56 INTRODUCTION TO THE 



are. For the use of such, the following enumeration 

 of particulars is entered upon. And if there should 

 be any, who affect to undervalue the plan, or the ex- 

 ecution of our voyages, what shall now be offered, if 

 it do not convince them, may, at least, check the 

 influence of their unfavourable decision. 



1. It may be fairly considered, as one great ad- 

 vantage accruing to the world from our late surveys 

 of the globe, that they have confuted fanciful 

 theories, too likely to give birth to impracticable 

 undertakings. 



After Captain Cook's persevering and fruitless 

 traverses through every corner of the southern he- 

 misphere, who, for the future, will pay any attention 

 to the ingenious reveries of Campbell, de Brosses, 

 and de Buffon ? or hope to establish an intercourse 

 with such a continent as Maupertuis's fruitful ima- 

 gination had pictured ? A continent equal, at least, 

 in extent, to all the civilized countries in the known 

 northern hemisphere, where new men, new animals, 

 new productions of every kind, might be brought for- 

 ward to our view, and discoveries be made, which 

 would open inexhaustible treasures of commerce.* 

 We can now boldly take it upon us to discourage all 

 expeditions, formed on such reasonings of speculative 

 philosophers, into a quarter of the globe where our 

 persevering English navigator, instead of this pro- 

 mised fairy land, found nothing but barren rocks, 

 scarcely affording shelter to penguins and seals; and 

 dreary seas, and mountains of ice, occupying the 

 immense space allotted to imaginary paradises, and 

 the only treasures there to be discovered, to reward 



* See Maupertuis's Letter to the King of Prussia. The au- 

 thor of the Preliminary Discourse to Bougainville's Voyage aux 

 Isles Malouines, computes that the southern continent (for the 

 existence of which, he owns, we must depend more on the con- 

 jectures of philosophers, than on the testimony of voyagers) con- 

 tains eight or ten millions of square leagues. 



