BRITISH SETTLEMENTS in NORTH AMERICA, UNITED STATES of NORTH AMERICA, UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA A SUMMARY OF GEOGRAPHY and HISTORY, Both ANCIENT and MODERN. Of the FIGURE and MOTION of the EARTH. EOGRAPHY is a defcription of the earth. GThe figure of the earth is round. This might have always been known, from the fhadow of the earth in an eclipfe of the moon; but it was first completely af certained by Magellan, a native of Portugal, in the service of Spain, who failed round it. Magellan left Seville with five.veffels, 10th August 1519. He himself was killed by the favages in Luconia or Manila, one of the Philippine islands; but his fhip returned to Spain after a voyage of 1124 days, or three years and twenty-nine days. The next who failed round the world was Sir Francis Drake, anno 1577, in 1056 days; and the third, Thomas Cavendish, anno 1586, in 777 days. The round figure of the earth may be alfo inferred from the appearance of objects at a distance, as we approach or lofe fight of them, efpecially at fea; from the obfervation of the ftars, especially of the polar ftar, which rifes as we go north, and finks as we go fouth; and from the level, neceflary to be ob served in making a long canal, for conveying water from one place to another, which flopes about 8 inches in a mile, 4 times 8 or 32 inches in 2 miles, 9 times 8 or 72 inches in 3 miles, 16 times 8 or 128 inches in 4 miles, and fo on, always encreafing as the square of the distance. The roundnefs of the earth is occafioned by every thing on it being attracted to its centre, which is called gravitation or attraction. Mountains bear no fenfible proportion to the bulk of the B earth, earth, no more than a particle of duft to an artificial globe, and therefore are to be confidered as trifling inequalities on its furface, Senec. Nat. Quæft. iv. 11. the highest of them not much exceeding three miles in perpendicular height. Plin. ii. 65. The earth has two motions; the one round the fun in the fpace of a year, which occafions the diversity of feafons; and the other round its own axis, from weft to eat, in the space of 24 hours, which produces day and night. This last motion. makes it to be flat at the ends of the axis, and to fwell out in the middle in the fhape of an orange. We may form fome idea of these two motions of the earth, by obferving the motion of a ball on a billiard-table or bowling-green. The diurnal motion of the earth makes us imagine that the fun and ftars, which are fixed, move round it. Hence we fpeak as if this were the cafe. Thus the fun is faid to rife, to fet, and to culminate, that is, to be in the meridian or at his greatest height. The ancients in general, as the vulgar do ftill, conceived the earth to be an extended plain, remaining at reft, while the fun and stars moved round it (Solem immobilem, circum eam volubili univerfitate, Plin. ii. 5. f. 4.). In allufion to which opinion the poets, and fometimes profe writers, fpeak of the fun as plunging in the ocean, when he fets, Virgil. G. i. 438. ii. 481.; En. i. 745.; Florus, ii. 17. 2.; and emerging from the ocean when he rifes. They reprefent the parts of the torrid zone as more elevated than the reft, and therefore nearer to the fun, Horat. ed. i. 22. 21.; or to the heavens, Lucan. ix. 351.; Plin. ii. 78. /. 80. so that, scorched by the exceffive heat, they were rendered uninhabitable, Salluft. Jug. 19.; Ovid. Met. i. 49. On the fame principle, the Greeks fuppofed Delphi, the capital of Phocis, to be the centre of the surface of the earth, (medium orbis vel umbilicus terræ,) Lib. xxxviii. 48.; Ovid. Met. x. 168.; xv. 63c. To determine this matter, Jupiter is faid to have let fly two eagles at the fame time, the one from the caft and the other from the west, which met at Delphi, Strabo, ix. p. 419.; or on the top of Parnaffus, Claudian. de confulatu Theodori, prol. The Jews had a fimilar notion concerning Jerufalem, from Ezek. v. 5.; Pfal. lxxiv. 12. The fathers of the Christian church in particular maintained that the earth was a plain, extending an immenfe way downwards, and established on foundations, Lactant. iii. 24.; Auguftin. de Civ. Dei, xvi. 9. an opinion, as they thought, favoured by fcripture, Pfal. xxiv. 2.; cxxxvi. 6. Lactantius therefore fpeaks of thofe who entertained contrary fentiments, as fupporting the groffest absurdities, (portenta, mendacia, &c.) ibid. But But most of the learned believed the earth to be round, as its very name (ORBIS terræ vel terrarum, globus vel fphæra) indicates, Plin. ii. 64. & 65. Ovid defcribes as a globe fufpended in the air, and poifed by its own weight, (ponderibus librata fis,) Met. i. 12. and 35. Faft. vi. 269. the parts of which, as Cicero fays, are kept together by being all drawn to the centre, (emnibus ejus partibus in medium vergentibus; id autem medium infimum in fpbara eft,) de Nat. D. ii. 45.* ORBIS, however, is fometimes put for a part of the earth, thus, Europe atque Afiæ orbis, Virg. Æn. vii. 224.; Lucan. 3. 276. ORBIS CRETE, Ovid. Met. viii. 100.; particularly for the Roman empire, or, as we fay, the Roman world, Nep. xxv. 20. Ab orbe noftro, from our part of the world, Tacit. Germ. 2. 1.+ Toto divifos orbe Britannos, i. e. from the continent, or from the Roman empire, Virg. Ecl. i. 67. Hence Britain was called alter orbis, another world, Serv. in Virg. ibid. ‡ as we call America, the new world, and the other three quarters, the old world. But the various opinions both of the ancients and moderns concerning the figure and motion of the earth fhall be hereafter enumerated. Of the PLANETS. THERE are other bodies which move round the fun in the fame manner with the earth. Thefe are, MERCURY, VENUS, MARS, JUPITER, and SATURN; and are called planets, or ivanderers, from the apparent irregularity of their motion, which the ancients could not explain, Horat. Ep. i. 12. 17. There is another planet lately difcovered, which has got the name of Georgium Sidus, the GEORGIAN STAR, or Planet. The path which a planet describes in moving round the fun, is called its ORBIT, which is not exactly circular, but in the form of what is termed an ellipfe, an oval figure, longer than it is broad. The earth and the other planets are retained in their orbits, by being always attracted towards the fun as their centre, and having a conftant inclination to fly off from him. These two powers are called the centripetal and centrifugal force. Mercury and Venus move nearer the fun than the earth; and are therefore called inferior, interior, or inner planets: the other three are called fuperior, exterior, or outer planets, because they move at a greater diftance from the fun; or, as it is expreffed, without the orbit of the earth. So Lucan, Aere libratum vacuo quæ fuftinet orbem Totius pars magna Jovis. V. 94. So, I alium orbem, i. c. in aliam partem orbis, fc. in Epirum et Macedoniam, Lucan v. 238. ↑ Paruit et neftro dedu@a Britannia mundo, Claudian, de Conful. Fl. Mall. Theodor. 51. Jupiter and Saturn have other bodies, which move round them as the moon does round the earth, which are therefore called their SATELLITES, moons, or fecondary planets to the primary. Jupiter has four, and Saturn feven. Saturn is alfo furrounded by a thin, broad, opaque circle, called his ring. The Georgium Sidus has two fatellites *. All these bodies are warmed and enlightened by the fun; and therefore, in conjunction with him, are called the folar fyftem. Their magnitude, their diftance from one another, and the velocity of their motion, are almost beyond our conception, as may be feen from the following table. The proportional bulk of the fun, compared with the earth, is 877,650; of Jupiter 1,049; of Saturn 586, &c. There are likewife other bodies which move round the fun, in very long elliptic curves. These are called COMETS, or popularly blazing Stars, fuddenly appearing and again disappearing; diftinguished from other ftars by a long train or trail of light, always oppofite to the fun. When the fun and the comet are diametrically oppofite, the earth being between them, this train is hid behind the body of the comet, excepting a little that appears around it in the form of a border of hair; whence the Romans called comets CRINITE, fc. ftella, Plin. ii. 25. f. 22. or CINCINNATE, Cic. de Nat. D. ii. 5. Ariftotle imagined comets to be only meteors, generated in the upper regions of the atmosphere; but others, particularly Seneca, thought them to be real stars, Nat. Quest. vii. 22. They were fuppofed to portend fome fignal calamity to nations, Cic. ib.; * Dr. Herschel has LATELY DISCOVERED four other fatellites of the Georgian planet. He has likewife afcertained from the flattening of its poles that it turns round on its axis like the other planets with a confiderable degree of velocity; and that it has no ring like that of Saturn, as he had fufpected. See Philosophical Tranfactions of the Royal Society for the year 1798, Part I. Lucan. |