But, at the Polar Circles, the Sun remains above the horizon longer than one revolution of the Earth, and therefore, the length of day-light increases very rapidly towards the Poles, where (as we have seen) it continues six months together. For this reason, the Climates between the Polar Circles and the Poles, are reckoned by months, and not by half-hours, thus: Climates in Months. 1st. 2nd 3rd 4th 6th. Latitude, 67°. 15′ 69°. 30' 73°. 20' 78° 20' 84°. 10' 90°. 0' 19. The terraqueous globe is made up of two great general parts, the Earth or Land (yn terra), and Sea or Water (vcwp aqua), these two being again subdivided into smaller parts. A Continent (poç continens 9) is a vast tract of land, containing many countries and kingdoms hanging together, as it were, and, consequently, not easily distinguished to be surrounded with water, as, the continent of Europe, the continent of America. An Island (vñoos insula) is a smaller tract of land, entirely surrounded with water, as the island of Albion or Great Britain, the island of Sicily, the island of Delos. A peninsula (xepoóvnoos pæninsula, i. e. pæne insula) or chersonese, is a tract of land which is almost an island, being encompassed by water on all sides, except where it is joined to the main by a narrow neck of land; as the Thracian Chersonese, the Morea, and Spain. The narrow neck of land, which joins a peninsula to the main, is called an Isthmus (iopòç isthmus10) as the Isthmus of Corinth, the Isthmus of Suez, and the Isthmus of Darien. A Cape or promontory (aкpov promontorium) is a prominent eminence shooting out into the sea, and is also sometimes called a headland, except when it is low and flat, and then, it is named a Point: thus, the Promontory of Sunium, C. Trafalgar, the Cape of Good Hope, the Lizard Point. When the land rises above the level country, it is called a hill or mountain (öpoc mons 11), as M' Parnassus, M' Blanc; and, when this high land runs continuously through a country, or a number of countries, it is called a Chain, or Ridge of Mountains, as the Chain of the Alps, the chain of the Pyrenees, the chain of the Andes. A mountain, which casts forth flames, is called a Volcano (from Vulcanus, through the Italian), as the Volcano of Etna, the Volcano of Vesuvius. The low ground between two mountains is named a valley (ávλúr vallis "), and is generally traversed by a river, as the Valley of the Jordan, the Valley of the Nile. When a valley is exceedingly narrow, so as not to allow of it's, being crossed without difficulty, it is called a Pass (rúa pylæ), as Syriæ Pylæ, the Passes of the Alps, the Pass of Schoumla. A River (worauòc fluvius) is a body of water, flowing from elevated ground into the sea, more or less rapidly, and with a longer or shorter course, according to the nature of the ground through which it passes, and the quantity of water with which it is supplied; as the R. Nile, the R. Thames, the R. Po: the place, where it bursts from the Earth, is called it's source or springs (ny fons), and it's junction with the salt water of the sea is named it's mouth (ExBox ostium). We are said to descend a river, when we float down with it's waters, and to ascend it, when we go up against the current of it's waters: the right and left banks of a river are determined by it's course to the sea, the right bank is on the right side, and the left bank on the left, to one descending it. A lake (Xiuvn lacus) is a great collection of water, surrounded on all sides by land, and having no communication with the sea except by a river or a subterraneous passage, as Lemanus Lacus, Trasimenus Lacus, Lake Tchad. Morasses or marshes (ën paludes) differ from lakes only in their not being always full of water, and in their being occasionally drained, as the Pomptinæ Paludes, the Marshes of Venice, the Marshes of Aquileia. 20. The Ocean (wкeavòs Oceanus) is the wide open part of the sea, surrounding the land on all sides 12, and extending from one pole to the other: it is divided into several parts, for the convenience of description, as the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, &c. A Sea (λayos mare) is a much smaller collection of water, nearly surrounded by land, and which may be again subdivided into several parts, as the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea. A Gulf or bay is a branch of the sea, running a considerable distance into the bosom of the land, and hence named by the ancients Kóλmos sinus, as the Arabicus Sinus, the Persian Gulf, Baffin's Bay. A strait (oppos (πορθμὸς fretum) is a narrow channel, connecting two seas together, or a sea with the ocean, as Siculum Fretum, the Strait of Gibraltar, &c. 21. The moderns have divided the globe into four great parts, called Quarters, not that these parts are equal in size (for they are very unequal), but for the conveniency of having a general term to distinguish at once a great portion of the Earth. We could not use the term Continent for this purpose, because a continent is a vast tract of country connected together, and not composed of several parts separated from each other by the Ocean, as is the case in a Quarter of the World: for instance, though the British Isles are reckoned to Europe, yet they do not belong to the continent of Europe, because they are entirely separated from it by the Ocean: Ceylon, the East India Islands, Australia, and the Japanese Islands are separated from the continent of Asia in the same way, and yet they belong to Asia: Madagascar, undoubtedly, forms part of Africa, though not of the continent of Africa: and the West Indian Islands are correctly said to be in America, though they form no part of the American continent. And, therefore, when we speak of a Quarter of the globe, we mean one of those four great divisions, into which, it is, as it were, divided by nature, each Quarter being composed of one great continent and many islands. These four great divisions of the globe are called Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. The three first of these are in the Eastern Hemisphere, and, from their having been known (though imperfectly) to the ancients 13, they are called by us the Old World: America is in the Western Hemisphere, and was altogether unknown to the ancients; from it's having been first discovered only three centuries and a half ago, we call it the New World. Of the three Quarters in the Eastern Hemisphere, Europe lies to the North West, Africa to the South West, and Asia to the East: America extends directly across the Western Hemisphere, nearly from Pole to Pole. 22. The superficial surface of the globe is equal to 148,187,500 square miles, of which about one fourth part (39,956,500 square miles) is land, and the remaining three-fourths (108,231,000 square miles) are water. Asia is the largest of the four quarters of the globe, America the next, Africa the third, and Europe the smallest; the estimated population and number of square miles contained in each, are as follow: 23. But the knowledge possessed by the ancients, concerning the figure and extent of the Earth, was exceedingly defective 11. In the earlier times, most of them imagined it to be a flat, round surface, which the Ocean surrounded, as it were, like a great circular river; the countries composing it, were merely those, which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and above the whole, rose the great arch of the heavens, forged, as they supposed, out of brass 15 or iron, and resting upon the loftiest mountains. They carefully distinguished the Ocean from the other seas 16, only applying the former term to the great boundary of the earth, from which the sun and stars regularly arose, and into which they again descended: they fancied it also to communicate with the lower world 17. The extent and limits of this great Ocean-river are nowhere alluded to, and were probably never explained by those who indulged in it's fanciful description. War and commerce, however, made them acquainted with many other nations and countries besides those which bordered upon the Mediterranean and Euxine Seas, and their notions respecting the ocean, became then more expanded, but scarcely less vague. They still considered it as surrounding the whole earth, but not in that regular manner which had been once supposed, for they divided it into several parts, as the Atlanticus Oceanus, Hyperboreus Oceanus, Indicus Oceanus, and Erythræum Mare: they imagined that the Caspian Sea was merely one of it's inlets from the Hyperborean Regions, in the same way that the Arabian Gulf was only an arm of it from the Southward, and that, betwixt these two, it swept round, in a semicircular form, past the territory of the Sinæ or Chinese, the inouths of the Ganges, and the I. Taprobane or Ceylon. They likewise fancied that they were well acquainted with the Southern coast of Africa, and that it trended Westward from C. Guardafui, it's Eastern extremity, till it joined the shores of the Hesperii Æthiopes, on the coast of Guinea. But others again, imagined that the Indian Ocean was only a great inland sea like the Mediterranean, and they, therefore, left the termination of the South coast of Africa in uncertainty. The greatest extent, to which they ever arrived, in their knowledge of the Eastern Hemisphere, hardly exceeded the half of it. In Europe, they knew little or nothing of Sweden, Norway, and Russia in Asia, the limits of their knowledge were Tartary and China; and in Africa, they ventured to describe but little to the South of the Mountains of the 14 Γελῶ δὲ ὁρέων γῆς περιόδους γράψαντας πολλοὺς ἤδη, καὶ οὐδένα νόον ἔχοντας ἐξηγησάμενον· οἳ Ωκεανόν τε ρέοντα γράφουσι πέριξ τὴν γῆν, ἐοῦσαν κυκλοτερέα ὡς ἀπὸ τόρνου· καὶ τὴν ̓Ασίην τῇ Εὐρώπη ποιεύντων ἴσην. Herod. IV. 36. 15 Ο χάλκεος οὐρανος οὔπω ἀμβατὸς αὐτοῖς. 16 Pind. Pyth. X. 42. Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ ποταμοῖο λίπεν ῥύον Ωκεανοῖο Hom, Od. M. 1. 17 ̓Αλλ' ὁπότ ̓ ἂν δὴ νηῒ δι' ὠκεανοῖο περήσης, Hom. Od. K. 512. Moon. It is true, that they have given some account of regions beyond these boundaries, but the monsters, with which they peopled them, evidently show the land of fable. 24. The sea which extends from Europe and Africa to America, is called the Atlantic Ocean, and is divided, by the Equator, into North and South; it stretches, towards the South, from C. Horn to the C. of Good Hope. The ancients were acquainted with that part of it only, which washed the shores of the old world, and named it Oceanus Atlanticus 18, after Mr. Atlas in Africa, and sometimes, Oceanus Exterior, as being the outmost sea, with which they were acquainted. The Indicus Oceanus or Indian Ocean, washing the Eastern coast of Africa, and the Southern coasts of Asia, extends from the C. of Good Hope to the Western shores of Australia: it is much smaller than the Atlantic, and derived it's name from India and the Indian Islands, the shores of which are washed by it's waves. Though the ancients applied the term Indicus Oceanus, so far as their knowledge went, in the same extended sense that we do, yet they called it's Northern part (especially in the earlier times) Erythræum Mare 19; and they did not confine this appellation to the Sea of Oman, which washes the Southern shores of Arabia and Persia, but, likewise, considered the Arabian and Persian Gulfs as two of it's arms, and hence they are both frequently alluded to as the Erythræan Sea.-The Pacific Ocean lies between America and Asia, and is the largest of all the great bodies of water bearing one name; it is remarkable for those extensive chains of islands, called by some Polynesia (from Toλuç multus, and vños insula), which lie scattered between the Equator and the Southern Tropic, forming, as it were, the straggling remnants of the great continent to which they appertain. The Pacific Ocean is divided, by the Equator, into North and South. It received it's name from the Spaniards, who first navigated it, and who, having experienced in it, during their first voyages, calm and gentle weather, fancied that it was the same all over; but, although the part within the Tropics may occasionally justify the appellation they gave it, yet, there are as severe tempests to be met with in the Pacific, as in any other Sea. It was also called the South Sea from the situa |