Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/34

xxvi that a considerable portion of the work should be devoted to this useful and interesting class of subjects.

All the great divisions of the Globe recognized by the older geographers, excepting Asia, which is largely surveyed in the Encyclopædia, together with the new divisions of Australasia and Polynesia, have been treated in general articles; embracing the latest information belonging to such heads. Another general article has been employed upon the history of discovery in the Polar Seas, and the problem as to the existence of a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean;—a problem which has acquired great additional interest, from the noble attempts lately made by this country to solve it, and to subject the terrors of the arctic zone to her courage and her genius.

In the general article on Europe, by Mr Maclaren, there is a comparative view of the extent, population, and resources of all the different European states. The account of Africa, by Mr Murray, contains much learned and ingenious inquiry as to the knowledge of it possessed by the Ancients, and the Arabian writers; as well as concerning the long agitated question of the termination of the Niger;—a question happily decided since that article was written; as the reader will find, by turning to the interesting particulars detailed under the word Zaire. To the writer of these particulars, himself a distinguished promoter of geographical discovery, the work is indebted for three of the general articles above alluded to; those namely on Australasia, Polynesia, and the Polar Seas.

Besides the general comparative view of the European States, there are separate articles on most of them; in the composition of which, the greatest attention has been paid, by their respective writers, to all the latest and best sources of information. Exclusive of those which relate to the British Empire, the most important are the articles on Austria and France, by Mr Lowe; those on Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia, by Mr Jacob; those on Greece, and the Ionian Islands, by Mr Maclaren; and the very interesting and instructive article on Spain, by the Reverend Mr Blanco White; himself a native of that unfortunate Country.

With respect to the British Empire, the Statistics of its three great members—England, Ireland, and Scotland, are copiously detailed under these, and some other