BOOK I. CONTAINING DIVERS INGENIOUS THEORIES AND PHILOSOPHIC SPECULATIONS, CONCERNING THE CREATION AND POPULATION OF THE WORLD, AS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF NEW-YORK. CHAPTER I. Description of the World. ACCORDING to the best authorities, the world in which we dwell is a huge, opaque, reflecting, inanimate mass, floating in the vast ethereal ocean of infinite space. It has the form of an orange, being an oblate spheroid, curiously flattened at opposite parts, for the insertion of two imaginary poles, which are supposed to penetrate and unite at the centre; thus forming an axis on which the mighty orange turns with a regular diurnal revolution. The transitions of light and darkness, whence proceed the alternations of day and night, are produced by this diurnal revolution successively presenting the different parts of the earth to the rays of the sun. The latter is, according to the best, that is to say, the latest accounts, a luminous or fiery body, of a prodigious magnitude, from which this world is driven by a centrifugal or repelling power, and to which it is drawn by a centripetal or attractive force, otherwise called the attraction of gravitation; the combi 28 DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. nation, or rather the counteraction, of these two opposing impulses producing a circular and annual revolution. Hence result the different seasons of the year, viz. spring, summer, autumn, and winter. This I believe to be the most approved modern theory on the subject-though there be many philosophers who have entertained very different opinions; some, too, of them entitled to much deference from their great antiquity and illustrious characters. They it was advanced by some of the ancient sages, that the earth was an extended plain, supported by vast pillars; and by others, that it rested on the head of a snake, or the back of a huge tortoise-but as they did not provide a resting-place for either the pillars or the tortoise, the whole theory fell to the ground, for want of proper foundation. The Brahmins assert, that the heavens rest upon the earth, and the sun and moon swim therein like fishes in the water, moving from east to west by day, and gliding along the edge of the horizon to their original stations during the night ;* while, according to the Pauranicas of India, it is a vast plain, encircled by seven oceans of milk, nectar, and other delicious liquids; that it is studded with seven mountains, and ornamented in the centre by a mountainous rock of burnished gold; and that a great dragon occasionally swallows up the moon, which accounts for the phenomena of lunar eclipses.t *Faria y Souza. Mick. Lus. note b. 7. DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. 29 Beside these, and many other equally sage opinions, we have the profound conjectures of ABOULHASSAN-ALY, Son of Al Khan, son of Aly, son of Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of Masoud-elHad-heli, who is commonly called MASOUDI, and surnamed Cothbeddin, but who takes the humble title of Laheb-ar-rasoul, which means the companion of the ambassador of God. He has written a universal history, entitled "Mouroudge-ed-dharab, or the Golden Meadows, and the Mines of Precious Stones."* In this valuable work he has related the history of the world, from the creation down to the moment of writing; which was under the Caliphate of Mothi Billah, in the month Dgioumadi-el-aoual of the 336th year of the Hegira or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth is a huge bird, Mecca and Medina constituting the head, Persia and India the right wing, the land of Gog the left wing, and Africa the tail. He informs us, moreover, that an earth has existed before the present, (which he considers as a mere chicken of 7000 years) that it has undergone divers deluges, and that, according to the opinion of some well-informed Brahmins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every seventythousandth hazarouam; each hazarouam consisting of 12,000 years. These are a few of the many contradictory opinions of philosophers concerning the earth, and we find that the learned have had equal perplexity as to the *Mss. Bibliot, Roi. Fr. 30 DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. nature of the sun. Some of the ancient philosophers have affirmed that it is a vast wheel of brilliant fire ș others, that it is merely a mirror or sphere of transparent crystal ;t and a third class, at the head of whom stands Anaxagoras, maintained that it was nothing but a huge ignited mass of iron or stoneindeed, he declared the heavens to be merely a vault of stone-and that the stars were stones whirled upward from the earth, and set on fire by the velocity of its revolutions. But I give little attention to the doctrines of this philosopher, the people of Athens having fully refuted them, by banishing him from their city; a concise mode of answering unwelcome doctrines, much resorted to in former days. Another sect of philosophers do declare, that certain fiery particles exhale constantly from the earth, which concentrating in a single point of the firmament by day, constitute the sun, but being scattered and rambling about in the dark at night, collect in various points, and form stars. These are regularly burnt out and extinguished, not unlike to the lamps in our streets, and require a fresh supply of exhalations for the next occasion.§ It is even recorded, that at certain remote and obscure periods, in consequence of a great scarcity *Plutarch de Placitis Philosoph. lib. iii. cap. 20. † Achill. Tat. Isag. cap. 19. Ap. Petav. t. iii. p. 81. Stob. Eclog. Phys. lib. i. p. 56. Plut. de Plac. Phi. Diogenes Laertius in Anaxag. 1. ii. sec. 8. Plat. Apol. t. i. p. 26. Plut. de Plac. Philo. Xenoph. Mem. 1. iv. p. 815. Aristot. Meteor. l. ii. c. 2. Idem. Probl. sec. 15. Stob. Ecl. Phys. 1. i. p. 55. Bruck. Hist. Phil. t. i. p. 1154, &c. |