We Will Now Add A Few
Words With Respect To The Advantages Arising From Having Thus
Digested The History Of
Circumnavigators, from the earliest account
of time to the present, and then shut up the whole with another
section, containing
The last circumnavigation by Rear-Admiral Anson,
whose voyage has at least shown that, under a proper officer,
English seamen are able to achieve as much as they ever did; and
that is as much as was ever done by any nation in the world.
It is a point that has always admitted some debate, whether science
stands more indebted to speculation or practice; or, in other words,
whether the greater discoveries have been made by men of deep study,
or persons of great experience in the most useful parts of
knowledge. But this, I think, is a proposition that admits of no
dispute at all, that the noblest discoveries have been the result of
a just mixture of theory with practice. It was from hence that the
very notion of sailing round the earth took rise; and the ingenious
Genoese first laid down this system of the world, according to his
conception, and then added the proofs derived from experience. It
is much to be deplored that we have not that plan of discovery which
the great Christopher Columbus sent over thither by his brother
Bartholomew to King Henry VII., for if we had we should certainly
find abundance of very curious observations, which might still be
useful to mariners:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 83 of 180
Words from 23403 to 23653
of 50938
