great capes of Africa and America, and by Van Diemen's Land) into three several parts, the Pacific, the Atlantic, and Erythræan Seas.

There are two portions of the globe, however, of which it appears that the ancients knew much more than the moderns, namely, the interior of Africa, and the tracts within the Artic circle: as to the first, the 11th book of the Odyssey contains an account of an expedition of Ulysses (representing the English) from the west coast of Africa to the east, that is, till he arrives ποντον επ' ιχθυόεντα,

viz. the Arabian Gulf, the sea that resembles a fish in shape, with its forked tail at the isthmus of Suez, (not at the sea which contains fish, for what sea does not ?) which sea has been shewn in fact in the beginning of the fifth volume to constitute one of the two fishes of the Sign of that name in the Zodiac.

As to the tracts within the Arctic circle, the 12th Odyssey not only enlarges much upon them, and the moveable ice-islands they contain, under the figure of πλαγκτας βας κελιοιο (those islands being called βοες, from βος, ταυρος, a mountain ;

and fabled to belong to the sun, because they are put in motion by the influence of the sun, on his approaching the solstice), but it lays down clear details of a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In exploring such a passage, it is evident that Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zemla must have become well known; and that such a passage has been made is most certain. Common 'tradition affords some evidence of it; and Mr. Coxe, in his "Account of Russian Discoveries," endeavours to trace the sources of the tradition; but still stronger evidence exists in the minute details by which the method of navigating, and the precise course to be steered, are laid down, not in Homer only, but in many other of the classics, Greek, Latin, and English, in prose and in poetry. As to what is to be found in general upon it in Homer, Ulysses (who, it is once more to be observed, represents England) is told by Teiresias, that, notwithstanding all his past labours, he must, before they would come to their end, continue voyaging, 11 Od. 120,

Είσομε τις αφικναι οι εκ ισασι θαλασσών
Ανέρες εδε θ' αλεσσι μεμισμενον ειδας εδεσιν
Ουδ' αρα τοι γ' ισασι νέας φοινικοπαρης
Ουδ' ευηρέ ερετμα

that is; till he came to the ice, which is well known to free itfelf from the salt of the sea; and does not admit (or at least offers great difficulties to) the navigation of ships and boats : in the 19th Odyssey that passage is accordingly effected by Ulysses, though the circumstances attendant on it were so uncertain, fatiguing, and hazardous, as to cause him to exclaim

Θικτιςον δη κείνο εμοις ίδον οφθαλμοισι

Παντων οσσ' εμόγησα πορες αλος εξερέεινων,

the second of which lines is of itself sufficient to shew that the principal object of the Odyssey is to state the result of various expeditions by land and by sea instituted for the purpose of discovery. The result was, as has been in great part proved in the preceding chapters, that the discoveries of the ancients, so early as in Homer's time, were

only limited by the extent of the globe itself; and it follows by necessary consequence that they must have had aids of the most powerful sort in their practice of navigation. What were those aids? Were they not, in fact, precisely the same as those now in use?—In regard to the practice of taking soundings, that must have existed in the very infancy of the art; that of keeping the log must have been invented at no very distant period afterwards, as being extremely obvious in itself and offering a pretty sure evidence of the rate of a ship's sailing. But for such extensive discoveries, as have been proved or supposed, the ancients, even in the very early times in question, must necessarily have had a knowledge also of the compass and quadrant, as being the only conceivable means by which they could have made such voyages with any certainty or safety. There can be no doubt, accordingly, that the following lines from the 18th Iliad, 486, have a special view to the compass;

Αρκτον θ' ην και αμαξαν επίκλησιν καλεσσιν
Ητ' αυτε ςρέφεται και τ' Ωρίωνα δοκεύει
Οι τ' αμμορος εστι λοετρων ωκεανοίο·

These two lines ftom Anacreon likewise have regard to the same instrument:

Στρέφεται οτ' Αρκτος ηδη
Κατα χειρα την βοωτο

These three lines also from the 7th Odyssey, 34, are peculiarly descriptive of the compass, not only as ascribing the invention of it to the Phæacians (the Chinese), which accords with common tradition at this day, but as alluding to the winged motion of the needle on its axis, and its being endued, as it were, with human thought or intention in making known the true northern point: Νευσι θοήσι τοιγε (Φαιηκες) πεποιθότες ωκείησιν Λάιτμα μεγ' εκποροωσιν επει σφισι δωκε Κρονίων Την νέες ωκειαι, ώσει πτερον με νοημα.

and the following lines from the 8th Odyssey, 557, intimate that the instrument still performs its