PREFACE. 
r|^'HE Ancients boasted of their Sev3sn Wonders 
of the World, but this work will prove that tlit. 
Moderns may boast of their Hundred Wonders. 
To embody these wonders, whether of nature, or of 
nrt, and to bring them into a comprehensive form, 
from tlie different stores in which they may be said to 
have been liitherto locked up, has been the aim of the 
editor of these pages. They are here drawn into 
light, and exhibited at a single view, presenting 
'vhatever is most striking in the creation, and what- 
ever the genius and industry of man have been able to 
effect, in order to excite admiration at the sublimity of 
his conceptions, the depth of his scientific reseaichcs, 
Rnd the grandeur of those structures, many of which 
have subsisted, almost unimpaired, for a long succes- 
sion of ages, in testimony of his consummate skill, 
which could thus achieve monuments, at once so 
splendid, and of so imperishable a nature ! 
ffhosc marvellous relations w'hich the mischievous 
fancy of travellers has too often imposed on the 
credulitj' of the weak, as well as the fables founded in 
bigotry and priestcraft, which were received as truths 
