3^4 STUDIES OF NATURE, 



liberty, the greateft part without labour, all at 

 peace with their fpecies, all united to the objecls 

 of their choice, and enjoying the felicity of re- 

 perpetuating 



" many perfons have fallen into, to believe that the emerald was 

 " found originally in the Eaft. Moft jewellers, on firft looking 

 " at a high-coloured emerald, are accuftomed to fay, this is an 

 " Oriental emerald. But they are mrftaken, for I am well af- 

 " fured, that the Eaft never produced one, either on the Conti- 

 ** nent, or in it's iflands. I have made accurate enquiries into 

 " this, in all the voyages I made." He had travelled fix times by 

 land through India. Hence it muft be concluded, that the fo 

 highly valued emeralds of the ancients, came to them from Ame- 

 rica, through the iflands of the South-Sea, through thofe of Alia, 

 through India, the Red Sea, and, finally, through Egypt, from 

 whence they had them. 



To this may be objected the difficulty of navigating againft the 

 regular eafterly winds, in order to pafs from Afia to America, 

 under the Torrid Zone ; but, relatively to this fubjecl, I fhall 

 repeat, that the regular winds do not blow there from the Eaft, 

 but from the North-eaft and South -eaft, and depend fo much the 

 more on the two Poles, the nearer you approach toward the 

 Line. This oblique direction of the wind was fufficient for per- 

 fons who navigated from ifiand to ifland, and who had contrived 

 barks the leaft liable to deflection, fuch as the double pros of the 

 Ifles of Guam, the form of which feems to have been preferved 

 in the double balfes of the coaft of Peru. Schouten found one of 

 thofe double pros failing more than fix hundred leagues from 

 the Ifland of Guam toward America. Befides, it appears, like- 

 wife, that the South-Sea has it's monfoons, which have not hi- 

 therto been obferved. Hear the remarks made, on the variation 

 of thofe winds, by an anonymous Englifli Navigator, who failed 

 round the World, with Sir Jofepk Banks and Mr. Salander^ in the 



years 



