, which 
 covered an extent of a good league square. The dust it occasioned 
 /nstantly covered all the neighbourhood in darkness. The heaps 
 of rubbish were more than three hundred feet high. They stopped 
 ihc current of a river that ran along the plain, which now is formed 
 into several new and deep lakes. There appeared through the whole 
 of tnis rubbish, none of those substances that seemed to indicate that 
 
 * Buffoii. vol. ii. p 364 A Hist, de 1'Academie des Scien-s, p. 1. an. 1711
 
 C& A HISTORY OF 
 
 this disruption had been made by means of subterraneous fires. Most 
 probably, the base of this rocky mountain was rotted and decayed ; 
 and thus fell, without any extraneous violence." In the same man 
 ner, in the year l6l8, the town of Pleurs, in France, was buried be- 
 neath a rocky mountain, at the foot of which it was situated. 
 
 These accidents, and many more that might be enumerated of the 
 same kind, have been produced by various causes : by earthquakes, 
 as in the mountain at Cajeta; or by being decayed at the bottom, as 
 at Diableret. But the most general way is, by the foundation of one 
 part of the mountain being hollowed by waters, and thas wanting a 
 support, breaking from the other. Thus it generally has been found 
 in the great chasms in the Alps; and thus it almost always is known 
 in those disruptions of hills, which are known by the name of land- 
 slips. These are nothing more than the slidings down of a higher 
 piece of ground, disrooted from its situation by subterraneous inunda- 
 tions, and settling itself upon the plain below. 
 
 There is not an appearance in all nature that so much astonished 
 our ancestors, as these land-slips. In fact, to behold a large upland, 
 with its houses, its corn, and cattle, at once loosened from its place, 
 and floating, as it were, upon the subjacent water ; to behold it quit- 
 ting its ancient situation, and travelling forward like a ship in ques/ 
 'of new adventures ; this is certainly one of the most extraordinary 
 appearances that can be imagined ; and to a people, ignorant of the 
 powers of nature, might well be considered as a prodigy. According- 
 ly, we find all our old historians mentioning it as an omen of ap- 
 proaching calamities. In this more enlightened age, however, its 
 cause is very well known ; and, instead of exciting ominous appre- 
 hensions in the populace, it only gives rise to some very ridiculous 
 law-suits among them, about whose the property shall be ; whether 
 the land which has thus slipt, shall belong to the original possessor, 
 or to him upon whose grounds it has encroached and settled. What 
 has been the determination of the judges, is not so well known, but the 
 circumstances of the slips have been minutely and exactly described. 
 
 In the lands of Slatberg,* in the kingdom of Iceland, there stood a 
 declivity, gradually ascending for near half a mile. In the year 1713, 
 and on the 10th of March, the inhabitants perceived a crack on its 
 side, somewhat like a furrow made with a plough, which they imputed 
 to the effects of lightning, as there had been thunder the night be- 
 fore. However, on the evening of the same day, they were surprised 
 to hear a hideous confused noise issuing all round from the side of the 
 hill ; and their curiosity being raised, they resorted to the place. 
 There, to their amazement, they found the earth, for near five acres, 
 all in gentle motion, and sliding down the hill upon the subjacent 
 plain. This motion continued the remaining part of the day, and the 
 whole night ; nor did the noise cease during the whole time ; pro- 
 ceeding, probably, from the attrition of the ground beneath. The 
 day following, however, this strange journey down the hill ceased en- 
 tirely ; and above an acre of the meadow below was found covered 
 with what before composed a part of the declivity. 
 
 Phil. Trans, vol. iv. p. 250.
 
 THE EARTH. 69 
 
 HOWCVM, these slips, when a whole mountain's side seems to de 
 scend, happen but very rarely. There are some of another kind, 
 however, much more common ; and, as they are always sudden, much 
 more dangerous. These are snow-slips, well known, and greatly 
 dreaded by travellers. It often happens, that when snow has long 
 been accumulated on the tops and on the sides of mountains, it is 
 borne down the precipice, either by means of tempests, or its own 
 melting. At first, when loosened, the volume in motion is but small ; 
 but gathers as it continues to roll ; and, by the time it has reached 
 the habitable parts of the mountain, is generally grown of enormous 
 bulk Wherever it rolls, it levels all things in its way ; or buries them 
 in unavoidable destruction. Instead of rolling, it sometimes is found 
 to slide along from the top ; yet even thus it is generally as fatal as 
 before. Nevertheless, we have had an instance, a few years ago, of a 
 small family in Germany, that lived for above a fortnight beneath one 
 of these snow-slips. Although they were .buried during that whole 
 time, in utter darkness, and under a bed of some hundred feet deep, 
 yet they were luckily taken out alive ; the weight of the snow being 
 supported by a beam that kept up the roof; and nourishment being 
 supplied them by the milk of an ass, if I remember right, that was 
 buried under the same ruin. 
 
 But it is not the parts alone that are thus found to subside, whole 
 mountains have been known totally to disappear. Pliny tells us,* 
 that in his own time, the lofty mountain of Cybotus, together with the 
 city of Eurites, were swallowed by an earthquake. The same fate, 
 he says, attended Phlegium, one of the highest mountains in Ethiopia; 
 which, after one night's concussion, was never seen more. In more 
 modern times, a very noted mountain in the Molucca islands, known 
 by the name of the Peak, and remarkable for being seen at a very great 
 distance from sea, was swallowed by an earthquake ; and nothing but 
 a lake was left in the place where it stood. Thus, while storms and 
 tempests are levelled against mountains above, earthquakes and waters 
 are undermining them below. All our histories talk of their destruc- 
 tion ; and a very few new ones (if we except Mount Cenere, and one 
 or two such heaps of cinders) are produced. If mountains, therefore, 
 were of such great utility as some philosophers make them to man- 
 kind, it would be a very melancholy consideration that such benefits 
 were diminishing every day. But the truth is, the valleys are fer 
 tilized by that earth which is washed from their sides ; and the plains 
 become richer, in proportion as the mountains decay. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OP WATER. 
 
 IN contemplating nature, we shall often find the same substances 
 possessed of contrary qualities, and producing opposite effects. Aii, 
 which liquifies <me substance, dries up another. That fire whiclj i* 
 
 Plin. 1. ii. cap. 93.
 
 TO A HISTORY OF 
 
 seen ti; iwiA up the desert, is often found, in other places, to assisi 
 the uxuriance of vegetation ; and water, which, next to fire, is the 
 most fluid substance upon earth, nevertheless, gives all other hodiea 
 their firmness and durability ; so that every element seems to be a 
 powerful servant, capable either of good or ill, and only awaiting ex- 
 ternal direction, to become the friend or the enemy of mankind. These 
 opposite qualities, in this substance in particular, have not failed to 
 excite the admiration and inquiry of the curious. 
 
 That water is the most fluid penetrating body, next to fire, and the 
 most difficult to confine, is incontestibly proved by a variety of experi- 
 ments. A vessel through which water cannot pass, may be said to 
 retain any thing. It may be objected indeed, that syrups, oils, and 
 honey, leak through some vessels that water cannot pass through ; 
 but this is far from being the result of the greater tenuity and fine- 
 ness of their parts ; it is owing to the rosin wherewith the wood of such 
 vessels abounds, which oils and syrups have a power of dissolving ; 
 so that these fluids, instead of finding their way, may more properly 
 be said to eat their way through the vessels that contain them. How- 
 ever, water will at last find its way even through these ; for it is 
 known to escape through vessels of every substance, glass only ex- 
 cepted. Other bodies may be found to make their way out more 
 readily indeed ; as air, when it finds a vent, will escape at once ; and 
 quicksilver, because of its weight, quickly penetrates through what- 
 ever chiuky vessel confines it: but water, though it operates more 
 slowly, yet always finds a more certain issue. As, for instance, it is 
 well known that air will not pass through leather ; which water will 
 very readily penetrate. Air also may be retained in a bladder; bul 
 water will quickly ooze through. And those who drive this to the 
 greatest degree of precision, pretend to say, that it will pass through 
 pores ten times smaller than air can do. Be this as it may, we are very 
 certain that its parts are so small that they have been actually driven 
 through the pores of gold. This has been proved by the famous 
 Florentine experiment, in which a quantity of water was shut up in 
 a hollow ball of gold, and then pressed with a huge force by screws, 
 during which the fluid was seen to ooze out through the pores of the 
 metal, and to stand, like a dew, upon its surface. 
 
 As water is thus penetrating, and its parts thus minute, it may easi- 
 ly be supposed that they enter into the composition of all bodies, 
 vegetable, animal, and fossil. This every chymist's experience con- 
 vinces him of; and the mixture is the more obvious, as it can always 
 be separated, by a gentle heat, from those substances with which it 
 had been united. Fire, as was said, will penetrate where water 
 cannot pass ; but then it is not so easily to be separated. But there 
 is scarce any substance from which its water cannot be divorced. 
 The parings or filings of lead, tin, arid antimony, by distillation, yield 
 water plentifully : the hardest stones, sea-salt, nitre, vitriol, and sul- 
 phur, are found to consist chiefly of water ; into which they resolve 
 by force of fire. " All birds, beasts, and fishts," says Newton, " in- 
 socts, trees, and vegetables, with their parts, grow from water ; and, 
 oy putrefaction, return t> water again." In short, almost every sub- 
 stance that we see, owes its texture and firmness to the parts of WT
 
 THE EARTH 71 
 
 ter that mix with its earth ; and, deprived of this fluid, it becomes n 
 mass of shapeless dust and ashes. 
 
 From hence we see, as was above hinted, that this most fluid body, 
 when mixed with others, gives them consistence and form. Water, 
 by being mixed with earth and ashes, and formed into a vessel, when 
 baked before tli3 fire, becomes a coppel, remarkable for this, that i* 
 will bear the utmost force of the hottest furnace that art can contrive. 
 So the Chinese earth, of which porcelain is made, is nothing more 
 than an artificial composition of earth and water, united by heat ; and 
 which a greater degree of heat could easily separate. Thus we see 
 a body, extremely fluid of itself, in some measure assuming a new na- 
 ture, by being united with others : we see a body, whose fluid and 
 dissolving qualities are so obvious, giving consistence and hardness 
 to all the substances of the earth. 
 
 From considerations of this kind, Thales, and many of the ancient 
 philosophers, held that all things were made of water. In order to 
 confirm this opinion, Helmont made an experiment, by divesting a 
 quantity of earth of all its oils and salts, and then putting this earth, 
 so. prepared, into an earthen pot, which nothing but rain-water could 
 enter, and planting a willow therein ; this vegetable, so planted, grew 
 up to a considerable height and bulk, merely from the accidental as- 
 persion of rain-water ; while the earth, in which it was planted, re- 
 ceived no sensible diminution. From this experiment, he concluded, 
 that water was the only nourishment of the vegetable tribe ; and that 
 vegetables, being the nourishment of animals, all organized substances^ 
 therefore, owed their support and being only to water. But this has 
 been said by Woodward to be all a mistake : for he shows, that water 
 being impregnated with earthy particles, is only the conveyer of such 
 substances into the pores of vegetables, rather than an increaser 
 of them, by its own bulk : he shows that water is ever found to afford 
 much less nourishment, in proportion as it is purified by distillation. 
 A plant in distilled water, will not grow so fast as in water not dis- 
 tilled : and if the same be distilled three or four times over, the plant 
 will scarce grow at all, or receive any nourishment from it. So that 
 water, as such, does not seem the proper nourishment of vegetables, 
 but only the vehicle thereof, which contains the nutritious particles, 
 and carries them through all parts of the plant. Water, in its pure 
 state, may suffice to extend or swell the parts of a plant, but affords 
 vegetable matter in a moderate proportion. 
 
 However this be, it is agreed on all sides, that water, such as we 
 find it, is far from being a pure simple substance. The most genuine 
 we know is mixed with exhalations and dissolutions of various kinds ; 
 and no expedient that has been hitherto discovered, is capable of pu- 
 rifying it entirely. If we filter and distil it a thousand times, accord- 
 ing to Boerhaave, it will still depose a sediment : and by repeating 
 the process we may evaporate it entirely away, but can never totally 
 remove its impurities. Some, however, assert, that water, properly 
 distilled, will have no sediment ;* and that the little white speck 
 which is found at the bottom of the still, is a substance mat entt'is 
 
 * Hill's History of Fossils.
 
 72 A HISTORY OF 
 
 from without. Kircher used to show in his museum, a phiai ol water, 
 that nad been kept for fifty years, hermetically sealed ;* during which 
 it had deposed no sediment, but continued as transparent as when 
 first it was put in. How far, therefore, it may be brought to a state 
 of purity by distillation, is unknown ; but we very well know, that all 
 such water as we every where see, is a bed in which plants, minerals, 
 and animals, are all found confusedly floating together. 
 
 Rain-water, which is a fluid of Nature's own distilling, and which 
 has been raised so high by evaporation, is, nevertheless, a very mixed 
 and impure substance. Exhalations of all kinds, whether salts, sul- 
 phurs, or metals, make a part of its substance, and tend to increase its 
 weight. If we gather the water that falls, after a thunder-clap, in a 
 sultry summer's day, and let it settle, we shall find a real salt sticking 
 at the bottom. . In winter, however, its impure mixtures are fewer, 
 but still may be separated by distillation. But as to that which is 
 generally caught pouring from the tops of houses, it is particularly foul, 
 being impregnated with the smoke of the chimnies, the vapour of the 
 slate or tiles, and with other impurities that birds and animals may 
 have deposited there. Besides, though it should be supposed free 
 from all these, it is mixed with a quantity of air, which, after being 
 kept for some time, will be seen to separate. 
 
 Spring-water is next in point of purity. This, according to Dr. 
 Halley, is collected from the air itself; which being sated with water, 
 and coming to be condensed by the evening's cold, is driven against 
 the tops of the mountains, where being condensed, and collected, it 
 trickles down by the sides, into the cavities of the earth ; and running 
 for a while underground, bubbles up in fountains upon the plain. This 
 having made but a short circulation, has generally had no long time 
 to dissolve or imbibe any foreign substances by the way. 
 
 River-water is generally more foul than the former. Wherever 
 the stream flows, it receives a tincture from its channel. Plants, 
 minerals, and animals, all contribute to add to its impurities : so that 
 such as live at the mouths of great rivers, generally are subject to all 
 those disorders which contaminated and unwholesome waters are 
 known to produce. Of all the river-water in the world, that of the 
 Indus and the Thames is said to be the most light and wholesome. 
 
 The most impure fresh-water that we know, is that of stagnated 
 pools and lakes, which, in summer, may be more properly considered 
 as a jelly of floating insects, than a collection of water. In this, mil- 
 lions of little reptiles, undisturbed by any current, which might crush 
 their fiames to pieces, breed and engender. The whole teems with 
 shapeless life, and only grows more fruitful by 'increasing putrefac- 
 tion. - 
 
 Of the purity of all these waters, the lightness, and not the trans- 
 parency, ought to be the test. Water may be extremely clear and 
 beautiful to the eye, and yet very much impregnated with mineral 
 narticles. In fact, sea-water is the most transparent of any, and yet 
 
 * Hermetically sealing a ass vessel, means no more than heating the mouth of the phi&l 
 td hot ; and thus when the glass is become pliant, squeezing the mouth to: ether with a f ii 
 of pincers, and then twisting it six or seven times round, which effectually closer it up.
 
 Phalarmer, or Surinam Rut, p. 278. 
 
 Bahyroussa, p. 97. 
 
 Hedgehog, p. 214.
 
 THE EARTH. 73 
 
 H. ii well known to contain a large mixture of salt and bitumen. On 
 the contrary, those waters which are lightest, have the fewest dissolu- 
 tions floating in them ; and may, therefore, be the most useful for all 
 the purposes of life. But, after all, though much has been said upon 
 this subject, and although waters have been weighed with great assi- 
 duity, to determine their degree of salubrity, yet neither this, nor their 
 curdling with soap, nor any other philosophical standard whatsoever, 
 will answer the purposes of true information. Experience alone ought 
 to determine the useful or noxious qualities of every spring ; and ex- 
 jerience assures us, that different kinds of water are adapted to dif- 
 ferent constitutions. An incontestible proof of this, are the many 
 medicinal springs throughout the world, whose peculiar benefits are 
 known to the natives of their respective countries. These are of va- 
 rious kinds, according to the different minerals with which they are 
 impregnated ; hot, saline, sulphureous, bituminous, and oily. But the 
 account of these will come most properly under that of the several 
 minerals by which they are produced. 
 
 After all, therefore, we must be contented with but an impure mix- 
 ture for our daily beverage. And yet, perhaps, this very mixture 
 may often be more serviceable to our health than that of a purer 
 kind. We know that it is so with regard to vegetables : and why not, 
 also, in general, to man ? Be this as it will, if we are desirous of hav- 
 ing water in its greatest purity, we are ordered, by the curious in this 
 particular, to distil it from snow, gathered upon the tops of the highest 
 mountains, and to take none but the outer and superficial part there- 
 of. This we must be satisfied to call pure water ; but even this is far 
 short of the pure unmixed philosophical element ; which, in reality, 
 is no where to be found. 
 
 As water is thus mixed with foreign matter, and often the reposi- 
 tory of minute animals, or vegetable seeds, we need not be surprised 
 that, when carried to sea, it is always found to putrefy. But we must 
 not suppose that it is the element itself which thus grows putrid and 
 offensive, but the substances with which it is impregnated. It is true, 
 the utmost precautions are taken to destroy all vegetable and animal 
 substances that may have previously been lodged in it, by boiling; 
 but, notwithstanding this, there are some that will stiil survive the opera- 
 tion, and others that find their way during the lime of its stowage. 
 Seamen, therefore, assure us, that their water is generally found to 
 putrefy twice, at least, and sometimes three times in a long voyage. 
 In about a month after it has been at sea, when the bung is taken out 
 of the cask, it sends up a noisome and dangerous vapour, which would 
 take fire upon the application of a candle.* The whole body of the 
 water then is found replete with little worm-like insects, that float, 
 with great briskness, through all its parts. These generally live for 
 about a couple of days ; and then dying, by depositing their spoils, 
 for a while increase the putrefaction. After a time, the heavier 
 parts o f these sinking to the bottom, the lighter float, in a scum, at the 
 top ; and this is what mariners call, the water's purging itself. Thens 
 $ still, however, another race of insects, which are bred, very proba- 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. v. part ii. p. 71.
 
 T4 A HISTORY OF 
 
 bly, from the spoils of the former ; and produce, after some time, 
 similar appearances ; these dying, the water is then thought to change 
 no more. However, it very often happens, especially in hot climates, 
 that nothing can drive these nauseous insects from the ship's store 
 of water. They often increase to a very disagreeable and frightful 
 size, so as to deter the mariner, though parching with thirst, from 
 tasting that cup which they have contaminated. 
 
 This water, as thus described, therefore, is a very different fluid 
 from that simple elementary substance upon which philosophical the- 
 ories have been founded ; and concerning the nature of which there 
 have been so many disputes. Elementary water is no way compound- 
 ed ; but is without taste, smell, or colour ; and incapable of being dis- 
 cerned by any of the senses, except the touch. This is the famous 
 dissolvent of the chymists, into which, as they have boasted, they can 
 reduce all bodies ; and which makes up all other substances, only by 
 putting on a different disguise. In some forms, it is fluid, transparent, 
 and evasive of the touch ; in others, hard, firm, and elastic. In some, 
 it is stiffened by cold ; in others, dissolved by fire. According to 
 them, it only assumes external shapes from accidental causes ; but the 
 mountain is as much a body of water, as the cake of ice that melts on 
 its brow ; and even the philosopher himself is composed of the same 
 materials with the cloud or meteor which he contemplates. 
 
 Speculation seldom rests where it begins. Others disallowing the 
 universality of this substance, will not allow that in a state of nature 
 there is any such thing as water at all. " What assumes the appear- 
 ance," say they, " is nothing more than melted ice. Ice is the real ele- 
 ment of Nature's making ; and when found in a state of fluidity, it is 
 then in a state of violence. All substances are naturally hard ; but 
 some more readi'y melt with heat than others. It requires a great 
 heat to melt iron ; a smaller heat will melt copper : silver, gold, tin, 
 and lead, melt with smaller still : ice, which is a body like the rest, 
 melts with a very moderate warmth ; and quicksilver melts with the 
 smallest warmth of all. Water, therefore, is but ice kept in continual 
 fusion ; and still returning to its former state, when the heat is taken 
 away." Between these opposite opinions, the controversy has been 
 carried on with great ardour, and much has been written on both 
 sides ; and yet, when we come to examine the debate, it will proba- 
 bly terminate in this question, whether cold or heat first began their 
 operations upon water ? This is a fact of very little importance, 
 if known ; and, what is more, it is a fact we can never know. 
 
 Indeed, if we examine into the operations of cold and heat upon 
 water, we shall find that they produce somewhat similar effects. Wa- 
 ter dilates in its bulk, by heat, to a very considerable degree ; and, 
 what is more extraordinary, it is likewise dilated by cold, in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Jf water be placed over a fire, it grows gradually larger in bulk, as 
 it becomes hot, until it begins to boil ; after which no art can either 
 increase its bulk or its heat. By increasing the fire, indeed, i. 
 may be more quicKiy evaporated away ; but its heat and its bulk still 
 outinue the same. By the expanding of this fluid, by heat, philoso- 
 phers have found a way to determine the warmth or the coldo?ss
 
 THE EARTH. . . 75 
 
 of other bodies : for if put into a glass tube, by its swelling and rising 
 it shows the quantity of heat in the body to which it is applied ; by its 
 contracting and sinking, it shows the absence of the same.' Instead 
 of using water in this instrument, which is called a thermometer, they 
 now make use of spirit of wine, which is not apt to freeze, and which 
 is endued even with a greater expansion by heat than water. The 
 instrument consists of nothing more than a hollow ball of glass, with 
 a long tube growing out of it. This being partly filled with spirits of 
 wine tinctured red, so as to be seen when it rises, the ball is plunged 
 into boiling water, which making the spirit witmn expand and rise in 
 the tube, the water marks the greatest height to which it ascends ; at 
 this point the tube is to be broken off, and then hermetically sec Jed, 
 by melting the glass with a blow-pipe : a scale being placed by the 
 side, completes the thermometer. Now as the fluid expands or con- 
 denses with heat or cold, it will rise and fall in the tube in proportion ; 
 and the degree or quantity of ascent or descent will be seen in the scale. 
 
 No fire, as was said, can make water hotter, after it begins to boil. 
 We can, therefore, at any time be sure of an equable certain heat ; 
 which is that of boiling water, which is invariably the same. The 
 certainty of such a heat is not less useful than the instrument that 
 measures it. It affords a standard, fixed, degree of heat over the 
 whole world ; boiling water being as hot hi Greenland, as upon the 
 coasts of Guinea. One fire is more intense than another ; of heat 
 there are various degrees ; but boiling water is a heat every where 
 the same, and easily procurable. 
 
 As heat thus expands water, so cold, when it is violent enough to 
 freeze the same, produces exactly the same effect, and expands it like- 
 wise. Thus water is acted upon in the same manner by two opposite 
 qualities ; being dilated by both. As a proof that it is dilated by 
 cold, we have only to observe the ice floating on the surface of a 
 pond, which it would not do were it not dilated, and grown more 
 bulky, by freezing, than the water, which remains unfroze. Mr. 
 Boyle, however, put the matter past a doubt, by a variety of experi- 
 ments.* Having poured a proper quantity of water into a strong 
 earthen vessel, he exposed it, uncovered, to the open air, in frosty 
 nights ; and observed, that continually the ice reached higher than the 
 water, before it was frozen. He filled also a tube with water, and 
 stopped both ends with wax : the water, wht,n frozen, was found to 
 push out the stopples from both ends ; and a rod of ice appeared at 
 each end of the tube, which showed how much it was swollen by the 
 cold within. 
 
 From hence, therefore, we may be very certain ^/ the cold's dilat- 
 ing of the water ; and experience also shows, that the force of this 
 expansion has been found as great as any which heat has been found 
 to produce. The touch-hole of a strong gun-barrel being stopped, 
 and a plug of iron forcibly driven into the muzzle, after the barrel 
 had been filled with water, it was placed in a mixture of ice and salt ; 
 the plug, though soldered to the barrel, at first gave way, but being 
 fixed in more firmly, within a quarter of an hour the gun-barrei burs! 
 
 * Boyle, vol. i. p. 610.
 
 rt> A HISTORY OF 
 
 wifn a loud noise, and blew up the cover of the box wherein it lay 
 Such is its force in an ordinary experiment. But it has been knowr 
 lo burst cannons, filled with water, and then left to freeze ; for the 
 cold congealing the water, and the ice swelling, it became irresistible. 
 The bursting of rocks, by frost, which is frequent in the northern cli- 
 mates, and is sometimes seen in our own, is an equal proof of the ex 
 pansion of congealed water. For having by some means insinuated 
 itself into the body of the rock, it has remained there till the cold was 
 sufficient to afl'ect it by congelation. But when once frozen, no ob- 
 stacle is able to confine it from dilating; and, if it cannot otherwise 
 find room, the rock must burst asunder. 
 
 This alteration in the bulk of water might have served as a proof that 
 it was capable of being compressed into a narrower space than it oc- 
 cupied before ; but, till of late, water was held to be incompressible. 
 The general opinion was, that no art whatsoever could squeeze it intc 
 a narrower compass; that no power on earth, for instance, could 
 force a pint of water into a vessel that held a hair's-breadth less than 
 a pint. And this, said they, appears from the famous Florentine ex- 
 periment ; where the water, rather than suffer compressure, was seen 
 to ooze through the pores of the solid metal ; and, at length, making 
 a cleft in the side, spur ~ut with great vehemence. But later trials 
 have proved that water is very compressible, and partakes of that 
 elasticity which every other body possesses in some degree. In- 
 deed, had not mankind been dazzled by the brilliancy of one incon- 
 clusive experiment, there were numerous reasonstoconvince them of 
 its having the same properties with other substances. Ic, which is 
 water in another state, is very elastic. A stone, flung slantingly 
 along the surface of a pond, bounds from the water several times ; 
 which shows it to be elastic also. But the trials of Mr. Canton have 
 put this past all doubt ; which being somewhat similar to those of the 
 great Boyle, who pressed it with weights properly applied, carry suf 
 ficient conviction. 
 
 What has been hitherto related, is chiefly applicable to the element 
 of water alone ; but its fluidity is a property that it possesses in com- 
 mon with several other substances, in other respects greatly differing 
 from it. That quality which gives rise to the definition of a fluid, 
 namely, that its parts are in a continual intestine motion, seems ex- 
 tremely applicable to water. What the shapes of those parts are, it 
 would be vain to attempt to discover. Every trial only shows the fu- 
 tility of the attempt; all we find is, that they are extremely minute; 
 and that they roll over each other with the greatest ease. Some, in- 
 deed, from this property alone, have not hesitated to pronounce them 
 globular ; and we have, in all our hydrostatical books, pictures of 
 these little globes in a state of sliding and rolling over each other. 
 But all this is merely the work of imagination ; we know that sub- 
 stances of any kind, reduced very small, assume a fluid appearance, 
 somewhat resembling that of water. Mr. Boyle, after finely powder, 
 ing and sifting a little dry powder of Plaster of Paris, put it in a ves- 
 sel over the fire, where it soon began to boil like water, exhibiting all the 
 motions and appearances of a boiling liquor. Although but a povvdei, 
 the parts of which we know are vory different from erch < th*r, and
 
 THE EARTH. 77 
 
 just as accident has formed them, yet it heaved in great waves like 
 water. Upon agitation, a heavy body will sink to the bottom, and 
 a light one emerge to the top. There is no reason, then, to suppose 
 the figure of the parts of water round, since we see their fluidity very 
 well imitated by a composition, the parts of which are of various forms 
 and sizes. The shape of the parts of water, therefore, we must be 
 content to continue ignorant of. All we know is, that earth, air, and 
 lire, conduce to separate the parts from each other. 
 
 Earthy substances divide the parts from each other, and keep them 
 asunder. This division may be so great, that the water will entirely 
 lose its fluidity thereby. Mud, potter's* clay, and dried bricks, are but 
 so many different combinations of earth and water, each substance in 
 which the parts of water are most separated from each other, appear- 
 ing to be the most dry. In some substances, indeed, where the parts 
 of water are greatly divided, as in porcelain, for instance, it is no easy 
 matter to recover and bring them together again ; but they continue 
 in a manner fixed and united to the manufactured clay. This cir- 
 cumstance led Doctor Cheney into a very peculiar strain of thinking. 
 He suspected that the quantity of water, on the surface of the earth, 
 was daily decreasing. For, says he, some parts of it are continually 
 joined to vegetable, animal, and mineral substances, which no art can 
 again recover. United with these, the water loses its fluidity ; for if y 
 continues he, we separate a few particles of any fluid, and fasten them 
 to a solid body, or keep them asunder, they will be fluid no longer 
 To produce fluidity, a considerable number of such particles are re- 
 quired ; but here they are close, and destitute of their natural proper* 
 ties. Thus, according to him, the world is growing every day harder 
 and harder, and the earth firmer and firmer ; and there may come a 
 time when every object around us may be stiffened in universal frigidi- 
 ty ! However, we have causes enough of anxiety in this world already, 
 not to add this preposterous concern to the number. 
 
 That air also contributes to divide the parts of water, we can have 
 no manner of doubt ; some have even disputed whether water be not 
 capable of being turned into air. However, though this cannot be 
 allowed, it must be granted, that it may be turned into a substance 
 which greatly resembles air (as we have seen in the experiment of the 
 relipile) with all its properties; except that, by cold, this new-made 
 air may be condensed again into water. 
 
 But of all the substances which tend to divide the parts of water, 
 fire is the most powerful. Water, when heated into steam, acquires 
 such force, and the parts of it tend to fly off from each other with such 
 violence, that no earthly substance we know of is strong enough to 
 confine them. A single drop of water, converted into steam, has been 
 found capable of raising a weight of twenty tons ; and would have 
 raised twenty thousand, were the vessel confining it sufficiently strong. 
 and the fire below increased in proportion. 
 
 From this easy yielding of its parts to external pressure, arises the 
 art of determining the specific gravity of bodies by plunging them in 
 water; with many other useful discoveries in that part of natural phi" 
 'osophy, called hydrostatics. The laws of this science, which Ai- 
 thimedes began, and Pascal, with some other of the moderns, have
 
 78 A HISTORY OF 
 
 much improved, rather belongs to experimental than to natural histo- 
 ry. However, 1 will take leave to mention some of the most striking 
 paradoxes in this branch of science, which are as well confirmed by 
 experiment, as rendered universal by theory. It would, indeed, be 
 unpardonable, while discoursing on the properties of water, to omit 
 giving some account of the manner in which it sustains such im- 
 mense bulks as we see floating upon its soft and yielding surface : 
 how some bodies, that are known f o sink at one time, swim with ease, 
 if their surface be enlarged : how the heaviest body, even gold itself, 
 may be made to swim upon water ; and how the lightest, such as 
 cork, shall remain sunk at the bottom : how the pouring in of a sin- 
 gle quart of water, will burst a hogshead hooped with iron : and how 
 it ascends, in pipes, from the valley, to travel over the mountain : 
 these are circumstances that are at first surprising ; but, upon a slight 
 consideration, lose their wonder. 
 
 * In order to conceive the manner in vnich all these wonders are 
 effected, we must begin by observing tnat water is possessed of an in- 
 variable property, which has not hitherto been mentioned ; that of 
 always keeping its surface level and even. Winds, indeed, may raise 
 it into waves : or art spurt it up in fountains ; but ever, when left to 
 itself, it sinks into a smooth even surface, of which no part is higher 
 than another. If I should pour water, for instance, into the arm of a 
 pipe of the shape of the letter U, the fluid would rise in the other arm 
 
 {'ust to the same height ; because, otherwise, it would not find its 
 evel, which it invariably maintains. A pipe bending from one hill 
 down into the valley, and rising by another, may be considered as a 
 tube of this kind, in which the water, sinking in one arm, rises to 
 maintain its level in the other. Upon this principle all water-pipes 
 depend ; which can never raise the water higheV than the fountain 
 from which they proceed. 
 
 Again, let us suppose for a moment, that the arms of the pipe al- 
 ready mentioned, may be made long or short at pleasure ; and let us 
 still further suppose, that there is some obstacle at the bottom of it, 
 which prevents the water poured into one arm, from rising in the 
 other. Now it is evident, that this obstacle at the bottom will sustain 
 a pressure from the water in one arm, equal to what would make it 
 rise in the other ; and this pressure will be great, in proportion as 
 the arm filled with water is tall. We may, therefore, generally con- 
 clude, that the bottom of every vessel is pressed by a force, in pro- 
 portion to the height of the water in that vessel. For instance, if the 
 vessel filled with water be forty feet high, the bottom of that vessel 
 will sustain such a pressure as would raise the same water forty feet 
 high, which is very great. From hence we see how extremely apt 
 our pipes, that convey water to the city, are to burst ; for descending 
 from a hill of more than forty feet high, they are pressed by the wa- 
 ter contained in them, with a force equal to what would raise it to 
 more than forty feet high ; and that this is sometime^ able to burst a 
 wooden pipe, we can have no room to doubt of. 
 
 In the above sketch, the manner of demonstrating used by Monsieur D'Alemrwrt k 
 wade use o as the most obvious, and the most satisfactory. Vide Essai sur, &o.
 
 THE EARTH T9 
 
 Still recurring to our pipe, let us suppose one of its arms ten times 
 is thick as the other; this will produce no effect whatsoever upon the 
 obstacle below, which we supposed hindered its rise in the other arm ; 
 because, how thick soever the pipe may be, its contents would only rise 
 to its own level ; and it will, therefore, press the obstacle with a force 
 equal thereto. We may, therefore, universally conclude, that the 
 bottom of any vessel is pressed by its water, not as it is broad or 
 narrow, but in proportion as it is high. Thus the water contained 
 in a vessel not thicker than my finger, presses its bottom as forcibly 
 as the water contained in a hogshead of an equal height ; and. if we 
 made holes in the bottoms of both, the water would burst out as 
 forceful from the one as the other. Hence we may, with great ease, 
 burst a hogshead with a single quart of water ; and it has been often 
 done. We have only,* for this, to place a hogshead on one end, fill 
 ed with water; we then bore a hole in its top, into which we plant a 
 narrow tin pipe, of about thirty feet high : by pouring a quart of water 
 into this, at the top, as it continues to rise higher in the pipe, it will 
 press more forcibly on the bottom and sides of the hogshead below, 
 and at last burst it. 
 
 Still returning to our simple instrument of demonstration. If wo 
 suppose the obstacle at the bottom of the pipe to be moveable, so as 
 that the force of the water can push it up into the other arm ; such a 
 body as quicksilver, for instance. Now, it is evident, that the weight 
 of water weighing down upon this quicksilver in one arm, will at last 
 press it up in the other arm ; and will continue to press it upward, 
 until the fluid in both arms be upon a par. So that here we actually 
 see quicksilver, the heaviest substance in the world, except gold and 
 platina, floating upon water, which is but a very light substance. 
 
 -When we see water thus capable of sustaining quicksilver, we 
 need not be surprised that it is capable of floating much lighter sub- 
 stances, ships, animals, or timber . When any thing floats upon wa- 
 ter, we always see that a part of it sinks in the same. A cork, a ship, 
 a buoy, each buries itself in a bed on the surface of the water ; this bed 
 may be considered as so much water displaced ; the water will, there- 
 fore, lose SQ much of its own weight, as is equal to the weight of that 
 bed of water which it displaces. If the body be heavier than a simi- 
 lar bulk of water, it will sink ; if lighter, it will swim. Universally, 
 therefore, a body plunged in water, loses as much of its weight as is 
 equal to the weight of a body of water of its own bulk. Some light 
 bodies, therefore, such as cork, lose much of their weight, and there- 
 fore swim ; other more ponderous bodies sink, because they are 
 heavier than their bulk of water. 
 
 Upon this simple theorem entirely depends the art of weighing 
 metals hydrostatically. I have" a guinea, for instance, and desire 
 to know whether it be pure gold ; I have weighed it in the usual 
 way with another guinea, and find it exactly of the same weight, 
 but still I have some ''suspicion, from its greater hulk, that it is not 
 pure. In order to determine this, I have nothing more to do than to 
 weigh it in water with that same guinea that I know to be good, aud 
 
 * Nollet's Lectures.
 
 80 A HISTORY OF 
 
 of the same weight ; and this will instantly show the difference ; fo, 
 the true ponderous metal will sink, and the false bulky one will be 
 sustained in proportion to the greatness of its surface. Those whose 
 business it is to examine the purity of metals, have a balance made 
 for this purpose, by which they can precisely determine which is 
 most ponderous, or, as it is expressed, which has the greatest specific 
 gravity. Seventy-one pounds and a half of quicksilver is found to bo 
 equal in bulk to a hundred pounclsweight of gold. In the same pro 
 portion sixty of lead, fifty-four of silver, forty-seven of copper, forty 
 fiv< of brass, forty-two of iron, and thirty-nine of tin, are each equa\ 
 to a hundred pounds of the same most ponderous of all metals. 
 
 This method of precisely determining the purity of gold, by weigh- 
 ing in water, was first discovered by Archimedes, to whom mankinc 
 have been indebted for many useful discoveries. Hiero, king of Sici 
 ly, having sent a certain quantity of gold to be made into a crowi., 
 the workman, it seems, kept a part for his own use, and supplied the 
 deficiency witli a baser metal. His fraud was suspected by the king, 
 but could not be detected ; till applying to Archimedes, he weighed 
 the crown in water; and, by this method, informed the king of the 
 quantity of gold which was taken away. 
 
 It has been said, that all fluids endeavour to preserve their level ; 
 and, likewise, that a body pressing on the surface, tended to destroy 
 that level. From hence, therefore, it will easily be inferred, that the 
 deeper any body sinks, the gre.'.ter will be the resistance of the de 
 pressed fluid beneath. It will be asked, therefore, as the resistance 
 increases in proportion as the body descends, how comes the body, 
 after it is got a certain way, to sink at all ? The answer is obvious. 
 From the fluid above pressing it down with almost as great a force as 
 the fluid beneath presses it up. Take away, by any art, the pressure of 
 the fluid from above, and let only the resistance of the fluid from be- 
 low be suffered to act, and after the body is gone down very deep, the 
 resistance will be insuperable. To give an instance : a small hole 
 opens in the bottom of a ship at sea, forty feet, we will suppose be- 
 low the surface of the water ; through this the water bursts up with 
 great violence ; I attempt to stop it with my hand, but it pushes the 
 hand violently away. Here the hand is, in fact, a body attempting to 
 .sink upon water, at a depth of forty feet, with the pressure from above 
 taken away. The water, therefore, will overcame my strength ; and 
 will continue to burst in till it has got to its level : if I should then 
 dive into the hold, and clap my hand upon the opening, as before, I 
 should perceive no force acting against my hand at all : for the water 
 above presses the hand as much down against the hole, as the water 
 without presses it upward. For this reason, also, when we dive to 
 the bottom of the water, we sustain a very great pressure from above, 
 it is true, but it is counteracted by the pressure from below ; and the 
 whole acting uniformly on the surface of the body, wraps us close 
 round without injury. 
 
 As I have deviated thus far, I will just mention one or two proper- 
 ties more, which water, and all such like fluids, is found to possess. 
 And, first, their ascending in vessels which are emptied of air, as in 
 *ui common pumps for instance. The air, however, being the agent
 
 THE EARTH. s\ 
 
 m this case, we must previously examine its prc perties, before we un- 
 dertake the explanation. The other property to be mentioned is, that 
 of their ascending in small capillary tubes. This is one of the mos; 
 extraordinary and inscrutable appearances in nature. Glass tubes 
 may be drawn, by means of a lamp, as fine as a hair ; still preserving 
 their hollow within. If one of these be planted in a vessel of water, or 
 spirit of wine, the liquor will immediately be seen to ascend ; and it 
 will rise higher, in proportion as the tube is smaller ; a foot, two feet, 
 and more. How does this come to pass ? Is the air the cause ? No : 
 the liquor rises, although the air be taken away. Is attraction the 
 cause ? No : for quicksilver does not ascend, which it otherwise would. 
 Many have been the theories of experimental philosophers to explain 
 this property. Such as are fond of travelling in the regions of conjecture, 
 may consult Hawksbee, Morgan, Jurin, or Watson, who have examined 
 the subject with great minuteness. Hitherto, however, nothing but 
 doubts, instead of knowledge, have been the result of their inquiries. 
 It will not, therefore, become us to enter into the minuteness of the 
 inquiry, when we have so many great wonders to call our attention 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OP THE ORIGIN OF RIVERS. 
 
 " THE sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and pants for the 
 " place from whence he arose. All things are filled with labour, and 
 " man cannot utter it. All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not 
 " full. Unto the place whence the rivers come, thither they return 
 " again. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hear- 
 " ing."* Thus speaks the wisest of the Jews. And at so early a 
 period was the' curiosity of man employed in observing these great 
 circulations of nature. Every eye attempted to explain those appear- 
 ances ; and every philosopher who has long thought upon the subject, 
 seems to give a peculiar solution. The inquiry whence rivers are pro. 
 duced ; whence they derive those unceasing stores of water, which 
 continually enrich the world with fertility and verdure, has been va- 
 riously considered, and divided the opinions of mankind more than 
 any other topic in natural history. 
 
 In this contest the various champions may be classed under two 
 leaders. M. De La Hire, who contends that rivers must be supplied 
 from the sea, strained through the pores of the earth ; and Dr. Halley, 
 ivho has endeavoured to demonstrate that the clouds alone are suf- 
 ficient for the supply. Both sides have brought in mathematics to 
 their aid ; and have shown that long and laborious calculations can at 
 any time be made to obscure both sides of a question. 
 
 De La Hiret begins his proofs, that rain-water, evaporated from 
 \he sea, is sufficient for the production of rivers ; by showing, that 
 
 Ecclesiastes, chap. i. 5, 7, 8. t Hl st. de I'Acad. 1713, p. 56. 
 
 VOL. 1. F
 
 82 A HISTORy OF 
 
 ram never penetrates the surface of the earth above sixteen inches. 
 From thencs he infers, that it is impossible for it, in many cases, to 
 sink so as to be found at such considerable depths below. Rain-wa- 
 ter, he grants, is often seen to mix with rivers, and to swell their cur 
 rents ; but a much greater part of it evaporates. " In fact," con- 
 tinues he, " if we suppose the earth every where covered with wa- 
 ter, evaporation alone would be sufficient to carry off two feet nine 
 inches of it in a year : and yet we very well know, that scarce nine- 
 teen inches of rain-water falls in that time; so that evaporation would 
 carry off a much greater quantity than is ever known to descend. 
 The small quantity of rain-water that falls is, therefore, but barely 
 sufficient for the purposes of vegetation. Two leaves of a fig-tree 
 have been found, by experiment, to imbibe from the earth, in five 
 hours and a half, two ounces of water. This implies the great quan- 
 tity of fluid that must be exhausted in the maintenance of one single 
 plant. Add to this, that the waters of the river Rungis will, by cal- 
 culation, rise to fifty inches ; and the whole country from whence they 
 are supplied never receives fifty inches in the year by rain. Besides 
 this, there are many salt springs, which are known to proceed imme- 
 diately from the sea, and are subject to its flux and. reflux. In short, 
 wherever we dig beneath the surface of the earth, except in a very 
 few instances, water is to be found : and it is by this subterraneous 
 water, that springs and rivers, nay, a great part of vegetation itself, is 
 supported. It is this subterraneous water which is raised into, steam. 
 by the internal heat of the earth, that feeds plants. It is this subter- 
 raneous water that distils through its interstices ; and there, cooling, 
 forms fountains. It is this, that, by the addition of rains, is increas* 
 ed into rivers, and pours plenty over the whole earth." 
 
 On the other side of the question,* it is asserted, that the vapours 
 which are exhaled from the sea, and driven by the winds upon land, 
 are more than sufficient to supply not only plants with moisture, but 
 also to furnish a sufficiency of water to the greatest rivers. For this 
 purpose, an estimate has been made of the quantity of water emptied 
 at the mouths of the greatest rivers ; and of the quantity also raised 
 from the sea by evaporation ; and it has been found, that the latter 
 by far exceeds the former. This calculation was made by Mr. Mar- 
 riotte. By him it was found, upon receiving such rain as fell in a year, 
 in a proper vessel fitted for that purpose, that, one year with another, 
 there might fall about twenty inches of water upon the surface of the 
 earth, throughout Europe. It was also computed that the river Seine, 
 from its source to the city of Paris, might cover an extent of ground, 
 that would supply it annually with above seven billions of cubic feet 
 of this water, formed by evaporation. But upon computing the quan- 
 tity which passed through the arches of one of its bridges in a year, 
 it was found to amount only to two hundred and eighty millions of cubic 
 h;et, which is not above the sixth part of the former number. Hence, 
 therefore, it appears, that this river may receive a supply, brought to 
 it by the evaporated waters of the sea, six times greater than what it 
 gives back to the sea by its current ; and therefore, evaporation is more 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 128.
 
 THE EARTH. 83 
 
 than sufficient for maintaining the greatest rivers, and supplying the 
 purposes also of vegetation. 
 
 In this manner the sea supplies sufficient humidity to the air for 
 furnishing the earth with all necessary moisture. One part of its va- 
 pours fall upon its own bosom, before they arrive upon land. Another 
 part is arrested by the sides of mountains, and is compelled, bv t!ir 
 rising stream of air, to mount upward towards the summits. Here it is 
 presently precipitated, dripping down by the crannies of the stone. 
 In some places, entering into the caverns of the mountain, it gathers 
 in those receptacles, which being once filled, all the rest overflows ; 
 and breaking out by the sides of the hills, forms single springs. Many 
 of these run down by the valleys, or guts, between the ridges of the 
 mountain, and, coming to unite, form little rivulets or brooks ; many 
 of these meeting in one common valley, and gaining the plain ground, 
 being grown less rapid, become a river : and many of these uniting, 
 make such vast bodies of water, as the Rhine, the Rhone, and the 
 Danube. 
 
 There is still a third part, which falls upon the lower grounds, and 
 furnishes plants with their wonted supply. But the circulation does 
 not rest even here ; for it is again exhaled into vapour by the action 
 of the sun ; and afterwards returned to that great mass of waters 
 whence it first arose. " This," adds Dr. Halley, " seems the most 
 reasonable hypothesis ; and much more likely to be true, than that of 
 those who derive all springs from -the filtering of the sea-waters, 
 through certain imaginary tubes or passages within the earth ; since it 
 is well known that the greatest rivers have their most copious foun- 
 tains the most remote from the sea."* 
 
 This seems the most general opinion ; and yet, after all, it is still 
 pressed with great difficulties ; and there is still room to look out for 
 a better theory. The perpetuity of many springs, which always yield 
 the same quantity when the least rain or vapour is afforded, as well 
 as when the greatest, is a strong objection. . Derhamt mentions, a 
 spring at Upminster, which he could never perceive by his eye to be 
 diminished, in the greatest droughts, even when all the ponds in the 
 country, as well as an adjoining brook, have been dry for several months 
 together. In the rainy seasons, also, it was never overflowed ; ex- 
 cept sometimes, perhaps, for an hour or so, upon the immission of the 
 external rains. He, therefore, justly enough concludes, that had this 
 spring its origin from rain or vapour, there would be found an increase 
 or decrease of its water, corresponding to the causes of its production. 
 
 Thus the' reader, after* having been tossed from one hypothesis to 
 another, must at last be content to settle in conscious ignorance. All 
 that has been written upon this subject, affords him rather something 
 to say, than something to think ; something rather for others than for 
 himself. Varenius, indeed, although he is at a loss for the origin of 
 rivers, is by no means so as to their formation. He is pretty positive 
 that all rivers are artificial. He boldly asserts, that their channels 
 <iave b^en originally formed by the industry of man. His reasons aro, 
 that when a new spring breaks forth, the water does not make itself 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 128. f Derham Physico TheoL
 
 8* A HISTORY OF 
 
 new Channel, but spreads over the adjacent land. " Thus," says hr v 
 *' mm are obliged to direct its course ; or, otherwise, Nature vvould 
 never have found one." He enumerates many rivers that art; cer- 
 tainly known, from history, to have been dug by men. He alleges, 
 that no salt-water rivers are found, because men did not want salt- 
 water ; and as for salt, that was procurable at a less expense than dig- 
 ging a river for it. However, it costs a speculative man but a small 
 expense of thinking to form such a hypothesis. It may, perhaps, en- 
 gross the reader's patience to detain him longer upon it. 
 
 Nevertheless, though Philosophy be thus ignorant, as to the pro- 
 duction of rivers, yet the laws of their motion, and the nature of their 
 currents, have been very well explained. The Italians have particu- 
 larly distinguished themselves in this respect ; and it is chiefly to them 
 that we are indebted for the improvement.* 
 
 All rivers have their source either in mountains, or elevated lakes ; 
 and it is in their descent from these that they acquire that velocity 
 which maintains their future current. At first their course is gene- 
 rally rapid and headlong ; but it is retarded in its journey, by the 
 continual friction against its banks, by the many obstacles it meets to 
 divert its stream, and by the plains generally becoming more level as 
 it approaches towards the sea. 
 
 If this acquired velocity be quite spent, and the plain through whicb 
 the river passes is entirely level, it will, notwithstanding, still continue 
 to run from the perpendicular pressure of the water, which is always 
 in exact proportion to the depth. This perpendicular pressure is 
 nothing more than the weight of the upper waters pressing the lower 
 out of their places, and, consequently, driving them forward, as they 
 cannot recede against the stream. As this pressure is greatest in the 
 deepest parts of the river, so we generally find the middle of the 
 stream most rapid ; both because it has the greatest motion thus com- 
 municated by the pressure, and the fewest obstructions from the banks 
 an either side. 
 
 Rivers thus set into motion are almost always found to make their 
 own beds. Where they find the bed elevated, they wear its substance 
 away, and deposit the sediment in the next hollow, so as in time to 
 make the bottom of their channels even. On the other hand, the wa- 
 ter is continually gnawing and eating away the banks on each side ; 
 and this with more force as the current happens to strike more directly 
 against them. By these means it always has a tendency to render 
 them more straight and parallel to its own course. Thus it continues 
 to rectify its banks, and enlarge its bed ; and, consequently to diminish 
 the force of its stream, till there becomes an equilibrium between the 
 force of the water, and the resistance of its banks, upon which both 
 will remain without any further mutation. And it is happy for man 
 that bounds are thus put to the erosion of the earth by water ; and 
 that we find all rivers only dig and widen themselves but to a certain 
 degree.t 
 
 In those plains| and large valleys where great rivers flow, the bed 
 nf the river is usually lower than any part of the valley. li"t t often 
 
 S. Guglielinini della Natura de Fiumi, passim. f Ibid 
 
 I Buffon, de Fleuves, passim, vol. ii.
 
 THE EARTH, 85 
 
 happens, that the surface of the water is higher than ma,y of the 
 grounds that are adjacent to the banks of the stream. If, after inun- 
 dations, we take a view of some rivers, we shall find their banks ap- 
 pear above water, at a time that all the adjacent valley is overflowed. 
 This proceeds from the frequent deposition of mud, and such like 
 substances, upon the banks, by the rivers frequently overflowing; and 
 thus, by degrees, they become elevated above the plain ; and the wa- 
 ler is often seen higher also. 
 
 Rivers, as every body has seen, are always broadest at the mouth, 
 and grow narrower towards their source. But what is less known, 
 and probably more deserving curioshy, is, that they run in a more di- 
 rect channel as they immediately leave their sources ; and that their 
 sinuosities and turnings become more numerous as they proceed. It 
 is a certain sign among the savages of North America, that they are 
 near the sea when they find the rivers winding, and every now and 
 then changing their direction. And this is even now become an in- 
 dication to the Europeans themselves, in their journeys through those 
 trackless forests. As those sinuosities, therefore, increase as the river 
 approaches the sea, it is not to be wondered at that they sometimes 
 divide, and thus disembogue by different channels. The Danube dis- 
 embogues into the Euxine by seven mouths; the Nile by the same 
 number ; and the Wolga by seventy. 
 
 The currents* of rivers are to be estimated very differently 'from 
 the manner in which those writers who have given us mathematical 
 theories on this subject, represent them. They found their calcula- 
 tions upon the surface being a perfect plain from one bank to the other : 
 but this is not the actual state of nature ; for rivers, in general, rise 
 in the middle ; and this convexity is greatest in proportion as the ra- 
 pidity of the stream is greater. Any person to be convinced of this, 
 need only lay his eye, as nearly as he can, on a level with the stream, 
 and looking across to the opposite bank, he will perceive the river in 
 the midst to be elevated considerably above what it is at the edges. 
 This rising, in some rivers, is often found to be three feet high ; and 
 is ever increased in proportion to the rapidity of the stream. In this 
 case, the water in the midst of the current loses a part of its weight, 
 from the velocity of its motion ; while that at the sides, for the con- 
 trary reason, sinks lower. It sometimes, however, happens, that this 
 appearance is reversed ; for when tides are found to flow up with vi- 
 olence Hgainst the natural current of the water, the greatest rapidity is 
 then found at the sides of the river, as the water there least resists the 
 influx from the sea. On those occasions, therefore, the river presents 
 a concave rather than a convex surface ; and, as in the former case, 
 the middle waters rose in a ridge, in this case they sink in a fur- 
 row. 
 
 The stream of all rivers is more rapid in proportion as its channe) 
 is diminished. For instance, it will be much swifter where it is ten 
 yards broad, than where it is twenty ; for the force behind still push- 
 ing the water forward, when it comes to the narrow pait, it musi 
 make up by velocity what it wants In room. 
 
 Rufibn. de Fleuves, passim, vol. ii
 
 56 A HISTORY OF 
 
 It often liappons that the stream of a river is opposed by on& 
 of its jutting banks, by an island in the midst, the arches of a 
 bridge, or some such obstacle. This produces not unfrequently a 
 back current ; and the water having passed the arch with great ve- 
 locity, pushes the water on each side of its direct current. This pro- 
 duces a side current, tending to the bank ; and not unfrequently a 
 whirlpool ; in which a large body of waters are circulated in a kind 
 of cavity, sinking down in the middle. The central point of the 
 whirlpool is always lowest, because it has the least motion : the other 
 parts are supported, in some measure, by the violence of theirs, and 
 consequently rise higher, as their motion is greater ; so that towards 
 the extremity of the whirlpool must be higher, than towards the 
 centre. 
 
 If the stream of a river be stopped at the surface, and yet be 
 free below ; for instance, if it be laid over by a bridge of boats, 
 there will then be a double current ; the water at the surface will 
 flow back, while that at the bottom will proceed with increased ve- 
 locity. It often happens that the current at the bottom is swifter than 
 at the top, when upon violent land-floods, the weight of waters toward 
 the source, presses the waters at the bottom, before it has had time to 
 communicate its motion to the surface. However, in all other cases, 
 the surface of the stream is swifter than the bottom, as it is not re- 
 tarded by rubbing over the bed of the river. 
 
 It might be supposed that bridges, dams, and other obstacles in the 
 current of a river, would retard its velocity. But the difference they 
 make is very inconsiderable. The water, by these stoppages, gets an 
 elevation above the object ; which, when it has surmounted, it gives 
 a velocity that recompenses the former delay. Islands and turnings 
 also retard the course of the stream but very inconsiderably ; any 
 cause which diminishes the quantity of the water, most sensibly di- 
 minishes the force and the velocity of the stream. 
 
 An increase* of water in the bed of the river always increases its 
 rapidity ; except in cases of inundation. The instant the river has 
 overflowed its banks, the velocity of its current is always turned that 
 way, and the inundation is perceived to continue for some days; 
 which it would not otherwise do, if, as soon as the cause was discon- 
 tinued, it acquired its former rapidity. 
 
 A violent storm, that sets directly up against the course of the 
 stream, will always retard, and sometimes entirely stop its course. 
 I have seen an instance of this, when the bed of a large river was left 
 entirely dry for some hours, and fish were caught among the stones at 
 the bottom. 
 
 Inundations are generally greater towards the source of rivers than 
 farther down ; because the current is generally swifter below than 
 above ; and that for the reasons already assigned. 
 
 A little rivert may be received into a large one, \vithout augment- 
 ing either its width or depth. This, which at first view seems a para- 
 dox, is yet very easily accounted for. The little river, in this case, 
 only goes towards increasing the swiftness of the largei, aru j putting 
 
 ?.uf!bn, vol. li. p. 62. t Guglifl'mini
 
 THE EARTH. 8? 
 
 its dormant waters into motion. In this manner the \onetian branch 
 of the Po was pushed on by the Ferarese branch and that of Panaro, 
 without any enlargement of its breadth or depth from these acces- 
 sions. 
 
 A river tending to enter another, ^either perpendicularly, 01 in ai 
 opposite direction, will be diverted by degrees from that direction ; 
 and lie obliged to make itself a more favourable entrance downward, 
 md more conspiring with the stream of the former. 
 
 The union of two rivers into one, makes it flow the swifter : since 
 the same quantity of water, instead of rubbing against four shores, 
 now only rubs against two. And, besides, the current being deeper, 
 becomes, of consequence, more fitted for motion. 
 
 With respect to the places from whence rivers proceed, it may be 
 taken for a general rule, that the largest* and highest mountains sup- 
 ply the greatest and most extensive rivers. It may be also remarked, 
 iu whatever direction the ridge of the mountain runs, the river takes 
 an opposite course. If the mountain, for instance, stretches from 
 north to south, the river runs from east to west ; and so contrariwise. 
 These are some of the most generally received opinions with regard 
 to the course of rivers ; however, they are liable to many excep- 
 tions ; and nothing but an actual knowledge of each particular river 
 can furnish us with an exact theory of its current. 
 
 The largest rivers of Europe are, first, the Wolga, which is about 
 six hundred and fifty leagues in length, extending from Reschow to 
 Astrachan. It is remarkable of this river, that it abounds with water 
 during the summer months of May and June ; but all the rest of the 
 year is so shallow as scarce to cover its bottom, or allow a passage 
 for loaded vessels that trade up its stream. It was up this river that 
 the English attempted to trade into Persia, in which they were so un- 
 happily disappointed, in the year 1741. The next in order is the 
 Danube. The course of this is but about four hundred and fifty 
 leagues, from tlie mountains of Switzerland to the Black Sea. It is 
 so deep between Buda and Belgrade, that the Turks and Christians 
 have fleets of men of war upon it ; which frequently engaged, during 
 the last war between the Ottomans and the Austrians ; however, it is 
 unnavigable further down, by reason of its cataracts, which prevent 
 its commerce into the Black Sea. The Don, or Tanais, which is 
 four hundred leagues from the source of that branch of it called the 
 Softna, to its mouth in the Euxine Sea. In one part of its course, it 
 approaches near the Wolga ; and Peter the Great had actually begun 
 a canal, by which he intended joining those two rivers ; but this he 
 did not live to finish. The Nieper, or Boristhenes, which rises in the 
 middle of Muscovy, and runs a course of three hundred and fifty 
 leagues, to empty itself into the Black Sea. The Old Cossacks inhabit 
 the banks and islands of this river; and frequently cross the Black 
 Sea, to plunder the maritime places on the coasts of Turkey. The 
 Dwina ; which takes its rise in a province of the same name in Rus- 
 ^sia, that runs a course of three hundred leagues, and disembogues in 
 to the White Sea, a little below Archangel. 
 
 * Dr. Hallev.
 
 f* A HISTORY OF 
 
 T*}e argest rivers of Asia are, the Hoanho, in China, which is eight 
 h indred and fifty leagues in length, computing from its source at Ra- 
 j* Ribron, to its mouth in the Gulf of Changi. The Jenisca of Tar- 
 tbcy, about eight hundred leagues in length, from the lake Selinga, to 
 ti> Icy Sea. This river is, by some, supposed to supply most of that 
 grat quantity of drift wood which is seen floating in the seas, near the 
 Ai v;tic circle. The Oby, of five hundred leagues, running from the hike 
 of Kila into the Northern Sea. The Amour, in Eastern Tartary, 
 wb ise course is about five hundred and seventy-five leagues, from its 
 source to its entrance into the sea of Kamtschatka. The Kiam, in 
 China, five hundred and fifty leagues in length. The Ganges, one of 
 the most noted rivers in the world, and about us long as the former. 
 It rises in the mountains which separate India from Tartary ; and 
 running through the dominions of the Great Mogul, discharges itself 
 by several mouths into the bay of Bengal. It is not only esteemed 
 by the Indians for the depth and pureness of its stream, but for a sup- 
 posed sanctity which they believe to be in its waters. It is visited 
 annually by several hundred thousand pilgrims, who pay their devo- 
 tions to the river as to a god : for savage simplicity is always known to 
 mistake the blessings of the Deity, for the Deity himself. They car- 
 ry their dying friends from distant countries, to expire on its banks ; 
 and to be buried in its stream. The water is lowest in April or May ; 
 but the rains beginning to fall soon after, the flat country is overflow- 
 ed for several miles, till about the end of September ; the waters then 
 begin to retire, leaving a prolific sediment behind, that enriches the 
 soil, and, in a few days' time, gives a luxuriance to vegetation, beyond 
 what can be conceived by a European. Next to this may be reckon- 
 ed the still more celebrated river Euphrates. This rises from two 
 sources, northward of the city Erzerum, in Turcomania, and unites 
 about three days' journey below the same, from whence, after per- 
 forming a course of five hundred leagues, it falls into the gulf of Per- 
 sia, fifty miles below the city of Bassora in Arabia. The river Indus 
 is extended from its source to' its discharge into the Arabian Sea, four 
 hundred leagues. 
 
 The largest rivers of Africa are, the Senegal, which runs a course 
 of not less than eleven hundred leagues, comprehending the Niger, 
 which some have supposed to fall into it. However, later accounts 
 seem to affirm that the Niger is lost in the sands, about three hundred 
 miles up from the western coasts of Africa. Be this as it may, the 
 Senegal is well known to be navigable for more than three hundred 
 leagues up the country ; and how much higher it may reach is not vet 
 discovered, as the dreadful fatality of the inland parts of Africa, not 
 only deters curiosity, but even avarice, which is a much stronger pas- 
 sion. At the end of last war, of fifty Englishmen that were sent to 
 the factory at Galam, a place taken from the French, and nine hun- 
 dred miles up the river, only one returned to tell the fate of his com- 
 panions, who were destroyed by the climate. The celebrated rivei 
 Nile is said to be nine hundred and seventy leagues, from its source' 
 among the Mountains of the Moon, in Upper ./Ethiopia, to its opening 
 into the Mediterranean Sea. The sources of this river were con- 
 sidered as inscrutable by the ancients; and the causes ofity jieriodi
 
 THE EARTH. 83 
 
 ca. inundation were equally unknown. They have both bebd ascer 
 tained by the missionaries who have travelled into the interior parti 
 of Ethiopia. The Nile takes its rise in the kingdom of Gojam,* 
 from a small aperture on the top of a mountain, which, though not 
 above a foot and a half over, yet was unfathomable. This fountain, 
 when arrived at the foot of the mountain, expands into a river ; 
 and being joined by others, forms a lake thirty leagues long, and as* 
 many broad ; from this, its channel, in some measure, winds back to 
 the country where it first began ; from thence, precipitating by fright- 
 ful cataracts, it travels through a variety of desert regions, equally 
 formidable, such as Amhara, Olaca, Damot, and Xaoa. Upon its ar- 
 rival in the kingdom of Upper Egypt, it runs through a rocky chan- 
 nel, which some late travellers have mistaken for its cataracts. In 
 the beginning of its course, it receives many lesser rivers into it ; and 
 Pliny was mistaken, in saying that it received none. In the begin- 
 ning also of its course, it has many windings ; but, for above three 
 hundred leagues from the sea, it runs in a direct line. Its annual 
 overflowings arise from a very obvious cause, which is almost universal 
 with the great rivers that take their source near the line. The rainy 
 season, which is periodical in those climates, floods the rivers ; and 
 as this always happens in our summer, so the Nile is at that time over- 
 flown. From these inundations, the inhabitants of Egypt derive hap- 
 piness and plenty ; and, when the river does not arise to its accus- 
 tomed heights, they prepare for an indifferent harvest. It begins to 
 overflow about the seventeenth of June; it generally continues to 
 augment for forty days, and decreases in about as many more. The 
 time of increase and decrease, however, is much more inconsiderable 
 now than it was among the ancients. Herodotus informs us, that it 
 was a hundred days rising, and as many falling ; which shows that the 
 inundation was much greater at that time than at present. Mr. Buf- 
 font has ascribed the present diminution, as well to the lessening of 
 the Mountains of the Moon, by their substance having so long been 
 washed down with the stream, as to the rising of the earth in Egypt, 
 that has for so many ages received this extraneous supply. But we 
 do not find, by the buildings that have remained since the times of the 
 ancients, that the earth is much raised since then. Besides the Nile 
 in Africa, we may reckon the Zara, and the Coanza, from the great- 
 ness of whose openings into the sea, and the rapidity of whose streams, 
 we form an estimate of the great distance from whence they come. 
 Their courses, however, are spent in watering deserts and savage 
 countries, whose poverty or fierceness have kept strangers away. 
 
 But of all parts of the world, America, as it exhibits the most lofty 
 mountains, so also it supplies the largest rivers. The foremost of 
 these is the great river Amazon, which, from its source in the lake of 
 Lauricocha, to its discharge into the Western Ocean, performs a 
 rourse of more than twelve hundred leagues.^ The breadth and depth 
 of this river are answerable to Its vast length ; and, where its width is 
 most contracted, its depth is augmented in proportion. So great is 
 die body of its waters, that other rivers, though before the objects of 
 
 * Kircher Mundt. Subt. vol. ii. p. 72. f Buffon, vol. ii. p. 82. J Ulloa, v"l. 1. p. 383
 
 90 A HISTORY OF 
 
 admiration, are lost in its bosom. It proceeds, after their junction, 
 with its usual appearance, without any visible change in its breadth 
 or rapidity ; and, if we may so express it, remains great without os- 
 tentation. In some places it displays its whole magnificence, dividing 
 into several large branches, and encompassing a multitude of islands ; 
 and, at length, discharges itself into the ocean, by a channel of a 
 hundred and fifty miles broad. Another river, that may almost rival 
 the former, is the St. Lawrence, in Canada, which rising in the lake 
 Assiniboils, passes from one lake to another, from Christineaux to 
 Alempigo ; from thence to lake Superior ; thence to the lake Hu- 
 rons ; to lake Erie ; to lake Ontario ; and, at last, after a course of 
 nine hundred leagues, pours their collected waters into the Atlantic 
 Ocean. The river Mississippi is of more than seven hundred leagues 
 in length, beginning at its source near the lake Assiniboils, and end- 
 ing at its opening into the gulf of Mexico. The river Plate runs a 
 length of more than eight hundred leagues from its source in the river 
 Parana, to its mouth. The river Oroonoko is seven hundred and fif- 
 ty-five leagues in length, from its source near Pasto, to its discharge 
 into the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Such-is the amazing length of the greatest rivers ; and even in some 
 of these, the most remote sources very probably yet continue un- 
 known. In fact, if we consider the number of rivers which they re- 
 ceive, and the little acquaintance we have with the regions through 
 which they run, it is not to be wondered at that geographers are di- 
 vided concerning the sources of most of them. As among a number 
 of roots by which nourishment is conveyed to a stately tree, it is dif- 
 ficult to determine precisely that by which the tree is chiefly suppli- 
 ed ; so among the many branches of a great river, it is equally diffi- 
 cult to tell which is the original. Hence it may easily happen, 
 that a smaller branch is taken for the capital stream ; and its runnings 
 are pursued, and delineated, in prejudice of some other branch that 
 better deserved the na'me and the description. In this manner* in 
 Europe, the Danube is known to receive thirty lesser rivers: the 
 Wolga, thirty-two or thirty-three. In Asia, the Hohano receives 
 thirty-five ; the Jenisca above sixty ; the Oby as many ; the Amour 
 about forty ; the Nanquin receives thirty rivers ; the Ganges twen- 
 ty ; and the Euphrates about eleven. In Africa, the Senegal receives 
 more than twenty rivers ; the Nile receives not one for five hundred 
 leagues upwards, and then only twelve or thirteen. In America, the 
 river Amazon receives above sixty, and those very considerable ; 
 he river St. Lawrence about forty, counting those which fall into its 
 lakes ; the Mississippi receives forty ; and the river Plate above fifty. 
 
 I mentioned the inundations of the Ganges and the Nile, but almost 
 every other great river whose source lies within the tropics, have 
 their stated inundations also. The river Pegu has been called, by 
 tra\ oilers, the Indian Nile, because of^the similar overflowings of its 
 stream : this it does to an extent of thirty leagues on each side : and 
 o fei tilizes the soil, that the inhabitants send great quantities of rice 
 into other countries, and have still abundance for their own CMHSI mp- 
 
 * Ruffon, vol. li. p. 74.
 
 THE EATTF. 91 
 
 tion. The river Senegal has likewise its inimr'ations, which cover 
 the whole flat country of Negroland, beginnhi? and ending mucb 
 about the same time with those of the Nile as, in fact, both rivers 
 rise from the same mountains. But the difference between the effects 
 of the inundations in each river is remarkable : in the one, it distributes 
 health and plenty : in the other, diseases, famine, and death. The 
 inhabitants along the torrid coasts of the Senegal, can receive no bene- 
 4t from any additional manure the river may carry down to their soil, 
 which is by nature more than sufficiently luxuriant; or, even if they 
 fould thev have not industry to turn it to any advantage. The banks, 
 therefore, of the river, lie uncultivated, overgrown with rank and 
 uoxious herbage, and infested with thousands of animals of various 
 malignity. Everv new flood only ttmds to increase the rankness oi 
 the soil, and to provide fresh shelter for the creatures that infest it. 
 if the flood continues but a few days longer than usual, the improvi- 
 dent inhabitants, who are driven up in the higher grounds, want pro- 
 visions, and a famine ensues. When the river begins to return into 
 its channel, the humidity and heat of the air are equally fatal ; and 
 the carcasses of infinite numbers of animals, swept away by the 
 inundation, putrefying in the sun, produce a stench that is almost 
 insupportable. But even the luxuriance of the vegetation becomes a 
 nuisance. I have been assured, by persons of veracity who have 
 been UD the river Senegal, that there are some plants growing along 
 the coast, the smell of which is so powerful, that it is hardly to be 
 endured. It is certain, that all the sailors and soldiers who have been 
 at any oi our factories there, ascribe the unwholesomeness of the 
 voyage up the stream, to the vegetable vapour. However this be, the 
 inundations of the rivers in this wretched part of the globe, contribute 
 scarce any advantage, if we except the beauty of the prospects which 
 they afford. These, indeed, are finished beyond the utmost reach of 
 art : a spacious glassy river, with its banks here and there fringed to 
 the very surface by the mangrove-tree, that grows down into the wa- 
 ter, presents itself to view ; lofty forests of various colours, with 
 openings between, carpeted with green plants, and the most gaudy 
 flowers ; beasts and animals, of various kinds, that stand upon the 
 banks of the river, and, with a sort of wild curiosity, survey the mari- 
 ners as they pass, contribute to heighten the scene. This is the 
 sketch of an African prospect ; which delights the eye, even while it 
 destroys the constitution. 
 
 Besides these annually periodical inundations, there are many rivers 
 that overflow at much shorter intervals. Thus most of those in Peru and 
 Chili have scarce any motion by night ; but upon the appearance of the 
 morning sun, they resume their former rapidity; this proceeds from 
 the mountain snows', which melting with the heat, increase the stream, 
 and continue to drive on the current while the sun continues to dis- 
 solve them. Some rivers also flow with an even steady current, from 
 their source to the sea ; others flow with greater rapidity, their stream 
 being poured down in a cataract, or swallowed by the sands, before 
 they reach the sea. 
 
 The rivers of those countries that have been least inhabited, are 
 usually more rocky, uneven, and broken into water-falls or cataracts*
 
 iW A HISTORY OF 
 
 Chart those where the industry of man has been more prevalent. 
 Wherever man comes, nature puts on a milder appearance : the ter- 
 rible and the sublime, are exchanged for the gentle and the useful ; 
 the cataract is sloped away into a placid stream ; and the banks be- 
 come more smooth and even.* It must have required ages to render 
 the Rhone or the Loire navigable : their beds must have been clean- 
 ed and directed ; their inequalities removed ; and by a long course of 
 industry, Nature must have been taught to conspire with the desires 
 of her controller. Every one's experience must have supplied in- 
 stances of rivers thus being made to flow more evenly, and more bene- 
 ficially to mankind ; but there are some whose currents are so rapid, 
 and falls so precipitate, that no art can obviate ; and that must for 
 ever remain as amazing instances of incorrigible Nature. 
 
 Of this kind are the cataracts of the Rhine ; one of which I have 
 seen exhibit a very strange appearance ; it was that at Schaffhausen, 
 which was frozen quite across, and the water stood in columns where 
 the cataract had formerly fallen. The Nile, as was said, has its cata- 
 racts. The river Vologda, in Russia, has two. The river Zara, in 
 Africa, has one near its source. The river Velino, in Italy, has a 
 cataract of above a hundred and fifty feet perpendicular. Near the 
 city of Gottenburgh,t in Sweden, the river rushes down from a pro- 
 digious high precipice, into a deep pit, with a terrible noise, and such 
 dreadful force, that those trees designed for the masts of ships, which 
 are floated down the river, are usually turned upside down in their 
 fall, and often are shattered to pieces, by being dashed against the 
 surface of the water in the pit ; this occurs if the masts fall sideways 
 upon the water ; but if they fall endways, they dive so far under wa- 
 ter, that they disappear for a quarter of an hour, or more : the pit, in- 
 to which they are thus plunged, has been often sounded with a line of 
 some hundred fathoms long, but no ground has been found hitherto. 
 There is also a cataract at Powerscourt, in Ireland, in which, if I am 
 rightly informed, the water falls three hundred feet perpendicular ; 
 which is a greater descent than that of any other cataract in any part 
 of the world. There is a cataract at Albany, in the province of New- 
 York, which pours its stream fifty feet perpendicular. But of all the 
 cataracts in the world, that of Niagara, in Canada, if we consider the 
 great body of water that falls, must be allowed to be the greatest, and 
 the most astonishing. 
 
 This amazing fall of water is made by the river St. Lawrence, in 
 its passage from the lake Erie into the lake Ontario. We have al- 
 ready said that the St. Lawrence was one of the largest rivers in tht 
 world ; and yet the whole of its waters are here poured down, by a 
 fall of a hundred and fifty feet perpendicular. It is not easy to bring 
 the imagination to correspond with the greatness of the scene; a river, 
 extremely deep and rapid, and that serves to drain the waters of al- 
 most all North America into the Atlantic ocean, is here poured pre- 
 cipitately down a ledge of rocks, that rise, like a wall, across the whole 
 oed of its stream. The width of the river a little above, is near three 
 fjuarters of a mile broad ; and the rocks, where it grows narrower, 
 
 * Buffon, voL ti. p. 90. t Phil- Trans, vol. ii. p. 3?S.
 
 THE EARTH .93 
 
 are four hundred yards over. Their direction is not straight across, 
 But hollowing inwards like a horse-shoe; so that the cataract, which 
 oends to the shape of the obstacle, rounding inwards, presents a kind 
 of theatre the most tremendous in nature. Just in the middle of this 
 circular wall of waters, a little island, that has braved the fury of the 
 current, presents one of its points, and divides the stream at top into 
 (\vo ; but it unites again long before it has got to the bottom. The 
 noise of the fall is heard at several leagues distance ; and the fury of 
 the waters at the bottom of their fall is inconceivable. The dashing 
 produces a mist that rises to the very clouds ; and that produces a 
 most beautiful rainbow, when the sun shines. It may easily be con- 
 ceived, that such a cataract quite destroys the navigation of the 
 stream ; and yet some Indian canoes, as it is said, have been known 
 to venture down it with safety. 
 
 Of those rivers that lose themselves in the sands, or are swallowed 
 up by chasms in the earth, we have various information. What we 
 are told by the ancients, of the Alpheus, in Arcadia, that sinks into 
 the ground, and rises again near Syracuse in Sicily, where it takes the 
 name of Arethusa, is rather more known than credited. But we have 
 better information with respect to the river Tigris being lost in this 
 manner under mount Taurus ; of the Guadalquiver in Spain, being 
 buried in the sands ; of the river Grcatah, in Yorkshire, running 
 under ground, and rising again ; and even of the great Rhine itself, a 
 part of which is no doubt lost in the sands, a little above Leyden. But 
 it ought to be observed of this river, that by much the greatest part 
 arrives at the ocean ; for, although the ancient channel which fell into 
 the sea, a little to the west of that city, be now entirely choakcd up, 
 yet there are still a number of small canals, that carry a great body of 
 waters to the sea ; and, besides, it has also two very large openings, 
 the Lech, and the Waal, below Rotterdam, by which it empties itself 
 abundantly. 
 
 Be this as it will, nothing is more common in sultry and sandy 
 deserts, than rivers being thus either lost in the sands, or entirely dried 
 up by the sun. And hence we see, that under the line, the small 
 rivers are but few ; for such little streams as are common in Europe, and 
 which with us receive the name of rivers, would quickly evaporate, in 
 those parching and extensive deserts. It is even confidently asserted, 
 that the great river Niger is thus lost before it reaches the ocean ; and 
 that its supposed mouths, the Gambia and the Senegal, are distinct 
 rivers, that come a vast way from the interior parts of the country. 
 It appears," therefore, that the rivers under the line are large ; but it is 
 otherwise at the poles,* where they must necessarily be small. In 
 that desolate region, as the mountains are covered with perpetual ice. 
 which melts but little, or not at all, the springs and rivulets are fur- 
 nished with a very small supply. Here, therefore, men and beasts 
 would perish, and die for thirst, if Providence had not ordered, that 
 in the hardest winter, thaws should intervene, which deposit a small 
 quantity of snow-water in pools under the ice ; and from this source 
 the wretched inhabitants drain a scanty beverage. 
 
 * f'rantz's History of Greenland, vol. i. p. 4J
 
 94 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Thus, whatever quarter of the globe we turn to, we snail find new 
 reasons to be satisfied with that part of it in .vhich we reside. Our 
 rivers furnish all the plenty of the African stream, without its inun- 
 dation ; they have all the coolness of the polar rivulet, with a more 
 constant supply ; they may want the terrible magnificence of huge 
 cataracts, or extensive lakes, but they are more navigable, and more 
 transparent; though less deep and rapid than the rivers of the torrid 
 zone, they are more manageable, and only wait the will of man to 
 take their direction. The rivers of the torrid zone, like the monarchs 
 of the country, rule with despotic tyranny ; profuse in their bounties, 
 and ungovernable in their rage. The rivers of Europe, like their 
 kings, are the friends, and not the oppressors of the people ; bounded 
 by known limits, abridged in the power of doing ill, directed by hu 
 man sagacity, and only at freedom to distribute happiness and plenty 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OP THE OCEAN IN GENERAL ; AND OP ITS SALTNESS. 
 
 IP we look upon a map of the world, we shall find that the ocean 
 occupies considerably more of the globe, than the land is found to do. 
 This immense body of water is diffused round both the Old and New 
 Continent, to the south ; and may surround them also to the north, 
 for what we know, but the ice in those regions has stopped our in- 
 quiries. Although the ocean, properly speaking, is but one extensive 
 sheet of waters, continued over every part of the globe, without in- 
 terruption, and although no part of it is divided from the rest, yet 
 geographers have distinguished it by different names ; as the Atlantic 
 or Western Ocean, the Northern Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the Pa- 
 cific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Others have divided it different- 
 ly, and given other names ; as th.e Frozen Ocean, the Inferior Ocean, 
 or the American Ocean. But all these being arbitrary distinctions, 
 and not of Nature's making, the naturalist may consider them with 
 indifference. 
 
 In this vast receptacle, almost all the rivers of the earth ultimately 
 terminate ; nor do such great supplies seem to increase its stores ; for 
 it is neither apparently swollen by their tribute, nor diminished by 
 their failure ; it still continues the same. Indeed, what is the quan- 
 tity of water of all the rivers and lakes in the world, compared to that 
 contained in this great receptacle ?* If we should offer to make a rude 
 estimate, we shall find that all the rivers in the world, flowing into the 
 bed of the sea, with a continuance of their present stores, would take 
 tip at least eight hundred years to fill it to its present height. For, 
 supposing the sea to be eighty-five millions of square miles in extent, 
 und a quarter of a mile, upon an average, in depth, this, upon calcu- 
 lation, will give about twenty-one millions of cubic miles of water, as 
 the contents of the whole ocean. Now, to estimate the quantity of 
 wate/" which all the rivers supply, take any one of them ; the Po, for 
 
 vol. ii. p. 70.
 
 THE EARTH ;j 
 
 instance, the quantity of whose discharge into the sea, is known to be 
 one cubic mile of water in twenty-six days. Now it will be found, 
 apon a rude computation, from the quantity of ground the Po, with 
 its influent streams, covers, that all the rivers of the world furnish 
 about two thousand times that quantity of water. In the space of a 
 year, therefore, they will have discharged into the sea about twenty- 
 six thousand cubic miles of water ; and not till eight hundred years, 
 will they have discharged as much water as is contained in the sea at 
 present. I have not troubled the reader with the odd numbers, lest 
 he should imagine I was giving precision to a subject that is incapable 
 of it. 
 
 Thus great is the assemblage of waters diffused round our habitable 
 globe ; and yet immeasurable as they seem, they are mostly rendered 
 subservient to the necessities and the conveniences of so little a be- 
 ing as man. Nevertheless, if it should be asked whether they be 
 made for him alone, the question is not easily resolved. Some phi- 
 losophers have perceived so much analogy to man in the formation of 
 the ocean, that they have not hesitated to assert its being made for 
 him alone. The distribution of land and water,* say they, is admira- 
 ble : the one being laid against the other so skilfully, that there is a 
 just equipoise of the whole globe. Thus the Northern Ocean balances 
 against the Southern ; and the New Continent is an exact counter- 
 weight to the Old. As to any objection from the ocean's occupying 
 too large a share of the globe, they contend, that there could not have 
 been a smaller surface employed to supply the earth with a due share 
 of evaporation. On the other hand, some take the gloomy side of the 
 question ; they either magnify! its apparent defects ; or assert, that| 
 what seem defects to us, may be real beauties to some wiser order of 
 beings. They observe, that multitudes of animals are concealed in the 
 ocean, and but a small part of them are known ; the rest therefore, they 
 fail not to say, were certainly made for their own benefit, and not for 
 ours. How far either of these opinions be just, I will not presume to 
 determine ; but of this we are certain, that God has endowed us with 
 abilities to turn this great extent of waters to our own advantage. 
 He has made these things, perhaps, for other uses ; but he has given 
 us faculties to convert them to our own. The much agitated ques- 
 tion, therefore, seems to terminate here. We shall never know whether 
 the things of this world have been made for our use ; but we very 
 well know that we have been made to enjoy them. Let us then bold 
 ly affirm, that the earth, and all its 'wonders, are ours ; since we are 
 furnished with powers to force them into our service. Man is the 
 lord of all the sublunary creation ; the howling savage, the winding ser- 
 pent, with all the untameable and rebellious offspring of Nature, are 
 destroyed in the contest, or driven at a distance from his habitations. 
 The extensive and tempestuous ocean, instead of limiting or dividing 
 his power, only serves to assist his industry, and enlarge the sphoro 
 of his enjoyments. Its billows, and its monsters, instead of present- 
 ing a scene of terror, only call up the courage of this little intrepid 
 being ; and the greatest danger that man now fears on the deep, is 
 
 * Dtrham Physico-Theol. f Bumet's Theory, passim. \ Pope's Ethic Epistles, passun
 
 96 A HISTORY OF 
 
 from his fellow creatures. Indeed, when I consider the human race 
 as Nature has formed them, there is but very little of the habitab.e 
 globe that seems made for them. But when I consider them as ac- 
 cumulating the experience of ages, in commanding the earth, there is 
 nothing so great or so terrible. What a poor contemptible being is 
 the naked savage, standing on the beach of the ocean, and trembling 
 at its tumults ! How little capable is he of converting its terrors in- 
 to benefits ; or of saying, Behold an element made wholly for my en- 
 joyments ! He considers it as an angry deity, and pays it the homage 
 of submission. But it is very different when he has exercised his 
 mental powers ; when he has learned to find his own superiority, and 
 to make it subservient to his commands. It is then that his dignity 
 begins to appear, and that the true Deity is justly praised for having 
 been mindful of man ; for having given him the earth for his habita- 
 tion, and the sea for an inheritance. 
 
 This power which man has obtained over the ocean, was at first en- 
 joyed in common ; and none pretended to a right in that element where 
 all seemed intruders. The sea, therefore, was open to all till the time 
 of the emperor Justinian. His successor Leo granted such as were in 
 possession of the shoj-e, the sole right of fishing before their respec- 
 tive territories. The Thracian Bosphorus was the first that was thus 
 appropriated ; and from that time it has been the struggle of most of 
 the powers of Europe to obtain an exclusive right in this element. 
 The republic of Venice claims the Adriatic. The Danes are in the 
 possession of the Baltic. But the English have a more extensive 
 claim to the empire of all the seas, encompassing the kingdoms of 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and although these have been long 
 contested, yet they are now considered as their indisputable property. 
 Every one knows that the great power of the nation is exerted on 
 this element ; and that the instant England ceases to be superior upon 
 the ocean, its safety begins to be precarious. 
 
 It is in some measure owing to our dependence upon the sea, and 
 to our commerce there, that we are so well acquainted with its extent 
 and figure. The bays, gulfs, currents, and shallows of the ocean, are 
 much better known and examined, than the provinces and kingdoms 
 of the earth itself. The hopes of acquiring wealth by commerce, has 
 carried man to much greater length than the desire of gaining infor 
 mation could have done. In consequence of this, there is scarce a 
 strait or a harbour, scarce a rock or a quicksand, scarce an inflectiun 
 of the shore, or the jutting of a promontory, that has not been minute- 
 ly described. But as these present very little entertainment to the 
 imagination, or delight to any but those whose pursuits are lucrative, 
 they need not be dwelt upon here. While the merchant and the mari 
 ner are solicitous in describing currents and soundings, the naturalist 
 is employed in observing wonders, though not so beneficial, yet to him 
 of a much more important nature. The saltness of the sea seems to 
 be the foremost. 
 
 Whence the sea has. derived that peculiar bitterish saltness which 
 we find in it, appears, by Aristotle, to have exercised the curiosity of 
 naturalists in all ages. He supposed (and mankind were for ages con 
 ml \vilh the solut'on') tnat the sun continually raised dry saline ex
 
 Leopard p. 119. 
 
 Ounce, p. 
 
 Jaguar, p. 120.
 
 THE EARTH. 97 
 
 halations from the earth, and deposited them upon the sea ; and hence, 
 say his followers, the waters of the sea are more salt at top than at 
 bottom. But, unfortunately for this opinion, neither of the facts is true. 
 Sea-salt is not to be raised by the vapours of the sun ; and sea-watei 
 is not salter at the top than at the bottom. Father Bohours is of 
 opinion, that the Creator gave the waters of the ocean their saltncss 
 at the beginning ; not only to prevent their corruption, but to enable 
 them to bear greater burthens. But their saltness does not prevent 
 their corruption ; for stagnant sea-water, like fresh, soon grows pu- 
 trid : and, as for their bearing greater burthens, fresh-water answers 
 all the purposes of navigation quite as well. The established opinion, 
 tnerefore, is that of Boyle,* who supposes, " That the sea's saltness 
 is supplied not only from rocks or masses of salt at the bottom of the 
 sea, but also from the salt which the rains and rivers, and other wa- 
 ters, dissolve in their passage through many parts of the earth, and at 
 length carry with them to the sea." But as there is a difference in 
 the taste of rock-salt found at land, and that dissolved in the waters 
 of the ocean, this may be produced by the plenty of nitrous and bitu- 
 minous bodies that, with the salts, are likewise washed into that great 
 receptacle. These substances being thus once carried to the sea, 
 must for ever remain there ; for they do not rise by evaporation, so 
 as to be returned back from whence they came. Nothing but the 
 fresh waters of the sea rise in vapours ; and all the saltness remains 
 behind. From hence it follows, that every year the sea must become 
 more and more salt ; and this speculation, Dr. Halley carries so far, 
 as to lay down a method of finding out the age of the world by the salt- 
 ness of its waters. " For if it be observed,"! says he, " what quantitv of 
 salt is at present contained in a certain weight of water taken up from 
 the. Caspian Sea, for example, and, after some centuries, what greater 
 quantity of salt is contained in the same weight of water, taken from 
 the same place ; we may conclude, that in proportion as the saltness 
 has increased in a certain time, so much must it have increased before 
 that time ; and we may thus, by the rule of proportion, make an esti- 
 mate of the whole time wherein the water would acquire the degree 
 of saltness it should be then possessed of." All this may be fine ; 
 however, an experiment, begun in this century, which is not to be 
 completed till some centuries hence, is rather a little mortifying to 
 modern curiosity ; and, I am induced to think, the inhabitants round 
 the Caspian Sea, will not be apt to undertake the inquiry. 
 
 This saltness is found to prevail in every part of the ocean ; and as 
 much at the surface as at the bottom. It is also found in all those 
 seas that communicate with the ocean ; but rather in a less degree. 
 
 The great lakes, likewise, that have no outlets nor communication 
 with the ocean, are found to be salt ; but some of them in less pro- 
 portion. On the contrary, all those lakes through which rivers run 
 into the sea, however extensive they be, are, notwithstanding, very 
 fresh : for the rivers do not deposit their salts in the bed of the lake, 
 but carry them with their currents into the ocean. . Thus the lakes 
 Ontario and Erie, in North America, although for magnitude Aej 
 
 Boyle, vol. iii. p. 221. t Phil - Trans, vol. v. p. 218. 
 
 TOL. I. G
 
 98 A HISTORY OF 
 
 may be considered as inland seas, are, nevertheless, fresh-water lakes ; 
 and kept so by the river St. Lawrence, which passes through them. 
 But those lakes that have no communication with the sea, nor any 
 -ivers going out, although they be less than the former, are, however, 
 always salt. Thus, that which goes by the name of the Dead Sea, 
 though very small, when compared to those already mentioned, is so 
 exceedingly salt, that its waters seem scarcely capable of dissolving 
 any more. The lakes of Mexico and of Titicaca, in Peru, though of 
 no great extent, are, nevertheless, salt ; and both for the same reason. 
 
 Those who are willing to turn all things to the best, have not failed 
 to consider this saltness of the sea, as a peculiar blessing from Provi- 
 dence, in order to keep so great an element sweet and wholesome. 
 What foundation there may be in the remark, I will not pretend to 
 determine ; but we shall shortly find a much better cause for its being 
 kept sweet, namely, its motion. 
 
 On the other hand, there have been many who have considered the 
 subject in a different light, and have tried every endeavour to make 
 salt-water fresh, so as to supply the wants of mariners in long voyages, 
 or when exhausted of their ordinary stores. At first it was supposed 
 simple distillation would do ; but it was soon found that the bitter 
 part of the water still kept mixed. It was then tried by uniting salt 
 of tartar with sea-water, and distilling both : but here the expense was 
 greater than the advantage. Calcined bones were next thought of; 
 but a hogshead of calcined bones, carried to sea, would take up as 
 much room as a hogshead of water, and was more hard to be obtained. 
 In this state, therefore, have the attempts to sweeten sea-water rested ; 
 the chymist satisfied with the reality of his invention ; and the mari- 
 ner convinced of its being useless. I cannot, therefore, avoid men- 
 tioning a kind of succedaneum which has been lately conceived to an- 
 swer the purposes of fresh-water, when mariners are quite exhausted. 
 It is well known, that persons who go into a warm bath, come out 
 several ounces heavier than they went in ; their bodies having im- 
 bibed a correspondent quantity of water. This more particularly 
 happens, if they have been previously debarred from drinking, or go 
 in with a violent thirst ; which they quickly find quenched, and their 
 spirits restored. It was supposed, that in case of a total failure of 
 fresh-water at sea, a warm bath might be made of sea-water, for the 
 use of mariners ; and that their pores would thus imbibe the fluid, 
 without any of its salts, which would be seen to crystallize on the sur- 
 face of their bodies. In this manner, it is supposed, a sufficient quan- 
 tity of moisture may be procured to sustain life, till time or accident 
 furnish a more copious supply. 
 
 But, however this be, the saltness of the sea can by no means be 
 considered as a principal cause in preserving its waters from putre- 
 faction. The ocean has its currents, like rivers, which circulate its 
 contents round the globe ; and these may be said to be the great 
 agents that keep it sweet and wholesome. Its saltness alone would 
 by no means answer this purpose : and some have even imagined, 
 that the various substances with which it is mixed, rather tend to pro- 
 mote putrescence than impede it. Sir Robert Hawkins, one of our 
 most enlightened navigator*, gives the following account of a calm, ID
 
 THE EARTH. 99 
 
 which the sea, continuing for some time without motion, began 10 as 
 sume a very formidable appearance. " Were it not/' sa} s he, " for 
 the moving of the sea, by the force of winds, tides, and currents, it 
 would corrupt all the world. The experiment of this I saw in the 
 year 1590, lying with a fleet about the islands of Azores, almost six 
 months ; the greatest part of which time we were becalmed. Upon 
 which all the sea became so replenished with several sorts of jellies, 
 and forms of serpents, adders, and snakes, as seemed wonderful 
 some green, some black, some yellow, some white, some of divers 
 colours ; and many of them had life ; and some there were a yard 
 and a half, and two yards long ; which, had I not seen, I could hardly 
 have believed. And hereof are witnesses all the company of the ships 
 which were then present ; so that hardly a man could draw a bucket 
 of water clear of some corruption. In which voyage, towards the end 
 thereof, many of every ship fell sick, and began to die apace. But 
 the speedy passage into our country was a remedy to the crazed, and 
 a preservative for those that were not touched." 
 
 This shows, abundantly, how little the sea's saltness was capable of 
 preserving it from putrefaction : but to put the matter beyond all 
 doubt, Mr. Boyle* kept a quantity of sea-water, taken up in the En- 
 glish Channel, for some time barrelled up ; and, in the space of a few 
 weeks, it began to acquire a fetid smell : he was also assured by one 
 of his acquaintance, who was becalmed for twelve or fourteen days in 
 the Indian Sea, that the water, for want of motion, began to stink ; 
 and that had it continued much longer, the stench would probably have 
 poisoned him. It is the motion, therefore, and not the saltness of the 
 sea, that preserves it in its present state of salubrity ; and this, very 
 probably, by dashing and breaking in pieces the rudiments, if I may 
 so call them, of the various animals that would otherwise breed there, 
 and putrefy. 
 
 There are some advantages, however, which are derived from the 
 saltness of the ,sea. Its waters being evaporated, furnish that salt 
 which is used for domestic purposes ; and although in some places it 
 is made from springs, and in others dug out of mines, yet the greatest 
 quantity is made only from the sea. That which is called bay-salt^ 
 (from its coming to us by the bay of Biscay) is a stronger kind, made 
 by evaporation in the sun ; that called common-salt, is evaporated in 
 pans over the fire, and is of a much inferio" quality to the former. 
 
 Another benefit arising from the quantity of salt dissolved in the 
 sea, is, that it thus becomes heavier, and, consequently, more buoyant. 
 Mr. Boyle, who examined the difference between sea-water and fresh, 
 ftmnd that the former appeared to be about a forty-fifth part heavier 
 than the latter. Those, also, who have had opportunities of bathing 
 in the sea, pretend to have experienced a much greater ease in swim- 
 ming there than in fresh water. However, as we see they have only 
 a forty-fifth part more of their weight sustained by it, I am apt to 
 doubt whether so minute a difference can be practically perceivable. 
 Be this as it may, as sea-water alters in its weight from fresh, so it is 
 found also to differ from itself in different parts of the ocean. In 
 
 * Boyle, vol. iii. p. 222
 
 jtfj A HISTORY OF 
 
 general, it is perceivable to be heavier, and consequently salter, ths 
 oearer we approach the line.* 
 
 But ihere is an advantage arising from the saltness of the waters of 
 the sea, much greater than what has been yet mentioned ; which is, 
 that thuir congelation is thus retarded. Some, indeed, have gone so 
 far as to say, that sea-water never freezes :t but this is an assertion 
 contradicted by experience. However, it is certain that it requires a 
 much greater degree of cold to freeze it than fresh-water ; so that, 
 while rivers and springs are seen converted into one solid body of 
 ice, the sea is always fit for navigation, and no way affected by the 
 coldness of the severest winter. It is, therefore, one of the greatest 
 bLessings we derive from this element, that, when at land all the stores 
 of nature are locked up from us, we find the sea ever open to our 
 necessities, and patient of the hand of industry. 
 
 But it must not be supposed, because in our temperate climate we 
 never see the sea frozen, that it is in the same manner open in every 
 part of it. A very little acquaintance with the accounts of mariners, 
 must have informed us, that at the polar regions it is embarrassed with 
 mountains and moving sheets of ice, that often render it impassable. 
 These tremendous floats are of different magnitudes ; sometimes 
 rising more than a thousand feet above the surface of the water :| 
 sometimes diffused mto plains of above two hundred leagues in length ; 
 and, in many parts, sixty or eighty broad. They are usually divided 
 by fissures ; one piece following another so close, that a person may 
 step from one to the other. Sometimes mountains are seen rising 
 amidst these plains, and presenting the appearance of a variegated land 
 scape, with hills and valleys, houses, churches, and towers. These 
 are appearances in which all naturalists are agreed ; but the great 
 contest is respecting their formation. Mr. Buffon asserts,^, that they 
 are formed from fresh-water alone, which congealing at the mouths 
 of great rivers, accumulate those huge masses that disturb navigation. 
 However, this great naturalist seems not to have been aware that there 
 are two sorts of ice floating in these seas ; the flat ice, and the moun 
 tain ice : the one formed of sea-water only ; the other of fresh.|| 
 
 The flat or driving ice, is entirely composed of sea-water ; which, 
 upon dissolution, is found to be salt ; and is readily distinguished 
 from the mountain, or fresh-water ice, by its whiteness, and want of 
 transparency. This ice is much more terrible to mariners than that 
 which rises up in lumps : a ship can avoid the one, as it is seen at a 
 distance; but it often gels in among the other, which, sometimes 
 closing, crushes it to pieces. This, which manifestly has a different 
 origin from the fresh-water ice, may perhaps have been produced in 
 the Icy Sea, beneath the pole ; or along the coasts of Spitzbergen or 
 Nova Zembla. 
 
 The mountain ice, as was said, is different in every respect, being 
 formed of fresh-water, and appearing hard and transparent ; it is 
 generally of a pale green colour, though some pieces are of a beauti- 
 ful sky-blue ; many large masses also appear gray, and some black 
 
 Phil Trans, vol. ii. 
 
 p. 297. f Macrobius. f Crantz's History of Greenland- voL i p. 3\ 
 Buffon, vol. ii. p. 91. || Crantz.
 
 THE EARTH. 101 
 
 If examined more nearly, they are found to be incorporated with 
 earth, stones, and brush-wood, washed fro/n the shore. On these als<r 
 are sometimes found, not only earth, 5u* aests '^vJth br/6V*. J J e'ggs, al 
 several hundred miles from land. The 'generality 'of th-e'se, though 
 almost totally fresh, have nevertheless ' a^h^ck ^fast'of-SvaJt-water fro- 
 zen upon them, probably from the power- that' ice'-hai'rgOnTteivn^s to 
 produce ice. Such mountains as are here described, are most usually 
 seen at spring-time, and after a violent storm, driving out to sea, where 
 they at first terrify the mariner, and are soon after dashed to pieces 
 by the continual washing of the waves ; or driven into the warmer 
 regions of the south, there to be melted away. They sometimes, how- 
 ever, strike back upon their native shores, where they seem to take 
 root at the feet of mountains ; and, as Martius tells us, are sometimes 
 higher than the mountains themselves. Those seen by him were blue, 
 full of clefts and cavities made by the rain, and crowned with snow, 
 which, alternately thawing and freezing every year, augmented their 
 size. These, composed of materials more solid than that driving 
 at sea, presented a variety of agreeable figures to the eye, that 
 with a little help from fancy assumed the appearance of trees in blos- 
 som ; the inside of churches, with arches, pillars, and windows ; and 
 the blue-coloured rays, darting from within, presented the resemblance 
 of a glory. 
 
 If we inquire into the origin and formation of these, which, as we 
 see, are very different from the former, I think we have a very satis- 
 factory account of them in Crantz's History of Greenland ; and I will 
 take leave to give the passage with a very few alterations. " These 
 mountains of ice," says he, " are not salt, like the sea-water, but 
 sweet ; and therefore, can be formed no where except on the moun- 
 tains, in rivers, in caverns, and against the hills near the sea-shore. 
 The mountains of Greenland are so high, that the snow which falls 
 upon them, particularly on the north-side, is in one night's time whol 
 ly converted into ice : they also contain clefts and cavities, where 
 the sun seldom or never injects his rays: besides these, are projec- 
 tions, or landing-places, on the declivities of the steepest hills, where 
 the rain and snow-water lodge, and quickly congeal. When now the 
 accumulated flakes of snow slide down, or fall with the rain from the 
 eminences above, on these prominences ; or, when here and there a 
 mountain-spring comes rolling down to such a lodging-place, where 
 die ice has already seated itself, they all freeze, and add their tribute 
 to it. This, by degrees, waxes to a body of ice, that can no more be 
 overpowered by the sun ; and which, though it may indeed, at cer- 
 tain seasons, diminish by a thaw, yet, upon the whole, through annual 
 acquisitions, it assumes an annual growth. Such a body of ice is 
 often prominent far over the rocks. It does not melt on the upper 
 surface, but underneath ; and often cracks into many larger or smallef 
 clefts, from whence the thawed water trickles out. By this, it be- 
 t % ,omes at last so weak, that being overloaded with its own ponderous 
 bulk, it breaks loose, and tumbles down the rocks with a terrible 
 vrash. Where it happens to overhang a precipice on the shore, it 
 olunges into the deep with a shock like thunder; and with such an 
 agitation of the water, as will overset a boat at some distance, as
 
 102 A HISTORY OF 
 
 many a poor Greenlander has fatally experienced." Thus are these 
 amazing ice-mountains launched forth to sea, and found floating in 
 the waters 'round- bath-' th*e * poles. It is these that have hindered 
 mariners from discovering the extensive countries that lie round the 
 Sout.li P<ile w ; -tOicr -that Ipnibdbly block up the passage to China by the 
 
 * *?* i.sVrt.x * 
 
 I will conclude this chapter, with one effect more, produced by the 
 altness of the sea; which is the luminous appearance of its waves in 
 the night. All who have been spectators of a sea by night, a little 
 ruffled with winds, seldom fail of observing its fiery brightness. In 
 some places it shines as far as the eye can reach ;* at other times, 
 only when the waves boom against the side of the vessel, or the oar 
 dashes into the water. Some seas shine often ; others more seldom ; 
 some, ever when particular winds blow ; and others within a narrow 
 compass ; a long tract of light being seen along the surface, whilst all 
 the rest is hid in total darkness. It is not easy to account for these 
 extraordinary appearances : some have supposed that a number of lu- 
 minous insects produced the effect, and this is in reality sometimes 
 the case; in general, however, they have every resemblance to that 
 light produced by electricity ; and, probably, arise from the agitation 
 and dashing of the saline particles of the fluid against each other. 
 But the manner in which this is done, for we can produce nothing 
 similar by any experiments hitherto made, remains for some happier 
 accident to discover. Our progress in the knowledge of nature is 
 slow : and it is a mortifying consideration, that we are hitherto more 
 indebted for success to chance than industry. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OP THE TIDES, MOTION, AND CURRENTS OF THE SEA ; WITH THEIR 
 EFFECTS. 
 
 IT was said in the former chapter, that the waters of the sea were 
 kept sweet by their motion ; without which they would soon putrefy, 
 and spread universal infection. If we look for final causes, here in- 
 deed we have a great and an obvious one that presents itself before us. 
 Had the sea been made without motion, and resembling a pool of 
 stagnant water, the nobler races of animated nature would shortly be 
 at an end. Nothing would then be left alive but swarms of ill-formed 
 creatures, with scarcely more than vegetable life ; and subsisting by 
 putrefaction. Were this extensive bed of waters entirely quiescent, 
 millions of the smaller reptile kinds would there find a proper retreat 
 to breed and multiply in : they would find there no agitation, no con- 
 cussion in the parts of the fluid to crush their feeble frames, or to 
 force them from the places where they were bred : there they would 
 iiultipiy in security and ease, enjoy a short life, and putrefying thus 
 again, give nourishment to numberless others, as little worthy of ex 
 istence as themselves. But the motion of this great element, effccla 
 
 * Boyle, voL i. p. 294.
 
 THE EARTH. 103 
 
 ally destroys the number of these viler creatures ; its currents and its 
 tides oroduce continual agitations, the shock of which they are not 
 able to endure ; the parts of the fluid rubbing against each other, de 
 stroy all the viscidities ; and the ocean, if I may so express it, ac 
 quires health by exercise. 
 
 The most obvious motion of the sea, and the most generally ac- 
 knowledged, is that of its tides. This element is observed to flow foi 
 certain hours, from south towards the north ; in which motion or flux, 
 which lasts about six hours, the sea gradually swells ; so that entering 
 the mouths of rivers, it drives back the river-waters to their heads. 
 After a continual flux of six hours, the sea seems to rest for a quarter 
 of an hour ; and then begins to ebb, or retire back again, from north 
 to south, for six hours more ; in which time the waters sinking, the 
 rivers resume their natural course. After a seeming pause of a quar- 
 ter of an hour, the sea again begins to flow as before : and thus it has 
 alternately risen and fallen, twice a-day, since the creation. 
 
 This amazing appearance did not fail to excite the curiosity, as it 
 did the wonder of the ancients. After some wild conjectures of the 
 earliest philosophers, it became well known in the time of Pliny, that 
 the tides were entirely under the influence, in a small degree, of the 
 sun ; but in a much greater of the moon. It was found that there was 
 a flux and reflux of the sea, in the space of twelve hours, fifty minutes, 
 which is exactly the time of a lunar day. It was observed, that when- 
 ever the moon was in the meridian, or, in other words, as nearly as 
 possible over any part of the sea, that the sea flowed to that part, and 
 made a tide there ; on the contrary, it was found, that when the moon 
 left the meridian, the sea began to flow back again from whence it 
 came ; and there might be said to ebb. Thus far the waters of the 
 sea seemed very regularly to attend the motions of the moon. But as 
 it appeared, likewise, that when the moon was in the opposite meridi- 
 an, as far off on the other side of the globe, that there was a tide on 
 this side also ; so that the moon produced two tides, one by her great- 
 est approach to us, and another by her greatest distance from us : in 
 other words, the moon, in once going round the earth, produced two 
 tides, always at the same time ; one on the other part of the globe 
 directly under her ; and the other, on the part of the globe directly 
 opposite. 
 
 Mankind continued for several ages content with knowing the gene- 
 ral cause of these wonders, hopeless of discovering the particular 
 manner of the moon's operation. Kepler was the first who conjec- 
 tured that attraction was the principal cause, asserting, that the sphere 
 of the moon's operation extended to the earth, and drew up its wa- 
 ters. The precise manner in which this is done, was discovered by 
 ISewton. 
 
 The moon has been found, like all the rest of the planets, to at' 
 tract aud to be attracted by the earth. This attraction prevails 
 throughout our whole planetary system. The more matter there is 
 Contained in any body, the more it attracts; and its influence de 
 creases in nroportion as the distance, when squared, increases. This 
 being premised, let us see what must ensue upon supposing the moon 
 -a the meridian of any tract of the sea. The surface of the water
 
 104 A HISTORY OF 
 
 immediately antier the moon, is nearer the moon than any other part 
 of the globe is ; and, therefore, must be more subject to its attraction 
 than the waters any where else. The waters will, therefore, be at- 
 tracted by the moon, and rise in a heap ; whose eminence will be the 
 highest where the attraction is greatest. In order to form this emi- 
 nence, it is obvious that the surface, as well as the depths, will be 
 agitated; and that wherever the waters run from one part, succeeding 
 waters must run to fill up the space it has left. Thus the waters of 
 the sea, running from all parts, to attend the motion of the moon, 
 produce the flowing of the tide ; and it is high tide at that part wherever 
 the moon comes over it, or to its meridian. 
 
 But when the moon travels onward, and ceases to point over the 
 place where the waters were just risen, the cause here of their rising 
 ceasing to operate, they will flow back by their natural gravity into 
 the lower parts from whence they had travelled ; and this retiring oi 
 the waters will form the ebbing of the sea. 
 
 Thus the first part of the demonstration is obvious; since, in gene- 
 ral, it requires no great sagacity to conceive that the waters nearest 
 the moon are most attracted, or raised highest by the moon. But the 
 other part of the demonstration, namely, how there come to be high 
 tides at the same time, on the opposite side of the globe, and where the 
 waters are farthest from the moon, is not so easy to conceive. To com 
 prehend this, it must be observed, that the part of the earth and its wa- 
 ters that are farthest from the moon, are the parts of all others that 
 are least attracted by the moon : it must also be observed, that all the 
 waters, when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth, must be 
 attracted by it in the same direction that the earth itself attracts 
 them ; that is, if I may so say, quite through the body of the earth, 
 towards the moon itself. This, therefore, being conceived, it is 
 plain that those waters which are farthest from the moon, will have 
 less weight than those of any other part, on the same side of the 
 globe; because the moon's attraction, which conspires with the earth's 
 attraction, is there least. Now, therefore, the waters farthest from 
 the moon, having less weight, and being lightest, will be pressed on 
 all sides, by those that, having more attraction, are heavier: they will 
 be pressed, I say, on all sides; and the heavier waters flowing in, 
 will make them swell and rise, in an eminence directly opposite to 
 that on the other side of the globe, caused by the more immediate 
 influence of the moon. 
 
 In this manner, the moon, in one diurnal revolution, produces two 
 tides; one raised immediately under the sphere of its influence, and 
 the other directly opposite to it. As the moon travels, this vast body 
 of waters rears upward, as if to watch its motions ; and pursues the 
 same constant rotation. However, in this great work of raising the 
 tides, the sun has no small share ; it produces its-wn tides constantly 
 every day, just as the moon does, but in a much >- ss degree, because 
 the sun is at an immensely greater distance. Tb*'* there are solai 
 tides, and lunar tides. When the forces of these wo great luminn- 
 ries concur, which they always do when ' they are ei*r<er in the same, 
 or in opposite parts of the heavens, they jointly produ'** a much great- 
 Hi tide, than when they are so situated in the heavens, a* ich to make
 
 THE EARTH. 105 
 
 peculiar tides of their own. To express the very same thing techni- 
 cally ; in the conjunctions and oppositions of the sun and moor, the 
 attraction of the sun conspires with the attraction of the moon ; bv 
 which means the high spring-tides are formed. But in the quadratures 
 of the sun and moon, the water raised by the one is depressed by the 
 other ; and hence the lower neap-tides have their production. In a 
 word, the tides are greatest in the syzigies, and least in the quadra- 
 tures. 
 
 This theory well understood, and the astronomical terms previously 
 known, it may readily be brought to explain the various appearances 
 of the tides, if the earth were covered with a deep sea, and the waters 
 uninfluenced by shoals, currents, straits, or tempests. But in every 
 part of the sea, near the shores, the geographer must come in to cor- 
 rect the calculations of the astronomer. For, by reason of the shal- 
 lowness of some places, and the narrowness of the straits in others, 
 there arises a great diversity in the effect, not to be accounted for 
 without an exact knowledge of all the circumstances of the place. In 
 the great depths of the ocean, for instance, a very slow and impercep- 
 tible motion of the whole body of water will suffice to raise its surface 
 several feet high ; but if the same increase of water is to be conveyed 
 through a narrow channel, it must rush through it with the most im- 
 petuous rapidity. Thus, in the English Channel, and the German 
 Ocean, the tide is found to flow strongest in those places that are nar- 
 rowest ; the same quantity of water being, in this case, driven through 
 a smaller passage. It is often seen, therefore, pouring through a strait 
 with great force ; and by its rapidity, considerably raised above the 
 surface of that part of the ocean into which it runs. . 
 
 This shallowness and narrowness in many parts of the sea give also 
 -rise to a peculiarity in the tides of some parts of the world. For in 
 many places, and in our own seas in particular, the greatest swell of 
 the tide is not while the moon is in its meridian height, and directly 
 over the place, but some time after it has declined from thence. The 
 sea, in this case, being obstructed, pursues the moon with what dis- 
 patch it can, but does not arrive with all its waters till long after the 
 moon has ceased to operate. Lastly, from this shallowness of the sea, 
 and from its being obstructed by shoals and straits, we may account 
 for the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Black Sea, having no sensible 
 tides. These, though to us they seem very extensive, are not how- 
 ever large enough to be affected by the influence of the moon ; and 
 as to their communication with the ocean, through such narrow inlets 
 it is impossible in a few hour's time that they should receive and r 
 turn water enough to raise or depress them in any considerable degree. 
 
 In general, therefore, we may observe, that all tides are much high- 
 er, and more considerable, in the torrid zone, than in the rest of the 
 ocean ; the sea in those parts being generally deeper, and less affect- 
 ed by changeable winds, or winding shores.* The greatest tide we 
 know of, is that at the mouth of the river Indus, where the water 
 rises thirty feet in height. How great, therefore, must have been the 
 amazement of Alexander's soldiers at so strange an appearance ! Thev 
 
 BufFon, vol. ii. p. 187
 
 106 A HISTORY OF 
 
 who always nefore had been accustomed only to the scarcely percep 
 tible risings of the Mediterranean, or the minute intumescence of the 
 Black Sea, when made at once spectators of a river rising and falling 
 thirty feet in a few hours, must, no doubt, have felt the most extreme 
 awe, and, as we are told,* a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. 
 The tides are also remarkably high on the coasts of Malay, in the 
 straits of Sunda, in the Red Sea, at the mouth of the river St. Law 
 rence, along the coasts of China and Japan, at Panama, and in the 
 gulf of Bengal. The tides at Tonquin, however, are the most remark- 
 able in the world. In this part there is but one tide, and one ebb, in 
 twenty-four hours ; whereas, as we have said before, in other places 
 there are x two. Besides, there, twice in each month, there is no tide 
 at all, when the moon is near the equinoctial, the water being for some 
 time quite stagnant. These, with some other odd appearances attend- 
 ing the same phenomena, were considered by many as inscrutable ; 
 but Sir Isaac Newton, with peculiar sagacity, adjudged them to arise 
 from the concurrence of two tides, one from the South Sea, and the 
 other from the Indian Ocean. Of each of these tides there come suc- 
 cessively two every day ; two at one time greater, and two at another 
 that are less. The time between the arrival of the two greater, is 
 considered by him as high tide ; the time between the two lesser, as 
 ebb. In short, with this clue, that great mathematician solved every 
 appearance, and so established his theory as to silence every opposer 
 
 This fluctuation of the sea from the tides, produces another, and 
 more constant rotation of its waters, from the east to the west, in this 
 respect following the course of the moon. This may be considered as 
 one great and general current of the waters of the sea ; and although 
 it be not every where distinguishable, it is nevertheless every where 
 existent, except when opposed by some particular current or eddy 
 produced by partial and local causes. This tendency of the sea to- 
 wards the west, is plainly perceivable in all the great straits of the 
 ocean ; as, for instance, in those of Magellan, where the tide running 
 in from the east, rises twenty feet high, and continues flowing six 
 hours ; whereas the ebb continues but two hours, and the current is 
 directed to the west. This proves that the flux is not equal to the re- 
 flux ; and that from both results a motion of the sea westward, which is 
 more powerful during the time of the flux than the reflux. 
 
 But this motion westward has been sensibly observed by navigators, 
 in their passage back from India to Madagascar, and so on to Africa. 
 In the great Pacific Ocean also it is very perceivable ; but the places 
 where it is most obvious, are, as was said, in those straits which join one 
 ocean to another. In the straits between, the Maldivia islands, in the 
 gulf of Mexico, between Cuba and Jucatan. In the straits of the 
 gulf of Paria, the motion is so violent, that it hath received the appel- 
 lation of the Dragon's Mouth. Northward, in the sea of Canada, in 
 Waigat's straits, in the straits of Java, and in short, in every strait 
 where the ocean on one part pours into the ocean on the other. In 
 this manner, therefore, is the sea carried with an unceasing circula- 
 tion round the globe ; and, at the same time that its waters are poshed 
 
 * Qtiintus Curtius.
 
 THE EARTH. 107 
 
 b.uk ar J forward with the tide, they have thus a progressive curreru 
 to the west, which though less observable, is not the less real. 
 
 Besides these two general motions of the sea, there are others which 
 are particular to many parts of it, and are called currents. Theso are 
 found to run in all directions, east, west, north, and south ; being form- 
 ed, as was said above, by various causes ; the prominence of thu 
 shores, the narrowness of the straits, the variation of the wind, and the 
 inequalities at the bottom. These, though no great object to the phi- 
 losopher, as their causes are generally local and obvious, are never- 
 theless of the most material consequence to the mariner ; and, without 
 a knowledge of which, he could never succeed. It oflen has happen- 
 ed, that when a ship has unknowingly got into one of these, every 
 thing seems to go forward with success, the mariners suppose them- 
 selves every hour approaching their wished-for port, the wind fills 
 their sails, and the ship's prow seems to divide the water ; but, at last, 
 by miserable experience they find, that instead of going forward, they 
 have been all the time receding. The business of currents, therefore, 
 makes a considerable article in navigation ; and the direction of their 
 stream, and their rapidity, has been carefully set down. This some 
 do by the observation of the surface of the current ; or by the driving 
 of the froth along the shore ; or by throwing out what is called the 
 log-line, with a buoy made for that purpose, and by the direction and 
 motion of this, they judge of the setting and the rapidity of the current. 
 
 These currents are generally found to be most violent under the 
 equator, where indeed all the motions of the ocean are most perceivable. 
 Along the coasts of Guinea, if a ship happens to overshoot the mouth of 
 any river it is bound to, the current prevents its return ; so that it is 
 obliged to steer out to sea, and take a very large compass, in order to 
 correct the former mistake. These set in a contrary direction to the 
 general motion of the sea westward ; and that so strongly, that a pas- 
 sage which, with the current, is made in two days, is with difficulty 
 performed in six weeks against it. However, they do not extend 
 above twenty leagues from the coast ; and ships going to the East In- 
 dies, take care not to come within the sphere of their action. At Su- 
 matra, the currents, which are extremely rapid, run from south to 
 north : there are also strong currents between Madagascar and the 
 Cape of Good Hope. On the western coasts of America, the current 
 always runs from the south to the north, where a south wind, con 
 tinually blowing, most probably occasions this phenomenon. But the 
 currents that are most remarkable, are those continually flowing in 
 the Mediterranean sea, both from the ocean by the straits of Gibral- 
 tar, and at its other extremity, from the Euxine sea by the Archipe- 
 lago. This is one of the most extraordinary appearances in nature , 
 this large sea receiving not only the numerous rivers that fall into it^ 
 such as the Nile, the Rhone, and the Po, but also a very great infhu 
 from the Euxine sea on one part, and the ocean on the other. At tha 
 same time, it is seen to return none of those waters it is thus known 
 to receive. Outlets running from it fhere are none ; no rivers but 
 such as bring it fresh supplies ; no straits but what are constantly 
 pouring their waters into it : it has, therefore, been the wonder o} 
 mankind in every age, how, and by what means, this vast concours
 
 ir.8 A HISTORY OF 
 
 of waters are disposed of; or how this sea, which is always rer.en ing, 
 and never returning, is no way fuller than before. In order to ac- 
 count for this, some have said, that the water was reconveyed by sub- 
 terraneous passages into the Red Sea.* There is a story told of an 
 Arabian califf, who caught a dolphin in this sea, admiring the beauty 
 of which, he let it go again, having previously marked it by a ring of 
 iron. Some time after a dolphin was caught in the Red Sea, and 
 quickly known by the ring to be the same that had been taken in tho 
 Mediterranean before. Such, however, as have not been willing to 
 found their opinions upon a story, have attempted to account for the 
 disposal of the waters of the Mediterranean by evaporation. For this 
 purpose they have entered into long calculations upon the extent of 
 its surface, and the quantity of water that would be raised from such 
 a surface in a year. They then compute how much water runs in by 
 its rivers and straits in that time ; and find, that the quantity exhaust- 
 ed by evaporation, greatly exceeds the quantity supplied by rivers 
 and seas. This solution, no doubt, would be satisfactory, did not the 
 ocean, and the Euxine, evaporate as well as the Mediterranean : and as 
 t'-ese are subject to the same drain, it must follow, that all the seas 
 >ill in this respect be upon a par ; and, therefore, there must be 
 some other cause for this unperceived drain, and continual supply 
 This seems to be satisfactorily enough accounted for by Dr. Smith, 
 who supposes an under current running through the straits of Gibral- 
 tar to carry out as much water into the ocean, as the upper current 
 continually carries in from it. To confirm this, he observes, that 
 nearer home, between the north and the south foreland, the tide is 
 known to run one way at top, and the ebb another way at bottom. 
 This double current he also confirms by an experiment communicated 
 to him by an able seaman, who being with one of the king's frigates 
 in the Baltic, found he went with his boat into the mid-stream, and was 
 carried violently by the current ; upon which a basket was sunk, with 
 a large cannon-ball, to a certain depth of water, which gave a check 
 to the boat's motion ; as the basket sunk still lower, the boat was 
 driven, by the force of the water below, against the upper current ; 
 and the lower the basket is let Jjwn, the stronger the under current 
 was found, aaj .he quicker was the boat's motion against the upper 
 stream, which seemed not to be above four fathom deep. From hence 
 we readily infer, that the same cause may operate at the straits of Gib- 
 raltar ; and that while the Mediterranean seems replenishing at top, 
 it may be emptying at bottom. 
 
 The number of the currents at sea are impossible to be recounted, 
 nor indeed are they always known ; new ones are daily produced by 
 a variety of causes, and as quickly disappear. When a regular cur 
 rent is opposed by another in a narrow strait, or where the bottom of 
 the sea is very uneven, a whirlpool is often formed. These were 
 formerly considered as the most formidable obstructions to naviga- 
 tion ; and the ancient poets and historians speak of them with terror ; 
 chey are described as swallowing up ships, and dashing them against 
 ihe rocks at the bottom : apprehension did not fail to add imaginary 
 
 * Ki-cl.cr Mundt. Subt. voL L
 
 THE EARTH. 101) 
 
 terrors to tne description, and placed at the centre of the whirlpool o 
 dreadful den, fraught with monsters whose howlings served to add 
 new norrors to the dashings of the deep. Mankind at present, how- 
 ever, view these eddies of the sea with verv little apprehension ; and 
 some "rave wondered how the ancients could have so much overcharged 
 their descriptions. But all this is very naturally accounted for. In 
 those times when navigation was in its infancy, and the slightest con- 
 cussion of the waves generally sent the poor adventurer to the bottom, 
 it is not to be wondered at that he was terrified at the violent agita- 
 tions in one of these. When his little ship, but ill fitted for opposing 
 the fury of the sea, was got within the vortex, there was then no possi- 
 bility of ever returning. To add to the fatality, they were always 
 near the shore ; and along the shore was the only place where this 
 ill-provided mariner durst venture to sail. These were, therefore, 
 dreadful impediments to his navigation ; for if he attempted to pass 
 between them and the shore, he was sometimes sucked in by the eddy ; 
 and if he attempted to avoid them out at sea, he was often sunk by the 
 storm. But in our time, and in our present improved state of naviga- 
 tion, Charybdis, and the Euripus, with all the other irregular currents 
 of the Mediterranean, are no longer formidable. Mr. Addison, not 
 attending to this train of thinking, upon passing through the straits of 
 Sicily, was surprised at the little there was of terror in the present 
 appearance of Scylla and Charybdis ; and seems to be of opinion, 
 that their agitations are much diminished since the times of antiquity. 
 In fact, from the reasons above, all the wonders of the Mediterranean 
 sea are described in much higher colours than they merit, to us who 
 are acquainted with the more magnificent terrors of the ocean. The 
 Mediterranean is one of the smoothest and most gentle seas in the 
 world : its tides are scarce perceivable, except in the gulf of Venice, 
 and shipwrecks are less known there than in any other part of tho 
 world. 
 
 It is in the ocean, therefore, that these whirlpools are particularly 
 dangerous, where the tides are violent, and the tempests fierce. To 
 mention only one, that called the Maelstroom, upon the coasts of Nor- 
 way, which is considered as the most dreadful and voracious in the 
 world. The name it has received from the natives, signifies the navel 
 of the sea ; since they suppose that a great share of the water of the 
 sea is sucked up and discharged by its vortex. A minute description 
 of the internal parts is not to be expected, since none who were there 
 ever returned to bring back information. The body of the waters 
 that form this whirlpool, are extended in a circle above thirteen 
 miles in circumference.* In the midst of this stands a rock, against 
 which the tide in its ebb is dashed with inconceivable fury. At this 
 time it instantly swallows up all things that come within the sphere of. 1 
 its violence, trees, timber, and shipping. No skill in the mariner, nor 
 strength of rowing, can work an escape : the sailor at the helm find? 
 the ship at first go in a current opposite to his intentions ; his vessel's 
 motion, though slow in the beginning, becomes every moment more 
 rapid ; it goes round in circles still narrower and narrower, till at bis' 
 
 Kircher, Mund. Subt. vol. i. p. 155.
 
 no A HISTORY OF 
 
 :: is drilled against the rocks, and instantly disappears : nor is it 
 seen again for six hours; till the tide flowing, it is vomited forth with 
 tne same violence with which it was drawn in. The noise of this 
 dreadful vortex still farther contributes to increase its terror, which, 
 with the dashing of the waters, and the dreadful valley, if it may be 
 so called, caused by their circulation, makes one of the most tremen- 
 dous objects in nature. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF THE CHANGES PRODUCED BY THE SEA UPON THE EARTH. 
 
 FROM what has been said, as well of the earth as of the sea, they 
 both appear to be in continual fluctuation. The earth, the common 
 promptuary that supplies subsistence to men, animals, and vegetables, 
 is continually furnishing its stores to their support. But the matter 
 which is thus derived from it, is soon restored and laid down again to 
 be prepared for fresh mutations. The transmigration of souls is, no 
 doubt, false and whimsical ; but nothing can be more certain than the 
 transmigration of bodies : the spoils of the meanest reptile may go to 
 the formation of a prince ; and, on the contrary, as the poet has it, 
 the body of Caesar may be employed in stopping a beer-barrel. From 
 this, and other causes, therefore, the earth is in continual change. Its 
 internal fires, the deviation of its rivers, and the falling of its moun 
 tains, are daily altering its surface ; and geography can scarce recol 
 lect the lakes and the valleys that history once described. 
 
 But these changes are nothing to the instability of the ocean. It 
 would seem that inquietude was as natural to it as its fluidity. It is 
 first seen with a constant and equable motion going towards the west ; 
 the tides then interrupt this progression, and for a time drive the 
 waters in a contrary direction ; besides these agitations, the currents 
 act their part in a smaller sphere, being generally greatest where the 
 other motions of the sea are least ; namely, nearest the shore : the 
 winds also contribute their share in this universal fluctuation ; so that 
 scarcely any part of the sea is wholly seen to stagnate. 
 
 Nil enini qu'iescit, undis impellitur unda, 
 Et spiritus et calor toto se corpore miscent. 
 
 As this great element is thus changed, and continually labouring In- 
 ternally, it may be readily supposed that it produces correspondent 
 changes upon its shores, and those parts of the earth subject to its in' 
 fluence. In fact it is every day making considerable alterations, either 
 by overflowing its shores in one place, or deserting them in others; hy 
 covering over whole tracts of country that were cultivated and peo- 
 pled, at one time ; or by leaving its bed to be appropriated to the 
 purposes of vegetation, and to supply a new theatre for human indus- 
 try, at another. 
 
 In this struggle between the earth and the sea for dominion, the 
 greatest number of our shores seem to defy the whole rage of tho 
 waves, both hy their height, and the rocky materials of which they
 
 THE EARTH. Ill 
 
 are composed. The coasts of Italy, for instance,* are bordered with 
 rocks of marble of different kinds, the quarries of which may easily 
 be distinguished at a distance from sea, and appear like perpendicu- 
 lar columns of the most beautiful kinds of marble, ranged along the 
 shore. In general, the coasts of France, from Brest to Bourdeaux, 
 are composed of rocks; as are also those of Spain and England, 
 which defend the land, and only are interrupted, here and there, to 
 give an egress to rivers, and to grant the conveniences of bays and 
 harbours to our shipping. It may in general be remarked, that 
 wherever the sea is most violent and furious, there the boldest shores, 
 and of the most compact materials, are found to oppose it There 
 are many shores several hundred feet perpendicular, against which 
 the sea, when swollen with tides or storms, rises and beats with in- 
 conceivable fury. In the Orkneys,! where the shores are thus form- 
 ed, it sometimes, when agitated by a storm, rises two hundred feet 
 perpendicular, and dashes up its spray, together with sand and other 
 substances that compose its bottom, upon land, like showers of rain. 
 
 From hence, therefore, we may conceive how the violence of the 
 sea, and the boldness of the shore, may be said to have made each 
 other. Where the sea meets no obstacles, it spreads its waters with 
 a gentle intumescence, till all its power is destroyed, by wanting 
 depth to aid the motion. But when its progress is checked in the 
 midst, by the prominence of rocks, or the abrupt elevation of the 
 land, it dashes with all the force of its depth against the obstacle, and 
 forms, by its repeated violence, that abruptness of *he shore which 
 confines its impetuosity. Where the sea is extremely deep, or very 
 much vexed by tempests, it is .no small obstacle that can confine its 
 rage ; and for this reason we see the boldest shores projected against 
 the deepest waters; all less impediments having long before been sur- 
 mounted and washed away. Perhaps of all the shores in the world, 
 there is not one so high as that on the west of St. Kilda, which, upon 
 a late admeasurement,! was found to be six hundred fathoms perpen- 
 dicular above the surface of the sea. Here also, the sea is deep, tur- 
 bulent, and stormy ; so that it requires great force in the shore to 
 oppose its violence. In many parts of the world, and particularly 
 upon the coasts of the East Indies, the shores, though not hign above 
 water, are generally very deep, and consequently the waves roll 
 against the land with great weight and irregularity. The rising of 
 the waves against the shore, is called by mariners the surf of the sea ; 
 and in shipwrecks is generally fatal to such as attempt to swim on 
 shore. In this case no dexterity in the swimmer, no float he can use, 
 neither swimming-girdle nor cork-jacket will save him; the weight of 
 the superincumbent waves breaks upon him at once, and crushes him 
 with certain ruin. Some few of the natives, however, have the art 
 of swimming and of navigating their little boats near those shores 
 where a European is sure of instant destruction. 
 
 In places where the force of the sea is less violent, or its tiles less 
 rapid, the shores are generally seen to descend with a more gradual 
 declivity. Over these, the waters of the tide steal by almost imper 
 
 * Buffon, vol. ii. p. 199. f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 191. { Description of St. Kilda
 
 112 A HISTORY OF 
 
 ceptible degrees, covering them for a large extent, and leaving then* 
 bare on its recess. Upon these shores, as was said, the sea seldom 
 beats with any great violence, as a large wave has not depth sufficient 
 to float it onwards, so that here only are to be seen gentle surges 
 making calmly towards land, and lessening as they approach. As 
 the sea, in the former description, is generally seen to present pros- 
 pects of tumult and uproar, here it more usually exhibits a scene of 
 repose and tranquil beauty. Its waters which, when surveyed from 
 the precipice, afforded a muddy greenish hue, arising from their depth 
 and position to the eye*, when regarded from a shelving shore wear 
 the colour of the sky, and seem rising to meet it. The deafening 
 noise of the deep sea, is here converted into gentle murmurs ; instead 
 of the water dashing against the face of the rock, it advances and re- 
 cedes, still going forward, but with just force enough to push its weeds 
 and shells, by insensible approaches, to the shore. 
 
 There are other shores, besides those already described, which 
 either have been raised by art, to oppose the sea's approaches, or, 
 from the sea's gaining ground, are threatened with imminent destruc- 
 tion. The sea's being thus seen to give and take away lands at plea- 
 sure, is, without question, one of the most extraordinary considerations 
 in all natural history. In some places it is seen to obtain the superi- 
 ority by slow and certain approaches ; or to burst in at once, and 
 overwhelm all things in undistinguished destruction ; in other places 
 it departs from its shores, and where its waters have been known to 
 rage, it leaves fields covered with the most beautiful verdure. 
 
 The formation of new lands by the sea's continually bringing its 
 sediment to one place, and by the accumulation of its sands in an- 
 other, is easily conceived. We have had many instances of this in 
 England. The island of Oxney, which is adjacent to Romney-marsh, 
 was produced in this manner. This had for a long time been a low 
 Jevel, continually in danger of being overflown by the river Rother ; 
 iut the sea, by its depositions, has gradually raised the bottom of the 
 riv.er, while it has hollowed the mouth ; so that the one is sufficiently 
 secured from inundations, and the other is deep enough to admit ships 
 of considerable burthen. The like also may be seen at that bank 
 called the Doggersands, where two tides meet, and which thus re- 
 ceives new increase every day, so that in time the place seems to 
 promise fair for being habitable earth. On many parts of the coasts 
 of France, England, Holland, Germany, and Prussia, the sea has been 
 sensibly known to retire.t Hubert Thomas asserts, in his Descrip- 
 tion of the Country of Liege, that the sea formerly encompassed the 
 city of Tongres, which, however, is at present thirty-five leagues dis- 
 tant from it. this assertion he supports by many strong reasons; and 
 among others, by the iron rings fixed in the walls of the town, for 
 fastening the ships that came into the port. In Italy there is a con- 
 siderable piece of ground gained at the mouth of the river Arno; and 
 Ravenna, that once stood bv the sea-side, is now considerably re- 
 moved from it. But we ueuu scarce mention these, when we find 
 that the whole republic of Holland seems to be a conquest upon th 
 
 Nswton's Optic's, p. 133167. f Buffon, vol. vi. p. 424
 
 THE EARTH. m 
 
 Rea, and, in a manner, rescued from its bosom. The surface of the 
 earth, in this country, is below the level of the bed of the sea; ami 
 f remember, upon approaching the coast, to have looked down upon 
 it from the sea, as into a valley ; however, it is every day rising 
 higher by the depositions made upon it by the sea, the Rhine, and 
 (lie Meuse; and those parts which formerly admitted large men 01 
 war, are now known to be too shallow to receive ships of very mode- 
 rn) e burthen.* The province of Jucatan, a peninsula in the gulf of 
 Mexico, was formerly a part of the sea. This tract, which stretches 
 out into the ocean a hundred leagues, and which is above thirty 
 broad, is every where, at a moderate depth below the surface, com- 
 posed of shells, which evince that its land once formed the bed of 
 the sea. In France, the town of Aigues Mortes was a port in the 
 time of St. Louis, which is now removed more than four miles from 
 the sea. Psalmodi, in the same kingdom, was an island in the year 
 815, but is now more than six miles from the shore. All along the 
 coasts of Norfolk, I am very well assured, that in the memory of man 
 the sea has gained fifty yards in some places, and lost as much in others. 
 
 Thus numerous, therefore, are the instances of new lands having 
 been produced from the sea, which, as we see, is brought about two 
 different ways : first, by the waters raising banks of sand and mud where 
 their sediment is deposited ; and, secondly, by their relinquishing tho 
 shore entirely, and leaving it unoccupied to the industry of man. 
 
 But as the sea has been thus known to recede from some lands, so 
 has it, by fatal experience, been found to encroach upon others ; and 
 probably these depredations on one part of the shore, may account 
 for their dereliction from another ; for the current which rested upon 
 some certain bank, having got an egress in some other place, it no 
 longer presses upon its former bed, but pours all its stream into the 
 Hew entrance ; so that every inundation of the sea may be attended 
 with some correspondent dereliction of another shore. 
 
 However this be, we have numerous histories of the sea's inunda- 
 tions, and its burying whole provinces in its bosom. Many countries 
 that have been thus destroyed, bear melancholy witness to the truth 
 of history ; and show the tops of their houses, and the spires of their 
 steeples, still standing at the bottom of the water. One of the most 
 considerable inundations we have in history, is that which happened 
 in the reign of Henry 1. which overflowed the estates of the Earl 
 Godwin, and forms now that bank called the Goodwin Sands. In the 
 year 1546, a similar eruption of the sea destroyed a hundred thousand 
 persons in the territory of Dort ; and yet a greater number round 
 Dullart. In Friezland, and Zealand, there were more than three hun- 
 dred villages overwhelmed ; and their ruins continue still visible at the 
 bottom of the water in a clear day. The Baltic sea has, by slow de 
 grees, covered a large part of Pomerania ; and, among others, destroyed 
 and overwhelmed the famous port of Vineta. In the same manner, 
 the Norwegian sea has formed several little islands from the main 
 land, and still daily advances upon the continent. The German sea has 
 advanced upon the shores of Holland, near Catt ; so that the ruins of 
 
 Buffon, vol. vi. p. 424 
 VOL. I H
 
 114 A HISTORY OF 
 
 in ancient citadel of the Romans, which was formerly built upon this 
 coast, are now actually under water. To these accidents several more 
 might be added ; our own historians, and those of other countries, 
 abound with them ; almost every flat shore of any extent, being able 
 to show something that it has lost, or something that it has gained 
 from the sea. 
 
 There are some shores on which the sea has made temporary 
 depredations ; where it has overflowed, and after remaining perhaps 
 some ages, it has again retired of its own accord, or been driven back 
 by the industry of man.* There are many lands in Norway, Scot- 
 land, and the Maldivia Islands, that are at one time covered with wa- 
 ter, and at another free. The country round the isle of Ely, in the 
 time of Bede, about a thousand years ago, was one of the most de- 
 lightful spots in the whole kingdom ; it was not only richly cultivated, 
 and produced all the necessaries of life, but grapes also, that afforded 
 excellent wine. The accounts of that time are copious in the descrip- 
 tion of its verdure and fertility ; its rich pastures covered with flow- 
 ers and herbage ; its beautiful shades, and wholesome air. But the 
 sea, breaking in upon the land, overwhelmed the whole country, took 
 possession of the soil, and totally destroyed one of the most fertile 
 valleys in the world. Its air, from being dry and healthful, from that 
 time became most unwholesome, and clogged with vapours ; and the 
 small part of the country that, by being higher than the rest, escaped 
 the deluge, was soon rendered uninhabitable, from its noxious vapours. 
 Thus this country continued under water for some centuries ; till at 
 last the sea, by the same caprice which had prompted its invasions, 
 began to abandon the earth in like manner. It has continued for some 
 ages to relinquish its former conquests ; and although the inhabitants 
 can neither boast the longevity, nor the luxuries of their former pre- 
 occupants, yet they find ample means of subsistence ; and if they hap- 
 pen to survive the first years of their residence there, they are often 
 known to arrive at a good old age. 
 
 But although history be silent as to many other inundations of the 
 like kind, where the sea has overflowed the country, and afterwards 
 retired, yet we have numberless testimonies of another nature, that 
 prove it beyond the possibility of doubt : I mean those numerous trees 
 that are found buried at considerable depths in places where either rivers 
 or the sea has accidentally overflown.t At the mouth of the river Ness, 
 near Bruges, in Flanders, at the depth of fifty feet, are found great 
 quantities of trees lying as close to each other as they do in a wood : the 
 trunks, the branches, and the leaves, are in such perfect preservation, 
 that the particular kind of each tree may instantly be known. About 
 five hundred years ago, this very ground was known to have been 
 covered with the sea ; nor is there any history or tradition of its hav- 
 ing been dry ground, which we can have no douot must have been 
 the case. Thus we see a country flourishing in verdure, producing 
 large forests, and trees of various kinds, overwhelmed by the sea. 
 Wo see this element depositing its sediment to a height of fifty feet ; 
 and its waters must, therefore, nave risen much higher. Wt see th 
 
 * Bnfibn, vol. ii. p. 425. f Ibid, vol. li. p. 403
 
 THE EARTH. 11? 
 
 same, after it has thus overwhelmed and sunk the land so deep be- 
 neath its slime, capriciously retiring from the same coasts, and leaving 
 that habitable once more, which it had formerly destroyed. All this 
 is wonderful ; and perhaps, instead of attempting to inquire after the 
 cause, which has hitherto been inscrutable, it will best become us to 
 rest satisfied with admiration. 
 
 At the city of JVIodena in Italy, and about four miles round it, 
 wherever it is dug, when the workmen arrive at the depth of sixty- 
 three feet, they come to a bed of chalk, which they bore with an au- 
 ger five feet deep : they then withdraw from the pit, before the auger 
 is removed, and upon its extraction, the water bursts up through the 
 aperture with great violence, and quickly fills this new-made well, 
 which continues full, and is affected neither by rains nor droughts. 
 But that which is most remarkable in this operation, is the layers of 
 earth as we descend. At the depth of fourteen feet are found the ru- 
 ns of an ancient city, paved streets, houses, floors, and different pieces 
 jf Mosaic. Under this is found a solid earth, that would induce one to 
 think had never been removed ; however, under it is found a soft 
 oozy earth, made up of vegetables ; and at twenty-six feer depth, large 
 trees entire, such as walnut-trees, with the walnuts still sticking on the 
 stem, and their leaves and branches in exact preservation. At twen- 
 ty-eight feet deep, a soft chalk is found, mixed with a vast quantity 
 sf shells; and this bed is eleven feet thick. Under this, vegetables 
 are found again, with leaves, and branches of trees as before ; and 
 thus alternately chalk and vegetable earth to the depth of sixty-three 
 feet. These are the layers wherever the workmen attempt to bore ; 
 while in many of them they also find pieces of charcoal, bones, and 
 bits of iron. Frojn this description, therefore, it appears, that this 
 country has been alternately overflowed and deserted by the sea, one 
 age after another : nor were these overflowings and retirings of trifling 
 depth, or of short continuance. When the sea burst in, it must have 
 been a long time in overwhelming the branches of the fallen forest 
 with its sediment ; and still longer in forming a regular bed of shells 
 eleven feet over them. It must have, therefore, taken an age, at least, 
 to make any one of these layers ; and we may conclude, that it must 
 have been many ages employed in the production of them all. The 
 land also, upon being deserted, must have had time to grow compact, 
 to gather fresh fertility, and to be drained of its waters before it could 
 be disposed to vegetation, or before its trees could have shot forth 
 again to maturity. 
 
 We have instances nearer home of the same kind given us in the 
 Philosophical Transactions ; one of them by Mr. Derham. An inunda- 
 tion of the sea, at Dagenham, in Essex, laying bare a part of the ad- 
 jacent pasture for about two hundred feet wide, and, in some places, 
 twenty deep, it discovered a number of trees that had lain there for 
 many ages before ; these trees, by laying long under ground, were 
 become black and hard, and their fibres so tough, that one might as 
 easily break a wire, as any of them : they lay so thick in the place 
 where they were found, that in many parts he could step from one tr 
 another : he conceived also, that not only all the adjacent marshes, 
 for several hundred acres, were covered underneath with such timber,
 
 116 A HISTORY OF 
 
 but abi the marshes along the mouth of the Thames, for sevei fi 
 miles. The meeting with these trees at such depths, he ascribes tc 
 the sediment of the river, and the tides, which constantly washing 
 over them, have always left some part of their substance behind, so 
 as, by repeated alluvions, to work a bed of vegetable earth over them, 
 to the height at which he found it. 
 
 The levels of Hatfield-Chace, in Yorkshire, a tract above eighteen 
 thousand acres, which was yearly overflown, was reduced to arable 
 and pasture-land, by one sir Cornelius Vermusden, a Dutchman. At 
 the bottom of this wide extent, are found millions of the roots and 
 bodies of trees, of such as this island either formerly did, or does at 
 present produce. The roots of all stand in their proper postures ; 
 and by them, as thick as ever they could grow, the respective trunks 
 of each, some above thirty yards long. The oaks, some of which have 
 been sold for fifteen pounds a piece, are as black as ebony, very last- 
 ing, and close grained. The ash-trees are as soft as earth, and are 
 commonly cut in pieces by the workmen's spades, and as soon as flung 
 up into the open air, turn to dust. But all the rest, even the willows 
 themselves, which are softer than the ash, preserve their substance 
 and texture to this very day. Some of the firs appear to have vege- 
 tated, even after they were fallen, and to have, from their branches, 
 struck up large trees, as great as the parent trunk. It is observable, 
 that many of these trees have been burnt, some quite through, some 
 on one side, some have been found chopped and squared, others riven 
 with great wooden wedges, all sufficiently manifesting, that the coun 
 try which was deluged had formerly been inhabited. Near a great 
 root of one tree, were found eight coins of the Roman emperors ; and, 
 in some places, the marks of the ridge and furrow were plainly per- 
 ceivable, which testified that the ground had formerly been patient of 
 cultivation. 
 
 The learned naturalist who has given this description,* has pretty 
 plainly evinced, that this forest, in particular, must have been thus 
 levelled by the Romans ; and that the falling of the trees must have 
 contributed to the accumulation of the waters. " The Romans," says 
 he, " when the Britons fled, always pursued them into the fortresses 
 of low woods, and miry forests : in these the wild natives found shel- 
 ter; and, when opportunity offered, issued out, and fell upon their 
 invaders without mercy. In this manner the Romans were at length 
 so harassed, that orders were issued out for cutting down all the woods 
 and forests in Britain. In order to effect this, and destroy the enemy 
 the easier, they set fire to the woods, composed of pines, and other 
 inflammable timber, which spreading, the conflagration destroyed not 
 only the forest, but infinite numbers of the wretched inhabitants who 
 had taken shelter therein. When the pine-trees had thus done what 
 mischief they could, the Romans then brought their army nearer, and, 
 with whole legions of the captive Britons, cut down most of the trees 
 that were yet left standing ; leaving only here and there some trees 
 untouched, as monuments of their fury. These, unneedful of their la- 
 bour, being destitute of the support of the underwood, and of theii 
 
 Phil. Trans, vol. iv. part ii. p. 214.
 
 THE EARTH. 11? 
 
 leigbbouring trees, were easily overthrown by the winds, and, without 
 interruption, remained on the places where they happened to fall. 
 The forest, thus fallen, must necessarily have stopped up the currents, 
 both from land and sea ; and turned into great lakes, what were be- 
 fore but temporary streams. The working of the waters here, the 
 consumption and decay of rotten boughs and branches, and the vast 
 increase of water-moss which flourishes upon marshy grounds, soon 
 formed a covering over the trunks of the fallen trees, and raised the 
 earth several feet above its former level. The earth thus every day 
 swelling, by a continual increase from the sediment of the waters, and 
 by the lightness of the vegetable substances of which it was com- 
 posed, soon overtopt the waters by which this intumescence was at 
 first effected ; so that it entirely got rid of its inundations, or only 
 demanded a slight assistance from man for that purpose." This may 
 be the origin of all bogs, which are performed by the putrefactiou 
 of vegetable substances, mixed with the mud and slime deposited by 
 waters, and at length acquiring a sufficient consistency. 
 
 From this we see what powerful effects the sea is capable of pro- 
 ducing upon its shores, either by overflowing some, or deserting 
 others ; by altering the direction of these, and rendering those crag- 
 gy and precipitate, which before were shelving. But the influence it 
 has upon these, is nothing to that which it has upon that great body 
 of earth, which forms its bottom. It is at the bottom of the sea that 
 the greatest wonders are performed, and the most rapid changes are 
 produced ; it is there that the motion of the tides and the currents have 
 their whole force, and agitate the substances of which their bed is 
 composed. But all these are almost wholly hid from human curiosi- 
 ty ; the miracles of the deep are performed in secret ; and we have 
 but little information from its abysses, excepi what we receive by in- 
 spection at very shallow depths, or by the plummet, or from divers, 
 who are kown to descend from twenty to thirty fathoms.* 
 
 The eye can reach but a very short \vay into the depths of the 
 sea ; and that only when its surface is glassy and serene. In many 
 seas it perceives nothing but a bright sandy plain at bottom, extending 
 for several hundred miles, without an intervening object. But in 
 others, particularly in the Red Sea, it is very different : the whole 
 bottom of this extensive bed of waters is, literally speaking, a forest of 
 submarine plants and corals, formed by insects for their habitation, 
 sometimes branching out to a great extent. Here are seen the mad- 
 repores, the sponges, mosses, sea-mushrooms, and other marine pro- 
 ductions, covering every part of the bottom; so that some have even 
 supposed the sea to have taken its name from the colour of its plants 
 below. However, these plants are by no means peculiar to this sea, 
 as they are found in great quantities in the Persian Gulf, along the 
 coast of Africa, and those of Provence and Catalonia. 
 
 The bottom of many parts of the sea, near America, presents a very 
 cntferent, though a very beautiful appearance. This is covered with 
 vegetables, which make it look as green as a meadow, and beneatb 
 are seen thousands of turtles, and other sea animals, feeding thereon 
 
 PhU. Trans, vol. iv. part ii. p. 192.
 
 U8 A HISTORY OF 
 
 In order to extend our knowledge of the sea to greater depths, re- 
 '.ourse has been had to the plummet ; which is generally made of a 
 iump of lead of about forty pounds weight, fastened to a cord.* This, 
 however, only answers in moderate depths ; for when a deep sea is to 
 be sounded, the matter of which the cord is composed, being lighter 
 than the water, floats upon it, and when let down to a considerable 
 depth, its length so increases its surface, that it is often sufficient te 
 prevent the lead from sinking ; so that this may be the reason that 
 some? parts of the sea are said to have no bottom. 
 
 In general, we learn from the plummet, that the bottom of the sea 
 is tolerably even where it has been examined ; and that the farther 
 from the shore, the sea is in general the deeper. Notwithstanding, in 
 the midst of a great and unfathomable ocean, we often find an island 
 raising its head, and singly braving its fury. Such islands may be 
 considered as the mountains of the deep ; and, could we for a mo- 
 ment imagine the waters of the ocean removed or dried away, we 
 should probably find the inequalities of its bed resembling those that 
 are found at land. Here extensive plains, there valleys, and, in many 
 places, mountains of amazing height. M. Buache has actually given 
 us a map of that part of its bottom, which lies between Africa and 
 America, taken from the several soundings of mariners : in it we find 
 the same uneven surface that we do upon land, the same eminences, 
 itnd the same depressions. In such an imaginary prospect, however, 
 there would be this difference, that as the tops of land-mountains ap- 
 pear the most barren and rocky, the tops of sea-mountains would be 
 found the most verdant and fruitful. 
 
 The plummet, which thus gives us some idea of the inequalities 
 of the bottom, leaves us totally in the dark as to every other par- 
 ticular ; recourse, therefore, has been had to divers : these, either 
 being bred up in this dangerous way of life, and accustomed 
 to remain some time under water without breathing, or assisted 
 by means of a diving-bell, have been able to return some confused 
 and uncertain accounts of the places below. In the great diving-bell 
 improved by Dr. Halley, which was large enough to contain five men, 
 and was supplied with fresh air by buckets, that alternately rose and 
 fell, they descended fifty fathom. In this huge machine, which was 
 let down from the mast of the ship, the doctor himself went down to 
 the bottom, where, when the sea was clear, and especially when the 
 sun shone, he could see perfectly well to write or read, and much more 
 to take up any thing that was underneath : at other times, when the 
 water was troubled and thick, it was as dark as night below, so thai 
 he was obliged to keep a candle lighted at the bottom. But there 
 was one thing very remarkable, that the water which from above was 
 usually seen of a green colour, when looked at from below, appeared 
 to him of a very different one, casting a redness upon one of his hands, 
 like that of damask roses :t a proof of the sea's taking its colour not 
 from any thing floating in it, but from the different reflections of the 
 lays of light. Upon the whole, the accounts we have received from 
 the bottom, by this contrivance, are but few. We learn from it, an<\ 
 
 * Boyle, vol. ii. p. 5. t Newton's Optics, p. 56
 
 THE EARTH. HO 
 
 irom divers in general, that while the surface of the sea may be de- 
 formed by tempests, it is usually calm and temperate below ;* that 
 some divers, who have gone down when the weather was calm, and 
 came up when it was tempestuous, were surprised at their not per 
 ceiving the change at the bottom. This, however, must not be sup 
 posed to obtain with regard to the tides, and the currents, as they art 
 seen constantly shifting their bottom ; taking their bed with great vi 
 olence from one place, and depositing it upon another. We are in- 
 formed, also, by divers, that the sea grows colder in proportion as they 
 descend to the bottom ; that as far as the sun's rays pierce, it is influ- 
 enced by their warmth ; but lower, the cold becomes almost intolera- 
 ble. A person of quality, who had been himself a diver, as Mr. Boyle 
 informs us, declared, that though he seldom descended above three or 
 four fathoms, yet he found it so much colder than near the top, that 
 he could not well endure it ; and that being let down in ?i great diving- 
 bell, although the water could not immediately touch him, he found' 
 the air extremely cold upon his first arrival at the bottom. 
 
 From divers also we learn, that the sea, in many places, is filled 
 with rocks at bottom ; and, that among their clefts, and upon their 
 sides, various substances sprout forward, which are either really vege- 
 tables, or the nests of insects, increased to some magnitude. Some of 
 these assume the shape of beautiful flowers ; and, though soft when 
 taken up, soon harden, and are kept in the cabinets of the curious. ' 
 
 But of all those divers who have brought us information from the 
 bottom of the deep, the famous Nicola Pesce, whose performances are 
 told us by Kircher, is the most celebrated. I will not so much as pre- 
 tend to vouch for the veracity of Kircher's account, which he assures 
 us he had from the archives of the kings of Sicily ; but it may serve to 
 enliven a heavy chapter. " In the times of Frederic, king of Sicily, 
 there lived a celebrated diver, whose name was Nicholas, and who, 
 from his amazing skill in swimming, and his perseverance under wa- 
 ter, was surnamed the Fish. Th'is man had, frdm his infancy, been 
 used to the sea ; and earned his scanty subsistence by diving for corals 
 and oysters ; which he sold to the villagers on shore. His long ac- 
 quaintance with the sea, at last, brought it to be almost his natural 
 element. He frequently was known to spend five days in the midst 
 of the waves, without any other provisions than the fish which he 
 caught there, and ate raw. He often swam over from Sicily to Cala- 
 bria, a tempestuous and dangerous passage, carrying letters from the 
 king. He was frequently known to swim among the gulfs of the Li- 
 pari islands, no way apprehensive of danger. 
 
 " Some mariners out at sea, one day observed something at some 
 distance from them, which they regarded as a sea-monster ; but, upon 
 its approach, it was known to be Nicholas, whom they took into their 
 ship. When they asked him whither he was going in so stormy and 
 rough a sea, and at such a distance from land, he shewed them a 
 packet of letters, which he was carrying to one of the towns of Italy, 
 exactly done up in a leather bag, in such a manner as that iney could 
 Dot be wetted by the sea. He kept them thus company foi- some 
 
 Bovle, vol. iii. p. 242.
 
 120 A HISTORY OF 
 
 time on their voyage, conversing and asking Questions ; and after eat 
 ing a hearty meal with them, he took his leave, and, jumping into the 
 tea, pursued his voyage alone. 
 
 " In order to aid these powers of enduring in the deep, Nature seem- 
 ed to have assisted him in a very extraordinary manner ; for the spaces 
 between his fingers and toes were webbed, as in a goose ; and his 
 chest became so very capacious, that he could take in, at one inspira- 
 tion, as much breath as would serve him for a whole day. 
 
 " The account of so extraordinary a person did not fail to reach the 
 king himself ; who, actuated by the general curiosity, ordered that 
 Nicholas should be brought before him. It was no easy matter to find 
 Nicholas, who generally spent his time in the solitudes of the deep ; 
 but, at last, however, after much searching, he was found, and brought 
 before his Majesty. The curiosity of this monarch had been long ex- 
 cited by the accounts he had heard of the bottom of the gulf of Cha- 
 rybdis ; he therefore conceived that it would be a proper opportunity 
 to have more certain information ; and commanded our poor diver to 
 examine the bottom of this dreadful whirlpool : as an incitement to 
 his obedience, he ordered a golden cup to be flung into it. Nicholas 
 was not insensible of the danger to which he was exposed ; dangers 
 Vest known only to himself; and he therefore presumed to remon- 
 strate ; but the hopes of the reward, the desire of pleasing the king, 
 and the pleasure of shewing his skill, at last prevailed. He instantly 
 jumped into the gulf, and was swallowed as instantly up in its bosom. 
 He continued for three quarters of an hour below ; during which 
 time the king and his attendants remained upon shore anxious for his 
 fate ; but he at last appeared, buffeting upon the surface, holding the 
 cup in triumph in one hand, and making his way good among the 
 waves with the other. It may be supposed he was received with ap- 
 plause, 'upon his arrival on shore; the cup was made the reward of 
 his adventure j the king ordered him to be taken proper care of; and, 
 as he was somewhat fatigued and debilitated by his labour, after a 
 hearty meal he was put to bed, and permitted to refresh himself by 
 sleeping. 
 
 " When his spirits were thus restored, he was again brought to 
 satisfy the king's curiosity with a narrative of the wonders he had 
 seen ; and his account was to the following effect : He would never, 
 he said, have obeyed the king's commands, had he been apprized of 
 half the dangers that were before him. There were four things, he 
 said, that rendered the gulf dreadful, not only to men, but even to the 
 fishes themselves : first, the force of the water bursting up from the 
 bottom, which requires great strength to resist : secondly, the abrupt- 
 ness of the rocks, that on every side threatened destruction ; thirdly, 
 the force of the whirlpool, dashing against those rocks ; and fourthly, 
 the number and magnitude of the polypous fish, some of which ap- 
 peared as large as a man, and which, every where sticking against the 
 rocks, projected their fibrous arms to entangle him. Being asked how 
 he was able so readily to find th*> cup that had been thrown in, he 
 replied, that it happened to be flu.ig by the waves into the cavity of 
 a rock, against which he himself was urged in his descent. This ac 
 count, however, did not satisfy the king's curiosity : being r quested
 
 Spanish Pointer, p. 136. 
 
 American Wild Dog, p. 126 
 
 Esquimaux Dog, p. 120.
 
 THE EARTH. 121 
 
 to venture once more into the gulf for further discoveries, he at first 
 refused ; but the king, desirous of having the most exact information 
 possible of all things to be found in the gulf, repeated his solicita- 
 tions; and, to give them still greater weight, produced a larger cup 
 than the former, and added also a purse of gold. Upon thfise con- 
 siderations, the unfortunate Pessacola once again plunged into the 
 whirlpool, and was never heard of more." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OP AIR. 
 
 HAVING described the earth and the sea, we now ascend into that 
 fluid which surrounds them both; and which, in some measure, sup- 
 ports and supplies all animated nature. As upon viewing the bottom 
 of the ocean from its surface, we see an infinity of animals moving 
 therein, and seeking food ; so, were some superior being to regard 
 the earth at a proper distance, he might consider us in the same 
 light: he might, from his superior station, behold a number of busy 
 little beings, immersed in the aerial fluid, that every where surrounds 
 them, and sedulously employed in procuring the means of subsist- 
 ence. This fluid, though too fine for the gross perception of its in- 
 habitants, might, to his nicer organs of sight, be very visible; and, 
 while he at once saw into its operations, he might smile at the varie- 
 ties of human conjecture concerning it : he might readily discern, 
 perhaps, the height above the surface of the earth to which this fluid 
 atmosphere reaches ; he might exactly determine that peculiar form 
 of its parts which gives it the spring or elasticity with which it is en- 
 dued ; he might distinguish which of its parts were pure, incorrup- 
 tible air, and which only made for a little time to assume the appear- 
 ance, so as to be quickly returned back to the element from whence 
 it came. But as for us, who are immersed at the bottom of this 
 gulf, we must be contented with a more confined knowledge ; and, 
 wanting a proper point of prospect, remain satisfied with a combina- 
 tion of the effects. 
 
 One of the first things that our senses inform us of is, that although 
 the air is too fine for our sight, it is very obvious to our touch. Al- 
 though we cannot see the wind contained in a bladder, we can very 
 readily feel its resistance; and though the hurricane may want colour, 
 we often fatally experience that it does not want force. We have 
 equal experience of the air's spring or elasticity : the bladder, when 
 pressed, returns again upon the pressure being taken away ; a bottle, 
 vhen filled, often bursts, from the spring of air which is included. 
 
 So far the slightest experience reaches ; but, by carrying experi- 
 ment a little farther, we learn, that air also is heavy ; a round glass 
 vessel being emptied of its air, and accurately weighed, has been 
 found lighter than when it was weighed with the air in it. Upon 
 computing the superior weight of the full vessel, a cubic foot of air it 
 found to weigh something more than an ounce.
 
 122 A HISTORY OF 
 
 from this experiment, therefore, we learn, that the earth, .nd all 
 things upon its surface, are every where covered with a ponderous 
 fluid, which rising very high over our heads, must be proportionally 
 heavy. For instance, as in the sea, a man at the depth of twenty feet 
 sustains a greater weight of water, than a man at the depth of but ten 
 feet ; so will a man at trie bottom of a valley have a greater weight of 
 air over him, than a man on the top of a mountain. 
 
 From hence we may conclude, that we sustain a very great weight of 
 air ; and although, like men walking at the bottom of the sea, we can- 
 not feel the weight which presses equally round us, yet the pressure 
 is not the less real. As in morals, we seldom know the blessings that 
 surround us till we are deprived of them ; so here we do not perceive 
 the weight of the ambient fluid till a part of it is taken away. If, by 
 any means, we contrive to take away the pressure of the air from any 
 one part of our bodies, we are soon made sensible of the weight upon 
 the other parts. Thus, if we clap our hand upon the mouth of a ves- 
 sel from whence the air has been taken away, there will thus be air 
 on one side, and none on the other ; upon which, we shall instantly 
 find the hand violently sucked inwards ; which is nothing more than 
 the weight of the air upon the back of the hand that forces it into the 
 space which is empty below. 
 
 As, by this experiment, we perceive that the air presses with great 
 weight upon every thing on the surface of the earth, so by other ex- 
 periments we learn the exact weight with which it presses. First, it 
 the air be exhausted out of any vessel, a drinking vessel for instance,* 
 and this vessel be set with the mouth downwards in water, the water 
 will rise up into the empty space, and fill the inverted glass ; for the 
 external air will, in this case, press up the water where there is no 
 weight to resist ; as, one part of a bed being pressed, makes the other 
 parts, that have no weight upon them, rise. In this case, as was said, 
 the water being pressed without, will rise in the glass ; and would 
 continue to rise (if the empty glass were tall enough) thirty-two feet 
 high. In fact, there have been pipes made purposely for this experi- 
 ment, of above thirty-two feet high ; in which, upon being exhausted, 
 the water has always risen to the height of thirty-two feet : there it 
 has always rested, and never ascended higher. From this, therefore, 
 we learn, that the weight of the air which presses up the water, is 
 equal to a pillar or column of water, which is thirty-two feet high : as it is 
 just able to raise such a column, and no more. In other words, the sur- 
 face of the earth is every where covered with a weight of air, which 
 is equivalent to a covering of thirty-two feet deep of water ; or to a 
 weight of twenty-nine inches and a half of quicksilver, which is 
 known to be just as heavy as the former. 
 
 Thus we see that the air, at the surface of the earth, is just as heavy 
 as thirty-two feet of water, or twenty-nine inches and a half of quick- 
 silver ; and it is easily found, by computation, that to raise water thirty- 
 iwo feet, will require a weight of fifteen pounds upon every square 
 inch. Now, if we are fond of computations, we have only to calcu- 
 
 * This may be done by burning a bit of paper m tlie same, an A fnen quickly turning i 
 town upon the water.
 
 THE EARTH. 123 
 
 late how many square inches are in the surface of an ordinary human 
 body, and allowing every inch to sustain fifteen pounds, we may amaze 
 ourselves at the weight of air we sustain. It has been computed, ana 
 found, that our ordinary load of air amounts to within a little of forty 
 thousand pounds : this is wonderful ! but wondering is not the way to 
 grow wise. 
 
 Notwithstanding this be our ordinary load, and our usual supply, 
 there are, at different times, very great variations. The air is not. 
 like water, equally heavy at all seasons ; but sometimes is lighter, and 
 sometimes more heavy. It is sometimes more compressed, and some- 
 times more elastic or springy, which produces the same effects as at 
 increase of its weight. The air, which at one time raises water thirty- 
 \wo feet in the tube, and quicksilver twenty-nine inches, will not at 
 another raise the one to thirty feet, or the other to twenty-six inches. 
 This makes, therefore, a very great difference in the weight we sus- 
 tain ; and we are actually known, by compulation, to carry at one 
 time four thousand pounds of air more than at another. 
 
 The reason of this surprising difference in the weight of air, is 
 either owing to its pressure from above, or to an increase of vapour 
 floating in it. Its increased pressure is the consequence of its spring 
 or elasticity, which cold and heat sensibly affect, and are continually 
 changing. 
 
 This elasticity of the air is one of its most amazing properties ; and 
 to which it should seem nothing can set bounds. A body of air that 
 may be contained in a nutshell, may easily, with heat, be dilated into 
 a sphere of unknown dimensions. On the contrary, the air contained 
 in a house, may be compressed into a cavity not larger than the eye 
 of a needle. In short, no bounds can be set to its confinement or ex- 
 pansion ; at least, experiment has hitherto found its attempts indefi- 
 nite. In every situation, it retains its elasticity ; and the more closely 
 we compress it, the more strongly does it resist the pressure. If to 
 the increasing the elasticity on one side by compression, we increase 
 it on the other side by heat, the force of both soon becomes irresisti- 
 ble ; and a certain French philosopher* supposed, that air thus con- 
 fined and expanding, was sufficient for the explosion of a world. 
 
 Many instruments have been formed to measure and determine these 
 different properties of the air ; and which serve several useful pur- 
 poses. The barometer serves to measure its weight ; to tell us when 
 t is heavier, and when lighter. It is composed of a glass tube or pipe, 
 of about thirty inches in length, closed up at one end ; this tube is 
 then filled with quicksilver ; this done, the maker clapping his finger 
 upon the open end, inverts the tube, and plunges the open end, finger 
 and all, into a bason of quicksilver, and then takes his finger away ; 
 now the quicksilver in the tube will, by its own weight, endeavour to 
 descend into that in the bason ; but the external air, pressing on the 
 surface of the quicksilver in the bason without, and no air being in 
 the tube at top, the quicksilver will continue in the tube, being press- 
 ed up, as was said, by the air, on the surface of the bason below. Th 
 height at which it is known to stand in the tube, is usually about twea- 
 
 * Mons'^ur Atnontons.
 
 124 A HISTORY OF 
 
 ry-nine inches, when the air is heavy ; but not above twenty-six, when 
 the air is very light. Thus, by this instrument, we can, with some 
 exactness, determine the weight of the air ; and, of consequence, tell 
 before-hand the changes of the weather. Before fine dry weather, 
 the air is charged with a variety of vapours, which float in it unseen, 
 and render it extremely heavy, so that it presses up the quicksilver ; 
 or, in other words, the barometer rises. In moist, rainy weather, the 
 vapours are washed down, or there is not heat sufficient for them to 
 rise, so that the air is then sensibly lighter, and presses up the quick- 
 silver with less force ; or, in other words, the barometer is seen to 
 fall. Our constitutions seem also to correspond with the changes of 
 the weather-glass ; they are braced, strong, and vigorous, with a large 
 body of air upon them ; they are languid, relaxed, and feeble, when 
 the air is light, and refuses to give our fibres their proper tone. 
 
 But although the barometer thus measures the weight of the air 
 with exactness enough for the general purposes of life, yet it is often 
 affected with a thousand irregularities, that no exactness in the instru- 
 ment can remedy, nor no theory account for. When high winds blow, 
 the quicksilver generally is low : it rises higher in cold weather than 
 in warm ; and is usually higher at morning and evening than at mid- 
 day : it generally descends lower after rain than it was before it. There 
 are also frequent changes in the air, without any sensible alteration in 
 the barometer. 
 
 As the barometer is thus used in predicting the changes of the 
 weather, so it is also serviceable in measuring the heights of moun- 
 tains, which mathematicians cannot so readily do : for, as the higher 
 we ascend from the surface of the earth, the air becomes lighter, so 
 the quicksilver in the baromter will descend in proportion. It is found 
 to sink at the rate of the tenth part of an inch for every ninety feet 
 we ascend ; so that in going up a mountain, if I find the quicksilver 
 fallen an inch, I conclude, that I am got upon an ascent of near nine 
 hundred feet high. In this there has been found some variation; 
 into a detail of which, it is not the business of a natural historian to 
 enter. 
 
 In order to determine the elasticity of air, the wind-gun has been 
 invented, which is an instrument variously made; but in all upon the 
 principle of compressing a large quantity of air into a tube, in which 
 there is an ivory ball, and then giving the compressed elastic air free 
 power to act, and drive the ball as directed. The ball, thus driven, 
 will pierce a thick board ; and will be as fatal, at small distance's, as 
 if driven with gunpowder. I do not know whether ever the force of 
 this instrument has been assisted by means of heat; certain I am, 
 that this, which could be very easily contrived by means of phospho- 
 rus, or any other hot substance applied to the barrel, would give such 
 a force as I doubt whether gunpowder itself could produce. 
 
 The air-pump is an instrument contrived to exhaust the air from 
 round a vessel adapted to that purpose, called a receiver. This 
 method of exhausting, is contrived in the simple instrument, by a 
 piston, like that of a syringe, going down into the vessel, and thus 
 pushing out its air; which, by means of a valve, is prevented from re- 
 liirning into the vessel again. But this, like all other complicated
 
 THE EARTH 125 
 
 instruments, will be better understood by a minute inspection, than 
 an hour's description : it may suffice here to observe, that by depriving 
 animals, and other substances, of all air, it shews us what the benefits 
 and effects of air are in sustaining life, or promoting vegetation. 
 
 The digester is an instrument of still more extraordinary effects than 
 any of the former ; and sufficiently discovers the amazing force of air, 
 when its elasticity is augmented by fire. A common tea-kettle, if the 
 spout were closed up, and the lid put firmly down, would serve to be- 
 come a digester, if strong enough. But the instrument used for this 
 purpose is a strong metal pot, with a lid to screw close on, so that, 
 when down, no air can get in or return : into this pot meat and bones 
 are put, with a small quantity of water, and then the lid screwed 
 close : a lighted lamp is put underneath, and, what is very extraordi- 
 nary, (yet equally true) in six or eight minutes the whole mass, bones 
 and all, are dissolved into a jelly ; so great is the force and elasticity 
 of the air contained within, struggling to escape, and breaking in 
 pieces all the substances with which it is mixed . Care, however, must 
 be taken not to heat this instrument too violently ; for then the inclosed 
 air would become irresistible, and burst the whole, with, perhaps, a 
 fatal explosion. 
 
 There are numberless other useful instruments made to depend on 
 the weight, the elasticity, or the fluidity of the air, which do not come 
 within the plan of the present work ; the design of which is not to 
 give an account of the inventions that have been made for determin- 
 ing the nature and properties of air, but a mere narrative of its effects. 
 The description of the pump, the forcing-pump, the fire-engine, the 
 steam-engine, the syphon, and many others, belong not to the natu- 
 ralist, but the experimental philosopher : the one gives a history of 
 Nature, as he finds she presents herself to him ; and he draws the 
 obvious picture : the other pursues her with close investigation, tor- 
 tures her by experiment to give up her secrets, and measures her latent 
 qualities with laborious precision. Much more, therefore, might be said 
 of the mechanical effects of air, and of the conjectures that have been 
 made respecting the form of its parts ; how some have supposed them 
 to resemble little hoops, coiled up in a spring ; others, like fleeces of 
 wool ; others, that the parts are endued with a repulsive quality, by 
 which, when squeezed together, they endeavour to fly off, and recede 
 from each other. We might have given the disputes relative to the 
 height to which this body of air extends above us, and concerning 
 which there is no agreement. We might have inquired how much of 
 the air we breathe is elementary, and not reducible to any other sub- 
 stance ; and of what density it would become, if it were supposed to 
 be continued down to the centre of the earth. At that place we might, 
 with the help of figures, and a bold imagination, have shown it twenty 
 thousand times heavier than its bulk of gold. We mignt aiso prove it 
 millions of times purer than upon earth, when raised to the surface of 
 the atmosphere. But these speculations do not belong to natural his- 
 tory ; and they have hitherto produced no great advantages in tht 
 branch of science to which they more properly appertain.
 
 126 A HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AN ESSAY TOWAKDS A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE AIR. 
 
 A LATE eminent philosopher has considered our atmosphere as one 
 large chymical vessel, in which an infinite number of various opera- 
 tions are constantly performing. In it all the bodies of the earth 
 are continually sending up apart of their substance by evaporation, to 
 mix in this great alembic, and to float awhile in common. Here mine- 
 rals, from their lowest depths, ascend in noxious, or in warm vapours, 
 to make a part of the general mass ; seas, rivers, and subterraneous 
 springs, furnish their copious supplies ; plants receive and return their 
 share ; and animals, that by living upon, consume this general store, 
 are found to give it back in greater quantities when they die.* The 
 air, therefore, that we breathe, and upon which we subsist, bears very 
 little resemblance to that pure elementary body which was described 
 in the last chapter ; and which is rather a substance that may be con- 
 ceived, than experienced to exist. Air, such as we find it, is one ol 
 the most compounded bodies in all nature. Water may be reduced to 
 a fluid every way resembling air, by heat ; which, by cold, becomes wa- 
 ter again. Every thing we see gives off its parts to the air, and has a 
 little floating atmosphere of its own round it. The rose is encompassed 
 with a sphere of its own odorous particles ; while the night-shade in- 
 fects the air with a scent of a more ungrateful nature. The perfume 
 of musk flies off in such abundance, that the quantity remaining be- 
 comes sensibly lighter by the loss. A thousand substances that escape 
 all our senses, we know to be there ; the powerful emanations of the 
 load-stone, the effluvia of electricity, the rays of light, and the insinu- 
 ations of fire. Such are the various substances through which we 
 move, and which we are constantly taking in at every pore, and re- 
 turning again with imperceptible discharge. 
 
 This great solution, or mixture of all earthly bodies, is continually 
 operating upon itself; which, perhaps, may be the cause of its unceas- 
 ing motion : but it operates still more visibly upon such grosser sub- 
 stances as are exposed to its influence ; for scarcely any substance is 
 found capable of resisting the corroding qualities of the air. The air, 
 say the chymists, is a chaos, furnished with all kinds of sails and men- 
 struums ; and, therefore, it is capable of dissolving all kinds cf bodies. 
 It is well known, that copper and iron are quickly covered, and eaten 
 with rust ; and that in the climates near the equator, no art can koop 
 them clean. In those dreary countries, the instruments, knives, and 
 keys, that are kept in the pocket, are nevertheless quickly encrusted ; 
 and the great guns, with every precaution, after some years, become 
 useless. Stones, as being less hard, may be readily supposed to be 
 more easily soluble. The marble of which the noble monuments of 
 Italian antiquity are composed, although in one of the finest climates 
 in the world, shew the impressions which have been made upon them 
 .ky the air. In many places they seem worm-eaten by time ; and, in 
 ethers, they aouear crumbling into dust. Gold alone seems tc be ex 
 
 * Boyle, vol. ii. p. 593
 
 THE EARTH. 127 
 
 empted from this general state of dissolution ; it is never found to con- 
 tract rust, though exposed never so long ; the reason of this seems tr; 
 be, that sea-salt, which is the only menstruum capable of acting upon, 
 and dissolving gold, is but very little mixed with the air ; for salt bo- 
 ing a very fixed body, and not apt to volatilize, and rise with heat ; 
 there is but a small proportion of it in the atmosphere. In the elabo- 
 /atories, and shops, however, where salt is much used, and the air is 
 impregnated with it, gold is found to rust as well as other metals. 
 
 Bodies of a softer nature are obviously destroyed by the air.* Mr- 
 Boyle says, that silks brought to Jamaica, will, if there exposed to the 
 air, rot, even while they preserve their colour; but if kept therefrom, 
 they both retain their strength and gloss. The same happens in Bra- 
 sil, where their clothes, which are black, soon turn of an iron colour ; 
 though, in the shops, they preserve their proper hue.t In these tropi 
 cal climates also, such are the putrescent qualities of the air, that 
 white sugar will sometimes be full of maggots. Drugs and plasters 
 lose their virtue, and become verminous. In some places they are 
 obliged to expose the sweetmeats by day in the sun, otherwise the 
 night air would quickly cause them to putrefy. On the contrary, 5* 
 the cold arctic regions, animal substances, during their winter, * 
 never known to putrefy ; and meat may be kept for months witho*. 
 any salt whatsoever. This experiment happily succeeded with th- 
 eight Englishmen that were accidentally left upon the inhospitab*' 
 coasts of Greenland, at a place where seven Dutchmen had perish- 
 but a few years before ; for killing some rein-deer for their subsistenc 
 and having no salt to preserve the flesh, to their great surprise the$ 
 soon found it did not want any, as it remained sweet during their eight 
 months' continuance upon that shore. 
 
 These powers with which air is endued over unorganized substances, 
 are exerted in a still stronger manner over plants, animals of an infe- 
 rior nature, and, lastly, over man himself. Most of the beauty, and 
 the luxuriance of vegetation, is well known to be derived from the be- 
 nign influence of the air : and every plant seems to have its favourite 
 climate, not less than its proper soil. The lower ranks of animals al- 
 so, seem formed for their respective climates, in which only they can 
 live. Man alone seems the child of every climate, and capable of 
 existing in all. However, this peculiar privilege does not exempt 
 him from the influences of the air ; he is as much subject to its malig- 
 nity, as the meanest insect or vegetable. 
 
 With regard to plants, air is so absolutely necessary for their life 
 and preservation, that they will not vegetate in an exhausted receiv- 
 er. All plants have within them a quantity of air, which supports and 
 agitates their juices. They are continually imbibing fresh nutriment 
 from the air, to increase this store, and to supply the wants which 
 they sustain from evaporation. When, therefore, the external air is, 
 drawn from them, they are no longer able to subsist. Even that 
 quantity of air which they before were possessed of, escapes through 
 their pores, into the exhausted receiver ; and as this continues to be 
 pumped away, they become languid, grow flaccid, and die. However 
 
 * Buffon, vol. iii. p. 62. t Ibid, vol. iii. p. 68.
 
 128 A HISTORY OF 
 
 the plint or flower thus ceasing to vegetate, is Kept, by being secured 
 from the external air, a much longer time sweet than it would have 
 continued, had it heen openly exposed. 
 
 That air which is so necessary to the life of vegetables, is still more 
 so to that of animals ; there are none found, how seemingly torpid 
 soever, that do not require their needful supply. Fishes themselves 
 will not live in water from whence the air is exhausted ; and it is 
 generally supposed that they die in frozen ponds, from the want of 
 this necessary to animal existence. Many have been the animals that 
 idle curiosity has tortured in the prison of a receiver, merely to ob 
 serve the manner of their dying. We shall, from a thousand instances,, 
 produce that of the viper, as it is known to be one of the most viva 
 cious reptiles in the world ; and as we shall feel but little compassion 
 for its tortures. Mr. Boyle took a new-caught viper, and shutting it 
 up into a small receiver, began to pump away the air.* " At nrst, 
 upon the air's being drawn away, it began to swell ; some time after 
 he had dono pumping, it began to gape, and open its jaws ; being 
 thus compelled to open its jaws, it once more resumed its tormer 
 lankness ; it then began to move up and down within, as if to seek 
 for air, and after a while foamed a little, leaving the foam sticking to 
 the inside of the glass ; soon after the body and neck grew prodigi- 
 ously tumid, and a blister appeared upon its back ; an hour and a half 
 after the receiver was exhausted, .the distended viper moved, and 
 gave manifest signs of life ; the jaws remained quite distended ; as it 
 were from beneath the epiglottis, came the black tongue, and reached 
 beyond it ; but the animal seemed, by its posture, not to have any 
 life ; the mouth also was grown blackish within ; and in this situation 
 it continued for twenty-three hours. But upon the air's being re-ad- 
 mitted, the viper's mouth was presently closed, and soon after opened 
 again ; and for some time those motions continued, which argued the 
 remains of life." Such is the fate of the most insignificant or minute 
 reptile that can be thus included. Mites, fleas, and even the little eels 
 that are found swimming in vinegar, die for want of air. Not only 
 these, but the eggs of these animals, will not produce in vacuo, but re- 
 quire air to bring them to perfection. 
 
 As in this manner air is necessary to their subsistence, so also it 
 must be of a proper kind, and not impregnated with foreign mixtures. 
 That factitious air which is pumped from plants or fluids, is generally, 
 in a short time, fatal to them. Mr. Boyle has given us many experi- 
 ments to this purpose. After having shewn that all vegetable, and 
 most mineral substances, properly prepared, may afford air, by being 
 placed in an exhausted receiver, and this in such quantities, that some 
 have thought it a new substance, made by the alteration which the 
 mineral or plant has undergone by the texture of its parts being loos- 
 ened in the operation having shewn, I say, that this air may be drawn 
 in great quantities from vegetable, animal, or mineral substances, such 
 as apples, cherries, amber burnt, or hartshornf he included a frog 
 in artificial air, produced from paste ; in seven minutes' space it suf- 
 
 * Boyle's Physico-Mechan. Exper. passim 
 t Boyle's Physico-Mechan. vol. ii. p. 598.
 
 THE EARTH. 12$ 
 
 fered convulsions, and at last lay still, and being taken out, recovered 
 no motion at all, but was dead. A bird inclosed in artificial air, fron; 
 raisins, died in a quarter of a minute, and never stirred more. A snail 
 was put into the receiver, with air of paste ; in four minutes it ceased 
 to move, and was dead, although it had survived in vacuo for several 
 hours : so that factitious air proved a greater enemy to animals thar 
 even a vacuum itself. 
 
 Air also may be impregnated with fumes that are instantly fatal to 
 animals. The fumes of hot iron, copper, or any other heated metal, 
 blown into the place where an animal is confined, instantly destroy it. 
 We have already mentioned the vapours in the grotto Del Cane suf- 
 focating a dog. The ancients even supposed, that these animals, as 
 they always ran with their noses to the ground, were the first that felt 
 any infection. In short, it should seem that the predominance of any 
 one vapour, from any body, how wholesome soever in itself, becomes 
 infectious ; and that we owe the salubrity of the air to the variety of 
 its mixture. 
 
 But there is no animal whose frame is more sensibly affected by the 
 changes of the air than man. It is true, he can endure a greater va- 
 riety of climates than the lower orders generally are able to do; but it 
 is rather by the means which he has discovered of obviating their ef- 
 fects, than by the apparent strength of his constitution. Most other 
 animals can bear cold or hunger better, endure greater fatigues in 
 proportion, and are satisfied with shorter repose. The variations of 
 the climate, therefore, would probably affect them less, if they had the 
 same means or skill in providing against the severities of the change. 
 However this be, the body of man is an instrument much more nice- 
 ly sensible of the variations of the air, than any of those which his 
 own art has produced ; for his frame alone seems to unite all their 
 properties, being invigorated by the weight of the air, relaxed by its 
 moisture, enfeebled by its heat, and stiffened by its frigidity. 
 
 But it is chiefly by the predominance of some peculiar vapour, that 
 the air becomes unfit for human support. It is often found, by dread- 
 ful experience, to enter into the constitution, to mix with its juices, 
 and to putrefy the whole mass of blood. The nervous system is not 
 less affected by its operations ; palsies and vertigoes are caused by its 
 damps ; and a still more fatal train of distempers by its exhalations, 
 In order that the air should be wholesome, it is necessary, as we have 
 seen, that it should not be of one kind, but the compound of several 
 substances ; and the more various the composition, to all appearance 
 the more salubrious. A man, therefore, who continues in one place, 
 is not so likely to enjoy this wholesome variety, as he who changes 
 his situation ; and, if I may so express it, instead of waiting for a reno- 
 vation of air, walks forward to meet its arrival. This mere motion, 
 independent even of the benefits of exercise, becomes wholesome, by 
 thus supplying a great variety of that healthful fluid by which we are 
 sustained. 
 
 A thousand accidents are found to increase these bodies of vapour, 
 
 that make one place more or less wholesome than another. Heat may 
 
 raise them in too great quantities ; and cold may stagnate them, 
 
 Minerals may give off their effluvia in such proportion as to keep away 
 
 VOL. i. I
 
 ISO A HISTORY OF 
 
 all other kind of air ; vegetables may render the air unwholesome by 
 their supply ; and animal putrefation seems to furnish a quantity of 
 vapour, at least as noxious as any of the former. All these united, 
 generally make up the mass of respiration, and are, when mixed to- 
 gether, harmless ; but any one of them, for a long time singly pre- 
 dominant, becomes at length fatal. 
 
 The effects of heat in producing a noxious quality in the air, are 
 well known. Those torrid regions under the Line are always un- 
 wholesome. At Senegal, I am told, the natives consider forty as a 
 very advanced time of life, and generally die of old age at fifty. At 
 Carthagena,* in America, where the heat of the hottest day ever 
 known in Europe is continual, where, during their winter season, these 
 dreadful heats are united with a continual succession of thunder, rain, 
 and tempests, arising from their intenseness, the wan and livid com- 
 plexions of the inhabitants might make strangers suspect that they 
 were just recovered from some dreadful distemper ; the actions of the 
 natives are conformable to their colour ; in all their motions there is 
 somewhat relaxed and languid ; the heat of the climate even affects 
 their speech, which is soft and slow, and their words generally broken. 
 Travellers from Europe retain their strength and ruddy colour in that 
 climate, possibly for three or four months ; but afterwards suffer such 
 decays in both, that they are no longer to be distinguished from the 
 inhabitants by their complexion. However, this languid and spirit- 
 less existence is frequently drawled on sometimes even to eighty. 
 Young persons are generally most affected by the heat of the climate, 
 which spares the more aged ; but all, upon their arrival on the coasts, 
 are subject to the same train of fatal disorders. Few nations have 
 experienced the mortality of these coasts, so much as our own : in our 
 unsuccessful attack upon Carthagena, more than three parts of our 
 army were destroyed by the climate alone ; and those that returned 
 from that fatal expedition, found their former vigour irretrievably 
 gone. In our more fortunate expedition, which gave us the Havana, 
 we had little reason to boast of our success; instead of a third, not a 
 fifth part of the army were left survivors of their victory, the climate 
 being an enemy that even heroes cannot conquer. 
 
 The distempers that thus proceed from the cruel malignity of those 
 climates, are many : that, for instance, called the Chapotonadas, car- 
 ries oh' d multitude of people ; and extremely thins the crews of 
 European snips, whom gain tempts into those inhospitable regions. 
 The naturo of this distemper is but little known, being caused in some 
 persons by cold, in others by indigestion. - But its effects are far from 
 being obscuro ; it is generally fatal in three or four days : upon its 
 seizing the patient, it brings on what is there called the black vomity 
 which is the sad symptom after which none are ever found to recover. 
 Some, when the vomit attacks them, are seized with a delirium, that, 
 were the} not tied down, they would tear themselves to pieces, and 
 thus expire in the midst of this furious paroxysm. This disorder, in 
 milder climates, takes the name of the bilious fever, and is attended 
 wiUi milder symptoms, but very dangerous in all. 
 
 Ulloa, vol. i. p. 48
 
 THE EARTH. t 3l 
 
 There are many other disorders incident to the human body, tha< 
 seem the offspring of heat ; but to mention no other, tnat very lassi 
 tude which prevails in all the tropical climates, may be considered as 
 a disease. The inhabitants of India,* says a modern philosopher, sus 
 tain an unceasing languor, from the heats of their climate, and are tor 
 pid in the midst of profusion. For this reason, the great Disposer ol 
 nature has clothed their country with trees of an amazing height, 
 whose shade might defend them from the beams of the sun ; and whose 
 continual freshness might, in some measure, temperate their fierceness. 
 From these shades, therefore, the air receives refreshing moisture, and 
 animals a cooling protection. The whole race of savage animals re- 
 tire, in the midst of the day, to the very centre of the forest, not so 
 much to avoid their enemy man, as to find a defence against the 
 raging heats of the season. This advantage which arises from shade 
 in torrid climates, may probably afford a solution for that extraordi- 
 nary circumstance related by Boyle, which he imputes to a different 
 cause. In the island of Ternate, belonging to the Dutch, a place that 
 had been long celebrated for its beauty and healthfulness, the clove- 
 trees grew in such plenty, that they in some measure lessened their 
 own value : for this reason, the Dutch resolved to cut down the forests, 
 and thus to raise the price of the commodity : but they had soon rea- 
 son to repent of their avarice ; for such a change ensued, by cutting 
 down the trees, that the whole island, from being healthy and delight- 
 ful, having lost its charming shades, became extremely sickly, and has 
 actually continued so to this day. Boerhaave considered heat so pre- 
 judicial to health, that he was never seen to go near a fire. 
 
 An opposite set of calamities are the consequence, in climates where 
 the air is condensed by cold. In such places, all that train of distem- 
 pers which are known to arise from obstructed perspiration, are very 
 common ;t eruptions, boils, scurvy, and a loathsome leprosy, that 
 covers the whole body with a scurf, and white putrid ulcers. These 
 disorders also are infectious ; and, while they thus banish the patient 
 from society, they generally accompany him to the grave. The men 
 of those climates seldom attain to the age of fifty ; but the women, 
 who do not lead such laborious lives, are found to live longer. 
 
 The autumnal complaints which attend a wet summer, indicate the 
 dangers of a moist air. The long continuance of an east wind also, 
 shews the prejudice of a dry one. Mineral exhalations, when copious, 
 are every where known to be fatal ; and although we probably owe 
 the increase and luxuriance of vegetation to a moderate degree of their 
 warmth, yet the natives of those countries where there are mines in 
 plenty, but too often experience the noxious effects of their vicinity. 
 Those trades also that deal in the preparations of metals of all kinds, 
 are always unwholesome ; and the workmen, after some time, are 
 generally seen to labour under palsies, and other nervous complaints. 
 The vapours from some vegetable substances are well known to Ue 
 attended with dangerous effects. The shade of the machine! tree, in 
 America, is said to be fatal, as was that of the juniper, if we may credit 
 'he anci3nts. Those who walk through fields of poppies, or in auv 
 
 * I in"i Amenitates, vol. v. p. 444 A Crantz's History oi Greenland, vol. i. p. 235
 
 132 A HISTORY OF 
 
 maruei prepare ihose flowers for making opium, are very sensibh 
 affected with the drowsiness they occasion. A physician of Mr. 
 Beyle's acquaintance, causing a large quantity of black hellebore to 
 be pounded in a mortar, most of the persons who were in the room, 
 and especially the person who pounded it, were purged by it, and some 
 of them strongly. He also gathered a certain plant in Ireland, which 
 the person who beat in a mortar, and the physician who was stand 
 ing near, were so strongly affected by, that their hands and faces 
 swelled to an enormous size, and continued tumid for a -ong time after 
 
 But neither mineral nor vegetable steams are so dangerous to the 
 constitution, as those proceeding from animal substances, putrefying 
 either by disease or death. The effluvia that comes from diseased 
 bodies, propagate that frightful catalogue of disorders which are called 
 infectious. The parts which compose vegetable vapours and mineral 
 exhalations, seem gross and heavy, in comparison of these volatile 
 vapours, that go to great distances, and have been described as spread- 
 ing desolation over the whole earth. They fly every where ; pene- 
 trate every where ; and the vapours that fly from a single disease, 
 render it soon epidemic. 
 
 The plague is the first upon the list in this class of human calami- 
 ties. From whence this scourge of man's presumption may have its 
 beginning, is not well known : but we well know that it is propagated 
 by infection. Whatever be the general state of the atmosphere, we 
 learn, from experience, that the noxious vapours, though but singly 
 introduced at first, taint the air by degrees ; every person infected 
 tends to add to the growing malignity ; and, as the disorder becomes 
 more general, the putrescence of the air becomes more noxious, so that 
 the symptoms are aggravated by continuance. When it is said that the 
 origin of this disorder is unknown, it implies, that the air seems to 
 be but little employed in first producing it. There are some coun- 
 tries, even in the midst of Africa, that we learn have never been 
 infected with it ; but continue, for centuries, unmolested. On the 
 contrary, there are others, that are generally visited once a year, as 
 in Egypt, which, nevertheless, seems peculiarly blessed with the se- 
 renity and temperature of its climate. In the former countries, which 
 are of vast extent, and many of them very populous, every thing 
 should seem to dispose the air to make the plague continual among 
 them. The great heats of the climate, the unwholesomeness of the 
 food, the sloth and dirt of the inhabitants, but, above all, the bloody 
 battles which are continually fought among them, after which heaps 
 of dead bodies are left unburied, and exposed to putrefaction. All 
 these one might think would be apt to bring the plague among them, 
 and yet, nevertheless, we are assured by Leo Africanus, that in Nu- 
 midia the plague is not known once in a hundred years ; and that in 
 Negioland, it is not known at all. This dreadful disorder, therefore, 
 must have its rise, not from any previous disposition of the air, but 
 from some particular cause, beginning with one individual, and ex 
 tending the malignity, by communication, till at last the air becomes 
 actually tainted by the generality of the infection. 
 
 The plague which spread itself over the whole world, in the yeai 
 1346, as we are told by Mezeray, was so contagious, that scarce a v'
 
 THE EARTH 13S 
 
 lage, or even a house, escaped being infected by it. Before it had 
 readied Europe, it had been for two years travelling from the great 
 kingdom of Cathay, where it began by a vapour most horridly foetid ; 
 this broke out of the earth like a subterranean fire, and upon the first 
 instant of its eruption, consumed and desolated above two hundred 
 leagues of that country, even to the trees and stones. 
 
 In that great plague which desolated the city of London, in the year 
 1 G(K>, a pious and learned schoolmaster of Mr. Boyle's acquaintance, who 
 ventured to stay in the city, and took upon him the humane office of 
 visiting the sick and the dying, who had been deserted by better phy- 
 sicians, averred, that being once called to a poor woman who had 
 buried her children of the plague, he found the room where she lay 
 so little that it scarce could hold any more than the bed whereon she 
 was stretched. However, in this wretched abode, beside her, in an 
 open coffin, her husband lay, who had some time before died of the 
 same disease ; and whom she, poor creature, soon followed. But what 
 shewed the peculiar malignity of the air, thus suffering from animal 
 putrefaction, was, that the contagious steams had produced spo'ts on 
 the very wall of their wretched apartment : and Mr. Boyle's own 
 study, which was contiguous to a pesthouse, was also spotted in the 
 same frightful manner. Happily for mankind, this disorder, for more 
 than a century has not been known in our island ; and, for this last 
 age, has abated much of its violence, even in those countries where it 
 is most common. Diseases, like empires, have their revolutions ; and 
 those which for a while were the scourge of mankind, sink unheard 
 of, to give place to new ones, more dreadful, as being less understood. 
 
 For this revolution in disorders, which has employed the specula- 
 tion of many, Mr. Boyle accounts in the following manner : " Since," 
 says he, " there want not causes in the bowels of the earth, to make 
 considerable changes amongst the materials that Nature has plentiful- 
 ly treasured up in those magazines, and as those noxious steams are 
 abundantly supplied to the surface, it may not seem improbable, that 
 in this great variety, some may be found capable of affecting the hu- 
 man frame in a particular manner, and thus of producing new diseas- 
 es. The duration of these may be greater or less, according to the 
 lastingness of those subterraneous causes that produced them. On 
 which account, it need be no wonder that some diseases have but a 
 short duration, and vanish not long after they appear ; whilst others 
 may continue longer, as having under ground more settled and dura- 
 ble causes to maintain them." 
 
 From the recital of this train of mischiefs produced by the air, ujv 
 on minerals, plants, animals, and man himself, a gloomy mind may be 
 apt to dread this indulgent nurse of nature as a cruel and an inexora- 
 ble step-mother : but it is far otherwise ; and, although we are some- 
 rimes injured, yet almost all the comforts and blessings of life spring 
 from its propitious influence. It would be needless to observe that it 
 is absolutely necessary for the support of our lives ; for of this every 
 moment's experience assures us. But how it contributes to this sup- 
 port, is not so readily comprehended. All allow it to be a friend, to 
 whose benefits we are constantly obliged ; and yet, to this hour, phi- 
 losophers are divided as to the nature of the obligati .m The dispute
 
 1*4 A HISTORY OF 
 
 is M tietner the air is only useful by its weight to force our juices into 
 circulation:* or, whether, by containing a peculiar spirit, it mixes 
 with the blood in our vessels, and acts like a spur to their industry.! 
 Perhaps it may exert both these useful offices at the same time. Its 
 weight may give the blood its progressive motion, through the larger 
 vessels of the body ; and its admixture with it, cause those contrac- 
 tions of all the vessels, which serve to force it still more strongly for- 
 ward, through the minutest channels of the circulation. Be this as it 
 may, it is well known, that that part of our blood which has just re- 
 ceived the influx of the air in our bodies, is of a very different colour 
 from that which has almost performed its circuit. It has been found, 
 that the arterial blood which has been immediately mixed with the air 
 in the lungs, and, if I may so express it, is just beginning its journey 
 through the body, is of a fine florid scarlet colour ; while, on the con- 
 trary, the blood of the veins that is returning from having performed 
 its duty, is of a blackish crimson hue. Whence this difference of 
 colour should proceed, is not well understood ; we only know the fact, 
 that this florid colour is communicated by the air ; and we are well 
 convinced, that this air has been admitted into the blood for very use- 
 ful purposes. 
 
 Besides this vital principle in animals, the air also gives life and 
 body to flame. A candle quickly goes out in an exhausted receiver ; for 
 having soon consumed the quantity of air, it then expires for want of 
 a fresh supply. There has been a flame contrived that will burn un- 
 der water ; but none has yet been found, that will continue to burn 
 without air. Gunpowder, which is the most catching and powerful 
 fire we know, will not go off in an exhausted receiver : nay, if a train 
 of gunpowder be laid, so as that one part may be fired in the open 
 air, yet the other part in vacuo will remain untouched, and uncon- 
 sumed. Wood also set on fire, immediately goes out ; and its flame 
 ceases upon removing the air ; for something is then wanting to press 
 the body of the fire against that of the fuel, and to prevent the too 
 speedy diffusion of the flame. We frequently see cooks, and others, 
 whose business it is to keep up strong fires, take proper precautions 
 to exclude the beams of the sun from shining upon them, which effec- 
 tually puts them out. This they are apt to ascribe to a wrong cause ; 
 namely, the operation of the light ; but the real fact is, that the 
 warmth of the sun-beams lessens and dissipates the body of the air 
 that goes to feed the flame ; and the fire, of consequence, languishes 
 for want of a necessary supply. 
 
 The air, while it thus kindles fire into flame, is, notwithstanding, 
 found to moderate the rays of light, to dissipate their violence, and to 
 spread a uniform lustre over every object. Were the beams of the 
 sun to darl directly upon us, without passing through this protecting 
 medium, they would either burn us up at once, or blind us with their 
 effulgence. But by going through the air, they are reflected, refract- 
 ed, and turned from their direct course, a thousand different ways ; 
 and thus are more evenly diffused over the face of nature. 
 
 Among the other necessary benefits the air is of to us, one of the 
 
 * Kcil Robinson. " Whytt upon vital and involuntary Motion*. 

 
 THE EARTH. 135 
 
 principal is its conveyance of sound. Even the vibrations of a bell, 
 \vhich have the loudest effect that we know of, cease to be heard, 
 when under the receiver of an air-pump. Thus all the pleasures we re- 
 ceive from conversation with each other, or from music, depend en 
 tirely upon the air. 
 
 Odours likewise are diffused only by the means of air ; without this 
 lluid to swim in, they would for ever remain torpid in their respective 
 substances ; and the rose would affect us with as little sensations of 
 pleasure, as the thorn on which it grew. 
 
 Those who are willing to augment the catalogue of the benefits we 
 receive from this element, assert also, that tastes themselves would be 
 insipid, were it not that the air presses their parts upon the nerves of 
 the tongue and palate, so as to produce their grateful effects. Thus, 
 continue they, upon the tops of high mountains, as on the Peak of 
 Teneriffe, the most poignant bodies, as pepper, ginger, salt, and spice, 
 have no sensible taste, for want of their particles being thus sent home 
 to the sensory. But we owe the air sufficient obligations, not to be 
 studious of admitting this among the number : in fact, all substances 
 have their taste, as well on the tops of the mountains, as in the bot- 
 tom of the valley ; and I have been one of many, who have ate a 
 very savoury dinner on the Alps. 
 
 It is sufficient, therefore, that we regard the air as the parent of 
 health and vegetation ; as a kind dispenser of light and warmth ; and 
 as the conveyer of sounds and odours. This is an element of which 
 avarice will not deprive us ; and which power cannot monopolize. 
 The treasures of the earth, the verdure of the fields, and even .the re- 
 freshments of the stream, are too often seen going only to assist the 
 luxuries of the great ; while the less fortunate part of mankind stand 
 humble spectators of their encroachments. But the air no limitations 
 can bound, nor any landmarks restrain. In this benign element, all 
 mankind can boast an equal possession ; and for this we all have 
 equal obligations to Heaven. We consume a part of it, for our own 
 sustenance, while we live ; and, when we die, our putrefying bodies 
 give back the supply, which, during life, we had accumulated from the 
 general mass. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OP WINDS, IRREGULAR AND REGULAR. 
 
 VViND is a current of air. Experimental philosophers produce an 
 artificial wind, by an instrument called an aolipile. This is nothing 
 more than a hollow copper ball, with a long pipe ; a tea-kettle might 
 be readily made into one, if it were entirely closed at tne lid, and the 
 spout left open ; through this spout it is to be filled with water, and 
 then set upon the fire, by which means it produces a violent blast, 
 like wind, which continues while there is any water remaining in tlnj 
 instrument. In this manner water is converted into a rushing ail ; 
 which, if caught as it goes out, and left to cool, is again quickly con 
 verted into its former element. Besides this, as was mentioned >n th
 
 136 A HISTORY OF 
 
 r ormer chapter, almost every substance contains some portions of aj; 
 Vegetables, or the bodies of animals left to putrefy, produce it in a 
 very copious manner. But it is not only seen thus escaping from 
 bodies, but it may be very easily made to enter into them. A quan- 
 tity of air may be compressed into water, so as to be intimately blend- 
 ed with it. It finds a much easier admission into wine, or any fer- 
 mented liquor ; and an easier still, into spirits of wine. Some salts 
 suck up the air in such quantities, that they are made sensibly heavier 
 thereby, and often are melted by its moisture. In this manner, most 
 bodies, being found either capable of receiving or affording it, we are 
 not to be surprised at those streams of air that are continually fleeting 
 round the globe. Minerals, vegetables, and animals, contribute to in- 
 crease the current ; and are sending off their constant supplies. 
 These, as they are differently affected by cold or heat, by mixture or 
 putrefaction, all yield different quantities of air at different times ; 
 and the loudest tempests, and most rapid whirlwinds, are formed from 
 their united contributions. 
 
 The sun is the principal instrument in rarefying the juices of plants, 
 so as to give an escape to their imprisoned air ; it is also equally ope- 
 rative in promoting the putrefaction of animals. Mineral exhalations 
 are more frequently raised by subterranean heat. The moon, the 
 other planets, the seasons, are all combined in producing these effects 
 in a smaller degree. Mountains give a direction to the courses of the 
 air. Fires carry a current of air along their body. Night and day 
 alternately chill and warm the earth, and produce an alternate current 
 of its vapours. These, and many other causes, may be assigned for 
 the variety, and the activity of the winds, their continual change, and 
 uncertain duration. 
 
 With us on land, as the wind proceeds from so many causes, and 
 meets such a variety of obstacles, there can be but little hopes of ever 
 bringing its motions to conform to theory ; or of foretelling how it 
 may blow a minute to come. The great Bacon, indeed, was of opinion, 
 that by a close and regular history of the winds, continued for a number 
 of ages together, and the particulars of each observation reduced to 
 general maxims, we might at last come to understand the variations 
 of this capricious element ; and that we could foretell the certainty of 
 a wind, with as much ease as we now foretell the return of an eclipse. 
 Indeed, his own beginnings in this arduous undertaking seem to speak 
 the possibility of its success ; but, unhappily for mankind, this inves- 
 tigation is the work of ages, and we want a Bacon to direct the 
 process. 
 
 To be able, therefore, with any plausibility, to account for the va- 
 riations of the wind upon land, is not to be at present expected ; and 
 to understand any thing of their nature, we must have recourse to 
 those places where they are more permanent and steady. This uni- 
 formity and steadiness we are chiefly to expect upon the ocean. 
 There, where there is no variety of substances to furnih the air with 
 various and inconstant supplies, where there are no mountains to di- 
 rect the course of its current, but where all is extensively uniform and 
 even ; in such a place, the wind arising from a simple cause, must have 
 out one simole motion. In fact, we find it so. There are miry p<rt
 
 THE EARTH 137 
 
 of the world where the winds, that with us are so uncertain, pay theii 
 stated visits. In some places they are found to blow one way by day, 
 and another by night ; in others, for one half* of the year they go io 
 a direction contrary to their former course : but what is more extraor 
 dinarv still, there are some places where the winds never change, bin 
 for ever blow the same way. This is particularly found to obtain be- 
 tween the tropics in the Atlantic and jEthiopic oceans ; as well as 
 in the great Pacific sea. 
 
 Few things can appear more extraordinary to a person who has 
 never been out of our variable latitudes, than this steady wind, that 
 for ever sits in the sail, sending the vessel forward ; and as effectually 
 preventing its return. He who has been taught to consider that nothing 
 in the world is so variable as the winds, must certainly be surprised 
 to find a place where there is nothing more uniform. With us their 
 inconstancy has become a proverb ; with the natives of those distant 
 climates they may talk of a friend or a mistress as fixed and un- 
 changeable as the winds, and mean a compliment by the comparison. 
 When our ships are once arrived into the proper latitudes of the great 
 Pacific ocean, the mariner forgets the helm, and his skill becomes al- 
 most useless : neither storms nor tempests are known to deform the 
 glassy bosom of that immense sheet of waters : a gentle breeze, that 
 forever blows in the same direction, rests upon the canvass, and speeds 
 the navigator. In the space of six weeks, ships are thus known to 
 cross an immense ocean, that takes more than so many m'onths to re- 
 turn. Upon returning, the trade-wind, which has been propitious, is 
 then avoided ; the mariner is generally obliged to steer into the 
 northern latitudes, and to take the advantage of every casual wind that 
 offers, to assist him into port. This wind, which blows with such con- 
 stancy one way, is known to prevail not only in the Pacific ocean, 
 but also in the Atlantic, between the coasts of Guinea and Brazil ; and, 
 likewise, in the ^Ethiopic ocean. This seems to be the great univer- 
 sal wind, blowing from the east to the west, that prevails in all the 
 extensive oceans, where the land does not frequently break the gene- 
 ral current. Were the whole surface of the globe an ocean, there 
 would probably be but this one wind, for ever blowing from the east, 
 and pursuing the motions of the sun westward. All the other winds 
 seem subordinate to this ; and many of them are made from the devi- 
 ations of its current. To form, therefore, any conception relative to 
 the variations of the wind in general, it is proper to begin with that 
 which never varies. 
 
 There have been many theories to explain this invariable motion of 
 the winds ; among the rest, we cannot omit that of Dr. Lyster, for its 
 strangeness. " The sea," says he, " in those latitudes, is generally 
 covered over with green weeds, for a great extent ; and the air pro- 
 iuced from the vegetable perspiration of these, produces the trade- 
 wind." The theory of Cartesius was not quite so absurd. He al- 
 leged, that the earth went round faster than its atmosphere at the 
 equator ; so that its motion, from west to east, gave the atmosphere 
 an imaginary one from east to west ; and thus an east wind was eter- 
 nally seen to prevail. Rejecting those arbitrary opinions, conceiv 
 ed without force, and asserted without proof, Dr. Hallev has given
 
 13(. A HISTORY OF 
 
 one nvre plausible ; which seems to be the reigning system of the 
 day. 
 
 To conceive his opinion clearly, let us for a moment suppose tha 
 whole surface of the earth to be an ocean, and the air encompassing 
 it on every side, without motion. Now it is evident, that that part ot 
 the air which lies directly under the beams of the sun, will be rarefied ; 
 and if the sun remained for ever in the same place, there would be a 
 great vacuity in the air, if I may so express it, beneath the place where 
 the sun stood. The sun moving forward, from east to west, this va- 
 cuity will follow too, and still be made under it. But while it goes 
 on to make new vacuities, the air will rush in to fill up those the sun 
 has already made ; in other words, as it is still travelling forward, the 
 air will continually be rushing in behind, and pursue its motions from 
 east to west. In this manner the air is put into motion by day ; and 
 by night the parts continue to impel each other, till the next return of 
 the sun, that gives a new force to the circulation. 
 
 In this manner is explained the constant east wind that is found 
 blowing round the globe, near the equator. But it is also known, that 
 as we recede from the equator on either side, we come into a trade-wind, 
 that continually blows from the poles, from the north on one side, or 
 the south on the other, both directing towards the equator. This also 
 proceeds from a similar cause with the former ; for the air being 
 more rarefied in those places over which the sun more directly darts 
 its rays, the currents will come both from the north and the south, to 
 fill up the intermediate vacuity. 
 
 These two motions, namely, the general one from east to west, and 
 the more particular one from both the poles, will account for all the 
 phaenomena of trade-winds ; which, if the whole surface of the globe 
 were sea, would undoubtedly be constant, and for ever continue to 
 blow in one direction. But there are a thousand circumstances to 
 break these air-currents into smaller ones ; to drive them back against 
 their general course ; to raise or depress them ; to condense them 
 into storms, or to whirl them in eddies. In consequence of this, re- 
 gard must be often had to the nature of the soil, the position of the 
 high mountains, the course of the rivers, and even to the luxuriance 
 of vegetation. 
 
 If a country lying directly under the sun be very flat and sandy, 
 and if the land be low and extensive, the heats occasioned by the re- 
 flection of the sun-beams produces a very great rarefaction of the air. 
 The deserts of Africa, which are conformable to this description, are 
 scarcely ever fanned by a breath of wind by day ; but the burning sun 
 is continually seen blazing in intolerable splendour above them. For 
 this reason, all along the coasts of Guinea, the wind is always perceiv- 
 ed blowing In upon land, in order to fill up the vacuity caused by the 
 sun's operation. In those shores, therefore, the wind blows in a con- 
 rary direction to that of its general current ; and is constantly found 
 setting in from the west. 
 
 Krom the same cause it happens, that those constant calms, attend- 
 ed with deluges of rain, are found in the same part of the ocean. For 
 this tract being placed in the middle, between the westerly winds 
 blowing on the coast of Guinea, and the easterly trade-winds thai
 
 THE EARTH. ISO 
 
 move at some distance from shore, in a contrary direction, tnr ten 
 dene) of that part of the air that lies between these two opposite cur 
 rents is indifferent to either, and so rests between both in torpid se- 
 renity ; and the weight of the incumbent atmosphere, being diminish- 
 ed by the continual contrary winds blowing from hence, it is unable 
 to keep the vapours suspended that are copiously borne thither ; so 
 that they fall in continual rains. 
 
 But it is not to be supposed, that any theory can account for all the 
 phenomena of even those winds that are known to be most regular. 
 Instead of a complete system of the trade-winds, we must rather be 
 content with an imperfect history. These,* as was said, being the 
 result of a combination of effects, assume as great a variety as the 
 causes producing them are various. 
 
 Besides the great general wind above-mentioned, in those parts of 
 the Atlantic that lie under the temperate zone, a north wind prevails 
 constantly during the months of October, November, December, and 
 January. These, therefore, are the most favourable months for em- 
 barking for the East-Indies, in order to take the benefit of these winds, 
 for crossing the Line: and it has been often found, by experience, 
 that those who had set sail five months before, were not in the least 
 farther advanced in their voyage, than those who waited for the fa- 
 vourable wind. During the winter, off Nova Zembla, and the other 
 arctic countries, a north wind reigns almost continually. In the Cape 
 de Verde Islands, a south wind prevails during the month of July. 
 At the Cape of Good Hope, a northwest wind blows during the month 
 of September. There are also regular winds, produced by various 
 causes, upon land. The ancient Greeks were the first who observed 
 a constant breeze, produced by the melting of the snows, in some 
 high neighbouring countries. This was perceived in Greece, Thrace, 
 Macedonia, and the vEgean sea. The same kind of winds are now 
 remarked in the kingdom of Congo, and the most southern parts of 
 Africa. The flux and reflux of the sea also produces some regular 
 winds, that serve the purposes of trade ; and, in general, it may be 
 observed, that wherever there is a strong current of water, there is a 
 current of air that seems to attend it. 
 
 Beside these winds that are found to blow in one direction, there 
 are, as was said before, others that blow for certain months of the 
 year one way, and the rest of the year the contrary way ; these are 
 called the Monsoons, from a famous pilot of that name, who first used 
 them in navigation with success.t In all that part of the ocean that 
 lies between Africa and India, the east winds begin at the month o* 
 January, and continue till about the commencement of June. In the 
 month of August or September, the contrary direction takes place ; and 
 the west winds prevail for three or four months. The interval between 
 these winds, that is to say, from the end of June to the beginning of 
 August, there is no fixed wind ; but the sea is usually tossed by vio- 
 lent tempests, proceeding from the north. These winds are always 
 subject to their greatest variations, as they approach the land ; so that 
 on one side of the great peninsula of India, the coasts are, for neai 
 
 * Buffon, vol. >i. p. 230. f Varenii Geographia Generalis. cap. 20
 
 140 A HISTORY OF 
 
 half the year, harassed by violent hurricanes, and northerr temoests; 
 while, on the opposite side, and all along the coasts of C romandel, 
 these dreadful tempests are wholly unknown. At Java, and Ceylon, 
 a west wind begins to reign in the month of September ; but at fifteen 
 degrees of south latitude, this wind is found to be lost, and the greai 
 general trade-wind from the east is perceived to prevail. On the con- 
 trary, at Cochin, in China, the west wind begins in March ; so thai 
 these monsoons prevail, at different seasons, throughout the Indies. 
 So that the mariner takes one part of the year to go from Java to the 
 Moluccas ; another from Cochin to Molucca ; another from Molucca 
 to China ; and still another to direct him from China to Japan. 
 
 There are winds also that may be considered as peculiar to certain 
 coasts : for example, the south wind is almost constant upon the coasts 
 of Chili and Peru ; western winds almost constantly prevail on the 
 coast of Terra Magellanica ; and in the environs of the Straits le Maire. 
 On the coasts of Malabar, north and north-west winds prevail continu- 
 ally ; along the coast of Guinea, the north-west wind is also very fre- 
 quent ; and, at a distance from the coasts, the north-east is always 
 found prevailing. From the beginning of November to the end of 
 December, a west wind prevails on the coasts of Japan ; and, during 
 the whole winter, no ships can leave the port of Cochin, on account 
 of the impetuosity of the winds that set upon the coast. These blow 
 with such vehemence, that the ports are entirely choked up with sand, 
 and even boats are not able to enter. However, the east winds that 
 prevail for the other half of the year, clear the mouths of their har- 
 bours from the accumulations of the preceding winter, and set the 
 confined ships at liberty. At the Straits of Babelmandel, there is a 
 south wind that periodically returns, and which is always followed by 
 a north-east. 
 
 Besides winds thus peculiar to certain coasts, there are others found 
 to prevail on all the coasts, in warm climates, which, during one part 
 of the day, blow from the shore, and, during another part of it, blow 
 from the sea. The sea-breeze, in those countries, as Dampier ob- 
 serves, commonly rises in the morning about nine, proceeding slowly, 
 in a fine small black curl, upon tne surface of the the water, and 
 making its way to refresh the shore. It is gentle at first, but increas- 
 es gradually till twelve, then insensibly sinks away, and is totally 
 hushed at five. Upon its ceasing, the land-breeze begins to take its 
 turn, which increases gradually till twelve at night, and is succeeded, 
 in the morning, by the sea-breeze again. Without all doubt, nothing 
 could be more fortunate, for the inhabitants of the warm countries, 
 where those breezes blow, than this alternate refreshment, which they 
 feel at those seasons when it is most wanted. The heat, on some 
 coasts, would be insupportable, were it not for such a supply of air, 
 when the sun has rarefied all that which lay more immediately under 
 the coast. The sea-breeze temperates the heat of the sun by day ; 
 and the land-breeze corrects the malignity of the dews and vapours 
 by night. Where these breezes, therefore, prevail, and they are very 
 common, the inhabitants enjoy a share of health and happiness, un- 
 known to those that live much farther up the country, or such as live 
 ill similar latitudes without this advantage. The cause of t^f.se obvi
 
 THE EARTH 141 
 
 ously seems to arise from the rarefaction of the air by the sun, as tneir 
 duration continues with its appearance, and alters when it goes down. 
 The sun, it is observed, equally diffusing his beams upon land ana sea 
 the land, being a more solid body than the water, receives a greater 
 quantity of heat, and reflects it more strongly. Being thus, therefore, 
 heated to a greater degree than the waters, it, of consequence, drives 
 the air from land out to sea ; but, its influence being removed, the 
 air returns to fill up the former vacuity. Such is the usual method of 
 accounting for this phenomenon ; but, unfortunately, these" sea and 
 land breezes are visitants that come at all hours. On the coasts of 
 Malabar,* the land-breezes begin at midnight, and continue till noon ; 
 then the sea-breezes take their turn, and continue till midnight. 
 While again, at Congo, the land-breezes begin at five, and continue 
 till nine the next day. 
 
 But if the cause of these be so inscrutable, that are, as we see, tolera- 
 bly regular in their visitations, what shall we say to the winds of our 
 own climate, that are continually shifting, and incapable of rest ? 
 Some general causes may be assigned, which nothing but particular 
 experience can apply. And, in the first place, it may be observed, 
 that clouds, and heat, and in short, whatever either increases the den- 
 sity or the elasticity of the air, in any one place, will produce a wind 
 there : for the increased activity of the air thus pressing more pcwer- 
 fully on the parts of it that are adjacent, will drive them forward, and 
 thus go on, in a current, till the whole comes to an equality. 
 
 In this manner, as a denser air produces a wind on one hand ; so 
 will any accident, that contributes to lighten the air, produce it on the 
 other : for, a lighter air may be considered as a vacuity, into which 
 the neighbouring air will rush : and hence it happens, that when the 
 barometer marks a peculiar lightness in the air, it is no wonder that 
 it foretels a storm. 
 
 The winds upon large waters are generally more regular than those 
 upon land. The wind at sea generally blows with an even steady 
 gale ; the wind at land puffs by intervals, increasing its strength, and 
 remitting it, without any apparent cause. This, in a great measure, 
 may be owing to the many mountains, towers, or trees, that it meets 
 in its way, all contributing either to turn it from its course, or inter 
 rupt its passage. 
 
 The east wind blows more constantly than any other, and for an 
 obvious reason : all other winds are, in some measure, deviations from 
 it, and partly may owe their origin thereto. It is generally likewise 
 the most powerful, and for the same reason. 
 
 There are often double currents of the air. While the wind blows, 
 one way, we frequently see the clouds move another. This is general- 
 ly the case before thunder ; for it is well known that the thunder-cloud 
 always moves against the wind : the cause of this surprising appear- 
 ance has hitherto remained a secret. From hence we may conclude, 
 that weathercocks only inform us of that current of the air, which is 
 near the surface of the earth ; but are often erroneous with regard tt 
 me upper regions, and, in fact, Derham has often found them erroneous 
 
 * Button, voi. ii. p. 25
 
 142 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Winds are generally more powerful on elevated situations than oc 
 the plain, because their progress is interrupted by fewer obstacles. 
 In proportion as we ascend the heights of a mountain, the violence 
 of the weather seems to increase until we have got above the region 
 of storms, where all is usually calm and serene. Sometimes, however, 
 the storms rise even to the tops of the highest mountains ; as we learn 
 from those who have been on the Andes, and as we are convinced by 
 the deep snows that crown even the highest. 
 
 Winds b owing from the sea are generally moister, and more at- 
 tended with rains, than those which blow over extensive tracts of 
 land ; for the sea gives off more vapours to the air, and these are roll- 
 ed forward upon land, by the wind's blowing from thence.* For this 
 reason our easterly winds, that blow from the continent, are dry, in 
 comparison of those that blow from the surface of the ocean, with 
 which we are surrounded on every other quarter. 
 
 In general the winds are more boisterous in spring and autumn than 
 at other seasons : for that being the time of high tides, the sea may com- 
 municate a part of its motions to the winds. The sun and moon, also, 
 which then have a greater effect upon the waters, may also have some 
 influence upon the winds : for, there being a great body of air surround- 
 ing the globe, which, if condensed into water, would cover it to the 
 depth of thirty-two feet, it is evident that the sun and moon will, to a 
 proportionable degree, affect the atmosphere, and make a tide of air. 
 This tide will be scarcely perceivable, indeed ; but, without doubt, it 
 actually exists ; and may contribute to increase the vernal and autum- 
 nal storms, which are then known to prevail. 
 
 Upon narrowing the passage through which the air is driven, both 
 ihe density and the swiftness of the wind is increased. For, as cur- 
 rents of water flow with greater force and rapidity by narrowing their 
 channels, so also will a current of air, driven through a contracted 
 space, grow more violent and irresistible. Hence we find those dread- 
 ful storms that prevail in the defiles of mountains, where the wind, 
 pushing from behind through a narrow channel, at once increases in 
 speed and density, levelling, or tearing up, every obstacle that rises to 
 obstruct its passage. 
 
 Winds reflected from the sides of mountains and towers, are often 
 found to be more forceful than those in direct progression. This we 
 frequently perceive near lofty buildings, such as churches or steeples, 
 where winds are generally known to prevail, and are much more pow 
 erful than at some distance: The air, in this case, by striking against 
 the side of the building, acquires additional density, and, therefore 
 blows with more force. 
 
 These different degrees of density, which the air is found to pos 
 sess, sufficiently shew that the force of the winds do not depend upoi. 
 their velocity alone ; so that those instruments called anemometers, 
 which are made to measure the velocity of the wind, will by no means 
 give us certain information of the force of the storm. In order 10 es- 
 timate this with exactness, we ought to know its density ; which also 
 these are not calculated to discover. For this reason we often 
 
 Derham's Physico-Theol.
 
 THE EARTH. US 
 
 storms, with very powerful effects, that do not seem to shew an}' great 
 speed ; and, on the contrary, we see these wind-measurers go round .vith 
 great swiftness, when scarce any damage has followed from the storm. 
 
 Such is the nature and ihe inconstancy of the irregular winds with 
 which we are best acquainted. But their effects are much more for- 
 midable in those climates near the tropics, where they are often found 
 to break in upon the steady course of the trade-winds, and to mark 
 their passage with destruction. With us, the tempest is but rarely 
 known, and its ravages are registered as an uncommon calamity ; but 
 in the countries that lie between the tropics, and for a good space be- 
 yond them, its visits are frequent, and its effects are anticipated. In 
 these regions the winds vary their terrors ; sometimes involving all 
 tilings in a suffocating heat ; sometimes mixing all the elements of 
 fire, air, earth, and water together ; sometimes, with a momentary 
 swiftness, passing over the face of the country, and destroying all 
 things in their passage ; and sometimes raising whole sandy deserts in 
 one country, to deposit them upon some other. We have little rea- 
 son, therefore, to envy these climates the luxuriance of their soil, or 
 the brightness of their skies. Our own muddy atmosphere, that wraps 
 us round in obscurity, though it fails to gild our prospects with sun- 
 shine, or our groves with fruitage, nevertheless answers the call of in- 
 dustry. They may boast of a plentiful, but precarious harvest ; while, 
 with us, the labourer toils in a certain expectation of a moderate, but 
 a happy return. 
 
 In Egypt,* a kingdom so noted for its fertility, and the brightness 
 of its atmosphere during summer, the south winds are so hot, that they 
 almost stop respiration ; besides which, they are charged with such 
 quantities of sand, that they sometimes darken the air as with a thick 
 cloud. These sands are so fine, and driven with such violence, lhat 
 they penetrate every where, even into chests, be they shut ever so 
 closely. If these winds happen to continue for any length of time, 
 they produce epidemic diseases, and are often followed by a great mor- 
 tality. It is also found to rain but very seldom in that country ; how- 
 ever, the want of showers is richly compensated by the copiousness 
 of their dews, which greatly tend to promote vegetation. 
 
 In Persia, the winter begins in November, and continues till March. 
 The cold at that time is intense enough to congeal the water ; and 
 snow falls in abundance upon their mountains. During the months of 
 March and April, winds arise, that blow with great force, and seem to 
 usher in the heats of summer. These return again, in autumn, with 
 some violence; without, however, prgducing any dreadful effects. 
 But, during their summer, all along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, a 
 very dangerous wind prevails, which the natives call the Sameyel, 
 still more dreadful and burning than that of Egypt, and attended with 
 instant and fatal effects. This terrible blast, which was perhaps, the 
 pestilence of the ancients, instantly kills all those that it involves in 
 its passage. What its malignity consists in, none can tell, as noiit' 
 have ever survived its effects, to give information. It frequently, as 
 I am told, assumes a visible form, and darts, in a kind of bluish va 
 
 * Buffon, . d. ii. p. 258
 
 14* A HISTORY OF 
 
 pour, along the surface of the country. The natives, not only o 
 Persia, but of Arabia, talk of its effects with terror; and their poets 
 have not failed to heighten them with the assistance of imagination. 
 They have described it as under the conduct of a minister of ven- 
 geance, who governs its terrors, and raises, or depresses it, as he 
 thinks proper.* These deadly winds are also known along the coasts 
 of India, at Negapatam, Masulipatam, and Petapoli. But. luckily for 
 mankind, the shortness of their duration diminishes the injuries that 
 might ensue from their malignity. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hone, as well as many islands in the West-In- 
 dies, are famous for their hurricanes, and that extraordinary kind of 
 cloud which is said to produce them. This cloud, which is the fore- 
 runner of an approaching hurricane, appears, when first seen, like a 
 small black spot, on the verge of the horizon ; and is called, by sail 
 ors, the bull's eye, from being seen so minute at a vast distance. All 
 this time, a perfect calm reigns over the sea and land, while the 
 cloud grows gradually broader as it approaches. At length, coming 
 to the place where its fury is to fall, it invests the whole horizon with 
 darkness. During all the time of its approach, a hollow murmur is 
 heard in the cavities of the mountains ; and beasts and animals, sen- 
 sible of its approach, are seen running over the fields, to seek for 
 shelter. Nothing can be more terrible than its violence when it be- 
 gins. The houses in those countries, which are made of timber, the 
 better to resist its fury, bend to the blast like osiers, and again recover 
 their rectitude. The sun, which, but a moment before, blazed with 
 meridian splendour, is totally shut out ; and a midnight darkness pre- 
 vails, except that the air is incessantly illuminated with gleams of 
 lightning, by which one can easily see to read. The rain falls, at the 
 same time, in torrents ; and its descent has been resembled to what 
 pours from the spouts of our houses after a violent shower. These 
 hurricanes are not less offensive to the sense of smelling also, and 
 never come without leaving the most noisome stench behind them. 
 If the seamen also lay by their wet clothes, for twenty-four hours, 
 they are all found swarming with little white maggots, that were 
 brought with the hurricane. Our first mariners, when they visited these 
 regions, were ignorant of its effects, and the signs of its approach ; 
 their ships, therefore, were dashed to the bottom at the first onset ; 
 and numberless were the wrecks which the hurricane occasioned. 
 But, at present, being forewarned of its approach, they strip their 
 masts of all their sails, and thus patiently abide its fury. T'lese hur 
 ricaries are common in all the tropical climates. On the coasts ol 
 Guinea they have frequently three or four in a day, that thus shut out 
 the heavens, for a little space ; and, when past, leave all again in for- 
 mer splendour. They chiefly prevail, on that coast, in the intervals 
 of the trade-winds ; the approach of which clears the air of its mete- 
 ors, and gives these mortal showers that little degree of wholesomeness 
 which they possess. They chiefly obtain there during the months of 
 April and May ; tncy are known, at Loango, from January to April ; 
 ->n the opuosile coas* of Africa, the hurricane season begins in May ; 
 
 * Herlielot. Bibliotbeoue Oriental
 
 Mangabey, or White Eyelid Monkey, p 267. 
 
 Red Monkey, p. W. 
 
 \Vhite-nnswl Monkey, n 2fi7
 
 THE EARTH. 145 
 
 and, in general, whenever a trade-wind begins to cease, these irregu 
 .ar tempests are found to exert their fury. 
 
 All this is terrible : but there is a tempest, known in those cli- 
 mates, more formidable than any we have hitherto been describing, 
 which is called, by the Spaniards, a Tornado. As the former was seen 
 arriving from one part of the heavens, and making a line of destruc 
 tion ; so the winds in this seem to blow from every quarter, and set- 
 tle upon one destined place, with such fury, that nothing can resist 
 their vehemence. When they have all met, in their central spot, then 
 the whirlwind begins with circular rapidity. The sphere every mo- 
 ment widens, as it continues to turn, and catches every object that 
 lies within its attraction. This also, like the former, is preceded by a 
 flattering calm ; the air is every where hushed, and the sea is as 
 smooth as polished glass : however, as its effects are more dreadful 
 than those of the ordinary hurricane, the mariner tries all the powev 
 of his skill to avoid it ; which, if he fails of doing, there is the great 
 est danger of his going to the bottom. All along the coasts of Guinea 
 beginning about two degrees north of the line, and so downwardj 
 lengthwise, for about a thousand miles, and as many broad, the ocean 
 is unnavigable, upon acdount of these tornadoes. In this torrid region 
 there reigns unceasing tornadoes, or continual calms ; among which, 
 whatever ship is so unhappy as to fall, is totally deprived of all power 
 of escaping. In this dreadful repose of all the elements, the solitary 
 vessel is obliged to continue, without a single breeze to assist the mari- 
 ner's wishes, except those whirlwinds, which only serve to increase 
 his calamity. At present, therefore, this part of the ocean is totally 
 avoided ; and, although there may be much gold along the coasts of 
 that part of Africa, to tempt avarice, yet there is something, much 
 more dreadful than the fabled dragon of antiquity, to guard the trea- 
 sure. As the internal parts of that country are totally unknown to 
 travellers, from their burning sands and extensive deserts, so here we 
 find a vast tract of ocean, lying off its shores, equally unvisited by the 
 mariner. 
 
 But of all these terrible tempests that deform the face of nature, 
 and repress human presumption, the sandy tempests of Arabia and Af- 
 rica are the most terrible, and strike the imagination most strongly 
 To conceive a proper idea of these, we are by no means to suppose 
 them resembling those whirlwinds of dust that we sometimes see scat 
 tering in our air, and sprinkling their contents upon our roads or 
 meadows. The sand-storm of Africa exhibits a very different appeal - 
 ance. As the sand of which the whirlwind is composed is excessively 
 fine, and almost resembles the parts of water, its motion entirely re 
 sembles that of a fluid ; and the whole plain seems to float onward, like 
 a slow inundation. The body of sand thus rolling, is deep enough to buty 
 houses and palaces in its bosom : travellers who are crossing those ex 
 tensive deserts perceive its approach at a distance ; and, in general, have 
 time to avoid it, or turn out of 'ts way, as it generally extends but to a 
 moderate breadth. However, when H is extremely rapid, or very 
 extensive, as sometimes is the case, no swiftness, no art, can avail 
 nothing then remains, but to meet death with fortitude, and submit t 
 b buried alive with resignation. 
 
 VOL. I K
 
 L4C A HISTORY OF 
 
 It is happy for us of Britain, that we have no such calamity to .lea. 
 for from this even some parts of Europe are not entirely free. We. 
 nave an account given us in the History of the French Academy, of a 
 miserable town in France, that is constantly in danger of being buried 
 under a similar inundation ; with which I will take leave to close this 
 chapter. u In the neighbourhood of St. Paul de Leon, in Lower Brit- 
 tany,* there lies a tract of country along the sea-side, which before 
 the year 1666 was inhabited, but now lies deserted, by reason of the 
 sands which cover it, to the height of twenty feet ; and which every 
 year advance more and more inland, and gain ground continually. 
 From the time mentioned above, the sand has buried more than six 
 leagues of the country inward ; and it is now but half a league from the 
 town of St. Paul ; so that, in all appearance, the inhabitants must bo 
 obliged to abandon it entirely. In the country that has been over 
 whelmed, there are still to be seen the tops of some steeples peeping 
 through the sand, and many chimnies that still remain above this 
 sandy ocean. The inhabitants, however, had sufficient time to escape ; 
 but being deprived of their little all, they had no other resource but 
 begging for their subsistence. This calamity chiefly owes its advance- 
 ment to a north or an east wind, raising the sand, which is extremely 
 fine, in such great quantities, and with such velocity, that M. Deslands, 
 who gave the account, says, that while he was walking near the place, 
 during a moderate breeze of wind, he was obliged, from time to time, 
 to shake the sand from his clothes and his hat, on which it was lodged 
 in great quantities, and made them loo heavy to be easily borne. 
 Still further, when the wind was violent, it drove the sand across a 
 little arm of the sea, into the town of Roscoff, and covered the streets 
 of that place two feet deep ; so that they have been obliged to carry 
 it off in carts. It may also be observed, that there are several parti- 
 cles of iron mixed with the sand, which are readily affected by the 
 loadstone. The part of the coast that furnishes these sands, is a tract 
 of about four leagues in length ; and is upon a level with the sea at 
 high-water. The shore lies in such a manner as to leave its sands 
 subject only to the north and east winds, that bear them farther up the 
 shore. It is easy to conceive how the same sand that has at one 
 time been borne a short way inland, may, by some succeeding and 
 stronger blast, be carried up much higher; and thus the whole may 
 continue advancing forward, deluging the plain, and totally destroying 
 its fertility. At the same time the sea, from whence this deluge of 
 sand proceeds, may furnish it in inexhaustible quantities. This un- 
 happy country, thus overwhelmed in so singular a manner, may well 
 justify what the ancients and the moderns have reported concerning 
 ihose tempests of sand in Africa, that are said to destroy villages. 
 aud even armies, in their bosom." 
 
 Histoire del' Academic des Sciences, an. 1722.
 
 THE EARTH. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF METEORS, AND SUCH APPEARANCES AS RESULT FROM A COMBINATION 
 OF THE ELEMENTS. 
 
 IN pioportion as the substances of nature are more compounded 
 and combined, their appearances become more inexplicable and 
 amazing. The properties of water have been very nearly ascertain- 
 ed Many of the qualities of air, earth, and fire, have been discovered 
 and estimated ; but when these come to be united by nature, they of- 
 ten produce a result which no artificial combinations can imitate ; and 
 we stand surprised, that although we are possessed of all those sub- 
 stances which nature makes use of, she shows herself a much more 
 various operator than the most skilful chymist ever appeared to be. 
 Every cloud that moves, and every shower that falls, serves to mor- 
 tify the philosopher's pride, and to show him hidden qualities in air 
 and water, that he finds it difficult to explain. Dews, hail, snow, and 
 thunder, are not less difficult for being more common. Indeed, when we 
 reflect on the manner in which nature performs any one of these 
 operations, our wonder increases. To see water, which is heavier 
 than air, rising in air, and then falling in a form so very different 
 from that in which it rose ; to see the same fluid at one time descend- 
 ing in the form of hail, at another in that of snow ; to see two clouds 
 by dashing against each other, producing an electrical fire, which no 
 watery composition that we know of can effect ; these, 1 say, serve 
 sufficiently to excite our wonder ; and still the more, in proportion as 
 the objects are ever pressing on our curiosity. Much, however, has 
 been written concerning the manner in which nature operates in these 
 productions; as nothing is so ungrateful to mankind as hopeless ig- 
 norance. 
 
 And first, with regard to the manner in which water evaporates, 
 and rises to form clouds, much has been advanced, and many theories 
 devised. All water,* iay some, has a quantity of air mixed with it ; 
 and the heat of the sun darting down, disengages the particles of thk 
 air from the grosser fluid : the sun's rays being reflected back from 
 the water, carry back with them those bubbles of air and water, 
 which, being lighter than the condensed air, will ascend till they 
 meet with a more rarefied air ; and they will then stand suspended. 
 Experience, however, proves nothing of all this. Particles of air or 
 fire, are not thus known to ascend with a thin coat of water ; and in 
 fact we know the little particles of steam are solid drops of water. 
 But besides this, water is known to evaporate more powerfully in the 
 severest frost, than when the air is moderately warm.t Dr. Hamilton, 
 therefore, of the university of Dublin, rejecting this theory, has en 
 deavoured to establish another. According to him, as aquafortis is a 
 menstruum that dissolves iron, and keeps it mixed in the fluid ; as 
 aquaregia is a menstruum that dissolves gold ; or as water dissolves 
 salts to a certain quantity ; so air is a menstruum that corrodes ana 
 lissolves ?. certain quantity of water, and keeps it suspended above. 
 
 Spectacle de la Nature, vol. iii. 4- Memoires de ('Academic des Sciences, an. 1705
 
 145 A HISTORY OF 
 
 But however ingenious this may be, it can hardly be admitted ; as we 
 know by Mariotte's experiment,* that if water and air be inclosed to- 
 gether, instead of the air's acting as a menstruum upon the water, the 
 water will act as a menstruum upon the air, and take it all up. Wt- 
 know also, that of two bodies, that which is most fluid and penetrating, 
 is most likely to be the menstruum of the other ; but water is more fluid 
 and penetrating than air, and therefore the most likely of the two to 
 be the menstruum. We know that all bodies are more speedily act- 
 ed upon, the more their parts are brought into contact with the men- 
 struum that dissolves them ; but water, inclosed with compressed air, 
 is not the more diminished thereby.! In short, we know, that cold, 
 which diminishes the force of other menstruums, is often found to 
 promote evaporation. In this variety of opinion and uncertainty of 
 conjecture, I cannot avoid thinking that a theory of evaporation may 
 be formed upon very simple and obvious principles, and embarrassed, 
 as far as I can conceive, with very few objections. 
 
 We know that a repelling power prevails in nature, not less than 
 an attractive one. This repulsion prevails strongly between the body 
 of fire and that of water. If I plunge the end of a red-hot bar of iron 
 into a vessel of water, the fluid rises, and large drops of it fly up i-i 
 all manner of directions, every part bubbling and steaming until the 
 iron be cold. Why may we not for a moment compare the rays of 
 the sun, darted directly upon the surface of the water, to so many 
 bars of red-hot iron, each bar indeed infinitely small, but not the less 
 powerful ? In this case, wherever a ray of fire darts, the water, from 
 its repulsive quality, will be driven on all sides ; and, of consequence, 
 as in the case of the bar of iron, a part of it will rise. The parts 
 thus rising, however, will be extremely small ; as the ray that darts is 
 extremely so. The assemblage of the rays darting upon the water in 
 this manner, will cause it to rise in a light thin steam above the sur- 
 face ; and as the parts of this steam are extremely minute, they will 
 be lighter than air, and consequently float upon it. There is no need 
 for supposing them bubbles of water filled with fire ; for any substance, 
 even gold itself, will float on air, if its parts be made small enough ; or, 
 in other words, if its surface be sufficiently increased. This water, thus 
 disengaged from the general mass, will be still farther attenuated and 
 broken by the reflected rays, and, consequently, more adapted foi 
 ascending. 
 
 From this plain account, every appearance in evaporation may be 
 easily deduced. The quantity of heat increases evaporation, because 
 it raises a greater quantity of stearn. The quantity of wind increases 
 evaporation ; for, by waving the surface of the water, it thus exposes 
 a greater surface to the evaporating rays. A dry frost, in some mea- 
 sure, assists the quantity of evaporation ; as the quantity of rays are 
 found to be no way diminished thereby. Moist weather alone pre- 
 vents evaporation ; for the rays being absorbed, refracted, and broken, 
 by the intervening moisture, before they arrive at the surface, cannot 
 produce the effect ; and the vapour will rise in a small proportion. 
 
 Thus far we nav* accounted for the ascent of vapours ; but to ac- 
 
 Mariotte, tie Id Nature de 1'Air, p. 97, 106. \ See Boyle'8 Works, vol. ii. p 659
 
 THE EARTH. 149 
 
 count for their falling again, is attended with rather more difficulty. 
 We have already observed, that the particles of vapour, disengaged 
 from the surface of the water, will be broken and attenuated in their 
 ascent, by the reflected, and even the direct rays, that happen to 
 strike upon their minute surfaces. They will, therefore, continue to 
 ascend, till they rise above the operation of the reflected rays, whicn 
 reaches but to a certain height above the surface of the earth. Being 
 arrived at this region, which is cold for want of reflected heat, they 
 will be condensed, and suspended in the form of clouds. Some va- 
 ,-ours that ascend to great heights, will be frozen into snow ; others, 
 that are condensed lower down, will put on the appearance of a mist, 
 which we find the clouds to be, when we ascend among them, as they 
 hang along the sides of a mountain. These clouds of snow and rain, 
 being blown about by winds, are either entirely scattered and dispersed 
 above, or they are still more condensed by motion, like a snow-ball, 
 that grows more large and solid as it continues to roll. At last, there- 
 fore, they will become too weighty for the air which first raised them 
 to sustain ; and they will descend with their excess of weight, either 
 in snow or rain. But as they will fall precipitately, when they begin 
 to descend, the air, in some measure, will resist the falling ; for as the 
 descending fluid gathers velocity in its precipitation, the air will in- 
 crease its resistance to it, and the water will, therefore, be thus broken 
 into rain ; as we see, that water which falls from the tops of houses, 
 though it begins in a spout, separates into drops before it has got to 
 the bottom. Were it not for this happy interposition of the air, be- 
 tween us and the water falling from a considerable height above us, a 
 drop of rain might fall with dangerous force, and a hailstone might 
 strike us with fatal rapidity. 
 
 In this manner, evaporation is produced by day ; but when the sun 
 goes down, a part of that vapour which his rays had excited, being no 
 longer broken, and attenuated by the reflecting rays, it will become 
 heavier than the air, even before it has reached the clouds ; and it 
 will, therefore, fall back in dews, which differ only from rain in de- 
 scending before they have had time to condense it into a visible form. 
 
 Hail, the Cartesians say, is a frozen cloud, half melted, and frozen 
 again in its descent. A hoar-frost is but a frozen dew. Lightning 
 we know to be an electrical flash, produced by the opposition of two 
 clouds ; and thunder to be the sound proceeding from the same, con- 
 tinued by an echo reverberated among them. It would be to very 
 little purpose, to attempt explaining exactly how these wonders are 
 effected : we have as yet but little insight into the manner in which 
 these meteors are found to operate upon each other ; and, therefore, 
 we must be contented with a detail rather of their effects than their 
 causes. 
 
 In our own gentle climate, where nature wears the mildest and kindest, 
 aspect, every meteor seems to befriend us. With us, rains fall in re 
 freshing showers, to enliven our fields, and to paint the landscape 
 vith a more vivid beauty. Snows cover the earth, to preserve its 
 tender vegetables from the inclemency of the departing winter. The 
 Jews descend with such an imperceptible fall as no way injures the 
 constitution. Even thunder 'tself is seldom injurious : and .t ; s mteu
 
 Ifth A HISTORY OF 
 
 wished for by the husbandman, to clear the air, and to kill number- 
 less insects that are noxious to vegetation. Hail is the most injurious 
 meteor that is known in our climate ; but it seldom visits us with vio- 
 lence, and then its fury is but transient. 
 
 One of the most dreadful storms we hear of,* was that of Hert- 
 fordshire, in the year 1697- It began by thunder and lightning, which 
 continued for some hours, when suddenly a black cloud came forward, 
 against the wind, and marked its passage with devastation. The hail- 
 stones which it poured down, being measured, were found to be many 
 of them fourteen inches round, and, consequently, as large as a bowl- 
 ing-green ball. Wherever it came, every plantation fell before it ; it 
 tore up the ground, split great oaks, and other trees, without number; 
 the fields of rye were cut down, as if levelled with a scythe ; wheat, 
 oats, and barley, suffered the same damage. The inhabitants found 
 but a precarious shelter, .even in their houses, their tiles and windows 
 being broke by the violence of the hailstones, which, by the force 
 with which they came, seemed to have descended from a great height. 
 The birds, in this universal wreck, vainly tried to escape by flight ; 
 pigeons, crows, rooks, and many more of the smaller and feebler 
 kinds, were brought down. An unhappy young man, who had not 
 time to take shelter, was killed ; one of his eyes was struck out of his 
 head, and his body was all over black with the bruises ; another had 
 just time to escape, but not without the most imminent danger, his 
 body being bruised all over. But what is most extraordinary, all this 
 fell within the compass of a mile 
 
 Mezeray, in his history of France, tells us of a shower of hail much 
 more terrible, which happened in the year 1510, when the French 
 monarch invaded Italy. There was, for a time, a horrid darkness, 
 thicker than that of midnight, which continued till the terrors of man- 
 kind were changed to still more terrible objects, by thunder and 
 lightning breaking the gloom, and bringing on such a shower of hail, 
 as no history of human calamities could equal. These hailstones were 
 of a bluish colour ; and some of them weighed not less than a hun- 
 dred pounds. A noisome vapour of sulphur attended the storm. All 
 the birds and beasts of tho country were entirely destroyed. Num- 
 bers of the human race suffered the same fate. But what is still more 
 extraordinary, the fishes found no protection from their native ele- 
 ment ; but were equal sufferers in the general calamity. 
 
 These, however, are terrors that are seldom exerted in our mild 
 climates. They only serve to mark the page of history with wonder : 
 and stand as admonitions to mankind, of the various stores of punish- 
 ment in the hands of the Deity, which his power can treasure up, and 
 his mercy can suspend. 
 
 In the temperate zones, therefore, meteors are rarely found thus 
 terrible ; but between the tropics, and near the poles, they assume 
 very dreadful and various appearances. In those inclement regions, 
 where cold and heat exert their chief power, meteors seem peculiarly 
 to have fixed their residence. They are seen there in a thousand 
 ferrifying forms, astonishing to Europeans, yet disregarded by the na- 
 
 PhiL Trans, vol. ii. p 147.
 
 THE EARTH. 151 
 
 lives, from their frequency. The wonders of air, fire, and water, ara 
 there combined, to produce the most tremendous effects ; and to sport 
 with the labours and apprehensions of mankind. Lightnings, that 
 Hash without noise ; hurricanes, that tear up the earth ; clouds, that 
 all at once pour down their contents, and produce an instant deluge ; 
 mock suns ; northern lights, that illuminate half the hemisphere ; cir- 
 cular rainbows ; halos ; fleeting balls of fire ; clouds, reflecting back 
 the images of things on earth, like mirrors; and water-spouts, that 
 burst from the sea, to join with the mists that hang immediately above 
 Jiem. These are but a part of the phenomena that are common in 
 those countries ; and from many of which our own climate is, in a 
 p-eat measure, exempted. 
 
 The meteors of the torrid zone, are different from those that are 
 found near the polar circles ; and it may readily be supposed, that in 
 those countries where the sun exerts the greatest force in raising va- 
 pours of all kinds, there should be the greatest quantity of meteors. 
 Upon the approach of the winter months, as they are called, under 
 the Line, which usually begin about May, the sky, from a fiery bright- 
 ness, begins to be overcast, and the whole horizon seems wrapt in a 
 muddy cloud. Mists and vapours still continue to rise ; and the air, 
 which so lately before was clear and elastic, now becomes humid, ob- 
 scure, and stifling ; the fogs become so thick, that the light of the sun 
 seems, in a manner, excluded; nor would its presence be known, but 
 for the intense and suffocating heat of its beams, which dart through 
 the gloom, and, instead of dissipating, only serve to increase the mist. 
 After this preparation, there follows an almost continual succession of 
 thunder, rain, and tempests. During this dreadful season, the streets 
 of cities flow like rivers ; and the whole country wears the appear- 
 ance of an ocean. The inhabitants often make use of this opportu- 
 nity to lay in a stock of fresh water, for the rest of the year ; as the 
 same cause which pours down the deluge at one season, denies the 
 kindly shower at another. The thunder which attends the fall of 
 these rains, is much more terrible than that we are generally ac- 
 quainted with. With us, the flash is seen at some distance, and the 
 noise shortly after ensues ; our thunder generally rolls in one 
 quarter of the sky, and one stroke pursues another. But here it is 
 otherwise ; the whole sky seems illuminated with unremitted flashes 
 of lightning; every part of the air seems productive of its own thun- 
 ders ; and every cloud produces its own shock. The strokes come so 
 thick, that the inhabitants can scarce mark the intervals ; but all is 
 one unremitted roar of elementary confusion. It should seem, how- 
 ever, that the lightning of those countries is not so fatal, or so dan 
 gerous, as with us ; since, in this case, the torrid zone would be unin- 
 habitable. 
 
 When these terrors have ceased, with which, however, the natives 
 are familiar, meteors of another kind begin to make their appearance 
 The intense beams of .he sun, darting upon stagnant waters, that ge- 
 nerally cover the surface of the country, raise vapours of various 
 kinds. Floating bodies of fire, which assume different names, rather 
 from their accidental forms, than from any real difference between 
 them, are seen without surprise. The draco volans, or flying dragcm t
 
 152 A HISTORY OF 
 
 as it is called; the ignis fatuus, or wandering fire; the fires of t. 
 Helmo, or the mariner's light, are every where frequent ; and of these 
 we have numberless descriptions. " As I was riding in Jamaica," says 
 Mr. Barbham, " one morning, from my habitation, situated about three 
 miles north-west from Jago de la Vega, I saw a ball of fire, appearing 
 to me of the bigness of a bomb, swiftly falling down with a great blaze. 
 At first I thought it fell into the town ; but when I came nearer, 1 
 saw many people gathered together, a little to the southward, in the 
 savanna, to whom I rode up, to inquire the cause of their meeting 
 they were admiring, as I found, the ground's being strangely broke up 
 and ploughed by a ball of fire ; which, as they said, fell down there. 
 I observed there were many holes in the ground ; one in the middle 
 of the bigness of a man's head, and five or six smaller round about it, 
 of the bigness of one's fist, and so deep as not to be fathomed by such 
 implements as were at hand. It was observed, also, that all the green 
 herbage was burnt up, near the holes ; and there continued a strong 
 smell of sulphur near the place, for some time after." 
 
 Ulloa gives an account of one of a similar kind, at Quito.* " About 
 nine at night," says he, " a globe of fire appeared to rise from the side 
 of the mountain Pichinca, and so large, that it spread a light over all 
 the part of the city facing that mountain. The house where I lodged, 
 looking that way, I was surprised with an extraordinary light, darting 
 through the crevices of the window-shutters. On this appearance, 
 and the bustle of the people in the street, I hastened to the window, 
 and came time enough to see it in the middle of its career ; which con 
 tinned from west to south, till I lost sight of it, being intercepted by a 
 mountain, that lay between me and it. It was round ; and its apparent 
 diameter about a foot. I observed it to rise from the sides of Pichin- 
 ca ; although to judge from its course, it was behind that mountain 
 where this congeries of inflammable matter was kindled. In the first 
 half of its visible course, it emitted a prodigious effulgence, then it 
 began gradually to grow dim ; so that, upon its disappearing behind 
 the intervening mountain, its light was very faint." 
 
 Meteors, of this kind, are very frequently seen between the tropics ; 
 but they sometimes, also, visit the more temperate regions of Europe. 
 We have the description of a very extraordinary one, given us by 
 Montanari, that serves to shew to what great heights, in our atmos- 
 phere, these vapouis are found to ascend. In the year 1676, a great 
 globe of fire was seen at Bononia, in Italy, about three quarters of an 
 hour after sun-set It passed westward, with a most rapid course, and 
 at the rate of not less than a hundred and sixty miles in a minute, 
 which is much swifter than the force of a cannon-ball, and at last 
 stood over th& Adriatic sea. In its course it crossed over all Italy ; 
 and, by computation, it could not have been less than thirty-eight 
 miles above the surface of the earth. In the whole line of its course, 
 wherever it approached, the inhabitants below could distinctly hear 
 it, with a hissing noise, resembling that of a fire-work. Having 
 passed away to sea, towards Corsica, it was heard, at last, to go ofl 
 with a most violent explosion, much louder than that of a cauaon ; 
 
 * ITlloa, vol. i. p. 41.
 
 THE EARTH. 153 
 
 and, immediately after, another noise was heard, like the rattling of 
 a great cart, upon a stony pavement ; which was, probably, nothing 
 more than the echo of the former sound. Its magnitude, when at 
 Bononia, appeared twice as long as the moon, one way, and as broad 
 the other ; so that, considering its height, it could not have been less 
 than a mile long, and half a mile broad. From the height at which 
 this was seen, and there being no volcano on that quarter of the world 
 from whence it came, it is more than probable that this terrible globe 
 was kindled on some part of the contrary side of the globe, in those 
 regions of vapours, which we have been just describing ; and thus, 
 rising above the air, and passing in a course opposite to that of the 
 earth's motion, in this manner it acquired its amazing rapidity. 
 
 To these meteors, common enough southward, we will add one more 
 of a very uncommon kind, which was seen by Ulloa, at Quito, in 
 Peru ; the beauty of which will, in some measure, serve to relieve 
 us, after the description of those hideous ones preceding. " At day- 
 break," says he, " the whole mountain of Pambamarca, where we 
 then resided, was encompassed with very thick clouds ; which the rising 
 of the sun dispersed so far, as to leave only some vapours, too fine to be 
 seen. On the side opposite to the rising sun, and about ten fathoms 
 distant from the place where we were standing, we saw, as in a look- 
 ing-glass, each his own image ; the head being, as it were, the centre 
 of three circular rainbows, one without the other, and just near enough 
 o each other as that the colours of the internal verged upon those 
 more external ; while round all was a circle of white, but with a greater 
 space between. In this manner these circles were erected, like a 
 mirror, before us ; and as we moved, they moved, in disposition and 
 order. But, what is most remarkable, though we were six in num- 
 ber, every one saw the phenomenon with regard to himself, and not 
 that relating to others. The diameter of the arches gradually altered, 
 as the sun rose above the horizon; and the whole, after continuing 
 a long time, insensibly faded away. In the beginning, the diameter 
 of the inward iris, taken from its last colour, was about five degrees 
 and a half; and that of the white arch, which surrounded the rest, 
 was not less than sixty-seven degrees. At the beginning of the phe- 
 nomenon, the arches seemed of an oval, or elliptical figure, like the 
 disk of the sun ; and afterwards became perfectly circular. Each of 
 these was of a red colour, bordered with an orange ; and the last bor- 
 dered by a bright yellow, which altered into a straw-colour, and this 
 turned to a green ; but, in all, the external colour remained red." 
 Such is the description of one of the most beautiful illusions that has 
 ever been seen in nature. This alone seems to have combined al 
 'he splendours of optics in one view. To understand the mannei, 
 therefore, how this phenomenon was produced, would require a per- 
 fect knowledge of optics, which it is not our present province to/ 
 enter upon. It will be sufficient, therefore, only to observe, that all 
 these appearances arise from the density of the cloud, together with 
 Hs uncommon and peculiar situation, with respect to the spectator 
 and the sun. It may be observed, that but one of these three 
 rainbows was real, the rest being only reflections thereof. It 
 ma> also be observed, that whenever the spectator stands between
 
 154 A HISTORY OF 
 
 ;he suu and a cloud of falling rain, a rainbow is sef.n. wnicl i, r jthing 
 more than the reflection of the different coloured rays ot s ht from 
 the bosom of the cloud. If, for instance, we take a g] A* globe, 
 filled with water, and hang it up before us opposite the s,m, in 
 many situations it will appear transparent ; but if it is raised higher, 
 or sideways, to ah angle of for ty-five degrees, it will at first appear 
 red ; altered a very little higher, yellow ; then green, then b'ue, then 
 violet colour; in short, it will assume successively all the colours ot 
 the rainbow, but, if raised higher still, it will become transparent 
 again. A falling shower may be considered as an infinite number of 
 these little transparent globes, assuming different colours, by being 
 placed at the proper heights. The rest of the shower will appear 
 transparent; and no part of it will seem coloured, but such as are at 
 angles of forty-five degrees from the eye, forty-five degrees upward, 
 forty-five degrees on each side, and forty-five degrees downward, did 
 not the plane of the earth prevent us. We therefore see only an arch 
 of the rainbow, the lower part being cut off from our sight by the 
 earth's interposition. However, upon the tops of very high moun- 
 tains, circular rainbows are seen, because we can see to an angle of 
 forty-five degrees downward, as well as upward, or sideways, and 
 therefore we take in the rainbow's complete circle. 
 
 In those forlorn regions round the poles, the meteors, though of 
 another kind, are not less numerous and alarming. When the winter 
 begins, and the cold prepares to set in, the same misty appearance 
 which is produced in the southern climates by the heat, is there pro- 
 duced by the contrary extreme.* The sea smokes like an oven, and 
 a fog arises, which mariners call the frost smoke. This cutting mist 
 commonly raises blisters on several parts of the body ; and, as soon 
 as it is wafted to some colder part of the atmosphere, it freezes to lit 
 tie icy particles, which are driven by the wind, and create such an in 
 tense cold on land, that the limbs o*f the inhabitants are sometimes 
 frozen, and drop off. 
 
 There, also, hallos, or luminous circles round the moon, are oftener 
 seen than in any other part of the earth, being formed by the frost 
 smoke ; although the air otherwise seems to be clear. A lunar rain- 
 bow also, is often seen there, though somewhat different from that 
 which is common with us ; as it appears of a pale white, striped with 
 gray. In these countries also, the aurora borealis streams with pe- 
 culiar lustre, and variety of colours. In Greenland it generally arises 
 in the east, and darts its sportive fires, with variegated beauty, over 
 the whole horizon. Its appearance is almos* constant in winter; and, 
 at those seasons when the sun departs, to return no more for half a 
 year, this meteor kindly rises to supply its beams, and affords suffi- 
 cient light for all the purposes of existence. However, in the very 
 midst of their tedious night, the inhabitants are not entirely forsaken. 
 The tops of the mountains are often seen painted with the red ravs of 
 the sun ; and the poor Greenlander from thence begins TO <iafe his 
 chronology. It would appear whimsical to read a Greenland calen- 
 dar, in which we might be told, that one of their chiefs, having lived 
 
 Paul Edgar's History of Greenland.
 
 THE EARTH. 155 
 
 .orty (fays, died, at last, of a good old age ; and that his widow con 
 tinued for half a day to deplore his loss, with great fidelity, befon> 
 she admitted a second hushand. 
 
 The meteors of the day, in these countries, are not less exii-aordi- 
 nary than those of the night: mock suns are often reflected upon an 
 opposite cloud ; and the ignorant spectator fancies that there are ofteir 
 three or four real suns in the firmament at the same time. In this splen- 
 did appearance the real sun is always readily known by its superior 
 brightness, every reflection being seen with diminished splendour. 
 The solar rainbow there, is often seen different from ours. Instead 
 of a pleasing variety of colours, it appears of a pale white, edged 
 with a stripe of dusky yellow ; the whole being reflected from the 
 bosom of a frozen cloud. 
 
 But, of all the meteors which mock the imagination with an ap- 
 pearance of reality, those strange illusions that are seen there, in 
 fine serene weather, are the most extraordinary and entertaining. 
 " Nothing," says Krantz, " ever surprised me more, than on a fine 
 warm summer's day, to perceive the islands that lie four leagues west 
 of our shore, putting on a form quite different from what they are 
 known to have. As I stood gazing upon them, they appeared at first 
 infinitely greater than what they naturally are ; and seemed as if I 
 viewed them through a large magnifying glass. They were not thus 
 only made larger, but brought nearer to me. I plainly descried every 
 stone upon the land, and all the furrows filled with ice, as if I stood 
 close by. When this illusion had lasted for a while, the prospect 
 seemed to break up, and a new scene of wonder to present itself. 
 The islands seemed to travel to the shore, and represented a wood, 
 or a tall cut hedge. The scene then shifted, and showed the ap- 
 pearance of all sorts of curious figures ; as ships with sails, streamers, 
 and flags; antique elevated castles, with decayed turrets; and a 
 thousand forms, for which fancy found a resemblance in nature. 
 When the eye had been satisfied with gazing, the whole group of 
 riches seemed to rise in air, and at length vanish into nothing. At 
 such times the weather is quite serene and clear ; but compressed 
 with subtle vapours, as it is in very hot weather ; and these appear- 
 ing between the eye and the object, give it all that variety of appear- 
 ances which glasses of different refrangibilities would have done." Mr. 
 Krantz observes, that commonly a couple of hours afterwards, a 
 gentle west wind and a visible mist follows, which puts an end to this 
 lusus naturae. 
 
 It were easy to swell this catalogue of meteors with the names of 
 jnany others, both in our own climate and in other parts of the world. 
 Such as falling stars, which are thought to be no more than unctuous 
 v apours, raised from the earth to small heights, and contini- ng 
 f o shine till that matter which first raised, and supported them, b-- ng 
 burnt out, they fall back again to the earth, with extinguished flune. 
 Burning spears, which are a peculiar kind of aurora borealis ; bloody 
 rains, which are said to be the excrements of an insect, that at ifiat 
 v.me has been raised into the air. Showers of stones, fishes, and ivy- 
 berries, at first, no doubt, raised into the air by tempests ia one countr}, 
 and falling at some considerable distance in the manner of rain, to as.
 
 156 A HISTORY OF 
 
 tonisn aiiother. But omitting these, of which we know little mrr?; than 
 what is thus briefly mentioned, I will conclude this chapter with the 
 description of a water-spout; a most surprising phenomenon, not 
 less dreadful to mariners than astonishing to the observer of nature. 
 
 These spouts are seen very commonly in the tropical seas, and 
 sometimes in our own. Those seen by Tournefort, in the Mediter- 
 ranean, he has described as follows: " The first of these," says this 
 great botanist, " that we saw, was about a musket-shot from our 
 ship. There we perceived the water began to boil, and to rise about 
 a foot above its level. The water was agitated and whitish ; and 
 above its surface there seemed to stand a smoke, such as might be 
 imagined to come from wet straw before it begins to blaze. It made a 
 sort of a murmuring sound, like that of a torrent heard at a distance, 
 mixed, at the same time, with a hissing noise like that of a serpent 
 shortly after, we perceived a column of this smoke rise up to the 
 clouds, at the same time whirling about with great rapidity. It ap- 
 peared to be as thick as one's finger ; and the former sound still con- 
 tinued. When this disappeared, after lasting for about eight minutes, 
 upon turning to the opposite quarter of the sky, we perceived another, 
 which began in the manner of the former ; presently after a third 
 appeared in the west ; and instantly beside it, sti' 1 another arose. 
 The most distant of these three could not be above a musket-shot 
 from the ship. They all continued like so many heaps of wet straw 
 set on fire, that continued to smoke, and to make the same noise as 
 before. We soon after perceived each, with its respective canal, 
 mounting up in the clouds, and spreading where it touched ; the 
 cloud, like the mouth of a trumpet, making a figure, to express it 
 intelligibly, as if the tail of an animal were pulled at one end 
 by a weight. These canals were of a whitish colour, and so 
 tinged, as I suppose, by the water which was contained in them ; 
 for previous to this, the}' were apparently empty, and of the 
 colour of transparent glass. These canals were not straight, but 
 bent in some parts, and far from being perpendicular, but rising in 
 their clouds with a very inclined ascent. But what is very particular, 
 the cloud to which one of them was pointed, happening to be driven 
 by the wind, the spout still continued to follow its motion, without 
 being broken ; and passing behind one of the others, the spouts 
 crossed each other, in the form of a St. Andrew's Cross. In the be- 
 ginning they were all about as thick as one's finger, except at the top, 
 where they were broader, and two of them disappeared ; but shortly 
 after, the last of the three increased considerably ; and its canal, 
 which was at first so small, soon became as thick as a man's arm, then 
 as his leg, and at last thicker than his whole body. We saw distinct- 
 ly, through this transparent body, the water, which rose up with a 
 kind of spiral motion ; and it sometimes diminished a little of its 
 thickness, and again resumed the same; sometimes widening at top, and 
 ometimes at bottom ; exactly resembling a gut filled with water, press- 
 ed with the fingers to make the fluid rise, or fall ; and I am well con- 
 vinced, that this alteration in the spout was caused by the wind, which 
 pressed the cloud, and impelled it to give up its contents. After somn 
 time, its bulk was so diminished as to be no thicker than a 'nar s arm
 
 THE EARTH 157 
 
 again : and thus swelling, and diminishing, it at last became ver j 
 small. In the end, I observed the sea which was raised about it, to 
 resume its level by degrees, and the end of the canal that touched U 
 to become as small as if it had been tied round with a cord ; and this 
 continued till the light, striking through the cloud, took away the 
 view. I still, however, continued to look, expecting that its part? 
 would join again, as I had before seen in one of the others, in which 
 .he spout was more than once broken, and yet again came together ; 
 but I was disappointed, for the spout appeared no more." 
 
 Many have been the solutions offered for this surprising appearance 
 Mr. Buffon supposes the spout here described, to proceed from the 
 operation of fire, beneath the bed of the sea; as the waters at the 
 surface are thus seen agitated. However, the solution of Dr. Stuart 
 is not divested of probability ; who thinks it may be accounted for by 
 suction, as in the application of a cupping-glass to the skin. 
 
 Wherever spouts of this kind are seen, they are extremely dreaded 
 by mariners ; for if they happen to fall upon a ship, they most com- 
 monly dash it to the bottom. But, if the ship be large enough to sus- 
 tain the deluge, they are at least sure to destroy its sails and rigging, 
 and render it unfit for sailing. It is said that vessels of any force 
 usually fire their guns at them, loaden with a bar of iron ; and if so 
 happy as to strike them, the water is instantly seen to fall from them, 
 with a dreadful noise, though without any farther mischief. 
 
 I am at a loss whether we ought to reckon these spouts called ty- 
 phons, which are sometimes seen at land, of the same kind with those 
 so often described by mariners at sea, as they seem to differ in several 
 respects. That, for instance, observed at Hatfield, in Yorkshire, in 
 l687j as it is described by the person who saw it, seems rather to 
 have been a whirlwind than a water-spout. The season in which it 
 appeared was very dry, the weather extremely hot, and the air very 
 cloudy. After the wind had blown for some time, with considerable 
 force, and condensed the black clouds one upon another, a great whirl- 
 ing of the air ensued ; upon which the centre of the clouds, every 
 now and then darted down, in the shape of a thick long black pipe; in 
 which the relator could distinctly view a motion, like that of a screw, 
 continually screwing up to itself, as it were, whatever it happened to 
 touch. In its progress it moved slowly over a grove of young trees, 
 which it violently bent, in a circular motion. Going forward to a barn, 
 it in a minute stript it of all the thatch, and filled the whole air with 
 the same. As it came near the relator, he perceived that its blackness 
 proceeded from a gyration of the clouds, by contrary winds, meeting 
 in a point, or a centre ; and where the greatest force was exerted, 
 there darting down, like an Archimedes' screw, to suck up all that 
 came in its way. Another which he saw, some time after, was at- 
 tended with still more terrible effects ; levelling or tearing up great 
 oak-trees, catching up the birds in its vortex, and dashing them against 
 the ground. In this manner it proceeded, with an audible whirling 
 noise, like that of a mill; and at length dissolved, after having done 
 much mischief. 
 
 But we must still continue to suspend our assent as to the nature 
 even of these land spouts, since they have been sometimes foui**J to
 
 158 A HISTORY OF 
 
 drop, in a great column of water, at once upon the earth, and pro- 
 duce an instant inundation,* which could not readily have happened 
 nad they been caused by the gyration of a whirlwind only. Indeed, 
 every conjecture, regarding these meteors, seems to me entirely unsa- 
 tisfactory. They sometimes appear in the calmest weather at sea, of 
 which I have been an eyewitness ; and, therefore, these are not caused 
 by a whirlwind. They are always capped by a cloud ; and, therefore, 
 are not likely to proceed from fires at the bottom. They change 
 place ; and therefore suction seems impracticable. In short, we still 
 want facts, upon which to build a rational theory ; and, instead of 
 knowledge, we must be contented with admiration. To be well ac- 
 quainted with the appearances of nature, even though we are ignorant 
 of their causes, often constitutes the most useful wisdom. 
 
 But among all the wonders that have lately engaged the attention 
 of the philosopher and the chymist, is the circumstance, that after the 
 explosion of certain luminous meteors, heavy stones, varying in bulk 
 and number, have almost constantly fallen from them to the earth. 
 Credibility in a fact, for which not even a conjectural cause in the 
 remotest degree probable could be assigned, was for some time sus- 
 pended ; but the proofs are now so numerous, and of such respectable 
 authority, that it can no longer be doubted. 
 
 In July, 1794, about twelve stones fell near Sienna in Tuscany, as 
 related by the Earl of Bristol. December 13, 1795, a large stone of 
 fifty-six pounds weight, fell at Wold cottage in Yorkshire, and is de- 
 scribed by Captain Topham. February 19, 1796, a stone of ten 
 pounds weight fell in Portugal, an account of which is given by Mr. 
 Southey. December 19, 1798, showers of stones fell at Benares in 
 the East Indies, upon the testimony of J. Lloyd Williams, Esq. April 
 26, 1803, according to M. Fourcroy, several stones, from ten to four- 
 teen pounds weight, fell near L'Aigle in Normandy. 
 
 Various conjectures have been made, to account for their appear- 
 ance; but such is the obscurity of the subject, that no opinion in the 
 slightest degree probable has yet been advanced. It was at first sup- 
 posed, that they had been thrown out of volcanoes, but the immense 
 distance from all volcanoes renders this opinion of little value. 
 Chaldni endeavoured to prove, that the meteors from which they fell, 
 were bodies floating in space, unconnected with any planetary system, 
 attracted by the earth in their progress, and kindled by their motion 
 in the atmosphere. Laplace suggests the probability of their having 
 been thrown off by the volcanoes of the moon ; but the meteors which 
 almost always accompany them, and the swiftness of their horizontal 
 motion, persuade us to reject this opinion. Sir William Hamilton, 
 and Mr. King, with greater probability, consider them as concretions 
 actually formed in the atmosphere. After all, we must be content to 
 leave this phenomenon (as also the showers of sulphur and the vast 
 masses of iron said to have fallen in South America and Siberia, and 
 supposed to have their origin from the same causes) to the ace ttmu 
 <ated wisdom of future ages. 
 
 Phil. Trans, vol. iv. p. 2, 108.
 
 THE EARTH 159 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 HAVING thus gone through a particular description of the earth, lei 
 js now pause for a moment, to contemplate the great picture before 
 js. The universe may be considered as the palace in which the Deity 
 resides; and this earth as one of its apartments. In this, all the 
 meaner races of animated nature mechanically obey him ; and stand 
 ready to execute his commands without hesitation. Man alone is 
 found refractory ; he is the only being endued with a power of con- 
 tradicting these mandates. The Deity was pleased to exert superior 
 power in creating him a superior being; a being endued with a choice 
 of good and evil ; and capable, in some measure, of co-operating with 
 his own intentions. Man, therefore, rriay be considered as a- limited 
 creature, endued with powers imitative of those residing in the Deity. 
 He is thrown into a world that stands in need of his help ; and has 
 been granted a power of producing harmony from partial confusion. 
 
 If, therefore, we consider the earth as allotted for our habitation, 
 we shall find, that much has been given us to enjoy, and much to 
 amend ; that we have ample reasons for our gratitude, and still more 
 for our industry. In those great outlines of nature, to which art can- 
 not reach, and where our greatest efforts must have been ineffectual, 
 God himself has finished these with amazing grandeur and beauty. 
 Our beneficent Father has considered these parts of nature as peculi- 
 arly his own ; as parts which no creature could have skill or strength 
 to amend ; and therefore made them incapable of alteration, or of 
 more perfect regularity. The heavens and the firmament show the 
 wisdom and the glory of the Workman. Astronomers, who are best 
 skilled in the symmetry of systems, can find nothing there that they 
 can alter for the better. God made these perfect, because no subor- 
 dinate being could correct their defects. 
 
 When, therefore, we survey nature on this side, nothing can be 
 more splendid, more correct, or amazing. We there behold a Deity 
 residing in the midst of a universe, infinitely extended every way, 
 animating all, and cheering the vacuity with his presence ! We be- 
 hold an immense and shapeless mass of matter, formed into worlds 
 by his power, and dispersed at intervals, to which even the imagina- 
 tion cannot travel ! In this great theatre of his glory, a thousand 
 suns, like our own, animate their respective systems, appearing and 
 vanishing at Divine command. We behold our own bright luminary 
 fixed in the centre of its system, wheeling its planets in times propor- 
 tioned to their distances, and at once dispensing light, heat, and action. 
 The earth also is seen with its twofold motion ; producing, by the one, 
 the change of seasons ; and by the other, the grateful vicissitudes of 
 day and night. With what silent .magnificence is all this performed ! 
 with what seeming ease ! The works of art are exerted with intei- 
 rupted force ; and their noisy progress discovers the obstructions they 
 receive : but the earth, with a silent steady rotation, successively pre- 
 sents every part of its bjsom to the sun; at once imbibing nourisli 
 uient and ligh' from that parent of vegetation and fertility.
 
 1 60 A HISTORY OF 
 
 But not only provisions of heat and light are thus supplied, but its 
 tvholn surface is covered with a transparent atmosphere, that turns 
 with its motion, and guards it from external injury. The rays of the 
 sun are thus broken into a genial warmth; and, while the surface \s 
 assisted, a gentle heat is produced in the bowels of the earth, which 
 contributes to cover it with verdure. Waters also are supplied in 
 healthful abundance, to support life, and assist vegetation. Mountains 
 arise, to diversify the prospect, and give a current to the stream. Seas 
 extend from one continent to the other, replenished with animals, that, 
 may be turned to human support; and also serving to enrich the earth 
 with a sufficiency of vapour. Breezes fly along the surface of the 
 fields, to promote health and vegetation. The coolness of the even- 
 ing invites to rest, and the freshness of the morning renews for labour. 
 
 Such are the delights of the habitation that has been assigned to 
 man ! Without any one of these, he must have been wretched ; and 
 none of these could his own industry have supplied. But while many 
 of his wants are thus kindly furnished on the one hand, there are 
 numberless inconveniences to excite his industry on the other. This 
 habitation, though provided with all the conveniences of air, pasturage, 
 and water, is but a desert place, without human cultivation. The 
 lowest animal finds more conveniences in the wilds of nature, than 
 he who boasts himself their lord. The whirlwind, the inundation, 
 and all the asperities of the air, are peculiarly terrible to man, who 
 knows their consequences, and, at a distance, dreads their approach. 
 The earth itself, where human art has not pervaded, puts on a fright 
 ful gloomy appearance. The forests are dark and tangled ; the mea- 
 dows overgrown with rank weeds ; and the brooks Stray without a 
 determined channel. Nature, that has been kind to every lower or- 
 der of beings, has been quite neglectful with regard to him ; to the 
 savage uncontriving man the earth is an abode of desolation, where 
 his shelter is insufficient, and his food precarious. 
 
 A world thus furnished with advantages on one side, and inconve- 
 niences on the other, is the proper abode of reason ; is the fittest to 
 exercise the industry of a free and a thinking creature. These evils, 
 which art can remedy, and prescience guard against, are a proper call 
 for the exertion of his faculties ; and they tend still more to assimi- 
 late him to his Creator. God beholds, with pleasure, that being which 
 he has made, converting the wretchedness of his natural situation into 
 a theatre of triumph ; bringing all the headlong tribes of nature into 
 subjection to his will ; and producing that order and uniformity upon 
 uarth, of which hi* own heavenly fabric is so bright an example.
 
 161 
 
 PART II. 
 OF ANIMALS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A COMPARISON OP ANIMALS WITH THE INFERIOR RANKS OP 
 CREATION. 
 
 HAVING given an account of the earth in general, and the advan 
 tages and inconveniences with which it abounds, we now come to con 
 sider it more minutely. Having described the habitation, we are na- 
 turally led to inquire after the inhabitants. Amidst the infinitely 
 different productions which the earth offers, and with which it is every 
 where covered, animals hold the first rank ; as well because of the 
 finer formation of their parts, as of their superior power. The vege- 
 table, which is fixed to one spot, and obliged to wait for its accidental 
 supplies of nourishment, may be considered as the prisoner of nature. 
 Unable to correct the disadvantages of its situation, or to shield itself 
 from the dangers that surround it, every object that has motion, may 
 be its destroyer. 
 
 But animals are endowed with powers of motion and defence. The 
 greatest part are capable, by changing place, of commanding nature ; 
 and of thus obliging her to furnish that nourishment which is most 
 agreeable to their state. Those few that are fixed on one spot, even in 
 this seemingly helpless situation, are, nevertheless, protected from ex- 
 ternal injury by a hard shelly covering, which they often can close 
 at pleasure, and thus defend themselves from every assault. And 
 here, I think, we may draw the line between the animal and vegeta- 
 ble kingdoms. Every animal, by some means or other, finds protec- 
 tion from injury ; either from its force, or courage, its swiftness, or 
 cunning. Some are protected by hiding in convenient places, and 
 others by taking refuge in a hard resisting shell. But vegetables are 
 totally unprotected ; they are exposed to every assailant, and patiently 
 submissive in every attack. In a word, an animal is an organized be- 
 ing that is in some measure provided for its own security ; a vegetable 
 is destitute of every protection. 
 
 But though it is very easy, without the help of definitions, to dis- 
 tinguish a plant from an animal, yet both possess many properties so 
 much alike, that the two kingdoms, as they are called, seem mixed with 
 each other. Hence, it frequently puzzles the naturalist to tell exactly 
 where animal life begins, and vegetative terminates ; nor indeed, is ii 
 easy to resolve, whether some objects offered to view, be of the low 
 VOL I- L
 
 1 62 A HISTORY OF 
 
 pst of the animal, or the highest of the vegetable race. The sensitive 
 plant, that moves at the touch, seems to have as much perception as 
 the fresh-water polypus, that is possessed of a still slower share of 
 motion. Besides, the sensitive plant will not reproduce, upon cutting 
 in pieces, which the polypus is known to do ; so that the vegetable 
 production seems to have the superiority. But, notwithstanding this, 
 the polypus hunts for its food, as most other animals do. It changes 
 its situation, and therefore possesses a power of choosing its food, or 
 retreating from danger. Still, therefore, the animal kingdom is far 
 removed above the vegetable ; and its lowest denizen is possessed oi 
 very great privileges, when compared with the plants with which it is 
 often surrounded. 
 
 However, both classes have many resemblances, by which they are 
 raised above the unorganized and inert masses of nature. Minerals 
 are mere inactive, insensible bodies, entirely motionless of themselves, 
 and waiting some external force to alter their forms, or their proper- 
 ties. But it is otherwise with animals and vegetables ; these are en- 
 dued with life and vigour ; they have their state of improvement and 
 decay ; they are capable of reproducing their kinds ; they grow from 
 seeds in some, and from cuttings in others ; they seem all possessed 
 of sensation, in a greater or less degree ; they both have their enmi- 
 ties and affections ; and as some animals are, by nature, impelled to 
 violence, so some plants are found to exterminate all others, and make 
 a wilderness of the places round them. As the lion makes a desert 
 of the forest where it resides, thus no other plant will grow under the 
 shade of the manchinel-tree. Thus, also, that plant in the West-In- 
 dies, called caraguata, clings round whatever tree it happens to ap- 
 proach : there it quickly gains the ascendant ; and loading the tree 
 with a verdure not its own, keeps away that nourishment designed to 
 feed the trunk ; and at last entirely destroys its supporter. As all 
 animals are ultimately supported upon vegetables, so vegetables are 
 greatly propagated, by being made a part of animal food. Birds dis- 
 tribute the seeds wherever they fly, and quadrupeds prune them into 
 greater luxuriance. By these means the quantity of fopd, in a state of 
 nature, is kept equal to the number of the consumers ; and, lest some 
 of the weaker ranks of animals should find nothing for their support, 
 but ah the provisions be devoured by the strong, different vegetables 
 are appropriated to different appetites. If, transgressing this rule, the 
 stronger ranks should invade the rights of the weak, and, breaking 
 through all regard to appetite, should make an indiscriminate use of 
 every vegetable, nature then punishes the transgression, and poison 
 marks the crime as capital. 
 
 If, again, we compare vegetables and animals, with respect to the 
 places whore they are found, we shall find them bearing a still stronger 
 similitude. The vegetables that grow in a dry and sunny soil, are 
 strong and vigorous, though not luxuriant ; so also are the animals of 
 such a climate. Those, on the contrary, that are the joint product of 
 heat and moisture are luxuriant and tender ; and the animals assimi- 
 lating to the vegetable food, on which they ultimately subsist, are 
 much larger in such places than in others. Thus, in the internal parts 
 of South America, and Africa, where the sun ussally scorches nil
 
 ANIMALS J63 
 
 aluove, while inundations cover all below, the insects, reptiles, ao^ 
 other animals, grow to a prodigious size : the earth-worm of America 
 is often a yard in length, and as thick as a walking cane ; the boiguacu, 
 which is the largest of the serpent kind, is sometimes forty feet in 
 length ; the bats, in those countries, are as big as a rabbit ; the toads 
 are bigger than a duck ; and their spiders are as large as a sparrow. 
 On the contrary, in the cold frozen regions of the north, where vege- 
 table nature is stinted of its growth, the few animals in those climates 
 partake of the diminution ; all the wild animals, except the bear, are 
 much smaller than in milder countries ; and such of the domestic 
 kinds as are carried thither, quickly degenerate, and grow less. Their 
 very insects are of the minute kinds, their bees and spiders being not 
 half so large as those in the temperate zone. 
 
 The similitude between vegetables and animals is no where more 
 obvious than in those that belong to the ocean, where the nature of 
 one is admirably adapted to the necessities of the other. This ele- 
 ment, it is well known, has its vegetables, and its .insects that feed 
 upon them, in great abundance. Over many tracts of the sea, a weed 
 is seen floating, which covers the surface, and gives the resemblance 
 of a green and extensive meadow. On the under side of these un- 
 stable plants, millions of little animals are found, adapted to their 
 situation. For as their ground, if I may so express it, lies over their 
 heads, their feet are placed upon their backs ; and as land animals 
 have their legs below their bodies, these have them above. At 
 land also, most animals are furnished with eyes to see their food ; 
 but at sea, almost all the reptile kinds are without eyes, which might 
 only give them prospects of danger at a time when unprovided with 
 the means of escaping it.* 
 
 Thus, in all places, we perceive an obvious similitude between the 
 animals and the vegetables of every region. In general, however, 
 (he most perfect races have the least similitude to the vegetable pro- 
 ductions on which they are ultimately fed ; while, on the contrary, 
 the meaner the animal, the more local it is found to be, and the more 
 it is influenced by the varieties of the soil where it resides. Many of 
 the more humble reptile kinds are not only confined to one country, 
 but also to a plant ; nay, even to a leaf. Upon that they subsist ; in- 
 crease with its vegetation, and seem to decay as it declines. They 
 are merely the circumscribed inhabitants of a single vegetable ; take 
 them from that, and they instantly die ; being entirely assimilated to 
 the plant they feed on, assuming its colour, and even its medicinal 
 properties. For this reason there are infinite numbers of the meaner 
 animals that we have never an opportunity of seeing in this part of 
 the world ; they are incapable of living separate from their kindred 
 vegetables, which grow only in a certain climate. 
 
 Such animals as are formed more perfect, lead a life of less depen* 
 donee ; and some kinds are found to subsist in many parts of the 
 world at the same time. But of all the races of animated nature, man 
 .s the least affected by the soil where he resides, and least influenced 
 by the variations of vegetable sustenance : equally unaffected by the 
 
 Linnsei Ameniiatcs, vol. v. p. 68.
 
 1 64 A HISTORY OF 
 
 luxuiiancu of the warm climates, or the sterility of the poles, ne has 
 spread his habitations over the whole earth ; and finds subsistence as 
 well amidst the ice of the north as the burning deserts under the line. 
 All creatures of an inferior nature, as has been said, have peculiar 
 propensities to peculiar climates; they are circumscribed to zones, and 
 confined to territories where their proper food is found in the greatest 
 abundance; but man may be called the animal of every climate, and 
 suffers but very gradual alterations from the nature of any situation. 
 
 As to animals of a meaner rank, whom man compels to attend hin 
 in his migrations, these being obliged to live in a kind of constraint, 
 and upon vegetable food often different from that of their native soil, 
 they very soon alter their natures with the nature of their nourish- 
 ment, assimilate to the vegetables upon which theyfced,and thus as- 
 sume very different habits as well as appearances. Thus man, unaf- 
 fected himself, alters and directs the nature of other animals at his 
 pleasure ; increases their strength for his delight, or their patience 
 for his necessities. 
 
 This power of altering the appearances of things, seems to have 
 been given him for very wise purposes. The Deity, when he made 
 the earth, was willing to give his favoured creature many opponents, 
 that might at once exercise his virtues, and call forth his latent abili- 
 ties. Hence we find, in those wide uncultivated wildernesses, where 
 man, in his savage state, owns inferior strength, and the beasts claim 
 divided dominion, that the whole forest swarms with noxious animals 
 and vegetables ; animals as yet undescribed, and vegetables which 
 want a name. In those recesses, nature seems rather lavish than 
 magnificent in bestowing life. The trees are usually of the largest 
 kinds, covered round with parasite plants, and interwoven at the tops 
 with each other. The bouglis, both above and below, are peopled ' 
 with various generations ; some of which have never been upon the 
 ground, and others have never stirred from the branches on which 
 they were produced. In this manner millions of minute and loath- 
 some creatures pursue a round of uninterrupted existence, and enjoy 
 a life scarcely superior to vegetation. At the same time, the vegeta- 
 bles in those places are of the larger kinds, while the animal race 
 is of the smaller : but man has altered this disposition of nature ; 
 having, in a great measure, levelled the extensive forests, cul- 
 tivated the softer and finer vegetables, destroyed the numberless 
 tribes of minute and noxious animals, and taken every method to in- 
 crease a numerous breed of the Isfrger kinds. He thus has exercised 
 a severe control ; unpeopled nature, to embellish it ; and diminished 
 the size of the vegetable, in order to improve that of the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 To subdue the earth to his own use, was, and ought to be, the aim 
 of man ; which was only to be done by increasing the number of 
 plants, and diminishing that of animals : to multiply existence, alone, 
 was that of the Deity. For this reason, we find, in a state of nature, 
 that animal life is increased to the greatest quantity possible ; and we 
 can scarcely form a system that could add to its numbers. First, 
 plants, or trees, are provided by nature of the largest kinds ; and, 
 conseouently, the nourishing surface is thus extended. In the second
 
 ANIMALS. 165 
 
 place, there are animals peculiar to every part of the vegetable, so 
 hat no part of it is lost. But the greatest possible increase of life 
 would still be deficient, were there not other animals that lived upon 
 animals ; and these are themselves, in turn, food for some other 
 greater and stronger set of creatures. Were all animals to live upon 
 vegetables alone, thousands would be extinct that now have existence, 
 as the quantity of their provision would shortly fail. But, as things 
 are wisely constructed, one animal now supports another ; and thus, 
 all take up less room than they would by living on the same food ; as, 
 to make use of a similar instance, a greater number of people may be 
 crowded into the same space, if each is made to bear his fellow upon 
 his shoulders. 
 
 To diminish the number of animals, and increase that of vegeta- 
 bles, has been the general scope of human industry ; and, if we com- 
 pare the utility of the kinds, with respect to man, we shall find, that 
 of the vast variety in the animal kingdom, but very few are service- 
 able to him ; and, in the vegetable, but very few are entirely noxious. 
 How small a part of the insect tribes, for instance, are beneficial to 
 mankind, and what numbers are injurious ! In some countries they 
 almost darken the air: a candle cannot be lighted without their in- 
 stantly flying upon it, and putting out the flame.* The closest re- 
 cesses are no safeguard from their annoyance ; and the most beautiful 
 landscapes of nature only serve to invite their rapacity. As these are 
 injurious from their multitudes, so most of the larger kinds are equally 
 dreadful to him from their courage and ferocity. In the most uncul- 
 tivated parts of the forest these maintain an undisputed empire ; and 
 man invades their retreats with terror. These are dreadful ; and there 
 are still more which are utterly useless to him, that serve to take up 
 the room which more beneficial creatures might possess ; and incom- 
 mode him rather with their numbers than their enmities. Thus, in a 
 catalogue of land animals, that amounts to more than twenty thousand, 
 we can scarcely reckon up a hundred that are any way useful to him ; 
 the rest being either all his open or his secret enemies, immediately 
 attacking him in person, or intruding upon that food he has appropri- 
 ated to himself. Vegetables, on the contrary, though existing io 
 greater variety, are but few of them noxious. The most deadly poi- 
 sons are often of great use in medicine ; and even those plants that only 
 seem to cumber the ground serve for food to that race of aninruils 
 which he has taken into friendship, or protection. The smaller tribes 
 of vegetables, in particular, are cultivated, as contributing either to 
 his necessities or amusements ; so that vegetable life is as much pro- 
 moted by human industry, as animal life is controlled and diminished. 
 
 Hence, it was not without a long struggle, and various combinations 
 of experience and art, that man acquired his present dominion. Al- 
 most every good that he possesses was the result of the contest; for,, 
 every day, as he was contending, he was growing more wise : and pa- 
 xience and fortitude were the fruits of his industry. 
 
 Hence, also, we see the necessity of some animals living upon each 
 fther } to fill up the plan of Providence ; and we may, consequently 
 
 * Ulloa's Description of Guayaquil.
 
 I (ft A HISTORY OF 
 
 in'ei tho expediency of man's living upon all. Beth animals and vege- 
 tables s?em equally fitted to his appetites ; and, were any religious or 
 moral motives to restrain him from taking away life, upon any account, 
 he would only thus give existence to a variety of beings made to 
 prey upon each other ; and, instead of preventing, multiply mutual 
 destruction. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS 
 
 BEFORE we survey animals in their state of maturity, and perform- 
 ing the functions adapted to their respective natures, method re- 
 quires that we should consider them in the more early periods of 
 their existence. There has been a time when the proudest and the 
 noblest animal was a partaker of the same imbecility with the meanest 
 reptile; and, while yet a candidate for existence, equally helpless and 
 contemptible. In their incipient state, all are upon a footing ; the in- 
 sect and the philosopher being equally insensible, clogged with mat 
 ter, and unconscious of existence. Where, then, are we to begin with 
 the history of those beings, that make such a distinguished figure in the 
 creation? Or, where lie those peculiar characters in the parts that go 
 to make up animated nature that mark one animal as destined to 
 creep in the dust, and another to glitter on the throne. 
 
 This has been a subject that has employed the curiosity of all ages, 
 and the philosophers of every age have attempted the solution. In 
 tracing nature to her most hidden recesses, she becomes too minute, 
 or obscure, for our inspection ; so that we find it impossible to mark 
 her first differences, to discover the point where animal life begins, or 
 the cause that conduces to set it in motion. We know little more than 
 that the greatest number of animals require the concurrence of a male 
 and female to reproduce their kind ; and that these distinctly and in- 
 variable are found to beget creatures of their own species. Curiosity 
 has, therefore, been active, in trying to discover the immediate result 
 of this union ; how far either sex contributes to the bestowing animal 
 life, and whether it be to the male or female that we are most indebted 
 for the privilege of our existence. 
 
 Hippocrates has supposed that fecundity proceeded from the mix- 
 ture of the seminal liquor of both sexes, each of which equally contri- 
 butes to the formation of the incipient animal. Aristotle, on the other 
 hand, would have the seminal liquor in the male alone to contribute to 
 this purpose, while the female supplied the proper nourishment for its 
 support. Such were the opinions of these fathers of philosophy ; and 
 these continued to be adopted by the naturalists and schoolmen of 
 succeeding ages with blind veneration. At length, Steno and Har- 
 vey, taking anatomy for their guide, gave mankind a nearer view of 
 nature just advancing into animation. These perceived in all such 
 animals as produced their young alive, two glandular bodies, near the 
 womb, resembling that ovary, or cluster of small eggs, which is found 
 in fowls ; and, from the analogy between both, they gave these also 
 the name of ovaria. These, as they resembled eggs, they naturally 
 concluded had the same offices ; and, therefore, they were induced to
 
 ANIMALS. 167 
 
 think that all animals, of what kind soever, were produced from eggs 
 At first, however, there was some altercation raised against this sys- 
 tem : for, as these ovaria were separate from the womh, it was object- 
 ed that they could not be any way instrumental in replenishing thai 
 organ, with which they did not communicate. But, upon more mi 
 nute inspection, Fallopius, the anatomist, perceived two tubular ves 
 sels depending from the womb, which, like the horns of a snail, had 
 a power of erecting themselves, of embracing the ovaria, and of re- 
 ceiving the eggs, in order to be fecundated by the seminal liquor. 
 This discovery seemed, for a long time after, to fix the opinions of 
 philosophers. The doctrine of Hippocrates was re-established, and 
 the chief business of generation was ascribed to the female. This 
 was for a long time the established opinion of the schools ; but Leu- 
 wenhoeck, once more, shook the whole system, and produced a new 
 schism among the lovers of speculation. Upon examining the seminal 
 liquor of a great variety of male animals with microscopes, which 
 helped his sight more than that of any of his predecessors; he perceiv- 
 ed therein infinite numbers of little living creatures, like tadpoles, 
 very brisk, and floating in the fluid with a seeming voluntary motion. 
 Each of these, therefore, was thought to be the rudiments of an ani- 
 mal, similar to that from which it was produced ; and this only re- 
 quired a reception from the female, together with proper nourishment, 
 to complete its growth. The business of generation was now, there- 
 fore, given back to the male a second time, by many ; while others 
 suspended their assent, and chose rather to confess ignorance than to 
 embrace error.* 
 
 In this manner has the dispute continued for several ages, some ac- 
 cidental discovery serving, at intervals, to renew the debate, and re- 
 vive curiosity. It was a subject where speculation could find much 
 room to display itself; and Mr. Buffon, who loved to speculate, would 
 not omit such an opportunity of giving scope to his propensity. .Ac- 
 cording to this most pleasing of all naturalists, the microscope disco- 
 vers that the seminal liquor, not only of males, but of females also, 
 abounds in these moving little animals, which have been mentioned 
 above, and that they appear equally brisk in either fluid. These he 
 takes not to be real animals, but organical particles, which, being 
 simple, cannot be said to organize themselves, but go to the compo- 
 sition of all organized bodies whatsoever ; in the same manner as a 
 tooth in the wheel of a watch, cannot be called either a wheel, or the 
 watch, and yet contributes to the sum of the machine. These orga- 
 nical particles are, according to him, diffused throughout all nature, 
 and to be found not only in the seminal liquor, but in most other 
 fluids in the parts of vegetables, and all parts of animated nature. As 
 they happen, therefore, to be differently applied, they serve to con- 
 stitute a part of the animal, or the vegetable, whose growth they serve t 
 to increase, while the superfluity is thrown off in the seminal liquor' 
 of both sexes, for the reproduction of other animals or vegetables of 
 the same species. These particles assume different figures, according 
 10 the receptacle into which they enter; falling into the womb, they 
 
 * Bonet. Considerations sur les Crjps Origines
 
 168 A HISTORY OF 
 
 unite into a foetus ; beneath the bark of a tree they pullulate into 
 branches ; and, in short, the same particles that first formed the ani- 
 mal in the womb, contribute to increase its growth when brought 
 forth.* 
 
 To this system it has been objected, that it is impossible to conceive 
 organical substances without being organized; and that, if devested of 
 organization themselves, they could never make an organized body, 
 as an infinity of circles could never make a triangle. It has been ob- 
 jected, that it is more difficult to conceive the transformation of these 
 organical particles, than even that of the animal, whose growth we 
 are inquiring after; and this system, therefore, attempts to explain 
 one obscure thing by another still more obscure. 
 
 But an objection, still stronger than these, has been advanced by 
 an ingenious countryman of our own ; who asserts, that these little 
 animals, which thus appear swimming and sporting in almost every 
 fluid we examine with a microscope, are not real living particles, but 
 some of the more opaque parts of the fluid, that are thus increased 
 in size, and seem to have a much greater motion than they have in 
 reality. For the motion being magnified with the object, the smallest 
 degree of it will seem very considerable ; and a being almost at rest 
 may, by these means, be apparently put into violent action. Thus, 
 for instance, if we look upon the sails of a windmill moving at a dis- 
 tance, they appear to go very slow; but, if we approach them, and 
 thus magnify their bulk to our eye, they go round with great rapidity. 
 A microscope, in the same manner, serves to bring our eye close to 
 the object, and thus to enlarge it; and not only increase the magni- 
 tude of its parts, but of its motion. Hence therefore, it would fol- 
 ow, that these organical particles that are said to constitute the bulk 
 of living nature, are but mere optical illusions ; and the system found- 
 ed on them must, like them, be illusive. 
 
 These, and many other objections, have been made to this system; 
 which, instead of enlightening the mind, serve only to show, that too 
 close a pursuit of nature very often leads to uncertainty. Happily, 
 however, for mankind, the most intricate inquiries are generally the 
 most useless. Instead, therefore, of balancing accounts between the 
 sexes, and attempting to ascertain to which the business of generation 
 most properly belongs, it will be more instructive, as well as amusing, 
 to begin with animal nature, from its earliest retirements, and eva- 
 nescent outlines, and pursue the incipient creature through all its 
 changes in the womb, till it arrives into open day. 
 
 The usual distinction of animals, with respect to their manner of 
 generation, has been into the oviparous and viviparous kinds; or, in 
 other words, into those that bring forth an egg, which is afterwards 
 hatched into life, and those that bring forth their young alive and per- 
 fect. In one of these two ways all animals were supposed to have 
 been produced, and all other kinds of generation were supposed ima- 
 ginary or erroneous. But later discoveries have taught us to be more 
 cautious in making general conclusions, and have even induced many 
 to doubt whether animal life may not be produced merely fion 1 pucre- 
 fictiou.i 
 
 Mr. Buffon. t Bonet. Consid. p. 100.
 
 ANIMALS. 169 
 
 Indeed, the infinite number of creatures that putrid substances seem 
 to give birth to, and the variety of little insects seen floating in liquors, 
 by the microscope, appear to favour this opinion. But however this 
 may be, the former method of classing animals can now by no means 
 be admitted, as we find many animals that are produced neither from 
 the womb, nor from the shell, but merely from cuttings ; so that to 
 multiply life in some creatures, it is sufficient only to multiply the dis- 
 section. This being the simplest method of generation, and that in 
 which life seems to require the smallest preparation for its existence, 
 I will begin with it, and so proceed to the two other kinds, from the 
 meanest to the most elaborate. 
 
 The earth-worm, the millipedes, the sea-worm, and many marine 
 insects, may be multiplied by being cut in pieces ; but the polypus is 
 noted for its amazing fertility ; and hence it will be proper to take 
 the description. The structure of the polypus may be compared to 
 the finger of a glove, open at one end, and closed at the other. The 
 closed end represents the tail of the polypus, with which it serves to 
 fix itself to any substance it happens to be upon ; the open end may 
 be compared to the mouth ; and, if we conceive six or eight small 
 strings issuing from this end, we shall have a proper idea of its arms, 
 which it can erect, lengthen, and contract at pleasure, like the horns 
 of a snail. This creature is very voracious, and makes use of its 
 arms as a fisherman does of his net, to catch and entangle such little 
 animals as happen to come within its reach. It lengthens these arms 
 several inches, keeps them separate from each other, and thus occu- 
 pies a large space in the water in which it resides. These arms, when 
 extended, are as fine as threads of silk, and have a most exquisite de- 
 gree of feeling. If a small worm happens to get within the sphere 
 of their activity, it is quickly entangled by one of these arms, and, 
 soon after, the other arms come to its aid : these altogether shorten- 
 ing, the worm is drawn into the animal's mouth, and quickly devoured, 
 colouring the body as it is swallowed. Thus much is necessary to be 
 observed of this animal's method of living, to show that it is not of 
 the vegetable tribe, but a real animal, performing the functions which 
 other animals are found to perform, and endued with powers that 
 many of them are destitute of. But what is most extraordinary re- 
 mains yet to be told ; for, if examined with a microscope, there are 
 seen several little specks, like buds, that seem to pullulate from dif- 
 ferent parts of its body ; and these soon after appear to be young po 
 lypi, and like the large polypus, begin to cast their little arms about foi 
 prey, in the same manner. Whatever they happen to ensnare is de 
 voured, and gives a colour not only to their own bodies, but to thai 
 of the parent ; so that the same food is digested, and serves for the 
 iiourishment of both. The food of the little one passes into the large 
 polypus, and colours its body ; and this, in its turn, digests and swal- 
 lows its food to pass into theirs. In this manner every polypus has a 
 new colony sprouting from its body ; and these new ones, even while 
 attached to the parent animal, become parents themselves, having a 
 smaller colony also budding from them ; all, at the same time, busily 
 employed in seeking for their prey, and the food of any one of them 
 serving for the nourishment, and circulating through the bodies of al!
 
 170 A HISTORY OF 
 
 the rest. This society, however, is every hour dissolving; those 
 newly produced are seen at intervals to leave the body of the larg? 
 polypus, and become, shortly after, the head of a beginning colony 
 themselves. 
 
 In this manner the polypus multiplies naturally ; but one may take a 
 much readier and shorter way to increase them, and this only by cut- 
 ting them in pieces. Though cut into thousands of parts, each part 
 still retains its vivacious quality, and each shortly becomes a distinct 
 and a complete polypus ; whether cut lengthways or crossways, it is 
 all the same; this extraordinary creature seems a gainer by our en- 
 deavours, and multiplies by apparent destruction. The experiment 
 has been tried, times without number, and still attended with the same 
 success. Here, therefore, naturalists who have been blamed for the 
 cruelty of their experiments upon living animals, may now boast of 
 their increasing animal life, instead of destroying it. The production 
 of the polypus is a kind of philosophical generation. The famous 
 Sir Thomas Brown hoped one day to be able to produce children by 
 the same method as trees are produced ; the polypus is multiplied in 
 this manner ; and every philosopher may thus, if lie please, boast of 
 a very numerous, though, I should suppose, a very useless progeny. 
 
 This method of generation, from cuttings, may be considered as the 
 most simple kind, and is a strong instance of the little pain Nature 
 takes in the forrruvtion of her lower and humbler productions. As the 
 removal of these from inanimate into animal existence is but small, 
 there are but few preparations made for their journey. No organs of 
 generation seem provided, no womb to receive, no shell to protect 
 them in their state of transition. The little reptile is quickly fitted 
 for all the offices of its humble sphere, and, in a very short time, ar- 
 rives at the height of its contemptible perfection. 
 
 The next generation is of those animals that we see produced from 
 ihe egg. In this manner all birds, most fishes, and many of the insect 
 tribes, are brought forth. An egg may be considered as a womb, de- 
 tached from the body of the parent animal, in which the embrvo is 
 but just beginning to be formed. It may be regarded as a kind of in- 
 complete delivery, in which the animal is disburdened of its young 
 before its perfect formation. Fishes and insects, indeed, most usually 
 commit the care of their eggs to hazard ; but birds, which are mere 
 perfectly formed, are found to hatch them into, maturity by the warmth 
 of their bodies. However, any other heat, of the same temperature, 
 would answer the end as well ; for either the warmth of the sun, or 
 of a stove, is equally efficacious in bringing the animal in the egg to 
 perfection. In this respect, therefore, we may consider generation 
 from the egg as inferior to that in which the animal is brought forth 
 alive. Nature has taken care of the viviparous animal in every stage 
 of its existence. That force which separates it from the parent, se- 
 parates it from life ; and the embryo is shielded with unceasing protec- 
 tion till it arrives at exclusion. But it is different with the little ani- 
 mal in the egg; often totally neglected by the parent, and always se- 
 parable from it, every accident may retard its growth, or even destroy 
 its existence. Besides, art.or accident, also, may bring this animal to 
 u state of perfection ; so that it can nevei be considered as a cow-
 
 ANIMALS. 171 
 
 piete work of nature, in which so much is left for accident to finish or 
 destroy. 
 
 But however inferior this kind of generation may be, the observa 
 tion of it will afford great insight into that of nobler animals, as we 
 can here watch the progress of the growing embryo, in every period 
 of its existence, and catch it in those very moments when it first seeim 
 stealing into motion. Malpighi and Haller have been particularly in 
 dustrious on this subject ; and, with a patience almost equalling that 
 of the sitting hen, have attended incubation in all its stages. From 
 them, therefore, we have an amazing history of the chicken in the 
 egg, and of its advances into complete formation. 
 
 It would be methodically tedious to describe those parts of the egg 
 which are well known and obvious ; such as its shell, its white, and its 
 yolk ; but the disposition of these is not so apparent. Immediately 
 under the shell lies that common membrane, or skin, which lines it on 
 the inside, adhering closely to it every where, except at the broad 
 end, where a little cavity is left, that is filled with air, which increases 
 as the animal within grows larger. Under this membrane are con 
 tained two whites, though seeming to us to be only one, each wrapped 
 up in a membrane of its own, one white within the other. In the 
 midst of all is the yolk, wrapt round likewise in its own membrane. 
 At each end of this are two ligaments, called chalaza;, which are, as 
 it were, the poles of this microcosm, being white dense substances, 
 made from the membranes, and serving to keep the white and the 
 yolk in their places. It was the opinion of Mr. Derham that they 
 served also for another purpose ; for a line being drawn from one 
 ligament to the other, would not pass directly through the middle of 
 the yolk, but rather towards one side, and would divide the yolk into 
 two unequal parts, by which means these ligaments served to keep 
 the smallest side of the yolk always uppermost ; and in this part he 
 supposed the cicatricula, or first speck of life, to reside ; which, by 
 being uppermost, and consequently next the hen, would be thus in the 
 warmest situation. But this is rather fanciful than true, the incipient 
 animal being found in all situations, and not particularly influenced by 
 any.* The cicatricula, which is the part where the animal first begins 
 to "show signs of life, is not unlike a vetch, or a lentil, lying on one 
 side of the yolk, and within its membrane. All these contribute to 
 the little animal's convenience, or support ; the outer membranes, and 
 ligaments, preserve the fluids in their proper places; the white serves 
 as nourishment ; and the yolk, with its membranes, after a time, be- 
 comes a part of the animal's body.t This is the description of a hen's 
 egg, and answers to that of all others, how large or how small 
 soever. 
 
 Previous to putting the eggs to the hen, our philosophers first ex- 
 amined the cicatricula, or little spot, already mentioned ; and which 
 may be considered as the most important part of the egg. This was 
 found, in those that were impregnated by the cock, to be large; but, 
 in those laid without the cock, very small. It was found, by the mi- 
 croscope to be a kind of bag, containing a transparent liquor, in tnn 
 
 Ballet. t Ibid
 
 172 A HISTORY OF 
 
 midst of which the embryo was seen to reside. The embryo re 
 sembled a composition of little threads, which the warmth of future 
 incubation tended to enlarge, by varying and liquifying the other 
 fluids contained within the shell, and thus pressing them either into 
 the pores or tubes of their substance. 
 
 Upon placing the eggs in a proper warmth,* either under the sun, 
 or in a stove, after six hours the vital speck begins to dilate, like the 
 pupil of the eye. The head of the chicken is instantly seen, with 
 the back bone, something resembling a tadpole, floating in its ambient 
 fluid, but as yet seeming to assume none of the functions of animal 
 life. In about six hours more the little animal is seen more distinctly ; 
 the head becomes more plainly visible, and the vertebrae of the back 
 more easily perceivable. All these signs of preparation for life are 
 increased in six hours more : and at the end of twenty-four, the ribs 
 begin to take their places, the neck begins to lengthen, and the head 
 to turn to one side. 
 
 At this time, f also, the fluids in the egg seem to have changed 
 place ; the yolk, which was before in the centre of the shell, ap- 
 proaches nearer to the broad end. The watery part of the white is, 
 in some measure, evaporated through the shell, and the grosser part 
 sinks to the small end. The little animal appears to turn towards the 
 part of the broad end, in which a cavity has been described, and with 
 its yolk seems to adhere to the membrane there. At the end of 
 forty hours the great work of life seems fairly begun, and the animal 
 plainly appears to move ; the back bone, which is of a whitish colour, 
 thickens ; the head is turned still more on one side ; the first rudiments 
 of the eyes begin to appear, the heart beats, and the blood begins 
 already to circulate. The parts, however, as yet are fluid ; but, by 
 degrees, become more and more tenacious, and hardened into a kind 
 of jelly. At the end of two days, the liquor in which the chicken 
 swims, seems to increase ; the head appears with two little bladders 
 in the place of eyes ; the heart beats in the manner of every embryo 
 where the blood does not circulate through the lungs. In about four- 
 teen hours after this, the chicken is grown more strong ; its head, 
 however, is still bent downwards ; the veins and arteries begin to 
 branch, in order to form the brain ; and the spinal marrow is seen 
 stretching along the back bone. In three days the whole body of the 
 chicken appears bent ; the head, with its two eye-balls, with their 
 different humours, now distinctly appear ; and five other vessels are 
 seen, which soon unite to form the rudiments of the brain. The 
 outlines also of the thighs and wings begin to be seen, and the body 
 begins to gather flesh. At the end of the fourth day, the vesicles, 
 that go to form the brain, approach each other ; the wings and thighs 
 appear more solid ; the whole body is covered with a jelly-like flesh ; 
 the heart, that was hitherto exposed, is now covered up within the 
 body, by a very thin transparent membrane ; and, at the same time, 
 the umbilical vessels, that unite the animal to the yolk, now appear to 
 come forth from the abdomen. After the fifth and sixth days, the 
 vessels of the brain begin to be covered over ; the wings -Mid thigh* 
 
 MalpighL f Harvey.
 
 ANIMALS. l?B 
 
 lengthen ; the belly is closed up, and tumid ; the liver te seen within 
 it very distinctly, not yet grown red, but of a very dusky white ; both 
 the ventricles of the heart are discerned, as if they were two separate 
 hearts, beating distinctly ; the whole body of the animal is covereu 
 over ; and the traces of the incipient feathers are already to be seen. 
 The seventh day, the head appears very large ; the brain is covered 
 entirely over ; the bill begins to appear betwixt the eyes ; and the 
 wings, the thighs, and the legs, have acquired their perfect figure.* 
 Hitherto, however, the animal appears as if it had two bodies ; the 
 yolk is joined to it by the umbilical vessels that come from the belly, 
 and is furnished with its vessels, through which the blood circulates, 
 as through the rest of the body of the chicken, making a bulk greater 
 than that of the animal itself. But towards the end of incubation, the 
 umbilical vessels shorten the yolk, and with it the intestines are thrust 
 up into the body of the chicken, by the action of the muscles of the 
 belly ; and the two bodies are thus formed into one. During this 
 state, all the organs are found to perform their secretions ; the bile 
 is found to be separated, as in grown animals ; but it is fluid, trans 
 parent, and without bitterness : and the chicken then also appears to 
 have lungs. On the tenth, the muscles of the wings appear, and the 
 feathers begin to push out. On the eleventh, the heart, which hither- 
 to had appeared divided, begins to unite ; the arteries which belong 
 to it join into it, like the fingers into the palm of the hand. All these 
 appearances only come more into view, because the fluids the vessels 
 had hitherto secreted were more transparent; but as the colour of the 
 fluids deepen, their operations and circulations are more distinctly 
 seen. As the animal thus, by the eleventh day completely formed, 
 begins to gather strength, it becomes more uneasy in its situation, and 
 exerts its animal powers with increasing force. For some time before 
 it is able to break the shell in which it is imprisoned, it is heard to 
 chirrup, receiving a sufficient quantity of air for this purpose, from 
 that cavity which lies between the membrane and the shell, and which 
 must contain air to resist the external pressure. At length, upon the 
 twentieth day, in some birds sooner, and later in others, the inclosed 
 animal breaks the shell, within which it has been confined, with its 
 beak ; and by repeated efforts, at last procures its enlargement. 
 
 From this little history we perceive, that those parts which are mosi 
 conducive to life, are the first that are begun: the head and the back- 
 bone, which, no doubt, inclose the brain, and the spinal marrow, 
 thougn both are too limpid to be discerned, are the first that are seen 
 to exist ; the beating of the heart is perceived soon after ; the less no- 
 ble parts seem to spring from these : the wings, the thighs, the feet, and 
 lastly the bill. Whatever, therefore, the animal has double, or what- 
 ever it can live without the use of, these are latest in production. Nji 
 ture first sedulously applying to the formation of the nobler organs, 
 without which life would be of short continuance, and would be begun 
 in vain. 
 
 The resemblance between the beginning animal in the egg, and the 
 L-mbry in the womb, is very striking ; and this similitude has induced 
 
 * Haller.
 
 174 A HISTORY OF 
 
 many to assert, that all animals are produced from eggs, in the same 
 manner. They consider an egg excluded from the body by some, 
 and separated into the womb by others, to be actions merely of one 
 kind ; with this only difference, that the nourishment of the one is 
 kept within the body of the parent, and increases as the embryo hap- 
 pens to want the supply ; the nourishment of the other is prepared all 
 at once, and sent out with the beginning animal, as entirely sufficient 
 for its future support. But leaving this to the discussion of anatomists, 
 let us proceed rather with facts than dissertations ; and as we have 
 seen the progress of an oviparous animal, or one produced from the 
 shell, let us likewise trace that of a viviparous animal, which is brought 
 forth alive. In this investigation, Graaf has, with a degree of patience 
 characteristic of his nation, attended the progress and increase of va- 
 rious animals in the womb, and minutely marked the changes they un- 
 dergo. Having dissected a rabbit, half an hour after impregnation, 
 he perceived the horns of the womb, that go to embrace and com- 
 municate with the ovary, to be more red than before ; but no other 
 change in the rest of the parts. Having dissected another, six hours 
 after, he perceived the follicules, or the membrane covering the eggs 
 contained in the ovary, to become reddish. In a rabbit dissected 
 after twenty-four hours, he perceived, in one of the ovaries, three 
 follicules, and, in the other, five, that were changed ; being become, 
 from transparent, dark and reddish. In one dissected after three 
 days, he perceived the horns of the womb very strictly to embrace 
 the ovaries ; and he observed three of the follicules in one of them, 
 much longer and harder than before ; pursuing his inquisition, he also 
 found two of the eggs actually separated into the horns of the womb, 
 and each about the size of a grain of mustard-seed ; these little eggs 
 were each of them inclosed in a double membrane, the inner parts 
 being filled with a very limpid liquor. After four days, he found, in 
 one of the ovaries, four, and, in the other, five follicules, emptied 
 of their eggs ; and in the horns correspondent to these, he found an 
 equal number of eggs thus separated ; these eggs were now grown 
 larger than before, and somewhat of the size of sparrow-shot. In 
 five days, the eggs were grown to the size of duck-shot, and could 
 be blown from the part of the womb where they were, by the breath. 
 lit seven days, these eggs were found of the size of a pistol-bullet, 
 each covered with its double membrane, and these much more dis- 
 linct than before. In nine days, having examined the liquor contained 
 in one of these eggs, he found it, from a limpid colour, less fluid, to 
 have got a light cloud floating upon it. In ten days, this cloud began 
 to thicken, and to form an oblong body, of the figure of a little 
 worm : and, in twelve days, the figure of the embryo was distinctly to 
 be perceived, and even its parts came into view. In the region of 
 the bieast he perceived two bloody specks ; and two more that ap- 
 peared whitish. Fourteen days after .impregnation, the head of the 
 embryo was become large and transparent, the eyes prominent, the 
 mouth open, and the rudiments of the ears beginning to appear ; the 
 back-bone, of a whitish colour, was bent towards the breast ; the 
 two bloody specks being now considerably increased, appeared ti oe 
 nothing less tnan the outlines of the two ventricles of thr. heart; lad
 
 ANIMALS. 17* 
 
 the two whitish specks on each side, now appeared to be the rudi- 
 ments of the lungs ; towards the region ol the belly, the liver began 
 to be seen, of a reddish colour, and a little intricate mass, like ravel 
 "ed thread, discerned, which soon appeared to be the stomach and 
 the intestines ; the legs soon after began to be seen, and to assume 
 their natural positions : and from that time forth, all the parts being 
 formed, every day only served to develope them still more, until the 
 thirty-first day, when the rabbit brought forth her young, completely 
 fitted for the purposes of their humble happiness. 
 
 Having thus seen the stages of generation in the meaner animals, 
 let us take a view of its progress in man ; and trace the feeble be- 
 ginnings of our own existence. An account of the lowliness of our 
 own origin, if it cannot amuse, will at least serve to humble us ; and 
 it may take from our pride, though it fails to gratify our curiosity. We 
 cannot here trace the variations of the beginning animal, as in the 
 former instances ; for the opportunities of inspection are but few and 
 accidental : f-r this reason 'we must be content often to fill up the 
 blanks of our history with conjecture. And, first, we are entirely ig- 
 norant of the state of the infant in the womb, immediately after con- 
 ception ; but we have good reason to believe that it proceeds, as in 
 most other animals, from the egg.* Anatomists inform us, that four 
 days after conception, there is found in the womb, an oval substance, 
 about the size of a small pea, but longer one way than the other ; this 
 little body is formed by an extremely fine membrane, inclosing a 
 liquor a good deal resembling the white of an egg : in this may, even 
 then, be perceived, several small fibres, united together, which form 
 the first rudiments of the embryo. Besides these, are seen another 
 set of fibres, which soon after become the placenta, or that body by 
 which the animal is supplied with nourishment. 
 
 Seven days after conception, we can readily distinguish, by the eve, 
 the first lineaments of the child in the womb. However, they are as 
 yet without form ; showing at the end of seven days pretty much 
 such an appearance as that of the chicken after four and twenty hours, 
 being a small jelly-like mass, yet exhibiting the rudiments of the head ; 
 the trunk is barely visible : there likewise is to be discerned a small 
 assemblage of fibres issuing from the body of the infant, which after- 
 wards become the blood-vessels that convey nourishment turn the 
 placenta to the child, while inclosed in the womb. 
 
 Fifteen days after conception, the head becomes distinctly visible, 
 and even the most prominent features of the visage begin to appear. 
 The nose is a little elevated ; there are two black specks in the place 
 of the eyes; and two little holes, where the ears are afterwards seen. 
 The body of the embryo also is grown larger ; and, both above and be- 
 low, are seen two little protuberances, which mark the places from 
 whence the arms and thighs are to proceed. The length of the whole 
 body, at this time, is less than half an inch. 
 
 At the end of three weeks, the body has received very little in- 
 crease ; but the legs and feet, with the hands and arms, are become 
 
 * The history ol the child in the womb is translated from Mr. Buffon, with some alter-
 
 176 A HISTORY OF 
 
 apparent. The growth of the arms is more speedy than that of the 
 legs ; and the fingers are sooner separated than the toes. About this 
 time the internal parts are found, upon dissection, to become dis- 
 tinguishable. The places of the bones are marked by small thread- 
 like substances, that are yet more fluid even than a jelly. Among 
 them, the ribs are distinguishable, like threads also, disposed on each 
 side of the spine ; and even the fingers and toes scarce exceed hairs 
 in thickness. 
 
 In a month the embryo is an inch long ; the body is bent forward, 
 a situation which it almost always assumes in the womb, either because 
 a posture of this kind is the most easy, or because it takes up the least 
 room. The human figure is now no longer doubtful : every part of 
 the face is distinguishable ; the body is sketched out ; the bowels are 
 to be distinguished as threads ; the bones are still quite soft, but in 
 some places beginning to assume a greater rigidity ; the blood-vessels 
 that go to the placenta, which, as was said, contributes to the child's 
 nourishment, are plainly seen issuing from the navel, (being therefore 
 called the umbilical vessels,) and going to spread themselves upon the 
 placenta. According to Hippocrates, the male embryo developes 
 sooner than the female : he adds, that at the end of thirty days, the 
 parts of the body of the male are distinguishable ; while those of the 
 female are not equally so till ten days after. 
 
 In six weeks the embryo is grown two inches long ; the human 
 figure begins to grow every day more perfect ; the head being still 
 much larger, in proportion to the rest of the body ; and the motion of 
 the heart is perceived almost by the eye. It has been seen to beat in 
 an embryo of fifty days old, a long time after it had been taken out of 
 the womb. 
 
 In two months the embryo is more than two inches in length. The 
 ossification is perceivable in the arms and thighs, and in the point of 
 the chin, the under jaw being greatly advanced before the upper. 
 These parts, however, may as yet be considered as bony points, ra- 
 ther than as bones. The umbilical vessels, which before went side by 
 side, are now begun to be twisted, like a rope, one over the other, and 
 go to join with the placenta, which, as yet, is but small. 
 
 In three months the embryo is above three inches long, and weighs 
 about three ounces. Hippocrates observes, that not till then the mo- 
 ther perceives the child's motion ; and he adds, that in female chil- 
 dren, the motion is not observable till the end of four months. How- 
 ever, this is no general rule, as there are women who assert that they 
 perceived themselves to be quick with child, as their expression is, at 
 the end of two months ; so that this quickness seems rather to arise 
 from the proportion between the child's strength, and the mother's 
 sensibility, than from any determinate period of time. At all times, 
 however, the child is equally alive ; and, consequently, those juries of 
 matrons that are to determine upon the pregnancy of criminals, should 
 not inquire whether the woman be quick, but whether she be witb 
 child ; if the latter be perceivable, the former follows of course. 
 
 Four months and a half after conception, the embryo is from six to 
 seven inches long. All the parts are so augmented, that even their 
 proportions are now distinguishable. The very nails begin to appear
 
 ANIMALS. IP 
 
 upon the fingers and toes ; and the stomach and intestines already be 
 gin to perform their functions of receiving and digesting. In the sto 
 mach is found a liquor similar to that in which the embryo floats ; in 
 one part of the intestines, a milky substance ; and in the other, an ex- 
 crementitious. There is found also a small quantity of bile in the 
 gall bladder ; and some urine in its own proper receptacle. By this 
 time also, the posture of the embryo seems to be determined. The 
 head is bent forward, so that the chin seems to rest upon its breast; 
 the knees are raised up towards the head, and the legs bent backward, 
 somewhat resembling the posture of those who sit on their haunches. 
 Sometimes the knees are raised so high as to touch the cheeks, and 
 the feet are crossed over each other ; the arms are laid upon the 
 breast, while one of the hands, and often both, touch the visage ; 
 sometimes the hands are shut, and sometimes also the arms are found 
 hanging down by the body. These are the most usual postures which 
 the embrvo assumes ; but these it is frequently known to change ; and 
 it is owing to these alterations that the mother so frequently feels those 
 twitches which are usually attended with pain. 
 
 The embryo, thus situated, is furnished by nature with all things 
 proper for its support ; and, as it increases in size, its nourishment also 
 is found to increase with it. As soon as it first begins to grow in the 
 womb, that receptacle, from being very small, grows larger; and, what 
 is more surprising, thicker every day. The sides of a bladder, as we 
 know, the more they are distended, the more they become thin. But 
 here the larger the womb grows, the more it appears to thicken. 
 Within this the embryo is still farther involved, in two membranes, 
 called the chorion and amnios ; and floats in a thin transparent fluid, 
 upon which it seems, in some measure, to subsist. However, the great 
 storehouse, from whence its chief nourishment is supplied, is called 
 the placenta ; a red substance somewhat resembling a sponge, that 
 adheres to the inside of the womb, and communicates, by the umbi- 
 lical vessels, with the embryo. These umbilical vessels, which con- 
 sist of a vein and two arteries, issue from the navel of the child, and 
 are branched out upon the placenta ; where they, in fact, seem to 
 form its substance ; and, if I may so express it, to suck up their nour- 
 ishment from the womb, and the fluids contained therein. The blood 
 thus received from the womb, by the placenta, and communicated by 
 ihe umbilical vein to the body of the embryo, is conveyed to the 
 heart ; where, without ever passing into the lungs, as in the born in- 
 fant, it takes a shorter course ; for entering the right auricle of the 
 heart, instead of passing up into the pulmonary artery, it seems to 
 break this partition, and goes directly through the body of the heart, 
 by an opening called the foramen ovale, and from thence to the aorta, 
 or great artery ; by which it is driven into all parts of the body. Thus 
 we see the placenta, in some measure, supplying the place of lungs ; 
 for as the little animal can receive no air by inspiration, the lungs are 
 therefore useless. But we see the placenta converting the fluid of thu 
 womb into blood, and sending it, by the umbilical vein, to the heart ; 
 from whence it is dispatched by a quicker and shorter circulating 
 through the whole framp. 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 A HISTORY OF 
 
 In this manner the embryo reposes in the womb ; supplied with that 
 nourishment which is fitted to its necessities, and furnished with .those 
 organs that are adapted to its situation. As its sensations are but few, 
 its wants are in the same proportion ; and it is probable that a sleep, 
 with scarce any intervals, marks the earliest period of human life. As 
 the little creature, however, gathers strength and size, it seems to be- 
 come more wakeful and uneasy ; even in the womb it begins to feel 
 the want of something it does not possess ; a sensation that seems co- 
 eval with man's nature, and never leaves him till he dies. The embryo 
 even then begins to struggle for a state more marked by pleasure and 
 pain, and, from about the sixth month, begins to give the mother 
 warning of the greater pain she is yet to endure. The continuation 
 of pregnancy in woman is usually nine months, but there have been 
 many instances when the child has lived that was born at seven ; and 
 some are found to continue pregnant a month above the usual time. 
 When the appointed time approaches, the infant, that has for some 
 months been giving painful proofs of its existence, now begins to in- 
 crease its efforts for liberty. The head is applied downwards, to the 
 aperture of the womb, and by reiterated efforts it endeavours to ex- 
 tend the same : these endeavours produce the pain, which all women 
 in labour feel in some degree ; those of strong constitutions the least, 
 those most weakly the most severely ; since we learn, that the women 
 of Africa always deliver themselves, and are well a few hours after ; 
 while those of Europe require assistance, and recover more slowly. 
 Thus the infant, still continuing to push with its head forward, by the 
 repetition of its endeavours, at last succeeds, and issues into life. The 
 blood, which had hitherto passed through the heart, now takes a wider 
 circuit ; and the foramen ovale closes ; the lungs, that had till this time 
 been inactive, now first begin their functions ; the air rushes in to 
 distend them ; and this produces the first sensation of pain, which the 
 infant expresses by a shriek : so that the beginning of our lives, as well 
 as the end, is marked with anguish.* 
 
 From comparing these accounts, we perceive that the most laboured 
 generation is the most perfect ; and that the animal, which, in propor- 
 tion to its bulk, takes the longest time for production, is always the 
 most complete when finished. Of all others, man seems the slowest 
 in coming into life, as he is the slowest in coming to perfection ; other 
 animals of the same bulk, seldom remain in the womb above six months, 
 while he continues nine ; and even after his birth, appears more than 
 any other to have his state of imbecility prolonged. 
 
 We may observe also, that that generation is the most complete, in 
 which the fewest animals are produced : Nature, by attending to the 
 production of one at a time, seems to exert all her efforts in bringing 
 it to perfection ; but, where this attention is divided, the animals so 
 produced come into the world with partial advantages. In this man- 
 ner twins are never, at least while infants, so large, or so strong, as 
 those that come singly into the world ; each having, in some measure, 
 robbed the other of its right ; as that support, which Nature meant 
 for one, has been prodigally divided. 
 
 * Bonet. Contemplat. de la Nature, vol. i. p 212
 
 ANIMALS. 179 
 
 In this manner, as those animals are the best that are produced 
 singly, so we find that the noblest animals are ever the least fruitful. 
 These are seen usually to bring forth but one at a time, and to place 
 all their attention upon that alone. On the other hand, all the 
 oviparous kinds produce an amazing plenty ; and even the lower tribes 
 of viviparous animals increase in a seeming proportion to their mi- 
 nuteness and imperfection. Nature seems lavish of life in the lower 
 orders of the creation ; and, as if she meant them entirely for the 
 use of the nobler races, she appears to have bestowed greater pains 
 in multiplying the number than in completing the kind. In this man- 
 ner, while the elephant and the horse bring forth but one at a time, 
 the spider and the beetle are seen to produce a thousand ; and even 
 among the smaller quadrupeds, all the inferior kinds are extremely 
 fertile ; any one of these being found, in a very few months, to be- 
 come the parent of a numerous progeny. 
 
 In this manner, therefore, the smallest animals multiply in the 
 greatest proportion ; and we have reason to thank Providence that 
 the most formidable animals are the least fruitful. Had the lion and 
 the tiger the same degree of fecundity with the rabbit or the rat, all 
 the arts of man would be unable to oppose these fierce invaders ; and 
 we should soon perceive them become the tyrants of those who claim 
 the lordship of the creation. But Heaven, in this respect, has wisely 
 consulted the advantage of all. It has opposed to man only such 
 enemies as he has art and strength to conquer ; and as large animals 
 require proportional supplies, nature was unwilling to give new life, 
 where it, in some measure, denied the necessary means of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 In consequence of this pre-established order, the animals that are 
 endowed with the most perfect methods of generation, and bring forth 
 but one at a time, seldom begin to procreate till they have almost 
 acquired their full growth. On the other hand, those which bring 
 forth many, engender before they have arrived at half their natural 
 size. The horse and the bull come almost to perfection before they 
 begin to generate ; the hog and the rabbit scarcely leave the teat be- 
 fore they become parents themselves. In whatever light, therefore, 
 we consider this subject, we shall find that all creatures approach 
 most to perfection, whose generation most nearly resembles that of 
 man. The reptile produced from cutting is but one degree above the 
 vegetable. The animal produced from the egg is a step higher in the 
 scale of existence ; that class of animals which are brought forth 
 alive, are still more exalted. Of these, such as bring forth one at a 
 time are the most complete : and the foremost of these stands Man, 
 t/ie great master of all } who seems to have united the peifections of 
 all the rest in his formation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE INFANCY OP MAN. 
 
 WHEN we take a survey of the various classes of animals, and ex- 
 umine their strength, their beauty, or their structure, we shaL find 
 man to possess most of those advantages united, wWUH the rest enjoy
 
 180 A HISTORY OF 
 
 partially. Infinitely superior to all others in the power* .*/ the un- 
 derstanding, he is also superior to them in the fitness and proportions 
 of his form. He would, indeed, have been one of the most mise- 
 rable beings upon earth, if with a sentient mind he was so formed as 
 to be incapable of obeying its impulse ; but Nature has otherwise 
 provided ; as with the most extensive intellects to command, she has 
 furnished him with a body the best fitted for obedience. 
 
 In infancy,* however, that mind and this body form the most help- 
 less union in all animated nature ; and, if any thing can give us a 
 picture of complete imbecility, it is a man when just come into the 
 world. The infant just born stands in need of all things, without the 
 power of procuring any. The lower races of animals, upon being 
 produced, are active, vigorous, and capable of self-support ; but the 
 infant is obliged to wait in helpless expectation ; and its cries are its 
 only aid to procure subsistence. 
 
 An infant just born may be said to come from one element into 
 another : for, from the watery fluid in which it was surrounded, it 
 now immerges into air ; and its first cries seem to imply how greatly 
 it regrets the change. How much longer it could have continued in 
 a state of almost total insensibility in the womb, is impossible to tell : 
 but it is very probable that it could remain there some hours more. 
 In order to throw some light upon this subject, Mr. Buffon so placed 
 a pregnant bitch, as that her puppies were brought forth in warm 
 water, in which he kept them above half an hour at a time. How- 
 ever, he saw ne change in the animals thus newly brought forth ; 
 they continued the whole time vigorous ; and, during the whole time, 
 it is very probable that the blood circulated through the same chan- 
 nels through which it passed while they continued in the womb. 
 
 Almost all animals have their eyes closed,t for some days after 
 being brought into the world. The infant opens them the instant of 
 its birth. However, it seems to keep them fixed and idle ; they 
 want that lustre which they acquire by degrees ; and if they hap- 
 pen to move, it is rather an accidental gaze than an exertion of the 
 act of seeing. The light alone seems to make the greatest impres- 
 sion upon them. The eyes of infants are sometimes found turned to 
 the place where it is strongest ; and the pupil is seen to dilate and 
 diminish, as in grown persons, in proportion to the quantity it re- 
 ceives. But still the infant is incapable of distinguishing objects ; the 
 sense of seeing, like the rest of the senses, requires a habit before it 
 becomes any way serviceable. All the senses must be compared with 
 each other, and must be made to correct the defects of one another, 
 before they can give just information. It is probable, therefore, that 
 if the infant could express its own sensations, it would give a very 
 extraordinary description of the illusions which it suffers from them 
 The signv might, perhaps, be represented as inverting objects, or 
 multiplying them ; the hearing, instead of conveying one uniform 
 tone, might be said to bring up an interrupted succession of noises ; 
 and the touch apparently would divide one body into as many as 
 there are fingers that grasped it. But all these errors are lost in one 
 
 Buffon, vol. iv. p. 173. t Buffon. vol. iv p. 173.
 
 ANIMALS i81 
 
 confused idea of existence ; and it is happy for the infant that it can 
 then make but very little use of its senses, when they could serve 
 only to bring it false information. 
 
 If there be any distinct sensations, those of pain seem to be much 
 more frequent and stronger than those of pleasure. The infant's 
 cries are sufficient indications of the uneasiness it must, at every in- 
 terval, endure ; while, in the beginning, it has got no external marks 
 to testify its satisfactions. It is not till after forty days that it is seen 
 to smile ; and not till that time also, that tears begin to appear, its 
 former expressions of uneasiness being always without them. As to 
 any other marks of the passions, the infant being as yet almost with- 
 out them, it can express none of them in its visage ; which, except 
 in the act of crying and laughing, is fixed in a settled serenity. All 
 the other parts of the body seem equally relaxed and feeble : its mo- 
 tions are uncertain, and its postures without choice; it is unable to 
 stand upright ; its hams are yet bent, from the habit which it received 
 from its position in the womb ; it has not strength enough in its arms to 
 stretch them forward, much less to grasp any thing with its hands ; it 
 rests just in the posture it is laid ; and, if abandoned, must continue 
 in the same position. 
 
 Nevertheless, though this be the description of infancy among 
 mankind in general, there are countries and races among whom in- 
 fancy does not seem marked with such utter imbecility, but whure 
 the children, not long after they are born, appear possessed of a 
 greater share of self-support. The children of negroes have a sur- 
 prising degree of this premature industry : they are able to walk 
 at two months ; or, at least, to move from one place to another : they 
 also hang to the mother's back without any assistance, and seize tho 
 breast over her shoulder ; continuing in this posture till she thinks 
 proper to lay them down. This is very different in the children oi 
 our countries, that seldom are able to walk under a twelvemonth. 
 
 The skin of children newly brought forth is always red, proceeding 
 from its transparency, by which the blood beneath appears more 
 conspicuous. Some say that this redness is greatest in those chil- 
 dren than are afterwards about to have the finest complexions ; and it 
 appears reasonable that it should be so, since the thinnest skins are 
 always the fairest. The size of a new-born infant is generally about 
 twenty inches, and its weight about twelve pounds. The head is 
 arge, and all the members delicate, soft, and puffy. These appear- 
 ances alter with its age ; as it grows older, the head becomes less in 
 oroportion to the rest of the body ; the flesh hardens ; the bones, 
 ihat before birth grew very thick in proportion, now lengthen by 
 degrees, and the human figure more and more acquires its due di- 
 mensions. In such children, however, as are but feeble or sickly, 
 the head always continues too big for the body ; the heads of dwarfs 
 being extremely large in proportion. 
 
 Infants, when newly born, pass most of their time in sleeping, and 
 ^wake with crying, excited either by sensations of pain or of hun 
 ger. Man, when come to maturity, but rarely feels the want of food >xs 
 eating twice or thrice in the four and twenty hours is known to sufi.^ 
 the most voracious : but the infant may be considered as a little glu*
 
 132 A HISTORY OF 
 
 ton, fhoso only pleasure consists in its appetite ; and this, except 
 when it sleeps, it is never easy without satisfying Thus nature has 
 adapted different desires to the different periods of life ; each as it 
 seems most necessary for human support or succession. While the 
 animal is yet forming, hunger excites it to that supply which is ne- 
 cessary for its growth ; when it is completely formed, a different ap- 
 petite takes place, that incites it to communicate existence. These 
 two desires take up the whole attention at different periods, but are 
 very seldom found to prevail strongly together in the same age; one 
 pleasure ever serving to repress the other: and, if we find a person of full 
 age, placing a principal part of his happiness in the nature and quan- 
 tity of his food, we have strong reasons to suspect, that with respect 
 to his other appetites, he still retains a part of the imbecility of his 
 childhood. 
 
 It is extraordinary, however, that infants, who are thus more vo- 
 racious than grown persons, are nevertheless more capable of sustain- 
 ing hunger. We have several instances, in accidental cases of famine, 
 in which the child has been known to survive the parent, and seen 
 clinging to the breast of its dead mother. Their little bodies also, are 
 more patient of cold ; and we have similar instances of the mother's 
 perishing in the snow, while the infant has been found alive beside 
 her. However, if we examine the internal structure of infants, we 
 shall find an obvious reason for both these advantages. Their blood- 
 vessels are known to be much larger than in adults ; and their nerves 
 much thicker and softer : thus being furnished with a more copious 
 quantity of juices, both of the nervous and sanguinary kinds, the 
 infant finds a temporary sustenance in this superfluity, and does not 
 expire till both are exhausted. The circulation also being larger and 
 quicker, supplies it with proportionable warmth, so that it is more ca- 
 pable of resisting the accidental rigours of the weather. 
 
 The first nourishment of infants is well known to be the mother's 
 milk; and, what is remarkable, the infant has milk in its own breasts, 
 which may be squeezed out by compression : this nourishment be- 
 comes less grateful as the child gathers strength ; and perhaps, also, 
 more unwholesome. However, in cold countries, which are unfa 
 vourable to propagation, and where the female has seldom above 
 three or four children at the most, during her life, she continues to 
 suckle the child for four or five years together. In this manner the 
 mothers of Canada and Greenland are often seen suckling two or 
 three children, of different ages, at a time. 
 
 The life of infants is very precarious, till the age of three or four, 
 from which time it becomes more secure ; and when a child arrives 
 at its seventh year, it is then considered as a more certain life, as Mr. 
 Buffon asserts, than at any other age whatever. It appears, from 
 Simpson's Tables, that of a certain number of children born at the 
 same time, a fourth part are found dead at the end of the first year ; 
 more than one-third at the end of the second ; and at least half at 
 the end of the third ; so that those who live to be above three years 
 old, are indulged a longer term than half the rest of their fellow 
 creatures. Nevertheless, life, at that period, may be considered as 
 mere animal existence ; and rather a preparation for, than an enjoy*
 
 ANIMALS. 183 
 
 ment of, those satisfactions, both of mind and body, that make life 
 of real value : and hence it is more natural for mankind to de 
 plore a fellow-creature, cut off in the bloom of life, than one dying 
 in early infancy. The one, by living up to youth, and thus wading 
 through the disadvantageous parts of existence, seems to have earned 
 a short continuance of its enjoyments : the infant, on the contrary, 
 has served but a short apprenticeship to pain ; and, when taken away, 
 may be considered as rescued from a long continuance of misery. 
 
 There is something very remarkable in the growth of the human 
 body.* The embryo in the womb continues to increase still more 
 and more till it is born. On the other hand, the child's growth is less 
 every year, till the time of puberty, when it seems to start up of a 
 sudden. Thus, for instance, the embryo, which is an inch long in 
 the first month, grows but one inch and a quarter in the second ; it 
 then grows one and a half in the third ; two and a half in the fourth; 
 and in this manner it keep increa'sing, till in the last month of its 
 continuance it is actually found to grow four inches ; and, in the 
 whole, about eighteen inches long. But it is otherwise with the child 
 when born ; if we suppose it eighteen inches at that time, it grows in 
 the first year six or seven inches ; in the second year, it grows but 
 four inches ; in the third year, about three ; and so on, at the rate of 
 about an inch and a half, or two inches, each year, till the time of 
 puberty, when nature seerns to make one great last effort, to com- 
 plete her work, and unfold the whole animal machine. 
 
 The growth of the mind in children seems to correspond with that 
 of the body. The comparative progress of the understanding is 
 greater in infants than in children of three or four years old. If we 
 only reflect a moment on the amazing acquisitions that an infant 
 makes in the first and second years of life, we shall have much cause 
 for wonder. Being sent into a world where every thing is new and 
 unknown, the first months of life are spent in a kind of torpid amaze- 
 ment ; an attention distracted by the multiplicity of objects that press 
 to be known. The first labour, therefore, of the little learner is, to 
 correct the illusions of the senses, to distinguish one object from 
 another, and to exert the memory, so as to know them again. In 
 this manner a child of a year old has already made a thousand ex- 
 periments ; all which it has properly ranged, and distinctly remem- 
 bers. Light, heat, fire, sweets, and bitters, sounds soft or terrible, 
 are all distinguished at the end of a very few months. Besides this, 
 every person the child knows, every individual object it becomes 
 fond of, its rattles, or its bells, may be all considered as so many 
 new lessons to the young mind, with which it has not become ac- 
 quainted, without repeated exertions of the understanding. At this 
 period of life, the knowledge of every individual object cannot be 
 acquired without the same effort which, when grown up, is employed 
 upon the most abstract idea : every thing the child hears or sees, all 
 the marks and characters of nature, are as much unknown, and re 
 quire the same attention to attain, as if the reader were set to un 
 4erstand the characters of an Ethiopic manuscriot ; and yet we so< 
 
 * Buffon, voi. iv. p. 171
 
 184 A HISTORY OF 
 
 in how short a time the little student begins to understand them all, 
 and to give evident marks of early industry. 
 
 It is very amusing to pursue the young mind, while employed in its 
 first attainments. At about a year old the same necessities that first 
 engaged its faculties, increase as its acquaintance with nature en- 
 larges. Its studies, therefore, if I may use the expression, are no 
 way relaxed ; for having experienced what gave pleasure at one time, 
 it desires a repetition of it from the same object ; and, in order to ob- 
 tain this, that object must be pointed out ; here, therefore, a new 
 necessity arises, which, very often, neither its little arts nor impor- 
 tunities can remove ; so that the child is at last obliged to set about 
 naming the objects it desires to possess or avoid. In beginning to 
 speak, which is usually about a year old, children find a thousand 
 difficulties. It is not without repeated trials that they come to pro- 
 nounce any one of the letters ; nor without an effort of the memory, 
 that they can retain them. For this reason, we frequently see them 
 attempting a sound which they had learned, but forgot ; and when 
 they have failed, I have often seen their attempts attended with ap- 
 parent confusion. The letters soonest learned, are those which are 
 most easily formed ; thus A and B require an obvious disposition 
 of the organs, and their pronunciation is consequently soon attained. 
 'Z and R, which require a more complicated position, are learned with 
 greater difficulty. And this may, perhaps, be the reason why the 
 children in some countries speak sooner than in others ; for the letters 
 mostly occurring in the language of one country, being such as are of 
 easy pronunciation, that language is of course more easily attained. 
 In this manner the children of the Italians are said to speak sooner 
 than those of the Germans, the language of the one being smooth and 
 open ; that of the other, crowded with consonants, and extremely 
 guttural. 
 
 But be this as it will, in all countries children are found able to ex- 
 press the greatest part of their wants by the time they arrive at two 
 years old ; and from the moment the necessity of learning new words 
 ceases, they relax their industry. It is then that the mind, like the 
 body, seems every year to make slow advances ; and, in order to spur 
 up attention, many systems of education have been contrived. 
 
 Almost every philosopher who has written on the education of 
 children, has been willing to point out a method of his own, chiefly 
 professing to advance the health, and improve the intellects at the 
 same time. These are usually found to begin with finding nothing 
 right in the common practice, and by urging a total reformation. lu 
 consequence of this, nothing can be more wild or imaginary than their 
 various systems of improvement. Some will have the children every 
 day plunged in cold water, in order to strengthen their bodies ; they 
 will have them converse with the servants in nothing but the Latin 
 language, in order to strengthen their minds ; every hour of the day 
 must be appointed for its own studies, and the child must learn to make 
 these very studies an amusement ; till about the age of ten or eleven 
 it becomes a prodigy of premature improvement. Quite opposite to 
 this, we have others, whom the courtesy of mankind also culls philoio- 
 pliers - and they will have the child learn nothing till the age f tr.fl
 
 ANIMALS 185 
 
 or eleven, at which the former has attained so much perfection ; with 
 them the mind is to be kept empty, until it has a proper distinction 
 of some metaphysical ideas about truth, and the promising pupil is 
 debarred the use of even his own faculties, lest they should conduct 
 him into prejudice and error. In this manner some men whom fashion 
 has celebrated for profound and fine thinkers, have given their hazarded 
 and untried conjectures, upon one of the most important subjects in 
 the world, and the most interesting to humanity. When men specu- 
 late at liberty upon innate ideas, or the abstracted distinctions between 
 will and power, they may be permitted to enjoy their systems at plea- 
 sure, as they are harmless, although they may be wrong ; but when 
 they allege that children are to be every day plunged in cold water, 
 and, whatever be their constitutions, indiscriminately inured to cold 
 and moisture ; that they are to be kept wet in the feet, to prevent 
 their catching cold ; and never to be corrected when young, for fear 
 of breaking their spirits when old ; these are such noxious errors, that 
 all reasonable men should endeavour to oppose them. Many have 
 been the children whom these opinions, begun in speculation, have 
 injured or destroyed in practice ; and I have seen many a little phi- 
 losophical martyr, whom I wished, but was unable to relieve. 
 
 If any system be therefore necessary, it is one that would serve to 
 show a very plain point ; that very little system is necessary. The 
 natural and common course of education is in every respect the best : 
 I mean that in which the child is permitted to play among its little 
 equals, from whose similar instructions it often gains the most useful 
 stores of knowledge. A child is not idle because it is playing about 
 the fields, or pursuing a butterfly ; it is all this time storing its mind 
 with objects upon the nature, the properties, and the relations of which 
 future curiosity may speculate. 
 
 I have ever found it a vain task to try to make a child's learning its 
 amusement ; nor do I see what good- end it would answer were it 
 actually attained. The child, as was said, ought to have its share of 
 play, and it will be benefited thereby ; and for every reason also it 
 ought to have its share of labour. The mind, by early labour, will be 
 thus accustomed to fatigues and subordination ; and whatever be the 
 person's future employment in life, he will be better fitted to endure 
 it : he will be thus enabled to support the drudgeries of office with 
 content ; or to fill up the vacancies of life with variety. The child, 
 therefore, should by times be put to its duty ; and be taught to know, 
 that the task is to be done, or the punishment to be endured. I do 
 not object against alluring it to duty by reward ; but we well know 
 that the mind will become more strongly stimulated by pain ; and both 
 may, upon some occasions, take their turn to operate. In this man- 
 ner, a child, by playing with its equals abroad, and labouring with 
 them at school, will acquire more health and knowledge, than by be* 
 \ng bred up under the wing of any speculative system-maker ; and will 
 he thus qualified for a life of activity and obedience. It is true indeed, 
 that when educated in this manner, the boy may not be so seemingly 
 sensible and forward as one bred up under solitary instruction ; and, 
 perhaps, this early forwardness is more engaging than useful. It is 
 .veil known that many of those children who have been such urod-
 
 186 A HISTORY OF 
 
 gies of literature before ten, have not made an adequate progress to 
 twenty. It should seem that they only began learning manly things 
 before their time ; and, while others were busied in picking up that 
 knowledge adapted to their age and curiosity, these were forced upon 
 subjects unsuited to their years : and, upon that account alone, appeal- 
 ing extraordinary. The stock of knowledge in both may be equal , 
 but with this difference, that each is yet to learn what the other 
 knows. 
 
 But whatever may have been the acquisitions of children at ten or 
 twelve, their greatest and most rapid progress is made when they ar- 
 rive near the age of puberty. It is then that all the powers of nature 
 seem at work in strengthening the mind and completing the body ; the 
 youth acquires courage, and the virgin modesty ; the mind, with new 
 sensations, assumes new powers ; it conceives with greater force, and 
 remembers with greater tenacity. About this time, therefore, which 
 is various in different countries, more is learned in one year than in 
 any two of the preceding ; and on thrs age in particular, the greatest 
 weight of instruction ought to be thrown. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF PUBERTY. 
 
 IT has been often said, that the season of youth is the season oi 
 pleasures : but this can only be true in savage countries, where but 
 little preparation is made for the perfection of human nature, and 
 where the mind has but a very small part in the enjoyment. It is 
 otherwise in those places where nature is carried to the highest pitch 
 of refinement, in which this season of the greatest sensual delight is 
 wisely made subservient to the succeeding, and more rational one of 
 manhood. Youth, with us, is but a scene of preparation ; a drama, 
 upon the right conduct of which all future happiness is to depend. 
 The youth who follows his appetites, too soon seizes the cup, before 
 it has received its best ingredients ; and, by anticipating his pleasures, 
 robs the remaining parts of life of their share ; so that his eagerness 
 only produces a manhood of imbecility, and an age of pain. 
 
 The time of puberty is different in various countries, and ahv;ty.s 
 moie late in men than in women. In the warm countries of India, the 
 women are marriageable at nine or ten, and the men at twelve or thir- 
 teen. It is also different in cities, where the inhabitants lead a more 
 soft, luxurious life, from the country, where they work harder, and 
 fare less delicately. Its symptoms are seldom alike in different per- 
 sons ; but it is usually known by a swelling of the breasts in one sex, 
 and a roughness of the voice in the other. At this season, also, the 
 women seem to acquire new beauty, while the men lose all that deli- 
 rate effeminacy of countenance which they had when boys. 
 
 All countries, in proportion as they are civilized or barbarous, im- 
 prove or degrade the nuptial satisfaction. In those miserable regions, 
 where strength makes the only law, the stronger sex exerts its power,
 
 ANIMALS. 187 
 
 and becomes the tyrant over the weaker : while the inhabitant of Ne 
 groland is indolently taking his pleasure in the fields, his wife is obliged 
 to till the grounds that serve for their mutual support. It is thus in all 
 barbarous countries, where the men throw all the laborious duties of 
 life upon the women ; and, regardless of beauty, put the softer sex to 
 those employments that must effectually destroy it. 
 
 But in countries that are half barbarous, particularly wherever Ma 
 hometanism prevails, the men run into the very opposite extreme 
 Equally brutal with the former, they exert their tyranny over the 
 weaker sex, and consider that half of the human creation as merely 
 made to be subservient to the depraved desires of the other. The 
 chief, and indeed the only aim of an Asiatic, is to be possessed of many 
 women ; and to be able to furnish a seraglio is the only tendency of 
 his ambition. As the savage was totally regardless of beauty, he, on 
 the contrary, prizes it too highly ; he excludes the person who is pos- 
 sessed of such personal attractions from any share in the duties or em- 
 ployments of life ; and, as if willing to engross all beauty to himself, 
 increases the number of his captives in proportion to the progress of 
 his fortune. In this manner he vainly expects to augment his satisfac- 
 tions, by seeking from many that happiness which he ought to look 
 for in the society of one alone. He lives a gloomy tyrant, amidst 
 wretches of his own making ; he feels none of those endearments 
 which spring from affection, none of those delicacies which arise from 
 knowledge. His mistresses, being shut o-it from the world, and total- 
 ly ignorant of all that passes there, have no arts to entertain his mind, 
 or calm his anxieties ; the day passes with them in sullen silence, or 
 languid repose ; appetite can furnish but few opportunities of varying 
 the scene : and all that falls beyond it must be irksome expectation. 
 
 From this avarice of women, if I may be allowed to express it so, 
 has proceeded that jealousy and suspicion which ever attends the mi- 
 ser : hence those low and barbarous methods of keeping the women 
 of those countries guarded, and of making and procuring eunuchs to 
 attend them. These unhappy creatures are of two kinds, the white 
 and the black. The white are generally made in the country where 
 they reside, being but partly deprived of the marks of virility ; the 
 black are generally brought from the interior parts of Africa, and are 
 made entirely bare. These are chiefly chosen for their deformity ; 
 the thicker the lips, the flatter the nose, and the more black the teeth, 
 the more valuable the eunuch ; so that the vile jealousy of mankind 
 here inverts the order of nature, and the poor wretch finds himseli 
 valued in proportion to his deficiencies. In Italy, where this barba- 
 rous custom is still retained, and eunuchs are made in order to improve 
 the voice, the laws are severely aimed against such practice ; so that 
 being entirely prohibited, none but the poorest and most abandoned 
 of the people still secretly practise it upon their children. Of those 
 served in this manner, not one in ten is found to become a singer ; 
 but such is the luxurious folly of the times, that the success of one 
 amply compensates for the failure of the rest. It is very difficult to 
 account for the alterations which castration makes in the voice, and 
 thfi other narts of the body. The eunuch is shaped differently from 
 otheis. His legs are of an equal thickness above ar<i below ; his
 
 188 A HISTORY OF 
 
 knees weak ; his shoulders narrow ; and his beard thin and downy. 
 In this manner his person is rendered more deformed ; but his desires, 
 as I am told, still continue the same ; and actually, in Asia, some of 
 them are found to have their seraglios, as well as their masters. Even 
 in our country, we have an instance of a very fine woman's being 
 married to one of them, whose appearance was the most unpromising; 
 and what is more extraordinary still, I am told, that this couple con- 
 tinue perfectly happy in each other's society. 
 
 The mere necessities of life seem the only aim of the savage ; the 
 sensual pleasures are the only study of the semi-barbarian ; but the 
 refinement of sensuality, by reason, is the boast of real politeness. 
 Among the merely barbarous nations, such as the natives of Madagas- 
 car, or the inhabitants of Congo, nothing is desired so ardently as to 
 prostitute their wives or daughters to strangers, for the most trifling 
 advantages ; they will account it a dishonour not to be among the 
 foremost who are thus received into favour : on the other hand, the 
 Mahometan keeps his wife faithful by confining her person, and would 
 instantly put her to death if he but suspected her chastity. With the 
 politer inhabitants of Europe, both these barbarous extremes are avoid- 
 ed ; the woman's person is left free, and no constraint is imposed 
 but upon her affections. The passion of love, which may be consid- 
 ered as the nice conduct of ruder desire, is only known and practised 
 in this part of the world ; so that what other nations guard as their 
 right, the more delicate European is contented to ask as a favour. In 
 this manner the concurrence of mutual appetite contributes to increase 
 mutual satisfaction ; and the power on one side of refusing, makes 
 every blessing more grateful when obtained by the other. In barba- 
 rous countries, woman is considered merely as a useful slave ; in such 
 as are somewhat more refined, she is regarded as a desirable toy ; in 
 countries entirely polished, she enjoys juster privileges ; the wife be- 
 ing considered as a useful friend, and an agreeable mistress. Her mind 
 is still more prized than her person ; and without the improvement of 
 both, she can never expect to become truly agreeable ; for her good 
 sense alone can preserve what she has gained by her beauty. 
 
 Female beauty, as was said, is always seen to improve about the 
 age of puberty ; but if we should attempt to define in what this beau 
 ty consists, or what constitutes its perfection, we should find nothing 
 more difficult to determine. Every country has its peculiar way of 
 thinking, in this respect ; and even the same country thinks differently 
 at different times. The ancients had a very different taste from what 
 prevails at present. The eye-brows joining in the middle was con- 
 sidered as a very peculiar grace by Tibullus, in the enumeration of 
 the charms of his mistress. Narrow foreheads were approved of, and 
 scarce any of the Roman ladies that are celebrated for their other 
 perfections, but are also praised for the redness of their hair. The 
 nose also of the Grecian Venus was such as would appear at present 
 an actual deformity, as it fell in a straight line from the forehead, wth 
 out the smallest sinking between the eyes, without which we never n 
 face at present
 
 ANIMALS. 189 
 
 Among the moderns, every country seems to have peculiar ideas of 
 beauty.* The Persians admire large eye-brows, joining in the middle ; 
 the edges and corners of the eyes are tinctured with black, and the 
 size of the head is increased by a great variety of bandages formed in- 
 to a turban. In some parts of India, black teeth and white hair are 
 desired with ardour; and one of the principal employments of the 
 women of Thibet, is to redden the teeth with herbs, and to make theii 
 hair white by a certain preparation. The passion for coloured teeth 
 obtains also in China and Japan ; where to complete their idea of 
 beauty, the object of desire must have little eyes, nearly closed, feet 
 extremely small, and a waist far from being shapely. There are some 
 nations of the American Indians that flatten the heads of their chil- 
 dren, by keeping them, while young, squeezed between two boards, 
 so as to make the visage much larger than it would naturally be. 
 Others flatten the head at top ; and others make it as round as they 
 possibly can. The inhabitants along the western coasts of Africa 
 have a very extraordinary taste for beauty. A flat nose, thick lips, 
 and jet-black complexion, are there the most indulgent gifts of nature. 
 Such, indeed, they are all, in some degree, found to possess. How- 
 ever, they take care, by art, to increase their natural deformities, as 
 they should seem to us ; and they have many additional methods of 
 rendering their persons still more frightfully pleasing. The whoje 
 body and visage is often scarred with a variety of monstrous figures ; 
 which is not done without great pain, and repeated incision : and even 
 sometimes parts of the body are cut away. But it would be endless to 
 remark the various arts which caprice or custom has employed to dis- 
 tort and disfigure the body, in order to render it more pleasing ; in 
 fact, every nation, how barbarous soever, seems unsatisfied with the 
 human figure, as nature has left it, and has its peculiar arts of height- 
 ening beauty. Painting, powdering, cutting, boring the nose and the 
 ears, lengthening the one, and depressing the other, are arts practised 
 in many countries ; and, in some degree, admired in all. These arts 
 might have been at first introduced to hide epidemic deformities ; 
 custom, by degrees, reconciles them to the view ; till, from looking 
 upon them with indifference, the eye at length begins to gaze with 
 pleasure. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 OP THE AGE OP MANHOOD t 
 
 THE human body attains to its full height during the age of puber 
 ty ; or, at least, a short time after. Some young people are found to 
 cease growing at fourteen or fifteen ; others continue their growth til) 
 two or three and twenty. During this period they are all of a slendei 
 
 Buffon. 
 
 t This chapter is translated from Mr. Buffon, whose description is very excellem.- 
 Whatever I have added, is marked by inverted commas. " thus." And hi whawv* 
 trifling points I have differed, the notes will serve to show
 
 190 A HISTORY OF 
 
 make ; their thighs and legs small, and the muscular parts are yet un- 
 filled. But, by degrees, the fleshy fibres augment ; the muscles swell, 
 and assume their figure ; the limbs become proportioned and rounder; 
 and before the age of thirty, the body in men, has acquired the most per- 
 fect symmetry. Jn women, the body arrives at perfection much sooner, 
 as they arrive at the age of maturity more early ; the muscles, and all 
 the other parts being weaker, less compact and solid, than those of 
 man, they require less time in coming to perfection ; and, as they are 
 less in size, that size is sooner completed. Hence the persons of 
 women are found to be as complete at twenty, as those of men are 
 found to be at thirty. 
 
 The body of a well-shaped man ought to be square ; the muscles 
 should be expressed with boldness, and the lines of the face strongly 
 marked. In the woman, all the muscles should be rounder, the lines 
 softer, and the features more delicate. Strength and majesty belong 
 to the man ; grace and softness are the peculiar embellishments of the 
 other sex. In both, every part of their form declares their sovereignty 
 over other creatures. Man supports his body erect ; his attitude is 
 that of command : and his face, which is turned towards the heavens, 
 displays the dignity of his station. The image of his soul is painted 
 in his visage ; and the excellence of his nature penetrates through the 
 material form in which it is inclosed. His majestic port, his sedate 
 and resolute step, announce the nobleness of his rank. He touches 
 the earth only with his extremity; and beholds it as if at a disdainfu. 
 distance. His arms are not given him, as to other creatures, for pil- 
 lars of support ; nor does he lose, by rendering them callous against 
 the ground, that delicacy of touch which furnishes him with so many 
 of his enjoyments. His hands are made for very different purposes 
 to second every intention of his will, and to perfect the gifts of Na- 
 ture. 
 
 When the soul is at rest, all the features of the visage seem settled 
 in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, their union, and 
 their harmony, seem to mark the sweet serenity of the mind, and give 
 a true information of what passes within. But when the soul is ex- 
 cited, the human visage becomes a living picture ; -where the passions 
 are expressed with as much delicacy as energy, where every motion 
 is designed by some correspondent feature, where every impression 
 anticipates the will, and betrays those hidden agitations, that he would 
 often wish to conceal. 
 
 It is particularly in the eyes that the passions are painted ; and in 
 which we may most readily discover their beginning. The eye seems 
 to belong to the soul more than any other organ ; it seems to participate 
 of all its emotions ; as well the most soft and tender, as the most tumul- 
 tuous and forceful. It not only receives, but transmits them by sym- 
 patny ; the observing eye of one catches the secret fire from another : 
 and the passion thus often becomes general. 
 
 Such persons as are short-sighted labour under a particular disad- 
 vantage in this respect. They are, in a manner, entirely cut off from 
 tlit, language of the eyes ; and this gives an air of stupidity to the 
 face, which often produces very unfavourable prepossessions. How- 
 m-or intelligent we find such persons to be, we can scarcely be oronght
 
 ANIMALS. 191 
 
 back from our first prejudice, and often continue in the first erroneous 
 opinion. In this manner we are too much induced to judge of men 
 by their physiognomy ; and having, perhaps, at first, caught up our 
 judgments prematurely, they mechanically influence us all our lives 
 after. This extends even to the very colour or the cut of people's 
 clothes ; and we should for this reason be careful, even in such trifling 
 particulars, since they go to make up a part of the total judgment 
 which those we converse with may form to our advantage. 
 
 The vivacity, or the languid motion of the eyes, gives the strongest 
 marks to physiognomy ; and their colour contributes still more to en- 
 force the expression. The different colours of the eye are the dark 
 hazle, the light hazle, the green, the blue and grey, the whitish grey, 
 " and also the red." These different colours arise from the different 
 colours of the little muscles that serve to contract the papil ; " and 
 they are very often found to change colour with disorder and with age." 
 
 The most ordinary colours are the hazle and the blue, and very 
 often both these colours are found in the eyes of the same person 
 Those eyes which are called black, are only of the dark hazle, which 
 may be easily seen upon closer inspection ; however, those eyes are 
 reckoned the most beautiful where the shade is the deepest : and 
 either in these, or the blue eyes, the fire, which gives its finest ex- 
 pression to the eye, is more distinguishable in proportion to the dark- 
 ness of the tint. For this reason, the black eyes, as they are called, 
 have the greatest vivacity ; but, probably, the blue have the most 
 powerful effect in beauty, as they reflect a greater variety of lights, 
 being composed of more various colours. 
 
 This variety, which is found in the colour of the eyes, is peculiar 
 to man, and one or two other kinds of animals : but, in general, the 
 colour in any one individual is the same in all the rest. The eves of 
 oxen are brown ; those of sheep of a water colour ; those of goats 
 are gray ; " and it may also be, in general, remarked, that the eyes 
 of most white animals are red ; thus the rabbit, the ferret, and, even 
 in the human race, the white Moor, all have their eyes of a red co- 
 lour." 
 
 Althdugh the eye, when put into motion, seems to be drawn on one 
 side, yet it only moves round the centre ; by which its coloured part 
 moves nearer, or farther from the angle of the eye-lids, or is elevated 
 or depressed. The distance between the eyes is less in man than in 
 any other animal ; and in some of them it is so great, that it is iin 
 possible that they should ever view the same object with both eyes at 
 once, unless it be very far off. " This, however, in them is rather an 
 advantage than an inconvenience, as they are thus able to watch round 
 them, and guard against the dangers of their precarious situation." 
 
 Next to the eyes, the features which most give a. character to the 
 face, are the eye-brows, which being, in some measure, more appa- 
 rent than the other features, are most readily distinguished at a dis- 
 tance. " Le Brun, in giving a painter directions with regard to the 
 passions, places the principal expression of the face in the eye-brows." 
 Prom their elevation and depression, most of the furious passions are 
 characterized ; and such as have this feature extremely moveable, are 
 usually known to have an expressive face. By means of these we can
 
 192 A HISTORY OF 
 
 imitate all the other passions, as they are raised and depressed, at 
 command ; the rest of the features are generally fixed ; or, when pu< 
 into motion, they do not obey the will ; the mouth and eyes, in an 
 actor, for instance, may, by being violently distorted, give a very dif 
 ferent expression from what he would intend ; bat the eye-brows can 
 scarcely be exerted improperly ; their being raised, denotes all those 
 passions which pride or pleasure inspire ; and their depression marks 
 those which are the effects of contemplation and pain ; and such who 
 have this feature, therefore, most at command, are often found to ex 
 eel as actors." ^ > 
 
 The eye-lashes have an effect, in giving expression to the eye, par- 
 ticularly when long and close ; they soften its glances, and improve 
 its sweetness. Man and apes are the only animals that have eye- 
 lashes both upon the upper and lower lids ; all other animals want 
 them on the lid below. 
 
 The eye-lids serve to guard the ball of the eye, and to furnish it 
 with a proper moisture. The upper lid rises and falls ; the lower has 
 scarce any motion ; and although their being moved depends on the 
 will, yet it often happens that the will is unable to keep them open, 
 when sleep or fatigue oppresses the mind. In birds, and amphibious 
 quadrupeds, the lower lid alone has motion ; fishes and insects have 
 no eye-lids whatever. 
 
 The forehead makes a large part of the face, and a part which 
 chiefly contributes to its beauty. It ought to be justly proportioned ; 
 neither too round nor too flat ; neither too narrow nor too low ; and 
 the hair should come thick upon its extremities. It is known to every 
 body how much the hair tends to improve the face ; and how much 
 the being bald serves to take away from beauty. The highest part of 
 the head is that which becomes bald the soonest, as well as that part 
 which lies immediately above the temples. The hair under the tem- 
 ples, and at the back of the head, is very seldom known to fail, " and 
 women are much less apt to become bald than men ;" Mr. Buffon 
 seems to think they never become bald at all ; but we have too many 
 instances of the contrary among us, not to contradict very easily the 
 assertion. Of all parts or appendages of the body, the hair is that 
 which is found most different in different climates ; and often not only 
 contributes to mark the country, but also the disposition of the man. 
 It is in general thickest where the constitution is strongest ; and more 
 glossy and beautiful where the health is most permanent. The ancients 
 held the hair to be a sort of excrement, produced like the nails ; the 
 part next the root pushing out that immediately contiguous. But the 
 moderns have found that every hair may be truly said to live, to re- 
 ceive nutriment, to fill and distend itself like the other parts of the 
 body. The roots, they observe, do not turn gray sooner than the 
 extremities, but the whole hair changes colour at once ; and we have 
 many instances of persons who have grown gray in one night's time.* 
 Each nair, if viewed with a microscope, is found to consist of five or 
 MX lesser ones, all wrapped up in one common covering ; it appears 
 
 Mr Buffon says, that the hair begins lo giow ^ray at the points, but the fact Is othei
 
 ANIMALS. 193 
 
 knotted, like some sorts of grass, and sends forth branches at the 
 joints. It is bulbous at the root, by which it imbibes its moisture from 
 the body, and it is split at the points ; so that a single hair, at its end 
 resembles a brush. Whatever be the size, or the shape of the poro, 
 through which the hair issues, it accommodates itself to the same ; be- 
 ing either thick, as they are large; small, as they are less; rounn, 
 triangular, and variously formed, as the pores happen to be various. 
 The hair takes its colour from the juices flowing through it, and it is 
 found that this colour differs in different tribes and races of people 
 The Americans, and the Asiatics, have their hair black, thick, straight, 
 and shining. The inhabitants of the torrid climates of Africa have it 
 black, short, and woolly. The people of Scandinavia have it red> 
 long, and curled ; and those of our own, and the neighbouring coun- 
 ' tries, are found with hair of various colours. However, it is supposed 
 by many, that every man resembles in his disposition the inhabitants 
 of those countries whom he resembles in the colour and the nature of 
 his hair ; so that the black are said, like the Asiatics, to be grave and 
 acute ; the red, like the Gothic nations, to be choleric and bold. 
 However this may be, the length and the strength of the hair is a 
 general mark of a good constitution ; and as that hair which is strongest 
 is most commonly curled, so curled hair is generally regarded among 
 us as a beauty. The Greeks, however, had a very different idea of 
 beauty in this respect ; and seem to have taken one of their peculiar 
 national distinctions from the length and the straightness of the hair. 
 
 The nose is the most prominent feature in the face ; but, as it has 
 scarce any motion, and that only in the strongest passions, it rather 
 adds to the beauty than to the expression of the countenance. " How- 
 ever, I am told by the skilful in this branch of knowledge, that wide 
 nostrils add a great deal to the bold and resolute air of the counte- 
 nance ; and where they are narrow, though it may constitute beauty, 
 it seldom improves expression." The form of the nose, and its ad- 
 vanced position, are peculiar to the human visage alone. Other ani- 
 mals, for the most part, have nostrils, with a partition between them : 
 but none of them have an elevated nose. Apes themselves have scarce 
 any thing else of this feature, but the nostrils ; the rest of the feature 
 lying flat upon the visage, and scarce higher than the cheek-bones. 
 *' Among all the tribes of savage men also, the nose is very flat ; and 
 I have seen a Tartar who had scarce any thing else but two holes 
 through which to breathe." 
 
 The mouth and lips, next to the eyes, are found to have the great- 
 est expression. The passions have great power over this part of the 
 face ; and the mouth marks its different degrees by its different forms. 
 The organ of speech still more animates this part, and gives it more 
 life than any other feature in the countenance. The ruby colour of 
 the lips, and the white enamel of the teeth, give it such a superiority 
 over every other feature, that it seems to make the principal object of 
 our regard. In fact, the whole attention is fixed upon the lips of the 
 speaker ; however rapid his discourse, however various the subject, the 
 mouth takes correspondent situations ; and deaf men have been often 
 found to see the force of those reasonings which they could not hear 
 understanding every word as it was spoken. 
 VOL. i. N
 
 194 A HISTORY OF 
 
 " The under jaw in man possesses a great variety of motions ; while 
 the upper has been thought by many to be quite immoveable.* How- 
 ever, that it moves in man, a very easy experiment will suffice to con- 
 vince us. If we keep the head fixed, with any thing between our teeth, 
 the edge of a table, for instance, and then open our mouths, we shall 
 find that both jaws recede from it at the same time ; the upper jaw 
 rises, and the lower falls, and the table remains untouched between 
 them. The upper jaw has motion as well as the under ; and, what is 
 remarkable, it has its proper muscles behind the head for thus raising 
 and depressing it. Whenever, therefore, we eat, both jaws move at 
 the same time, though very unequally ; for the whole head moving 
 with the upper jaw, of which it makes a part, its motions are thus 
 less observable." In the human embryo, the under jaw is very much 
 advanced before the upper. " In the adult, it hangs a good deal more 
 backward ; and those whose upper and under row of teeth are equally 
 prominent, and strike directly against each other, are what the pain- 
 ters call under-hung ; and they consider this as a great defect in beau- 
 ty .t The under jaw in a Chinese face falls greatly more backward 
 than with us ; and, I am told, the difference is half an inch, when the 
 mouth is shut naturally." In instances of the most violent passion, 
 the under jaw has often an involuntary quivering motion ; and often 
 also, a state of languor produces another, which is that of yawning. 
 " Every one knows how very sympathetic this kind of languid mo- 
 tion is : and that for one person to yawn, is sufficient to set all the 
 rest of the company a yawning. A ridiculous instance of this was 
 commonly practised upon the famous M'Laurin, one of the professors 
 at Edinburgh. He was very subject to have his jaws dislocated ; so 
 that when he opened his mouth wider than ordinary, or when he 
 yawned, he could not shut it again. In the midst of his harangues, 
 therefore, if any of his pupils began to be tired of his lecture, he had 
 only to gape or yawn, and the professor instantly caught the sympa- 
 thetic affection ; so that he thus continued to stand speechless, with 
 his mouth wide open, till his servant, from the next room, was called 
 in to set his jaw again."! 
 
 When the mind reflects with regret upon some good unattained or 
 lost, it feels an internal emotion, which acting upon the diaphragm, 
 and that upon the lungs, produces a sigh ; this, when the mind is 
 strongly affected, is repeated ; sorrow succeeds these first emotions ; 
 and tears are often seen to follow : sobbing is the sigh still more in- 
 vigorated ; and lamentation, or crying, proceeds from the continuance 
 of the plaintive tone of the voice, which seems to implore pity. 
 " There is yet a silent agony, in which the mind appears to disdain 
 all external help, and broods over its distresses with gloomy reserve. 
 
 * Mr. Buffon is of this opinion. He says that the upper j&w is immoveable in all ani- 
 indls. However, the parrot is an obvious exception ; and so is man himself, as show n 
 above. 
 
 t Mr. Bufton says, that both jaws, in a perfect face, should be on a level : but this is 
 denied by the best painters. 
 
 * Since the publication of this work, the editor has been credibly irvfonnd th.xt the pre- 
 fessoi had not the defect here mentioned.
 
 ANIMALS 195 
 
 This is the most dangerous state of mind : accidents or friendship m;iy 
 lessen the louder kinds of grief ; but all remedies for this must be had 
 from within : and there, despair too often finds the most deadly 
 enemy." 
 
 Laughter is a sound of the voice, interrupted and pursued for some 
 continuance. The muscles of the belly and the diaphragm are em 
 ployed in its slightest exertions ; but those of the ribs are stronglj 
 agitated in the louder : and the head sometimes is thrown backward, 
 in order to raise them with greater ease. The smile is often an indi- 
 cation of kindness and good will : it is also often used as a mark of 
 contempt and ridicule. 
 
 Blushing proceeds from different passions, being produced by 
 shame, anger, pride, and joy. Paleness is often also the effect of 
 anger ; and almost ever attendant on fright and fear. These altera- 
 tions in the colour of the countenance are entirely involuntary ; all the 
 other expressions of the passions are, in some small degree, under con- 
 trol ; but blushing and paleness betray our secret purposes ; and we 
 might as well attempt to stop them as the circulation of the blood, by 
 which they are caused. 
 
 The whole head, as well as the features of the face, takes peculiar 
 attitudes from its passions : it bends forward to express humility, 
 shame, or sorrow ; it is turned to one side, in languor or in pity ; it 
 is thrown with the chin forward, in arrogance and pride ; erect in self 
 conceit and obstinacy ; it is thrown backwards in astonishment ; and 
 combines its motions to the one side, and the other, to express con 
 tempt, ridicule, anger, and resentment. " Painters, whose study leads 
 to the contemplation of external forms, are much more adequate judges 
 of these than any naturalist can be ; and it is with these a general re- 
 mark, that no one passion is regularly expressed on different counte- 
 nances in the same manner : that grief often sits upon the face like 
 joy ; and pride assumes the air of passion. It would be vain, there- 
 fore, in words, to express their general effect, since they are often as 
 various as the countenances they sit upon ; and in making this dis- 
 tinction nicely, lies all the skill of the physiognomist. In being able 
 to distinguish what part of the face is marked by nature, and what 
 by the mind ; what part has been originally formed, and what is made 
 by habit, constitutes this science, upon which the ancients so much 
 valued themselves, and which we at present so little regard. Some, 
 however, of the most acute men among us, have paid great attention 
 to this art ; and, by long practice, have been able to give some charac- 
 ter of every person whose face they examined. Montaigne is weH. 
 known to have disliked those men who shut one eye in looking upon 
 any object ; and Fielding asserts, that he never knew a person with a 
 steady glavering smile, but he found him a rogue. However, most of 
 these observations, tending to a discovery of the mind by the face, are 
 nerely capricious ; and nature has kindly hid our hearts from each 
 other, to keep us in good humour with our felloe -creatures." 
 
 The parts of the head which give the least expression to the face, 
 ttre the ears ; and they are generally found hidden under the hair. 
 These, which are immoveable, and make so small an appearance in 
 man, are very distinguishing features in quadrupeds. Thev serve o
 
 196 A HISTORY OF 
 
 them as the principal marks of the passions ; the ears discover their joys 
 or their terrors with tolerable precision ; and denote all their internal 
 agitatious. The smallest ears, in men, are said to be the most beauti- 
 ful ; but the largest are found to be the best for hearing. There are 
 some savage nations who bore their ears, and so draw that part down, 
 that the tips of the ears are seen to rest upon their shoulders. 
 
 The strange variety in the different customs of men appears still 
 more extravagant in their manner of wearing their beards. Some, 
 and among others, the Turks, cut the hair off their heads, and let their 
 beards grow. The Europeans, on the contrary, shave their beards, 
 and wear their hair. The negroes shave their heads in figures at one 
 time, in stars at another, in the manner of friars ; and still more com- 
 monly in alternate stripes ; and their little boys are shaved in the same 
 manner. The Talapoins of Siam shave the heads and the eye-brows 
 of such children as are committed to their care. Every nation seems 
 to have entertained different prejudices at different times, in favour of 
 one part or another of the beard. Some have admired the hair upon 
 the cheeks on each side, as we see with some low-bred men among 
 ourselves, who want to be fine. Some like the hair lower down ; some 
 choose it curled, and others like it straight. " Some have cut it into 
 a peak, and others shave all but the whisker. This particular part of 
 the beard was highly prized among the Spaniards : till of late, a man 
 without whiskers was considered as unfit for company ; and where 
 nature had denied them, art took care to supply the deficiency. We 
 are told of a Spanish general who, when he borrowed a large sum of 
 money from the Venetians, pawned his whiskers, which he afterwards 
 took proper care to release. Kingson assures us, that a considerable part 
 of the religion of the Tartars consists in the management of their whis- 
 kers ; and that they waged a long and bloody war with the Persians, 
 declaring them infidels, merely because they would not give their 
 whiskers the orthodox cut. The kings of Persia carried the care of 
 their beards to a ridiculous excess, when they chose to wear them 
 matted with gold thread : and even the kings of France, of the first 
 races, had them knotted and buttoned with gold. But of al nations, 
 the Americans take the greatest pains in cutting their hair, and pluck- 
 ing their beards. The under part of the beard, and all but the whis- 
 ker, they take care to pluck up by the roots, so that many have sup-, 
 posed them to have no hair naturally growing on that part ; and even 
 Linnaeus has fallen into that mistake. Their hair is also cut into 
 bands ; and no small care employed in adjusting the whisker. In fact, 
 we have a very wrong idea of savage finery, and are apt to suppose 
 that, like the beasts of the forest, they rise, and are dressed with a 
 shake : but the reverse is true ; for no birth-night beauty takes more 
 time or pains in the adorning her person than they. I remember 
 when the Cherokee kings were over here, that I have waited for three 
 hours, during the time they were dressing. They never would ven 
 ture to make their appearance till they had gone through the tedious 
 ceremonies of tiie toilet ; they had their boxes of oil and ochre, their 
 fat and tneir perfumes, like the most effeminate beau, and generally 
 look up four hours in dressing, before they considered themselves as 
 fit 10 be seen We must not, therefore, consider a delicacy in poin
 
 ANIMALS. 19r 
 
 of dress, as a mark of refinement, since savages are much more diffi- 
 cult in this particular than the most fashionable or tawdry European. 
 The more barbarous the people, the fonder of finery. In Europe, the 
 lustre of jewels, and the splendour of the most brilliant colours, are 
 generally given up to women, or to the weakest part of the other sex, 
 who are willing to be contemptibly fine : but in Asia, these trifling 
 fineries are eagerly sought after by every condition of men ; and, as 
 the proverb has it, we find the richest jewels in an Ethiop's ear. The 
 passion for glittering ornaments is still stronger among the absolute 
 barbarians, who often exchange their whole stock of provisions, and 
 whatever else they happen to be possessed of, with our seamen, for a 
 glass bead, or a looking-glass. 
 
 Although fashions have arisen in different countries from fancy and 
 caprice, these, when they become general, deserve examination. Man- 
 kind have always considered it as a matter of moment, and they will 
 ever continue desirous of drawing the attention of each other, by such 
 ornaments as mark the riches, the power, or the courage of the wearer. 
 The value of those shining stones which have at all times been con- 
 sidered as precious ornaments, is entirely founded upon their scarce- 
 ness or their brilliancy. It is the same likewise with respect to those 
 shining metals, the weight of which is so little regarded, when spread 
 over our clothes. These ornaments are rather designed to draw the 
 attention of others, than to add to any enjoyments of our own ; and 
 few there are that these ornaments will not serve to dazzle, and who 
 can coolly distinguish between the metal and the man. 
 
 All things rare and brilliant will, therefore, ever continue to be 
 fashionable, while men derive greater advantage from opjlence than 
 virtue ; while the means of appearing considerable, are more easily 
 acquired than the title to be considered. The first impression we 
 generally make, arises from our dress ; and this varies, in conformity 
 to our inclinations, and the manner in which we desire to be con- 
 sidered. The modest man, or he who would wish to be thought so, 
 desires to show the simplicity of his mind by the plainness of his 
 dress ; the vain man, on the contrary, takes a pleasure in displaying 
 his superiority, " and is willing to incur the spectator's dislike, so he 
 does but excite his attention." 
 
 Another point of view which men have in dressing, is to increase 
 the size of their figure, and to take up more room in the world than 
 nature seems to have allotted them. We desire to swell out our 
 clothes by the stiffness of art, and raise our heels, while we add to the 
 (argeness of our heads. How bulky soever our dress may be, our 
 vanities are still more bulky. The largeness of the doctor's wig arises 
 from the same pride with the smallness of the beau's queue. Both 
 want to have the size of their understanding measured by the size of 
 their heads. 
 
 There are some modes that seem to have a more reasonable origin, 
 which is to hide or to lessen the defects of nature. To take men al- 
 together, there are many more deformed and plain than beautiful and 
 snapely. The former, as being the most numerous, give law to fashion, 
 And their laws are generally such as are made in their own favour. 
 The women begin to colour their cheeks with red, when the natur il
 
 198 A HISTORY OF 
 
 rosts are faded ; and the younger are obliged to submit, though not 
 compelled by the same necessity. In all parts of the world, this cus- 
 tom prevails more or less ; and powdering and frizzing the hair, though 
 not so general, seems to have arisen from a similar control. 
 
 But leaving the draperies of the human picture, let us return to the 
 figure, unadorned by art. Man's head, whether considered external- 
 ly or internally, is differently formed from that of all other animals, 
 the monkey-kind only excepted, in which there is a striking similitude. 
 There are some differences, however, which we shall take notice of 
 in. another place. The bodies of all quadruped animals are covered 
 with hair ; but the head of man seems the part most adorned, and that 
 more abundantly than in any other animal. 
 
 There is a very great variety in the teeth of all animals ; some have 
 them above and below ; others have them in the under jaw only : in 
 some they stand separate from each other ; while in some they are 
 continued and united. The palate of some fishes is nothing else but 
 a bony plate studded with points, which perform the office of teeth. 
 All these substances, in every animal, derive their origin from the 
 nerves ; the substance of the nerves hardens by being exposed to the 
 air ; and the nerves that terminate in the mouth, being thus exposed, 
 acquire a bony solidity. In this manner, the teeth and nails are formed 
 in man ; and in this manner also, the beak, the hoofs, the horns, and the 
 talons of other animals are found to be produced. 
 
 The neck supports the head, and unites it to the body. This part 
 is much more considerable in the generality of quadrupeds, than in 
 man. But fishes and other animals that want lungs similar to ours, 
 have no neck whatsoever. Birds, in general, have the neck longer 
 than any other kind of animals ; those of them, which have short 
 claws, have also short necks ; those, on the contrary, that have them 
 long, are found to have the neck in proportion. " In men, there is a 
 lump upon the wind-pipe, formed by the thyroid cartilage, which is 
 not to be seen in women ; an Arabian fable says, that this is a part 
 of the original apple, that has stuck in the man's throat by the way, 
 but that the woman swallowed her part of it down." 
 
 The human breast is outwardly formed in a very different manner 
 from that of other animals. It is larger in proportion to the size ot 
 the body ; and none but man, and such animals as make use of their 
 fore-feet as hands, such as monkeys, bats, and squirrels, and such 
 quadrupeds as climb trees, are found to have those bones called the 
 clavicles, or, as we usually term them, the collar bones.* The breasts 
 in women are larger than in men ; however, they seem formed in the 
 same manner ; and sometimes milk is found in the breasts of men as 
 well as in those of women. Among animals, there is a great variety 
 in this part of the body. The teats of some, as in the ape and the 
 elephant, are like those of men, being but two, and placed on each 
 side of the breast. The teats of the bear amount to four. The sheep 
 has but two, placed between the hinder legs. Other animals, such as 
 the bitch, and the sow, have them all along the belly ; and as they 
 produce many young, they have a great many teats for th< ir support. 
 The form also of the teats varies in different animals, and in the same 
 
 * Mr. Buffon says that none but monkeys have them ; but this is an ovcr-sifjit.
 
 ANIMALS. 195 
 
 animal at different ages. The bosom, in females, seems to unite al 1 
 our ideas of beauty, where the outline is continually changing, and th 
 gradations are soft and regular. 
 
 " The graceful fall of the shoulders, both in man and woman, con- 
 stitute no small part of beauty. In apes, though otherwise made like 
 us, the shoulders are high, and drawn up on each side towards the 
 ears. In man they fall by a gentle declivity ; and the more so, in 
 proportion to the beauty of his form. In fact, being high-shouldered, 
 is not without reason considered as a deformity, for we find very 
 sickly persons are always so ; and people when dying are ever seen 
 with their shoulders drawn up in a surprising manner. The muscles 
 that serve to raise the ribs, mostly rise near the shoulders ; and the 
 higher we raise the shoulders, we the more easily raise the ribs like- 
 wise. It happens, therefore, in the sickly and the dying, who do not 
 breathe without labour, that to raise the ribs, they are obliged to call 
 in the assistance of the shoulders ; and thus their bodies assume from 
 habit, that form which they are so frequently obliged to assume. Wo- 
 men with child also are usually seen to be high-shouldered ; for the 
 weight of the inferior parts drawing down the ribs, they are obliged 
 to use every effort to elevate them, and thus they raise the shoulders 
 of course. During pregnancy, also, the shape, not only of the shoul- 
 ders, but also of the breast, and even the features of the face, are 
 greatly altered ; for the whole upper fore-part of the body is covered 
 with a broad thin skin, called the myoides, which, being at that timo 
 drawn down, it also draws down with it the skin, and consequently tho 
 features of the face. By these means the visage takes a particular 
 form ; the lower eye-lids, and the corners of the mouth, are drawn 
 downwards, so that the eyes are enlarged, and the mouth lengthened ; 
 and women, in these circumstances, are said by the midwives, to be 
 all mouth and eyes." 
 
 The arms of men but very little resemble the fore-feet of quadru- 
 peds, and much less the wings of birds. The ape is the only anima! 
 that is possessed of hands and arms ; but these are much more rudely 
 fashioned, and with less exact proportion, than in men ; " the thumb 
 not being so well opposed to the rest of the fingers in their hands, as 
 in ours." 
 
 The form of the back is not much different in man from that of 
 other quadruped animals, only that the reins are more muscular in him 
 and stronger. The buttock, however, in man, is different from that o t 
 all other animals whatsoever. What goes by that name in other crea- 
 tures, is only the upper part of the thigh ; man being the only animal 
 that supports himself perfectly erect, the largeness of this part is owing 
 to the peculiarity of his position. 
 
 Man's feet, also, are different from those of all other animals, those 
 even of apes not excepted. The foot of the ape is rather a kind of 
 awkward hand ; its toes, or rather fingers, are long, and that of the 
 middle, longest of all. This foot also wants the heel, as in man ; the 
 sole is narrower, and less adapted to maintain the equilibrium of the 
 body in walking, dancing, or running. 
 
 The nails are less in man than in any other animal. If they were 
 niuc.h longer than the extremities of the fingers, they would rather be
 
 200 A HISTORY OF 
 
 prejudicial than serviceable, and obstruct the management of the 
 hand. Such savages as let them grow long, make use of them in flay- 
 ing animals, in tearing their flesh, and such like purposes ; however, 
 though their nails are considerably larger than ours, they are by no 
 means to be compared to the hoofs or the claws of other animals. 
 " They may sometimes be seen longer, indeed, than the claws of any 
 animal whatsoever: as we learn that the nails of some of the leained 
 men in China are longer than their fingers. But these want that so- 
 lidity which might give force to their exertions, and could never, in a 
 state of nature, have served them for annoyance or defence." 
 
 There is little known exactly with regard to the proportion of the 
 human figure ; and the beauty of the best statues is better conceived, 
 by observing than by measuring them. The statues of antiquity, which 
 were at first copied after the human form, are now become the models 
 of it ; nor is there one man found whose person approaches to those 
 inimitable performances that have thus, in one figure, united the per- 
 fections of many. It is sufficient to say, that from being at first models, 
 they are now become originals, and are used to correct the deviations 
 in that form from whence they were taken." I will not, however, 
 pretend to give the proportions of the human body as taken from these, 
 there being nothing more arbitrary, and which good painters them- 
 selves so much contemn. Some, for instance, who have studied after 
 these, divide the body into ten times the length of the face, and others 
 into eight. Some pretend to tell us, that there is a similitude of pro- 
 portion in different parts of the body. Thus, that the hand is the 
 length of the face, the thumb the length of the nose, the space be- 
 tween the eyes is the breadth of an eye ; that the breadth of the thigh, 
 at thickest, is double that of the thickest part of the leg, and treble 
 the smallest ; that the arms extended, arc as long as the figure is 
 high ; that the legs and thighs are half the length of the figure. All 
 this, however, is extremely arbitrary ; and the excellence of a shape, 
 or the beauty of a statue, results from the attitude and position of the 
 whole, rather than any established measurements, begun without ex- 
 perience, and adopted by caprice. In general, it may be remarked 
 that the proportions alter in every age, and are obviously different in 
 the two sexes. In women, the shoulders are narrower, and the neck 
 proportionably longer than in men. The hips, also, are considerably 
 larger, and the thighs much shorter than in men. These proportions, 
 however, vary greatly at different ages. In infancy, the upper parts 
 of the body are much larger than the lower ; the legs and thighs do 
 not constitute any thing like half the height of the whole figure ; in 
 
 Kroportion as the child increases in age, the inferior parts are found to 
 jngthen ; so that the body is not equally divided until it has acquired 
 its full growth. 
 
 The size of men varies considerably. Men are said to be tall wm 
 die from five feet eight inches to six feet hign. The middle stature 
 is from five feet five to five feet eight: and those are said to be of 
 srnal! stature who fall under these measures. " However, it ought to 
 be remarked, that the same person is always taller when he rises in 
 the morning, than upon going to bed at night ; and sometimes there is 
 an inch difference ; and I have seen more. Few persons are sensible
 
 ANIMALS. 201 
 
 of this remarkable variation ; and, I am told, it was first perceived in 
 England b} a recruiting officer. He often found that those men whom 
 he had enlisted for soldiers, and answered to the appointed slanda-d 
 at one time, fell short of it when they -came to be measured before the 
 colonel at the head-quarters. This diminution in their size proceeded 
 from the different times of the day, and the different states of the 
 body, when they happened to be measured. If, as was said, they were 
 measured in the morning, after the night's refreshment, they were 
 found to be commonly half an inch, and very often a whole inch, 
 taller than if measured after the fatigues of the day ; if they were 
 measured when fresh in the country, and before a long fatiguing 
 march to the regiment, they were found to be an inch taller than 
 when they arrived at their journey's end. All this is now well known 
 among those who recruit for the army ; and the reason of this differ- 
 ence of stature is obvious. Between all the joints of the back-bone, 
 which is composed of several pieces, there is a glutinous liquor de- 
 posited, which serves, like oil in a machine, to give the parts an easy 
 play upon each other. This lubricating liquor, or synovia, as the 
 anatomists call it, is poured in during the season of repose, and is 
 consumed by exercise and employment ; so that in a body, after hard 
 labour, there is scarce any of it remaining; but all the joints grow 
 stiff, and their motion becomes hard and painful. It is from hence, 
 therefore, that the body diminishes in stature. For this moisture be- 
 ing drained away from between the numerous joints of the back-bone, 
 they lie closer upon each other ; and their whole length is thus very 
 sensibly diminished ; but sleep, by restoring the fluid again, swells the 
 spaces between the joints, and the whole is extended to its former di- 
 mensions. 
 
 " As the human body is thus often found to differ from itself in 
 size, so it is found to differ in its weight also ; and the same person, 
 without any apparent cause, is found to be heavier at one time than 
 another. If, after having eaten a hearty dinner, or having drank hard, 
 the person should find himself thus heavier, it would appear no way 
 extraordinary ; but the fact is, the body is very often found heavier 
 some hours after eating a hearty meal than immediately succeeding 
 it. If, for instance, a person fatigued by a day's hurd labour, should 
 eat a plentiful supper, and then get himself weighed upon going to 
 bed, after sleeping soundly, if he is again weighed, he will find himself 
 considerably heavier than before ; and this difference is often found 
 to amount to a pound, or sometimes to -a pound and a half. From 
 >vhence this adventitious weight is derived is not easy to conceive ; 
 (lie body, during the whole night, appears rather plentifully perspiring 
 than imbibing any fluid ; rather losing than gaining moisture : how- 
 ever, we have no reason to doubt but that either by the lungs, or per- 
 haps, by a peculiar set of pores, it is all this time inhaling a quantity 
 of fluid, *,vhich thus increases the weight of the whole body upon be- 
 rng weighed the next morning.' 7 * 
 
 * From this experiment, also, the learned may gainer upon what a we<tk foundation 
 <he whole doctrine of the Sanctorian perspiration is built; but this disquisition more pro 
 per.v belongs to medicine than natural history
 
 202 A HISTORY OJb 
 
 Although the human body is externally more delicate than any ol 
 the quadruped kind, it is, notwithstanding, extremely muscular; and 
 perhaps, for its size, stronger than that of any other animal. If we 
 should offer to compare the strength of the lion with that of man, we 
 should consider that the claws of this animal give us a false idea of 
 its power ; we ascribe to its force what is only the effects of its arms. 
 Those which man has received from Nature are not offensive ; happv 
 had Art never furnished him with any more terrible than those which 
 arm the paws of the lion. 
 
 But there is another manner* of comparing the strength of man 
 with that of other animals ; namely, by the weights which either can 
 carry. We are assured that the porters of Constantinople carry bur- 
 dens of nine hundred pounds weight. Mr. Desaguliers tells us of a 
 man who, by distributing weights in such a manner as that every part 
 of his body bore its share, he was thus able to raise a weight of two 
 thousand pounds. A horse, which is about seven times our bulk, would 
 be thus able to raise a weight of fourteen thousand pounds, if its 
 strength were in the same proportion.t " But the truth is, a horse 
 will not carry upon his back above a weight of two or three hundred 
 pounds ; while a man of confessedly inferior strength, is thus aMe to 
 support two thousand. Whence comes this seeming superiority ? The 
 answer is obvious. Because the load upon the man's shoulders is 
 placed to the greatest advantage ; while, upon the horse's back, it is 
 placed at the greatest disadvantage. Let us suppose, for a moment, 
 the man standing as upright as possible, under the great load above 
 mentioned. It is obvious that all the bones of his body may be com- 
 pared to a pillar supporting a building, and that his muscles have 
 scarce any share in this dangerous duty. However, they are not en- 
 tirely inactive ; as man, let him stand never so upright, will have some 
 bending in the different parts of his body. The muscles, therefore, 
 give the bones some assistance, and that with the greatest possible ad- 
 vantage. In this manner a man has been found to support two thou- 
 sand weight, but may be capable of supporting a still greater. The 
 manner in which this is done, is by strapping the load round the shoul- 
 ders of the person who is to bear it, by a machine, something like that 
 by which milk-vessels or water-buckets are carried. The load being 
 thus placed on a scaffold, on each side, contrived for tnat purpose, and 
 the man standing erect in the midst, all parts of the scaffold, except 
 that where the man stands, are made to sink ; and thus the man main- 
 taining his position, the load, whatever it is, becomes suspended, and 
 the column of his bones may be fairly said to support it. If, how- 
 ever, he should but ever so little give way, he must inevitably drop ; 
 and no power of his can raise the weights again. But the case is very 
 different with regard to a load laid upon a horse. The column of the 
 bones there lies a different way ; and a weight of five hundred pounds, 
 as I am told, would break the back of the strongest horse that could 
 be found. The great force of a horse, and other quadrupeds, is ex- 
 
 * Mr. Buffon calls it a better manner ; but this is not the case. 
 
 1 Mr. BtiffoD carries this subject no farther; and thus far, without explanation, it i 
 erroneous
 
 ANIMALS. 203 
 
 rted when the load is in such a position as that the column of th 
 bones can be properly applied, which is lengthwise. When, therefore, 
 we are to estimate the comparative strength of a horse, we are not to 
 try what he can carry, but what he can draw ; and, in this case, his 
 amazing superiority over man is easily discerned ; for one horse can 
 draw a load that ten men cannot move. And in some cases it hap- 
 pens that a draught-horse draws the better for being somewhat loaded : 
 for, as the peasants say, the load upon the back keeps him the better 
 to the ground." 
 
 There is still another way of estimating human strength, by the per- 
 severance and agility of our motions. Men who are exercised in 
 running, outstrip horses, or at least hold their speed for a longer con- 
 tinuance. In a journey, also, a man will walk down a horse ; and, 
 after thev have both continued to proceed for several days, the horse 
 will be quite tired, and the man will be fresher than in the beginning. 
 The king's messengers of Ispahan, who are runners by profession, go 
 thirty-six leagues in fourteen hours. Travellers assure us, that the 
 Hottentots outstrip lions in the chace ; and that the savages who hunt 
 the elk, pursue with such speed, that they at last tire down, and take 
 it. We are told many very surprising things of the great swiftness of 
 the savages, and of the long journeys they undertake on foot, through 
 the most craggy mountains, where there are no paths to direct, nor 
 houses to entertain them. They are said to perform a journey of 
 twelve hundred leagues in less than six weeks. " But notwithstand- 
 ing what travellers report of this matter, I have been assured, from 
 many of our officers and soldiers, who compared their own swiftness 
 with that of the native Americans, during the last war, that although 
 the savages held out, and as the phrase is, had better bottoms, yet, for 
 a spurt, the Englishmen were more nimble and speedy." 
 
 Nevertheless, in general, civilized man is ignorant of his own pow- 
 ers : he is ignorant how much he loses by effeminacy, and what might 
 be acquired by habit and exercise. Here and there, indeed, men are 
 found among us of extraordinary strength ; but that strength, for want 
 of opportunity, is seldom called into exertion. " Among the ancients, 
 it was a quality of much greater use than at present ; as in war the 
 same man that had strength sufficient to carry the heaviest armour, had 
 strength sufficient also to strike the most fatal blow. In this case, his 
 strength was at once his protection and his power. We ought not to 
 be surprised, therefore, when we hear of one man terrible to an army, 
 and irresistible in his career, as we find some generals represented in 
 ancient history. But we may be very certain that this prowess was 
 exaggerated by flattery, and exalted by terror. An age of ignorance 
 is ever an age of wonder. At such times, mankind, having no just 
 ideas of the human powers, are willing rather to represent what they 
 wish, than what they know ; and exalt human strength, to fill up the 
 whole sphere of their limited conceptions. Great strength is an ac- 
 cidental thing ; two or three in a country may possess it, and these 
 may have a claim to heroism. But what may lead us to doubt of the 
 veracity of these accounts is, that the heroes of antiquity are repre- 
 sented as the sons of heroes ; their amazing strength is delivered down 
 from father to sun and this we know to be contrary to the course of
 
 204 A HISTORY OF 
 
 nature. Strength is not hereditary, although titles are : and I am very 
 much induced to believe that this great tribe of heroes, who were all 
 represented as the descendants of heroes, are more obliged to theii 
 titles than to their strength for their characters. With regard to the 
 shining characters in Homer, they are all represented as princes, and 
 as the sons of princes, while we are told of scarce any share of prowess 
 in the meaner men of the army, who are only brought into the field 
 for these to protect or to slaughter. But nothing can be more unlikely, 
 than that those men who were bred in the luxury of courts, should be 
 strong, while the whole body of the people, who receive a plainer and 
 simpler education, should be comparatively weak. Nothing can be 
 more contrary to the general laws of nature, than that all the sons of 
 heroes should thus inherit not only the kingdoms, but the* strength of 
 their forefathers ; and we may conclude, that they owe the greatest 
 share of their imputed strength rather to the dignity of their stations 
 than the force of their arms ; and, like all fortunate princes, their 
 flatterers happened to be believed. In latter ages, indeed, we have 
 some accounts of amazing strength, which we can have no reason to 
 doubt of. But in these, nature is found to pursue her ordinary course, 
 and we find their strength accidental. We find these strong men 
 among the lowest of the people, and gradually rising into notice, as 
 this superiority had more opportunity of being seen. Of this number 
 xvas the Roman tribune, who went by the name of the second Achilles, 
 who, with his own hand, is said to have killed, at different times, three 
 hundred of the enemy ; and when treacherously set upon, by twenty- 
 five of his own countrymen, although then past his sixtieth year, killed 
 fourteen of them before he was slain. Of this number was Milo, who, 
 when he stood upright, could not be forced out of his place. Pliny 
 also tells us of one Athanatus, who walked across the stage at Rome, 
 loaded with a breastplate weighing five hundred pounds, and buskins 
 of the same weight. But of all the prodigies of strength, of whom 
 we have any accounts in Roman history, Maximin, the emporor, is to 
 be reckoned the foremost. Whatever we are told relative to him is 
 well attested ; his character was too exalted not to be thoroughly 
 known ; and that very strength for which he was celebrated, at last 
 procured him no less a reward than the empire of the world. Maxi 
 min was above nine feet in height, and the best proportioned man in 
 the whole empire. He was by birth a Thracian ; and, from being a 
 simple herdsman, rose through the gradations of office, until he came 
 lo be emperor of Rome. The first opportunity he had of exerting 
 his strength, was in the presence of all the citizens, in the theatre, 
 tvneie he overthrew twelve of the strongest men in wrestling, and 
 outstript two of the fleetest horses in running, all in one day. He 
 could draw a chariot loaden, that two strong horses could not move ; 
 he could break a horse's jaw with a blow of his fist ; and its thigh 
 with a kick. In war he was always foremost and invincible : happy 
 had it been for him and his subjects, if, from being formidable to his 
 enemies, he had not become still more so to his subjects; he reigned 
 for some time with all the world his enemy ; all mankind wishing him 
 dead, yet none daring to strike the blow. As if fortune had reso ved 
 ..hat through life ho should continue unconquerable, he was Killo<l at
 
 ANIMALS. 205 
 
 ,ast by his own soldiers, while he was sleeping. We have many other 
 instances in later ages of very great strength, and not fewer of amazing 
 swiftness; but these merely corporeal perfections aie now considered 
 as of small advantage, either in war or in peace. The invention of 
 gunpowder has, in some measure, levelled all force to one standard , 
 and has wrought a total change in martial education through all parts 
 of the world. In peace also, the invention of new machines every 
 lay, and the application of the strength of the lower animals to the 
 purposes of life, have rendered human strength less valuable. The 
 boast of corporeal force is therefore consigned to savage nations, 
 where those arts not being introduced, it may still be needful ; but in 
 more polite countries, few will be proud of that strength which other 
 animals can be taught to exert to as useful purposes as they. 
 
 " If we compare the largeness and thickness of our muscles with 
 those of any other animal, we shall find that, in this respect, we have 
 the advantage ; and if strength or swiftness depended upon the quantity 
 of muscular flesh alone, I believe that, in this respect, we should be 
 more active and powerful than any other. But this is not the case ; 
 a great deal more than the size of the muscles goes to constitute ac- 
 tivity or force ; and it is not he who has the thickest legs that can 
 make the best use of them. Those, therefore, who have written ela- 
 borate treatises on muscular force, and have estimated the strength of 
 animals by the thickness of their muscles, have been employed to very 
 little purpose. It is in general observed, that thin and raw-boned men 
 are always stronger and more powerful than such as are seemingly 
 more muscular, as in the former all the parts have better room for their 
 exertions." 
 
 Women want much of the strength of men ; and, in some countries, 
 the stronger sex have availed themselves of this superiority, in cruelly 
 and tyrannically enslaving those who were made with equal preten- 
 sions to a share in all the advantages life can bestow. Savage nations 
 oblige their women to a life of continual labour ; upon them rest all 
 the drudgeries of domestic duty, whi.e the husband, indolently re- 
 dined in his hammock, is first served from the fruits of her industry. 
 Vrom this negligent situation he is seldom roused, except by the calls 
 of appetite, when it is necessary, either by fishing or hunting, to make 
 a variety in his entertainments. A savage has no idea of taking plea- 
 sure in exercise ; he is surprised to see a European walk forward for 
 bis amusement, and then return back again. As for his part, he could 
 t,o contented to remain for ever in the same situation, perfectly satis- 
 lied wit . sensual pleasures and undisturbed repose. The women of 
 these coanttios are the greatest slaves upon earth ; sensible of their 
 weakness, and unable to resist, they are obliged to suffer those hard- 
 ships which are naturally inflicted by such as have been taught that 
 nothing but corporeal force ought to give pre-eminence. It is not, 
 therefore, till after some degree of refinement, that women are treated 
 with lenity ; and not till the highest degree of politeness, that they 
 are permitted to share in all the privileges of man. The first impulse 
 of savage nature is to confirm their slavery ; the next, of half barbarous 
 nations, is to appropriate their beauty ; and that of the perfectly po- 
 lite, to engage their affections. In civilized countries, therefore, *ro-
 
 206 A HISTORY OF 
 
 men have united the force of modesty to the power of their natural 
 charms, ad thus obtain that superiority over the mind which they are 
 unable to extort by their strength. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OP SLEEP AND HUNGER. 
 
 As man, in all the privileges he enjoys, and the powers he is in- 
 vested with, has a superiority over all other animals, so in his neces- 
 sities he seems inferior to the meanest of them all. Nature has 
 brought him into life with a greater variety of wants and infirmities 
 than the rest of her creatures, unarmed in the midst of enemies. The 
 lion has natural arms ; the bear natural clothing ; but man is destitute 
 of all such advantages ; and, from the superiority of his mind alone, 
 he is to supply the deficiency. The number of his wants, however, 
 were merely given in order to multiply the number of his enjoyments, 
 since the possibility of being deprived of any good, teaches him the 
 value of his possession. Were men born with those advantages which 
 he learns to possess by industry, he would very probably enjoy them 
 with a blunter relish ; it is by being naked that he knows the value of 
 a covering; it is by being exposed to the weather, that he learns the 
 comforts of a habitation. Every want thus becomes a means of plea- 
 sure in the redressing ; and the animal that has most desires, may be 
 said to be capable of the greatest variety of happiness. 
 
 Besides the thousand imaginary wants peculiar to man, there are 
 two which he has in common with all other animals, and which he 
 feels in a more necessary manner than they. These are the wants of 
 sleep and hunger. Every animal that we are acquainted with, seems 
 to endure the want of these with much less injury to health than 
 man ; and some are most surprisingly patient in enduring both. The 
 little domestic animals that we keep about us, may often set a lesson 
 of calm resignation, in supporting want and watchfulness, to the boast- 
 ed philosopher. They receive their pittance at uncertain intervals, 
 and wait its coming with cheerful expectation. We have instances of 
 the dog and the cat living in this manner, without food, for several 
 days, and yet still preserving their attachment to the tyrant that op- 
 presses them ; still ready to exert their little services for his amusc- 
 nent or defence. But the patience of these is nothing to what the 
 A' imals of the forest endure. As these mostly live upon accidental 
 carnage, so they are often known to remain without food for several 
 weeks together. Nature, kindly solicitous for their support, has also 
 contracted their stomachs, to suit them for their precarious way ot 
 living; and kindly, while it abridges the banquet, lessens the necessity 
 of providing for it. But the meaner tribes of animals are made still 
 more capable of sustaining life without food, many of them lemain- 
 ing in a state of torpid indifference till their prey approaches, when 
 ihey jump upon and seize it. In this manner, the snake or the spider 
 '.ontinue for several months together, to subsist upon a s ngU meal ;
 
 ANIMALS. 20? 
 
 and some of the butterfly kind live upon little or nothing. But it is 
 very different with man : his wants daily make their importunate de 
 mauds ; and it is known that he cannot continue to live many days 
 without eating, drinking, and sleeping. 
 
 Hunger is a much more powerful enemy to man than watchfulness, 
 and kills him much sooner. It may be considered as a disorder that 
 food removes, and that would quickly be fatal, without its proper an 
 tidote. In fact, it is so terrible to man, that to avoid it he even en 
 counters certain death ; and rather than endure its tortures, exchanges 
 them for immediate destruction. However, by what I have been told, 
 it is much more dreadful in its approaches, than in its continuance ; 
 and the pains of a famishing wretch decrease, as his strength diminishes. 
 In the beginning, the desire of food is dreadful indeed, as we know 
 by experience, for there are few who have not, in some degree, felt 
 its approaches. But, after the first or second day, its tortures become 
 less terrible, and a total insensibility at length comes kindly in to the- 
 poor wretch's assistance. I have talked with the captain of a ship, 
 who was one of six that endured it in its extremities, and who was 
 the only person that had not lost his senses, when they received ac- 
 cidental relief. He assured me his pains at first were so great as to 
 be often tempted to eat a part of one of the men who died, and which 
 the rest of his crew actually for some time lived upon : he said, that 
 during the continuance of this paroxysm, he found his pains insup- 
 portable, and was desirous at one time of anticipating that death 
 which he thought inevitable ; but his pains, he said, gradually de- 
 creased, after the sixth day, (for they had water in the ship, which 
 kept them alive so long) and then he was in a state rather of languor 
 than desire ; nor did he much wish for food, except when he saw others 
 eating ; and that for a while revived his appetite, though with di- 
 minished importunity. The latter part of the time, when his health 
 was almost destroyed, a thousand strange images rose upon his mind, 
 and every one of his senses began to bring him wrong information. 
 The most fragrant perfumes appeared to him to have a fetid smell ; 
 and every thing he looked at took a greenish hue, and sometimes a 
 yellow. When he was presented with food by the ship's company 
 that took him and his men up, (four of whom died shortly after,) he 
 could not help looking upon it with loathing, instead of desire ; and it 
 was not till after four days that his stomach was brought to its natural 
 tone, when the violence of his appetite returned with a sort of canine 
 eagerness. 
 
 Thus dreadful are the effects of hunger ; and yet when we come to 
 assign the cause that produces them, we find the subject involved in 
 doubt and intricacy. This longing eagerness is, no doubt, given for 
 i very obvious purpose ; that of replenishing the body, wasted bv fa- 
 tigue and perspiration. Were not men stimulated by such a pressing 
 monitor, they might be apt to pursue other amusements with a perse- 
 verance beyond their power, and forget the useful hours of refresh 
 ment, in those tempting ones of pleasure. But hunger makes a de- 
 mand that will not be refused ; and, indeed, the generality of ma* 
 kind seldom await the call.
 
 208 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Hunger has been supposed by some to arise from the rubbing of the 
 coats of the stomach against each other, without having any inter- 
 vening substance to prevent their painful attrition. Others have 
 imagined that its juices, wanting their necessary supply, turn acrid, or 
 as some say, pungent, and thus fret its internal coats, so as to produce 
 a train of the most uneasy sensations. Boerhaave, who established 
 his reputation in physic by uniting the conjectures of all those that 
 preceded him, ascribes hunger to the united effects of both these 
 causes, and asserts, that the pungency of the gastric juices, and thu 
 attrition of its coats against each other, cause those pains, which no- 
 thing but food can remove. These juices continuing still to be sepa- 
 rated in the stomach, and every moment becoming more acrid, mix 
 with the blood, and infect the circulation ; the circulation being thu. 
 contaminated, becomes weaker, and more contracted ; and the whole 
 nervous frame sympathising, a hectic fever, and sometimes madness, 
 is produced, in which state the faint wretch expires. In this manner, 
 the man who dies of hunger may be said to be poisoned by the juices 
 of his own body, and is destroyed less by the want of nourishment 
 than by the vitiated qualities of that which he had already taken. 
 
 However this may be, we have but few instances of men dying, ex- 
 cept at sea, of absolute hunger. The decline of those unhappy crea- 
 tures who are destitute of food, at land, being more slow and unper- 
 ceived. These, from often being in need, and as often receiving an 
 accidental supply, pass their lives between surfeiting and repining ; 
 and their constitution is impaired by insensible degrees. Man is unfit 
 for a state of precarious expectation. That share of provident pre- 
 caution which incites him to lay up stores for a distant day, becomes 
 his torment, when totally unprovided against an immediate call. The 
 lower race of animals, when satisfied, for the instant moment, are 
 perfectly happy : but it is otherwise with man ; his mind anticipates 
 distress, and feels the pangs of want even before it arrests him. Thus 
 the mind, being continually harassed by the situation, it at length in- 
 fluences the constitution, and unfits it for all its functions. Some cruel 
 disorder, but no way like hunger, seizes the unhappy sufferer ; so that 
 almost all those men who have thus long lived by chance, and whose 
 every day may be considered as a happy escape from famine, are 
 known at last to die in reality, of a disorder caused by hunger, but 
 which, in the common language, is often called a broken heart. Some 
 of these I have known myself, when very little able to relieve them : 
 and I have been told by a very active and worthy magistrate, that 
 the number of such as die in London for want, is much greater than 
 one would imagine I think he talked of two thousand in a year ! 
 
 But how numerous soever those who die of hunger may be, many 
 times -greater, on the other hand, are the number of those who die 
 by repletion. It is not the province of the present page to speculate 
 with the physician upon the danger of surfeits ; or with the moralist, 
 upon the nauseousness of gluttony ; it will only be proper to observe, 
 that as nothing is so prejudicial to health as hunger by constraint, so 
 nothing is more beneficial to the constitution than voluntary absti 
 nence. It was not without reason that religion enjoined this duty ; 
 siuce it answered the double purpose of restoring the health oppressed
 
 ANIMALS. 209 
 
 by luxury, and diminished the consumption of provisions, so that 3 
 part might come to the poor. It should be the business of the legis- 
 lature, therefore, to enforce this divine precept ; and thus, by restrain- 
 ing one part of mankind in the use of their superfluities, to consult for 
 the benefit of those who want the necessaries of life. The injunc- 
 *ions for abstinence are strict over the whole continent ; and were 
 rigorously observed, even among ourselves, for a long time after the 
 Reformation. Queen Elizabeth, by giving her commands upon this 
 head the air of a political injunction, lessened, in a great measure, 
 and, in my opinion, very unwisely, the religious force of the obliga- 
 tion. She enjoined that her subjects should fast from flesh on Fridays 
 and Saturdays, but at the same time declared, that this was not com- 
 manded from motives of religion, as if there were any differences in 
 meals, but merely to favour the consumption of fish, and thus to mul- 
 tiply the number of mariners, and also to spare the stock of sheep, 
 which might be more benef rial in another way. In this manner the 
 injunction defeated its own force ; and this most salutary law became 
 no longer binding, when it was supposed to come purely from man. 
 How far it may be enjoined in the scriptures, I will not take upon me 
 to say ; but this may be asserted, that if the utmost benefit to the in- 
 dividual, and the most extensive advantage to society, serve to mark 
 any institution as of Heaven, this o r abstinence may be reckoned 
 among the foremost. 
 
 Were we to give a history of the various be'nefits that have arisen 
 from this command, and how conducive it has been to long life, the 
 instances would fatigue with their multiplicity. Tt is surprising to what 
 a great age the primitive Christians of the East, who retired from per- 
 secution in the deserts of Arabia, continued to 'ive in all the bloom 
 of health, and yet all the rigours of abstemious discipline. Their com- 
 mon allowance, as we are told, for four and twenty hours, was twelve 
 ounces of bread, and nothing but water. On this simple beverage 
 St. Anthony is said to have Jived a hundred and five years ; James the 
 hermit, a hundred and four ; Arsenius, tutor to the emperor Arca- 
 dius, a hundred and twenty ; St. Epiphanius, a hundred and fifteen ; 
 Simeon, a hundred and twelve ; and Rombald, a hundred and twenty. 
 In this manner did tb*ise holy, temperate men live to an extreme old 
 ago, kept cheerful by strong hopes, and healthful by moderate labour. 
 
 Abstinence which is thus voluntary, may be much more easily sup- 
 ported than constrained hunger. Man is said to live without food for 
 seven days, which is the usual limit assigned him ; and perhaps in a 
 slate of constraint, ihis is ihe longest time he can survive the want ol 
 it. But in cases of voluntary abstinence, of sickness, or sleeping, he 
 has been known to live much longer. 
 
 In the records of the Tower, ihere is an account of a Scotchman, 
 imprisoned for felony, who, for the space of six weeks, took not the 
 leasl sustenance, being exactly walched during ihe whole time ; and 
 for this he received ihe king's pardon. 
 
 When the American Indians undertake long journies, and when, 
 consequently, a stock of provisions sufficient to support them ihe 
 whole way, would be more lhan they could carry, in order to ooviat* 
 this incoc''enience, inslead of carrying ihe necessary quantity, me. 
 
 VOL. O
 
 210 A HISTORY OF 
 
 contrive a method of palliating their hunger by swallowing pills made 
 of calcined shells and tobacco. These pills take away all appetite, by 
 producing a temporary disorder in the stomach ; and, no doubt, the 
 i'requent repetition of this wretched expedient must at last be fatal. 
 By this means, however, they continue several days without eating, 
 cheerfully bearing such extremes of fatigue and watching, as would 
 quickly destroy men bred up in a greater state of ^delicacy. For those 
 arts by which we learn to obviate our necessities, do not fail to unfit 
 us for their accidental encounter. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, man is less able to support hunger than 
 any other animal ; and he is not better qualified to support a state of 
 watchfulness. Indeed, sleep seems much more necessary to him, than 
 to any other creature : as, when awake, he may be said to exhaust a 
 greater proportion of the nervous fluid, and consequently to stand 
 in need of an adequate supply. Other animals, when most awake, 
 are but little removed from a state of slumber ; their feeble faculties, 
 imprisoned in matter, and rather exerted by impulse than deliberation 
 require sleep rather as a cessation from motion than from thinking. 
 But it is otherwise with man ; his ideas, fatigued with their various 
 excursions, demand a cessation, not less than the body, from toil ; and 
 he is the only creature that seems to require sleep from double mo- 
 tives : not less for the refreshment of the mental, than of the bodily 
 frame. 
 
 There are some lower animals, indeed, that seem to spend the 
 greatest part of their lives in sleep ; but, properly speaking, the sleep 
 of such may be considered as a kind of death, and their waking a re 
 surrection. Flies and insects are said to be asleep at a time when all 
 the vital motions have ceased ; without respiration, without any cii- 
 culation of their juices, if cut in pieces, they do not awake, nor does 
 any fluid ooze out at the wound. These may be considered rather as 
 congealed than as sleeping animals ; and their rest, during winter, 
 rather as a cessation from life than a necessary refreshment ; but in 
 the higher races of animals, whose blood is not thus congealed and 
 thawed by heat, these all bear the want of sleep much better than 
 man ; and some of them continue a long time without seeming to take 
 any refreshment from it whatsoever. 
 
 But man is more feeble ; he requires its due return ; and if it fails 
 to pay the accustomed visit, his whole frame is in a short time thrown 
 into disorder ; his appetite ceases ; his spirits are dejected ; his pulse 
 becomes quicker and harder ; and his mind, abridged of its slumber- 
 ing visions, begins to adopt waking dreams. A thousand strange 
 phantoms arise, which come and go without his will : these, which are 
 transient in the beginning, at last take firm possession of the mind, 
 which yields to their dominion, and after a long struggle, runs into 
 confirmed madness. In that horrid state, the mind may be considered 
 as a city without walls, open to every insult, and paying homage to 
 every invader ; every idea that then starts witn any force, becomes a 
 eality ; and the reason, over-fatigued with its former importunities, 
 makes no head against the tyrannical invasion, but submits to it froui 
 mere imbecility.
 
 ANIMALS. 211 
 
 L>ut it is happy for mankind, that this state of inquietude is seldom 
 driven to an extreme ; and that there are medicines which seldom fail 
 to give relief. However, man finds it more difficult than any other 
 animal to procure sleep ; and some are obliged to court its approaches 
 for several hours together before they incline to rest. It is in vain 
 that all light is excluded ; that all sounds are removed ; that warmth 
 and softness conspire to invite it : the restless and busy mind still re- 
 tains its former activity; and reason, that wishes to lay down the reins, 
 in spite of herself, is obliged to maintain them. In this disagreeable 
 state, the mind passes from thought to thought, willing to lose the dis- 
 tinctness of perception by increasing the multitude of the images. At 
 last, when the approaches of sleep are near, every object of the ima- 
 gination begins to mix with that next it ; their outlines become in a 
 manner rounder ; a part of their distinctions fade away ; and sleep, 
 that ensues, fashions out a dream from the remainder. 
 
 If then it should be asked from what cause this state of repose pro- 
 ceeds, or in what manner sleep thus binds us for several hours toge- 
 ther, I must fairly confess my ignorance, although it is easy to tell 
 what philosophers say upon the subject. Sleep, says one of them,* 
 consists in a scarcity of spirits, by which the orifices or pores of the 
 nerves in the brain, through which the spirits used to flow into the 
 nerves, being no longer kept open by the frequency of the spirits, 
 shut of themselves ; thus the nerves, wanting a new supply of spirits, 
 become lax, and unfit to convey any impression to the brain. All this, 
 how( ver, is explaining a very great obscurity by somewhat more ob- 
 scure ; leaving, therefore, those spirits to open and shut the entrances 
 to the brain, let us be contented with simply enumerating the effects 
 of sleep upon the human constitution. 
 
 In sleep, the whole nervous frame is relaxed, while the heart and 
 the lungs seem more forcibly exerted. This fuller circulation pro- 
 duces also a swelling of the muscles, as they always find who sleep 
 with ligatures on any part of their body. The increased circulation 
 also, may be considered as a kind of exercise, which is continued 
 through the frame ; and, by this, the perspiration becomes more co- 
 pious, although the appetite for food is entirely taken away. Too 
 much sleep dulls the apprehension, weakens the memory, and unfits 
 the body for labour. On the contrary, sleep too much abridged, ema- 
 ciates the frame, produces melancholy, and consumes the constitution. 
 It requires some care, therefore, to regulate the quantity of sleep, and 
 just to take as much as will completely restore nature, without op- 
 pressing it. The poor, as Otway says, sleep little ; forced, by their 
 situation, to lengthen out their labour to their necessities, they have 
 but a short interval for this pleasing refreshment ; and I have ever 
 been of opinion, that bodily labour demands a less quantity of sleep 
 ihan mental. Labourers and artizans are generally satisfied with about" 
 fteven hours ; but I have known some scholars who usually slept nine-, 
 ind perceived their faculties no way impaired by oversleeping. 
 
 The famous Philip Barretiere, who was considered as a prodigy oj 
 learning at the age of fourteen, was known to sleep regularly twelve
 
 212 A HISTOR OF 
 
 houra i t.ie twenty-four ; the extreme activity of his mind, when 
 awake, in son e measure called for an adequate alternation of repose- 
 and, lam apt to think, that when students stint themselves in this par 
 ticular, they lessen the waking powers of the imagination, and weaken 
 its most strenuous exertions. Animals that seldom think, as was said, 
 can very easily dispense with sleep ; and of men, such as think least, 
 will, very probably, be satisfied with the smallest share. A life ol 
 study, it is well known, unfits the body for receiving this gentle re- 
 freshment ; the approaches of sleep are driven off by thinking: when, 
 therefore, it comes at last, we should not be too ready to interrupt its 
 continuance. 
 
 Sleep is, indeed, to some, a very agreeable period of their existence 
 and it has been a question in the schools, which was most happy, the 
 man who was a beggar by night, *nd a king by day ; or he who was a 
 beggar by day, and a king by night ? It is given in favour of the 
 nightly monarch, by him who first started the question: "For the 
 dream," says he, " gives the full enjoyment of the dignity, without its 
 attendant inconveniences : while, on the other hand, the king, who 
 supposes himself degraded, feels all the misery of his fallen fortune, 
 without trying to find the comforts of his humble situation. Thus, by 
 day, both states have their peculiar distresses : but, by night, the ex- 
 alted beggar is perfectly blessed, and the king completely miserable." 
 All this, however, is rather fanciful than just ; the pleasure dreams 
 can give us, seldom reaches to our waking pitch of happiness: the 
 mind often, in the midst of its highest visionary satisfactions, demands 
 of itself, whether it does not owe them to a dream ; and frequently 
 awakes with the reply. 
 
 But it is seldom, except in cases of the highest delight, or the most 
 extreme uneasiness, that the mind has power thus to disengage itself 
 from the dominion of fancy. In the ordinary course of its operations, 
 it submits to those numberless phantastic images that succeed each 
 other, and which, like many of our waking thoughts, are generally 
 forgotten. Of these, however, if any, by their oddity, or their con- 
 tinuance, affect us strongly, they are then remembered ; and there 
 have been some who felt their impressions so strongly as to mistake 
 them for realities, and to rank them among the past actions of their 
 lives. 
 
 There are others upon whom dreams seem to have a very different 
 effect, and who, without seeming to remember their impressions the 
 next morning, have yet shown by their actions during sleep, that they 
 were very powerfully impelled by their dominion. We have number- 
 'ess instances of such persons, who, while asleep, have performed 
 many of the ordinary duties to which they have been accustomed 
 when waking ; and, with a ridiculous industry, have completed by 
 night what they failed doing by day. We are told, in the German 
 Ephemerides, of a young student who, being enjoined a severe exer- 
 cise by his tutor, went to bed despairing of accomplishing it. The 
 next morning awaking, to his great surprise, he found the task fairly 
 written out, and finished in his own hand-writing. 
 
 He was at first, as the account has it, induced to ascribe this strange 
 production to the operation of an infernal agent ; but his tutor, willing
 
 ANIMALS. 2/3 
 
 to examine the affair to the bottom, set him another exercise still 
 more severe than the former, and took precautions to observe his 
 conduct the whole night. The young gentleman, upon being so se- 
 verely tasked, felt the same inquietude that he had done on the for- 
 mer occasion ; went to bed gloomy and pensive, pondering on the 
 next day's duty, and after some time, fell asleep. But shortly after, 
 his tutor, who continued to observe him from a place that was con- 
 cealed, was surprised to see him get up, and very deliberately go to 
 the table, where he took out pen, ink, and paper, drew himself a 
 chair, and sat very methodically to thinking : it seems, that his being 
 asleep only served to strengthen the powers of his imagination ; for 
 he very quickly and easily went through the task assigned him, put 
 his chair aside, and then returned to bed to take out the rest of his 
 nap. What credit we are to give to this account, I will not pretend 
 to determine ; but this may be said, that the book from whence it is 
 taken, has some good marks of veracity ; for it is very learned, and 
 very dull, and is written in a country noted, if not for truth, at least 
 for want of invention. 
 
 The ridiculous history of Arlotto is well known, who has had a 
 volume written, containing a narrative of the actions of his life, not 
 one of which was performed while he was awake. He was an Italian 
 Franciscan friar, extremely rigid in his manners, and remarkably de- 
 vout and learned in his daily conversation. By night, however, and 
 during his sleep, he played a very different character from what he did 
 by day, and was often detected in very atrocious crimes. He was at 
 one time detected in actually attempting a rape, and did not awake 
 till the next morning, when he was surprised to find himself in the 
 hands of justice. His brothers of the convent often watched him 
 while he went very deliberately into the chapel, and there attempted 
 to commit sacrilege. They sometimes permitted him to carry the 
 chalice and the vestments away into his own chamber, and the next 
 morning amused themselves at the poor man's consternation for what 
 he had done But of all his sleeping transgressions, that was the 
 most ridiculous in which he was called to pray for the soul of a per- 
 son departed. Arlotto, after having devoutly performed his duty, re- 
 tired to a chamber which was shown him to rest ; but there he had 
 no sooner fallen asleep than he began to reflect that the dead body 
 had got a ring upon one of the fingers, which might be useful to him : 
 accordingly, with a pious resolution of stealing it, he went down, un- 
 dressed as he was, into a room full of women, and, with great com- 
 posure, endeavoured to seize the ring. The consequence was, that 
 he was taken before the Inquisition for witchcraft ; and the poor 
 creature had like to have been condemned, till his peculiar character 
 accidentally came to be known : however, he was ordered to remain 
 for the rest of life in his own convent, and upon no account whatso ^ 
 ever to stir abroad. 
 
 What are we to say of such actions as these : or how account for 
 this operation of the mind in dreaming? It should seem, that the 
 magination, by day, as well as by night, is always employed ; and 
 that, often against our wills, it intrudes where it is least commanded or 
 desi-sd. While awake, and in health, this busy principle cannot much
 
 214 A HISTORY OF 
 
 delude us : U maj build castles in the air, and raise a thousand phau 
 toras before us ; bat we have every one of the senses alive to be;ir 
 testimony to its falsehood. Our eyes show us that the prospect is 
 not present ; our hearing and our touch depose against its reality ; 
 and our taste and smelling are equally vigilant in detecting the im- 
 postor. Reason, therefore, at once gives judgment upon the cause, 
 and the vagrant intruder, Imagination, is imprisoned, or banished from 
 the mind. But in sleep it is otherwise ; having, as much as possible, 
 put our senses from their duty, having closed the eyes from seeing, and 
 the ears, taste, and smelling, from their peculiar functions, and having 
 diminished even the touch itself, by all the arts of softness, the ima- 
 gination is then left to riot at large, and to lead the understanding 
 without an opposer. Every incursive idea then becomes a reality 
 and the mind, not having one power that can prove the illusion, takes 
 them for truths. As in madness, the senses, from struggling with the 
 imagination, are at length forced to submit ; so in sleep, they seem for 
 a while soothed into the like submission : the smallest violence exerted 
 upon any one of them, however, rouses all the rest in their mutual 
 defence ; and the imagination, that had for a while told its thousand 
 falsehoods, is totally driven away, or only permitted to pass under the 
 custody of such as are every moment ready to detect its impos?*on. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OP SEEING.* 
 
 " HAVING mentioned the senses as correcting the errors of the ima 
 gination, and as forcing it, in some measure, to bring us just infor- 
 mation, it will naturally follow, that we should examine the nature ot 
 those senses themselves : we shall thus be enabled to see how far they 
 also impose on us, and how far they contribute to correct each other. 
 Let it be observed, however, that in this we are neither giving a trea- 
 tise of optics, or phonics, but an history of our own perceptions : and 
 to those we chiefly confine ourselves." 
 
 The eyes very soon begin to be formed in the human embryo, and 
 in the chicken also. Of all the parts which the animal has double, 
 the eyes are produced the soonest, and appear the most prominent. 
 It is true, indeed, that in viviparous animals, and particularly in man, 
 they are not so large in proportion, at first, as in the oviparous kinds ; 
 nevertheless, they are more speedily developed, when they begin to 
 appear, than any other parts of the body. It is the same with the 
 organ of hearing; the little bones that compose the internal parts of 
 the ear are entirely formed before the other bones, though much 
 larger, have acquired any part of their growth or solidity. Hence it 
 appears, that those parts of the body which are furnished with the 
 
 * This chapter is taken from M . tfuffon. I believe the reader will readily excuse anj 
 apology ; and, perhaps, may wish that I hal taken this liberty much moie frcqueu'Jr 
 What 1 add is marked, as in a former instance, whb inverted commas.
 
 ANIMALS. 215 
 
 greatest quantity of the nerves, are the first in forming. Thus the 
 orain and the spinal marrow are the first seen begun in the embryo ; 
 ind, in general, it may be said, that wherever the nerves go, or send 
 their branches in great numbers, there the parts are soonest begun, 
 ind the most completely finished. 
 
 If we examine the eyes of a child some hours, or even some days 
 after its birth, it will be easily discerned that it, as yet, makes no use 
 of them. The humours of the organ not having acquired a sufficient 
 consistence, the rays of light strike but confused-ly upon the retina, or 
 expansion of the nerves at the back of the eye. It is not till about a 
 month after they are born, that children fix them upon objects; for, 
 before that time, they turn them indiscriminately every where, with- 
 out appearing to be affected by any. At six or seven weeks old, they 
 plainly discover a choice in the objects of their attention; they fix 
 their eyes upon the most brilliant colours, and seem peculiarly de- 
 sirous of turning them towards the light. Hitherto, however, they 
 only seem to fortify the organ for seeing distinctly ; but they have 
 still many illusions to correct. 
 
 The first great error in vision is, that the eye inverts every object: 
 and it in reality appears to the child, until the touch has served to 
 undeceive it, turned upside down. A second error in vision is, that 
 every object appears double. The same object forms itself distinctly 
 upon each eye, and is consequently seen twice. This error, also, can 
 only be corrected by the touch ; and although, in reality, every ob- 
 ject we see appears inverted and double, yet the judgment and habit 
 have so often corrected the sense, that we no longer submit to its im- 
 position, but see every object in its just position, the very instant it 
 appears. Were we, therefore, deprived of feeling, our eyes would 
 not only misrepresent the situation, but also the number of all things 
 around us. 
 
 To convince us that we see objects inverted, we have only to ob- 
 serve the manner in which images are represented, coming through a 
 small hole, in a darkened room. If such a small hole be made in a 
 dark room, so that no light can come in, but through it, all the objects 
 without will be painted on the wall behind, but in an inverted posi- 
 tion, their heads downwards. For as all the rays which pass from the 
 different parts of the object without, cannot enter the hole in the 
 same extent which they had in leaving the object ; since, if so, they 
 would require the aperture to be as large as the object ; and, as each 
 part, and every point of the object, sends forth the image of itself on 
 every side, and the rays, which form these images, pass from all points 
 of the object as from so many centres, so such only can pass through 
 the small aperture as come in opposite directions. Thus the little 
 aperture becomes a centre for the entire object ; through which the 
 rays from the upper parts, as well as from the lower parts of it, pass 
 in converging directions ; and, consequently, they must cross each 
 other in the central point, and thus paint the objects behind, upon thu 
 wall, in an inverted position. 
 
 It is in like manner easy to conceive, that we see all objects double, 
 whatever our present sensations may seem to tell us to the contrary 
 For, to convince us of this, we have only to compare the situation of
 
 216 A HISTORY OF 
 
 any one object on shutting one eye, and then compare the same situa- 
 tion by shutting the other. If, for instance, we hold up a finger, and 
 shut the right eye, we shall find it hide a certain part of the room ; if 
 again reshutting the other eye, we shall find that part of the room 
 visible, and the finger seeming to cover a part of the room that had 
 been visible before. If we open both eyes, however, the part covered 
 will appear to lie between the two extremes. But, the truth is, we see 
 the object our finger had covered, one image of it to the right, and 
 the other to the left ; but, from habit, suppose that we see but one 
 image placed between both, our sense of feeling having corrected the 
 errors of sight. And thus, also, if instead of two eyes we had two 
 hundred, we should fancy the objects increased in proportion, until 
 our sense had corrected the errors of another. 
 
 " The having two eyes might thus be said to be rather an inconve- 
 nience than a benefit, since one eye would answer the purposes of 
 sight as well, and be less liable to illusion. But it is otherwise ; two 
 eyes greatly contribute, if not to distinct, at least extensive vision.* 
 When an object is placed at a moderate distance, by the means of 
 both eyes we see a larger share of it than we possibly could with one ; 
 tne right eye seeing a greater portion of its right side, and the left eye 
 of its correspondent side. Thus both eyes, in some measure, see 
 round the object ; and it is this that gives it, in nature, that bold re- 
 lieve, or swelling, with which they appear, and which no painting, 
 how exquisite soever, can attain to. The painter must be contented 
 with shading on a flat surface ; but the eyes, in observing nature, do 
 not behold the shading only, but a part of the figure also, that lies be- 
 hind these very shadings, which gives it that swelling which painters 
 so ardently desire, but can never fully imitate. 
 
 " There is another defect, which either of the eyes, taken singly, 
 would have, but which is corrected by having the organ double. In 
 either eye there is a point, which has no vision whatsoever ; so that 
 if one oT them only is employed in seeing, there is a part of the ob- 
 ject to which it is always totally blind. This is that part of the optic 
 nerve where its vein and artery run ; which being insensible, that 
 point of the object that is painted there must continue unseen. To 
 be convinced of this, we have only to try a very easy experiment. If 
 we take three black patches, and stick them upon a white wall, about 
 a foot distant from each other, each about as high as the eye that is 
 to observe them ; then retiring six or seven feet back, and shutting 
 one eye, by trying for some time, we shall find, that while we distinctly 
 behold the black spots that are to the right and left, that vvhich .'s in 
 the middle remains totally unseen. Or, in other words, when we 
 bring that part of the eye, where the optic artery runs, to fall upon 
 the object, it will then become invisible. This defect, however, in 
 either eye, is always corrected uy both, since the part of the object 
 that is unseen by one, will be very distinctly perceived by the other." 
 
 Beside the former defects, we can have no idea of distances from 
 the sight, without the help of touch. Naturally, every object ve see 
 Hppears to be within our eyes ; and a child, who has as yt nwdo bin 
 
 * Leonardo da Vinci.
 
 ANIMALS. 21* 
 
 little use of the sense of feeling, must suppose that every thiug it 
 sees makes a part of itself. Such objects are only seen more or less 
 bulky as they approach or recede from its eyes ; so that a fly that is 
 near will appear larger than an ox at a distance. It is experience 
 alone that can rectify this mistake ; and a long acquaintance with the 
 real size of every object, quickly assures us of the distance at which 
 it is seen. The last man in a file of soldiers appears in reality much 
 less, perhaps ten times more diminutive, than the man next to us; 
 however, we do not perceive this difference, but continue to think him 
 of equal stature ; for the numbers we have seen thus lessened by dis- 
 tance, and have found, by repeated experience, to be of the natural 
 size when we come closer, instantly corrects the sense, and every ob- 
 ject is perceived with nearly its natural proportion. But it is other- 
 wise, if we observe objects in such situations as we have not had suf- 
 ficient experience to correct the errors of the eye ; if, for instance, we 
 look at men from the top of a high steeple, they, in that case, appear 
 very much diminished, as we have not had a habit of correcting the 
 sense in that position. 
 
 Although a small degree of reflection will serve to convince us of 
 the truth of these positions, it may not be amiss to strengthen them 
 by an authority which cannot be disputed. Mr. Cheselden having 
 couched a boy of thirteen of a cataract, who had hitherto been blind, 
 and thus at once having restored him to sight, curiously marked the 
 progress of his mind upon that occasion. This youth, though he had 
 been till then incapable of seeing, yet was not totally blind, but could 
 tell day from night, as persons, in his situation always may. He could 
 also, with a strong light, distinguish black from white, and either from 
 the vivid colour of scarlet: however, he saw nothing of the form of 
 bodies ; and, without a bright light, not even colours themselves. He 
 was, at first, couched only in one of his eyes ; and when he saw for 
 the first time, he was so far from judging of distances, that he sup- 
 posed his eyes touched every object that he saw, in the same manner 
 as his hands might be said to feel them. The objects that were most 
 agreeable to him were such as were of plain surfaces and regular 
 figures; though he could as yet make no judgment whatever of their 
 different forms, nor give a reason why one pleased him more than 
 another. Although he could form some idea of colours during his 
 state of blindness, yet thnt was not sufficient to direct him at present; 
 and he could scarcely be persuaded that the colours he now saw wen- 
 the same with those he had formerly conceived such erroneous ideas 
 of. He delighted most in green; but black objects, as if giving hire- 
 fen idea of his former blindness, he regarded with horror. He had, as 
 was said, no idea of forms; and was unable to distinguish one object 
 from another, though never so different. When those things were 
 shown him, which he had been formerly familiarized to, by his feei- 
 ng, he beheld them with earnestness, in order to remember tnem a 
 second time ; but, as he had too many to recollect at once, he forgot 
 the greatest number; and for one he could tell, after seeing, there wa? 
 a thousand he was totally unacquainted with. He was very much 
 urprised to find, that those things and persons be loved best, were 
 not the most beautiful to be seen ; and even testified displeasure iu
 
 218 A HISTORY OF 
 
 not finding "11* parents so handsome as he conceived them to be. It 
 was near two months before he could find that a picture resembled a 
 solid body. Till then he only considered it as a flat surface, variously 
 shadowed ; but, when he began to perceive that these kind of shadings 
 actually represented human beings, he then began to examine, by his 
 touch, whether they had not the usual qualities of such bodies, and 
 was greatly surprised to find, what he expected a very unequal sur- 
 face, to be smooth and even. He was then shown a miniature pic- 
 lure of his father, which was contained in his mother's watch-case, 
 and he readily perceived the resemblance; but asked, with great as- 
 tonishment, how so large a face could be contained in so small a com- 
 pass ? It seemed as strange to him as if a bushel was contained in a 
 pint vessel. At first, he could bear but a very small quantity of light 
 and he saw every object much greater than the life; but, in propor- 
 tion as he saw objects that were really large, he seemed to think the 
 former were diminished ; and although he knew the chamber where 
 he was contained in the house, yet until he saw the latter, he could 
 not be brought to conceive how a house could be larger than a cham- 
 ber. Before the operation he had no great expectations from the 
 pleasure he should receive from a new sense ; he was only excited by 
 l he hopes of being able to read and write; he said, for instance, that 
 lie could have no greater pleasure in walking in the garden with his 
 sight, than he had without it, for he walked there at his ease, and was 
 acquainted with all the walks. He remarked also, with great justice, 
 that his former blindness gave him one advantage over the rest of 
 mankind, which was that of being able to walk in the night with con- 
 fidence and security. But when he began to make use of his new 
 sense, he seemed transported beyond measure. He said that every 
 new object was a new source of delight, and that his pleasure was so 
 great as to be past expression. About a year after, he was brought 
 to Epsom, where there is a very fine prospect, with which he seemed 
 greatly charmed; and he called the landscape before him a new me- 
 thod of seeing. He was couched in the other eye, a year after the 
 former, and the operation succeeded equally well : when he saw with 
 both eyes, he said that objects appeared to him twice as large as when 
 he saw but with one ; however, he did not see them doubled, or at least 
 he showed no marks as if he saw them so. Mr. Cheselden mentions 
 instances of many more that were restored to sight in this manner; 
 they all seemed to concur in their perceptions with this youth; and 
 they all seemed particularly embarassed in learning how to direct 
 their eyes to the objects they wished to observe. 
 
 In this manner it is that our feeling corrects the sense of seeing, 
 and that objects which appear of very different sizes, at different dis 
 tdiices, are all reduced, by experience, to their natural standard. " But 
 not the feeling only, bu. also the colour, and brightness of the object, 
 contributes, in some measure, to assist us in forming an idea of the 
 distance at which it appears.* Those which we see most strongly 
 marked with light and shade, we readily know to be nearer than those 
 
 * Mr. Buffon gives a different theoty, for which T must refer the r eader to the original 
 That I have given, I take to be easy, and saiisfactr y enough.
 
 ANIMALS. i 1 9 
 
 on which the colours are more faintly spread, and that, in some mea 
 sure, take a part of their hue from the air between us and them. 
 Bright objects, also, are seen at a greater distance than such as are 
 obscure; and, most probably, for this reason, that being less similar in 
 colour to the air which interposes, their impressions are less effaced 
 by it, and they continue more distinctly visible. Thus, a black and 
 distant object is not seen so far off as a bright and glittering .one. and 
 a fire by night is seen much farther off than by day." 
 
 The power of seeing objects at a distance is very rarely equa* m 
 both eyes. When this inequality is in any great degree, the person 
 so circumstanced then makes use only of one eye, shutting that which 
 sees the least, and employing the other with all its power. And hence 
 proceeds that awkward look which is known by the name of strabism 
 
 There are many reasons to induce us to think, that such as are 
 near-sighted see objects larger than other persons ; and yet the con- 
 trary is most certainly true, for they see them less. Mr. Buffon in- 
 forms us that he himself is short-sighted, and that his left eye is 
 stronger than his right. He has very frequently experienced, upon 
 looking at any object, such as the letters of a book, that they appear 
 less to the weakest eye; and that when he places the book, so as that 
 the letters appear double, the images of the left eye, which is strongest, 
 are greater than those of the right, which is the most feeble. He has 
 examined several others, who were in similar circumstances, and has 
 always found that the best eye saw every object the largest. This he 
 ascribes to habit; for near-sighted people being accustomed to come 
 close to the object, and view but a small part of it at a time, the habit 
 ensues, when the whole of an object is seen, and it appears less tc 
 them than to others. 
 
 Infants having their eyes less than those of adults, must see objects 
 also smaller in proportion. For the image formed on the back of the 
 eye will be large, as the eye is capacious ; and infants, having it not 
 so great, cannot have so large a picture of the object. This may b 
 a reason also why they are unable to see so distinctly, or at such dis- 
 tances as persons arrived at maturity. 
 
 Old men, on the contrary, see bodies close to them very indistinct- 
 ly, but bodies at a great distance from them with more precision ; and 
 this may happen from an alteration in the coats, or, perhaps, humours 
 of the eye; and not, as is supposed, from their diminution. The 
 cornea, for instance, may become too rigid to adapt itself, and take a 
 proper convexity for seeing minute objects ; and its very flatness will 
 be sufficient to fit it for distant vision. 
 
 When we cast our eyes upon an object extremely brilliant, or 
 when we fix and detain them too long upon the same object, the organ 
 is hurt and fatigued, its vision becomes indistinct, and the image oi 
 the body, which has thus too violently, or too perseveringly employed us, 
 is painted upon every thing we look at, and mixes with every object 
 that occurs. "And this is an obvious consequence of the eye taking 
 in too much ight, either immediately, or by reflection. Every body 
 exposed to the light, for a time, drinks in a quantity of its rays, whichj 
 being brought into darkness, it cannot instantly discharge. Thus th 
 hand, if it be exposed to broad day-light for some time, and then />
 
 220 A HISTORY OF 
 
 mediately snatched into a dark room, will appear still luminous: and 
 it will be some time before it is totally darkened. It is thus with the 
 eye; which, either by an instant gaze at the sun, or a steady conti- 
 nuance upon some less brilliant object, has taken in too much light ; 
 its humours are, for a while, unfit for vision, until that be discharged, 
 and room made for rays of a milder nature." How dangerous the 
 looking upon bright and luminous objects is to the sight, may be easily 
 een, from such as live in countries covered for most part of the year 
 with snow, who become generally blind before their time. Travel- 
 lers who cross these countries, are obliged to wear a crape before their 
 eyes, to save their eyes, which would otherwise be rendered totally 
 unserviceable ; and it is equally dangerous in the sandy plains of Africa. 
 The reflection of the light is there so strong, that it is impossible to 
 sustain the effect, without incurring the danger of losing one's sight 
 entirely. Such persons, therefore, as read or write for any continu- 
 ance, should choose a moderate light, in order to save their eyes; and, 
 although it may seem insufficient at first, the eye will accustom itself 
 to the shade, by degrees, and be less hurt by the want of light than 
 the excess. 
 
 " It is, indeed, surprising how far the eye can accommodate itself 
 to darkness, and make the best of a gloomy situation. When first 
 taken from the light, and brought into a dark room, all things disap- 
 pear ; or, if any thing is seen, it is only the remaining radiations that 
 still continue in the eye. But, after a very little time, when these are 
 spent, the eye takes the advantage of the smallest ray that happens to 
 enter ; and this alone would, in time, serve for many of the purposes 
 of life. There was a gentleman of great courage and understanding, 
 who was a major under Kinp Charles I.; this unfortunate man, sha- 
 ring in his master's misfortunes, and being forced abroad, ventured at 
 Madrid to do his king a signal service; but, unluckily, failed in the 
 attempt. In consequence of this, he was instantly ordered to a dark 
 and dismal dungeon, into which the light never entered, and into 
 which there was no opening but by a hole at the top, down which the 
 keeper put his provisions, and presently closed it again on the other 
 side. In this manner the unfortunate loyalist continued for some 
 weeks, distressed and disconsolate; but at last he began to think he 
 saw some little glimmering of lip;ht. This internal dawn seemed to 
 increase from time to time, so that he could not only discover the 
 parts of his bed, and such other lar^ objects, but, at length, he even 
 began to perceive the mice that frequented his ceH; and saw them as 
 they ran about the floor, eating the crumbs of bread that happened to 
 fall. After some months' confinement be was at last et free; but 
 such was the effect of the darkness upon lira, that he cou'd not for 
 tome days venture to leave his dungeon, but was 
 himself by degrees tc tne light o' the day.
 
 ANIMALS 221 
 
 CHAPTER VIIT 
 
 ON HEARING.* 
 
 As the sense of hearing, as well as of sight, gives us notice cf re 
 mote objects, so, like that, it is subject to similar errors, being capa 
 ble of imposing on us upon all occasions, where we cannot rectify it 
 by the sense of feeling. We can have from it no distinct intelligence 
 of the distance from whence a sounding body is heard ; a great noise 
 far off, and a small one very near, produce the same sensation ; and ; 
 unless we receive information from some other sense, we can never 
 distinctly tell whether the sound be a great or a small one. It is not 
 till we have learned, by experience, that the particular sound which 
 is heard, is of a peculiar kind ; then we can judge of the distance 
 from whence we hear it. When we know the tone of the bell, we 
 can then judge how far it is from us. 
 
 Every body that strikes against another produces a sound, which is 
 simple, and but one in bodies which are not elastic, but which is often 
 repeated in such as are. If we strike a bell, or a stretched string, for 
 instance, which are both elastic, a single blow produces a sound, which 
 is repeated by the undulations of the sonorous body, and which is mul- 
 tiplied as often as it happens to undulate or vibrate. These undula, 
 tions each strike their own peculiar blow; but they succeed so fast t 
 one behind the other, that the ear supposes them one continued 
 sound : whereas, in reality, they make many. A person who should, 
 for the first time, hear the toll of the bell, would, very probably, be 
 able to distinguish these breaks of sound ; and, in fact, we can readily 
 ourselves perceive an intension and remission in the sound. 
 
 In this manner, sounding bodies are of two kinds; those unelastic 
 ones, which being struck, return but a single sound; and those more 
 elastic, returning a succession of sound ; which uniting together form 
 a tone. This tone may be considered as a great number of sounds, 
 all produced one after the other, by the same body, as we find in a 
 bell, or the string of a harpsichord, which continues to sound for some 
 time after it is struck. A continuing tone may be also produced from 
 a non-elastic body, by repeating the blow quick and often, as when 
 we beat a drum, or when we draw a bow along the string of a fiddle. 
 
 Considering the subject in this light, if we should multiply the num- 
 ber of blows, or repeat them at quicker intervals upon the sounding 
 body, as upon the drum, for instance, it is evident that this will have 
 no effect in altering the tone; it will only make it either more even, 
 or more distinct. But it is otherwise, if we increase the force of the 
 blow: if we strike the body with double weight, this will produce a 
 tone twice as loud as the former. If, for instance, I strike a table, 
 with a switch, this will be very different from the sound produced by 
 striking 't with a cudgel. Hence, therefore, we may infer, that all 
 bodies give a louder and graver tone, not in proportion to the number 
 of times they are struck, but in proportion to the force that strike* 
 
 * This chapter is taken from Mr. Buffon. except where marked by inverted comtrut*
 
 222 A HISTORY OF 
 
 .hem And, if this be so, those philosophers who make the tone ol a 
 sonorous body, of a bell, or the string of a harpsichord, for instance, 
 to depend upon the number only of its vibrations, and not the force, 
 have mistaken what is only an effect for a cause. A bell, or an elastic 
 string, can only be considered as a drum beaten ; and the frequency 
 of the blows can make no alteration whatever in the tone. The largest 
 bells, and the longest and thickest strings, have the most forceful vi- 
 brations ; and, therefore, their tones are the most loud and the most 
 grave. 
 
 To know the manner in which sounds thus produced become pleas- 
 ing, it must be observed, no one continuing tone, how loud and swel- 
 ling soever, can give us satisfaction ; we must have a succession of 
 them, and those in the most pleasing proportion. The nature of this 
 proportion may be thus conceived. If we strike a body incapable of 
 vibration with a double force, or, what amounts to the same thing, 
 with a double mass of matter, it will produce a sound that will be 
 doubly grave. Music has been said, by the ancients, to have been 
 first invented from the blows of different hammers on an anvil. Sup- 
 pose then we strike an anvil with a hammer of one pound weight, and 
 again with a hammer of two pounds, it is plain that the two pound 
 hammer will produce a sound twice as grave as the former. But if 
 we strike with a two pound hammer, and then with a three pound, it 
 is evident that the latter will produce a sound one third more grave 
 than the former. If we strike the anvil with a three pound hammer, 
 and then with a four pound, it will likewise follow that the latter will 
 be a quarter part more grave than the former. Now, in the compa- 
 ring between all those sounds, it is obvious that the difference between 
 one and two is more easily perceived, than between two aud three, 
 three and four, or any numbers succeeding in the same proportion. 
 The succession of sounds will be, therefore, pleasing in proportion to 
 the ease with which they may be distinguished. That sound which 
 is double the former, or, in other words, the octave to the preceding 
 tone, will, of all others, be the most pleasing harmony. The next to 
 that, which is as two to three, or, in other words, the third, will be 
 most agreeable. And thus, universally, those sounds whose difference 
 may be most easily compared, are the most agreeable. 
 
 " Musicians, therefore, have contented themselves with seven dif- 
 ferent proportions of sound, which are called notes, and which suffi 
 ciently answer all the purposes of pleasure. Not but that they might 
 adopt a greater diversity of proportions; and some have actually done 
 so; but, in these, the differences of the proportion are so impercepti- 
 ble, that the ear is rather fatigued than pleased in making the distinc- 
 tion. In order, however, to give variety, they have admitted half 
 tones; but in all the countries where music is yet in its infancy, they 
 have rejected such; ana they can find music in none but the obvious 
 ones. The Chinese, for instance, have neither flats nor sharps in their 
 music ; but the intervals between their other notes, are in the same 
 proportion with ours. 
 
 "Many more barbarous nations have their peculiar instruments of 
 music ; and what is remarkable, the proportion between their notes is 
 in all the same ^s in ours. This is not the place for entering "ito tho
 
 ANIMALS. 223 
 
 nature of these sounds, their effects upon the air, or their consonances 
 with each other. We are not now giving a history of sound, but of 
 human perception. 
 
 "All countries are pleased with music; and if they have not skill 
 enough to produce harmony, at least they seem willing to substitute 
 noise. Without all question, noise alone is sufficient to operate pow- 
 erfully on the spirits; and, if the mind be already predisposed to joy, 
 I have seldom found noise fail of increasing it into rapture. The 
 inind feels a kind of distracted pleasure in such powerful sounds, 
 braces up every nerve, and riots in the excess. But, as in the eye, 
 an immediate gaze upon the sun will disturb the organs, so, in the ear, 
 a loud unexpected noise disorders the whole frame, and sometimes 
 disturbs the sense ever after. The mind must have time to prepare 
 for the expected shock, and to give its organs the proper tension for 
 its arrival. 
 
 "Musical sounds, however, seem of a different kind. Those are 
 generally most pleasing which are most unexpected. It is not from 
 bracing up the nerves, but from the grateful succession of the sounds, 
 that these become so charming. There are few, how indifferent so- 
 ever, but have at times felt their pleasing impression ; and, perhaps, 
 even those who have stood out against the powerful persuasion of 
 sounds, only wanted the proper tune, or the proper instrument, to 
 allure them. 
 
 " The ancients give us a thousand strange instances of the effects of 
 music upon men and animals. The story of Arion's harp that 
 gathered the dolphins to the ship side, is well known ; and what is 
 remarkable, Schotteus assures us,* that he saw a similar instance of 
 fishes being allured by music. They tell us of diseases that have 
 been cured, unchastity corrected, seditions quelled, passions removed, 
 and sometimes excited even to madness. Dr. Wallis has endeavoured 
 to account for these surprising effects, by ascribing them to the novelty 
 of the art. For my own part, I can scarce hesitate to impute them 
 to the exaggeration of the writers. They are as hyperbolical in the 
 effects of their oratory; and yet, we well know, there is nothing in 
 the orations which they have left us, capable of exciting madness, or 
 of raising the mind to that ungovernable degree of fury which they 
 describe. As they have exaggerated, therefore, in one instance, we 
 may naturally suppose that they have done the same in the other; 
 and, indeed, from the few remains we have of their music, collected 
 by Meibomius, one might be apt to suppose, there was nothing very 
 powerful in what is lost. Nor does any one of the ancient instru- 
 ments, such as we see them rep resented in statues, appear comparable 
 to our fiddle. 
 
 " However this be, we fldve many odd accounts, net only among 
 them, but the moderns, of the power of music ; and it must not be 
 denied, but that, on some particular occasions, musical sounds may 
 have a very powerful effect. I have seen all the horses and cows in 
 i field, where there were above a hundred, gather round a person that 
 *as blowing the French horn, and seeming to testify an awKward 
 
 * Quod oculis meis spectavi. Schotti Magic, universalis, pars ii. L 1 p. 26.
 
 254 A HISTORY OF 
 
 kind of satisfaction. Dogs are well known to be very sensible of dif- 
 ferent tones in music; and I have sometimes heard them sustain a very 
 ridiculous part in a concert, where their assistance was neither ex 
 pected nor desired. 
 
 " We are told of Henry IV. of Denmark,* that being one day de- 
 sirous of trying in person whether a musician, who boasted that he 
 could excite men to madness, was not an impostor, he submitted to 
 the operation of his skill : but the consequence was much more terri- 
 ble than he expected ; for, becoming actually mad, he killed four of 
 his attendants in the midst of his transports. A contrary effect of 
 music we havet in the cure of a madman of Alais, in France, by 
 music. This man, who was a dancing master, after a fever of five 
 days, grew furious, and so ungovernable that his hands were obliged 
 to be tied to his. sides : what at first was rage, in a short time was 
 converted into silent melancholy, which no arts could exhilirate, nor no 
 medicine remove. In this sullen and dejected state, an old acquaint- 
 ance accidentally came to inquire after his health ; he found him sit- 
 ting up in bed, tied, and totally regardless of every external object 
 round him. Happening, however, to take up a fiddle that lay in the 
 room, and touching a favourite air, the poor madman instantly seemed 
 to brighten up at the sound ; from a recumbent posture, he began to 
 sit up ; and, as the musician continued playing, the patient seemed 
 desirous of dancing to the sound ; but he was tied, and incapable of 
 leaving his bed, so that he could only humour the tune with his head, 
 and those parts of his arms which were at liberty. Thus the other 
 continued playing, and the dancing-master practised his own art, as 
 far as he was able, for about a quarter of an hour, when suddenly 
 falling into a deep sleep, in which his disorder came to a crisis, he 
 awaked perfectly recovered. 
 
 " A thousand other instances might be added, equally true : let it 
 suffice to add one more, which is not true ; I mean that of the taran- 
 tula. Every person who has been in Italy now well knows that the 
 bite of this animal, and its being cured by music, is all a deception. 
 When strangers come into that part of the country, the country peo- 
 ple are ready enough to take money for dancing to the tarantula. A 
 friend of mine had a servant who suffered himself to be bit ; the 
 wound, which was little larger than the puncture of a pin, was uneasy 
 for a few hours, and then became well without any farther assistance. 
 Some of the country people, however, still make a tolerable liveli- 
 hood of the credulity of strangers, as the musician finds his account 
 in it no less than the dancer." 
 
 Sounds, like light, are not only extensively diffused, but are fre- 
 quently reflected. The laws of this reflection, it is true, are not as 
 well understood as those of light ; all we know is, that sound is 
 principally reflected by hard bodies ; and their being hollow, also, 
 sometimes increases the reverberation. " No art, however, can make 
 an echo ; and some who have bestowed great labour and expense upon 
 such a project, have only erected shapeless buildings, whose silence 
 vas a mortifying lecture upon their presumption." 
 
 * OUi Magni, I 15. hist c. 28 f Hist, de 1'Acad. 1708. p. 21
 
 ANIMALS. 22i 
 
 The internal cavity of the ear seems to be fitted up for the purpose 
 of echoing sound with the greatest precision. This part is fashioned 
 out in the temporal bone, like a cavern cut into a rock. " In this the 
 sound is repeated and articulated; and, as some anatomists tell us, 
 (for we have as yet but very little knowledge on this subject,) is 
 hnaten against the tympanum, or drum of the ear, which moves four 
 little bones joined thereto ; and these move and agitate the internal 
 air which lies on the other side ; and lastly, this air strikes and affects 
 the auditory nerves, which carry the sound to the brain." 
 
 One of the most common disorders in old age is deafness, which 
 probably proceeds from the rigidity of the nerves in the labyrinth of 
 the ear. This disorder, also, sometimes proceeds from a stoppage of 
 the wax, which art may easily remedy. In order to know whether 
 the defect be an internal or an external one, let the deaf person put 
 a repeating-watch into his mouth, and if he hears it strike, he may be 
 assured that his disorder proceeds from an external cause, and is, in 
 some measure, curable : " for there is a passage from the ears into the 
 mouth, by what anatomists call the eustachian tube ; and, by this 
 passage, people often hear sounds, when they are utterly without 
 hearing through the larger channel : and this also is the reason tha 
 we often see persons who listen with great attention, hearken with 
 their mouths open, in order to catch all the sound at every aperture." 
 It often happens that persons hear differently with one ear from the 
 other ; and it is generally found that these have what is called by mu- 
 sicians, a bad ear. Mr. Buffon, who has made many trials upon persons 
 of this kind, always found that their defect in judging properly of 
 sounds proceeded from the inequality of their ears ; and receiving 
 oy both at the same time unequal sensations, they form an unjust idea. 
 In this manner, as those people hear falsely, they also, without know- 
 ing it, sing false. Those persons also frequently deceive themselves 
 with regard to the side from whence the sound comes, generally sup- 
 posing the noise to come on the part of the best ear. 
 
 Such as are hard of hearing find the same advantage in the trumpet 
 made for this purpose, that short-sighted persons do from glasses. 
 These trumpets might be easily improved, so as to increase sounds, 
 in the same manner that the telescope does objects ; however, they 
 could be used to advantage only in a place of solitude and stillness, 
 as the neighbouring sounds would mix with the more distant, and the 
 whole would produce in the ear nothing but tumult and confusion. 
 
 Hearing is a much more necessary sense to man than to animals. 
 With these it is only a warning against danger, or an encouragement 
 to mutual assistance. In man, it is the source of most of his plea 
 sures, and without which the rest of his senses would be of little be- 
 nefit. A man born deaf, must necessarily be dumb ; and his whole 
 sphere of knowledge must be bounded only by sensual objects. We .< 
 have an instance of a young man, who being born deaf, was restored 
 at the age of twenty-four to perfect hearing : the account is given in 
 the Memoires of the Academy of Sciences, 1703, page 18. 
 
 A young man of the town of Chartres, between -the age of twenty 
 three and twenty-four, the sen of a tradesman, and deaf and dum 
 from his birth, began to speaV. all of a sudden, to the great astonish 
 
 VOL. i. P
 
 226 A HISTORY OF 
 
 cient of the whole town. He gave them to understand, that abou: 
 three or four months before, he had heard the sound of the bells for the 
 first time, and was greatly surprised at this new and unknown sensa- 
 tion. After some time, a kind of water issued from his left ear, and 
 he then heard perfectly well with both. During these three months, 
 be was sedulously employed in listening, without saying a word, and 
 accustoming himself to speak softly (so as not to be heard) the words 
 pronounced by others. He laboured hard also in perfecting himself 
 in the pronunciation, and in the ideas attached to every sound. At 
 length, having supposed himself qualified to break silence, he declared 
 that he could now speak, although as yet but imperfectly. Soon after, 
 some able divines questioned him concerning his ideas of his past 
 state, and principally with respect to God, his soul, the mortality or 
 turpitude of actions. The young man, however, had not driven his 
 solitary speculations into that channel. He had gone to mass indeed 
 with his parents ; had learned to sign himself with the cross ; to 
 kneel down and assume all the grimaces of a man that was praying ; 
 but he did all this without any manner of knowledge of the intention 
 or the cause ; he saw others do the like, and that was enough for him ; 
 he knew nothing even of death, and it never entered into his head ; 
 he led a life of pure animal instinct ; entirely taken up with sensible 
 objects, and such as were present, he did not seem even to make as 
 many reflections upon these as might reasonably be expected from his 
 improving situation ; and yet the young man was not in want of un- 
 derstanding; but the understanding of a man deprived of all com- 
 merce with others, is so very confined, that the mind is in some mea 
 sure totally under the control of its immediate sensations. 
 
 Notwithstanding, it is very possible to communicate ideas to deaf 
 men, which they previously wanted, and even give them very precise 
 notions of some abstract subjects, by means of signs, and of letters. 
 A person born deaf, may, by time, and sufficient pains, be taught to 
 write and read, to speak, and, by the motions of the lips, to under- 
 stand what is said to him ; however, it is probable that, as most of the 
 motions of speech are made within the mouth by the tongue, the 
 knowledge from the motion of the lips is but very confined : " never- 
 theless, I have conversed with a gentleman thus taught, and in all the 
 commonly occurring questions, and the usual salutations, he was ready 
 enough, merely by attending to the motion of the lips alone. When 
 I ventured to speak for a short continuance, he was totally at a loss, 
 although he understood the subject when written extremely well." 
 Persons taught in this manner, were at first considered as prodigies ; 
 but there have been so many instances of success of late, and so many 
 are skilful in the art of instructing in this way, that, though still a 
 matter of some curiosity, it ceases to be an object rf wonder.
 
 ANIMALS. 22? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF SMELLING, FEELING, AND TASTING. 
 
 AN animal may be said to fill up that sphere which he can reach 
 by his senses, and is actually large in proportion to the sphere to 
 which its organ extends. By sight, man's enjoyments are diffused into 
 a wide circle ; that of hearing, though less widely diffused, neverthe- 
 less extends his powers ; the sense of smelling is more contracted 
 still ; and the taste and touch are the most confined of all. Thus 
 man enjoys very distant objects but with one sense only ; more nearly 
 he brings two senses at once to bear upon them ; his sense of smell- 
 ing assists the other two at its own distance, and of such objects as a 
 man, he may be said to be in perfect possession. 
 
 Each sense, however, the more it acts at a distance, the more capa- 
 ble it is of making combinations, and is consequently the more im- 
 proveable. Refined imaginations, and men of strong minds, take more 
 pleasure, therefore, in improving the delights of the distant senses, 
 than in enjoying such as are scarce capable of improvement. 
 
 By combining the objects of the extensive senses, all the arts of 
 poetry, painting, and harmony, have been discovered ; but the closer 
 senses, if I may so call them, such as smelling, tasting, and touching, 
 are, in some measure, as simple as they are limited, and admit of lit- 
 tle variety. The man of imagination makes a great and an artificial 
 happiness, by the pleasure of altering and combining ; the sensualist 
 just stops where he began, and cultivates only those pleasures which 
 he cannot improve. The sensualist is contented with those enjoy- 
 ments that are already made to his hand ; but the man of pleasure is 
 best pleased with growing happiness. 
 
 Of all the senses, perhaps, there is not one in which man is more 
 inferior to other animals than in that of smelling. With man, it is a 
 sense that acts in a narrow sphere, and disgusts almost as frequently 
 as it gives him pleasure. With many other animals it is diffused to 
 a very great extent: and never seems to offend them. Dogs not only 
 trace the steps of other animals, but also discover them by the scent 
 at a very great distance ; and while they are thus exquisitely sensible 
 of all smells, they seem no way disgusted by any. 
 
 But, although this sense is, in general, so very inferior in man, it is 
 much stronger in those nations that abstain from animal food, than 
 among Europeans. The Bramins of India have a power of smelling, 
 as I am informed, equal to what it is in most other creatures. They 
 can smell the water which they drink, that to us seems quite inodo- 
 rous; and have a word, in their language, which denotes a country 
 of fine water. We are told, also, that the negroes of the Antilles, by 
 the smell alone, can distinguish between the footsteps of a Frenchman 
 and a negro. It is possible, therefore, that we may dull this organ by 
 jur luxurious way of living; and sacrifice to the pleasures of taste, 
 those which might be received from perfume 
 
 However, it is a sense that we can, in some measure, dispense with ; 
 and I have known many thnt wanted it entirely, with but very little
 
 213 A HISTORY OF 
 
 inconvenience fiom its loss. In a state of nature it is said to be use- 
 ful in guiding us to proper nourishment, and deterring us from that 
 which is unwholesome; but, in our present situation, such informa- 
 tion is but little wanted ; and, indeed, but little attended to. In fact, 
 the sense of smelling gives us very often false intelligence. Many 
 things that have a disagreeable odour, are, nevertheless, wholesome 
 and pleasant to the taste; and such as make eating an art, seldom 
 think a meal fit to please the appetite till it begins to offend the nose. 
 On the other hand, there are many things that smell most gratefully, 
 and yet are noxious, or fatal to the constitution. Some physicians 
 think that perfumes in general are unwholesome; that they relax the 
 nerves, produce head-aches, and even retard digestion. The man- 
 chineel apple, which is known to be deadly poison, is possessed of the 
 most grateful odour. Some of those mineral vapours that are often 
 found fatal in the stomach, smell like the sweetest flowers, and con- 
 tinue thus to flatter till they destroy. This sense, therefore, as it 
 should seem, was never meant to direct us in the choice of food, but 
 appears rather as an attendant than a necessary pleasure. 
 
 Indeed, if we examine the natives of different countries, or even 
 different natives of the same, we shall find no pleasure in which they 
 differ so widely as that of smelling. Some persons are pleased with 
 the smell of a rose ; while I have known others that could not abide 
 to have it approach them. The savage nations are highly delighted 
 with the smell of assafoetida, which is to us the most nauseous stink in 
 nature. It would in a manner seem that our delight in perfumes was 
 made by habit ; and that a very little industry could bring us totally 
 to invert the perception of odours. 
 
 Thus much is certain, that many bodies which at one distance are 
 an agreeable perfume, when nearer are a most ungrateful odour. Musk 
 and ambergrise, in small quantities, are considered by most persons as 
 highly fragrant; and yet, when in larger masses, their scent is insuf- 
 ferable. From a mixture of two bodies, each whereof is, of itself, 
 void of all smell, a very powerful smell may be drawn. Thus, by 
 grinding quick-lime with sal-ammoniac, may be produced a very foetid 
 mixture. On the contrary, from a mixture of two bodies, that are 
 separately disagreeable, a very pleasant aromatic odour may be gained. 
 A mixture of aqua-fortis with spirit of wine produces this effect. But 
 not only the alterations of bodies by each other, but the smallest 
 change in us, makes a very great alteration in this sense, and fre- 
 quently deprives us of it totally. A slight cold often hinders us from 
 smelling ; and as often changes the nature of odours. Some persons, 
 from disorder, retain an incurable aversion to those smells which most 
 pleased them before : and many have been known to have an antipa- 
 thy to some animals, whose presence they instantly perceive by the 
 smell. From all this, therefore, the sense of smelling appears to be 
 an uncertain monitor, easily disordered, and not much missed when 
 totally wanting. 
 
 The sense most nearly allied to smelling is that of tasting. This, 
 some have been willing to consider merely as a nicer kind of touch, 
 and have undertaken to account, in -a very mechanical manner, for 
 Jin difference of savours. "Such bodies," said they, "as are pointed,
 
 ANIMALS. 229 
 
 happening to be applied to the papillae of the tongue, excite a very 
 powerful sensation, and give us the idea of saltness. Such, on the 
 contrary, as are of a rounder figure, slide smoothly along the oapillse, 
 and are perceived to be sweet." In this manner they have, with 
 minute labour, gone through the variety of imagined forms in bodies, 
 and have given them as imaginary effects. All we can precisely de- 
 termine upon the nature of tastes is, that the bodies to be tasted must 
 be either somewhat moistened, or, in some measure, dissolved by the 
 saliva, before they can produce a proper sensation: when both the 
 tongue itself, and the body to be tasted, are extremely dry, no taste 
 whatever ensues. The sensation is then changed ; and the tongue, 
 instead of tasting, can only be said, like any other part of the body, 
 to feel the object. 
 
 It is for this reason that children have a stronger relish of tastes 
 than those who are more advanced in life. This organ with them, 
 from the greater moisture of their bodies, is kept in greater perfec- 
 tion; and is, consequently, better adapted to perform its functions. 
 Every person remembers how great a pleasure he found in sweets, 
 while a child ; but his taste growing more obtuse with age, he is 
 obliged to use artificial means to excite it. It is then that he is found 
 to call in the assistance of poignant sauces, and strong relishes of salts 
 and aromatics; all which the delicacy of his tender organ, in child- 
 hood, were unable to endure. His taste grows callous to the natural 
 relishes, and is artificially formed to others more unnatural ; so that 
 the highest epicure may be said to have the most depraved taste; as 
 it is owing to the bluntness of his organ, that he is obliged to have 
 recourse to such a variety of expedients to gratify his appetite. 
 
 As smells are often rendered agreeable by habit, so also tastes may 
 be. Tobacco and coffee, so pleasing to many, are yet, at first, very 
 disagreeable to all. It is not without perseverance that we begin to 
 have a relish for them; we force nature so long, that what was con 
 straint in the beginning, at last becomes inclination. 
 
 The grosse'st, and yet the most useful of all the senses, is that of 
 feeling. We are often seen to survive under the loss of the rest; but 
 of this we can never be totally deprived, but with life. Although this 
 sense is diffused over all parts of the body, yet it most frequently hap- 
 pens that those parts which are most exercised in touching, acquire 
 the greatest degree of accuracy. Thus the fingers, by long habit, be- 
 come greater masters in the art than any others, even where the sen- 
 $;Uion is more delicate and fine.* It is from this habit, therefore, and 
 their peculiar formation, and not, as is supposed, from their being fur- 
 nished with a greater quantity of nerves, that the fingers are thus per- 
 fectly qualified to judge of forms. Blind men, who are obliged to use 
 them much oftener, have this sense much finer; so that the delicacy 
 of the touch arises rather from the habit of constantly employing the , 
 fingers, than from any fancied nervousness in their conformation. 
 
 All animals that are furnished with handst seem to have more un 
 derstanding than others. Monkeys have so many actions like those 
 of men, that they appear to have similar ideas of the form of bodies 
 
 * Buffon, vol. vi. p. 80. f Ibid. vol. v 1 p 82
 
 50 A HISTORY OF 
 
 All othei crentures, deprived of hands, can have no distii.et ideas of 
 ihe shape of the objects by which they are surrounded, as they want 
 this organ, which serves to examine and measure their forms, their 
 risings, and depressions. A quadruped, probably, conceives as erro- 
 neous an idea of any thing near him, as a child would of a rock or a 
 mountain that it beheld at a distance. It may be for this reason, that 
 we often see them frighted at things with which they ought to be bet- 
 ter acquainted. Fishes, whose bodies are covered with scales, and 
 who have no organs for feeling, must be the most stupid of all animals. 
 Serpents, that are likewise destitute, are yet, by winding round seve- 
 ral bodies, better capable of judging of their form. All these, how- 
 ever, can have but very imperfect ideas from feeling; and we have 
 already seen, when deprived of this sense, how little the rest of the 
 senses are to be relied on. 
 
 The feeling, therefore, is the guardian, the judge, and the examiner 
 of all the rest of the senses. It establishes their information, and de- 
 tects their errors. All the other senses are altered by time, and con- 
 tradict their former evidence; but the touch still continues the same; 
 and, though extremely confined in its operations, yet it is never found 
 to deceive. The universe, to a man who had only used the rest of 
 his senses, would be but a scene of illusion; every object misrepre- 
 sented, and all its properties unknown. Mr. Buffon has imagined a 
 man just newly brought into existence, describing the illusion of his 
 first sensations, and pointing out the steps by which he arrived at re- 
 ality. He considers him as just created, and awaking amidst the pro- 
 ductions of nature; and, to animate the narrative still more strrngly, 
 has made his philosophical man a speaker. The reader will no doubt 
 recollect Adam's speech in Milton as being similar. All that I can 
 say to obviate the imputation of plagiarism is, that the one treats the 
 subject more as a poet, the other more as a philosopher. The philo 
 sopher's man describes his first sensations in the following manner.* 
 
 I well remember that joyful anxious moment when I first became 
 acquainted with my own existence. I was quite ignorant of what I 
 was, how I was produced, or from whence I came. I opened my 
 eyes : what an addition to my surprise ! the light of the day, the azure 
 vault of heaven, the verdure of the earth, the crystal of the waters, 
 all employed me at once, and animated and filled me with inexpres- 
 sible delight. I at first imagined that all those objects were within 
 me, and made a part of myself. 
 
 Impressed with this idea, I turned my eyes to the sun ; its splendour 
 dazzled and overpowered me ; I shut them once more ; and, to my 
 great concern, I supposed that during this short interval of darkness, 
 1 was again returning to nothing. 
 
 Afflicted, seized with astonishment, I pondered a moment on this 
 great change, when I heard a variety of unexpected sounds. The 
 whistling of the wind, and the melody of the groves, formed a concert, 
 the soft cadence of which sunk upon my soul. I listened for some 
 time, and was persuaded that all this music was within me. 
 
 * Buffon, vol. vi. p. 88.
 
 ANIMALS. 231 
 
 Quite occupied with this new kind of existence, I had already for 
 gotten the light which was my first inlet into life ; when I once more 
 opened my eyes, and found myself again in possession of my former 
 happiness. The gratification of the two senses at once, was a plea 
 sure too great for utterance. 
 
 I turned my eyes upon a thousand various ohjects; I soon found 
 thJit I could lose them, and restore them at will; and amused myseli 
 more at leisure with a repetition of this new-made power. 
 
 1 now began to gaze without emotion, and to hearken with tran- 
 quillity, when a light breeze, the freshness of which charmed rne, 
 wafted its perfumes to my sense of smelling, and gave me such satis- 
 faction as even increased my self-love. 
 
 Agitated, roused by the various pleasures of my new existence, I 
 instantly arose, and perceived myself moved along, as if by some un- 
 known and secret power. 
 
 I had scarce proceeded forward, when the novelty of my situation 
 once more rendered me immoveable. My surprise returned; I sup- 
 posed that every object around me had been in motion : I gave to 
 them that agitation which I produced by changing place; and the 
 whole creation seemed once more in disorder. 
 
 I lifted my hand to my head; I touched my forehead; I felt my 
 whole frame; I then supposed that my hand was the principal organ 
 of my existence; all its informations were distinct and perfect; and 
 so superior to the senses I had yet experienced, that I employed my- 
 self for some time in repeating its enjoyments : every part of mv per- 
 son 1 touched, seemed to touch my hand in turn, and gave back sen- 
 sation for sensation. 
 
 I soon found that this faculty was expanded over the whole surface 
 of.my body; and I now first began to perceive the limits of my exis- 
 tence, which I had in the beginning supposed spread over all the ob- 
 jects I saw. 
 
 Upon casting my eyes upon my body, and surveying my own form, 
 I thought it greater than all the objects that surrounded me. I gazed 
 upon my person with pleasure; I examined the formation of my hand, 
 and all its motions ; it seemed to me large or little in proportion as I 
 approached it to my eyes; I brought it very near, and it then hid 
 almost every other object from my sight. I began soon, however, to find 
 that my sight gave me uncertain information, and resolved to depend 
 upon my feeling for redress. 
 
 This precaution was of the utmost service; I renewed my motions, 
 and walked forward with my face turned towards the heavens. I 
 happened to strike lightly against a palm-tree, and this renewed my 
 surprise: I laid my hand on this strange body; it seemed replete with 
 new wonders, for it did not return me sensation for sensation, as my 
 former feelings had done. I perceived that there was something ex- 
 ternal, and which did not make a part of my own existence. 
 
 I now, therefore, resolved to touch whatever I saw, and vainly at- 
 tempted to touch the sun; I stretched forth my arm, and felt only 
 yielding air: at every effort, I fell from one surprise into another, for 
 every object appeared equally near me; and it was not till after ai> 
 n.ulrmy of trials that 1 found some objects farther removed f han the rest
 
 232 A HISTORY OF 
 
 Amazed with the illusions, and the uncertainty of my state, I sal 
 down beneath a tree ; the most beautiful fruits hung upon it, within 
 my reach; I stretched forth my hand, and they instantly separated 
 from the branch. I was proud of being able to grasp a substance 
 without me; I held them up, and their weight appeared to me like an 
 animated power that endeavoured to draw them to the earth. I found 
 a pleasure -in conquering their resistance. 
 
 I held them near my eye ; I considered their form and beauty ; their 
 fragrance still more allured me to bring them nearer; I approached 
 them to my lips, and drank in their odours; the perfume invited my 
 sense of tasting, and I soon tried a new sense How new! how ex- 
 quisite ! Hitherto I had tasted only of pleasure ; but now it was luxury. 
 The power of tasting gave me the idea of possession. 
 
 Flattered with this new acquisition, I continued its exercise, till an 
 agreeable languor stealing upon my mind, I felt all my limbs become 
 heavy, and all my desires suspended. My sensations were now no 
 longer vivid and distinct; but seemed to lose every object, and pre- 
 sented only feeble images, confusedly marked. At that instant I sunk 
 upon the flowery bank, and slumber seized me. All now seemed once 
 more lost to me. It was then as if I was returning into my former 
 nothing. How long my sleep continued, I cannot tell ; as I yet had 
 no perception of time. My awaking appeared like a second birth; 
 and I then perceived that I had ceased for a time to exist. This pro- 
 duced a new sensation of fear; and from this interruption in life, I 
 began to conclude that I was not formed to exist for ever. 
 
 In this state of doubt and perplexity, I began to harbour new sus- 
 picions; and to fear that sleep had robbed me of some of my late 
 powers ; when, turning on one side, to resolve my doubts, what was 
 my amazement, to behold another being, like myself, stretched by my 
 side! New ideas now began to arise: new passions, as yet unper- 
 ceived, with fears, and pleasures, all took possession of my mind, and 
 prompted my curiosity; love served to complete that happiness which 
 was begun in the individual; and every sense was gratified in all its 
 varieties. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OP OLD AGE AND DEATH.* 
 
 EVERY thing in nature has its improvement and decay. The hu- 
 man form is no sooner arrived at its state of perfection, than it begins 
 to decline. The alteration is, at first, insensible; and, often, several 
 years are elapsed before we find ourselves grown old. The news of 
 this disagreeable change too generally comes from without; and we 
 learn from others that we grow old, before we are willing to believe 
 the report. 
 
 When the body has come to its full height, and is extended into it* 
 
 This chapte. is taken from Mr. Buffon, except where it is marked by ipver*e'l commas.
 
 ANIMALS. 233 
 
 lust dimensions, it then also begins to receive an additional bulk, 
 which rather loads than assists it. This is formed from fat ; which 
 generally, at the age of thirty-five or forty, covers all the muscles, and 
 interrupts their activity. Every action is then performed with greater 
 labour, and the increase of size only serves as a forerunner of decay. 
 
 The bones, also, become every day more solid. In the embryo 
 they are as soft almost as the muscles of the flesh ; but, by degrees, 
 they harden, and acquire their natural vigour; but still, however, the 
 circulation is carried on through them, and, how hard soever the bones 
 may seem, yet the blood holds its current through them as through all 
 other parts of the body. Of this we may be convinced, by an expe- 
 riment, which was first accidentally discovered by our ingenious coun- 
 tryman Mr. Belcher. Perceiving at a friend's house, that the bones 
 of hogs, which were fed upon madder, were red, he tried it upon vari- 
 ous animals by mixing this root with their usual food ; and he found 
 that it tinctured the bones in all; an evident demonstration that the 
 juices of the body had a circulation through the bones. He fed some 
 animals alternately upon madder and their common food, for some 
 time, and he found their bones tinctured with alternate layers, in con- 
 formity to their manner of living. From all this he naturally con- 
 cluded, that the blood circulated through the bones, as it does through 
 every other part of the body ; and that, how solid soever they seemed, 
 yet, like the softest parts, they were furnished through all their sub- 
 stance with their proper canals. Nevertheless, these canals are of 
 very different capacities, during the different stages of life. In infancy 
 they are capacious; and the blood flows almost as freely through the 
 bones as through any other part of the body; in manhood their size is 
 greatly diminished; the vessels are almost imperceptible; and t.h 
 circulation through them is proportionally slow. But, in the decline 
 of life, the blood, which flows through the bones, no longer contri- 
 buting to their growth, must necessarily serve to increase their hard- 
 ness. The channels that every where run through the human frame, 
 may be compared to those pipes that we every where see crusted on 
 the inside, by the water, for a long continuance, running through them. 
 Both every day grow less and less, by the small rigid particles which 
 are deposited within them. Thus as the vessels are by degrees dimi- 
 nished, the juices also, which were necessary for the circulation 
 through them, are diminished in proportion ; till at length, in old age, 
 those props of the human frame are not only more solid but more 
 brittle. 
 
 The cartilages, or gristles, which may be considered as bones be- 
 ginning to be formed, grow also more rigid. The juices circulating 
 through them, for there is a circulation through all parts of the body, 
 every day contributes to render them harder; so that these substances, 
 which in youth are elastic and pliant, in age become hard and bony 
 As these cartilages are generally placed near the joints, the motion 
 ol the joints also must, of consequence, become more difficult. Thus, 
 ;n old age, every action of the body is performed with labour; and 
 the cartilages, formerly so supple, will now sooner break than bend. 
 
 " As the cartilages acquire hardness, and unfit the joints for motion, 
 t>o tlso, that mucous liquor, which is always separated between l\n*
 
 234 A HISTORY OF 
 
 joints, and which serves, like oil to a hinge, to give them an easy and 
 ready play, is now grown more scanty. It becomes thicker, and more 
 clammy, more unfif for answering the purposes of motion; and from 
 thence, in old age, every joint is not only stiff, but awkward. At 
 every motion, this clammy liquor is heard to crack; and it is not 
 without the greatest efforts of the muscles that its resistance is over- 
 come. I have seen an old person, who never moved a single joint, 
 that did not thus give notice of the violence done to it." 
 
 The membranes that cover the bones, the joints, and the rest of the 
 body, become, as we grow old, more dense and more dry. These 
 which surround the bones, soon cease to be ductile. The fibres, of 
 which the muscles or flesh is composed, become every day more rigid ; 
 and, while to the touch the body seems, as we advance in years, to 
 grow softer, it is, in reality, increasing in hardness. It is the skin, 
 and not the flesh, that we feel upon such occasions. The fat, and the 
 flabbiness of that, seems to give an appearance of softness, which the 
 flesh itself is very far from having. There are few can doubt this, 
 after trying the difference between the flesh of young and old animals. 
 The first is soft and tender, the last is hard and dry. 
 
 The skin is the only part of the body that age does not contribute 
 to harden. That stretches to eve-ry degree of tension ; and we have 
 horrid instances of its pliancy, in many disorders incident to humanity 
 In youth, therefore, while the body is vigorous and increasing, it still 
 gives way to its growth. But, although it thus adapts itself to our 
 increase, it does not in the same manner conform to our decay. The 
 skin, which in youth was filled and glossy, when the body begins to 
 decline, has not elasticity enough to shrink entirely with its diminu 
 lion. It hangs, therefore, in wrinkles, which no art can remove. The 
 wrinkles of the body, in general, proceed from this cause. But those 
 of the face seem to proceed from another; namely, from the many 
 varieties of positions into which it is put by the speech, the food, or 
 the passions. Every grimace, and every passion, wrinkles up the 
 visage into different forms. These are visible enough in young per- 
 sons ; but what at first was accidental, or transitory, becomes unal- 
 terably fixed in the visage as it grows older. "From hence we may 
 conclude, that a freedom from passions not only adds to the happiness 
 of the mind, but preserves the beauty of the face ; and the person 
 that has not felt their influence, is less strongly marked by the decays 
 of nature." 
 
 Hence, therefore, as we advance in age, the bones, the cartilages, 
 the membranes, the flesh, the skin, and every fibre of the body, be- 
 come more solid, more brittle, and more dry. Every part shrinks, 
 every motion becomes more slow; the circulation of the fluids is per- 
 formed with less freedom; perspiration diminishes; the secretions 
 alter; the digestion becomes slow and laborious; and the juices no 
 longer serving to convey their accustomed nourishment, those parts 
 may be said to live no longer when the circulation ceases. Thus the 
 body dies by little and little ; all its functions are diminished by de- 
 grees; life is driven from one part of the frame to another; universal 
 nudity prevails ; and death at last seizes upon the little that is left. 
 
 As the bones, the cartilages, the muscles, and all other paits of the
 
 ANIMALS. 235 
 
 body, are softer in women than in men, these parts must, of conse* 
 quence, require a longer time to come to that hardness which hastens 
 death. Women, therefore, ought to be a longer time in growing old 
 than men ; and this is actually the case. If we consult the tables 
 which have been drawn up respecting human life, we shall find, that, 
 after a certain age, they are more long-lived than men, all other cir 
 cumstances the same. A woman of sixty has a better chance than a 
 man of the same age to live till eighty. Upon the whole, we ma} 
 infer, that such persons as have been slow in coming up to maturity, 
 will also be slow in growing old ; and this holds as well with regard to 
 other animals as to man. 
 
 The whole duration of the life of either vegetables or animals may 
 de, in some measure, determined from their manner of coming to ma- 
 turity. The tree, or the animal, which takes but a short time to in- 
 crease to its utmost pitch, perishes much sooner than such as are less 
 premature. In both, the increase upwards is first accomplished ; and 
 not till they have acquired their greatest degree of height do they 
 begin to spread in bulk. Man grows in stature till about the age of 
 seventeen ; but his body is not completely developed till about thirty. 
 Dogs, on the other hand, are at their utmost size in a year, and be- 
 come as bulky as they usually are in another. However, man, who 
 is so long in growing, continues to live fourscore, or a hundred years; 
 but the dog seldom above twelve or thirteen. In general, also, it may 
 be said, that large animals live longer than little ones, as they usually 
 take a longer time to grow. But in all animals, one thing is equally 
 certain, that they carry the causes of their own decay about them ; and 
 that their deaths are necessary and inevitable. The prospects which 
 some visionaries have formed of perpetuating life by remedies, have 
 been often enough proved false by their own example. Such unac- 
 countable schemes would, therefore, have died with them, had not 
 the love of life always augmented our credulity. 
 
 When the body is naturally well formed, it is possible to lengthen 
 out the period of life for some years by management. Temperance 
 in diet is often found conducive to this end. The famous Cornaro, 
 who lived to above a hundred years, although his constitution was 
 naturally feeble, is a strong instance of the benefit of an abstemious 
 life. Moderation in the passions also may contribute to extend the 
 term of our existence. " Fontenelle, the celebrated writer, was natu- 
 rally of a very weak and delicate habit of body. He was affected by 
 the smallest irregularities; and had frequently suffered severe fits of 
 illness from the slightest causes. But the remarkable equality of his 
 temper, and his seeming want of passion, lengthened out his life to 
 above a hundred. It was remarkable of him, that nothing could vex 
 r make him uneasy; every occurrence seemed equally pleasing; and 
 JIG event, however unfortunate, seemed to come unexpected." How- 
 ever, the term of life can be prolonged but for a very little time by 
 any art we can use. We are told of men who have lived beyond the 
 ordinary duration of human existence; such as Parr, who lived to a 
 hundred and forty-four; and Jenkins to a hundred and sixty-five; yet 
 these men used no peculiar arts to prolong life ; on the contrary, it 
 nppears that these, as well as some others, remarkable for their Ion-
 
 23C A HISTORY OF 
 
 gevity, were peasants accustomed to the greatest fatigues, wno had nc 
 settled rules of diet, but who often indulged in accidental excesses. 
 Indeed, if we consider that the European, the Negro, the Chinese, 
 and the American, the civilized man and the savage, the rich and the 
 poor, the inhabitant of the city and of the country, though all so dif- 
 ferent in other respects, are yet entirely similar in the period allotted 
 them for living; if we consider that neither the difference of race, of 
 climate, of nourishment, of convenience, or of soil, makes any differ- 
 ence in the term of life; if we consider that those men who live 
 upon raw flesh or dried fishes, upon sago or rice, upon cassava or 
 upon roots, nevertheless live as long as those who are fed upon bread 
 and meat, we shall readily be brought to acknowledge, that the dura- 
 tion of life depends neither upon habit, customs, nor the quantity of 
 food ; we shall confess, that nothing can change the laws of that me- 
 chanism which regulates the number of our years, and which can 
 chiefly be affected only by long fasting or great excess. 
 
 If there be any difference in the different periods of man's existence, 
 it ought principally to be ascribed to the quality of the air. It has 
 been observed, that in elevated situations there have been found more 
 old people than in those that were low. The mountains of Scotland, 
 Wales, Auvergne, and Switzerland, have furnished more instances of 
 extreme old age, than the plains of Holland, Flanders, Germany, or 
 Poland. But, in general, the duration of life is nearly the same in 
 most countries. Man, if not cut off by accidental diseases, is often 
 found to live to ninety or a hundred years. Our ancestors did not 
 live beyond that date ; and, since the times of David, this term has 
 undergone little alteration. 
 
 If we be asked, how in the beginning men lived so much longer 
 than at present, and by what means their lives were extended to nine 
 hundred and thirty, or even nine hundred and sixty years; it may be 
 answered, that the productions of the earth, upon which they fed, 
 might be of a different nature at that time from what they are at pre- 
 sent. " It may be answered, that the term was abridged by Divine 
 command, in order to keep the earth from being overstocked with 
 human inhabitants; since, if every person were now to live and gene- 
 rate for nine hundred years, mankind would be increased to such a 
 degree, that there would be no room for subsistence: so that the plan 
 of Providence would be altered ; which is seen not to produce life, 
 without providing a proper supply." 
 
 But to whatever extent life may be prolonged, or however some 
 may have delayed the effects of age, death is the certain goal to which 
 all are hastening. All the causes of decay which have been men- 
 tioned, contribute to bring on this dreaded dissolution. However, 
 nature approaches to this awful period by slow and imperceptible de- 
 grees ; life is consuming day after day ; and some one of our faculties, 
 or vital principles, is every hour dying before the rest; so that death 
 is only the last shade in the picture; and it is probable that man suf- 
 fers a greater change in going from youth to age, than from age into 
 the grave. When we first begin to live, our lives may scarcely be 
 aid to be our own ; as the child grows, life increases in the same 
 proportion; and is at its height in the prime of manhood. But as noon
 
 ANIMALS. 23? 
 
 as the body begins to decrease, life decreases also ; for, as the human 
 frame diminishes, and its juices circulate in smaller quantity, life di- 
 minishes and circulates with less vigour; so that as we begin to live 
 by degrees, we begin to die in the same manner. 
 
 Why then should we fear death, if our lives have been such as not 
 to make eternity dreadful ? Why should we fear that moment, whici. 
 is prepared by a thousand other moments of the same kind ? the first 
 pangs of sickness being probably greater than the last struggles of de- 
 parture. Death, in most persons, is as calmly endured as the disor- 
 der that brings it on. If we inquire from those whose business it is 
 to attend the sick and the dying, we shall find that, except in a very 
 few acute cases, where the patient dies in agonies, the greatest num- 
 ber die quietly, and seemingly without pain : and even the agonies of 
 the former rather terrify the spectators than torment the patient ; for 
 how many have we not seen who have been accidentally relieved from 
 this extremity, and yet had no memory of what they then endured ? 
 In fact, they had ceased to live, during that time when they ceased to 
 have sensation ; and their pains were only those of which they had 
 an idea. 
 
 The greatest number of mankind die, therefore, without sensation ; 
 and of those few that still preserve their faculties entire to the last 
 moment, there is scarce one of them that does not also preserve the 
 hopes of still out-living his disorder. Nature, for the happiness of 
 man, has rendered this sentiment stronger than his reason. A person 
 dying of an incurable disorder, which he must know to be so, by fre- 
 quent examples of his case, which he perceives to be so, by the in- 
 quietude of all around him, by the tears of his friends, and the depar- 
 ture or the face of the physician, is, nevertheless, still in hopes of 
 getting over it. His interest is so great, that he only attends to his 
 own representations ; the judgment of others is considered as a hasty 
 conclusion, and while death every moment makes new inroads upon 
 his constitution, and destroys life in some part, hope still seems to 
 escape the universal ruin, and is the last that submits to the blow. 
 
 Cast your eyes upon a sick man, who has a hundred times told you 
 that he felt himself dying that he was convinced he could not reco- 
 ver, and that he was ready to expire ; examine what passes on his 
 visage, when, through zeal or indiscretion, any one comes to tell him 
 that his end is at hand. You will see him change, like one who is 
 told an unexpected piece of news. He now appears not to have 
 thoroughly believed what he had been telling you himself; he doubted 
 much, and his fears were greater than his hopes ; but he still had 
 some feeble expectations of living, and would not have seen the ap- 
 proaches of death, unless he had been alarmed by the mistaken assi- 
 duity of his attendants. 
 
 Death, therefore, is not that terrible thing which we suppose it to 
 be. It is a spectre which frights us at a distance, but which disappears 
 when we come to approach it more closely. Our ideas of its terrors 
 are conceived in prejudice, and dressed up by fancy : we regard it not 
 only as the greatest misfortune, but as also an evil accompanied with 
 the most excruciating tortures : we have even increased our appre- 
 hensions, by reasoning on the extent of our sufferings. "' It must be
 
 238 A HISTORY OF 
 
 dreadful," say some, " since it is sufficient to separate the soul from 
 the body ; it must be long, since our sufferings are proportioned to the 
 succession of our ideas; and these being painful, must succeed each 
 other with extreme rapidity." In this manner has false philosophy 
 laboured to augment the miseries of our nature; and to aggravate that 
 period, which Nature has kindly covered with insensibility. Neither 
 the mind nor the body can suffer these calamities ; the mind is at that 
 time mostly without ideas, and the body too much enfeebled, to be 
 capable of perceiving its pain. A very acute pain produces either 
 death, or fainting, which is a state similar to death : the body can suf- 
 fer but to a certain degree ; if the torture becomes excessive, it de- 
 stroys itself; and the mind ceases to perceive, when the body can no 
 longer endure. 
 
 In this manner excessive pain admits of no reflection ; and wherever 
 there are any signs of it, we may be sure that the sufferings of the 
 patient are no greater than what we ourselves may have remembered 
 to endure. 
 
 But, in the article of death, we have many instances in which the 
 dying person has shown that very reflection which presupposes an ab- 
 sence of the greatest pain, and consequently that pang which ends life, 
 cannot even be so great as those which have preceded. Thus, when 
 Charles XII. was shot at the siege of Frederickshaldt, he was seen to 
 clap his hand on the hilt of his sword ; and although the blow was 
 great enough to terminate one of the boldest and bravest lives in the 
 world, yet it was not painful enough to destroy reflection. He per 
 ceived himself attacked ; he reflected that he ought to defend himself, 
 and his body obeyed the impulse of his mind, even in the last extre- 
 mity. Thus it is the prejudice of persons in health, and not the body 
 in pain, that makes us suffer from the approach of death : we have all 
 our lives contracted a habit of making out excessive pleasures and 
 pains ; and nothing but repeated experience shows us how seldom the 
 one can be suffered, or the other enjoyed, to the utmost. 
 
 If there be any thing necessary to confirm what we have said con- 
 cerning the gradual cessation of life, or the insensible approaches of 
 our end, nothing can more effectually prove it, than the uncertainty of 
 the signs of death. If we consult what Winslow or Bruhier have said 
 upon this subject, we shall be convinced, that between life and death, 
 the shade is so very undislinguishable, that even all the powers of art 
 can scarcely determine where the one ends, and the other begins. 
 The colour of the visage, the warmth of the body, the suppleness of 
 the joints, are but uncertain signs of life still subsisting ; while, on the 
 contrary, the paleness of the complexion, the coldness of the body, 
 the stiffness of the extremities, the cessation of all motion, and the 
 total insensibility of the parts, are but uncertain marks of death be- 
 gun. In the same manner, also, with regard to the pulse and the 
 breathing, these motions are often so kept under, that it is impossible 
 to perceive them. By approaching a looking-glass to the mouth ol 
 the person supposed to be dead, people often expect to find whether 
 he breathes or not. But this is a very uncertain experiment ; the 
 glass is frequently sullied by the vapour of the dead man's body, and 
 >ften the person is still alive, although the glass is no way tarnisned In
 
 ANIMALS 239 
 
 the same manner, neither burning nor scarifying, neither noises in the 
 ears nor pungent spirits applied to the nostrils, give certain signs of 
 the discontinuance of life ; and there are many instances of persons 
 who have endured them all, and afterwards recovered without any 
 external assistance, to the astonishment of the spectators. How care- 
 ful, therefore, should we be, before we commit those who are dearest 
 to us to the grave, to be well assured of their departure : experience, 
 justice, humanity, all persuade us not to hasten the funerals of our 
 friends, but to keep their bodies unburied until we have certain signs 
 of their real decease- 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OP THE VARIETIES IN THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 Hitherto we have compared man with other animals ; we now come 
 to compare men with each other. We have hitherto considered him 
 as an individual, endowed with excellencies above the rest of the 
 creation ; we now come to consider the advantages which men have 
 over men, and the various kinds with which our earth is inhabited. 
 
 If we compare the minute differences of mankind, there is scarce 
 Dne nation upon the earth that entirely resembles another ; and there 
 may be said to be as many different kinds of men as there are coun- 
 tries inhabited. One polished nation does not differ more from another, 
 than the merest savages do from those savages that lie even contiguous 
 to them ; and it frequently happens that a river, or a mountain, di- 
 vides two barbarous tribes that are unlike each other in manners, 
 customs, features, and complexion. But these differences, however 
 perceivable, do not form such distinctions as come within a general 
 picture of the varieties of mankind. Custom, accident, or fashion, 
 may produce considerable alterations in neighbouring nations ; their 
 being derived from ancestors of a different climate, or complexion, 
 may contribute to make accidental distinctions, which every day grow 
 ess; and it may be said, that two neighbouring nations, how unlike 
 soever at first, will assimilate by degrees ; and, by long continuance, 
 the difference between them will at last become almost imperceptible. 
 It is not, therefore, between contiguous nations we are to look for 
 any strong marked varieties in the human species : it is by comparing 
 the inhabitants of opposite climates and distant countries ; those who 
 live within the polar circle with those beneath the equator ; those that 
 live on one side of the globe with those that occupy the other. 
 
 Of all animals, the differences between mankind are the smallest. 
 Of the lower races of creatures, the changes are so great as often en- 
 tirely to disguise the natural animal, and to distort, or to disfigure its 
 shape. But the chief differences in man are rather taken from the 
 tiii-ture of his skin than the variety of his figure ; and in all climates 
 he preserves his erect deportment, and the marked superiority of his 
 form. If we look round the world, there seems to be not abov-
 
 240 A HISTORY OF 
 
 six* distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly 
 marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. 
 But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows 
 their coming from different originals ; and the varieties of climate, of 
 nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change. 
 
 The first distinct race of men is found round the polar regions. 
 The Laplanders, the Esquimaux Indians, the Samoeid Tartars, the 
 inhahitants of Nova Zembla, the Borandians, the Greenlanders, and 
 the natives of Kamtschatka, may be considered as one peculiar race 
 of people, all greatly resembling each other in their stature, their com- 
 plexion, their customs, and their ignorance. These nations being 
 under a rigorous climate, where the productions of nature are but few, 
 and the provisions coarse and unwholesome, their bodies have shrunk 
 to the nature of their food ; and their complexions have suffered from 
 cold almost a similar change to what heat is known to produce ; 
 their colour being a deep brown, in some places inclining to actual 
 blackness. These, therefore, in general, are found to be a race of 
 short stature and odd shape, with countenances as savage as their 
 manners are barbarous. The visage, in these countries, is large and 
 broad, the nose flat and short, the eyes of a yellowish brown, inclining 
 to blackness, the eye-lids drawn towards the temples, the cheek-bones 
 extremely high, the mouth very large, the lips thick, and turned out- 
 wards, the voice thin and squeaking, the head large, the hair black 
 and straight, the colour of the skin of a dark grayish.t They are 
 short in stature, the generality not being above four feet high, and 
 the tallest not above five. Among all these nations the women are as 
 deformed as the men, and resemble them so nearly, that one cannot 
 at first distinguish the sexes among them. 
 
 These nations not only resemble each other in their deformity, their 
 dwarfishness, the colour of their hair and eyes, but they have, in~a 
 great measure, the same inclinations, and the same manners, being all 
 equally rude, superstitious, and stupid. The Danish Laplanders have 
 a large black cat, n which they communicate their secrets, and consult 
 in all their affairs. Among the Swedish Laplanders there is in every 
 family a drum for consulting the devil ; and although these nations 
 are robust and nimble, yet they are so cowardly that they never can 
 be brought into the field. Gustavus Adolphus attempted to form a 
 regiment of Laplanders, but he found it impossible to accomplish his 
 design ; for it should seem that they can live only in their own coun- 
 try, and in their own manner. They make use of skates, which are 
 made of fir, of near three feet long, and half a foot broad ; these are 
 pointed, and raised before, and tied to the foot by straps of leather. 
 With these they skate upon the icy snow with such velocity that they 
 very easily overtake the swiftest animals. They make use also of a 
 pole-, pointed with iron at one end, and rounded at the other. This 
 pole serves to push them along, to direct their course, to support them 
 from falling, to stop the impetuosity of their motion, and to kill that 
 
 * I have taken four of these varieties from Linnreus ; those of the Laplanders rd 
 Tartars, from Mr. Buffon. 
 
 * Krantz.
 
 ANIMALS. 241 
 
 game which they have overtaken. Upon these skates they descend 
 the steepest mountains, and scale the most craggy precipices ; and in 
 these exercises the women are not less skillful than the men. The) 
 have all the use of the bow and arrow, which seems to be a contri- 
 vance common to all barbarous nations ; and which, however, at fiist 
 required no small skill to invent. They launch a javelin also, .with 
 great force, and some say that they can hit a mark no larger than 
 a crown, at thirty yards distance, and with such force as would pierce 
 a man through. They are all hunters, and particularly pursue the 
 ermine, the fox, the ounce, and the martin, for the sake of their skins. 
 These they barter with their southern neighbours for brandy and to- 
 bacco ; both which they are fond of to excess. Their food is prin- 
 cipally dried fish, the flesh of rein-deer and bears. Their bread i* 
 composed of the bones of fishes, pounded and mixed with the inside 
 tender bark of the pine-tree. Their drink is train-oil, or brandy ; 
 and when deprived of these, water in which juniper berries have been 
 infused. With regard to their morals, they have all the virtues of 
 simplicity, and all the vices of ignorance. They offer their wives and 
 daughters to strangers, and seem to think it a particular honour if 
 their offer be accepted. They have no idea of religion, or a Supreme 
 Being ; the greatest number of them are idolaters ; and their super- 
 stition is as profound as their worship is contemptible. Wretched and 
 ignorant as they are, yet they do not want pride ; they set themselves 
 far above the rest of mankind ; and Krantz assures us, that when the 
 Greenlanders are got together, nothing is so customary among them 
 as to turn the Europeans into ridicule. They are obliged, indeed, to 
 yield them the pre-eminence in understanding and mechanic arts ; but 
 they do not know how to set any value upon these. They therefore 
 count themselves the only civilized and well-bred people in the world ; 
 and it is common with them, when they see a quiet, or a modest stran- 
 ger, to say that he is almost as well-bred as a Greenlander. 
 
 From this description, therefore, this whole race of people may be 
 considered as distinct from any other. Their long continuance in a 
 climate the most inhospitable, their being obliged to subsist on food 
 the most coarse and ill prepared, the savageness of their manners, and 
 their laborious lives, all have contributed to shorten their stature, and 
 to deform their bodies.* In proportion as we approach towards the 
 north pole, the size of the natives appears to diminish, growing less 
 and less as we advance higher, till we come to those latitudes that aie 
 destitute of all inhabitants whatsoever. 
 
 The wretched natives of these climates seem fitted by Nature to 
 endure the rigours of their situation. As their food is but scanty and 
 precarious, their patience in hunger is amazing.t A man who has 
 eaten nothing for four days, can manage his little canoe in the most 
 furious waves, and calmly subsist in the midst of a tempest that would 
 quickly dash an Eurvpjean boat to pieces. Their strength is net less 
 amazing than their patience ; a woman among them will carry a piece 
 of timber, or a stone, near double the weight of what an European 
 can lift. Their bodies are of a dark gray all over ; and their faces 
 
 * Ellis's Voyage, p. 256. f Krantz, p. 134 voL .. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 A HISTORY OF 
 
 brown, or olive. The tincture of their skins partly seems to arise 
 from their dirty manner of living, being generally daubed with train- 
 oil ; and partly from the rigours of climate, as the sudden alterations 
 of cold and raw air in winter, and of burning heats in summer, shade 
 their complexions by degrees, till, in a succession of generations, they 
 at last become almost black. As the countries in which these reside 
 are the most barren, so the natives seem the most barbarous of any 
 part of the earth. Their more southern neighbours of America treat 
 them with the same scorn that a polished nation would treat a savage 
 one ; and we may readily judge of the rudeness of those manners, which 
 even a native of Canada can think more barbarous than his own. 
 
 But the gradations of nature are imperceptible ; and while the north 
 is peopled with such miserable inhabitants, there are here and there 
 to be found upon the edges of these regions, people of larger stature, 
 and completer figure. A whole race of dwarfish breed is often found 
 to come down from the north, and settle more to the southward ; and 
 on the contrary it sometimes happens that southern nations are seen 
 higher up, in the midst of these diminutive tribes, where they have 
 continued for time immemorial. Thus the Ostiac Tartars seem to be 
 a race that have travelled down from the north, and to be originally 
 sprung from the minute savages we have been describing. There are\ 
 also Norwegians and Finlauders, of proper stature, who are seen to 
 inhabit in latitudes higher even than Lapland. These, however, are 
 but accidental migrations, and serve as shades to unite the distinct 
 varieties of mankind. 
 
 The second great variety in the human species seems to be that of 
 the Tartar race ; from whence, probably, the little men we have been 
 describing originally proceeded. The Tartar country, taken in gene- 
 ral, comprehends the greatest part of Asia ; and is consequently a 
 general name given to a number of nations of various forms and com- 
 plexions. But however they seem to differ from each other, they 
 agree in being very unlike the people of any other country. All these 
 nations have the upper part of the visage very broad, and wrinkled 
 even while yet in their youth. Their noses are short and flat ; their 
 eyes little and sunk in their heads ; and in some of them they are seen 
 five or six inches asunder. Their cheek-bones are high, the lower 
 part of their visage narrow, the chin long and advanced forward, their 
 teeth of an enormous size, and growing separate from each other ; 
 their eye-brows thick, large, and covering their eyes ; their eye- 
 lids thick, the face broad and flat, the complexion olive-coloured, 
 and the hair black. They are of a middle size, extremely strong, 
 and very robust. They have but little beard, which grows strag- 
 lingly on the chin. They have large thighs, and short legs. The 
 ugliest of all are the Calmucks, in whose appearance there seems to 
 be something frightful. They all lead an erratic life, remaining under 
 tents of hair, or skins. They live upon horse flesh and that of camels, 
 either raw or a little sodden between the horse and the saddle. They 
 eat also flesh dried in the sun. Their most usual drink is mare's milk, 
 fermented with millet ground into meal. They all have the head 
 shaven, except a lock of hair on the top, which they let grow suf- 
 ficiently long to form into tresses on each side of tlie face. The *
 
 ANIMALS. 243 
 
 men, who are as ugly as the men, wear their hair, which they bind 
 up with bits of copper and other ornaments of a like nature. The 
 majority of these nations have no religion, no settled notions of mo- 
 rality, no decency of behaviour. They are chiefly robbers : and the 
 natives of Dagestan, who live near their more polished neighbours, 
 make a traffic of Tartar slaves who have been stolen, and sell them to 
 the Turks and the Persians. Their chief riches consist in horses, of 
 which perhaps there are more in Tartary than in any other part of the 
 world. The natives are taught by custom to live in .the same place 
 with their horses : they are continually employed in managing them, 
 and at last bring them to such great obedience that the horse seems 
 actually to understand the rider's intention. 
 
 To this race of men also, we must refer the Chinese and the Ja- 
 panese, however different they seem in their manners and ceremonies. 
 It is the form of the body that we are now principally considering ; 
 and there is between these countries a surprising resemblance. It is 
 in general allowed that the Chinese have broad faces, small eyes, 
 flat noses, and scarce any beard ; that they are broad and square 
 shouldered, and rather less in stature than Europeans. These are 
 marks common to them and the Tartars, and they may therefore be 
 considered as being derived from the same original. " I have ob- 
 served," says Chardin, " that in all the people from the east and the 
 north of the Caspian sea, to the peninsula of Malacca, that the lines 
 of the face, and the formation of the visage is the same. This has 
 induced me to believe that all these nations are derived from the same 
 original, however different either their complexions or their man- 
 ners may appear : for as to the complexion, that proceeds entirely 
 from the climate and the food ; and as to the manners, these are gene- 
 rally the result of their different degrees of wealth or power." That 
 they come from one stock, is evident also from this, that the Tartars 
 who settle in China, quickly resemble the Chinese ; and, on the con- 
 trary, the Chinese who settle in Tartary, soon assume the figure and 
 the manners of the Tartars. 
 
 The Japanese so much resemble the Chinese, that one cannot hesi- 
 tate to rank them in the same class. They only differ in being rather 
 browner, as they inhabit a more southern climate. They are, in 
 genera], described as of a brown complexion, a short stature, a broad 
 flat face, a very little beard, and black hair. Their customs and cere- 
 monies are nearly the same ; their ideas of beauty similar ; and their 
 artiticial deformities of blackening the teeth, and bandaging the feet, 
 entirely alike in both countries. They both, therefore, proceed from 
 the same stock ; and although they differ very much from their brutal 
 progenitors, yet they owe their civilization wholly to the mildness of 
 the climate in which they reside, and to the peculiar fertility of the 
 soil. To this tribe also, we may refer the Cochin Chinese, the Sia- 
 mese, the Tonquinese, and the inhabitants of Arracan, Laos, and Pegu, 
 who, though all differing from the Chinese, and each other, neverthe- 
 ess, have too strong a resemblance, not to betray their common 
 original. 
 
 Another, which makes the third variety in the human species, is 
 that of the southern Asiatics; the form of whose features and per
 
 244 A HISTORY OF 
 
 tons may be easily distinguished from those of the Tartar races. Tlw 
 nations that inhabit the peninsula of India, seem to be the principal 
 stock from whence the inhabitants of the islands that lie scattered in 
 the Indian ocean have been peopled. They are, in general, of a 
 slender shape, with long straight black hair, and often with Roman 
 noses. Thus they resemble the Europeans in stature and features ; 
 but greatly differ in colour and habit of body. The Indians are of an 
 olive colour, and in the more southern parts, quite black ; although 
 the word Mogul, in their language, signifies a white man. The women 
 are extremely delicate, and bathe very often : they are of an olive 
 colour, as well as the men : their legs and thighs are long, and their 
 bodies short, which is the opposite to what is seen among the women 
 of Europe. They are, as I am assured, by no means so fruitful as 
 the European women ; but they feel the pains of child-birth with 
 much less sensibility, and are generally up and well the day following. 
 In fact, these pains seem greatest in all countries where the women 
 are most delicate, or the constitution enfeebled by luxury or indolence. 
 The women of savage nations seem, in a great measure, exempt from 
 painful labours ; and even the hard-working wives of the peasants 
 among ourselves, have this advantage from a life of industry, that their 
 child-bearing is less painful. Over all India, the children arrive sooner 
 at maturity, than with us of Europe. They often marry, and consum- 
 mate, the husband at ten years old, and the wife at eight ; and they 
 frequently have children at that age. However, the women who are 
 mothers so soon, cease bearing before they are arrived at thirty ; and 
 at that time, they appear wrinkled, and seem marked with all the de- 
 formities of age. The Indians have long been remarkable for their 
 cowardice and effeminacy ; every conqueror, that has attempted the 
 invasion of their country, having succeeded. The warmth of the 
 climate entirely influences their manners ; they are slothful, submis- 
 sive, and luxurious ; satisfied with sensual happiness alone, they find 
 no pleasure in thinking ; and contented with slavery, they are ready 
 to obey any master. Many tribes among them eat nothing that has 
 life ; they are fearful of killing the meanest insect ; and have even 
 erected hospitals for the maintenance of all kinds of vermin. The 
 Asiatic dress is a loose flowing garment, rather fitted for the purposes 
 of peace and indolence, than of industry or war. The vigour of the 
 Asiatics is in general conformable to their dress and nourishment ; 
 fed upon rice, and clothed in effeminate silk vestments, their soldiers 
 are unable to oppose the onset of an European army, and from the 
 times of Alexander to the present day, we have scarce any instances 
 of their success in arms. Upon the whole, therefore, they may be 
 considered as a feeble race of sensualists, too dull to find rapture in 
 any pleasures, and too indolent to turn their gravity into wisdom. To 
 this class we may refer the Persians and the Arabians, and in general 
 the inhabitants of the islands that lie scattered in the Indian ocean. 
 
 The fourth striking variety in the human species, is to be found 
 among the negroes of Africa. This gloomy race of mankind is found 
 to blacken all the southern parts of Africa, from eighteen degrees 
 north of the line, to its extreme termination at the Cape of Good 
 Hope I ki-ow ; t is said, that the Cadres, who inhabit the southern
 
 ANIMALS. 245 
 
 extremity of that large continent, are not to be ranked among the 
 negro race : however, the difference between them, in point of co- 
 lour and features, is so small, that they may very easily be grouped 
 in this general picture ; and in the one or two that I have seen, I 
 could not per:eive the smallest difference. Each of the negro na- 
 tions, it must be owned, differ from each other ; they have their 
 peculiar countries, for beauty, like us ; and different nations, as \n 
 Europe, pride themselves upon the regularity of their features. 
 Those of Guinea, for instance, are extremely ugly, and have an 
 insupportable scent ; those of Mosambique are reckoned beautiful, 
 and have no ill smell whatsoever. The negroes, in general, are of 
 a black colour, with a smooth soft skin. This smoothness pro- 
 ceeds from the downy softness of the hair which grows upon it ; 
 the strength of which gives a roughness to the feel, in those of a 
 white complexion. Their skins, therefore, have a velvet smooth- 
 ness, and seem less braced upon the muscles than ours. The hair of 
 their heads differs entirely from what we are accustomed to, being 
 soft, woolly, and short. The beard also partakes of the same qua- 
 lities ; but in this it differs, that it soon turns gray, which the hair is 
 seldom found to do ; so that several are seen with white beards, and 
 black hair, at the same time. Their eyes are generally of a deep 
 hazel ; their noses flat and short ; their lips thick and tumid ; and 
 their teeth of an ivory whiteness. This their only beauty, how- 
 ever, is set off by the colour of their skin ; the contrast between the 
 black and white being the more observable. It is false to say that 
 their features are deformed by art ; since, in the negro children born 
 in European countries, the same deformities are seen to prevail ; the 
 same flatness in the nose ; and the same prominence in the lips. They 
 are, in general, said to be well shaped ; but of such as I have seen, 
 I never found one that might be justly called so ; their legs being 
 mostly ill formed, and commonly bending outward on the shin-bone. 
 But it is not only in those parts of their bodies that are obvious, that they 
 are disproportioned ; those parts which among us are usually con- 
 cealed by dress, with them are large and languid.* The women's 
 breasts, after bearing one child, hang down below the navel; and it 
 is customary with them to suckle the child at their backs, by throw- 
 ing the breast over the shoulder. As their persons are thus na- 
 turally deformed, at least to our imaginations, their minds are equally 
 incapable of strong exertions. The climate seems to relax their men- 
 tal powers still more than those of the body ; they are, therefore, in 
 general, found to be stupid, indolent, and mischievous. The Ara- 
 bians themselves, many colonies of whom have migrated southward 
 into the most inland parts of Africa, seem to have degenerated from 
 their ancestors ; forgetting their ancient learning, and losing their 
 beauty, they have become a race scarcely any way distinguishable' 
 from the original natives. Nor does it seem to have fared otherwise 
 with the Portuguese, who, about two centuries ago, settled along this 
 
 Linnaeus, in prima linea sua, faeminas Africanas dej-ingit sicut aliquid deforme in 
 parte genitali gestantes, quod sinum pudoris nuncupat. Attamen nihil differunt a nostra 
 ibus in hac parte nisi quod labia pudendae sint aliquantuluin tumidiora. In hominibuf 
 etiam penis est longioi et in til to laxior.
 
 246 A HISTORY OF 
 
 coast. They Iso are become almost as black as the negroes, and are 
 aid by some to be even more barbarous. 
 
 The inhabitants of America make a fifth race, as different from all 
 the rest in colour, as they are distinct in habitation. The natives of 
 America (except in the northern extremity, where they resemble the 
 Laplanders) are of a red or copper colour ; and although, in the old 
 world, different climates produce a variety of complexions and cus- 
 toms, the natives of the new continent seem to resemble each other 
 in almost every respect. They are all nearly of one colour ; all have 
 black thick straight hair, and thin black beards ; which, however, 
 they take care to pluck out by the roots. They have, in general, flat 
 noses, with high cheek-bones, and small eyes, and these deformities 
 of nature they endeavour to increase by art : they flatten the nose, 
 and often the whole head of their children, while the bones are yet 
 susceptible of every impression. They paint the body and face of 
 various colours, and consider the hair upon any part of it, except the 
 head, as a deformity, which they are careful to eradicate. Their 
 limbs are generally slighter made than those of the Europeans ; and I 
 am assured, they are far from being so strong. All these savages seem 
 to be cowardly ; they seldom are known to face their enemies in the 
 field, but fall upon them at an advantage ; and the greatness of their 
 fears serves to increase the rigours of their cruelty. The wants 
 which they often sustain, make them surprisingly patient in adver- 
 sity : distress, by being grown familiar, becomes less terrible ; so that 
 their patience is less the result of fortitude than of custom. They 
 have all a serious air, although they seldom think ; and, however 
 cruel to their enemies, are kind and just to each other. In short, the 
 customs of savage nations in every country are almost the same ; a 
 wild, independent, and precarious life, produces a peculiar train of 
 virtues and vices, and patience and hospitality, indolence and rapa- 
 city, content and sincerity, are found not less among the natives of 
 America, than all the barbarous nations of the globe. 
 
 The sixth and last variety of the human species, is that of the 
 Europeans, and the nations bordering on them. In this class we may 
 reckon the Georgians, Circassians, and Mingrelians, the inhabitants 
 of Asia Minor, and the northern parts of Africa, together with a 
 part of those countries which lie north-west of the Caspian sea. The 
 inhabitants of these countries differ a good deal from each other ; 
 but they generally agree in the colour of their bodies, the beauty of 
 their complexions, the largeness of their limbs, and the vigour of 
 their understandings. Those arts which might have had their in- 
 vention among the other races of mankind, have come to perfection 
 there. In barbarous countries, the inhabitants go either naked, or 
 are awkwardly clothed in furs or feathers; in countries semi-barbarous, 
 the robes are loose and flowing ; but here the clothing is less made 
 for show than expedition, and unites, as much as possible, the extremes 
 of ornament and despatch. 
 
 To one or other of these classes we may refer the people of every 
 country : and as each nation has been less visited by strangers, or has 
 had less commerce with the rest of mankind, we find their persons 
 and their manners more strongly impressed with one or other of the
 
 ANIMALS. 247 
 
 cnaracters mentioned above. On the contrary, in those places where 
 trade has long flourished, or where enemies have made many incur- 
 sions, the races are usually found blended, and properly fall beneatt 
 no one character. Thus, in the islands of the Indian ocean, where a 
 trade has been carried on for time immemorial, the inhabitants appear 
 to be a mixture of all the nations upon the earth ; white, olive, brown, 
 and black men, are all seen living together in the same city, and pro- 
 pagate a mixed breed, that can be referred to none of the classes into 
 which naturalists have thought proper to divide mankind. 
 
 Of all the colours by which mankind is diversified, it is easy to 
 perceive that ours is not only the most beautiful to the eye, but the 
 most advantageous. The fair complexion seems, if I may so express 
 it, as a transparent covering to the soul ; all the variations of the pas- 
 sions, every expression of joy or sorrow, flows to the cheek, and, with- 
 out language, marks the mind. In the slightest change of health also, 
 the colour of the European face is the most exact index, and often 
 teaches us to prevent those disorders that we do not as yet perceive : 
 not but the African black, and the Asiatic olive complexions, admit 
 of their alterations also ; but these are neither so distinct, nor so visi- 
 ble as with us : and, in some countries, the colour of the visage is never 
 found to change ; but the face continues in the same settled shade in 
 shame and in sickness, in anger and despair. 
 
 The colour, therefore, most natural to man, ought to be that which 
 is most becoming ; and it is found that in all regions, the children are 
 born fair, or at least red, and that they grow more black or tawny, as 
 they advance in age. It should seem, consequently, that man is natu- 
 rally white, since the same causes that darken the complexion in in- 
 fants, may have originally operated, in slower degrees, in blackening 
 whole nations. We could, therefore readily account for the blackness 
 of different nations, did we not see the Americans, who live under 
 the line, as well as the natives of Negroland, of a red colour, and but 
 a very small shade darker than the natives of the northern latitudes, 
 in the same continent. For this reason some have sought for other 
 causes of blackness than the climate ; and have endeavoured to prove 
 that the blacks are a race of people, bred from one man, who was 
 marked with accidental blackness. This, however, is but mere un- 
 grounded conjecture : and, although the Americans are not so dark as 
 the negroes, yet we must still continue in the ancient opinion, that the 
 deepness of the colour proceeds from the excessive heat of the climate. 
 For, if we compare the heats of Africa with those of America, we 
 shall find they bear no proportion to each other. In America, all that 
 part of the continent which lies under the line, is cool and pleasant, 
 either shaded by mountains, or refreshed by breezes from the sc-a. 
 But in Africa, the wide tract of country that lies under the line is very 
 extensive, and the soil sandy ; the reflection of the sun, therefore, from 
 so large a surface of earth, is almost intolerable ; and it is not to b'e 
 wondered* at, that the inhabitants should bear, in their looks, the 
 marks of the inhospitable climate. In America, the country is but 
 thinly inhabited ; and the more torrid tracts are generally left desert 
 by the inhabitants ; for which reason they are not so deeply tinged by 
 the beams of the sun. But in Africa the whole face of the 'country is
 
 248 A HISTORY OF 
 
 fully peopled, and the natives are obliged to endure their situation 
 without a power of migration. It is there, consequently, that they 
 are in a manner tied down to feel all the severity of the heat ; and their 
 complexions take the darkest hue they are capable of receiving. We 
 need not, therefore, have recourse to any imaginary propagation, from 
 persons accidentally black, since the climate is a cause obvious and 
 sufficient to produce the effect. 
 
 In fact, if we examine the complexion of different countries, we 
 shall find them darken in proportion to the heat of their climate, and 
 the shades gradually to deepen as they approach the line. Some na- 
 tions, indeed, may be found not so much tinged by the sun as others, 
 although they lie nearer the line. But this ever proceeds from some 
 accidental causes ; either from the country lying higher, and conse- 
 quently being colder ; or from the natives bathing oftener, and leading 
 a more civilized life. In general, it may be asserted, that as we ap- 
 proach the line, we find the inhabitants of each country grow browner, 
 until the colour deepens into perfect blackness. Thus, taking our 
 standard from the whitest race of people, and beginning with our own 
 country, which I believe bids fairest for the pre-eminence, we shall 
 find the French, who are more southern, a slight shade deeper than 
 we ; going farther down, the Spaniards are browner than the French ; 
 the inhabitants of Fez darker than they ; and the natives of Negro- 
 land the darkest of all. In what manner the sun produces this effect, 
 and how the same luminary which whitens wax and linen, should 
 darken the human complexion, is not easy to conceive. Sir Thomas 
 Brown first supposed that a mucous substance, which had something 
 of a vitriolic quality, settled under the reticular membrane, and grew 
 darker with heat. Others have supposed that the blackness lay in the 
 epidermis, or scarf-skin, which was burnt up like leather. But nothing 
 has been satisfactorily discovered upon the subject ; it is sufficient 
 that we are assured of the fact ; and that we have no doubt of the 
 sun's .tinging the complexion in proportion to its vicinity. 
 
 But we are not to suppose that the sun is the only cause of dark- 
 ening the skin ; the wind, extreme cold, hard labour, or coarse and 
 sparing nourishment, are all found to contribute to this effect. We 
 find the peasants of every country, who are most exposed to the wea- 
 ther, a shade darker than the higher ranks of people. The savage 
 inhabitants of all places are exposed still more, and therefore contract 
 a still deeper hue, and this will account for the tawny colour of the 
 North American Indians. Although they live in a climate the same, 
 or even more northerly than ours, yet they are found to be of com- 
 plexions very different from those of Europe. But it must be con- 
 sidered that they live continually exposed to the sun ; that they uso 
 many methods to darken theii skins by art, painting them with red 
 ochre, and anointing them with the fat of bears. Had they taken, 
 for a succession of several generations, the same precautions to brighten 
 their colour that an European does, it is very probable that they would 
 '.n time come to have similar complexions, and perhaps dispute the 
 prize of beauty. 
 
 The extremity of cold is not less productive of a tavny complexion 
 than that of heat. The natives of the arctic circle, as was ohsem-rf,
 
 ANIMALS. 24P 
 
 are all brown ; and those that lie most to the north are almost entirety 
 black. In this manner both extremes are unfavourable to the human 
 form and colour, and the same effects are produced under the poles 
 that are found at the line. 
 
 With regard to the stature of different countries, that seems chiefly 
 to result from the nature of the food, and the quantity of the supply. 
 Not but that the severity of heat or cold may in some measure diminish 
 the growth, and produce a dwarfishness of make. But in general the 
 food is the great agent in producing this effect; where that is supplied 
 in large quantities, and where its quality is wholesome and nutrimental, 
 the inhabitants are generally seen above the ordinary stature. On 
 the contrary, where it is afforded in a sparing quantity, or very coarse, 
 and void of nourishment in its kind, the inhabitants degenerate, and 
 sink below the ordinary size of mankind. In this respect they resem- 
 ble other animals, whose bodies, by proper feeding, may be greatly 
 augmented. An ox, on the fertile plains of India, grows to a size four 
 times as large as the diminutive animal of the same kind bred in the 
 Alps. The horses bred in the plains are larger than those of the 
 mountain. So it is with man : the inhabitants of the valley are usually 
 found taller than those of the hill : the natives of the Highlands of 
 Scotland, for instance, are short, broad, and hardy ; those of the Low- 
 lands are tall and shapely. The inhabitants of Greenland, who live 
 upon dried fish and seals, are less than those of Gambia or Senegal, 
 where nature supplies them with vegetable and animal abundance. 
 
 The form of the face seems rather to be the result of custom. Na- 
 tions who have long considered some artificial deformity as beautiful, 
 who have industriously lessened the feet, or flattened the nose, by de- 
 grees begin to receive the impression they are taught to assume ; and 
 nature, in a course of ages, shapes itself to the constraint, and as- 
 sumes hereditary deformity. We find nothing more common in births, 
 than for children to inherit sometimes even the accidental deformities 
 of their parents. We have many instances of squinting in the father, 
 which he received from fright, or habit, communicated to the off- 
 spring ; and I myself have seen a child distinctly marked with a scar, 
 similar to one the father had received in battle. In this manner, ac- 
 cidental deformities may become natural ones ; and by assiduity may 
 be continued, and even increased, through successive generations. 
 From this, therefore, may have arisen the small eyes and long ears of 
 the Tartar and Chinese nations. From hence originally may have 
 come the flat noses of the blacks, and the flat heads of the American 
 Indians. 
 
 In this slight survey, therefore, I think we may see that all the va- 
 riations in the human figure, as far as they differ from our own, are 
 produced either by the rigour of the climate, the bad quality, or the 
 scantiness of the provisions, or by the savage customs of the country. 
 They are actual marks of the degeneracy in the human form ; and 
 we may consider the European figure and colour as standards to which 
 to refer all other varieties, and with which to compare them. In pro- 
 portion as the Tartar or American approaches nearer to European 
 beauty, we consider the race as less degenerated ; in proportion -is he
 
 ?3C A HISTORY OF 
 
 differs mois widely, he has made gi eater deviations from his original 
 form. 
 
 That we have all sprung from one common parent, we are taught, 
 both by reason and religion, to believe ; and we have good reason also 
 to think that the Europeans resemble him more than any of the rest of 
 his children. However, it must not be concealed that the olive-colour- 
 ed Asiatic, and even the jet-black negro, claim this honour of here 
 ditary resemblance ; and assert, that white men are mere deviations 
 from original perfection. Odd as this opinion may seem, they have 
 Linnaeus, the celebrated naturalist, on their side, who supposes man a 
 native of the tropical climates, and only a sojourner more to the 
 north. But, not to enter into a controversy upon a matter of a very 
 remote speculation, I think one argument alone will suffice to prove 
 the contrary, and show that the white man is the original source from 
 whence the other varieties have sprung. We have frequently seen 
 white children produced from black parents, but have never seen a 
 black offspring the production of two whites. From hence we may 
 conclude, that whiteness is the colour to which mankind naturally 
 tends : for, as in the tulip, the parent stock is known by all the arti- 
 ficial varieties breaking into it ; so in man, that colour must be origi- 
 nal which never alters, and to which all the frest are accidentally seen 
 to change. I have seen in London, at different times, two white ne- 
 groes, the issue of black parents, that served to convince me of the 
 truth of this theory. I had before been taught to believe that the 
 whiteness of the negro's skin was a disease, a kind of milky whiteness, 
 that might be called rather a leprous crust than a natural complexion. 
 I was taught to suppose, that the numberless white negroes,- found in 
 various parts of Africa, the white men that go by the name of Chac- 
 relas, in the East-Indies, and the white Americans, near the Isthmus 
 of Darien, in the West-Indies, were all as so many diseased persons, 
 and even more deformed than the blackest of the natives. But, upon 
 examining that negro which was last shown in London, I found the 
 colour to be exactly like that of an European ; the visage white 
 and ruddy, and the lips of the proper redness. However, there 
 were sufficient marks to convince me of its descent. The hair was 
 white and woolly, and very unlike any thing I had seen before. The 
 iris of the eye was yellow, inclining to red ; the nose was flat, exactly 
 resembling that of a negro ; and the lips thick and prominent. No 
 doubt, therefore, remained of the child's having been born of negro 
 parents : and the person who showed it had attestations to convince 
 the most incredulous. From this, then, we see that the variations of 
 the negro colour is into whiteness, whereas the white are never found 
 to have a race of negro children. Upon the whole, therefore, all those 
 changes which the African, the Asiatic, or the American, undergo, 
 are but accidental deformities, which a kinder climate, better nourish- 
 ment, or more civilized manners, would, in a course of centuries, ver/ 
 probabl" remove.
 
 ANIMALS. 2J>1 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF MONSTERS. 
 
 HITHERTO I have only spoken of those varieties in the human spe- 
 cies, that are common to whole nations ; but there are varieties of 
 another kind, which are only found in the individual ; and being more 
 rarely seen, are therefore called monstrous. If we examine into the 
 varieties of distorted nature, there is scarcely a limb of the body, or 
 a feature in the face, that has not suffered some reprobation, either 
 from art or nature ; being enlarged or diminished, lengthened or 
 wrested from its due proportion. Linnreus, after having given a cata 
 logue of monsters, particularly adds, the flat heads of Canada, the 
 long heads of the Chinese, and the slender waists of the women ot 
 Europe, who by straight lacing take such pains to destroy their health, 
 through a mistaken desire to improve their beauty.* It belongs more 
 to the physician than the naturalist to attend to these minute defor- 
 mities ; and indeed it is a melancholy contemplation to speculate upon 
 a catalogue of calamities, inflicted by unpitying nature, or brought 
 upon us by our own caprice. Some, however, are fond of such ac- 
 counts ; and there have been books filled with nothing eise. To these, 
 therefore, I refer the reader, who may be better pleased with accounts 
 of men with two heads, or without any head ; of children joined in the 
 middle ; of bones turned into flesh, or flesh converted into bones, than 
 I am.t It is sufficient here to observe, that every day's experience 
 must have shown us miserable instances of this kind produced by na- 
 ture or affection : calamities that no pity can soften, or assiduity re- 
 lieve. 
 
 Passing over, therefore, every other account, I shall only mention 
 the famous instance, quoted by Father Malbranche, upon which he 
 founds his beautiful theory of monstrous productions. A woman of 
 Paris, the wife of a tradesman, went to see a criminal broke alive 
 upon the wheel, at the place of public execution. She was at that 
 time two months advanced in her pregnancy, and no way subject to 
 any disorders to affect the child in her womb. She was, however, of 
 a tender habit of body ; and, though led by curiosity to this horrid 
 spectacle, very easily moved to pity and compassion. She felt, there- 
 fore, all those strong emotions which so terrible a sight must naturally 
 
 * Linnir.i Syst vol. i. p. 29. Monorchides ut minus fertiles. 
 
 f Vide Phil. Trans, passim. Miscellan. Curioss. Johan. Baptist. Wenck. Dissertatio 
 Physica an ex virilis husnani seminis cum brutali per nefarium coitum commixtione aiT. 
 vicissim ex hruti maris cum muliebri huinauo seminis commixtione possit verus homo 
 generari. Vide etiam, Johnston! Thaumatographia Naturalis. Vide Adalbert} Disqui 
 sitio Physica ostenti duorum puerorum unus quorum dente aureo, alter cum capite gi 
 ganteo Bihue spectabantur. A man without lungs and stomach, Journal de Scavans, 
 1682, p. 301 ; another without any brain. Andreas Caroli Memorabilia, p. 167 an. 
 1876 ; another without ar.y head. Giornale di Roma, anno 1675, p. 26 ; another witnoiit 
 Any arms. New Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv. p. 446. In short, the variety of these au- 
 counts is almost infinite ; and, perhaps, their use is as much circumscribed as their v 
 tiety is extensive.
 
 252 A HISTORY OF 
 
 inspire ; shuddered at every blow the criminal received, and almost 
 swooned at his cries. Upon returning from this scene of blood, she 
 continued for some days pensive, and her imagination still wrought 
 upon the spectacle she hud lately seen. After some time, however, 
 she seemed perfectly recovered from her fright, and had almost for- 
 gotten her former uneasiness. When the time of her delivery ap- 
 proacned, she seemed no ways mindful of her former terrors, nor were 
 her pains in labour more than usual in such circumstances. But what 
 was the amazement of her friends and assistants when the child came 
 into the world ! It was found that every limb in its body was broken 
 like those of the malefactor, and just in the same place. This poor 
 infant had suffered the pains of life, even before its coming into the 
 world: it did not die, but lived in a hospital in Paris for twenty years 
 after, a wretched instance of the supposed powers of imagination in 
 the mother, of altering and distorting the infant in the womb. The 
 manner in which Malbranche reasons upon this fact, is as follows : 
 the Creator has established such a sympathy between the several parts 
 of nature, that we are led not only to imitate each other, but also to 
 partake in the same affections and desires. The animal spirits are 
 thus carried to the respective parts of the body, to perform the same 
 actions which we see others perform, to receive in some measure their 
 wounds, and take part in their sufferings. Experience tells us, that 
 if we look attentively on any person, severely beaten, or sorely 
 wounded, the spirits immediately flow into those parts of the body, 
 which correspond to those we see in pain. The more delicate the 
 constitution, the more it is thus affected ; the spirits making a stronger 
 impression on the fibres of a weakly habit than of a robust one. Strong 
 vigorous men see an execution without much concern, while women 
 of nicer texture are struck with horror and concern. This sensibility 
 in them must, of consequence, be communicated to all parts of their 
 body ; and, as the fibres of the child in the womb are incomparably 
 finer than those of the mother, the course of the animal spirits must 
 consequently produce greater alterations. Hence, every stroke given 
 to the criminal, forcibly struck the imagination of the woman ; and, 
 by a kind of counter-stroke, the delicate tender frame of the child. 
 
 Such is the reasoning of an ingenious man upon a fact, the veracity 
 of which many since have called in question.* They have allowed, 
 indeed, that such a child might have been produced, but have denied 
 the cause of its deformity. " How could the imagination of the mo- 
 ther," say they, " produce such dreadful effects upon her child ? She 
 has no communication with the infant; she scarcely touches it in any 
 part ; quite unaffected with her concerns, it sleeps in security, in a 
 mariner secluded by a fluid in which it swims, from her that bears it 
 With what a variety of deformities," say they, " would all mankind 
 be marked, if all the vain and capricious desires of the mother were 
 thus readily written upon the body of" the child?" Yet, notwith- 
 standing this plausible way of reasoning, I cannot avoid giving some 
 credit to the variety of instances I have either read or seen upru this 
 subject If it be a prejudice, it is as old as the days of Aristotle, >d 
 
 * Buffon. vol. iv. j>.
 
 ANIMALS. 25S 
 
 to this day, as strongly believed by the generality of mankind as 
 ever. It does not admit of a reason ; and, indeed, I can give none, 
 oven why the child should, in any respect, resemble the father or tht 
 mother. The fact we generally find to be so. But why it should 
 take the particular print of the father's features in the womb, is as 
 bard to conceive, as why it should be affected by the mother's imagi- 
 nation. We all know what a strong effect the imagination has on 
 those parts in particular, without being able to assign a cause how this 
 effect is produced ; and why the imagination may not produce the 
 same effect in marking the child that it does in forming it, I see no 
 reason. Those persons whose employment it is to rear up pigeons 
 of different colours, can breed them, as their expression is, to a feather. 
 In fact, by properly pairing them, they can give what colour they will 
 to any feather in any part of the body. Were we to reason upon this 
 fact, what could we say ? Might it not be asserted, that the egg, be- 
 ing distinct from the body of the female, cannot be influenced by it? 
 Might it not be plausibly said, that there is no similitude between any 
 part of the egg and any particular feather, which we expect to pro- 
 pagate ; and yet for all this, the fact is known to be true, and what 
 no speculation can invalidate. In the same manner, a thousand vari- 
 ous instances assure us, that the child in the womb is sometimes 
 marked by the strong affections of the mother ; how this is performed 
 we know not ; we only see the effect, without any connexion between 
 it and the cause. The best physicians have allowed it, and have been 
 satisfied to submit to the experience of a number of ages ; but many 
 disbelieve it because they expect a reason for every effect. This, 
 however, is very hard to be given, while it is very easy to appear wise 
 by pretending incredulity. 
 
 Among the number of monsters, dwarfs and giants are usually 
 reckoned ; though not, perhaps, with the strictest propriety, since they 
 are no way different from the rest of mankind, except in stature. It 
 is a dispute, however, about words, and therefore scarcely worth con- 
 tending about. But there is a dispute, of a more curious nature, on 
 this subject, namely, whether there are races of people thus very di- 
 minutive, or vastly large ; or whether they be merely accidental va- 
 rieties, that now and then are seen in the country, in a few persons, 
 whose bodies some external cause has contributed to lessen or enlarge. 
 
 With regard to men of diminutive stature, all antiquity has been 
 unanimous in asserting their national existence. Homer was the first 
 who has given us an account of the pigmy nation contending with the 
 cranes ; and what poetical licence might be supposed to exaggerate, 
 Athenaeus has attempted seriously to confirm by historical assertion.* 
 If we attend to these, we must believe, that In the internal parts of 
 Africa there are whole nations of pigmy beings, not more than a foot 
 in stature, who continually wage an unequal war with the birds and 
 beasts that inhabit the plains in which they reside. Some of the an? 
 cients, however, and Strabo in particular, have supposed all these ac- 
 counts to be fabulous, and have been more inclined to think this sap- 
 posed nation cf pigmies, nothing more than a species of apes, wri 
 
 Athenseus, ix. 390.
 
 254 A HISTORY OF 
 
 known to be numerous in that part of the world. With this opinion 
 the moderns have all concurred ; and that diminutive race, which was 
 described as human, has been long degraded into a class of animals 
 that resemble us but very imperfectly. 
 
 The existence, therefore, of a pigmy race of mankind, being 
 founded in error, or in fable, we can expect to find men of diminutive 
 stature only by accident, among men of the ordinary size. Of these 
 accidental dwarfs, every country, and almost every village, can pro- 
 duce numerous instances. There was a time when these unfavoured 
 children of nature were the peculiar favourites of the great ; and no 
 prince or nobleman thought himself completely attended, unless he 
 had a dwarf among the number of his domestics. These poor little 
 men were kept to be laughed at ; or to raise the barbarous pleasure of 
 their masters, by their contrasted inferiority. Even in England, as 
 late as the times of King James I. the court was at one time furnished 
 with a dwarf, a giant, and a jester: these the king often took a plea 
 sure in opposing to each other, and often fomented quarrels among 
 them, in order to be a concealed spectator of their animosity. It was 
 a particular entertainment of the courtiers at that time, to see little 
 Jeffery, for so the dwarf was called, ride round the lists, expecting his 
 antagonist ; and discovering in his actions, all the marks of contemp- 
 tible resolution. 
 
 It was in the same spirit, that Peter of Russia, in the year 1710. 
 celebrated a marriage of dwarfs. This monarch, though raised by his 
 native genius far above a barbarian, was, nevertheless, still many de- 
 grees removed from actual refinement. His pleasures, therefore, were 
 of the vulgar kind, and this was among the number. Upon a certain 
 day, which he had ordered to be proclaimed several months before, 
 he invited the whole body of his courtiers, and all the foreign amb<rs- 
 sadors, to be present at the marriage of a pigmy man and woman. 
 The preparations for this wedding were not only very grand, but exe- 
 cuted in a style of barbarous ridicule. He ordered that all the dwarf 
 men and women, within two hundred miles, should repair to the capi- 
 tal ; and also insisted that they should be present at the ceremony. 
 For this purpose he supplied them with proper vehicles ; but so con- 
 trived it, that one horse was seen carrying in a dozen of them into 
 the city at once, while the mob followed, shouting and laughing, from 
 behind. Some of them were at first unwilling to obey an order which 
 they knew was calculated to turn them into ridicule, and did not 
 come; but he soon obliged them to obey; and, as a punishment, 
 enjoined, that they should wait upon the rest at dinner. The whole 
 company of dwarfs amounted to seventy, beside the bride and bride- 
 groom, who were richly adorned, and in the extremity of the fashion. 
 For this little company in miniature, every thing was suitably pro- 
 vided ; a low table, small plates, little glasses, and in short, every 
 thing was so fitted, as if all things had been dwindled to their own 
 standard. It was his great pleasure to see their gravity and their 
 pride ; the contention of the women for places, and the men for su- 
 periority. This point he attempted to adjust, by ordering that the 
 most diminutive should take the lead ; but this bred disputes, for none 
 would then consent to sit foremost. All this, however, beinj/ at lasl
 
 ANIMALS. 255 
 
 settled, dancing followed the dinner, and the ball wis opened with a 
 minuet by the bridegroom, who measured exactly three feet two 
 inches high. In the end, matters were so contrived, that this little 
 company, who met together in gloomy pride, and unwilling to by 
 pleased, being at last familiarized to laughter, joined in the diver- 
 sion, and became, as the journalist has it,* extremely sprightly and 
 entertaining. 
 
 But whatever may be the entertainment such guests might afford 
 when united, I never found a dwarf capable of affording any when 
 alone. I have sometimes conversed with some of these that were ex- 
 hibited at our fairs about town, and have ever found their intellects 
 as contracted as their persons. They, in general, seemed to me to 
 have faculties very much resembling those of children, and their 
 desires likewise of the same kind ; being diverted with the same 
 sports, and best pleased with such companions. Of all those I have 
 seen, which may amount to five or six, the little man, whose name 
 was Coan, that died lately at Chelsea, was the most intelligent and 
 sprightly. I have heard him and the giant, who sung at the theatres, 
 sustain a very ridiculous duet, to which they were taught to give 
 great spirit. But this mirth, and seeming sagacity, were but assumed. 
 He had, by long habit, been taught to look cheerful upon the ap- 
 proach of company ; and his conversation was but the mere etiquette 
 of a person that had been used to receive visitors. When driven out 
 of his walk, nothing could be more stupid or ignorant, notliing more 
 dejected or forlorn. But we have a complete history of a -dwarf, very 
 accurately related by Mr. Daubenton, in his part of the Histoire 
 Naturelle ; which I will here take leave to translate. 
 
 This dwarf, whose name was Baby, was well known, having spent 
 the greatest part of his life at Lunenville, in the palace of Stanislaus, 
 the titular king of Poland. He was born near the village of Plaisne, 
 in France, in the year 1741. His father and mother were peasants, 
 both of good constitutions, and inured to a life of husbandry and la- 
 bour. Baby, when born, weighed but a pound and a quarter. We 
 are not informed of the dimensions of his body at that time ; but we 
 may conjecture they were very small, as he was presented on a plate 
 to be baptized, and for a long time lay in a slipper. His mouth, 
 although proportioned to the rest of his body, was not, at that time, 
 large enough to take in the nipple; and he was, therefore, obliged to 
 be suckled by a she-goat that was in the house; and that served as a 
 nurse, attending to his cries with a kind of maternal fondness. He 
 began to articulate some words when eighteen months old ; and at 
 two years he was able to walk alone. He was then fitted with shoes 
 that were about an inch and a half long. He was attacked with se- 
 veral acute disorders ; but the small-pox was the only one which left 
 any marks behind it. Until he was six years old, he eat no other 
 food but pulse, potatoes, and bacon. His father and mother were, 
 from their poverty, incapable of affording him any better nourish- 
 ment ; and his education was little better than his food, being bred 
 up among the rustics of the place. At six years old he was about 
 
 * Die dench wurdige. Iwerg. Hockweit, &c. Lipsiae, 1713, vol. viii. page 102. seq
 
 Z'j6 A HISTORY OF 
 
 fifteen inches high ; and his whole body weighed but thirteen pounds. 
 Notwithstanding this, he was well proportioned, and handsome ; his 
 health was good, but his understanding scarce passed the bounds of 
 instinct. It was at that time that the king of Poland, having heard ol 
 such a curiosity, had him conveyed to Lunenville, gave him the name 
 of Baby, and kept him in his palace. 
 
 Baby, having thus quitted the hard condition of a peasant to enjoy 
 all the comforts and conveniences of life, seemed to receive no 
 alteration from his new way of living, either in mind or person. He 
 preserved the goodness of his constitution till about the age of sixteen, 
 but his body seemed to increase very slowly during the whole time ; 
 and his stupidity was such, that all instructions were lost in improving 
 his understanding. He could never be brought to have any sense of 
 religion, nor even to shew the least signs of a reasoning faculty 
 They attempted to teach him dancing and music, but in vain ; he 
 never could make any thing of music ; and as for dancing, although 
 he beat time tolerably exact, yet he could never remember the 
 figure, but while his dancing-master stood by to direct his motions. 
 Notwithstanding, a mind thus destitute of understanding was not 
 \\ithoutitspassions; anger and jealousy harassed it at times ; nor 
 was he without desires of another nature. 
 
 At the age of sixteen, Baby was twenty-nine inches tall ; at this 
 he rested ; but having thus arrived at his acme, the alterations of 
 puberty, or rather, perhaps, of old age, came fast upon him. From 
 being very beautiful, the poor little creature now became quite de- 
 formed ; his strength quite forsook him ; his back-bone began to 
 bend ; his head hung forward ; his legs grew weak ; one of his shoul- 
 ders turned awry ; and his nose grew disproportionably large. With 
 his strength, his natural spirits also forsook him ; and, by the time 
 he was twenty, he was grown feeble, decrepit, and marked with the 
 strongest impressions of old age. It had been before remarked by 
 some, that he would die of old age before he arrived at thirty ; and, 
 in fact, by the time he was twenty-two, he could scarcely walk a 
 hundred paces, being worn with the multiplicity of his years, and 
 bent under the burden of protracted life. In this year he died ; a 
 cold, attended with a slight fever, threw him into a kind of lethargy, 
 "liich had a few momentary intervals ; but he could scarce be brought 
 ^peak. However, it is asserted, that in the five last years of his 
 life, he shewed a clearer understanding, than in his times of best 
 health : but at length he died, after enduring great agonies, in the 
 twenty-second year of his age. 
 
 Opposite to this accidental diminution of the human race, is that 
 of its extraordinary magnitude. Concerning the reality of a nation 
 of Giants, there have been many disputes among the learned. Some 
 have affirmed the probability of such a race ; and others, as warmly 
 have denied the possibility of their existence. But it is not from any 
 speculative reasonings, upon a subject of this kind, that information 
 is to be obtained ; it is not from the disputes of the scholar, but the 
 labours of the enterprising, that we are to be instructed in this in 
 quiry. Indeed, nothing can be more absurd, than what some learned 
 nifp have advanced unon ihi<s sub'ect. It is very unlikely, sayj
 
 ANIMALS. 25? 
 
 Grew, that there should either be dwarfs or giants ; 01 if such, they 
 cannot be fitted for the usual enjoyment of life and reason. Had 
 man been born a dwarf, he could not have been a reasonable crea- 
 ture ; for to that end, he must have a jolt head, and then lie would 
 not have body and blood enough to supply his brain with spirits ; or 
 if he had a small head, proportionable to his body, there would not 
 be brain enough for conducting life. But it is still worse with giants; 
 and there could never have been a nation of such, for there would not 
 be food enough found in any country to sustain them ; or, if there were 
 beasts sufficient for this purpose, there would not be grass enough for 
 their maintenance. But what is still more, add others, giants could 
 never be able to support the weight of their own bodies ; since a man 
 of ten feet high, must be eight times as heavy as one of the ordinary 
 stature ; whereas he has but twice the size of muscles to support such 
 a burden, and consequently would be overloaded with the weight of 
 his own body. Such are the theories upon this subject, and they re- 
 quire no other answer, but that experience proves them both to be 
 false ; dwarfs are found capable of life and reason ; and giants are 
 seen to carry their own bodies. We have several accounts from mari 
 ners, that a nation of giants actually exists, and mere speculation 
 should never induce us to doubt their veracity. 
 
 Ferdinand Magellan was the first who discovered this race of peo- 
 ple along the coast, towards the extremity of South America. Ma- 
 gellan was a Portuguese, of noble extraction, who having long behaved 
 with great bravery, under Albuquerque, the conqueror of India, he was 
 treated with neglect by the court, upon his return. Applying there- 
 fore, to the king of Spain, he was intrusted with the command -i five 
 ships, to subdue the Molucca islands, upon one of which he was slain. 
 It was in his voyage thither that he happened to winter in St. Julian's 
 Bay, an American harbour, forty-nine degrees south of the line. In 
 this desolate region, where nothing was seen but objects of terror, 
 where neither trees nor verdure drest the face of the country, they 
 remained for some months without seeing any human creature. They 
 had judged the country to be utterly uninhabitable, when one day they 
 saw approaching, as if he had been dropped from the clouds, a man of 
 enormous stature, dancing and singing, and putting dust upon his head, 
 as they supposed in token of peace. This overture for friendship 
 was, by Magellan's command, quickly answered by the rest of his 
 men ; and the giant approaching, testified every mark of astonishment 
 and surprise. He was so tall, that the Spaniards only reached his 
 waist ; his face was broad, his colour brown, and painted over with a 
 variety of tints ; each cheek had the resemblance of a heart drawn 
 upon it ; his hair was approaching to whiteness ; he was clothed in 
 skins, and armed with a bow. Being treated with kindness, and dis- 
 missed with some trifling presents, he soon returned with many more 
 of the same stature ; two of whom the mariners decoyed on ship ' 
 board : nothing could be more gentle than they were in the beginning ; 
 they considered the fetters that were preparing for them as ornaments, 
 and played with them like children with their toys ; but when they 
 found for what purpose they were intended, they instantly exerted 
 their amazing strength, and broke them in pieces with a very easy 
 VOL. i. R
 
 258 A HISTORY OF 
 
 effort. This account, with a variety of other circumstances, has been 
 confirmed by succeeding travellers: Herrara, Sebald Wert, Olivei 
 Van Noort, and James le Maire, all correspond in affirming the fact, 
 although they differ in many particulars of their respective descrip- 
 tions. The last voyager we have had, that has seen this enormous 
 race, is Commodore Byron. I have talked with the person who first 
 gave the relation of that voyage, and who was the carpenter of the 
 Commodore's ship ; he was a sensible, understanding man, and I 
 believe extremely faithful. By him, therefore, I was assured, in the 
 most solemn manner, of the truth of his relation ; and this account 
 has since been confirmed by one or two publications ; in all which 
 the particulars are pretty nearly the same. One of the circumstances 
 which most puzzled me to reconcile to probability, was that of the 
 horses, on which they are described as riding down to the shore. We 
 know the American horse to be of European breed ; and, in some 
 measure, to be degenerated from the original. I was at a loss, there- 
 fore, to account how a horse of not more than fourteen hands high, 
 was capable of carrying a man of nine feet ; or, in other words, an 
 animal almost as large as itself. But the wonder will cease, when we 
 consider, that so small a beast as an ass, will carry a man of ordinary 
 size tolerably well ; and the proportion between this and the former 
 instance is nearly exact. We can no longer, therefore, refuse our as- 
 sent to the existence of this gigantic race of mankind ; in what man- 
 ner they are propagated, or under what regulations they live, is a 
 subject that remains for future investigation. It should appear, how- 
 ever, that they are a wandering nation, cnanging their abode with the 
 course of the sun, and shifting their situation, for the convenience of 
 food, climate, or pasture.* 
 
 This race of giants are described as possessed of great strength ; 
 and, no doubt they must be very different from those accidental giants 
 that are to be seen in different parts of Europe. Stature, with these, 
 seems rather their infirmity than their pride ; and adds to their burden, 
 without increasing their strength. Of those I have seen, the generality 
 were ill-formed and unhealthful ; weak in their persons, or incapable 
 of exerting what strength they were possessed of. The same defects 
 of understanding that attended those of suppressed stature, were found 
 ir those who were thus overgrown : they were heavy, phlegmatic, 
 stupid, and inclined to sadness. Their numbers, however, are but 
 few ; and it is thus kindly ordered by Providence, that as the middle 
 is the state best fitted for happiness, so the middle ranks of mankind 
 are produced in the greatest variety. 
 
 However, mankind seems naturally to have a respect for men of 
 extraordinary stature ; and it has been a supposition of long standing, 
 that our ancestors were much taller, as well as much more beautiful, 
 than we. This has been, indeed, a theme of poetical declamation 
 from the beginning ; and man was scarce formed, when he began to 
 deplore an imaginary decay. Nothing is more natural than this pro 
 gross of the mind, in looking up to antiquity with reverential wonder 
 Having been accustomed to compare the wisdom of our fathers with 
 
 * Later voyagers have not confirmed this account, in some particular*.
 
 ANIMALS. 259 
 
 our ownj in early imbecility, the impression of their superiority re 
 mains when they no longer exist, and when we cease to be inferior. 
 Thus the men of every age consider the past as wiser than the present; 
 and the reverence seems to accumulate as our imaginations ascend. 
 For this reason, we allow remote antiquity many advantages, without 
 disputing their title : the inhabitants of uncivilized countries represent 
 them as taller and stronger ; and the people of a more polished na- 
 tion, as more healthy and more wise. Nevertheless, these attributes 
 seem to be only the prejudices of ingenuous minds; a kind of grati- 
 tude, which we hope in turn to receive from posterity. The ordinary 
 stature of men, Mr. Derham observes, is, in all probability, the same 
 now as at the beginning. The oldest measure we have of the human 
 figure, is in the monument of Cheops, in the first pyramid of Egypt. 
 This must have subsisted many hundred years before the times of Ho- 
 mer, who is the first that deplores the decay. This monument, how- 
 ever, scarce exceeds the measure of our ordinary coffins : the cavity is 
 no more than six feet long, two feet wide, and deep in about the same 
 proportion. Several mummies also, of a very early age, are found to 
 be only of the ordinary stature ; and shew that, for these three thou- 
 sand years at least, men have not suffered the least diminution. We 
 have many corroborating proofs of this, in the ancient pieces of ar- 
 mour which are dug up in different parts of Europe. The brass hel- 
 met dug up at Medauro, fits one of our men, and yet is allowed to 
 have been left there at the overthrow of Asdrubal. Some of our 
 finest antique statues, which we learn from Pliny and others to be ex- 
 actly as big as life, still continue to this day, remaining monuments of 
 the superior excellence of their workmen indeed, but not of the supe- 
 riority of their stature. We may conclude, therefore, that men have 
 been, in all ages, pretty much of the same size they are at present ; 
 and that the only difference must have been accidental, or perhaps 
 national. 
 
 As to the superior beauty of our ancestors, it is not easy to make 
 the comparison ; beauty seems a very uncertain charm ; and frequently 
 is less in the object, than in the eye of the beholder. Were a modern 
 lady's face formed exactly like the Venus of Medicis, or the Sleeping 
 Vestal, she would scarce be considered beautiful, except by the lovers 
 of antiquity, whom, of all her admirers, perhaps, she would be least 
 desirous of pleasing. It is true, that we have some disorders among 
 us that disfigure the features, and from which the ancients were ex- 
 empt ; but it is equally true, that we want some which were common 
 among them, and which were equally deforming. As for their intel- 
 lectual powers, these also were probably the same as ours : we excel 
 them in the sciences, which may be considered as a history of accu- 
 mulated experience ; and they excel us in the poetic arts, as they had 
 the first rifling of all the striking images of nature.
 
 2fiO A HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF MUMMIES, WAX-WORKS, &C 
 
 " MAN* is not content with the usual term of life, but he is willing 
 to lengthen out his existence by art ; and although he cannot prevent 
 death, he tries to obviate his dissolution It is natural to attempt to 
 preserve even the most trifling relics of what has long given us plea- 
 sure ; nor does the mind separate from the body, without a wish, that 
 even the wretched heap of dust it leaves behind, may yet be re- 
 membered. The embalming, practised in various nations, probably 
 had its rise in this fond desire : an urn filled with ashes, among the 
 Romans, served as a pledge of continuing affection ; and even the 
 grassy graves in our own church-yards, are raised above the surface, 
 with the desire that the body below should not be wholly forgotten. 
 The soul, ardent after eternity for itself, is willing to procure, even 
 for the body, a prolonged duration." 
 
 But of all nations, the Egyptians carried this art to the highest per- 
 fection : as it was a principle of their religion, to suppose the soul 
 continued only coeval to the duration of the body, they tried every 
 art to extend the life of the one, by preventing the dissolution of the 
 other. In this practice they were exercised from the earliest ages ; 
 and the mummies they have embalmed in this manner continue in 
 great numbers to the present day. We are told, in Genesis, that Jo- 
 seph seeing his father expire, gave orders to his physicians to embalm 
 the body, which they executed in the compass of forty days, the usual 
 time of embalming. Herodotus also, the most ancient of the profane 
 historians, gives us a copious detail of this art, as it was practised, in 
 his time, among the Egyptians. There are certain men among them, 
 says he, who practise embalming as a trade ; which they perform with 
 all expedition possible. In the first place, they draw out the brain 
 through the nostrils, with irons adapted to this purpose ; and in pro- 
 portion as they evacuate it in this manner, they fill up the cavity with 
 aromatics : they next cut open the bell}', near the sides, with a shar- 
 pened stone, and take out the entrails, which they cleanse, and wash 
 in palm oil ; having performed this operation, they roll them in aro- 
 matic powder, fill them with myrrh, cassia, and other perfumes, ex- 
 cept incense , and replace them, sewing up the body again. Aftei 
 these precautions, they salt the body with nitre, and keep it in the 
 salting-place for seventy days, it not being permitted to preserve it so 
 any longer. When the seventy days are accomplished, and the body 
 washed once more, they swathe it in bands made of linen, which have 
 been dipt in a gum the Egyptians use instead of salt. When the 
 friends have taken back the body, they make a hollow trough, some- 
 thing like the shape of a man, in which they place the body ; and 
 
 * This chapter I have, in a great measure, translated from Mr. Daubenton. Whatever 
 <s added from others, is marked with inverted commas.
 
 ANIMALS. 261 
 
 this tJie> inclose in a box, preserving the whole as a most precious* 
 relic, placed against the wall. Such are the ceremonies used with re- 
 gard to the rich ; as for those who are contented with a humbler pre- 
 paration, they treat them as follows : they fill a syringe with an odo- 
 riferous liquor extracted from the cedar-tree, and, without making an 
 incision, inject it up the body of the deceased, and then keep it in 
 nitre, as long as in the former case. When the time is expired, they 
 evacuate the body of the cedar liquor which had been injected ; and 
 such is the effect of this operation, that the liquor dissolves the intes- 
 tines, and brings them away : the nitre also serves to eat away the 
 flesh, and leaves only the skin and the bones remaining. This done, 
 the body is returned to the friends, and the embalmer takes no farther 
 trouble about it. The third method of embalming those of the meanest 
 condition, is merely by purging and cleansing the intestines by fre- 
 quent injections, and preserving the body for a similar term in nitre, 
 at the end of which it is restored to the relations. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus also makes mention of the manner in which these 
 embalmings are performed. According to him, there were several 
 officers appointed for this purpose : the first of them, who was called 
 the scribe, marked those parts of the body, on the left side, which 
 were to be opened ; the cutter made the incision ; and one of those 
 that were to salt it, drew out all the bowels, except the heart and the 
 kidneys ; another washed them in palm wine and odoriferous liquors ; 
 afterwards they anointed for above thirty days with cedar, gum, myrrh, 
 cinnamon, and other perfumes. These aromatics preserved the body 
 entire for a long time, and gave it a very agreeable odour. It was 
 not in the least disfigured by this preparation ; after which it was re- 
 turned to the relations, who kept it in a coffin, placed upright against 
 a wall. 
 
 Most of the modern writers who have treated on this subject, have 
 merely repeated what has been said by Herodotus ; and if they add 
 any thing of their own, it is but merely from conjecture. Dumont 
 observes, that it is very probable, that aloes, bitumen, and cinnamon, 
 make a principal part of the composition which is used on this occa- 
 sion : he adds, that, after embalming, the body is put into a coffin, 
 made of the sycamore-tree, which is almost incorruptible. Mr. Grew 
 remarks, that in an Egyptian mummy, in the possession of the Royal 
 Society, the preparation was so penetrating, as to enter into the very 
 substance of the bones, and rendered them so black that they seemed to 
 have been burnt. From this he is induced to believe that the Egyp- 
 tians had a custom of embalming their dead, by boiling them in a kind 
 of liquid preparation, until all the aqueous parts of the body were ex- 
 haled away ; and until the oily or gummy matter had penetrated 
 throughout. He proposes, in consequence of this, a method of ma- 
 cerating, and afterwards of boiling the dead body in oil of walnut. 
 
 I am, for my own part, of opinion that there were several ways of 
 preserving dead bodies from putrefaction ; and that this would de no 
 lifficult matter, since different nations have all succeeded in the at- 
 tempt. We have an example of this kind among the Guanches, the 
 ancient inhabitants of the island of Teneriff. Those who survived 
 (he general destruction of this people by the Spaniards, when th*v
 
 262 A HISTORY OF 
 
 <ronqueii] this island, informed them that the art of embalming was 
 btill preserved there ; and that there was a tribe of priests among them 
 possessed of the secret, which they kept concealed as a sacred mys- 
 tery. As the greatest part of the nation was destroyed, the Spaniards 
 could not arrive at a complete knowledge of this art ; they only found 
 out a few of the particulars. Having taken out the bowels, they washed 
 the body several times in a lee, made of the dried bark of the pine- 
 tree, warmed during the summer by the sun, or by a stove in the win- 
 ter. They afterwards anointed it with butter, or the fat of bears, 
 which they had previously boiled with odoriferous herbs, such as sage 
 and lavender. After this unction, they suffered the body to dry, and 
 then repeated the operation as often as it was necessary, until the 
 whole substance was impregnated with the preparation. When it 
 was become very light, it was then a certain sign that it was fit and 
 properly prepared. They then rolled it up in the dried skins of goats ; 
 which, when they had a mind to save expense, they suffered to remain 
 with the hair still growing upon them. Purchas assures us, that he 
 has seen mummies of this kind in London ; and mentions the name of 
 a gentleman who had seen several of them in the island of Teneriff, 
 which were supposed to have been two thousand years old ; but with- 
 out any certain proofs of such great antiquity. This people, who 
 probably came first from the coasts of Africa, might have learned this 
 art from the Egyptians, as there was a traffic carried on from thence 
 into the most internal parts of Africa. 
 
 Father Acosta and Garcilasso de la Vega make no doubt but thaf 
 the Peruvians understood the art of preserving their dead for a very 
 long space of time. They assert their having seen the bodies of seve 
 ral incas, that were perfectly preserved. They still preserved their 
 hair and their eye-brows ; but they had eyes made of gold, put in the 
 places of those taken out. They were clothed in their usual habits, 
 and seated in the manner of the Indians, their arms placed on their 
 breasts. Garcilasso touched one of their fingers, and found it appa- 
 rently as hard as wood ; and the whole body was not heavy enough to 
 overburden a weak man who should attempt to carry it away., Acosta 
 presumes that these bodies were embalmed with bitumen, of which 
 the Indians knew the properties. Garcilasso, however, is of a differ- 
 ent opinion, as he saw nothing bituminous about them ; but he con- 
 fesses that he did not examine them very particularly, and he regrets 
 his not having inquired into the methods used for that purpose. He 
 adds, that being a Peruvian, his countrymen would not have scrupled 
 to inform him of the secret, if they really had it still among them. 
 
 Garcilasso, thus being ignorant of the secret, makes use of some in- 
 ductions to throw light upon the subject ; he asserts that the air is so 
 dry and so cold at Cusco, that flesh dries there like wood, without 
 corrupting; and he is of opinion that they dried the body in snow, 
 before they applied the bitumen : he adds, that in the times of the 
 incas* they usually dried the flesh which was designed for the use of 
 the army ; and that when they had lost their humidity, they might be 
 kept without salt, or any other preparation. 
 
 it is said, that at Spitsbergen, which lies within the arctic circle 
 -nd, consequently, in the coldest climate, bodies never corrupt, nor
 
 ANIMALS. 263 
 
 * 
 
 sutler any apparent alteration, even though buried for thirty years : 
 nothing corrupts or putrefies in that climate ; the wood which has 
 been employed in building those houses where the train-oil is separa- 
 ted, appears as fresh as the day it was first cut. 
 
 If excessive cold, therefore, be thus capable of preserving bodies 
 from corruption, it is not less certain that a great degree of dryness, 
 produced by heat, produces the same effect. It is well known that 
 the men and animals that are buried in the sands of Arabia, quickly 
 dry up, and continue in preservation for several ages, as if they hao 
 been actually embalmed. It has often happened, that whole caravans 
 have perished in crossing those deserts, either by the burning winds 
 that infest them, or by the sands which are raised by the tempest, and 
 overwhelm every creature in certain ruin. The bodies of those per- 
 sons are preserved entire ; and they are often found in this condition 
 by some accidental passenger. Many authors, both ancient and 
 modern, make mention of such mummies as these ; and Shaw says 
 that he has been assured that numbers, of men, as well as other ani- 
 mals, have been thus preserved, for times immemorial, in the burning 
 sands of Saibah, which is a place, he supposes, situate between Rasem 
 and Egypt. 
 
 The corruption of dead bodies being entirely caused by the fer- 
 mentation of the humours, whatever is capable of hindering or retard- 
 ing this fermentation, will contribute to their preservation. Both heat 
 and cold, though so contrary in themselves, produce similar effects in 
 this particular, by drying up the humours. The cold in condensing 
 and thickening them, and the heat in evaporating them before they 
 have time to act upon the solids. But it is necessary that these ex- 
 tremes should be constant ; for if they succeed each other so as that 
 cold shall follow heat, or dryness humidity, it must then necessarily 
 happen, that corruption must ensue. However, in temperate cli- 
 mates, there are natural causes capable of preserving dead bodies, 
 among which we may reckon the quality of the earth in which they 
 are buried. If the earth be drying and astringent, it will imbibe the 
 humidity of the body ; and it may probably be for this reason that the/ 
 bodies buried in the monastery of the Cordeliers, at Thoulouse, do 
 not putrefy, but dry in such a manner that they may be lifted up by 
 one arm. 
 
 The gums, resins, and bitumens, with which dead bodies are em- 
 balmed, keep off the impressions which they would else receive from 
 the alteration of the temperature of the air; and still more, if a body 
 thus prepared be placed in a dry or burning sand, the most powerful 
 means will be united for its preservation. We are not to be surprised, 
 therefore, at what we are told by Chardin, of thecountry of Chorosan, 
 in Persia. The bodies which have been previously embalmed, and 
 buried in the sands of that country, as he assures us, are found to pe- 
 trify : or, in other words, to become extremely hard, and are preserved 
 for several ages. It is asserted that some of them have continued for 
 a thousand years 
 
 The Egyptians, as has been mentioned above, swathed the body 
 with linen bands, and inclosed it in a coffin ; however, it is probable 
 that with all these precautions, they would not have continued tiL
 
 264 A HISTORY OF 
 
 now, if the tombs, or pits, in which they were placed, had not been 
 dug in a dry, chalky soil, which was not susceptible of humidity ; and 
 which was, besides, covered over with a dry sand of several feet 
 thickness. 
 
 The sepulchres of the ancient Egyptians subsist to this day. Most 
 travellers who have been in Egypt have described those of ancient 
 mummies, and have seen the mummies interred there. These cata- 
 combs are within two leagues of the ruins of this city, nine leagues 
 from Grand Cairo, and about two miles from the village of Zaccara. 
 They extend from thence to the Pyramids of Pharaoh, which are 
 about eight miles distant. These sepulchres lie in a field, covered 
 with a fine running sand, of a yellowish colour. The country is dry 
 and hilly ; the entrance of the tomb is choaked up with sand ; there 
 are many open, but several more that are still concealed. The in- 
 habitants of the neighbouring village have no other commerce, or 
 method of subsisting, but by seeking out mummies, and selling them 
 to such strangers as happen to be at Grand Cairo. " This commerce, 
 some years ago, was not only a very common, but a very gainful one. 
 A complete mummy was often sold for twenty pounds : but it must 
 not be supposed that it was bought at such a high price from a mere 
 passion for antiquity ; there were much more powerful motives for 
 this traffic. Mummy, at that time, made a considerable article in me- 
 dicine ; and a thousand imaginary virtues were ascribed to it, for the 
 cure of most disorders, particularly of the paralytic kind. There 
 was no shop, therefore, without mummy in it ; and no physician 
 thought he had properly treated his patient, without adding this to 
 his prescription. Induced by the general repute, in which this sup- 
 posed drug was at that time, several Jews, both of Italy and France, 
 found out the art of imitating mummy so exactly, that they, for a long 
 time, deceived all Europe. This they did by drying dead bodies in 
 ovens, after having prepared them with myrrh, aloes, and bitumen. 
 Still, however, the request for mummies continued, and a variety of 
 cures were daily ascribed to them. At length, Pareeus wrote a treatise 
 on their total inefficacy in physic ; and showed their abuse in load- 
 ing the stomach, to the exclusion of more efficacious medicines. 
 From that time, therefore, their reputation began to decline ; the 
 Jews discontinued their counterfeits, and the trade returned entire to 
 the Egyptians, when it was no longer of value. The industry of 
 seeking after mummies is now totally relaxed, their price merely ar- 
 bitrary, and just what the curious are willing to give. 
 
 In seeking for mummies, they first clear away the sand, which they 
 may do for weeks together, without finding what is wanted. Upon 
 coming to a little square opening of about eighteen feet in depth, 
 they descended into it, by holes for the feet, placed at proper inter 
 vals, and there they are sure of finding what they seek for. These 
 caves, or wells, as they call them, are hollowed out of a white free- 
 stone, which is found in all this country, a few feet below the cover- 
 ing of sand. When one gets to the bottom of these, which are 
 sometimes fort" feet below the surface, there are several square 
 openings, on each side, into passages of ten or fifteen feet wide, and 
 these lead to chambers of fifteen or twenty feet square. Tlte^c are
 
 ANIMALS. 265 
 
 all newn out of the rock ; and in each of the catacombs are to 
 be found several of these apartments, communicating with each other. 
 They extend a great way under ground so as to be under the city of 
 Memphis, and in a manner to undermine its environs. 
 
 In some of the chambers, the walls are adorned with figures and 
 hieroglyphics ; in others, the mummies are found in tombs round the 
 apartment hollowed out in the rock. These tombs are upright, and 
 cut into the shape of a man, with his arms stretched out, There are 
 others found, and these in the greatest number, in wooden coffins, or 
 in cloths covered with bitumen. These coffins, or wrappers, are co- 
 vered all over with a variety of ornaments. There are some of them 
 painted, and adorned with figures, such as that of Death, and the 
 leaden seals, on which several characters are engraven. Some of 
 these coffins are carved into the human shape ; but the head alone is 
 distinguishable ; the rest of the body is all of a piece, and termi- 
 nated by a pedestal, while there are some with their arms hanging 
 down ; and it is by these marks that the bodies of persons of rank 
 are distinguished from those of the meaner order. These are gene- 
 rally found lying on the floor, without any profusion of ornaments ; 
 and, in some chambers the mummies are found indiscriminately piled 
 upon each other, and buried in the sand. 
 
 Many mummies are found lying on their backs ; their heads turned 
 to the north, and their hands placed on the belly. The bands of 
 linen, with which these were swathed, are found to be more than a 
 thousand yards long ; and, of consequence, the number of circum- 
 volutions they make about the body must have been amazing. These 
 were performed by the beginning at the head, and ending at the feet ; 
 but they contrived it so as to avoid covering the face. However, 
 when the face is entirely uncovered, it moulders into dust imme- 
 diately upon the admission of the air. When, therefore, it is pre- 
 served entire, a slight covering of cloth is so disposed over it, as that 
 the shape of the eyes, the nose, and the mouth, are seen under it. 
 Some mummies have been found with a long beard, and hair that 
 reached down to the mid-leg, nails of a surprising length, and some 
 gilt, or at least painted of a gold colour. Some are found with 
 bands upon the breast, covered with hieroglyphics, in gold, silver, 
 or in green : and some with tutelary idols, and other figures of jasper, 
 within their body. A piece of gold, also, has often been found under 
 their tongues, of about two pistoles value ; and, for this reason, the 
 Arabians spoil all the mummies they meet with, in order to get at the 
 gold. 
 
 But though art, or accident, has thus been found to preserve dead 
 bodies entire, it must by no means be supposed that it is capable of 
 preserving the exact form and lineaments of the deceased person. 
 Those bodies which are found dried away in the deseits, or in some 
 particular church-yards, are totally deformed, and scarce any linea- 
 jients remain of their external structure. Nor are the mummies 
 preserved by embalming, in a better condition. The flesh is dried 
 away, Hardened, and hidden under a variety of bandages ; the bowels, 
 as we have seen, are totally removed ; and from hence, in the most 
 perfect of them, we see only a shapeless mass of skin discoloured
 
 260 A HISTORY OF 
 
 and even the features scarce distinguishable. The art is, therefore, 
 an efforc rather of preserving the substance than the likeness of the 
 deceased ; and has, consequently, not been brought to its highest 
 pitch of perfection. It appears from a mummy, not long since dug 
 up in France, that the art of embalming was more completely mi 
 derstood in the western world than even in Egypt. This mummy, 
 which was dug up at Auvergne, was an amazing instance of their skill, 
 and is one of the most curious relics in the art of preservation. As 
 some peasants, in that part of the world, were digging in a field near 
 Rion, within about twenty-six paces of the highway, between that 
 and the river Artier, they discovered a tomb, about a foot and a 
 half beneath the surface. It was composed only of two stones ; one 
 of which formed the body of the sepulchre, and the other the cover. 
 This tomb was of free-stone ; seven feet and a half long, three feet 
 and a half broad, and about three feet high. It was of rude work- 
 manship ; the cover had been polished, but was without figure or in- 
 scription : within this tomb was placed a leaden coffin, four feet seven 
 inches long, fourteen inches broad, and fifteen high. It was not made 
 coffin-fashion, but oblong, like a box, equally broad at both ends, 
 and covered with a lid that fitted on like a snuff-box, without a hinge. 
 This cover had two holes in it, each of about two inches longr, and 
 very narrow, filled with a substance resembling butter ; but for what 
 purpose intended remains unknown. Within this coffin was a mum- 
 my, in the highest and most perfect preservation. The internal sides 
 of the coffin were filled with an aromatic substance, mingled with 
 clay. Round the mummy was wrapped a coarse cloth, in form 
 of a napkin ; under this were two shirts, or shrouds, of the most ex- 
 quisite texture ; beneath these a bandage, which covered all parts of 
 the body, like an infant in swaddling clothes ; still under this general 
 bandage there was another, which went particularly round the ex- 
 tremities, the hands, and the legs. The head was covered with two 
 caps ; the feet and hands were without any particular bandages ; and 
 the whole body was covered with an aromatic substance, an inch 
 thick. When these were removed, and the body exposed naked to 
 view, nothing could be more astonishing than the preservation of the 
 whole, and the exact resemblance it bore to a body that had been 
 dead a day or two before. It appeared well proportioned, except 
 that the head was rather large, and the feet small. The skin had all 
 the pliancy and colour of a body lately dead : the visage, however, 
 was of a brownish hue. The belly yielded to the touch ; all the 
 joints were flexible, except those of the legs and feet ; the fingers 
 stretched forth of themselves when bent inwards. The nails still 
 continued entire ; and all the marks of the joints, both in the fingers, 
 the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, remained perfectly 
 visible. The bones of the arms and legs were soft and pliant ; but, 
 on the contrary, those of the skull preserved their rigidity ; the hair, 
 whicn *>nly covered the back of the head, was of a chesnut colour, 
 and a-jout two inches long. The pericranium at top was separated 
 from the skull by an incision, in order to open it for the introducing 
 proper aromatics in the place of the brain, where they were found 
 mixed with clay. The teeth, the tongue, and the ears, were all pre>-
 
 ANIMALS. 267 
 
 served in perfect form. The intestines were not taken out of the 
 body, but remained pliant and entire, as in a fresh subject ; and the 
 breast was made to rise and fall like a pair of bellows. The embalm- 
 ing preparation had a very strong and pungent smell, which the body 
 preserved for more than a month after it was exposed to the air. This 
 odour was perceived wherever the mummy was laid, although it remain- 
 ed there but a very short time, it was even pretended that the peasants 
 of the neighbouring villages were incommoded by it. If one touched 
 either the mummy, or any part of the preparation, the hands smelied 
 of it for several hours after, although washed with water, spirit ot 
 wine, or vinegar. This mummy, having remained exposed for some 
 months to the curiosity of the public, began to suffer some mutilations. 
 A part of the skin of the forehead was cut off, the teeth were drawn 
 out, and some attempts were made to pull away the tongue. It was 
 therefore, put into a glass case, and shortly after transmitted to the 
 king of France's cabinet at Paris. 
 
 There are many reasons to believe this to be the body of a person 
 of the highest distinction ; however, no marks remain to assure us 
 either of the quality of the person, or the time of his decease. There 
 only are to be seen some irregular figures on the coffin, one of which 
 represents a kind of star. There were also some singular characters 
 upon the bandages, which were totally defaced by those who had torn 
 them away. However, it should seem that it had remained for several 
 ages in this state, since the first years immediately succeeding the in- 
 terment, are usually those in which the body is most liable to decay. 
 It appears also to be a much more perfect method of embalming than 
 that of the Egyptians; as in this the flesh continues with its natural 
 elasticitv and colour, the bowels remain entire, and the joints have 
 almost the pliancy which they had when the person was alive. Upon 
 the whole, it is probable that a much less tedious preparation than 
 that vised by the Egyptians would have sufficed to keep the body from 
 putrefaction ; and that an injection of petreoleum inwardly, and a 
 layer of asphaltum without, would have sufficed to have made a 
 mummy ; and it is remarkable that Auvergne, where this was found, 
 affords these two substances in sufficient plenty. This art, therefore, 
 might be brought to greater perfection than it has arrived at hitherto, 
 were the art worth preserving. But mankind have long since grown 
 wiser in this respect, and think it unnecessary to keep by them a de- 
 formed carcass, which, instead of aiding their magnificence, must only 
 serve to mortify their pride. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OP ANIMALS. 
 
 LEAVING man, we now descend to the lower ranks of animated na 
 ture, and prepare to examine the life, manners, and characters of 
 these our humble partners in the creation. Rut, in such a wonderfu,'
 
 268 A HISTORY OF 
 
 variety as is diffused around us, where shall we begin ! The numbet 
 of beings endued with life, as well as we, seems, at first view, infinite. 
 Not only the forest, the waters, the air teems with animals of various 
 kinds; but almost every vegetable, every leaf, has millions of minute 
 inhabitants, each of which fill up the circle of its allotted life, and 
 , some of which are found objects of the greatest curiosity. In this 
 seeming exuberance of animals, it is natural for ignorance to lie down 
 in hopeless uncertainty, and to declare what requires labour to par- 
 ticularize to be utterly inscrutable. It is otherwise, however, with 
 the active and searching mind ; no way intimidated with the immense 
 variety, it begins the task of numbering, grouping, and classing all the 
 various kinds that fall within its notice ; finds every day new relations 
 between the several parts of the creation ; acquires the art of con- 
 sidering several at a time under one point of view, and at last begins 
 to find that the variety is neither so great nor so inscrutable as was at 
 first imagined. As in a clear night, the number of the stars seems in- 
 finite ; yet, if we sedulously attend to each in his place, and regularly 
 class them, they will soon be found to diminish, and come within a 
 scanty computation. 
 
 Method is one of the principal helps in natural history, and without 
 it very little progress can be made in this science. It is by that 
 alone we can hope to dissipate the glare, if I may so express it, 
 which arises from a multiplicity of objects at once presenting them- 
 selves to the view. It is method that fixes the attention to one point, 
 and leads it, by slow and certain degrees, to leave no part of nature 
 unobserved. 
 
 All naturalists, therefore, have been very careful in adopting some 
 method of classing or grouping the several parts of nature ; and some 
 have written books of natural history with no other view. These 
 methodical divisions some have treated with contempt,* not consider- 
 ing that books, in general, are written with opposite views ; some to 
 be read, and some only to be occasionally consulted. The methodists 
 in natural history, seem to be content with the latter advantage ; and 
 have sacrificed to order alone, all the delights of the subject, all the 
 arts of heightening, awakening, or continuing curiosity. But they cer 
 tainly have the same use in science that a dictionary has in language : 
 but with this difference, that in a dictionary we proceed from the name 
 to the definition ; in a system of natural history, we proceed from the 
 definition to find out the thing. Without the aid of system, nature 
 must still have lain undistinguished, like furniture in a lumber-room : 
 every thing we wish for is there, indeed ; but we know not where to 
 find it. If, for instance, in a morning excursion, I find a plant, or an 
 insect, the name of which I desire to learn ; or, perhaps, am curious 
 1o know whether already known ; in this inquiry I can expect infor- 
 mation only from one of these systems, which, being couched in a 
 methodical form, quickly directs me to what I seek for. Tbns we will 
 suppose that our inquirer has met with a spider, and that he has never 
 seen such an insect before. He is taught by the writer Df a <sy*omt 
 to examine whether it has wings, and he finds that it has none fie 
 
 * Mr. Button, in his Introduction, &c. ( Linnaeus
 
 ANIMALS. 269 
 
 therefore is to look for it among the wingless insects, or the Apter?v, 
 as Linnaeus calls them : he then is to see whether the head and bi east 
 make one part of the body, or are disunited ; he finds they make one 
 ne is then to reckon the number of feet and eyes, and he finds that 
 it has eight of each. The insect, therefore, must be either a scor- 
 pion or a spider ; but he lastly examines its feelers, which he finds 
 clavated, or clubbed ; and, by all these marks, he at last discovers 
 it to be a spider. Of spiders, there are forty-seven sorts ; and, by 
 reading the description of each, the inquirer will learn the name of 
 that which he desires to know. With the name of the insect, he is 
 also directed to those authors that have given any account of it, and 
 the page where that account is to be found ; by this means he may 
 know at once what has been said of that animal by others, and what 
 there is of novelty in the result of his own researches. 
 
 From hence, it will appear how useful these systems in natural 
 history are to the inquirer ; but, having given them all their merit, it 
 would be wrong not to observe, that they have, in general, been very 
 much abused. Their authors, in general, seem to think that they are 
 improvers of natural history, when in reality they are but guides ; 
 they seem to boast that they are adding to our knowledge, while 
 they are only arranging it. These authors, also, seem to think that 
 the reading of their works and systems, is the best method to attain 
 a knowledge of nature ; but, setting aside the impossibility of getting 
 through whole volumes of a dry long catalogue, the multiplicity of 
 whose contents is too great for even the strongest memory, such 
 works rather tell us the names than the history of the creature we 
 desire to inquire after. In these dreary pages, every insect, or plant, 
 that has a name, makes as distinguished a figure as the most wonder- 
 ful, or the most useful. The true end of studying nature is to make 
 a just selection, to find those parts of it that most conduce to our 
 pleasure or convenience, and to leave the rest in noglect. But these 
 systems, employing: the same degree of attention upon all, give us no 
 opportunities of knowing which most deserves attention ; and he who 
 has made his knowledge from such systems only, has his memory 
 crowded with a number of trifling, or minute particulars, which it 
 should be his business and his labour to forget. These books, as was 
 said before, are useful to be consulted, but they are very unnecessary 
 to be read ; no inquirer into nature should be without one of them ; 
 and, without any doubt, Linnaeus deserves the preference. 
 
 One fault more, in almost all these systematic writers, and that which 
 leads me to the subject of the present chapter, is, that seeing the 
 necessity of methodical distribution in some parts of nature, they 
 have introduced it into all. Finding the utility of arranging plants, 
 birds, or insects, they have arranged quadrupeds aiso with the Same 
 assiduity ; and although the number of these is so few as not to ex- 
 ceed two hundred,* they have darkened the subject with distinctions 
 and divisions, which only serve to puzzle and perplex. All method 
 is only useful in giving perspicuity, where the subject is either dark 
 
 * In Dr. Shaw's General Zoology, the number of quadrupeds, not including the ceta/*eoui 
 and seal tribes, aroint to five hundred and twelve, besides th'^ir varieties.
 
 270 A HISTORY OF 
 
 or copious : but with regard to quadrupeds, the number is but few ; 
 many of them we are well acquainted with by habit; and the rest 
 may verv readily be known, without any method. In treating of 
 such, therefore, it would be useless to confound the reader with a 
 multiplicity of divisions ; as quadrupeds are conspicuous enough to 
 obtain the second rank in nature, it becomes us to be acquainted 
 with, at least, the names of them all. However, as there are na- 
 turalists who have gained a name from the excellence of their me- 
 thods in classing these animals, some readers may desire to have a 
 knowledge of what has been laboriously invented for their instruction. 
 I will just take leave, therefore, to mention the most applauded 
 methods of classing animals, as adopted by Ray, Klein, and Lin- 
 naeus ; for it often happens, that the terms which have been long 
 used in a science, though frivolous, become by prescription a part of 
 the science itself. 
 
 Ray, after Aristotle, divides all animals into two kinds ; those 
 which have blood, and those which are bloodless. In the last class, 
 he places all the insect tribes. The former he divides into such as 
 breathe through the lungs, and such as breathe through gills : these 
 last comprehend the fishes. In those which breathe through the lungs, 
 some have the heart composed of two ventricles, and some have it of 
 one. Of the last are all animals of the cetaceous kind, all oviparous 
 quadrupeds, and serpents. Of those that have two ventricles, some 
 are oviparous, which are the birds ; and some viviparous, which are 
 quadrupeds. The quadrupeds he divides into such as have a hoof, 
 such as are claw-footed. Those with the hoof, he divides all such 
 such as have it undivided, such as have it cloven, and such as 
 have the hoof divided into more parts, as the rhinoceros, and hip- 
 popotamos. Animals with the cloven hoof, he divides into such as 
 chew the cud, such as the cow, and the sheep ; and such as are not 
 ruminant, as the hog. He divides those animals that chew the cud, 
 into four kinds : the first have hollow horns, which they never shed, 
 as the cow ; the second is of a less species, and is of the sheep kind ; 
 the third is of the goat kind ; and the last, which have solid horns, 
 and shed them annually, are of the deer kind. Coming to the claw- 
 footed animals, he finds some with large claws, resembling the 
 fingers of the human hand ; and these he makes the ape kind. Of 
 the others, some have the foot divided into two, and have a claw to 
 each division ; these are the camel kind. The elephant makes a 
 kind by itself, as its claws are covered over by a skin. The rest of 
 the numerous tribe of claw-footed animals he divides into two kinds ; 
 the analogous, or such as resemble each other ; and the anomalous, 
 which differ from the rest. The analogous claw-footed animals, are 
 of two kinds ; they have more than two cutting teeth in each jaw, 
 such as the lion and the dog, which are carnivorous ; or they have 
 but two cutting teeth in each jaw; and these are chiefly fed upon ve- 
 getables. The carnivorous kinds are divided into the great and little. 
 The great carnivorous animals are divided into such as hav3 a short 
 snout, as the cat and the lion ; and such as have it long and pointed, 
 as The dog and the wolf. The little claw-footed carnivorous animals, 
 differ from the great, in having a proportionality smaller head,
 
 ANIMALS. 271 
 
 and a slender body, that fits them for creeping into holes, in pursuit 
 of their prey, like worms ; and they are therefore called the vermin 
 kind. 
 
 We see, from this sketch of division and sub-division, how a sub- 
 ject, extremely delightful and amusing in itself, may be darkened 
 and rendered disgusting. But notwithstanding, Ray seems to be one 
 of the most simple distributors ; and his method is still, and not with- 
 out reason, adopted by many. Such as have been at the trouble to 
 learn this method, will certainly find it useful ; nor would we bo 
 thought, in the least, to take from its merits ; all we contend for is, 
 that the same information may be obtained by a pleasanter and an 
 easier method. 
 
 It was the great success of Ray's method, that soon after produced 
 such a variety of attempts in the same manner ; but almost all less 
 simple, and more obscure. Mr. Klein's method is briefly as follows : 
 he makes the power of changing place, the characteristic mark of 
 animals in general ; and he lakes their distinctions from their aptitude 
 and fitness for such a change. Some change place by means of 
 feet, or some similar contrivance; others have wings and feet: some 
 can change place only in water, and have only fins : some go 
 upon earth, without any feet at all : some change place, by mov- 
 ing their shell ; and some move only at a certain time of the year. 
 Of such, however, as do not move at all, he takes no notice. 
 The quadrupeds that move chiefly by means of four feet upon 
 /and, he divides into two orders. The first are the hoofed 
 kind ; and the second, the claw kind. Each of these orders is di- 
 vided into four families. The first family of the hoofed kind, are the 
 singled hoofed, such as the horse, ass, &c. The second family are 
 such as have the hoof cloven into two parts, such as the cow, &c. 
 The third family have the hoof divided into three parts ; and in this 
 family is found only the rhinoceros. The fourth family have the hoof 
 divided into five parts; and in this is only to be found the elephant. 
 With respect to the clawed kind, the first family comprehends those 
 that have but two claws on each foot, as the camel ; the second family 
 have three claws ; the third, four; and the fourth, five. This method 
 of taking the distinctions of animals from the organs of motion, is 
 ingenious; but it is, at the same time, incomplete; and, besides, the 
 divisions into which it must necessarily fall, is inadequate; since, for 
 instance, in his family with two claws, there is but one animal ; 
 whereas, in his family with five claws, there are above a hundred. 
 
 Brison, who has laboured this subject with great accuracy, divides 
 animated nature into nine classes : namely, quadrupeds ; cetaceous 
 animals, or those of the whale kind ; birds ; reptiles, or those of the 
 serpent kind ; cartilaginous fishes; spinous fishes; shelled animals ; 
 insects ; and worms. He divides the quadrupeds into eighteen 
 orders ; and takes their distinctions from the number and form of 
 their teeth. 
 
 But of all those whose systems have been adopted and admired 
 Linnaeus is the foremost; as, with a studied brevity, his system com- 
 prehends the greatest variety in the smallest space. 
 
 According to him, the first distinction of animals is U be
 
 272 A HISTORY OF 
 
 from their internal structure. Some have the heart with two ven 
 tricles, and hot red blood ; namely, quadrupeds and birds. The 
 quadrupeds are viviparousj and the birds oviparous. 
 
 Some havo the heart with one ventricle, and cold red blood ; 
 namely, amphibia and fishes. The amphibia are furnished with lungs ; 
 the fishes, with gills. 
 
 Some have the heart with one ventricle, and cold white serum ; 
 namely, insects and worms : the insects have feelers ; and the worms, 
 holders. 
 
 The distinctions of quadrupeds, or animals with paps, as he calls 
 them, are taken from their teeth. He divides them into seven orders ; 
 to which he gives names that are not easy of translation : Primates 
 or principles, with four cutting teeth in each jaw ; Bruta, or brutes, 
 with no cutting teeth ; Ferae, or wild beasts, with generally six cut- 
 ting teeth in each jaw ; Glires, or dormice, with two cutting teeth, 
 both above and below; Pecora, or cattle, with many cutting teeth 
 above, and none below ; Belluse, or beasts, with the fore-teeth blunt ; 
 Cetae, or those of the whale kind, with cartilaginous teeth. I have 
 but just sketched out this system, as being, in its own nature, the 
 closest abridgment ; it would lake volumes to dilate it to its proper 
 length. The names of the different animals, and their classes, alone 
 make two thick octavo volumes ; and yet nothing is given but the 
 slightest description of each. I have omitted all criticism also upon 
 the accuracy of the preceding systems : this has been done both by 
 Buffon and Daubenton, not with less truth than humour ; for they 
 had tr^ much good sense not to see the absurdity of multiplying the 
 terms of science to no end, and disappointing our curiosity rather 
 with a catalogue of nature's varieties, than a history of nature. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of taxing the memory and teazing the patience 
 with such a variety of divisions and subdivisions, I will take leave 
 to class the productions of nature in the most obvious, though not in 
 the most accurate manner. In natural history, of all other sciences; 
 there is the least danger of obscurity. In morals, or in metaphysics, 
 every definition must be precise, because those sciences are built upon 
 definitions ; but it is otherwise in those subjects where the exhibition 
 of the object itself is always capable of correcting the error. Thus, 
 it may often happen that in a lax system of natural history, a creature 
 may be ranked among quadrupeds that belongs more properly to the 
 fish or the insect classes. But that can produce very little confusion, 
 and every reader can thus make a system the most agreeable to his 
 own imagination. It will be of no manner of consequence whether 
 we call a bird or an insect a quadruped, if we are careful in marking 
 all its distinctions: the uncertainty in reasoning, or thinking, that those 
 approximations of the different kinds of animals produce, is but very 
 small, and happens but very rarely ; whereas the labour that natural- 
 ists have been at to keep the kinds asunder, has been excessive 
 This, in general, has given birth to that variety of systems which we 
 have just mentioned, each of which seems to be almost as good as the 
 preceding. 
 
 Taking, therefore, this latitude, and using method only where ii 
 crutributes to conciseness or r^rsnicuity, we shall divide animated
 
 ANIMALS. 273 
 
 nature into four classes ; namely Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, and In- 
 sects. All these seem in general pretty well distinguished from each 
 other by nature ; yet there are several instances in which we can 
 scarce tell whether it is a bird or a quadruped that we are about to 
 examine ; whether it is a fish or an insect that offers to our curiosity. 
 Nature is varied by imperceptible gradations, so that no line can bo 
 drawn between any two classes of its productions, and no definition 
 made to comprehend them all. However, the distinctions between 
 these classes are sufficiently marked, and their encroachments upon 
 each other are so rare, that it will be sufficient particularly to apprize 
 the reader when they happen to be blended. 
 
 There are many quadrupeds that we are well acquainted with ; and 
 of those we do not know, we shall form the most clear and distinct 
 conceptions, by being told wherein they differ, and wherein they re- 
 semble those with which we are familiar. Each class of quadrupeds 
 may be ranged under some one of the domestic kinds, that may serve 
 for the model by which we are to form some kind of idea of the rest. 
 Thus we may say that a tiger is of the cat kind, a wolf of the dog 
 kind, because there are some rude resemblances between each ; and 
 a person who has never seen the wild animals, will have some incom- 
 plete knowledge of their figure from the tame ones. On the contrary, 
 I will not, as some systematic writers have done,* say that the bat is 
 of the human kind, or a hog of the horse kind, merely because there 
 is some resemblance in their teeth, or their paps. For although this 
 resemblance may be striking enough, yet a person who has never seen 
 a bat or a hog, will never form any just conception of either, by be- 
 ing told of this minute similitude. In short, the method in classing 
 quadrupeds should be taken from their most striking resemblances 
 and where these do not offer, we should not force the similitude, but 
 leave the animal to be described as a solitary species. The number 
 of quadrupeds is so few, that indeed, without any method whatever, 
 there is no great danger of confusion. 
 
 All quadrupeds, the number of which, according to Buffbn, amounts 
 to but two hundred, may be classed in the following manner. 
 
 First, those of the Horse kind. This class contains the Horse, the 
 Ass, and the Zebra. Of these none have horns, and their hoof is of 
 one solid piece. 
 
 The second class are those of the Cow kind ; comprehending tne 
 Urus, the Buffalo, the Bison, and the Bonassus. These have cloven 
 hoofs, and chew the cud. 
 
 The third class is that of the Sheep kind : with cloven hoofs, arid 
 chewing the cud, like the former. In this is comprehended the Sheep, 
 the Goat, the Lama, the Vigogne, the Gazelle, the Guinea D^er, and 
 all of a similar form. 
 
 The fourth class is that of the Deer kind, with cloven hoofs, ami 
 with solid horns, that are shed every year. This class contains trie 
 Elk, the Rein-deer, the Stag, the Buck, the Roebuck, and the Axis. 
 
 The fifth class comprehends all those of the Hog kind, the Peccari 
 and the Babyrouessa. 
 
 * Lnmaei Syst.
 
 274 A HISTORY OF 
 
 The sixth class is that numerous one of the Cat kind. This com 
 prehends the Cat, the Lion, the Panther, the Leopard, the Jaguar, 
 the Cougar, the Jaguarettc, the Lynx, the Ounce, and the Catamoun- 
 tain. These are all carnivorous, and furnished with crooked claws, 
 which they can sheath and unsheath at pleasure. 
 
 The seventh class is that of the Dog kind, carnivorous, and furnish 
 ed with claws like the former, but which they cannot sheath. This 
 class comprehends the Dog, the Wolf, the Fox, the Jackall, the Isa- 
 tis, the Hyaena, the Civet, the Gibet, and the Genet. 
 
 The eighth class is that of the Weasel kind, with a long small body, 
 with small toes, or claws, on each foot ; the first of them separated 
 from the rest like a thumb. This comprehends the Weasel, the Mar- 
 tin, the Pole-cat, the Ferret, the Mangoust, the Vansire, the Ermine, 
 with all the varieties of the American Moufettes. 
 
 The ninth class is that of the Rabbit kind, with two large cutting 
 teeth in each jaw. This comprehends the Rabbit, the Hare, the 
 Guinea-pig, all the various species of the Squirrel, the Dormouse, the 
 Marmotte, the Rat, the Mouse, Agouti, the Paca, the Aperea, and the 
 Tapeti. 
 
 The tenth class is that of the Hedge-hog kind, with claw feet, and 
 covered with prickles, comprehending the Hedge-hog, and the Porcu- 
 pine, the Couando, and the Urson. 
 
 The eleventh class is that of the Tortoise kind, covered with % 
 shell, or scales This comprehends the Tortoise, the Pangolin, and 
 the Phataguin. 
 
 The twelfth is that of the Otter, or amphibious kind, comprehend- 
 ing the Otter, the Beaver, the Desman, the Morse, and the Seal. 
 
 The thirteenth class is that of the Ape and Monkey kinds, with 
 hands, and feet resembling hands. 
 
 The fourteenth class is that of winged quadrupeds, or the Bat kind, 
 containing the Bat, the Flying-Squirrel, and some other varieties. 
 
 The animals which seem to approach no other kind, either in na- 
 ture, or in form, but to make each a distinct species in itself, are the 
 following: the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the Hippopotamus, the 
 Cameleopard, the Camel, the Bear, the Badger, the Tapir, the Cabria, 
 the Coati, the Antbear, the Tatou, and lastly, the Sloth. 
 
 All other quadrupeds, whose names are not set down, will be found 
 among some of the above mentioned classes, and referred to that which 
 they most resemble. When, therefore, we are at a loss to know the 
 name of any particular animal, by examining which of the known 
 kinds it most resembles, either in shape, or in hoofs, or claws ; and 
 then examining the particular description, we shall be able to discover 
 not only its name, but its history. I have already said that all methods 
 of this kind are merely arbitrary, and that nature makes no exact dis- 
 tinction between her productions. It is hard, for instance, to tell 
 whether we ought to refer the civet to the dog, or the cat kind ; but, 
 if we know the exact history of the civet, it is no great matter to 
 which kind we shall judge it to bear the greatest resemblance. It is 
 enough, that a distribution of this kind excites in us some rude out- 
 lines of the make, or some marked similitudes in the nature of these 
 o.:iimals ; but, to know them with any precision, no system, or evon
 
 ANIMALS 275 
 
 description, will serve, since the animal itself, or a good print of it 
 must be seen, and its history be read at length, before it can be saia 
 to be known. To pretend to say that we have an idea of a quadru- 
 ped, because we can tell the number or the make of its teeth, or its 
 paps, is as absurd as if we should pretend to distinguish men by the 
 buttons of their clothes. Indeed, it often happens that the quadruped 
 itself can be but seldom seen, that many of the more rare kinds do 
 not come into Europe above once in an age, and some of them have 
 never been able to bear the removal ; in such a case, therefore, there 
 is no other substitute but a good print of the animal, to give an idea 
 of its figure ; for no description whatsoever can answer this purpose 
 so well. Mr. Locke, with his usual good sense, has observed, that a 
 drawing of the animal, taken from the life, is one of the best methods 
 of advancing natural history ; and yet, most of our modern systematic 
 riters are content rather with describing. Descriptions, no doubt, 
 will go some way towards giving an idea of the figure of an animal ; 
 but they are certainly much the longest way about, and, as they are usu- 
 ally managed, much the most obscure. In a drawing we can, at a 
 single glance, gather more instruction than by a day's painful investi- 
 gation of methodical systems, where we are told the proportions with 
 great exactness, and yet remain ignorant of the totality. In fact, this 
 method of describing all things is a fault that has infected many of our 
 books that treat on the meaner arts, for this last age. They attempt 
 to teach by words, what is only to be learnt by practice and inspec- 
 tion. Most of our dictionaries, and bodies of arts and sciences, are 
 guilty of this error. Suppose, for instance, it be requisite to mention 
 the manner of making shoes ; it is plain that all the verbal instructions 
 in the world will never give an adequate idea of this humble art, or 
 teach a man to become a shoemaker. A day or two in a shoemaker's 
 shop will answer the end better than a whole folio of instruction, which 
 . only serves to oppress the learner with the weight of its pretended 
 importance. We have lately seen a laborious work carried on at Pa- 
 ris, with this only intent of teaching all the trades by description ; 
 however, the design at first blush seems to be ill considered ; and it 
 is probable that very few advantages will be derived from so laborious 
 an undertaking. With regard to the descriptions in natural history, 
 these, without all question, under the direction of good sense, are ne- 
 cessary ; but still they should be kept within proper bounds ; and, 
 where a thing may be much more easily shown than described, the 
 exhibition should ever precede the account. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF QUADRUPEDS IN GENERAL, COMPARED TO MAN. 
 
 UPON comparing the various animals of the globe with each othei, 
 we shall find that quadrupeds demand the rank immediately next our- 
 selves, and consequently come first in consideration. The similitude 
 between the structure of their bodies and ours, those itmthcts \vhicl-
 
 276 A HISTORY OF 
 
 they enjoy in a superior degree to the rest, their constant services, ot 
 their unceasing hostilities, all render them the foremost objects of oui 
 curiosity, and the most interesting parts of animated nature. These, 
 however, although now so completely subdued, very probably, in the 
 beginning, were nearer upon an equality with us, and disputed the 
 possession of the earth. Man, while yet savage himse.f, was but ill 
 qualified to civilize the forest. While yet naked, unarmed, and with 
 out shelter, every wild beast was a formidable rival ; and the de- 
 struction of such was the first employment of heroes. But when he 
 began to multiply, and arts to accumulate, he soon cleared the plains 
 of the most noxious of these his rivals; a part was taken under his 
 protection and care, while the rest found a precarious refuge in the 
 burning desert, or the howling wilderness. 
 
 From being rivals, quadrupeds have now become the assistants of 
 man ; upon them he devolves the most laborious employments, and 
 finds in them patient and humble coadjutors, ready to obey, and content 
 with the smallest retribution. It was not, however, without long and 
 repeated efforts that the independent spirit of these animals was 
 broken ; for the savage freedom, in wild animals, is generally found 
 to pass down through several generations before it is totally subdued. 
 Those cats and dogs that are taken from a state of natural wildness 
 in the forest, still transmit their fierceness to their young ; and, how- 
 ever concealed in general, it breaks out upon several occasions. 
 Thus the assiduity and application of man in bringing them up, not 
 only aiters their disposition, but their very forms ; and the difference 
 between animals in a stale of nature and domestic tameness, is so 
 considerable, that Mr.Buffon has taken this as a principal distinction 
 in classing them. 
 
 In taking a cursory view of the form of quadrupeds, we may ea- 
 sily perceive, that of all the ranks of animated nature, they bear the 
 nearest resemblance to man. This similitude will be found more 
 striking when erecting themselves on their hinder feet, they are taught 
 to walk forward in an upright posture. We then see that all theii 
 extremities in a manner correspond with ours, and present us with a 
 rude imitation of our own. In some of the ape kind the resemblance 
 is so striking, that anatomists are puzzled to find in what part of the 
 human body man's superiority consists ; and scarce any but the me- 
 taphysician can draw the line that ultimately divides them. 
 
 But if we compare their internal structure with our own, the like- 
 ness will be found still to increase, and we shall perceive many ad- 
 vantages they enjoy in common with us, above the lower tribes of 
 nature. Like us, they are placed above the class of birds, by bring- 
 ing forth their young alive ; like us, they are placed above the class 
 of fishes, by breathing through the lungs ; like us, they are placed 
 above the class of insects, by having red blood circulating through 
 their veins ; and lastly, like us, they are different from almost all the 
 other classes of animated nature, being either wholly or partly co- 
 vered with hair. Thus nearly are we represented in point of confor- 
 mation to the class of animals immediately below us ; and this show* 
 what little reason we have to be proud of our persons alone, to the 
 perfection of which quadrupeds make such very near approaches.
 
 ANIMALS. 277 
 
 The similitude of quadrupeds to man obtains also in the fixedness 
 of their nature, and their being less apt to be changed by the influ- 
 ence of climate or food, than the lower ranks of nature.* Birds are 
 vbund very apt to alter both in colour and size ; fishes, likewise, still 
 more ; insects may be quickly brought to change and adapt them- 
 selves to the climate ; and if we descend to plants, which may be 
 allowed to have a kind of living existence, their kinds may be sur- 
 prisingly and readily altered, and taught to assume new forms. The 
 figure of every animal may be considered as a kind of drapery, which 
 it may be made to put on or off by human assiduity ; in man the 
 drapery is almost invariable ; in quadrupeds it admits of some va- 
 riation ; and the variety may be made greater still, as we descend to 
 the inferior classes of animal existence. 
 
 Quadrupeds, although they are thus strongly marked, and in ge- 
 neral divided from the various kinds around them, yet some of them 
 are often of so equivocal a nature, that it is hard to tell whether they 
 ought to be ranked in the quadruped class, or degraded to those below 
 them. If, for instance, we were to marshal the whole group of ani- 
 mals round man, placing the most perfect next him, and those most 
 equivocal near the classes they most approach, we should find it dif- 
 ficult, after the principal had taken their stations near him, where to 
 place many that lie at the out-skirts of this phalanx. The bat makes 
 a near approach to the aerial tribe, and might, by some, be reckoned 
 among the birds. The porcupine has not less pretensions to that 
 class, being covered with quills, and showing that birds are not the 
 only part of nature that are furnished with such a defence. The. 
 armadillo might be referred to the tribe of insects, or snails, being, 
 like them, covered with a shell ; the seal and the morse might be 
 ranked among the fishes, like them being furnished with fins, and 
 almost constantly residing in the same element. All these, the far- 
 ther they recede from the human figure, become less perfect, and 
 may be considered as the lowest kinds of that class to which we have 
 referred them. 
 
 But although the variety in quadrupeds is thus great, they all seem 
 well adapted to the stations in which they are placed. There is 
 scarce one of them, how rudely shaped soever, that is not formed to 
 enjoy a state of happiness fitted to its nature. All its deformities are 
 only relative to us, but all its enjoyments are peculiarly its own. 
 We may superficially suppose the sloth, that takes up months in 
 climbing a single tree, or the mole, whose eyes are too small for 
 distinct vision, are wretched and helpless creatures; but it is probable 
 that their life, with respect to themselves, is a life of luxury ; the 
 most pleasing food is easily obtained ; and as they are abridged 
 in one pleasure, it may be doubled in those which remain. 
 Quadrupeds, and all the lower kinds of animals, have, at worst, 
 but the torments of immediate evil to encounter, and this is 
 but transient and accidental ; man has two sources of calamity, 
 thai which he foresees, as well as that which he feels ; so tnit U 
 
 * Buffon, vol. xviii. p. 179.
 
 278 A HISTORY OF 
 
 \\\s reward were to be in this life alone, then indeed would he be, of 
 all beings the most wretched. 
 
 The heads of quadrupeds, though differing from each other, are, in 
 general, adapted to their way of living. In some it is sharp, the bev 
 ter to fit the animal for turning up the earth in which its food lies. In 
 some it is long, in order to give a greater room for the olfactory 
 nerves, as in dogs, who are to hunt and find out their prey by the 
 scent. In otners it is short and thick, as in the lion, to increase the 
 strength of the jaw, and to fit it the better for combat. In quadrupeds 
 tnat feed upon grass, they are enabled to hold down their heads to 
 the ground, by a strong tendinous ligament, that runs from the head 
 to the middle of the back. This serves to raise the head, although it 
 has been he.d to the ground for several hours, without any labour, or 
 any assistance from the muscles of the neck. 
 
 The teeth of all animals are entirely fitted to the nature of their 
 food. Those of such as live upon flesh differ in every respect from 
 such as live upon vegetables. In the latter, they seem entirely made 
 for gathering and bruising their simple food, being edged before, and 
 fitted for cutting ; but broad towards the back of the jaw, and fitted 
 for pounding. In the carnivorous kinds, they are sharp before, and 
 fitted rather for holding, than dividing. In the one the teeth serve as 
 grindstones ; in the other as weapons of defence ; in both, however, 
 the surface of those teeth which serve for grinding, are unequal ; the 
 cavities and risings fitting those of the opposite, so as to tally exactlv 
 when the jaws are brought together. These inequalities oetter serve 
 for comminuting the food ; but they become smooth with age ; and, 
 for this reason, old animals take a longer time to chew their food than ' 
 such as are in the vigour of life. 
 
 Their le<rs are not better fitted than their teeth to their respective 
 wants or enjoyments. In some they are made for strength only, and 
 to support a vast unwieldy frame, without much flexibility or beauti- 
 ful proportion. Thus the legs of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and 
 the sea-horse, resemble pillars ; were they made smaller, they would 
 be unfit to support the body ; were they endowed with greater flexi- 
 bility, or swiftness, that would be needless, as they do not pursue 
 other animals for food ; and, conscious of their own superior strength, 
 there are none that they deign to avoid. Deers, hares, and other 
 creatures, that are to find safety only in flight, have their legs made 
 entirely for speed ; they are slender and nervous. Were it not for 
 this advantage, every carnivorous animal would soon make them a 
 prey, and their races would be entirely extinguished. But, in the 
 present stare 01 nature, the means of safety are rather superior to those 
 of offence ; and the pursuing animal must owe success only to patience, 
 perseverance, and industry. The feet of some, that live upon fish 
 alone, are made for swimming. The to'es of these animals are joined 
 together with membranes, being web-footed, like a goose or a duck, 
 by which they swim with great rapidity. Those anim-als that lead a 
 life of hostility, and live upon others, have their feet armed with sharp 
 claws, which some can sheath and unsheath at will. Those, on the 
 contrary who lead peaceful lives, have generally hoofs, which serve 
 <nmn ri<> weapons of defence ; and which, in all, are better fitted foi
 
 ANIMALS. 279 
 
 traversing extensive tracts of rugged country, than the claw-foot of 
 their pursuers. 
 
 The stomach is generally proportioned to the quality of the ani- 
 mal's food, or the ease with which it is obtained. In those that live 
 upon flesh, and such nourishing substances, it is small and glandular, 
 affording such juices as are best adapted to digest its contents ; their 
 intestines, also, are short, and without fatness. On the contrary, such 
 animals as feed entirely upon vegetables, have the stomach very large; 
 and those who chew the cud have no less than four stomachs, all 
 which serve as so many laboratories, to prepare and turn their coarse 
 food into proper nourishment. In Africa, where the plants afford 
 greater nourishment than in our temperate climates, several animals, 
 that with us have four stomachs, have there but two.* However, in 
 all animals the size of the intestines are proportioned to the nature of 
 the food ; where that is furnished in large quantities, the stomach di- 
 lates to answer the increase. In domestic animals, that are plentiful- 
 ly supplied, it is large ; in the wild animals, that live precariously, it 
 is much more contracted, and the intestines are much shorter. 
 
 In this manner, all animals are fitted by nature to fill up some pe- 
 culiar station. The greatest animals are made for an inoffensive life, 
 to range the plains and the forest without injuring others ; to live upon 
 the productions of the earth, the grass of the field, or the tender 
 branches of trees These, secure in their own strength, neither fly 
 from any other quadrupeds nor yet attack them : nature, to the great- 
 est strength, has added the most gentle and harmless dispositions ; 
 without this, those enormous creatures would be more than a match 
 for all the rest of the creation ; for what devastation might not ensue 
 were the elephant, or the rhinoceros, or the buffalo, as fierce and as 
 mischievous as the tiger or the rat? In order to oppose these larger 
 animals, and in some measure to prevent their exuberance, there is a 
 species of the carnivorous kind, of inferior strength indeed, but ol 
 greater activity and cunning. The lion and the tiger generally watch 
 for the larger kinds of prey, attack them at some disadvantage, aud 
 commonly jump upon them by surprise. None of the carnivorous 
 kinds, except the dog alone, will make a voluntary attack, but with 
 the odds on their side. They are all cowards by nature, and usually 
 catch their prey by a bound from some lurking place, seldom attempt- 
 ing to invade them openly ; for the larger beasts are too powerful for 
 them, and the smaller too swift. 
 
 A lion does not willingly attack a horse ; and then only when com- 
 pelled by the keenest hunger. The combats between a lion and a 
 horse are frequent enough in Italy ; where they are both inclosed in 
 a kind of amphitheatre, fitted for that purpose. The lion always ap- 
 proaches wheeling about, while the horse presents his hinder parts to 
 the enemy. The lion in this manner goes round and round, still nar- 
 rowing his circle, till he comes to the proper distance to make his 
 spring ; just at the time the lion springs, the horse lashes with botlt 
 legs from behind, and, in general, the odds are in his favour : it moie 
 often happening that the lion is stunned, and struck motionless by UK 
 
 * Button
 
 280 A HISTORY OF 
 
 blow, than that he effects his jump between the horse's shoulders. I* 
 the lion is stunned, and left sprawling, the horse escapes, without at 
 tempting to improve his victory ; but if the lion succeeds, he sticks tc 
 his prey, and tears the horse in pieces in a very short time. 
 
 But it is not ameng the larger animals of the forest alone, that tnes<> 
 hostilities are carried on ; there is a minuter, and a still more treach- 
 erous contest between the lower rank of quadrupeds. The panther 
 hunts for the sheep and the goat ; the catamountain for the hare ci 
 the rabbit ; and the wild-cat for the squirrel or the mouse. In pro- 
 portion as each carnivorous animal wants strength, it uses all the as- 
 sistance of patience, assiduity, and cunning. However, the arts 01 
 these to pursue, are not so great as the tricks of their prey to escape 
 so that the power of destruction in one class is inferior to the power 
 of safety in the other. Were this otherwise, the forest would soon be 
 dispeopled of the feebler races of animals ; and beasts of prey them- 
 selves, would want, at one time, that subsistence which they lavishly 
 destroyed at another. 
 
 Few wild animals seek their prey in the day-time ; they are then 
 generally deterred by their fears of man in the inhabited countries, 
 and by the excessive heat of the sun in those extensive forests that lie 
 towards the south, and in which they reign the undisputed tyrants. 
 As soon, therefore, as the morning appears, the carnivorous animals 
 retire to their dens ; and the elephant, the horse, the deer, and all the 
 hare kinds, those inoffensive tenants of the plain, make their appear- 
 ance. But again, at night-fall, the state of hostility begins ; the whole 
 forest then echoes to a variety of different bowlings. Nothing can be 
 more terrible than an African landscape at the close of evening ; the 
 deep-toned roarings of the lion ; the shriller yellings of the tiger ; the 
 jackall, pursuing by the scent, and barking like a dog ; the hyena, 
 with a note peculiarly solitary and dreadful ; but above all, the hiss- 
 ing of the various kinds of serpents that then begin their call, and, as 
 I am assured, make a much louder symphony than the birds in our 
 groves in a morning. 
 
 Beasts of prey seldom devour each other ; nor can any thing but 
 the greatest degree of hunger induce them to it. What they chiefly 
 seek after, is the deer, or the goat ; those harmless creatures, that 
 seem made to embellish nature. These are either pursued or surpri- 
 sed, and afford the most agreeable repast to their destroyers. The 
 most usual method with even the fiercest animals, is to hide and 
 crouch near some path frequented by their prey ; or some water 
 where cattle come to drink ; and seize them at once with a bound 
 The lion and the tiger leap twenty feet at a spring ; and this, rather 
 than their swiftness or strength, is what they have most to depend upon 
 for a supply. There is scarce one of the deer or hare kind, that is 
 not very easily capable of escaping them by its swiftness ; so that 
 whenever any of these fall a prey, it must be owing to their own in- 
 -ttention. 
 
 But there is another class of the carnivorous kind, that hunt by the 
 ucent, and which it is much more difficult to escape. It is remarkable 
 that all animals of this kind pursue in a pack ; and encourage each 
 'tther by their mutual cries. The jackall, the syagush, the wolf, and
 
 ANIMALS. 28 1 
 
 the dog, are of this kind ; they pursue with patience rather than swift- 
 ness ; their prey flies at first, and leaves them for miles behind ; but 
 they keep on with a constant steady pace, and excite each other by a 
 general spirit of industry and emulation, till at last they share the 
 common plunder. But it too often happens, that the larger beasts of 
 prey, when they hear a cry of this kind begun, pursue the pack, and 
 when they have hunted down the animal, come in and monopolize the 
 spoil. This has given rise to the report of the jackall's being the 
 lion's provider ; when the reality is, that the jackall hunts for itself, 
 and the lion is an unwelcome intruder upon the fruit of his toil. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all the powers which carnivorous animals are 
 possessed of, they generally lead a life of famine and fatigue. Their 
 prey has such a variety of methods for escaping, that they sometimes 
 continue without food for a fortnight together : but nature has endowed 
 them with a degree of patience equal to the severity of their state ; 
 so that as their subsistence is precarious, their appetites are comply- 
 ing. They usually seize their prey with a roar, either of seeming de- 
 light, or perhaps to terrify it from resistance. They frequently de- 
 vour it, bones and all, in the most ravenous manner ; and then retire 
 to their dens, continuing inactive till the calls of hunger again excite 
 their courage and industry. But as all their methods of pursuit are 
 counteracted by the arts of evasion, they often continue to range with- 
 out success, supporting a state of famine for several days, nay, some- 
 times weeks together. Of their prey, some find protection in holes, 
 in which nature has directed them to bury themselves; some find 
 safety by swiftness ; and surh as are possessed of neither of these ad- 
 vantages, generally herd together, and endeavour to repel invasion by 
 united force. The very sheep, which to us seem so defenceless, are 
 by no means so in a state of nature ; they are furnished with arms of 
 defence, and a very great degree of swiftness ; but they are still fur 
 ther assisted by their spirit of mutual defence : the females fall into 
 the centre ; and the males, forming a ring round them, oppose their 
 horns to the assailants. Some animals that feed upon fruits which are 
 to be found only at one time of the year, fill their holes with several 
 sorts of plants, which enable them to lie concealed during the hard 
 frosts of the winter, contented with their prison, since it affords them 
 plenty and protection. These holes are dug with so much art, that 
 there seems the design of an architect in the formation. There are 
 usually two apertures, by one of which the little inhabitant can always 
 escape, when the enemy is in possession of the other. Many creatures 
 are equally careful of avoiding their enemies, by placing a sentinel to 
 warn them of the approach of danger. These generally perform this 
 duty by turns ; and they know how to punish such as have neglected 
 'heir post, or have been unmindful of the common safety. Such are 
 a part of the efforts that the weaker races of quadrupeds exert, 1o 
 avoid their invaders ; and, in general, they are attended with success. 
 The arts of instinct are most commonly found an overmatch for the 
 invasions of instinct. Man is the only creature against whom all their 
 little tricks cannot prevail. Wherever he has spread his dominion r 
 scarce any flight can save, or any retreat harbour ; wherever he com\;s, 
 terror seems to follow, and all society ceases among the inferior te
 
 282 A HISTORY OF 
 
 ants of the plain ; their union against him can yield them no protec 
 tion, and their cunning is but weakness. In their fellow brutes, thev 
 have an enemy whom they can oppose with an equality of advantage 
 they can oppose fraud or swiftness to force ; or numbers to invasion 
 but what can be done against such an enemy as man, who finds them 
 out, though unseen, and though remote, destroys them ? Wherever 
 he comes, all the contest among the meaner ranks seems to be at an 
 end, or is carried on only by surprise. Such as he has thought proper 
 to protect, have calmly submitted to his protection ; such as he has 
 found it convenient to destroy, carry on an unequal war, and their 
 numbers are every day decreasing. 
 
 The wild animal is subject to few alterations ; and, in a state of 
 savage nature, continues for ages the same, in size, shape, and colour. 
 But it is otherwise when subdued, and taken under the protection of 
 man ; its external form, and even its internal structure, are altered by 
 human assiduity : and this is one of the first and greatest causes of 
 the variety that we see among the several quadrupeds of the same 
 species. Man appears to have changed the very nature of domestic 
 animals, by cultivation and care. A domestic animal is a slave that 
 seems to have few other desires but such as man is willing to allow it. 
 Humble, patient, resigned, and attentive, it fills up the duties of its 
 station ; ready for labour, and content with subsistence. 
 
 Almost all domestic animals seem to bear the marks of servitude 
 strong upon them. All the varieties in their colour, all the fineness 
 and length of their hair, together with the depending length of their 
 ears, seem to have arisen from a long continuance of domestic slavery. 
 What an immense variety is there to be found in the ordinary race of 
 dogs and horses ! the principal differences of whichhavebeen effected 
 by the industry of man, so adapting the food, the treatment, the la- 
 oour, and the climate, that nature seems almost to have forgotten her 
 original design ; and the tame animal no longer bears any resemblance 
 to its ancestors in the woods around them. 
 
 In this manner nature is under a kind of constraint, in those animals 
 we have taught to live in a state of servitude near us. The savage 
 animals preserve the marks of their first formation ; their colours are 
 generally the same ; a rough dusky brown, or a tawny, seem almost 
 their only varieties. But it is otherwise in the tame ; their colour? 
 are various, and their forms different from each other. The nature 
 of the climate, indeed, operates upon all ; but more particularly on 
 these. That nourishment which is prepared by the hand of man, not 
 adapted to their appetites, but to suit his own convenience, that cli- 
 mate, the rigours of which he can soften, and that employment to 
 which they are sometimes assigned, produce a number of distinctions 
 that are not to be found among the savage animals. These at first 
 were accidental, but in tinao became hereditary ; and a new race of 
 artificial monsters are propagated, rather to answer the purposes of 
 human pleasure, than their own convenience. In short, their \cry 
 appetites may be changed ; and those that feed only upon grass may 
 be rendered carnivorous. I have seen a sheep that would pat flesh, 
 and a horse that was fond of oysters.
 
 ANIMALS. 283 
 
 But not their appetites, or their figure alone, but their very dispo- 
 sitions, and their natural sagacity, are altered by the vicinity of man 
 In those countries where men have seldom intruded, some animals 
 nave been found, established in a kind of civil state of society. Re- 
 mote from the tyranny of man, they seem to have a spirit of mutual 
 benevolence, and mutual friendship. The beavers, in these distant 
 solitudes, are known to build like architects, and rule like citizens. 
 The habitations that these have been seen to erect, exceed the houses 
 of the human inhabitants of the same country, both in neatness and 
 convenience. But as soon as man intrudes upon their society, they 
 seem impressed with the terrors of their inferior situation, their spirit 
 of society ceases, the bond is dissolved, and every animal looks for 
 safety in solitude, and there tries all its little industry to shift only for 
 itself. 
 
 Next to human influence, the climate seems to have the strongest 
 effects both upon the nature and form of quadrupeds. As in man, we 
 have seen some alterations, produced by the variety of his situation ; 
 so in the lower ranks, that are more subject to variation, the influence 
 of climate is more readily perceived. As these are more nearly at- 
 tached to the earth, and in a manner connected to the soil ; as they 
 have none of the arts of shielding off the inclemency of the weather, 
 or softening the rigours of the sun, they are consequently more 
 changed by variations. In general, it may be remarked, that the 
 colder the country, the larger and the warmer is the fur of each ani- 
 mal ; it being wisely provided by nature, that the inhabitant should 
 be adapted to the rigours of its situation. Thus, the fox and wolf, 
 which in temperate climates have but short hair, have a fine long fur 
 in the frozen regions, near the pole. On the contrary, those dogs 
 which with us have long hair, when carried to Guinea, or Angola, in 
 a short time cast their thick covering, and assume a lighter dress, and 
 one more adapted to the warmth of the country. The beaver, and 
 the ermine, which are found in the greatest plenty in the cold regions, 
 are remarkable for the warmth and delicacy of their furs ; while the 
 elephant, and the rhinoceros, that are natives of the line, have scarce 
 any hair. Not but that human nature can, in some measure, co-ope- 
 rate with, or repress the effects of climate in this particular. It is 
 well known what alterations are produced, by proper care, in the 
 sheep's fleece, in different parts of our own country ; and the same 
 industry is pursued with a like success in Syria, where many of their 
 animals are clothed with a long and beautiful hair, which they take 
 care to improve, as they work it into that stuff called camblet, so well 
 known in different parts of Europe. 
 
 The disposition of the animal seems also not less marked by the 
 climate than the figure. The same causes that seem to have ren- 
 dered the human inhabitants of the rigorous climates savage and 
 ignorant, have also operated upon their animals. Both at the line 
 and the pole, the wild quadrupeds are fierce and untameable In 
 these latitudes, their savage dispositions having not been quelled by 
 any afforts from man, and being still farther stimulated by the seve- 
 rity of the weather, thev continue fierce and untractable. Most ol 
 the attempts which hive hitherto been made to tame the wild beasts
 
 284 A HISTORY OF 
 
 brougnt home from the pole or the equator, have proved inef- 
 fectual. They are gentle and harmless enough while young ; but as 
 they grow up, they acquire their natural ferocity, and snap at the 
 hand that feeds them. It may indeed, in general, be asserted, that in 
 all countries where the men are most barbarous, the beasts are most 
 fierce and cruel : and this is but a natural consequence of the struggle 
 between man and the more savage animals of the forest ; for in pro- 
 portion as he is weak and timid, they must be bold and intrusive; in 
 proportion as his dominion is but feebly supported, their rapacity must 
 be more obnoxious. In the extensive countries, therefore, lying round 
 the pole, or beneath the line, the quadrupeds are fierce and formidable. 
 Africa has ever been remarked for the brutality of its men, and the 
 fierceness of its animals : its lions and its leopards are not less terrible 
 than its crocodiles and its serpents ; their dispositions seem entirely 
 marked with the rigours of the climate, and being bred in an extreme 
 of heat, they show a peculiar ferocity, that neither the force of man 
 can conquer, nor his arts allay. However, it is happy for the wretched 
 inhabitants of those climates, that its most formidable animals are all 
 solitary ones ; that they have not learnt the art of uniting, to oppress 
 mankind ; but each depending on its own strength, invades without 
 any assistant. 
 
 The food also is another cause in the variety, which we find among 
 quadrupeds of the same kind. Thus the beasts which feed in the val- 
 ley are generally larger than those which glean a scanty subsistence 
 on the mountain. Such as live in the warm climates, where the plants 
 are much larger and more succulent than with us, are equally remark- 
 able for their bulk. The ox fed in the plains of Indostan, is much 
 larger than that which is more hardly maintained on the side of the 
 Alps. The deserts of Africa, where the plants are extremly nourish- 
 ing, produce the largest and fiercest animals ; and, perhaps for a con- 
 trary reason, America is found not to produce such large animals as 
 aje seen in the ancient continent. But, whatever be the reason, the 
 fact is certain, that while America exceeds us in the size of its reptiles 
 of all kinds, it is far inferior in its quadruped productions. Thus, for 
 instance, the largest animal of that country is the tapir, which can by 
 no means be compared to the elephant of Africa. Its beasts of prey 
 also, are devested of that strength and courage which is so dangerous 
 in this part of the world. The American lion, tiger, and leopard, if 
 such diminutive creatures deserve these names, are neither so fierce 
 nor so valiant as those of Africa and Asia. The tiger of Bengal has 
 been seen to measure twelve feet in length, without including the tail ; 
 tvhereas the American tiger seldom exceeds three. This difference 
 obtains still more in the other animals of that country, so that some 
 have been of opinion* that all the quadrupeds in Southern America 
 are of a different species from those most resembling them in the old 
 world ; and that there are none which are common to both but such 
 as have entered Ameiica by the north ; and which, being able to bear 
 the rigours of the frozen pole, have travelled from the ancient conti- 
 nent, by that passage, into the new. Thus the bear, the wolf, the elk, 
 
 Buffoa
 
 ANIMALS. 285 
 
 tbe stag, the fox, and the beaver, are known to the inhabitants as well 
 of North America as of Russia ; while most of the various kinds to the 
 southward, in both continents, bear no resemblance to each other. 
 Upon the whole, such as peculiarly belong to the new continent, are 
 without any marks of the quadruped perfection. They are almost 
 wholly destitute of the power of defence ; they have neither formid- 
 able teeth, horns, or tail ;- their figure is awkward, and their limbs ill 
 proportioned. Some among them, such as the ant-bear, and the sloth, 
 appear so miserably formed, as scarce to have the power of moving 
 and eating. They seemingly drag out a miserable and languid exist- 
 ence in the most desert solitude, and would quickly have been de- 
 stroyed in a country where there were inhabitants, or powerful beasts 
 to oppose them. 
 
 But, if the quadrupeds of the r?w continent be less, they are found 
 in much greater abundance ; for it is a rule that obtains through na- 
 ture, that the smallest animals multiply the fastest. The goat, im- 
 ported from Europe to South America, soon begins to degenerate ; 
 but as it grows less it becomes more prolific ; and, instead of one kid 
 at a time, or two at the most, it generally produces five, and sometimes 
 more. What there is in the food, or the climate, that produces this 
 change, we have not been able to learn ; we might be apt to ascribe 
 it to the heat, but that on the African coast, where it is still hotter, 
 this rule does not obtain ; for the goat, instead of degenerating there, 
 seems rather to improve. 
 
 However, the rule is general among all quadrupeds, that those which 
 are large and formidable produce but few at a time ; while such as 
 are mean and contemptible are extremely prolific. The lion, or tiger, 
 have seldom above two cubs at a litter ; while the cat, that is of a 
 similar nature, is usually seen to have five or six. In this manner the 
 lower tribes become extremely numerous ; and, but for this surprising 
 fecundity, from their natural weakness they would quickly be extirpa- 
 ted. The breed of mice, for instance, would have long since been 
 blotted from the earth, were the mouse as slow in the production as 
 the elephant. But it has been wisely provided that such animals as 
 can make but little resistance, should at least have a means of repair- 
 ing the destruction which they must often suffer by their quick repro- 
 duction ; that they should increase even among enemies, and multiply 
 under the hand of the destroyer. On the other hand, it has as wisely 
 been ordered by Providence, that the larger kinds should produce but 
 slowly ; otherwise, as they require proportional supplies from nature, 
 they would quickly consume their own store ; and, of consequence, 
 many of them would soon perish through want ; so that life would 
 thus be given without the necessary means of subsistence. In a word, 
 Providence has most wisely balanced the strength of the great against 
 the weakness of the little. Since it was necessary that some should 
 be great and others mean, since it was expedient that some should live 
 upon others, it has assisted the weakness of the one by granting it 
 fruitfulness ; and diminished the number of the other by infecundity 
 
 In consequence of this provision, the larger creatures, which bring 
 forth few at a time, seldom begin to generate till they have nearly ac 
 onirod their full growth. On the contrary, those which bring many.
 
 286 A HISTORY OF 
 
 reproduce before they have arrived at half their natural size. Thus 
 the horse and the bull are nearly at their best before they begin to 
 breed ; the hog and the rabbit scarce leave the teat before they be 
 come patents in turn. Almost all animals likewise continue the time 
 of their pregnancy in proportion to their size. The mare continues 
 eleven months with foal, the cow nine, the wolf five, and the bitch 
 nine weeks. In all, the intermediate litters are the most fruitful ; the 
 first and the last generally producing the fewest in number, and the 
 worst of the kind. 
 
 Whatever be the natural disposition of animals at other times, they 
 all acquire new courage when they consider themselves as defending 
 their young. No terrors can then drive them from the post of duty ; 
 the mildest begin to exert their little force, and resist the most formid- 
 able enemy. Where resistance is hopeless, they then incur every 
 danger, in order to rescue their young by flight, and retard their own 
 expedition by providing for their little ones. When the female opos- 
 sum, an animal of America, is pursued, she instantly takes her young 
 into a false belly, with which nature has supplied her, and carries them 
 off, or dies in the endeavour. I have been lately assured of a she-fox, 
 -which, when huated, took her cub in her mouth, and run for several 
 miles without quitting it, until at last she was forced to leave it behind, 
 upon the approach of a mastiff, as she ran through a farmer's yard. 
 But, if at this period the mildest animals acquire new fierceness, how 
 formidable must those be that subsist by rapine ! At such times no 
 obstacles can stop their ravage, nor no threats can terrify ; the lioness 
 then seems more hardy than even the lion himself. She attacks men 
 and beasts indiscriminately, and carries all she can overcome reeking 
 to her cubs, whom she thus early accustoms to slaughter. Milk, in 
 the carnivorous animals, is much more sparing than in others; and it 
 may be for this reason that all such carry home their prey alive, 
 that, in feeding their young, its blood may supply the deficiencies of 
 nature, and serve instead of that milk with which they are so sparingly 
 supplied. 
 
 Nature, that has thus given them courage to defend their young, 
 has given them instinct to choose the proper limes of copulation, 
 so as to bring forth when the provision suited to each kind is to be 
 found in the greatest plenty. The wolf, for instance, couples in De- 
 cember, so that the time of pregnancy continuing five months, it may 
 have its young in April. The mare, who goes eleven months, admits 
 the horse in summer, in order to foal about the beginning of May. 
 On the contrary, those animals which lav up provisions for the winter, 
 such as thf beaver and the marmotte, couple in the latter end of au- 
 tumn, so as to have their young about January, against which season 
 they have provided a very comfortable store. These seasons for 
 coupling, however, among some of the domestic kinds, are generally 
 in consequence of the quantity of provisions with which they are al 
 any time supplied. Thus we may, by feeding any of these animals, 
 nnd keeping off the rigour of the climate, make them breed whenever 
 we please. In this manner, those contrive who produce lambs all the 
 year round
 
 ANIMALS. 28? 
 
 The choice of situation in bringing forth is also very remarkable. 
 In most of the rapacious kinds, the female takes the utmost precautions 
 to hide the place of her retreat from the male, who otherwise, when 
 pressed by hunger, would be apt to devour her cubs. She seldom, 
 therefore, strays far from the den, and never approaches it while he 
 is in view, nor visits him again till her young are capable of providing 
 for themselves. Such animals as are of tender constitutions, take the 
 utmost care to provide a place of warmth, as well as safety, for their 
 young ; the rapacious kinds bring forth in the thickest woods ; those 
 that chew the cud, with the various tribes of the vermin kind, choose 
 some hiding-place in the neighbourhood of man. Some dig holes in the 
 ground ; some choose the hollow of a tree ; and all the amphibious 
 kinds bring up their young near the water, and accustom them betimes 
 to their proper element. 
 
 Thus nature seems kindly careful for the protection of the meanest 
 of her creatures : but there is one class of quadrupeds that seems en- 
 tirely left to chance, that no parent stands forth to protect, nor no in- 
 structor leads, to teach the arts of subsistence. These are the quad- 
 rupeds that are brought forth from the egg, such as the lizard, the tor- 
 toise, and the crocodile. The fecundity of all other animals, compared 
 with these, is sterility itself. These bring forth above two hundred at 
 a time ; but, as the offspring is mors numerous, the parental care is 
 less exerted. Thus the numerous brood of eggs are, without farther 
 solicitude, buried in the warm sands of the shore, and the heat of the 
 sun alone is left to bring them to perfection. To this perfection they 
 arrive almost as soon as disengaged from the shell. Most of them, 
 without any other guide than instinct, immediately make to the water. 
 In their passage thither, they have numberless enemies to fear. The 
 birds of prey that haunt the shore, the beasts that accidentally come 
 there, and even the animals that give them birth, are known, with a 
 strange rapacity, to thin their numbers as well as the rest. 
 
 But it is kindly ordered by Providence, that these animals, which 
 are mostly noxious, should thus have many destroyers ; were it not 
 for this, by their extreme fecundity, they would soon overrun the earth 
 und cumber all our plains with deformity. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUMB.
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
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