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has been that of the loadstone, and consequently the greatest improvement has been made in the art of navigation: yet there must be allowed to have been something stupendous in the numbers, and in the build, of their ships and galleys of old; and the skill of pilots, from the observation of the stars in the more serene climates, may be judged by the navigations, so celebrated in story, of the Tyrians, and Carthaginians, not to mention other nations. However, it is to this we owe the discovery and commerce of so many vast countries which were very little, if at all, known to the ancients; and the experimental proof of this terrestrial globe, which was before only speculation, but has since been surrounded by the fortune and boldness of several navigators. From this great, though fortuitous, invention, and the consequences thereof, it must be allowed that geography is mightily advanced in these latter ages. The vast continents of China, the East and West Indies, the long extent and coasts of Africa, with the numberless islands belonging to them, have been hereby introduced into our acquaintance, and our maps; and great increases of wealth and luxury, but none of knowledge brought among us, further than the extent