FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY WILLIAM STEVENSON, ESQ.


WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH:

AND T. CADELL; LONDON.

MDCCCXXIV.

Printed by A. & B. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.


[Transcriber's Note: The errata listed after the Table of Contents are
marked in the text thus: [has->have]]




PREFACE.

The curiosity of that man must be very feeble and sluggish, and his
appetite for information very weak or depraved, who, when he compares the
map of the world, as it was known to the ancients, with the map of the
world as it is at present known, does not feel himself powerfully excited
to inquire into the causes which have progressively brought almost every
speck of its surface completely within our knowledge and access. To develop
and explain these causes is one of the objects of the present work; but