360 Memorial of Gcoroc Bro7C'n Goodc. 



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. Hariot 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 l:»y Age, and ren- 

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

 vSir 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 vSearch 

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

 the Queen, into whom some Persons hjid 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 days accepted as an article of faith, that tlie 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 j^ears 

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

 Acosta, was accused of atheism on the same grounds by 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 Land 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 vSettleinent of \'irginia, A\'illianisburs^, 1747, 

 p. 20. 



^1590. HARIOT (or Harriott), THOMAS. A Briefe and True Report | oftheNew 

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

 naturall inhabitants. Discouered by the EngHsh Colony there seated by Sir Rich- 

 ard I Greinuile Knight In the 3'eere 1585. Which renia \ ined Vnder the gouern- 

 ment of twelue monethes, | At the sjiecial 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 MAIESTlIv | : and her letters patents: 

 I This fore booke Is made in English | B3' Thomas Hariot, seruant to the above 

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

 ing I CUM GRATIA ET PRIVILEGIO CAES. MAtis SPECIAi-i | Francoforti ad 

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

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

 Title page with ornamental border of architectural design. 



^ There arc 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 Harvard College and one in the possession of Sir Thomas 

 rhillipps. At a sale in I^ondon in 18S3 a copy sold for ^300. A reproduction in 

 photolithographic facsimile was issued by Sabine in New York in 1S75. 



