■U6 ^ COSMOS. 



and with a geographical sketch of the universe, or, I would 

 rather say, a true map of the ivorld, such as was traced by 

 the bold hand of the elder Herschel. If, notwithstanding the 

 sraallness of our planet, the most considerable space and the 

 most attentive consideration be here afforded to that which 

 exclusively concerns it, this arises solely from the disproportion 

 in the extent of our knowledge of that which is accessible and 

 of that which is closed to our observation. This subordina- 

 tion of the celestial to the terrestrial portion is met with in the 

 great work of Bernard Varenius,'* w^hich appeared in the mid- 



* Geographia Generalis iii qua affectiones generales telluris expli- 

 cantur. The oldest Elzevir edition bears date 1650, the second 1672, 

 and the third 1681 ; these were published at Cambridge, under New- 

 ton's supervision. This excellent work by Varenius is, in the true 

 sense of the words, a physical description of the earth. Since the work 

 Hlstoria Natural de las Indias, 1590, in which the Jesuit Joseph de 

 Acosta sketched in so masterly a manner the delineation of the New 

 Continent, questions relating to the physical history of the earth have 

 never been considered with such admirable generality. Acosta is rich- 

 er in original observations, while Varenius embraces a wider circle of 

 ideas, since his sojourn in Holland, which was at that period the center 

 of vast commercial relations, had brought him in contact with a great 

 number of w^ell-informed travelers. Generalis sive Universalis Geo- 

 graphia dicitJir qute tellurem in genere considerat atque affectiones ex' 

 plicat, non^ habita particulariitm regionum ratione. The general de- 

 scription of the earth by Varenius {Pars Ahsoluta, cap. i.-xxii.) maybe 

 considered as a treatise of comparative geography, if we adopt the term 

 used by the author h.\m?,e\i {Geographia Comparativa, cap.xxxiii.-xl.), 

 although this must be understood in a limited acceptation. We may 

 cite the following among the most remarkable passages of this book : 

 the enumeration of the systems of mountains ; the examination of the 

 relations existing between their directions and the general form of con- 

 tinents (p. 66, 76, ed. Cantab., 1681); a list of extinct volcanoes, and 

 such as were still in a state of activity ; the discussion of facts relative 

 to the general distribution of islands and archipelagoes (p. 220) ; the 

 depth of the ocean I'elatively to the height of neighboring coasts (p. 103) ; 

 the uniformity of level observed in all open seas (p. 97) ; the depend- 

 ence of currents on the prevailing winds; the unequal saltness of the 

 sea; the configuration of shores (p. 139); the direction of the winds as 

 the result of ditferences of temperature, &c. We may further instance 

 the remarkable considerations of Varenius regarding the equinoctial 

 current from east to west, to which he attributes the origin of the Gulf 

 Stream, beginning at Cape St. Augustiu, and issuing forth between 

 Cuba and Florida (p. 140). Nothing can be more accurate than his 

 description of the current which skirts the western coast of Africa, be- 

 tween Cape Verde and the island of Fernando Po in the Gulf of Guinea. 

 Varenius explains the formation of sporadic islands by supposing them 

 to be *' the raised bottom of the sea:" magna spirihium inclusorum vi, 

 sicut aliquando monies e terra protttsos esse quidam scribunt (p. 225). 

 The edition published by Newton in 1681 {auciior et emendatior) un^ 

 fortunately contains no additions from this great authority; and there 

 is not even mention made of the polar compression of the globe, al- 



