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40. Mr. Dupius, in his learned memoir concerning the origin of the constellations, has assigned many plausible reasons to prove that Libra was formerly the sign of the vernal, and Aries of the autumnal equinox; that is, that since the origin of the actual astronomical system, the precession of the equinoxes has carried forward by seven sigus the primitive order of the zodiac. Now estimating the precession at about seventy years and a half to a degree, that is 2,115 years to each sign; and observing that Aries was in its fifteenth degree, 1,447 years before Christ, it follows, that the first degree of Libra could not have coincided with the vernal equinox more lately than 15,194 years before Christ, to which if you add 1790 years since Christ, it appears that 16,984 have elapsed since the origin of the zodiac. The vernal equinox coincided with the first degree of Aries 2,504 years before Christ, and with the first degree of Taurus 4,619 years before Christ. Now it is to be observed, that the worship of the Bull (Taurus) is the principal article in the theological creed of the Egyptians, Persians, Japanese, &e. ; from whence it clearly follows, that some general revolution took place among those nations at that time. The chronology of five or six thousand years in Genesis is little agreeable to this hypothesis; but as the book of Genesis cannot claim to be considered as a history further back than Abraham, we are at liberty to make what arrangements we please in the eternity that preceded.

VOLNEY.

41. [Gen. ii. 7, 8.] It is an astronomical fact which cannot easily be disputed, that the poles of the earth were at some distant period perpendicular to its orbit; as those of the planet Jupiter now are, whose inhabitants must therefore enjoy a perpetual spring.

See NEWTON'S Defence of Vegetable Regimen, vol. i. p. 15.

42.

The angle formed by the axis of the equator and by that of the ecliptic, which at present is nearly twenty-three degrees and a half, is less by twenty minutes than it was two thousand years ago. The inference from such data would be that, in the course of so long a period as 141,000 years, our equator and our ecliptic will coincide, and will have the same poles; that is, that the days would be equal to the nights.

St. PIERRE'S Harmonies of Nature, vol. ii. pp. 63, 64.

43. [Gen. i. 9.] And God said, Let the waters be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. The sea, which has not much altered its place for these four thousand years, has nevertheless successively passed and repassed over all the lands, and every where left marks of its passage in large depositions of shells and marine bodies. Whereby it is plain, that these changes of place, which are operated so very slowly, cannot possibly have successively covered and left all these lands, except in an innumerable series of ages.

ABBE PLUCHE'S Hist, of the Heav. vol. ii. p. 183.

44. [Isaiah xi. 9.] As proofs of the progressive rise of the sea: The remaining walls of an old salt-house, erected on the shore, south of the mouth of the Bora river, by Jane Countess of Sutherland, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in 1598; are now (1815) washed to a considerable height by the ordinary tides, which mostly flow higher than the tops of the fire-places, still visible, on which the salt-pans stood; and the tops of the coal-pit hillocks there, that were made about the same period, are most of them since covered by the sea-beach. On the shore at Mostyn, in Flintshire, North Wales, the pits sunk about the year 1640, in which the firedamp explosions happened, which are recorded in the Phil. Transactions, No. 136, and where the water-wheel and chainpumps were used, that were drawn in 1684, and have been since engraved in Mr. Pennant's "Account of Holywell and Whitford," have now long had their tops covered by almost every tide. It is asserted in the Month. Mag.for Aug. 1815, p. 9. that there are similar proofs on every coast of Britain.

In the reign of Augustus the Isle of Wight made part of the island of Britain, so that at low water the Britons crossed over towards it with cart loads of tin; but now the connexion is cut off, and the Isle of Wight is constantly separated from Britain by a channel half a mile wide.

45.

HALL'S Encyclopedia.

Monsieur Denon's Egypt, 8vo. vol. i. p. 106, informs us, "the shafts of Doric columns, with their connecting capitals, are now standing not far from Cleopatra's Needle, in Egypt, and that they are now much below the level of the sea, but may be distinctly seen." These were placed there by the Romans little less than 2000 years ago; and it may be presumed, they were erected above the level of high water. Old walls and ruins may be traced a long way into the Mediterranean sea, about six leagues from Alexandria, or half a league from the village of Madie. These are supposed by Simonde to be the remains of Hereclea.

The floor of the Cathedral at Ravenna is now several feet lower, relatively to the sea, than it was formerly. And some steps have been found in the rock at Malta, apparently intended for ascending it, which are now under water.

Mr. Simonde says, in his View of the Agriculture of Tuscany, Tuscany, "The Mediterranean is continually rising, and threatens to inundate all the plains of Italy." The scite of the city Herculaneum, which was buried by lava that flowed from Vesuvius in the year 79 of the Christian era, is now forty feet below the bed of the neighbouring sea.

The foregoing historical notes and observations do not enable us to ascertain very accurately the rise which the ocean makes in a given time, but they shew us that it is about ten feet in a 1000 years.

Mr. JNO. MIDDLETON, Month. Mag. for Feb. 1816, p. 2.

46. It is probable, however, that the sea is falling on the coast of America: Mr. BARTRAM says he is convinced, that the greatest part of the country about Phila

delphia for several miles, was formerly under water. The reasons which led him to give credit to this opinion were the following:

1. On digging in the blue mountains, which are above three hundred English miles distant from the sea, you find loose oyster and other sorts of shells; and they are also to be met with in the vallies formed by these mountains.

2. A vast quantity of petrified shells are found in limestone, flint, and sand-stone, on the same mountains.

3. The same shells are likewise dug in great quantity, quite entire and not mouldered, in the provinces of Virginia and Maryland, as also in Philadelphia and in New York.

4. On digging wells (not only in Philadelphia, but likewise in other places) the people have met with trees, roots and leaves of oak, for the greatest part not yet rotten, at the depth of eighteen feet.

5. The best soil and the richest mould is to be met with, in the vallies hereabouts.

6. The whole appearance of the blue mountains plainly shews, that the water formerly covered a part of them. For many are broken in a peculiar manner, but the highest are plain.

7. When the savages are told that shells are found on these high mountains, and that from thence there is reason to believe that the sea must formerly have extended to them, and even in part flowed over them; they answer, that this is not new to them, they having a tradition from their ancestors among them, that the sea formerly surrounded these mountains.

KALM's Travels.-Pinkerton's Coll. part liii. p. 419.

47. [Gen. i. 2.] As to the theory of our tides: the earth moves from west to east, and the waters at the equator, and within the whole parallel of the tropics, in a contrary

direction.

The following simple experiment will prove the impossibility, if such were wanting, that the earth and waters can revolve in the same direction; and, when we consider the immense velocity with which the earth moves at the equator, and the impetus thence given to the waters, it will serve to explain the whole theory of the currents and tides, from the Equator to the Thames at Richmond, or elsewhere.

Fill a basin with water, and place a small piece of wood, a bit of paper, or any substance that will float on its surface; turn the basin steadily round, and the water and substance floating on it will remain stationary, or appear to move as objects do when we are on the water in a boat.

By this simple experiment, the whole theory of the currents may be explained; the cause of the regular, apparently irregular, motion of the currents and tides traced and discovered on the whole surface of the globe.

It is the earth that moves, and the waters which recede. The fact is certain that they move in an opposite direction; the experiment explains it. The law which operates on the water in the basin, will operate similarly on the same fluid at the equator. All the deviations of the waters from their first

impulse, are occasioned by the obstacles which impede them in their direct progress.

48.

Month. Mag. for Aug. 1815, p. 23.

Between the tropics, especially from the coasts of Senegal to the Caribbean sea, the general current, that which was earliest known to mariners, flows constantly from east to west. This is called the equinoctial current. Its mean rapidity, corresponding to different latitudes, is nearly the same in the Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean, and may be estimated at nine or ten miles in twenty-four hours. In these latitudes the waters (on the surface of which the reflected IMAGE, the creating SPIRIT OF GOD, would actually move) run towards the west, with a velocity equal to a fourth of the rapidity of the greater part of the large rivers of Europe. The movement of the ocean, in a direction contrary to that of the rotation of the globe, is probably connected with this last phenomenon,-only as far as the rotation changes the polar winds, which, in the lower regions of the atmosphere, bring back the cold air of the high latitudes towards the equator, into trade winds.

In 1770, a small vessel laden with corn, and bound from the island of Lancerotte to Santo Cruz, in Teneriffe, was driven to sea, while none of the crew were on board. The motion of the waters from east to west carried it to America, where it went on shore at La Guayra, near Carracas. Thus we know at present, by recorded facts, that in the Torrid Zone the trade-winds and the current of the tropics are in opposition to every motion of the waves in the direction of the earth's rotation.-Before any dry land appeared, this current would necessarily be uninterrupted and universal quite round the watery globe; and creation would of course be confined, as we find it actually was, to the raising and enlightening the different strata of the atmosphere.

HUMBOLDT'S Trav. in South America.-See Suppl. to Month. Mag. for Jan. 1815.

49. [Gen. ii. 3.] When the grand machine was finished and put in order, all the local motions, material actions, or powers attributed therein to the Person of God, are really and properly the motions, actions, and powers of his material or created agents, acting immediately under his direction and influence.

HUTCHINSON'S Principia, part ii. p. 339.

50. [Gen. ii. 1.] Nature, or the Supreme Wisdom, which has formed, sustains, and animates the universe; scems to delight, if we may venture so to speak, in conjoining the most admirable simplicity with the most astonishing variety. From a few elements, and which our ignorance, probably, makes more numerous than they are in fact, we see living beings, whether vegetables or animals, so diversified, that human life is too short, to permit us to become acquainted with their various forms and properties.

Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports, p. 83,

51. [Psalm xix.]

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim;

Th' unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to ev'ry land,
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the ev'ning shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth.

While all the stars that round her burn
And all the planets in their turn
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What tho' in solemn silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball :
What tho' nor real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found:
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE.

ON THE CREATION OF MAN.

ADDISON.

52. [Gen. i. 26, 27.] God created Man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; MALE AND

FEMALE CREATED HE THEM.

That express IMAGE of the Father's person,' who afterwards appeared frequently to Patriarchs and Prophets, who gave the law on Mount Sinai, was entitled the God of Israel, and became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was actually manifested in HUMAN FORM, and truly employed, as the Scriptures declare, in the creation of the world and formation of man.

53.

See WHISTON'S Theory, book iv. p. 330.

In the account we have of our creation, we are expressly said to have a similitude only, and resemblance of the Divinity; and to think more arrogantly of ourselves than this, is directly contrary to the Word of God. In this similitude and correspondency between the divine and human nature, is laid the only sure foundation of all our knowledge of God, and of all our conceptions of his inconceivable attributes and perfections.

One and the same word of human language, together with the natural conception annexed to it, stands in the mind both for the image and the original: nor is it possible for mankind to have any idea of the incomprehensible Reality, taken from any other idea by which it may be actually and truly discerned in any the lowest degree.

Bp. BROWNE'S Divine Analogy, pp. 156, 183.

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58. None but the blind can doubt that the Whites, the Negroes, the Albinoes, the Laplanders, the Chinese, the Americans, are races entirely different.

No curious traveller ever passed through Leyden, without seeing part of the reticulum mucosum of a Negro dissected by the celebrated Ruysch. This membrane is black; and communicates to Negroes that inherent blackness, which they do not lose but in such disorders as may destroy this texture, and allow the grease to issue from its cells and form white spots under the skin.

Their round eyes, squat noses, and invariably thick lips, the different configurations of their ears, their woolly heads, &c. make a prodigious difference between them and other species of men; and what demonstrates that they are not indebted for this difference to their climate is, that Negro men and women being transported into the coldest countries, constantly produce identically their own species; and that Mulattoes are only a bastard race of black men and white women. The Albinoes are, indeed, a very small and scarce nation; they inhabit the centre of Africa. Their weakness does not allow them to make excursions far from the caverns which they inhabit; the Negroes, nevertheless, catch some of them at times, and these we purchase of them as curiosities. To say that they are dwarf Negroes, whose skin has been blanched by a kind of leprosy, is like saying that the Blacks themselves are Whites blackened by the leprosy. An Albino no more resembles a Guinea Negro than he does an Englishman or a Spaniard, Their whiteness is not like ours; it does not

appear like flesh, it has no mixture of white and brown; it is the color of linen, or rather of bleached wax; their hair and eye-brows are like the finest and softest silk; their eyes have no sort of similitude with those of other men, but they come very near partridges' eyes. Their shape resembles that of the Laplanders, but their head that of no other nation whatever; as their hair, their eyes, their ears, are all different: they have nothing that seems to belong to man but the stature of their bodies, with the faculty of speaking and thinking, but in a degree very different from ours.

But now if it should be asked, From whence came the Americans? it should also be asked, From whence came the inhabitants of Terra Australis? And it may be answered, That the same God who placed men in Norway, planted some also in America and under the antartic circle, in the same manner as he there planted trees and made grass to grow.

VOLTAIRE.

59. [Gen. ii. 19.] The skin of the American Indians is of a reddish or copper color; the tincture, no doubt, which they received originally from the hands of their Creator.

CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, p. 142.

60. The Tartars, in general, are of a middle size, but exceedingly robust, and well-set: they have big and broad heads, flat faces, aud complexions of a dark olive color, pretty near that of American copper.

Modern Univ. Hist. vol. iv. p. 298.

61. [Gen. iv. 16, 17.] There is no proof, that the existence of man is more recent in America than in the other continent. The nations there, except those which border on the polar circle, form a single race, characterized by the formation of the scull, the color of the skin, the extreme thinness of the beard, and their straight and glossy hair. As to the supposed tanning of their complexions by the burning sun, it is observed, that the hordes who wander along the scorching plains of the equinoctial regions, have no darker skins than the mountaineers of the temperate zone. Besides, every thing concurs to prove, that the Americans, as a distinct species, have less flexibility of organization than the other nations of Asia and Europe.

See HUMBOLDT's Researches in South America.

62. [Gen. ii. 7.] There were no Negroes, nor European whites, to be found in the whole continent of America; nor any red copper-coloured Indians, either in Europe, Asia, or Africa. WHITE's Regular Gradation in Man, p. 80.

63. [Gen. i. 27.] From whatever cause it may arise, there actually subsists a characteristic difference in the bony system betwixt the European and the African. This difference exists in the scull, in the sockets for the eyes, in the nose, in the chip, in both the upper and lower jaws, and in the po

sition of the head upon the spine; also in the length of the
fore-arm, in the feet, and in the legs and thighs. I measured,
says Mr. WHITE, the arms of about fifty negroes;—men,
women and children, born in very different climates, and
found the lower arm longer than in Europeans, in proportion
to the upper arm and the height of the body.
Ibid. pp. 52, 55.

64.

In looking upon the recorded varieties of our species, from the woolly-headed African to the longhaired Asiatic, from the blue-eyed and white-haired Goth to the black-eyed and black-haired North American, and from the gigantic Patagonian to the dwarfish Laplander, we are led to believe, that the human species must radically have been as various as any other species of animated beings; and it seems as unphilosophical as impious to limit the powers of creation to pairs of one kind, and to ascribe their actual varieties to the operations of chance.

Sir RICHARD PHILLIPS' Morning's Walk from London to
Kew, p. 367.

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66. [Gen. ii. 22.] Mons. Buffon says of the women of Greenland, that they can suckle their children on their backs, by throwing the breast over their shoulders; that their nipples are as black as jet, and their skin of a deep olive color; and that some of them are as black as the Ethiopians.-Long flabby breasts therefore, such as specifically belong to the Hottentot women, are not the effect of relaxation in a warm climate, but are found with people of color in the frigid as well as torrid zone. No European white woman however, in any age or climate, was ever known to have a breast of such description.

WHITE's Regular Gradation in Man, p. 63.

67. [Gen. iv. 16. 17.] If we believe the Mosaic account to be literally true, another race of mankind besides that descended from Adam, seems implied in the text: for we no where read of Adam and Eve having any daughters, until it is said their eldest son "Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch." Who then was Cain's wife, and whence did she come? (Ibid. p. 136.) It must hence appear that, as the human race are not all the descendants of Adam, they cannot all be partakers of his guilt, unless we admit that hereditary sin is not propagated naturally, but spiritually infused by the seductive influence proceeding from evil minds.

ON FOOD.

68. [Gen. i. 29.] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

[Gen. i. 11.] Vegetable treasures were evidently created for the sake of the animal kingdom. Were the earth to produce nothing but plants, it would be in vain that the flowers adorned the meadows with their varied colouring, and that the fruits suspended from the orchard, exhaled their perfumes to a distance. Infinite Wisdom harmonizes the destiny of all their parts; creating vegetable products to meet the wants of animals. The vegetable kingdom, indeed, possesses life, the principal characteristic of which is the power of propagating and reviving. Still there is a radical difference between vegetable and animal life. you cut off the branch of tree, and re-plant it carefully, and in a fit season, another tree will spring up; you may even produce it again, as in the case of the willow, by cleaving it in two. Life, in this manner, appears disseminated throughout every part of a vegetable; a portion of its inside may be destroyed without injury to the whole; a tree with a hollow trunk may still display a thriving foliage. Thus a vegetable wounded in one part thrives in the others as before, while an animal feels the stroke throughout the whole frame.

If

St. PIERRE'S Harmonies of Nature, vol. ii. pp. 394, 406.

69 [Gen. i. 29] The banana plant is, perhaps, the most useful in the world, as its fruit makes excellent food without any art of cookery, having a most agreeable flavor and possessing very nutrimental qualities. It produces on its summit a cluster or aggregation of sixty or fourscore delicious figs, which come to maturity all at once; and it pushes out shoots of every degree of magnitude, which bear in succession and at all times throughout the year.

It is the king of all fruits, not excepting even the cocoa. When stripped of its thick five-panneled skin it has been compared to a large sausage; its substance and color, to fresh butter in winter; its taste, to a mixture of apple and of the pear known by the name of the good-christian; which melts in the mouth like marmalade. Thousands of families live between the tropics on this pleasant, wholesome, and nourishing fruit alone.

See St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. ii. pp. 168, 286.

70. [Gen. vii. 8.] In the island of Madagascar, says Dr. GEDDES, there is a species of palm-tree called the raven; under the membraneous covering of the flowers of which is found a gummy substance of exquisite taste,-which is the genuine palm-honey.

See his Critical Remarks, p. 462.

71. [Gen. ii. 9.] The Sagu is one of the most numerous species of palms; it grows in most of the Molucca

islands, as also in the island of Borneo, which is held to produce the best. It seems designed by Providence to supply mankind with food, in countries where no kind of grain can be cultivated to any degree of perfection. The soil most proper for it is a low marshy ground, where it rises to the height of twenty-five, and sometimes thirty feet, and is as thick as a man can compass with both his arms. The trunk is smooth, as all the leaves rise from the head. They spring at first upright and pointed, of the thickness, at the bottom, of a man's arm; by degrees they open, and decline their points, till they become as long as the tree is high. On the back of the leaves are strong sharp prickles, that defend them from being eaten by beasts. As new leaves shoot, the old ones decay. The Sagu grows thirty years before it produces fruit; and then, instead of new leaves, there shoots out at the top a firm piece of wood, of the size of a man's arm, from whence are produced flowers and fruit. In the latter, which is of the size of a pigeon's egg, is contained a small nut of a black color, and sharp sour taste. It bears but once; after which the tree gradually decays. But very few of these trees are permitted to bear fruit, since it is from the body of the tree they procure that meal which is of so great use. When the leaves grow white and hoary, the trunk is cut down, barked, and cut into picces of five feet long, which are each split through the middle. The body of the tree being composed of a soft spongy matter intermixed with ligneous fibres, the former is carefully separated from the latter; then mixed, tempered and rubbed, in water, till it is reduced to a flour, in which form it settles to the bottom of the vessels; and then, the water being poured off, it is carefully dried, and becomes fit for use. The bread made of it is baked between earthen pans, in the form of square tablets, six inches long, four broad, and about a finger thick. What is intended to be kept longer, the Indians have a method of graining, and it may be then preserved for many years. The flour of Sagu is very light of digestion, nourishing and wholesome, exactly suited to the climate in which it is used, and therefore in those countries there is a vast consumption of it; and the Dutch transport great quantities to their remote settlements, where their soldiers make it their principal food. Of late years considerable quantities have been brought to England and Holland, where experience shews that it is a great restorative, and very fit for weak stomachs, which it strengthens by degrees, and in time recovers the lost appetite, and helps digestion.

Modern Part of Univer. Hist. vol. ix. p. 448. Note.

72. [Isa. vii. 15.] We learn from Mr. PARK, that the centre of Africa affords a tree, resembling the American oak, with nuts like Spanish olives, which produces from the kernels of these nuts, by boiling, tree-butter, whiter and firmer, and of a richer flavor than that of cows' milk.-It will keep, without salt, the whole year.

73. [Gen. i. 29.] The bread-fruit-tree appears to support the most abundant population. Dr. Foster, comparing the parts of Otaheite, which are best cultivated, with those of

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