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iflands, and behind them a vaft continent, and be- 

 hind this continent the true ocean, we mail find*, 

 that the new world was very far from being new to 

 the ancients. What then rnuft become of the opi- 

 nion of Paracelfus, who maintains, that each he- 

 mifphere had its own Adam ? 



Poftel, whom I have already cited, and who has 

 made himfejf famous by his adventurous conjec- 

 tures, believed that all North America was peopled 

 by the Atlantides, inhabitants of Mauritania ; and 

 he is the firft who has made fuch a difference be- 

 tween the two America's, by means of the Ifthmus 

 of Panama ; that according to him, and thofe who 

 have adopted his opinions, the inhabitants of thofe 

 two continents have nothing common in their ori- 

 ginal. But in this cafe, I mould rather be for placing* 

 With Bud becks the Atalantis in the North, as well 

 as the pillars of Hercules, and maintaining, that 

 North America has been peopled from Scandinavia, 

 than by fending thither the Moors from the coaft of 

 Africa. On the other hand, Gomara and John de 

 Lery make the Americans come from the Canaan- 

 ires, driven out of the promifed land by Jofhua : 

 Some, on the contrary, make thofe Ifraelites, whom 

 Salmanazus led captive into Media, pafs into Ame- 

 rica by the North of Afia. But Thevet, who be- 

 lieved, like them, that the Ifraelites peopled the 

 new world, concludes, that they muft have fpread 

 themfelves over the whole world, from the circu in- 

 fra nee of the Finding a tomb with Hebrew charac- 

 ters on it in one of the Azores or weftern iflands. 

 This author was mifinformed as to the fact. It 

 was not a tomb that was difcovered in Corvo, the 

 molt northernly of thofe iflands, but an equeftrian 

 itatue, erected upon a pedeftal, on which were cer- 

 tain characters, which could not be deciphered. 



Au- 



