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tion it appeared to have with respect to it's first discoverers.To the S. of these three, we may mention the Southern Ocean, which extends, completely round the globe, to the Antarctic Circle. The Antarctic Ocean lies between this last and the South Pole, and the Arctic Ocean or Hyperboreus Oceanus, between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole: these two are sometimes called the Frozen Oceans, from the excessive cold to which they are subject.

25. The Mediterranean Sea (so called from it's lying in medio terræ) is the largest inland sea in the world, it's superficial extent being about 852,000 square miles: it is frequently alluded to in Holy Writ, under the name of the Great Sea, but, the ancient heathens generally called it Internum Mare, Intestinum Mare, and Nostrum Mare, though, in the later ages, they used the term Mediterraneum Mare. Though so much smaller than any of the great oceans, it is considerably more interesting, from the early people of antiquity having settled round it's shores, and there earned for their names a glorious immortality; and we shall probably look in vain through all succeeding ages for so many, and such great nations, clustering together round so small a space, and thence sending forth their discoveries in art and science, like a splendid mental galaxy, to enlighten and instruct an astonished and listening world. Upon it's Asiatic shores, we meet with the commercial Sidon, and her first-born daughter, the wealthy and elegant Tyre: the highlyfavoured, but rebellious Jews, circling round the holiness of their magnificent Temple, like the innumerable waves of the ocean round it's own endless and unfathomable abysses: the polished Greeks of Asia Minor, the Dorians, Ionians and Eolians, revelling in all the soft luxuriance of their climate, and decaying into effeminacy by excessive refinement. Europe, we find the savage robber-hordes of Thrace: the irresistible phalanxes of Macedon, hurried over half the globe by a beardless conqueror: the sacred shores of Greece, less truly said to be the central point of the Earth, than the Sun that enlightened and warmed it: the rapacious legions of Italy, swooping over the free-born of every climate, and yoking them to the eagles of their chariots, with galling and unmanly chains, as an offering to the seven-throned queen of their countryas great, and noble, and virtuous, in their individual characters, as they were wily and oppressive in their public transactions. In Africa, we meet with the bold and swarthy Mauretanian, the last of the Mediterranean tribes to bow to all-conquering Rome: the gay and wandering Numidian, as proud of his person, as he was careless of the comforts of life: the ingenious and busy crowds of Carthage, the faithless, but much

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wronged empress of Libya: the Oasis of Cyrene, blooming like a flower, on the edge of the burning desert: the priestly kingdom of Egypt, lost in the mazes of it's remote antiquity, and in the labyrinths of it's own learning, ruling it's industrious but melancholy people with a gentle yet awful sway, and raising the monument of it's own greatness in those wonderful characters, which have defied the accumulated ingenuity of ages to unravel, as it's immortal pyramids have defied the power of all-devouring Time. Add to these, the lovely island of Sicily, teeming with flowers, and fruit, and honey, amidst the convulsions of Nature, as well as all the rapine and bloodshed with which man stained it's smiling soil: the hundred citied Crete, the nursing-place of the father of the gods, and the abode of the just yet terrible Minos, whose swelling fleet first laid claim to the dominion of the bounding sea: the fruitful Cyprus, with it's day-dreams of love, and it's very air breathing of her, whom the dancing waves landed on it's joyous shores, in the full majesty of her dazzling beauty: the islands that circle round the sacred Delos, and those which lie scattered up and down the intricacies of the Ægæan, each with it's own gods and heroes, it's own historians to relate their gallant actions, and it's own poets to sing the delights of an infant world in all the glowing imagery of never dying verse.

26. The principal chains of mountains in the world are, 1. In Europe: the Pyrenæi or Pyrenees, the Alpes or Alps, the Hæmus Balkan or Emineh, the Carpates or Carpathians, the Sevo or Fiell, and the Hyperborei or Rhipæi now called the Oural Mountains. 2. In Asia, are: M. Caucasus, which still retains it's name, M. Taurus or Ramadan Oglu, M. Paropamisus or the Hindoo Coosh, the Imaus or the great range of Tartary, and the Emodi Montes or Himaleh the highest mountains in the world. 3. In Africa, are: M. Atlas, which we still call by the same name, and the Lunæ Montes or Gebel Kumri, which are thought to traverse the continent, in it's whole extent, from East to West. 4. In America, there is one great ridge, which extends through it's Western part, from the shores of the North Polar Sea to C. Horn: it is called the Rocky or Stony Mountains in N. America, and the Andes or the Cordillera (i.e. Range) of the Andes in South America. The most elevated known mountain of the world, though 26,462 feet high, is considerably less than one-fifteen hundredth part of the diameter of the Earth.

27. The principal rivers in the world are, 1. in Europe: the Tagus, still so called, the Liger or Loire, the Rhenus or Rhine, Rhodanus or Rhone, Danubius (sometimes called Ister) the Danube, Borysthenes Dniepr, and the Tanais or

Don. 2. In Asia, are: the Rha or Volga, the Euphrates and Tigris, which still maintain their names, the Oxus or Jihon, the Indus and Ganges, still so called, the Dyardanes or Burrampooter, the Sabaracus or Irrawaddy, the Cotiaris or Cambodia R., and the Bautisus or Whang-Hai: besides which, there are other immense rivers in the N. part of the continent, concerning which the ancients knew nothing, such as the Irtish, the Enisei, the Lena, the Amoor, and the Yang-tse-kiang; the last of these is the largest river in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the second largest in the whole world. 3. In Africa, we find: the Nilus or Nile, the Gir or Djyr, the Nigir or Quolla, the Daradus or Senegal, besides the Congo, the Zambeze, and Orange R., with which the ancients were altogether unacquainted. 4. In America, are: the St. Lawrence, the Columbia, the Missouri, the Mississippi the longest river in the world (being one sixth part of the circumference of the earth), the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata.

28. The chief promontories in the world are, the North Cape, the Northernmost point of Europe; Arsinarium Pr. C. Verde, the Westernmost point of Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope and C. Agulhas, the Southern extremities of the same continent; East Cape, the Easternmost point of Asia; Cape Prince of Wales, the Westernmost point of America, C. S. Roque it's Eastern, and C. Horn it's Southern extremity.

29. The largest islands in the world are, in Europe, Albion Great Britain, Ierne Ireland, and Nova Zembla; in Asia, Iabadii I. Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, Australia (which is the greatest island in the world, being nine tenths as large as all Europe), New Zeeland, and Nipon, not one of which last, the ancients appear ever to have heard of. In Africa, the only island of any consequence, is Madagascar. The largest known island in America is Newfoundland, besides which we may mention Iceland, Cuba, St. Domingo, and Terra del Fuego. 30. The size of these, and some other islands, will be best seen by the following SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL ISLANDS IN

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31. The following table will give a general idea of the respective sizes of the principal lakes and inland seas in the world:

SYNOPTICAL TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL LAKES AND
INLAND SEAS OF THE WORLD.

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CHAPTER III. .

EUROPA.

1. EUROPA was bounded on the N. by the Hyperborean or Arctic Ocean, and on the W. by the Atlantic: on the S. it was separated from Africa by the Mediterranean Sea1, and from Asia on the E. by the Ægæan and Euxine Seas, the Palus Mæotis, the Rivers Tanais and Rha, and the Rhipæi or Hyperborei Montes. Though it is the smallest of the four Quarters of the globe, it is superior to them all in the genius, power, and learning, of it's inhabitants: but many of the ancients, though they were unacquainted with it's Northern regions, fancied it larger than Asia and Africa put together. The origin of the name Europa is lost in the obscurity of it's antiquity. According to the mythology of the poets, it was derived from Europa3, the beautiful daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, whom Jupiter, under the influence of love, having assumed the shape of a bull, carried off across the sea into Crete.

2. In the early times, the three continents do not appear to have been distinguished by any general names. Homer never mentions Europe, except as a part of the continent, though he is thought, by many, to allude to it in the expression, of the Land poc Lopov, or else, to the Northern half of the world which lies towards the darkness of midnight. It has been, likewise, supposed by many, that the name of Europa, was derived from the Hebrew word Arab signifying the Evening, because, as

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3 See Hor. Od. III. xxvII. 25 & seq. where the whole story is told, at the conclusion of which Venus consoles Europa with these words (v. 73);

Uxor invicti Jovis esse nescis?

Mitte singultus: bene ferre magnam

Disce fortunam: tua sectus orbis

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