In all thefe cafes, where we difcern a great, an important, and a neceffary purpofe for an extraordinary interpofition, an atteftation to the truth of a miracle, by the fame fulness of evidence which is fufficient to establish a natural fact, is fufficient to warrant our belief; who have the moral attributes of God to fecure us from error. And here I prefume I have fairly given what Dr. Middleton and his adverfaries called upon one another to give; and yet both, in their turns, declined; viz. a criterion, to enable men to diftinguifh, for all the purposes of religious belief, true miracles from falfe, or doubtful. And no wonder they declined; for both parties were in the clafs of thofe of whom Seneca fpeaks-Nefciunt NECESSARIA quia SUPERVACANEA dedicerunt. The author goes on to explain and illuftrate the three cases; and he mentions the defeat of Julian's attempt to rebuild the temple at Jerufalem, as an example of the fecond clafs. This matter, he fays, has been difcuffed at large; and with such evidence, that there would be no hazard in staking the whole credit of Christianity on its truth.' This fentiment is not unnatural in the mouth of the author, who has written the treatise to which he alludes. But does it appear that a fupernatural interpofition was necessary to fecure the verity of our Saviour's prediction concerning the defolation of Jerufalem ? or could not Divine Providence have prevented the building of the temple, without having recourse to a miracle? A prudent man would by no means choose to hazard the credit of Christianity on fuch a precarious foundation *. The third cafe our author illuftrates in the miracle of the refurrection. To thefe difcourfes is annexed a Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Gloucefter, which was delivered at the bishop's first triennial visitation in the year 1759. In this discourse his lordship endeavours to excite his younger clergy to the pursuit of theological learning, as abfolutely neceffary to fupport the clerical character with reputation and fuccefs. In these discourses the reader will perceive innumerable marks of genius and spirit ; and will find much more entertainment than he can meet with in the compositions of those divines who never venture to step out of the plain and ordinary track. * See the Critical Review for February 1767, p. 92. VI. Terra VI. Terra Auftralis Cognita: or, Voyages to the Terra Auftralis, or Southern Hemisphere, during the fixteenth, ferventeenth, and eighteenth Centuries. Containing an Account of the Manners of the People, and the Productions of the Countries, hitherto found in the Southern Latitudes; the Advantages that may refult from further Discoveries on this great Continent, and the Methods of establifhing Colonies there, to the Advantage of Great Britain. With a Preface by the Editor, in which fome geographical, nautical, and commercial Questions are difcuffed. Vol. I. 8vo. Pr. 6s. Hawes. a HESE Voyages give us a view of many extenfive regions hitherto little known, and open à fpacious field for the investigation of fucceeding ages. The celebrated M. Maupertuis, in a fhort memorial, containing feveral different schemes for the advancement of the fciences, particularly recommends the use of making farther difcoveries in that part of the globe generally called the Terra Auftralis Incognita. In 1756, one of the members of the French Academy of Sciences profecuted this idea, so useful to mankind in general, by publishing two volumes, in which he has collected a variety of geographical, nautical, and aftronomical facts and obfervations, proper to illuftrate his fubject, and has given an abridged account of all the voyages that have been hitherto made towards this quarter of the globe. This plan is adopted by the ingenious author of the prefent collection. The first book may be confidered as a kind of preliminary difcourfe to thofe that follow. In this are treated fuch general queftions of geography, natural history, and commerce, as relate immediately to the subject. * The three following books will contain an account of all the navigations to the fouthern world, in the order of time in which they were performed, which will present the reader with thefe discoveries in a regular, progreffive feries, during the fixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The fifth book will comprehend a regular detail of the most remarkable productions of the antarctic regions, the character of the inhabitants, and the commercial advantages to be hoped for in this part of the globe. . This diligent and accurate compiler has not only collected his materials from our own writers, but has alfo given a trañf1ation of many foreign journals, which have never appeared in * The work will confift of three volumes. The fecond and third are not yet published. English English before. At the head of each article he has added a fhort preface, containing an account of the work from which it is extracted. It is not without reason, we must confefs, that this writer, and several other ingenious men, have flattered themselves with the idea of amazing discoveries in the antarctic hemisphere. For the space which lies beyond the three fouthern points of the known world, in Africa, Afia, and America, comprehends eight or ten millions of fquare leagues, which make above at third part of our globe. In this vaft tract, as our author obferves, it is impoffible but there must be to the fouth of Afia, fome immenfe continent to keep the globe in equilibrio during its rotation, by ferving as a counterpoife to the map of northern Afia. Whoever examines the two hemifpheres of the globe divided horizontally, that is, by the equator, as they fhould always be, and not by the meridian, must be struck in obferving fo much land in the one hemisphere and so little in the other; especially, as he knows that the weight of the earth is, to that of fea-water, nearly as five to three. 6 Experience, continues this writer, has already begun to verify our conjecture concerning the exiftence of a counterpoise towards the fouth: For, not to mention that extenfive but doubtful coaft, placed by fome to the fouth of the vast Pacific Ocean, or that other said to lie between the lands discovered by Hawkins, Brower, and La Roche, near the east entry of the Straits of Magellan, and from thence advancing to the south of Africa, where it was feen by Vefputius and Bouvet, our best maps now show us, to the fouth of Afia, the immenfe tra&ts that are found in thefe latitudes, under the feveral names of Diemens Land, New Holland, Carpentaria, New Guinea, New Britain, and New Zealand. There is great reason to think, that this is not one continent, but divided by unknown Straits Such is that illand difcovered by our navigator Dampier, to which he gave the name of New Britain. Be this as it may, who can doubt that this vast tract must furnish objects innumerable, both of commercial advantage and curiofity, equal to any that were found in America by the first discoverers? Numbers of people, entirely different from us, and from each other, in their figure, cuftoms, manners and religion : Their animals, infects, fishes, plants, medicinal herbs, fruits, metals, and foffils entirely of another fpecies. Thus this world must present us with many things intirely new, as hitherto we have had little more knowledge of it, than if it had lain in another planet. The little we know of the inhabitants of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, tells us, that they want neither addrefs nor good good fenfe. The cafe is not the fame with the people of that great continent ; any tribes our navigators have hitherto difco-' vered there, being funk into the loweft degree of brutality. But this does not prove, that there may not be fome civilized nation in the interior parts of this country, who are as utter ftrangers to us, or our arts, as we can be to theirs. Should any inhabitant there relate to his countrymen, that in Europe there were nations, where the arts and fciences were carried to the highest degree of perfection, his account would be treated by them as we did that of Marco Paulo, when he informed us, that beyond the vast defarts of Tartary there was an extenfive empire, incredibly populous, whose inhabitants had good laws, and where the fciences were cultivated with the utmost care, and who (like us) imagined, that all the world but themselves were funk in barbarity. Thus America was thought to have been inhabited by mere favages, till we afterwards difcovered, that Peru and Mexico were great kingdoms, regulated by eftablished laws, with a fettled form of government, poffeffed of hieroglyphical writing, full of large towns and palaces, adorned with immenfe publick works, in which the ingenuity and incredible patience of the inhabitants had, in a great meafure, compenfated their little skill in the mechanic arts. Tho' we might not find things fo far advanced among the inhabitants of the Terra Australis, yet it is far from being impoffible, that fomething like this may be found among them; and, fhould this happen, it is hoped we would prove wiser than the Spaniards, who destroyed these monuments of the arts and ingenuity of the Americans.' The rigour of the cold in the high fouthern latitudes, which is found to be much greater than in the correfponding northern climates, and the floating maffes of ice, which are often found in thofe feas, and impede the approaches to the coafts, are popular objections against the utility of profecuting thefe dif-, coveries. Eu Mr. Callander replies, If the fame parallels in América be found colder than those of Europe, the cause may proceed in part, from the want of culture, and the vaft forests which cover that continent. The learned French writer abovemeritioned is of this opinion. These forefts are always the caufe of fogs and cold in the countries where they are found. rope is now much more temperate than it was 3500 years ago, when it was entirely covered with woods and inhabited by favages, before the coming of the Phoenicians. Be this as it may, it would be the folving of a curious queftion, to know with certainty, whether the Auftral antipode to Europe, in the South Sea, be not as temperate as in our climate, about the in terfection terfection of the forty-fifth parallel, with the two hundredth meridian in New Zealand, and fo upwards from degree to de-, gree, towards the fouth pole. The best way to discover this would be to fend a veffel from Baldivia, in Chili, with orders to hold a S. S. W. courfe, till the fell on fome land in the above parallel. We find, that captain Tafman, being in 42° S. lat. and 188° long. near to New Zealand found no ice on the coaft, but a well-fituated and fertile country. All our circumnavigators, immediately upon their entry to the South-Sea, went ftraight north to the line, and from thence kept a west courfe, quite to the Ladrone islands nearly under the thirteenth parallel north. Indeed fome few, fuch as Le Maire, and Roggewein, on entering the South-Sea, shaped a N. W. course, and foon fell in with a number of islands, equally beautiful, well peopled, and fruitful, where they made very valuable difcoveries, though hitherto attended with no advantage, that course being never followed. But no body has yet thought of attempting a weft courfe from the coast of Chili to New Zealand, or Van Diemen's land, where they might reasonably hope to find many lands hitherto unknown; though it does not appear, that any greater danger is to be apprehended in this course, than in the common run, as the east winds are found to blow equally over this vast ocean. The prodigious mountains of ice which are thought to impede all navigation in these high latitudes, feem to prove that there are certain great continents in thofe quarters of the globe. This is the opinion of Roggewein, who had carefully examined this queftion, as appears by his journal. In fact, we find by experience, that in lakes and ponds the ice begins first to form next the edges, and fo extends itself towards the middle, and the more the water is agitated, the flower this progreffion is. Thus it will follow, that the greater extent of coaft there is, the more ice there will be; and, on the other hand, the more ice we find at fea, the more land we may expect to discover. The fea never freezes but in bays, and along the coafts, but our best navigators affure us that it does not freeze far out at fea, even in the neighbourhood of the Poles. The agitation, depth, and faltnefs of the water preserves it from this concretion, which takes hold of it near the fhores, where it is mixed with a great quantity of fresh water, the produce of the inland rivers. Now the exiftence of these large rivers neceffarily fuppofes a continent through which they pafs, and where they are formed. Thus the Black Sea, which is narrow, and not very falt, from the many large rivers that fall into it on all fides, freezes almoft every winter, while thofe parts |