fact admitted by the most enlightened that travelled into china at the time of the building of the tower of probably to improve himself in the study of languages and the learned dr gives is the additional information that the ark rested on a mountain tm the of china from this mass of rational conjectures and many might be drawn but i shall content myself with the simple fact stated in the that j three sons l em ham and new york it it is ii m remote and obscure tjie great of this aid and how events the most distant and to the are inevitably the one to the other it remains to the philosophy to discover these mysterious and it is the triumph of skill to detect and drag some latent chain of tion which at first sight appears a to the observer thus many of my readers less wonder what the i of can have with this history � and many will stare when that the whole history of this quarter of the has taken its and course the simple circumstance of t s having but three but to explain we are told by sundry very becoming sole heir and proprietor of the earth in fee a er the like a good father out his estate among his to he asia to ham africa and to europe it is a thousand times to be lamented that he had but three sons for had there been a fourth he would doubtless have america which of course would have be i forth from obscurity on the occasion and thus many a hard working historian and would have been spared a prodigious mass of weary respecting the first discovery and population of this country however having provided for his sons looked in all probability upon our country as mere wild unsettled land and said nothing about it an to this of the may we the misfortune that america did not come into the world as early as the other quarters of uie globe it is true some writers have him fi om this towards posterity and asserted that he really did america thus it was the opinion of m k c history of a french writer possessed of that of thought and of reflection so peculiar to his nation that the immediate descendants of peopled this quarter of the globe and that the old himself who still retained a passion for the sea ring ufe the the pious and ther a french remarkable for his aversion to the marvellous common to all great travellers is of the same opinion nay he goes still and upon the manner in which the discovery was effected which was by sea and under the immediate direction of the great i have already observed the good ther in a tone of becoming indignation that it is an arbitrary supposition that the of were not able to penetrate into die new world or that they never thought of it in effect i can see no reason that can justify such a notion who can seriously believe that and his immediate descendants knew less than we do and that the and pilot of the greatest ship that ever was a ship which was formed to an unbounded ocean and had so many and to guard against should be ignorant of or should not have communicated to his descendants the art of on the ocean therefore they did sail on the ocean � therefore they sailed to therefore america was discovered by now all this exquisite chain of reasoning which is so strikingly characteristic of the good father being addressed to the faith rather than the understanding is op posed by de who declares it a real and most ridiculous to suppose that ever entertained the thought of discovering america and as is a dutch writer i am inclined to believe he must have been much better acquainted with the worthy crew of the ark than his and of course possessed of more accurate sources of information it is astonishing how new york mate do daily become with the and other great men of antiquity as intimacy with time and as the learned are particularly inquisitive and in their with the i should not be surprised if some future writers should gravely give us a picture of men and manners as they existed be fore the flood more copious and accurate than the bible and that in the course of another century the of the good should be as current among as the voyages of captain cook or the renowned history of robinson i shall not occupy my time by discussing the huge mass of additional conjectures and respecting the first discovery of country with which unhappy themselves in to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous world it is to see these laborious panting and toiling and under an enormous burden at the very outset of their works which on being opened turns out to be nothing but a mighty bundle of straw as however by they seem to have established the fact to the of all the world that this country has been discovered i shall avail myself of their labours to be extremely brief upon this point i shall not therefore stop to inquire whether america was first discovered by a wandering vessel of that celebrated fleet which according to africa or by that expedition which the us discovered the islands or whether it was by a temporary colony firom as hinted by and i shall neither inquire whether it was first discovered by the chinese as with great advances nor by the in under nor by the german as mr has history of to to the s of the learned city of nor shall i investigate the more modem claims of the founded on the of prince in the century who returned it has been concluded that he must have gone to america and that 