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that of Europe, if it were not for the moisture the ocean has left behind, in quitting it long after our continent was peopled? Nothing but the fea can poffibly have prevented Mexico from being inhabited as early as Afia. If the waters that fill moiften the bowels of the earth in the new hemifphere had not covered its furface, the woods would very easily have been cut down, the fens drained, a foft and watery foil would have been made firm, by ftirring up, and expofing it to the rays of the fun, a free paffage would have been opened to the winds, and dikes raifed along the rivers: in short, the climate would have been totally altered by this time. But a rude and unpeopled hemifphere denotes a recent world; when the fea, about its coaft, fill flows obfcurely in its channels. A lefs fcorching fun, more plentiful rains, and thicker vapours more difpofed to flagnate, are evident. marks of the decay or the infancy of nature.

The difference of climate, arifing from the waters having lain fo Jong on the ground in America, could not but have a great influence on men and animals. From this diverfity of caufes muft neceffarily arife a very great diverfity of effects. Accordingly we fee more fpecies of animals, by two thirds, in the old continent than in the new; animals of the fame kind confiderably larger; monsters that are become more favage and fierce, as the countries have become more inhabited. On the other hand, nature feems to have ftrangely neglected the new world. The men have lefs ftrength and lefs courage: no beard and no hair; they have Jefs appearances of manhood; and are but little fufceptible of the

lively and powerful fentiment of love, which is the principle of every attachment, the firt inftinct, the first band of fociety, without which all other artificial ties have neither energy nor duration. The women, who are ftill more weak, are neither favourably treated by nature nor by the men, who have but little love for them, and confider them merely as fubfervient to their will: they rather facrifice them to their indolence, than confecrate them to their pleafures. This indolence is the great delight and fupreme felicity of the Americans, of which the women are the victims from the continual labours impofed upon them. It muft, however, be confeffed, that in America, as in all other parts, the men, when they have fentenced the women to work, have been fo equitable as to take upon themfelves the perils of war, together with the toils of hunting and fifhing. But their indifference for the fex, which nature has intrufted with the care of multiplying the fpecies, implies an imperfection in their organs, a fort of state of childhood in the people of America, fimilar to that of the people in our continent who are not yet arrived to the age of puberty. This feems to be a natural defect prevailing in the continent of America, which is an indication of its being a new country.

But if the Americans are a new people, are they a race of men originally diftinct from those who cover the face of the old world? This is a queflion which ought not to be too hastily decided. The origin of the population of America is involved in inextricable difficulties. If we affert that the Greenlanders firft came from Nor

way,

way, and then went over to the coaft of Labrador; others will tell us it is more natural to fuppofe that the Greenlanders are fprung from the Efquimaux, to whom they bear a greater refemblance than to the Europeans. If we should fuppofe that California was peopled from Kamtfchatka, it may be asked what motive or what chance could have led the Tartars to the northweft of America. Yet it is imagined to be from Greenland or Kamtfchatka that the inhabitants of the old world muft have gone over to the new, as it is by thofe two countries that the two continents are connected, or at least approach nearest to one another. Befides, how can we conceive that in America the torrid zone can have been peopled from one of the frozen zones? Population will indeed fpread from north to fouth, but it muft naturally have begun under the equator, where life is cherished by warmth. If the people of America could not come from our continent, and yet appear to be a new race, we must have recourfe to the flood, which is the fource and the folution of all difficulties in the history of nations.

Let us fuppofe that the fea having overflowed the other hemifphere, its old inhabitants took refuge upon the Apalachian mountains, and the Cordeleras, which are far higher than our mount Ararat. But how could they have lived upon thofe heights, covered with fnow and furrounded with waters ? How is it poflible that men who had breathed in a pure and delightful climate, could have furvived the miferies of want, the inclemency of a tainted atmosphere, and thole numberless calamities, which must be the unavoidable con

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fequences of a deluge? the race have been preferved and propagated in thofe times of general calamity, and in the miferable ages that must have fucceeded? Notwithstanding all thefe objections, we must allow that America has been peopled from these wretched remains of the great devaftation. Every thing carries the veftiges of a malady, of which the human race ftill feels the effects. The ruin of that world is still imprinted on its inhabitants. They are a fpecies of men degraded and degenerated in their natural conftitution, in their stature, in their way of life, and in their underftanding, which is but little advanced in all the arts of civilization. A damper air, and a more marshy ground, muft neceffarily have infected the first principles of the fubfiftence and increase of mankind. It must have required fome ages to restore population, and till a greater number before the ground could be fettled and dried, fo as to be fit for tillage, and for the foundation of buildings. The air muft neceffarily be purified, before the fky could be clear, and the sky muft neceffarily be clear before the earth could be rendered habitable. The imperfection therefore of nature in America is not fo much a proof of its recent origin, as of its regeneration. It was probably peopled at the fame time as the other hemifphere, but may have been overflown later. The large foffil bones that are found under ground in America, fhew that it had formerly elephants, rhinoceros, and other enormous quadrupeds, which have fince disappeared in thofe regions. The gold and filver mines that are found just below the furface, are figns of a very ancient revolution

revolution of the globe, but later than thofe that have overturned our hemifphere.

Suppole America had, by fome means or other, ben repeopled by our roving hords, that period would have been fo remote, that it would ftill give great antiquity to the inhabitants of that hemifphere. Three or four centuries will not then be fufficient to allow for the foundation of the empires of Mexico and Peru; for though we find no trace in thefe countries of our arts, or of the opinions and cuftoms that prevail in other parts of the globe, yet we have found a police and a fociety established, inventions and practices which, though they did' not fhew any

marks of times anterior to the deluge, yet they implied a long feries of ages fubfequent to this cataftrophe. For, though in Mexico, as in Egypt, a country furrounded with waters, mountains, and other invincible obstacles, must have forced the men inclofed in it to unite after a time, though they might at first deftroy each other in continual and bloody wars; yet it was only in procefs of time that they could invent and establish a worship and a legiflation, which they could not, pofiibly, have borrowed from remote times cr countries. It required a greater number of ages to render familiar the fingle art of fpeech, and that of writing, though but in hieroglyphics, to a whole nation unconnected with any other, and which mult itself have created both thofe arts, than it would take up days to perfect a child in them. Ages bear not the fame proportion to the whole race as years do to individuals. The whole race is to occupy a vaft field, both as to space

and duration, while the individuals have only fome moments or inftants of time to fill up, or rather to run over. The likeness and uniformity obfervable in the features and manners of the American nations, plainly fhew that they are not fo ancient as those of our continent which differ fo much from each other; but at the fame time this circumftance feems to confirm that they did not proceed from any modern hemifphere, with which they have no kind of affinity that can indicate an immediate descent.

Experiments on Water obtained from the melted Ice of Sea-Water, to afcertain whether it be fresh or not; and to determine its specific Gravity with respect to other Wa

.ter.

Ao Experiments to find the Degree of Celd in which SeaWater begins to freeze. By Mr. Edward Nairne. Addreffed to Sir John Pringle, Bart. Prefident of the Royal Society; and read before that learned Body the 1st of February, 1776.

SIR,

T

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Hampstead, Feb. 1, 1776. having been suggested, in a

converfation at which I was prefent, that the ice of fea-water is not fresh; and that if the ice found near the poles be really fo, it must probably be the ice of fresh water difcharged into the fea from large rivers in thofe parts: I thought the prefent cold weather afforded an opportunity too favourable to be loft, of afcertaining by experiment, whether the water obtained from the melted ice of feawater be free from the taste of falt or not of comparing its 'gravity with that of the fea-water, &c.

and

and of finding the degree of cold in which the latter begins to freeze: and I beg leave to lay before you an account of my refearches in thefe matters, and of the methods I followed in making them. If you, Sir, fhould think them worthy of notice, and would communicate them to the learned body over which you prefide, you would confer an honour on, &c.

THE fea-water used in the following experiments was furnished by Mr. Owen, who keeps the Miineral Water Warehoufe, at Temple-Bar; who affured me, that it was taken up off the North Foreland.

On the 27th of January, 1766, at ten o'clock in the evening, I filled a jar 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches deep, with, fea-water, and expofed it to the open air, the thermometer ftanding at 15°. At noon the next day, on taking it in, I found it frozen very hard, except a very little at the bottom, which remained quite fluid: I now fet it by a flove in a heat of 569 to thaw. The ice when taken in from the open air was one quarter of an inch above the edge of the jar. When the jar had continued in the degree of heat abovementioned during eight hours, I took out the ice, which was then 31 inches long and two inches in diameter; about two thirds of the water appeared to remain. In order to clear the ice from any brine that might adhere to it, I washed it in a pail of pump-water, in which it was fuffered to remain about a quarter of an hour, and then fet it in a fieve to drain off the water in which it had been washed.

On the 29th of January, 1776,

I fet the beforementioned ice in a bafin in a heat of about 46°, in which it continued nine hours before the whole was diffolved. The bulb of a thermometer rested on the ice during the time of the folution, and continued without variation at 32°. The water thus obtained, was, to my palate, per. fettly free from any taste of salt.

in order to afcertain the comparative gravity of this water, I filled a bottle with it to a certain mark in its neck, which was very narrow, and weighed the bottle fo filled very carefully. I weighed the fame bottle, filled to the fame mark in its neck with fea-water and other waters fucceffively, which were all brought to the fame degree of heat by a thermometer. The refults were as follow: viz.

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To find the degree of cold in which fea-water begins to freeze, I made the following experiments.

I expofed to the open air a decanter filled with the fea-water, in which a thermometer was fufpended, the bulb of which reached to the middle of the wideft part of the decanter; a jelly glafs filled with the fame fea-water, in which also a thermometer was put, refting on the bottom, was placed in the fame expofure. The refult will be feen in the following table:

January

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A number of beautiful feathered crystals appeared in the jelly glafs; they began to fhoot from the top, which was covered with ice, toward the bottom; when they reached it, the thermometer rofe immediately from 25 to 28.5. Ice began to form in the decanter, though hardly perceptible at the edge of the water.

Crystals of a laminated appearance began to fhoot downwards obliquely from the ice at the furface, which at the edge of the water was barely two-tenths of an inch thick; no appearance of ice in the middle of the furface. Crystals began to fhoot Found the neck of the decanter clofe to the glafs.

The infide became covered with finely feathered crystals, which made it impoffible to obferve the height of the thermometer, without raifing it till the quickfilver in the tube appeared abové the ice.

January

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