the neighbouring isles: caryophyllus aromaticus, the receptacle of whose blossom is known in the European markets by the name of cloves abounds for the most part in the Moluccas; and the myristica, whose fruit is the nutmeg, and its inner covering the mace, by the mean jealousy of the Dutch East India company has been almost entirely restricted tb the little islands of Banda adjoining to Amboyna. But if this part of the globe be enriched by the most precious aromatics, it is also armed with the most active and deadly poisons: the same burning sun that exalts the former matures the latter. In the island of Celebez is produced the dreadful Macassar poison, a gum resin which exudes from the leaves and bark a kind of rhus, probably the toxicodendron; this species, together with other poisonous trees of the same island, is called by the natives ipo or upas, a name now immortalized by the genius of Dr. Darwin. Such indeed is the deleterious activity of this tree, that, when deprived of all poetic exaggeration, it still remains unrivalled in its powers of destruction: from the sober narrative of Rumphius, we learn that no other vegetable can live within a nearer distance of it than a stone's throw; that birds accidentally lighting oa its branches are immediately killed by the poisonous atmosphere which *urrounds it, and that in order to procure this juice with safety, it is necessary to cover the whole body with thick cotton cloth: if a person approaches it bare-headed, it causes the hair to fall off, and a drop of the fresh juice applied on the skin, if it should fail to produce immediate death, will cause an ulcer very difficult to be healed. All that we know of the indigenious vegetables of Australasia is confined to the immediate neghbourhood of the British settlement at Port Jackson. The forests here arc for the most part composed of lofty trees, with little or no interruption of underwood, so that they are readily penetrable in any direction, the principal shelter afforded to the few wild animals being in the long matted grass several feet in length, which overspreads the open country. In no discovered region has nature been less lavish of her vegetable treasures than in this part of the great southern continent, the only fruit-bearing plant is a climbing shrub, whose Linnxan name is billardiera scandens, the seeds of which are inveloped in a yellow cylindrical pulp tasting like a roasted apple. The loftiest of the trees, and which sometimes rises to the height of one hundred feet, is the eucalyptus robusta; it yields the brown gum, and its compact hard red wood has been imported into England by the name of New Holland mahogany. The red gum is procured from the ceratopetalum gummiferum, almost the only one of the native woods, that will float in water. A considerable proportion of the vegetables belong to the natural class of the papilionaceous, yet few even of these arc referable to any of the old genera, two elegant species, the platylobium formosum and pultnæa stipularis, have been introduced into our hot-houses. The other indigenous plants are but little remarkable for their beauty or use, and the notice that they obtain in our gardens is chiefly owing to their being foreigners, two of them however deserve an honourable distinction, the cmbothryum formosissimum, a shrub whose large full crimson blossoms resemble the pxony, and the styphelia tubitlora, remarkable for its fringed scarlet flowers, nearly analagous in shane to the common buck bean. As we advance further in the Great Pacific ocean towards America, and examine the botany of those numerous clusters of islands discovered for the most part by the illustrious Cook and his associates, which extend in breadth from the Ladrones to Easter Island, and in length from the Sandwich islands under the northern tropic, to New Zealand, twenty degrees beyond the southern one, we shall find many features of general resemblance, modified however in such a manner as may naturally be expected by the different proportions which each receives of warmth and moisture, the two great supports of vegetation. The four following esculent plants, are found either wild or cultivated, in all the islands of this ocean, that have yet been visited, namely, the sweet potato, arranged in the Linnxan system as a species of convolvulus; the yam, whose tuberous root in the gardens of Otaheite, sometimes attains the weight of thirty pounds; and two species of arum, the macrorhizon and esculentum, plants of considerable natural acrimony, but which, by culture and roasting, become a mild farinaceous food. Of the plants peculiar to the tropical islands, the chief is the artocarpus incisa, or bread fruit: this valuable tree rises to the height of more than forty feet, with a trunk about the thickness of a man's body; its fruit, which is nearly as large as a young child's head, being gathered while yet unripe, and roasted in the ashes, is a most wholesome nourishment, and in taste resembles new wheaten bread: for eight successive months every year, does this tree continue to furnish fruit in such abundance, that three of them are amply sufficient for the support of one man, nor is this the whole of its value, the inner bark is manufactured into cloth, the wood is excellent for the construction of huts and canoes, the leaves serve instead of napkins, and of its milky glutinous juice a tenacious cement and birdlime is prepared. Of almost equal importance with the breadfruit, and even more generally diffused through the islands, are the plantain and cocoa nut trees. The principal of the sweet juicy fruits are the spondias and eugenia already noticed as natives of India, the citrus decumanum, or shaddok of the West Indies, and the pandanus odoratissimus. The sweet orange is found sparingly in the New Hebudes, and the fan palm is met with on the mountains of the Friendly Isles. The inocarpus, whose fruit resembles the chestnut, the sugar cane, the paper mulberry, together with several species of mimosa and figs, are inhabitants of all the larger and rocky isles; and the piper methysticum, from which is prepared the highly intoxicating ava or kava, is unhappily but too frequent. Three plants are esteemed sacred, viz. the crateva or purataruru, the terminalia glabra or tara-iri, and the dracena terminalis, on which account they are chiefly employed in shading the morais. AMERICA. EXTENT. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE DISCOVERIES AND SET- MANY modern geographers have passed from the description ef Asia to that of Africa; while others, after having described these two continents and America, have concluded with Europe. In the arrangement of this work the political importance of the several divisions has been uniformly admitted, as a consideration of great and decisive influence, it being proper that those regions which are most eminent in the course of human affairs should have a preference in rank and delineation. In this point of view no quarter of the world is more insignificant than Africa: and that a considerable part of this last continent was known to the ancients, while on the north were the celebrated nations of the Egyptians and Carthaginians, is an argument merely historical, and which cannot be allowed to preponderate in a system of modern geography. In all future ages America must continue to be regarded as far more important than Africa, in every respect, political or natural: and when to this consideration it is added that though a part of Africa was well known to the ancients yet that continent is, upon the whole, far less known than any other, there is an additional most cogent geographical argument for postponing its description to the last, as has usually been done with regard to countries imperfectly discovered. These reflections being premised, the next description shall be that of America. The division of this wide continent into two parts, called North and South America, has not only been in long and general acceptation, but is strongly marked by the hand of nature, in an isthmus more narrow than that which separates Asia from Africa; and by a great diversity in the languages and manners of the original inhabitants. The general consideration of this extensive continent will therefore receive far more clearness and precision when divided into two parts, each forming a separate introduction to the regions about to be described. According to the arrangement observed in this work, only two topic* may be regarded as inseparable from a general view of all America, namely, the extent and population of the whole continent, and the progressive geography, or rather the epochs of the various discoveries. The southern limit of the American continent is clearly estimated from the strait of Magalhaens, or, according to the French depravation of a Portuguese name, Magellan. But the northern extent is not ascertained with equal precision. If Baffin's bay really exist, the northern limit may extend to eighty degrees, or perhaps to the pole. Uvt amidst the remaining uncertainty, it will be sufficient to estimate the length of America from the seventy-second degree of north latitude to the strait of Magalhaens, or the fifty-fourth degree of south latitude; a space of 126 degrees, or 7560 geographical miles. In South America the greatest breadth is from cape Blanco in the west to that of St. Roque in the east; which, according to the best maps, is forty-eight degrees, or 2880 geographical miles. But in the north the breadth may be computed from the promontory of Alaska to the most eastern point of Labrador, or even of Greenland, which would add more than a third part to the estimate. In British miles the length of America may be estimated at 8800, and supposing the breadth of North America 3840 geographical miles, it will, in British miles, be about 4400. The first discovery of America is generally ascribed to Christoval Colon, or as he is commonly called, from the first Latin writings an the subject, Christopher Columbus. But as it is now universally admitted that Greenland forms a part of America, the discovery must of course be traced to the first visitation of Greenland by the Norwegians, in the year 982; which was followed in the year 1003 by the discovery of Vinland, which seems to have been a part of Labrador, or of Newfoundland. The colony in Vinland was soon destroyed by intestine divisions; but that in Greenland continued to flourish till maritime intercourse was impeded by the encroaching shoals of arctic ice. Though the first European colony in America were thus lost, the Danes asserted their right by settlements on the western coast, called New Greenland, to distinguish it from the original colony on the eastern shores, or what is called Old Greenland*. 'Greenland continued to be well known; and ns many English vessels sailed to Iceland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it is In 1773 tbcre was published at Boston in New England, a curious pamphlet by Mr. Mather, entitled "America known to the Ancients." The author mentions the Welch tale of Modoc 1170, and the voyage of the Zeni in the fourteenth century. To the noted prophecy of Seneca he adds a passage of Mela relative to some Indians driven on the coast of Germany, who were probably Laplanders. The Atlantis of Plato forms another equally cogent argument; and the remainder of the pamphlet is occupied with ex traneous matter. Mr. Mather might have added the Spanish fable, that A. D. 734, after Spain had been conquered by the Moors, the archbishop of Porto, six bishops, and a number of christians, tied to the isle of Antillia, also called Sefti Ritadi. See Mr. Murr's Uis^ertaiiuu uu the tl,be of Behaim. probable that this part of America was not wholly unvisited by them. If the voyage of Nicola Zeno, 1380, be not imaginary, he would also appear to have visited Vinland, but can have added nothing to the Norwegian discoveries. A work not long since published at Venice, pretends to shew that the West Indies were known before the first voyage of Colon*. This position the author attempts to prove from some ancient maps preserved in the library of St. Mark, which appear from repeated inscriptions to have been drawn by Andrea Biancho of Venice, in the year 1436. In these maps many Islands are inserted to the west of Europe and Africa, as the Azores (which seem properly to belong to Europe, the nearest continent,) the Madeira islands, the Canaries, &c.; while at a greater distance, but at no great interval, is placed Ysola de Antillia, of considerable extent, but by a comparative scale, not above 150 miles in length by fifty in breadth. Further to the north-west is another fabulous island called Delaman Satanaxio, or Satan's-own-hand, an appellation which rivals any since conferred by navigators. This island of Antillia by its coincidence with the French name Antilles, given to part of the West Indies, has completely embarrassed and misled Formaleoni, who confesses that he cannot conceive whence the term was derived. A short explanation may serve entirely to obliterate this wonderful discovery. As human follies are generally similar, a recollection of what happened forty years ago, when many philosophers asserted the indispensable existence of a great southern continent, in order to balance Europe and Asia, will serve to illustrate the present subject. The mathematicians and philosophers of the middle ages, in like manner* imagined that some lands were necessary on the opposite part of the globe, to balance the known continents. As these lands were to them wholly imaginary, they were laid down at random; and the very map of Biancho, which gives a kind of oblong square form, of a regularity unknown to nature, is a proof that the whole is ideal. These imaginary lands were in the middle ages, called Ante-Inside, or Antinsula, whence the French Antillesf simply implying islands opposite to the bwivn continents; the extent of which latter was, at that period, considered as about a third part of their real size. Hence the reader will immediately perceive that Formaleoni, and many other writers, have, in their inscience of the literature and ideas of the middle ages, asserted as proofs of knowledge what are, on the contrary, proofs of complete ignorance. The globe of Martin Behaim, 1492, is an interesting monument, as it shews the precise extent of geographical knowledge prior to the first voyage of Colon. Mr. Murr has observed that this great navigator Saggio sulla nautica antica dei Veneziani; di Vincenzio Formaleoni. Ven. 1785, 8vo. The French alone have retained the old imaginary name, and applied it to the Caribhee Islands: but the Spaniards appear to have led the way in this absurd appellation. The name of Antinsula was perhaps originally substituted for that of Antipoder, which had been branded by a special papal anathema. From the life er Cclon, by his son, it would seem that Antilla was originally a Portuguese idea. |