Ambition and Avarice the World cannot satiate These are the Idols that will not be appeased without Humane Sacrifices These the wild Boars that waste our Arcadia's But where is the Hercules And now to give you a Geographical Account of this Earth I must tell you in the first place that the Earth and Waters together make a round Body commonly called Terrestrial but more properly Terr-Aqueous Globe Terr-Aqueous because it consists of Earth and Waters and Globe from its Figure Now this Globe is all surrounded with the Air and hangs in the midst of it Phil. How is it possible for the Earth and Waters together to make a round Body when there are so many Mountains and some of them of a prodigious height Sophr. Those Mountains in respect to the Globe are nothing if compared to the greatness of it Witness el Pico one of the highest Hills in the known World and yet not above two Leagues high perpendicularly And what is I pray the disproportion of two Leagues in a Body which no less than 1200. only to the Center or the middle point Phil. Do you say so How big is then the Terr-Aqueous Globe about Sophr. It is no less than 360. Degrees which at 20. Leagues or 60. miles a Degree comes to 7200. leagues or 21600. miles And yet 't is all but a Point if compared with Heaven Now the Diameter being in all round Bodies the third part of the Circumference it follows that the Diameter of the Terrestrial Globe is 2400. leagues and consequently the Semi-Diameter which reaches but to the Center 1200. leagues Phil. I am satisfied as to that but I am gravelled upon another account For I cannot conceive how so great and so heavy a Body as is the Terr-Aqueous Globe as you call it should hang in the Air without any support when if we throw but a stone into the Air it presently falls down Sophr. The Reason is because all heavy things do naturally incline to their Center which is thought to have an attractive faculty to that purpose The next Thing we must consider is that one part of the Earth is visible and the other part under Water Now the Question is you will say which of the two Superficies is greater that of the Earth or that of the Water But this we cannot tell certainly because one great Part of the Terr-Aqueous Globe is as yet unknown to us And if we speak only of that Part which is known there is no doubt in case that we do reckon Lakes and Rivers but that the Superficies of the Water exceeds that of the Land Otherwise I find no great odds betwixt the Sea and the Land 'T is true the Sea gets ground now and then and incroaches upon the Land but 't is as true on the other side that it leaves some places dry Witness Zealand which formerly was under the Sea as we may guess by the great Bonefishes and Anchors that have been digged up there and now is a pleasant fertile and populous Countrey But however all this is nothing if compared to the whole Superficies of the Earth and Waters And so Philalethes we have hitherto spoke of the Earth and Waters as an Aggregate Body now we must treat of them separately First You must know the Land as it is more or less incompassed with Water is principally divided Into Continents Islands Peninsules A Continent otherwise called Firm Land is a great part of Earth but partly watered by the Sea as France and Germany An Island is a part of Earth invironed round about with Water as great Britain and Ireland A Peninsule is a part of Earth almost surrounded with Water and only joyned to the Continent by a narrow neck of Land as Morea in Greece Now in Continents Islands and Peninsule's are to be considered these natural Parts following Viz. Isthmus or Neck of Land Cape or Promontory Point or Foreland Coast or Sea-Coast Shore or Bank Hill Mount or Mountain Valley or Dale Pit or Precipice Marsh Mere or Fens Plain or Champaign Ground Downs Heaths Forrest or Wood. Desart or Wilderness An Isthmus is a narrow Neck of Land that joyns a Peninsule to a Continent A Cape or Promontory is a Hill that shoots forth into the Sea A Point or Foreland is a narrow piece of Ground that runs point-wise into the Sea A Coast or Sea-Coast is that part of a Country which lies by the Sea-side A Shore the very extremity of Land that borders upon any Water and if raised much higher than the Water then it is termed a Bank A Hill is a part of Earth rising more or less above the neighbouring Ground but if it be of a great height or extent then it is also called by the name of Mount or Mountain A Valley or a Dale is a low Ground that lies at the bottom of a Hill or betwixt two distinct Hills A Pit or Precipice is a great fall of Earth apt to strike with horror those that look down into it Marsh Meers Fens or Marshy Ground a Quantity of Land so intermixt with Water that it is not passable but in a great Drought or hard Frost A Plain or Champaign Ground is a great plot of Ground lying level and open Which if upon a Hill is called Downs and if overgrown with Heath is named a Heath By a Forrest or Wood is properly meant a great Plot of Ground covered with Trees unplanted and growing of their own accord Lastly we call a Desart or Wilderness a vast quantity of Barren and uninhabited Land Phil. To make some useful Reflections upon what is said I desire to know in the first place which are the chiefest and most remarkable Islands Sophr. To answer your Desire there is first in Europe Great Brittain and Ireland both surrounded with the Ocean These are the two largest Islands of Europe and great Brittain as it is one of the best so 't is one of the greatest Islands in the World Then in the Mediterranean if you begin from the Streights you will find these goodly Islands East of Spain viz. Yvica Majorca and Minorca the two last being the Baleares Insulae of the Ancients Further Eastward you will meet with Sardinia and North of that with Corsica Then at the very Foot of Italy is Sicily the greatest Island in the Mediterranean Not much Inferiour to which is Candia formerly called Creet lying South-East of Morea in Greece In the Archipelago or the Aegean Sea a Sea which swarms with Islands the principal Island for bigness is the Negropont formerly known by the name of Euboea As to the Northern Sea called the Baltick there are few Islands of any great note besides Zealand and Fuinen which make part of Denmark and in the first of which you will find Copenhagen the Royal Seat of that Kingdom Secondly In Asia the chief Islands for bigness and first in the Mediterranean are Cyprus in the furthest parts of the Sea towards the East Next to which is the Isle of
and remain shut up in it then it is that we hear a Grumbling Noise Phil. How comes it that sometimes it Lightens without Thunder and that on the contrary it sometimes Thunders without any Lightning Sophr. When the Cloud makes no great resistance to the Exhalations then it Lightens without Thunder and when the Exhalation is not apt to catch fire then it Thunders without Lightning Phil. But how comes it to pass that when the Thunder and Lightning go together we sooner see the Lightning than we hear the Thunder Sophr. By the same reason that we sooner see the fire of a Cannon shot off at some distance than we hear the noise of it And that is because our Sight is quicker than our Hearing Now Philalethes I think we have done pretty well as to the fiery Meteors let us proceed to the Watery ones Some of which belong To the Middle Region Viz. Clouds Rain and Snow Some to the Lower as Hail Dew Hoar-Frost Mist Ice A Cloud is a great heap of Vapours raised up by the Sun and other Stars to the middle Region of the Air and there condensated by the coldness of it Now some Clouds are thin bright and airy apt to be dissipated either by the heat of the Sun or by the force of Winds when others are thick black full of moisture and consequently fit for the production of Rain For Rain is nothing else but a Cloud dissolved And when the Vapours are but thin then it Rains small when thick the Rain is greater Sometimes there has been seen Frogs little Fishes Bloud Milk Stones Iron and the like come down with the Rain but then it is as the Philosophers call it Pluvia Prodigiosa a Prodigious Rain Of all the Winds none is so apt to bring Rain as a South Wind and of all other signs of Rain a pale Moon is one of the truest according to the foresaid Verse Pallida Luna pluit c. The Snow is a Meteor of a Spungious Nature into which the Clouds do frequently dissolve themselves in Winter For then the middle Region of the Air being colder than ordinary the Clouds are so affected and as it were bound with the coldness thereof that instead of Rain they dissolve themselves into that white fleece-like and light Substance we call Snow Some think the Clouds that produce this Meteor have almost in them as great a quantity of Exhalations as Vapours and that those being extinguished in these make that spungious substance which at last breaks and comes fleeting down Hail is nothing else but Rain congealed in the Air when the Rain coming down from the middle Region is surprized by the heat of the lower Region and so congeals it self into hail to resist it Whereby you may conclude and 't is found so by experience that hot Country's are most of all subject to this kind of Meteor The Dew is but a thin and light Vapour raised not much above the Ground Which Vapour being condensated by a temperate cool Night dissolves it self into small drops of Water and falls down here and there But then it must be calm weather or else those light Vapours if disturbed by any Wind cannot condensate Hoar-Frost or Rime is nothing else but a Winter Dew congealed into the form of white Salt by the cold Air of a Winter-night Phil. And what is that I pray which is called Honey-Dew Sophr. 'T is a Dew which Men gather upon some Trees and the Bees upon some sorts of Flowers qualified by a Spirit which those Trees and Flowers do sometimes exhale into their Leaves To proceed a Mist or Fog is a Vapour that seldom rises but at the Sun-rising or Sun-set and which the cold weather do's so condensate by degrees that it lies about us and darkens the very Air we breath This Meteor which sometimes has an unwholsome smell with it is most common in Autumn and in Winter when the Sun being farthest from us has not strength to raise those thick Vapours above us up to the middle Region Phil. Now you led me into a stinking Mist pray bring me out of it Sophr. Then you must come over the Ice which is but congealed water And that which helps the Congelation besides the extream coldness of the Weather is when there is some mixture of Earth with the Water And so Philalethes I have done with the Real Meteors both Firy and Watery I shall now briefly conclude with those Meteors which the Greeks call Phasmata and the Latins Meteora apparentia Such as Parhelius or the Image of the Sun Paraselene the Image of the Moon Iris the Rain-bow Halo a circle about the Sun or Moon Vorago a great Gap Virgae perpendiculares the perpendicular Rods. Parhelius is the Image of the Sun reflected upon a Cloud And when it happens that we see several Suns it is but by the Impression of one Cloud upon another disposed to receive that Image The same it is with Paraselene or the Image of the Moon Iris or the Rain-bow is the Representation of a Bow or Semi-Circle upon a Drizling Cloud which is caused by the reflected beams of the Sun This is the most common of all these luminous Meteors frequently seen either in a Morning or in an Evening and that with these four Colours red green white and yellow In the Morning it presages cloudy weather and in the Evening it promises fair weather Halo otherwise called Area or Corona is a white and bright Circle which appears sometimes upon a Cloud either under the Sun or which is most common under the Moon Vorag a great Gap is an Exhalation raised up into the Air where having contracted a brightness but no where so little as in the middle part of it as being thicker than the rest makes this look like a great Gap The lesser sort of which is more properly called Hiatus or Chasma Virgae Perpendiculares are nothing else but the Reflection of the beams of the Sun through a thick Cloud And so much for this time In our next Conference I shall entertain you with the Globe of the Earth The Fourth Discourse Of the Terr-Aqueous Globe in general and the Earth in particular Sophrnius At last from the Heavens and the Air we are now come to our cloggy Element the Earth the Mother of Stones Metals Minerals Plants and living Creatures This Earth where God has displayed the Wonders of his Infinite Wisdom Goodness and Omnipotency but where Men shew daily their Madnels Malice and Weakness This Earth the general Stage of Mankind where are daily acted innumerable ridiculous Farces and fatal Tragedy's Which made a merry-conceited Author cry out not without reason in these Words Where shall a Man walk and not meet with Seignior Deliro that is Mr. Mad-man This Earth in fine which has been of old a Prey to Ambitious and Greedy Conquerors those cruel and blood-thirsty Leeches that take such delight in Blood those Enemies and Disturbers of Man-kind whose boundless
extending from the Borders of Austria to the Black Sea and so dividing Hungary Transilvania and Moldavia from Poland 5. Mount Haemus reaching from the Gulf of Venice as far as the Black Sea and so parting Greece from Servia and Bulgaria 6. The Dofrine Hills a vast and continual Ridge of Mountains which divide Norway from Sweden In the other Parts of the World you have first in Asia Taurus of which Caucasus is a part and Imaus greater than any in Europe That running a vast way from West to East and This from North to South In Africk Atlas extending from the Atlantick Ocean a prodigious way Eastward besides the Mountains of the Moon in the South parts In the Northern America the Mountains of New Mexico which run also North of Florida And in the Southern America the Andes reaching from the North parts of Peru to the Streights of Magellan above three thousand Miles Those are Philalethes the greatest and most noted Mountains in the World All of them generally of a Rocky Substance and in most places overspread with Forests None of them free from Snow even in the heat of Summer In short they are all troublesom and very dangerous to travel over by reason of their steep and tedious Ascents narrow ways and craggy Rocks deep and dreadful Precipices fierce Whirl-winds and huge Balls of Snow which sometimes tumble down from the top with great noise and violence And yet which is Remarkable amongst some of these dreadful Hills as the Alps there are Valleys incredibly fruitful and temperate with Towns and Villages in them Generally these Hills are Impassable except in a few Places which therefore were by the Romans called Portae or from the Greek Pylae or Thermopylae And as from Lakes so from these Mountains spring many of the greatest Rivers Some produce Metals as Gold Silver Iron c. and others produce none at all Now the lesser sort of Hills are commonly Sandy Chalky or Clammy And some of these as Mount Aetna in Sicily Vesuvius in the Kingdom of Naples and Hecla in Iseland are famous for those dreadful Fires which sometimes do break out of them Phil. Pray what 's the cause of those frequent Eruptions of Fire and Vomiting of Flames Sophr. The great Abundance of Sulphureous Matter contained in the bosom of those Hills the Wind which gets in at the chinks blowing the Fire and the Water on the other side adding to the force of it Phil. Then 't is to be supposed that when the Combustible Matter shall be wasted the Conflagration shall cease Sophr. Sure enough And therefore in Tercera and St. Michael two of the Azores Islands there are now no such Fires to be seen as there has been formerly but only now and then a Smoak And 't is observable that in the Ascension Island and St. Helena the Soil is so like Ashes that it may be credibly supposed there have been formerly some Fires of this kind Phil. But do you think Sophronius the Hills are of as old standing as the World Sophr. For my part I am inclined to believe the greatest Hills were created at first as they are Not that I think as some do that God having first made the Earth perfectly Round without any hollowness or one part higher than another and then contrived hollow places in the Earth to contain the Waters the Hills came of that Earth which made room for the Waters For certainly as many more Mountains as there are in the World could not fill up all those Concavities And yet I am apt to think that some Hills have been raised accidentally as those Sandy Hills near the Sea in the Low Countreys wherein are found many shells For 't is very probable those Shells were carried thither with the Sand by some violent Winds and afterwards compacted together by succeeding Rains and so hardened in process of time Phil. I confess 't is not unlikely Now I would sain know Sophronius whether or no there be Concavity's or hollow places Windings and Turnings Precipices and the like in the Bowels of the Earth Sophr. There 's no doubt of it if you consider the nature of Earth-quakes and those Rivers that having run a good way under ground come up again Phil. What have you now to say as to Forrests and Desarts Soph. In Europe the Forest of most note was the Hercynian Forest which over-run not only a great part of Germany but following the course of the Danube spread it self over Hungary and Transilvania and from thence on the left hand over Poland and Moscovy A Wood so formidable to the Romans that when they had gone 60. days Journey through it they came back and durst not venture to search the end of it But in Germany the greatest part thereof is long since consumed and no place there so much overspread with it as Bohemia In Poland and Moscovy this Forrest is the most visible and in the last especially Which is so over-run with it that when I was there an Attendant on the Right Honourable the Earl of Carlisle his Majesties Embassador to the Court of Moscovy we travelled 15 hundred miles through that Countrey and all within that Forrest Next to which for Fame was the Forrest called Ardennes in the Lower Germany Which in the time of Caesar extended from the Rhine one way as far as Tournay in Flanders and was in Compass at least 500. miles An inconsiderable Length you will say in comparison to that of Hercynia But now 't is not above 30. Leagues in length reaching but from Thionville in Luxemburg to Liege And yet not all that Woodland neither though within the Verge of that Forrest there being in that Tract of Ground many Villages and a great deal of Arable Land In short I shall observe to you that most of our European Forrests are of Fruitless Tree as Oak Beech Pine Juniper Alder and Maple-tree of Elm Ash and Poplar-tree but above all of Firr Though there are some indeed of Olive Orange and Myrtle-trees But in Asia there are whole Forrests of Cedar Cinamon Nutmeg and Clove-trees In Africk of Limon Orange Palme and Tamarind-trees And lastly America is famous for its Cedars but particularly for that red and exceeding hard Wood called Brasil from the name of a Country there which has whole Forrests thereof As to Desarts or Wildernesses properly so called they are either Sandy Stony or Moorish In Europe we are little troubled with them But in Asia there 's enough of 'em and especially in that part of Arabia which from hence is called Arabia Deserta A Countrey say's Melchior who had travelled in it where are sound neither Men nor Beasts no not so much as Birds or Trees Grass or Pasture but only Stony High and Craggy Mountains In short 't is a wild Place and full of vast Desarts so wast and desolate that such as travel there must carry their Provisions with them and guide themselves in their Journey by the course of the Stars 'T is
to the general Rule Some Rivers run under Ground more or less in the midst of their Course and at last come up again as new Rivers Such are the Guadiana and the Rhone in Europe Tigris in Asia Niger and Nubia in Africk Some spread themselves into the form of a Lake as the Tanais and Oby And others cross a Lake with so swift a course that they preserve themselves distinct from the Waters of it as the. Rhone aforesaid which coming down the Alpes falls into the Lake Leman and having run through the whole length of it from East to West comes out at Geneva Some Rivers have great Cataracts or Falls as the Rhine betwixt Bilefelt and Shaffausen the Rhone betwixt Geneva and Lyon and la Somme betwixt Amiens and Abbeville So 't is said of the River Nilus in Africk that in two several places it falls amongst Rocks with so terrible a noise that the Neighbouring People grow deaf with it Phil. Pray let us hear something of their Fall into the Sea Sophr. Many of the greatest Rivers fall in through several Mouths as the Danube and Nilus which have no less than seven each of them And Olearius in his Travels through Tartary to Persia tells us of 70. Mouths through which the River Volga that I have been upon several times disburdeneth it self after a winding Course of a thousand leagues into the Caspian Sea But there are some Rivers and commonly small ones that neither fall into other Rivers nor yet into the Sea but either lose themselves in the Ground or turn into a Lake Phil. Are all Rivers of the same Colour as ours are Sophr. They are generally so But yet there be some of a blackish colour some whitish and others reddish Of this last sort was the Adonis a River of Phaenicia in Syria which rises out of Mount Libanus and falls into the Sea 6. miles South of Barut This River in Summer-time used to contract a kind of Redness occasioned by the Winds which then blowing most vehemently did thereby carry down the Stream a great quantity of minium or red Earth from the sides of the Hills wherewith the Water was discoloured Phil. Is not this the River which was reported as Lucian has it to stream blood when the obsequies of Adonis the Darling of Venus were yearly celebrated Sophr. The very same Thus a natural Accident was made use of to give the better colour to the Superstition as if Adonis's Wounds did bleed every year Phil. Now as to the Tast of River-Water are all Rivers sweet as ours are Sophr. 'T is to be observed first that all Rivers subject to the Tide have a Tast of the Sea-water especially near their Fall into the Sea and so far as the Tide go's they have a brackish kind of Tast But there are other Rivers that have a brackish and mineral Tast upon another Account that is from such Minerals as they meet in their Course Phil. You know that Rivers are apt to overflow after a great Rain or Thaw as it frequently happens either at the beginning or at the latter end of Winter But I have heard of a more general and constant Overflowing of some great Rivers beyond Sea which I much admire at Sophr. 'T is this overflowing upon which depends the Want or Plenty of those Countrys And the River Nilus amongst others is as famous for that as it is for its Crocodiles In May says Thevenot it begins to flow and so increases every day some Inches till die latter end of September or the beginning of October At which time it begins to fall and is as long ebbing as flowing In the Year 1658. it increased according to the same Author who was then in the great Caire to the height of almost 22 Pics each Pic at 24 Inches And then the River began to decrease the 23d of September Phil. What becomes in the mean time of the Inhabitants and their Cattle during this great Land-Flood For Egypt at that time must needs look like a Sea Sophr. They retire upon Hills and there abide till the decrease of the Waters holding still a Commerce by the Intercourse of Boats Now as it happens sometimes that we have some Years too wet and others too dry so if Nilus overflows too much or too little Aegypt do's suffer for 't Unless it rise to 16 Pics 't is a bad Year and when it do's rise to 24. 't is as bad But if it chance at any time not to overflow at all 't is worst of all For then it does not only presage a Famine in Egypt but as some will have it prognosticates a Change in the State And accordingly 't is said that in the tenth and eleventh Years of Cleopatra a little before her Fall with her Sweet-heart Antonius the River increased not at all Phil. This is indeed very Remarkable But when the Water of Nilus is withdrawn to its natural Channel I suppose the Ground is very Slimy having lain so long under Water Sophr. So very Slimy that whereas we are fain to dung our Grounds the Egyptians throw Sand upon theirs before they Sow or Plant any thing And of this Slime is ingendred many living Creatures and as some say such innumerable heaps of Frogs that if the Country were not furnished as it is with a proportionable number of Storks by whom they are greedily devoured the Plague of Frogs would come a second time upon the Inhabitants Phil. Is it true that it never rains in Egypt Sophr. T is a Vulgar Error strongly confuted by Monsieur Thevenot Who affirms that it rains much in Alexandria and Rosetta but not indeed so much in the City of Caire However he says that he has seen it rain there two days together very hard and with great Thunder-claps in the Month of December The Sixth Discourse Of the National Tarts of the Earth SOphr Besides the Natural Division of the World into Earth and Waters there is a National Division of it which is to be the Subject of our present Discourse And to make it clear to ye you must know first the World is divided into two Principal Parts the Known and the Unknown World The Unknown World or that Part of the World which is yet Unknown to us lies about the Poles but the greater Part towards the Southern Pole That Part which lies towards the North Pole is called in Latin Terra Borealis or Terra Polaris Arctica and the other Part that lies towards the South Pole Terra Australis or Terra Polaris Antarctica The Known World is usually divided into four Parts Europe Asia Africk and America But it is a most unequal Division and I think it more rational to divide it thus Viz. the Known World first into two Parts the Old and the New World then the Old World into three Europe Asia and Africa and the New into two the Northern and Southern America For as the Old World do's visibly consist of three distinct Peninsules so is