NATURAL HISTORY. 



gave vessels to the Phoenicians, which departed from 

 the Red Sea, coasted around Africa, doubled the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and having employed two years in this 

 voyage, the third year they filtered the straits of Gib- 

 raltar*. Nevertheless, the ancients were not acquaint- 

 ed with the property which the load-stone had of turn- 

 ing towards the poles, although they knew that it at- 

 tracted iron. They were ignorant of the general cause 

 of the flux and refhix of the sea ; they were not cer- 

 iain the ocean surrounded the globe without interrup- 

 tion ; some indeed suspected it, hut with so little foun- 

 dation, that no one dared to say, or even conjecture it 

 was possible to make a voyage round the world. Ma- 

 gellan was the first who made it A. D. 1519 in 112-i 

 days. Sir Francis Drake was the second, in 1577, 

 and he did it in 1056 days; afterwards Thomas Ca- 

 vendish made this great voyage in 777 days, in the 

 year 1 586. These famous voyagers were the first who 

 demonstrated physically, the globular form and extent 

 of the earth's circumference : for the ancients were far 

 from having a just measure of this circumference, al- 

 though they had travelled a great deal. The general 

 and regulated winds, and the use to be made of them 

 in long voyages, were also absolutely unknown to 

 them ; therefore, we must not be surprised al the little 

 progress they made in Geography, since at present, in 

 spite of all the knowledge we have acquired by the aid 

 of mathematical sciences, and the discovery of naviga- 

 tors, many things remain still to be found, and vast 

 countries to be discovered. 



As there is so large a portion of the globe with which 

 we are unacquainted, particularly near the poles, where 

 the ice has never permitted any navigator to penetrate, 



* Sc Hwcd. Lih. if. 



