A Summary of Geography and History, Both Ancient and Modern ...: With an Abridgement of the Fabulous History of Mythology of the Greeks. To which is Prefixed, an Historical Account of the Progress and Improvements of Astronomy and Geography ... to the Time of Sir Isaac Newton ... Designed Chiefly to Connect the Study of Classical Learning with that of General Knowledge

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A. Strahan, 1802 - Classical dictionaries - 858 pages

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Page 632 - Calcutta is, in part, an exception to this rule of building; for there, the quarter inhabited by the English, is composed entirely of brick buildings, many of which have more the appearance of palaces than of private houses...
Page 81 - It is generally believed that the Moon rises about 50 minutes later every day than on the preceding; but this is true only with regard to places on the Equator. In places of considerable Latitude, there is a remarkable difference, especially in the harvest time, with which farmers were better acquainted than astronomers till of late ; and gratefully ascribed the early rising of the full Moon at that time of the year to the goodness of God, not doubting that He had ordered it so on purpose, to give...
Page 14 - ... eclipses were occasioned by the temporary extinction of the sun, and that there were several suns for the convenience of the different climates of the earth. Yet this man held the chair of philosophy at Athens for seventy years. Philolaus, a Pythagorian philosopher of Crotona, BC 374. He first supported the diurnal motion of the earth round its axis, and its annual motion round the sun. Cicero (Acad. iv. 39), has ascribed this opinion to the Syracusan philosopher Nicetas, and likewise to Plato....
Page 259 - Dionyfius is no lefs a monument of the ingenuity and magnificence, than of the cruelty of that tyrant. It is a huge cavern cut out of the hard rock, in the form of the human ear.
Page 691 - Asia, north-em. there seems to be good reason for supposing that the progenitors of all the American nations from cape Horn to the southern confines of Labrador, migrated from the latter rather than the former. The Esquimaux are the only people in America, who, in their aspect or character bear any resemblance to the northern Europeans. They are...
Page 249 - Venice was at fitft ftripped of all its pofieflions, but was afterwards faved by a difference arifiog among tuofe powers about the divifion of their prey. It has never fince, however, recovered its former importance, and now holds only a fecondary place among the powers of Europe. It has been chiefly hurt by the different direction which commerce has taken fince the difcovery of a paffage to the Eaft Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, by the Portuguefe, under De Gama, AD 1497.
Page 655 - About 220 miles from the fea (but 300 reckoning the windings of the river) commences the head of the Delta of the Ganges, which is confiderably more than twice the area of that of the Nile.
Page 700 - They presented to him choice specimens of those works of ingenuity which his light had guided the hand of man in forming. But the Incas never stained his altars with human blood, nor could they conceive that their beneficent father the Sun would be delighted with such horrid victims fj£J.
Page 687 - ... for feveral years. At length, he made his efcape, and arrived in London, but in fuch extreme indigence, that he was obliged to employ himfelf, during a confiderable time, in. drawing and felling maps, in order to pick up as much money as would purchafe a decent drefs, in which he might venture to appear at court. • He then laid before the...
Page 699 - Fasts, mortifications, and penances, all rigid, and many of them excruciating to an extreme degree, were the means employed...

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