IV. What parts were then known. TWE "WENTY-SIX years had elapfed fince Colum- BOOK bus conducted the people of Europe to the New World. During that period the Spaniards of America had made great progress in exploring its various regions. They had vifited all the islands fcattered in different clusters through that part of the ocean which flows in between North and South America. They had failed along the eaftern coaft of the continent from the river De la Plata to the bottom of the Mexican gulf, and had found that it stretched without interruption. through this vaft portion of the globe. They had discovered the great Southern Ocean, which opened new profpects in that quarter. They had acquired fome knowledge of the coast of Florida, which led them to obferve the continent as it extended in an oppofite direction; VOL. II. B and BOOK and though they pufhed their difcove IV. farther towards the north, other natio The vast extent of the New World. vifited those parts which they neglected English, in a voyage, the motives and fu which fhall be related in another part History, had failed along the coaft of A from Labrador to the confines of Florid the Portuguese, in queft of a fhorter pai the Eaft Indies, had ventured into the n feas, and viewed the fame regions 2. T the period where I have chofen to take a the state of the New World, its extent was almost from its northern extremity to five degrees fouth of the equator. The co which stretch from thence to the fouthern dary of America, the great empire of Per the interior state of the extenfive dominio ject to the fovereigns of Mexico, were f discovered. WHEN We contemplate the New Wor first circumftance that ftrikes us is its in extent. It was not a fmall portion of the fo inconfiderable that it might have escap obfervation or research of former ages, Columbus difcovered. He made known hemisphere, larger than either Europe, o HISTORY OF AMERICA. IV. or Africa, the three noted divifions of the ancient BOOK continent, and not much inferior in dimenfions to a third part of the habitable globe. AMERICA is remarkable not only for its magnitude, but for its pofition. It ftretches from the northern polar circle to a high fouthern latitude, above fifteen hundred miles beyond the fartheft extremity of the old continent on that fide of the line. A country of such extent paffes through all the climates capable of becoming the habitation of man, and fit for yielding the various productions peculiar either to the temperate or to the torrid regions of the earth. Grand objects it prefents to view. tains, NEXT to the extent of the New World, the grandeur of the objects which it prefents to view is most apt to ftrike the eye of an observer. Nature seems here to have carried on her operations upon a larger fcale, and with a bolder hand, and to have distinguished the features of this country by a peculiar magnificence. The Its moun mountains in America are much fuperior in height to thofe in the other divifions of the globe. Even the plain of Quito, which may be confidered as the base of the Andes, is elevated farther above the fea than the top of the Pyrenees. This ftupendous ridge of the Andes, no lefs remarkable for extent than elevation, rifes 3 |