Mathematics. S57 



Finally, the geographical discoveries of the last 

 age have contributed to illustrate and confirm Re- 

 velation. The discoveries of Behring and Cook 

 were before-mentioned as throwing light on the 

 population of the New World, and thus tending 

 to support the sacred history. But, besides these, 

 the knowledge gained by modern voyagers and tra- 

 vellers, of the manners, customs, and traditions of 

 different nations, especially of those on the Eastern 

 Continent, has served to illustrate the meaning, and 

 unfold the beauty of many passages of scripture, 

 before obscure, if not unintelligible; and has fur- 

 nished abundant and striking evidence in support 

 of the Mosaic account of the common origin, the 

 character, the dispersion, and the subsequent his- 

 tory of mankind/ 



CHAPTER VI. 



MATHEMATICS. 



XHE seventeenth century was the " golden age" 

 of mathematical science. Never, since the revival 

 of learning, has this branch of know^ledge been 

 cultivated with such brilliant success as during 

 that period. The grand inventions of Logarithms^ 

 by Napier, and of FhLvio}is, by 1>^e\vtot^, together 

 with the numerous discoveries and improvements 

 of Des Cartes, Briggs, Kepler, Gregory, Leib- 

 nitz, and many others, must ever render the age 

 of those great men a distinguished xra in the an- 

 nals of mathematics. It is even possible that the 

 grand discoveries of these philosophers, and the 



k Tt is intended to illustrate this point more fully in a subsecjucnt part of 

 this work. 



