For my own part, until the learned have come to an
agreement among themselves, I shall content myself
with the account handed down to us by Moses; in which
I do but follow the example of our ingenious neighbors
of Connecticut; who at their first settlement proclaimed
that the colony should be governed by the laws of
God—until they had time to make better.
One thing, however, appears certain—from
the unanimous authority of the before quoted philosophers,
supported by the evidence of our own senses (which,
though very apt to deceive us, may be cautiously admitted
as additional testimony)—it appears, I
say, and I make the assertion deliberately, without
fear of contradiction, that this globe really was
created, and that it is composed of land and water.
It further appears that it is curiously divided and
parceled out into continents and islands, among which
I boldly declare the renowned island of New York will
be found by any one who seeks for it in its proper
place.
[10] Aristot. ap, Cic. lib. i. cap.
3.
[11] Aristot. Metaph. lib.
i. c. 5.; Idem, de Coelo, 1. iii, c.
I;
Rousseau mem. sur Musique ancien. p. 39; Plutarch de
Plac.
Philos.
lib. i. cap. 3.
[12] Tim. Locr. ap. Plato.
t. iii. p. 90.
[13] Aristot. Nat. Auscult.
I. ii. cap. 6; Aristoph. Metaph. lib.
i.
cap. 3; Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. i. cap. 10; Justin
Mart. orat.
ad
gent. p. 20.
[14] Mosheim in Cudw. lib. i. cap.
4; Tim. de anim. mund. ap. Plat.
lib.
iii.; Mem. de l’Acad. des Belles-Lettr. t. xxxii.
p. 19.
[15] Book i. ch. 5.
[16] Holwell, Gent. Philosophy.
[17] Johannes Megapolensis.
Jun. Account of Maquaas or Mohawk Indians.
[18] Drw. Bot. Garden,
part i. cant. i. 1. 105.
Noah, who is the first seafaring man we read of, begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors, it
is true, are not wanting who affirm that the patriarch
had a number of other children. Thus Berosus makes
him father of the gigantic Titans; Methodius gives
him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus (who was the
first inventor of Johnny cakes); and others have mentioned
a son, named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons
or Teutonic, or, in other words, the Dutch nation.
I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will
not permit me to gratify the laudable curiosity of
my readers, by investigating minutely the history
of the great Noah. Indeed, such an undertaking
would be attended with more trouble than many people
would imagine; for the good old patriarch seems to
have been a great traveler in his day, and to have
passed under a different name in every country that
he visited. The Chaldeans, for instance, give
us his story, merely altering his name into Xisuthrus—a
