For, during nearly
the whole of the period which intervenes between the commencement of the
eighteenth century and the present time, the materials are either so
abundant or so minute, that to insert them all without discrimination and
selection, would be to give bulk, without corresponding interest and value,
to the work.
So far as discovery is concerned, it is evident, from the sketch of it
already given, that nearly the entire outline of the globe had been traced
before the period at which we are arrived: what remained was to fill up
this outline. In Asia, to gain a more complete knowledge of Hither and
Farther India, of China, of the countries to the north of Hindostan, of the
north and north-east of Asia, and of some of the Asiatic islands. In
Africa, little besides the shores were known; but the nature of the
interior, with its burning sands and climate, uninhabitable, or inhabited
by inhospitable and barbarous tribes, held out little expectation that
another century would add much to our knowledge of that quarter of the
world; and though the perseverance and enterprise of the eighteenth
century, and what has passed of the nineteenth, have done more than might
reasonably have been anticipated, yet, comparatively speaking, how little
do we yet know of Africa! America held out the most promising as well as
extensive views to future discovery; the form and direction of her
north-west coast was to be traced.
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