Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	degree_n	east_n	minute_n	1,331	5	10.9072	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61366	Britannia antiqua illustrata, or, The antiquities of ancient Britain derived from the Phœenicians, wherein the original trade of this island is discovered, the names of places, offices, dignities, as likewise the idolatry, language and customs of the p by Aylett Sammes ...	Sammes, Aylett, 1636?-1679?	1676 (1676)	Wing S535; ESTC R19100	692,922	602

visibly turning that way In this condition BRITAIN continued during the time the Phoenicians flourished sending forth its Commodities to the Straights and to all the Mediterranean Seas as likewise thorough Gaul by Land to Narbo where the Phoenicians held a publick Mart. About the declining of the Phoenician State the Graecians began to Trade into these parts and they who before had only heard of the Bratanacks which in the same sence they called Cassiterides or the Tynn Islands now learnt the way to them and conformed themselves to the Name the Phoenicians had given them calling them first the Bretanick Islands afterwards Britanes Upon the encrease of the Roman Empire and the fall of Carthage the Trading began to decrease and the Graecians for fear of that powerful State discontinued their Voyages into the Western Seas And it may be supposed that Britain lay idle during the space of a hundred and seventy years till Julius Caesar's arrival From this Time begins Mr. Cambden's Antiquity of this Nation and the first Discovery of it not admitting its Name to be known much earlier in the World Nevertheless I question not but they that shall read the ensuing Chapters concerning the Phoenician Voyages into these parts will be better satisfied touching the great trade of Tynn and Lead exported from them If the love of my Country has not blinded me it seems far more evident that it received its Name from its Trade for which in all Ages it has been renowned than from any barbarous Custome of painting or dying their Bodies wherewith the Adherents to that opinion have too severely and with too many Circumstances branded the Inhabitants thereof In evidencing this Opinion I have not made use of any of the British Histories because their credit in the World is but small but have grounded it upon the Authority of Greek and Roman Authors some of which as Timagenes Polybius and Festus Avienus had made great Enquiries into Phoenician Records and for that reason were more able than others to give a true account of the Trade of that Nation relating to Britain So that for the present granting the Bretannick Islands to be so well known to the Ancient World it will not seem fabulous that Orpheus but more truly Onomacritus called them of old The Seat of Queen CERES as afterwards they were stiled The Granary of the Western World Neither will it seem Ridiculous what Mr. Cambden mentions namely That they were supposed to be the fortunate Islands so much celebrated by the Ancient Poets where the ELYSIAN FIELDS and HELL it self might be placed Let us consider that upon the first discovery of them by the Phoenicians they were to the then known World just as the West Indies were at first to Europe and that by the small progress the World had made so early in the art of Navigation the Voyage to them was as long and as difficult Add to this the many Stories the Phoenicians might relate to them especially to the credulous Greeks and in a fabulous Age when the digging in Mines might be interpreted A discent into Hell and Chule in the Phoenician Tongue signifying Night and Obscurity might be called The Kingdom of Darkness No doubt on the other side The pleasant scituation of BRITAIN the Remoteness of it from the busie and careful World the flowry Vallies curiously deck'd by Nature watered by Rivers and defended by Woods Hills c. To pass over many other advantages wherewith this Island is blessed above other Nations when they came to be related by the Phoenicians to that Nation it created in them the Idaea's of another World and might be the ground-work of those Elysian Fields and Places of Rest to which Vertuous Souls were carried after their departure out of a temporal Being This was the Opinion of the Ancient Greeks concerning BRITAIN in those daies when they had the knowledge of it by Hear-say only from the Phoenicians which doth evidently appear if we consider that upon the Real discovery of it by them and their better Acquaintance in these parts they left not off to hunt after those Imaginary places still believing according to the Ancient Tradition that they were here only to be found And this gave occasion to the Story of Isacius Tzetzes a Greek of no small Repute and Credit with M. Cambden namely That JULIUS CAESAR was carryed from Gallia into I know not what Western Islands where the pleasantness of the place invited him to tarry had he not been obliged to depart by the Inhabitants and so forceibly carried back by the same Spirits that conveighed him thither And although this be but a Fable yet it shews the Opinion of those Times and the strong belief they had that here were the Fortunate Islands and the Elysian Fields This Famous Island is in Length from Dunsby-Heate the farthest Promontory in Scotland to Dover DC and odd miles and in Breadth from Dover to the Point of Belirium or the Lands-end CCLXXX or as some reckon it from the Lyzazd Point in Cornwal which lyeth on the Latitude of 50 degrees and 6 minutes to the Straythy-head in Scotland in the Latitude of 60 degrees and 30 minutes it extends in Length DCXXIV Miles and from the Lands-end in Cornwal scituated in 14 degrees and 37 minutes of Longitude unto the Island Tennet in the East of Kent lying in 22 degrees and 30 minutes it is in Breadth CCCXL Miles Mr. Cambden who measures it according to its Compass makes from the Point Tarvisium to the Cape Belirium DCCCXII miles from Belirium to the fore-Fore-land of Kent CCCXX miles from the Fore-land to Tarvisium DCCIV miles But in his Account he allows for the turnings and windings of the Shoars so that in Compass it is MDCCC XXXVI miles almost two hundred less than what Caesar reported in his daies For its Greatness it was esteemed by the Romans at the first discovery of it to be a NEW WORLD and if we curiously look upon the Form of it as all Europe represents a great Dragon so this Island hath some resemblance of a huge Snake whose Head with a wide and gaping Mouth looks towards Norway and part of Denmark and his Tail to the West Ptolemy describes it under five Parallels whereof the first is the sixteenth from the AEquator in the middle of which Parallel the most Southerly part of it is placed being 52 degrees from the AEquator and the most Northerly part of it is in the 62 degrees of Latitude But Ptolomy herein has too much streightned it and bending the North part of it far more to the East towards Germany than it should be he has taken away from its Latitude Some to cure this have cared it higher Northward but gave it no more Latitude than it had before to remedy which others have thrust it two degrees more Southwardly The truest Calculation is That the most Southwardly parts lie in the Latitude of 50 degrees and

make us believe a Conjunction here more than in any other part of the World And here I must desire it to be granted that the Earth continues for many miles together in most parts of the World the very same under Water as it is on the next Neighbouring dry Land and that in no place or very rarely and by accident there is a mutation of the Soyl just upon the Sea-shoar I mean that upon the Sea the uttermost bounds of the Earth shall be fat and sertile stony or minerally and immediately where the Sea begins it shall be of a different nature The want of this Consideration seems to have been the Reason why men in several parts of the World have thought by the likeness of soyls there hath been a Conjunction of Earth when the truth is it was nothing more but the very fame Vein of ground which ran under Water from one Country to another V and F are the Air part whereof is above part under the upper Crust of the Earth E D is the Water M and G the Mineral Earth upon which the upper Crust E is supposed to fall I the Fire Now supposing the upper Crust of Earth E be dried by the heat of the Sun it follows in time that it would shrink and so wanting the continuation of its parts which is necessary to support the Arch some of it would fall upon the Mineral Earth C whereby the Water D and Air F would arise and be uppermost and other parts of E remain above yet so hollow within as to keep Water in its Concavity which drayned through the Earth would produce Springs and being rarified into Vapours would cause Earthquakes Now that which makes to our business is this Suppose all the distance between 1 2 3 4. to be of a Sandy and Rocky nature if the breach be in the middle point betwixt 1 and 4 the shoar 1 and shoar 4 will be of the same Nature in respect the Earth is the same all along between them which now is supposed to be under Water between those two Points E E E the upper Crust of the Earth 1 2 3 9. V 6 the several Breaches the Breach at 9 and V makes the Mountain whose top is at 4 the Concavity at F. From 2 to 8 as likewise from 7 to X the Water is above the Earth and maketh two Seas the shoars whereof are at 8 and X from 8 to 9 and so to X is dry Land And because in the Nature of the thing it is more reasonable to imagine the Breaches to be made where the Soyls differ therefore it happens that different and opposite Shoars are most commonly of a different Nature yet it follows not that Shoars of the same Nature and Soyl ought to be imagined of later date in their Separation than those which are of a different Nature neither is it material whether the Shoars be steep and Cliffy or whether plain and eaven or whether they answer one another or no. For we find in sounding of the depths of the Seas Hills and Valleys as well as on the dry Land neither does it follow more that the Cliffs of Dover and Bullen were a continued Ridge of Hills than that Highgate and Penman in Flint-shire are All that I think worthy to be observed is this that where a Shoar is high and steep there as to the main matter the further you go from Shoar for some distance the fewer fathom of Water you find And on the contrary where a Shoar is plain by degrees you go deeper and deeper and in this also you must allow for height of ground which often casually happens in the bottom of the Sea as well as on the dry Land The Reason of it is this because that Arch of Earth which we called Mineral Earth and was formed under Water being a less Circle of vast proportion as included by two Outward ones could not have Superficies enough for the upper Earth to lie upon it for where the fall is greater and steeper of necessity not far off must there be some Ascent proportionable as we find Dover and the opposite Clyffs exactly in the mid-way an Ascent of ground called the Riff or Trowen Shoal not sandy but of a Rocky substance scarce four Fathom deep at low Water the farther you go from it East or West being deeper and deeper still as afore allowing for casual and accidental Hillocks in the bottom From all which I think that the similitude of Soyls and equality of Promontories are no Argument to make us believe that after the general ordering the Earth Dover and Bullen were more joyned than any other parts whatever but were Primitively disjoyned as other Nations were And this Argument will hold good whether according to Des Cartes we suppose the Earth above the Water as a Postulatum only and no further or whether with Moses we certainly believe that the Waters were above the Earth for according to both the Earth must shrink and by ascent and descent gather it self together to make room for the Waters which in its hollow or concave places were to be gathered together As for Verstegans Argument That there is nothing broken but what was whole I think he might have joyned the two Promontories as easily with any other Principle as two entire parts joyned make a whole or that the Parts are less than the whole Of the same force is his Observation That steep places near the Sea are called Cliffs when as in the In-lands they are rather called Hills or Mountains and this he would have to intimate as much as if they had been cleaved from some other Promontory According to his Principle Nothing is broken in Nature that hath not been whole a Principle undeniable yet makes no more for the Cliffs of Dover than any other in the World which are not answered by other Cliffs as perhaps Dovers are These are his Reasons that shew the probability of such a Breach Let us now examine his Arguments by which he thinks he has put it out of all doubt Such as he calls evident Reasons and remarkable Demonstrations which he saith ought to be admitted as sufficient as Authors nay beyond some who deliver it by Hear-say but to give my Judgment in this case I should think the least Tradition in Antiquity that there was such athing to be of more force than all his Demonstrations to perswade and convince a man of so great a change in the World Although to him it might seem never so easie and common yet we read that some who had rashly undertook to cut the Isthmus of ground on which Corinth stood they were daily and hourly terrified and affrighted with Noises and hideous Out-cries and their works notwithstanding all their diligence went backwards Nature will not easily permit such Changes whether it proceeds from guilt of mind being a presumption that naturally would startle humane nature to set surer bounds to Kingdoms than first ordained or whether it