NOTES. XI 



la Mecanique celeste, pp. 3 and 4. Kant's Metaphysical Principles of Natural 

 Science, Coll. Works, 1839, Vol. v. p. 309. Peclet's Physique, 1838, T. i. 

 p. 5963. 



s ) p. 52. Poisson, in Conn, des Terns pour 1'Annee 1836, p. 6466. 

 Bessel, in Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik, Vol. xxv. p. 417. Encke, in 

 Abhandlungen der Berliner Academic, 1826, p. 257. Mitscherlich, Lehrbuch 

 der Chemie, 1837, Vol. i. p. 352. 



(- 4 ) p. 53. Compare Otfried Miiller, Dorier, Ed. i. S. 365. 



p) p. 54. Geographia generalis, in qua affectioues generales telluris 

 explicantur. The oldest Amsterdam (Elzevir) edition dates in 1650; the 

 second and third, in 1672 and 1681, were prepared at Cambridge, at Newton's 

 suggestion. This exceedingly important work of Varenius is a Physical 

 Geography in the proper sense of the term. Telluric phsenomena had not 

 been treated with such generality, since the excellent natural description of 

 the new continent traced by the Jesuit, Joseph de Acosta, in his work 

 entitled Historia natural de las Indias, 1590. Acosta is richer in obser- 

 vations of his own : Varenius embraces a greater range of ideas ; his life in 

 Holland, the center of the commerce of the world at that period, having 

 brought him into contact with many well-informed travellers. " Generalis 

 si ve universalis geographia dicitur, quse tellurem in genere considerat, at quo 

 affectioues explicat non habita particularium regionum ratione." The General 

 Geography of Varenius (Pars absoluta, cap. 1 22) is, in the full import 

 of the term, a comparative geography, although the author uses the term 

 Geographia comparativa (cap. 33 40) in a much more restricted sense. I 

 may cite as remarkable parts the enumeration of systems of mountains, with 

 the relation of their directions to the form of the continents (pp. 66 76, 

 ed. Cantabr. 1681); the list of active and extinct volcanoes; the assem- 

 blage of notices on the distribution of single islands and groups of islands 

 (p. 220) ; the considerations on the depth of seas compared with the heights 

 of neighbouring coasts (p. 103) ; on the equal level of the surface of all open 

 seas (p. 97) ; on currents as depending on prevailing winds ; on the unequal 

 saltness of the sea, and the configuration of coasts (p. 139) ; the directions of 

 winds as consequences of diversity of temperature, &c. The considerations, 

 in page 140, on the general Equinoctial current from east to west as a cause 

 of the Gulf stream, which begins at Cape San Augustin and issues forth 

 between Cuba and Florida, are also excellent. The directions of the current 

 along the west coa&t of Africa, between Cape Verd and the island of Feruando 

 Po, in the Gulf of Guinea, are described with extreme exactness. Sporadic 



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