Part 2

HERNANDO CORTEZ 415 WILLIAM PENN 441 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 467 PETER THE GREAT 475 COUNT RUMFORD 498 NICHOLAS COPERNICUS 523 TYCHO BRAHE 526 GALILEO 528 KEPLER 531 SIR ISAAC NEWTON 533 HUYGENS 536 HALLEY 537 FERGUSON 539 SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL 544 SIMON BOLIVAR 547 FRANCIA, THE DICTATOR 554 ALEXANDER WILSON 562 JAMES WATT 569 JOHN HOWARD 572 LORD BYRON 598 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 612 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 615 EDWARD GIBBON 619 DAVID HUME 623 ALEXANDER POPE 627 JOHN ADAMS 634 THOMAS JEFFERSON 644 SAMUEL ADAMS 649 JAMES OTIS 651 FISHER AMES 653 AARON BURR 655 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 657 PATRICK HENRY 660 JOHN HANCOCK 664 ETHAN ALLEN 665 BENEDICT ARNOLD 667 HORATIO GATES 680 THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO 681 NATHANIEL GREEN 685 FREDERICK WILLIAM AUGUSTUS STEUBEN 688 BARON DE KALB 689 RICHARD MONTGOMERY 690 GILBERT MOTIER LAFAYETTE 691 ISRAEL PUTNAM 696 STEPHEN DECATUR 698 ISAAC HULL 700 OLIVER HAZARD PERRY 702 JOHN MARSHALL 704 JOHN PAUL JONES 706 ANDREW JACKSON 710 WINFIELD SCOTT 713 ZACHARY TAYLOR 714 JOHN E. WOOL 724 DANIEL WEBSTER 726 HENRY CLAY 732 LEVI WOODBURY 735 ROBERT RANTOUL 737 FRANKLIN PIERCE 740 SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 741 M. DAGUERRE 747 VICTOR HUGO 749 OMAR PASHA 751 EDWARD EVERETT 753 WASHINGTON IRVING 754 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 756 GEORGE BANCROFT 756 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 758 HIRAM POWERS 759

DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE 761 EARLY MARITIME DISCOVERIES 774 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 775 FERDINAND MAGELLAN 800 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 802 HENRY HUDSON 804 LE MAIRE AND SCHOUTEN 805 CAPTAIN JAMES 806 WILLIAM DAMPIER 811 CAPTAIN WOODES ROGERS 814 JOHN CLIPPERTON 815 COMMODORE ANSON 817 CAPTAIN BYRON 823 CAPTAIN WALLIS 829 DE BOUGAINVILLE 832 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK 837 CAPTAINS PORTLOCK AND DIXON 864 MONSIEUR DE LA PEROUSE 870 GEORGE VANCOUVER 891 PERRY’S VOYAGES 896 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 920 TRAVELS IN AFRICA――Parke, Denham, Clapperton, Lander and others 927 SAMUEL HEARNE 953 JOHN LEWIS BURKHARDT 955 JAMES BRUCE 958 JOHN LEDYARD 966 JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI 967 GEORGE FORSTER 974 EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE 976 RICHARD POCOCKE 979 OVERLAND JOURNEY TO INDIA 981

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE. Opium Smuggling 22 Japanese Funeral Procession 23 Aga 30 Japanese Agriculture 31 Terrace of St. Peter’s 126 Gibraltar 127 Marine Arsenal, Constantinople 232 Place of Kossuth’s Imprisonment 233 Castle of Eisenstadt 322 King of Denmark 323 Captain Smith and Pocahontas 336 Providence, R. I. 338 Newport, R. I. 339 New Haven, Conn. 342 Philadelphia, Pa. 343 Halifax, N. S. 348 Lake George 349 Castle William 354 Castle Garden 355 Wilmington, N. C. 358 Prison, Phila. 359 Fort Putnam 364 Pillar Rock 365 Place des Armes, New Orleans 370 Blackwell Penitentiary 371 Columbus, O. 402 Depot, Cleveland, O. 403 Cincinnati, O. 406 Sandusky City, O. 407 Battle Monument, Baltimore 410 Bombardment of Vera Cruz 411 State House, Wisconsin 414 View on Grand River, Ohio 570 Bridge, Conneaut River, O. 571 Kosciusko’s Monument 683 Paul Jonas 707 Gen. Scott 712 Fort Ancient 716 Milford, near Cincinnati, O. 717 Gen. Wool 725 Daniel Webster 728 Residence of Daniel Webster 729 Henry Clay 733 Hon. Levi Woodbury 734 Birth Place of John Q. Adams 736 Franklin Pierce 738 William R. King 739 Euclid Creek, O. 742 Red Bank 743 Prof. Morse 744 Daguerre 746 Victor Hugo 748 Omar Pasha 752 Disappointed Gold Seekers 760 Gold Seeker’s Grave 760 Naval Architecture, from the tenth to the seventeenth century (17 Engravings) 762-770 City of Panama 812 Panama Gate 813 City of Havana 818 Scene in Havana 819 Adelaide 824 Bathurst, N. S. W. 825 Valparaiso 834 Iron Bridge, Jamaica 835 Sidney, N. S. W. 856 Humboldt 857 California 874 Ranche 875 Post Office 876 River-bed Claim on the Turon 877 Removing Goods 878 Dry Diggings 879 Portraits of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition, (9 Engravings) 22-926 Calcutta 973 Rail Road Bridge 964 Elk Creek 965 East Branch Rocky River 982 West Branch Rocky River 983

AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA.

THE

AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA

OF

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL.

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY.

ANCIENT HISTORY.

The general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself over the globe; and accordingly, it is this region, and especially the western portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large mass of ripened humanity was accumulated――a great central nucleus of human life, so to speak, constantly enlarging, and from which emissaries incessantly streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time this great central mass having swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke up into three fragments――thus giving parentage to the three leading varieties into which ethnographers divide the human species――the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro――the Caucasians overspreading southern and western Asia; the Mongolians overspreading northern and eastern Asia; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various proportions, have constituted the various nations of the earth.

Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three great varieties of the human species have also differed widely in their historical career. The germs of a grand progressive development seem to have been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all the great civilized nations of ancient and modern times. History, therefore, concerns itself chiefly with this variety: in the evolution of whose destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. Ere proceeding, however, to sketch the early development of this highly-endowed variety of our species in the nations of antiquity, a few observations may be offered regarding the other two the Ethiopian and Mongolian――which began the race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destinies, doubtless, whatever may have been their historical functions hitherto, are involved in some profound and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole.

ETHIOPIAN HISTORY.

A German Historian thus sums up all that is known of Ethiopian history――that is, of the part which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, performed in the general affairs of mankind in the early ages of the world:――‘On the history of this division of the species two remarks may be made: the one, that a now entirely extinct knowledge of the extension and power of this branch of the human family must have been forced upon even the Greeks by their early poets and historians; the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven throughout with that of Egypt. As regards the first remark, it is clear that in the earliest ages this branch of the race must have played an important part, since Meroe (in the present Nubia) is mentioned both by Herodotus (B. C. 408) and Strabo (A. D. 20); by the one as a still-existing, by the other as a formerly-existing seat of royalty, and centre of the Ethiopian religion and civilization.[1] To this Strabo adds, that the race spread from the boundaries of Egypt over the mountains of Atlas, as far as the Gaditanian Straits. Ephorus, too (B. C. 405), seems to have had a very great impression of the Ethiopians, since he names in the east the Indians, in the south the Ethiopians, in the west the Celts, in the north the Scythians, as the most mighty and numerous peoples of the known earth. Already in Strabo’s time, however, their ancient power had been gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro states found themselves, after Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as that in which they still continue. The second remark on the Negro branch of the human race and its history, can only be fully elucidated when the interpretation of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments shall have been farther advanced. The latest travels into Abyssinia show this much――that at one time the Egyptian religion and civilization extended over the principal seat of the northern Negroes. Single mummies and monumental figures corroborate what Herodotus expressly says, that a great portion of the Egyptians of his time had black skins and woolly hair; hence we infer that the Negro race had combined itself intimately with the Caucasian part of the population. Not these notices only, but the express testimonies also of the Hebrew annals, show Egypt to have contained an abundance of Negroes, and mention a conquering king invading it at the head of a Negro host, and governing it for a considerable time. The nature of the accounts on which we must found does not permit us to give an accurate statement; we remark, however, that the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Babylonians, are not the only peoples which aimed at becoming world-conquerors before the historic age, but that also to the Ethiopian stock warlike kings were not wanting in the early times. The Mongols alone seem to have enjoyed a happy repose within their own seats in the primitive historic times, and those antecedent to them; they appear first very late as conquerors and destroyers in the history of the west. If, indeed, the hero-king of the Ethiopians, Tearcho, were one and the same with the Tirhakah of the book of Kings (2 Kings, xix. 9), then the wonder of those stories would disappear which were handed down by tradition to the Greeks; but even Bochart has combatted this belief, and we cannot reconcile it with the circumstances which are related of both. It remains for us only to observe, by way of summary, that in an age antecedent to the historic, the Ethiopian peoples may have been associated together in a more regular manner than in our own or Grecian and Roman times; and that their distant expeditions may have been so formidable, both to the Europeans as far as the Ægean Sea in the east, and to the dwellers on the Gaditanian Straits (Gibraltar) on the west, that the dim knowledge of the fact was not lost even in late times. In more recent ages we observe here and there an Ethiopian influence, and especially in the Egyptian history; but as concerns the general progress of the human species, the Negro race never acquired any vital importance.

The foregoing observations may be summed up in this proposition:――That in the most remote antiquity, Africa was overspread by the Negro variety of the human species; that in those parts of the continent to which the knowledge of the ancient geographers did not extend――namely, all south of Egypt and the Great Desert――the Negro race degenerated, or at least dispersed into tribes, kingdoms, etc., constituting a great savage system within its own torrid abode, similar to that which even now, in the adult age of the world, we are vainly attempting to penetrate; but that on the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the race either preserved its original faculty and intelligence longer, or was so improved by contact and intermixture with its Caucasian neighbors, as to constitute, under the name of the Ethiopians, one of the great ante-historic dynasties of the world; and that this dynasty ebbed and flowed against the Caucasian populations of western Asia and eastern Europe, thus giving rise to mixture of races along the African coasts of the north and east, until at length, leaving these mixed races to act their part awhile, the pure Ethiopian himself retired from historic view into Central Africa, where he lay concealed, till again in modern times he was dragged forth to become the slave of the Caucasian. Thus Negro history hitherto has exhibited a retrogression from a point once occupied, rather than a progress in civilization. Even this fact, however, must somehow be subordinate to a great law of general progress; and it is gratifying to know that, on the coast of Africa, a settlement has recently been formed called Liberia, peopled by liberated negro slaves from North America; and who, bringing with them the Anglo-American civilization, give promise of founding a cultured and prosperous community.

MONGOLIAN HISTORY――THE CHINESE.

As from the great central mass of mankind, the first accumulation of life on our planet, there was parted off into Africa a fragment called the Negro variety, so into eastern Asia there was detached, by those causes which we seek in vain to discover, a second huge fragment, to which has been given the name of the Mongolian variety. Overspreading the great plains of Asia, from the Himalehs to the Sea of Okhotsk, this detachment of the human species may be supposed to have crossed into Japan; to have reached the other islands of the Pacific, and either through these, or by the access at Behring’s Straits, to have poured themselves through the great American continent; their peculiarities shading off in their long journey, till the Mongolian was converted into the American Indian. Blumenbach, however, erects the American Indian into a type by himself.

Had historians been able to pursue the Negro race into their central African jungles and deserts, they would no doubt have found the general Ethiopic mass breaking up there under the operation of causes connected with climate, soil, food, etc., into vast sections or subdivisions, presenting marked differences from each other; and precisely so was it with the Mongolians. In Central Asia, we find them as Thibetians, Tungusians, Mongols proper; on the eastern coasts, as Mantchous and Chinese; in the adjacent islands, as Japanese, etc.; and nearer the North Pole, as Laplanders, Esquimaux, etc.; all presenting peculiarities of their own. Of these great Mongolian branches circumstances have given a higher degree of development to the Chinese and the Japanese than to the others, which are chiefly nomadic hordes, some under Chinese rule, others independent, roaming over the great pasture lands of Asia, and employed in rearing cattle.