Note 73 — INTRODUCTION TO THE VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. (continued 2)

A contempt of revelation is generally the result of ignorance, conceited of its possessing superior knowledge. Observe how the Author of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains, expresses himself on this very point. “Cette distance que Mr. Antermony veut trouver si peu importante, est à-peu-près de huit cent lieues Gauloises au travers d’un ocean perilleux, et impossible à franchir avec des canots aussi chetifs et aussi fragiles que le sont, au rapport d’Ysbrand Ides, les chaloupes des Tunguses,” &c. &c. t. i. p. 156. Had this writer known that the two continents are not above thirteen leagues (instead of eight hundred) distant from each other, and that, even in that narrow space of sea, there are intervening islands, he would not have ventured to urge this argument in opposition to Mr. Bell’s notion of the quarter from which North America received its original inhabitants.