Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/138

 long since found out! Whether Japan be island, or continent with some parts of Tartary on the north side, is not certainly agreed. The lands of Yedso, upon the north-east continent, have been no more than coasted, and whether they may not join to the northern continent of America is by some doubted.

But the defect or negligence seems yet to have been greater towards the south, where we know little beyond thirty-five degrees, and that only by the necessity of doubling the Cape of Good Hope in our East India voyages: yet a continent has been long since found out within fifteen degrees to south, and about the length of Java, which is marked by the name of New Holland in the maps, and to what extent none knows either to the south, the east, or the west; yet the learned have been of opinion, that there must be a balance of earth on that side of the line in some proportion to what there is on the other, and that it cannot be all sea from thirty degrees to the South Pole, since we have found land to above sixty-five degrees towards the North. But our navigators that way have been confined to the roads of trade, and our discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain degree of gain. And I