136 



AMERICA. 



i>eachy. The most important islands arc, N'ew- 

 t.iiiiullaiHl, Cape Breton, St Jnlni's, Kluxlc Island, 

 Long Island, ami tin- Bermudas, on tin- eastern 

 ; queen Cliarlotte's islands, (Quadra and Vnn- 

 ,,UIMT'S Maud, king George lll.'.s Maud, and the 

 Fox islands, on the wesU>m const South America 

 t umprises Columbia, Guiana, Brazil, Fern, Bolivia, 

 Chili, Buenos Ayres, or tlie United Provinces of 

 I .a Plata, and Patagonia. The principal range of 

 minir.taiiis is the Amies. Tlic largest rivers are, 

 die Amazon, La Plata, Orinoco, 1'arana, Paraguay, 

 Madrira. Tocantins, St Francisco, and Magdulena. 

 There are few large lakes ; some of the most con- 

 ..il>le are, Maracaybo and Titicaca. The prin- 

 cipal islands are, the Falkland islands, Terra del 

 1 IK jo, Chiloe, Juan Fernandez, and the Galla- 

 pagos. The coast of A. was explored to 72 N. lat. 

 1 v Hrarne, in 1770; to G 1 J N. by Mackenzie, in 

 1 789 ; to 78 N. along the shore of Baffin's bay, 

 by captain Ross, in 1818; but its northern bound- 

 ary is lost in the arctic circle. Near the southern 

 extremity of America, in the latitude of 54, lie the 

 straits named, from the first circumnavigator of the 

 world, Magellan (q. v.), and beyond, the southern 

 promontory of the Terra del Fuego, cape Horn. 

 The continent of A. lias been examined by Europe- 

 ans principally on the seaboard. Expeditions, how- 

 ever, have been made through its interior, in several 

 directions ; e. g. through North America, by cap- 

 tains Lewis and Clarke, in 1804 ; major Pike, in 

 1805 ; through Brazil, by Langsdorf, Grant, Mawe, 

 Koste, Eschwege, the prince of Neuwied, Spix, 

 Martins, and others, especially by Alex, von Hiun- 

 boldL For the history of its aboriginal population, 

 and its condition before the arrival of the Europe- 

 ans, only a small portion of the existing materials 

 luive, as yet, been collected. Traditions, monu- 

 ments and other circumstances, seem to indicate a 

 double emigration from the East, one across the 

 Aleutian islands, another farther south, over the 

 tract which occupied the present place of the Atlan- 

 tic ocean, if such a tract ever existed, as many 

 writers have imagined. Or are the earliest in- 

 habitants of America, the Toltecas, in Mexico, 

 descended from that branch of the Huns, who 

 migrated to the north-east, A. D. 100, and the 

 nations of South America from a tribe of the Mexi- 

 cans, driven southward by the plague, about the year 

 1050 ? More light, we hope, will be shed on this 

 subject, especially on what respects North America, 

 by the American antiquarian societies. From the 

 first volume of the transactions of the one establish- 

 ed at Worcester, in Massachusetts, it may be seen 

 that those antiquities which pertain, in reality, to the 

 North American Indians, consist, for the most part, 

 of rude liatchets and knives of stone, of mortars for 

 bruising maize, of arrow-heads, and similar articles. 

 A second class consists of articles which the natives 

 received from the earliest settlers. They are fre- 

 quently found in the graves of the Indians. There 

 is a third and more interesting class, derived from 

 the nation that built the forts or tumuli (graves, 

 walls, artificial eminences, hearths, &c.) in North 

 America. To judge from these works, this nation 

 must liave been far more civilized, and much better 

 acquainted with the useful arts, than the present 

 Indians. From the lofty trees with which they are 

 overgrown, it is concluded that a long period must 

 have elapsed perhaps 1000 years since the deser- 

 tion of these fabrics, and the extinction of the people 

 by whom they were constructed. They are found 

 in the vicinity of each other, spread over the great 

 plains, from the southern shore of lake Erie to the 

 gulf of Mexico, generally in the neighbourhood of 

 the great rivers. Their structure is regular, and 



they liave been supposed to warrant the opinion of 

 the existence, in aneicitt. times, of great cities along 

 the Mississippi. The nut mm ten, as they are called) 

 or dried bodies, enveloped with coarse cloth, and 

 found in some of die saltpetre caves of Kentucky, 

 are worthy of attention. As we proceed farther 

 south, these works increase in number and magni- 

 tude. Their traces may be followed, through the 

 provinces of Texas ami New Mexico, into South 

 America. Although the accounts of die earliest 

 generations of this quarter of the world are scanty 

 and obscure, its later history is rich in dceum-nccs. 

 The Icelanders made a voyage, in DS^, to M'iiullaiid 

 (the name given to the'traci extending from Green- 

 land to Labrador) ; and the Venetians gave some 

 information respecting the West Indian islands (in 

 maps of 1424) ; but America still remained a si ah <t 

 book for Europe till the period of its discovery by 

 Columbus (q. v.), in 149*!. .Besides several voyages 

 which he made subsequently to this continent, it was 

 visited by Amerigo Vespucci (from whom it tak< s 

 its name), in 1497; by Cabot, likewise, in N!i<j; 

 by Cabral, in 1500, and by Balboa, in 1507. Shortly 

 after, followed the expeditions of Cortez, Pizarro, 

 &c. It is probable that the new world lias not. 

 been inhabited more than twelve centuries. This 

 circumstance, together with the oppression which 

 the aborigines have suffered since the settlement of 

 the whites in their country, will account for the 

 smallness of their number. Equally obscure with 

 the origin of the Americans are their various rami- 

 fications. Their different languages, stated by 

 Franc. Lopez at 1 500, have been resolved, by Alex. 

 von Humboldt, into two original tongues, the 

 Toltecan and the Apalachian. (See Indiana.) 

 Nature has cast the surface of the new world in 

 larger forms, and endowed it with fresher vitality, 

 at least in the warmer regions, than she has bestow- 

 ed on the soil of the old world. A. has every 

 variety of climate ; but the climate generally diffei s 

 from that of the eastern hemisphere, by a greater 

 predominance of cold. It is calculated that the heat 

 is at least ten degrees less, than in the same paral- 

 lels in the eastern continent. A. abounds in almost 

 all the varieties of the animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral productions. It contains a great variety of 

 wild animals ; and, since its discovery, the various 

 domestic animals of Europe have been introduced, 

 and are now found in great abundance. In com- 

 paring animals of the same species, in the two con- 

 tinents, it has been found, in a majority of instances, 

 where a difference in size has been ascertained, that 

 the American animal is larger than that of the east- 

 ern continent. The birds are exceedingly numer- 

 ous, and are said to be more beautiful in their plu- 

 mage than those of Asia and Africa, but in their 

 notes less melodious. The condor, which frequents 

 the Andes of South America, holds, on account of 

 its size, strength, and rapacity, the pre-eminence 

 over all the feathered creation. Reptiles are 

 numerous, and many of them venomous. Insects 

 abound, and, in many parts, are very offensive. 

 The American waters are remarkable for the variety 

 and abundance of their fish. A. produces every 

 cind of grain, fruit, pulse, herbs, plants, and flowers 

 native to Europe, besides a great variety of others, 

 as cacao, cinnamon, pepper, sarsaparilla, vanilla, 

 scarlet dye, a great variety of balsams, mahogany, 

 ogwood, Brazil-wood, sassafras, aloes, barks, gums, 

 resins, and medicinal herbs. This continent, parti- 

 cularly South America and Mexico, abounds in 

 fold and silver. Since the discovery of the Ameri- 

 can mines, such ample supplies of these precious 

 metals have been carried to Europe, that their value 

 las become much diminished. A. also produces an 



