ADVERTISEMENT. XXI 



retire from it, and the Torrid Zone would prefent, 

 through it's whole circumference, a Zone of dry 

 land, of fix leagues and a half of elevation, at it's 

 centre i as the radius of the Globe, at the Equator, 

 exceeds, by that quantity, the radius at the Poles, 

 according to the Academicians. 



Now the configuration of the Globe prefents us 

 with precifely the contrary of all this : for the mod 

 extenfive and the mod profound Seas are diredly 

 over the Equator ; and, on the fide of our Pole, 

 the land ftretches prodigioufly forward to the 

 North, and the Seas which it contains are only me- 

 diterraneans, filled with high lands. 



1 he South Pole is, indeed, furrojnded by a vaft 

 Ocean; but as Captain Cook could get no nearer to 

 it than a diftance of 475 leagues, we are entirely 

 ignorant whether there be any land in it's vicinity. 

 Befides, it is probable, as I have faid elfewhere, 

 that Nature, which contrafts and balances all 

 things, has compenfated the elevation in territory 

 of the North Pole, by an equivalent elevation in 

 ice, on the South Pole, Cook found, in fa6t, the 

 icy cupola of the South Pole, much more extenfive, 

 and more elevated, than that which covers the 

 North Pole, and he is againft inflituting any man- 

 ner of comparifon on the fubjeâ:. Hear what he 

 fays, in defcribing one of it's folid extremities, 

 h % which 



