42 DI8G0VEBY OF THE PACIFIC. 



of communication for commerce, is regarded as the most im- 

 portant, and is, consequently, much better known than the 

 Pacific. Its waters wash the eastern coasts of North and 

 South America, and the western coasts of Europe and 

 Africa. Its northern and southern extremities are the Polar 

 waters. 



The Mediterranean Sea, one of the arms or tributaries of 

 the Atlantic, with which it is connected by the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, is one of the greatest inlan^' seas of the world. 

 Its shores were the successive seats of the governments 

 of the earth for thousands of years. It was the central 

 ocean of the Ancients, on which all the early discoveries 

 and hardships of navigation were experienced. 



The Pacific was discovered by Balboa, in 1513, not quite 

 four hundred years ago. The causes that led up to this im- 

 portant discovery, and the effect it produced upon what 

 was then called the Old World, are matters of common his- 

 tory, and need not be related nor discussed here. As a high- 

 way of commerce, it does not compare with its sister, the 

 Atlantic, though each decade increases its importance in this 

 respect ; for the light of the Gospel, and the rigor of modern 

 research, and commercial enterprise, is gradually but surely 

 opening up a lively correspondence and communication be- 

 tween the civilized inhabitants of North and South America 

 bounding its eastern shores, and the benighted hosts of Asia 

 on its west. 



The Indian Ocean, an arm of the Pacific, and embraced 

 by Africa on the west, Asia on the north, and Australia on 

 the east, possesses a remarkable interest, inasmuch as the 

 earliest voyage on record, made by the navy of Solonic, was 

 taken on its romantic waters. 



