H : ESSAY ON THE ' ;■■ -^ 



or Rome, place it equally on the shores of the Westerti, or Atlantic Oce.m, 



^-^"We read in Plutarch, that a certain TiiEsPEsius of Soli was trans- 

 ported in the spirit to the islands of the departed, where he saw three 

 Genii sitting in a triangle. He saw there also three lakes of melted gold, 

 lead and iron. The first looked like gold; the second of lead, though in 

 fusion, was exceedingly cold, and looked white. This was meant per- 

 haps for white lead or tin. The third lake of iron was black, and its sur- 

 face very rugged, as if full of scoriaSo 



The three Genii were Vishnu, Brahma", and 'Siva, or rather their 

 ^Sactis or female energies, which are the three Parcce of the western my- 

 thologists. This relation of Thespesius alludes visibly to the ternary 

 number of these islands ; aild the three lakes have an obvious reference 

 to the three peaks. But this interesting vision I shall resume, when I come 

 to treat of the €lyslum of the western mythologists. 



The ancrerits ha(J certainly some knowledge of three peaks of solid 

 gold, silver,' and iron, ^hich they placed, as usual, near the pillars of 

 Hercules ; the limit of their geographical knowledge in the west ; and 

 every place said to be far toward the west, was immediately concluded to 

 be near these pillars. Another cause of their misplacing thus these 

 three peaks, was that the Greeks confounded the pillars, and straits oi 

 Hercules, at the mouth of the Baltick, with those of the same name near 

 Gdde^.'^^ovi Tri-mta is opposite to the entrance of the Baitick, and 

 neai" enough to be said, by such a distant and careless people as the Greeks 

 were, to be in the vicinity of these pillars and straits. When the Romans 

 sailed under Drusus into the German seas, they were struck with asto- 

 nishment, when they heard of these columns of Hercules so far north ; 



