Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

HISTORY OF AMERICA.

Checked

: May 1915

VOL. II.

HISTORY OF AMERICA.

COLUMBUS in his third voyage, having attained the great object of his ambition, by discovering the continent of America; his success produced a number of adventurers from all nations; the year before this, Sebastian Cabot, in the service of Henry the Seventh of England, discovered the Northern continent, of which it is intended now explicitly to treat. The questions which first present themselves to our notice are, From what part of the Old World has America been peopled? and how accomplished? Few questions in the history of mankind have been more agitated than these. Philosophers and men of learning and ingenuity, have been speculating upon them ever since the discovery of the American Islands by Columbus. But notwithstanding all their labours, the subject still affords an ample field for the researches of the man of science, and for the fancies of the theorist.

It has been long known that an intercourse between the old continent and America, might be carried on with facility, from the north-west extremities of Europe, and the north-east boundaries of Asia. In the year 982 the Norwegians discovered Greenland, and planted a colony there. The communication with that country was renewed in the last century, by Moravian missionaries, in order to propagate their doctrines in that bleak uncultivated region. By. them we are informed that the north-west coast of Greenland is separated from America by a very narrow strait; that at the bottom of the bay it is highly probable they are united; that the Esquimeaux of America, perfectly resemble the Greenlanders, in their aspect, dress, and manner of living; and that a Moravian missionary, well acquainted with the language of Greenland, having visited the country of the Esquimeaux, found to his astonishment, that they spoke the same language, and were, in every respect the

same people. The same species of animals, are also found in the contiguous regions. The bear, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the deer, the roe-buck, and the elk, frequent the forests of North America, as well as those in the north of Europe.

Other discoveries have proved, that if the two continents of Asia and America be separated at all, it is only by a narrow strait. From this part of the old continent also, inhabitants may have passed into the new; and the resem. blance between the Indians of America, and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, would induce us to conjecture, that they have a common origin. This opinion is adopted by the celebrated doctor Robertson, in his History of America. The more recent and accurate discoveries of that illustrious navigator, Cooke, and his successor Clerke, have brought the matter still nearer to a certainty.

The sea, from the south of Behring's straits, to the crescent of isles between Asia and America, is very shallow. It deepens from these straits (as the British seas do from those of Dover) till the soundings are lost in the Pacific Ocean; but that does not take place but to the south of the isles. Between them and the straits is an increase from 12 to 54 fathoms, except only of St. Thaddeus-Noss, where there is a channel of a greater depth.

From the volcanic disposition, it has been judged probable, not only that there was a separation of the continents at the straits of Behring, but that the whole space from the isles to the small opening, had once been occupied by land; and that the fury of the watery element, actuated by that of fire, had, in some remote times, subverted and overwhelmed the tract, and left the islands to serve as monumental fragments.

There can be no doubt that our planet has been subject to great vicissitudes since the deluge: ancient and modern historians confirm this truth, that lands are now ploughed, over which ships formerly sailed; and that they now sail over lands, which were formerly cultivated: earthquakes have swallowed some lands, and subterraneous fires have thrown up others: the sea retreating from its shores, has lengthened the land in some places, and encroaching upon it in others, has diminished it; it has separated some territories, which were formerly united, and formed new bays and gulphs.

Revolutions of this nature happened in the last century. Sicily was united to the continent of Naples, as Eubea now the Black sea, was to Boeotia. Diodorus, Strabo, and other ancient authors say the same thing of Spain, and of Africa; and affirm, that by a violent irruption of the ocean upon the land between the mountains of Abyla, and Calpe, that communication was broken, and the Mediterranean sea was formed. Among the people of Ceylon, there is a tradition, that a similar irruption of the sea, separated their island from the peninsula of India; the same thing is believed by those of Malabar, with respect to the Maldivian isles; and by the Malayans, with respect to Su

matra.

The count de Buffon is certain, that in Ceylon the earth has lost 30 or 40 leagues, taken from it by the sea. The same author asserts, that Louisiana has only been formed by the mud of rivers. Pliny, Seneca, Diodorus, and others, report innumerable examples of similar revolutions.

In the strait which separates America from Asia, many islands are found, which are supposed to be the mountainous parts of land, formerly swallowed up by earthquakes: which appears the more probable, by the multitude of volcanoes, now known in the peninsula of Kamtschatka. It is imagined, however, that the sinking of that land and the separation of the two continents, has been occasioned by those great earthquakes, mentioned in the history of the Ame ricans: which formed an æra almost as memorable as that of the deluge. We can form no conjecture of the time mentioned in the histories of the Toltecas, or of the year I. Tecpatl, when that great calamity happened.

If a great earthquake should overwhelm the isthmus of Suez, and there should be at the same time, as great a scarcity of historians, as there were in the first age of the deluge, it would be doubted in three or four hundred years after, whether Asia had ever been united by that part to Africa; and many would firmly deny it.

Whether that great event, the separation of the conti nents, took place before, or after the population of Ame. rica, it is impossible to determine; but we are indebted to the above-mentioned navigators, for settling the long dispute about the point from which it was effected. Their

« ZurückWeiter »