Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The World Displayed, Vol. 1 of 8: Or, a Curious Collection of Voyages and Travels
Navigation, like other arts, has been perfected by degrees. It is not easy to conceive that any age or nation was without some vessel, in which rivers might be passed by travellers, or lakes frequented by fishermen; but we have no knowledge of any ship that could endure the violence of the ocean before the ark of Noah.
As the tradition of the deluge has been transmitted to almost all the nations of the earth; it must be supposed that the memory of the means by which Noah and his family were preserved would be continued long among their descendants, and that the possibility of passing the seas could never be doubted.
What men know to be practicable, a thousand motives will incite them to try; and there is reason to believe, that from the time that the generations of the post deluvian race spread to the sea shores, there were always navigators that ventured upon the ocean, though, perhaps, not willingly beyond the sight of land.
Of the ancient voyagers little certain is known, and it is not necessary to lay before the reader such conjectures as learned men have offered to the worlds. The Romans by conquering Carthage, put a stop to great part of the trade of distant nations with one another, and because they thought only on war and conquest, as their empire encreased, commerce was discouraged; till under the later emperors, ship seem to have been of little other use than to transport soldiers.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
