360 Memoi'ial of George Brown Goode. 



that Harriot had led his pupil Raleigh into atheism. "As to this 

 groundless Aspersion," he remarked, " the Truth of it, perhaps, was that 

 Sir Walter and Mr. Harlot were the first who ventured to depart from 

 the beaten Tract of the Schools, and to throw off and combat some hoary 

 Follies and traditionary Errors which had been riveted by Age, and ren- 

 dered sacred and inviolable in the Eyes of weak and prejudiced Persons. 

 Sir Walter is said to have been first led to this by the manifest Detection, 

 from his own Experience, of their erroneous Opinions concerning the 

 Torrid Zone; and he intended to have proceeded farther in the Search 

 after more solid and important Truths ' till he was chid and restrained by 

 the Queen, into whom some Persons had infused a Notion that such 

 Doctrine was against God. ' ' ' 



The erroneous opinions concerning the torrid zone which were called 

 in question by Harriot and Raleigh were based upon a statement of 

 Aristotle, in those da3^s accepted as an article of faith, that the equato- 

 rial zone of the earth was so scorched and dried by the sun's heat as to 

 be uninhabitable. Even the experience of explorers was for many years 

 overpowered by the weight of this time-worn dogma. The Jesuit, 

 Acosta, was accused of atheism on the same grounds b3^his Spanish con- 

 temporaries, but he rejoiced that he had seen for himself and that the 

 climate under the equator was so different from what he had expected 

 that "he could but laugh at Aristotle's meteors and his philosophy." 



Harriot's Brief and True Report of the New Found Eand of Vir- 

 ginia, a thin volume in quarto, printed at Frankfort on the Main in 

 1590,^ is now one of the rarest and most precious works relating to 

 America^ and is full of interest to the naturalist. Harriot's description 

 of the Indians and their customs and beliefs, though strongly tinctured 



' History of the First Discover}^ and Settlement of Virginia, Williamsburg, 1747, 

 p. 20. 



= 1590. HARIOT (or Harriott), THOMAS. A Briefe and True Report | of the New 

 Found Land of Virginia | of the commodities and of the nature and man | ners of the 

 natural! inhabitants. Discouered by the English Colony there seated by Sir Rich- 

 ard ! Greinuile Knight In the yeere 1585. Which rema \ ined Vnder the gouern- 

 ment of twelue monethes, | At the special charge and direction of the Honou- | rable 

 SIR WALTER RALEIGH Knight lord Warden | of the stanneries Who therein 

 hath beene fauoured | and authorised by her MAIESTIE | : and her letters patents: 

 I This fore booke Is made in English | By Thomas Hariot, seruant to the above 

 named | vSir WALTER, a member of the Colony and there | imployed in discouer- 

 ing I CUM GRATIA ET PRIVILEGIO CAES. MAtis SPECIAli | Francoforti ad 

 Moenum | Typis loannis Wecheli, sumtibus vero Theodori | DeBry Anno CIC IC 

 XC, ] venales reperuunter in officina Sigismundi Feirabendii. | 4°. pp. 1-33 (i). 

 Title page with ornamental border of architectiiral design. 



3 There are now only six or seven perfect copies in existence. These, we are told 

 by Sabine, are in the British Museum and Bodleian libraries, and in the private col- 

 lections of Messrs. Lenox, Brown, Christie-Miller, and Mann, besides an imperfect 

 copy in the library of Har\'ard College and one in the possession of Sir Thomas 

 Phillipps. At a sale in London in 1883 a copy sold for ;^300. A reproduction in 

 photolithographic facsimile was issued by Sabine in New York in 1875. 



