divided into hours and degrees.

Even at that distant period hardy adventurers had penetrated far away
into the land of the rising sun, and many a wondrous tale was told of
that mysterious empire, where one third of our fellow-men still stand
apart from the brotherhood of nations. Among the various and astounding
exaggerations induced by the vanity of the narrators, and the ignorance
of their audience, none was more ready than that of distance. The
journey, the labor of a life; each league of travel a new scene; the day
crowded with incident, the night a dream of terror or admiration. Then,
as the fickle will of the wanderer suggested, as the difficulties or
encouragement of nature, and the hostility or aid of man impelled, the
devious course bent to the north or south, was hastened, hindered, or
retraced.

By such vague and shadowy measurement as the speculations of these
wanderers supplied, the sages of the past traced out the ideal limits of
the dry land which, at the word of God, appeared from out the gathering
together of the waters.[2]

The most eminent geographer before the time of Ptolemy places the
confines of Seres--the China of to-day--at nearly two thirds of the
distance round the world, from the first meridian.[3] Ptolemy reduces
the proportion to one half. Allowing for the supposed vast extent of
this unknown country to the eastward, it was evident that its remotest
shores approached our Western World. But, beyond the Pillars of
Hercules, the dark and stormy waters of the Atlantic[5] forbade
adventure. The giant minds of those days saw, even through the mists of
ignorance and error, that the readiest course to reach this distant land
must lie toward the setting sun, across the western ocean.[6] From over
this vast watery solitude no traveler had ever brought back the story of
his wanderings. The dim light of traditionary memory gave no guiding
ray, the faint voice of rumor breathed not its mysterious secrets. Then
poetic imagination filled the void; vast islands were conjured up out of
the deep, covered with unheard-of luxuriance of vegetation, rich in
mines of incalculable value, populous with a race of conquering
warriors. But this magnificent vision was only created to be destroyed;
a violent earthquake rent asunder in a day and a night the foundations
of Atlantis, and the waters of the Western Ocean swept over the ruins of
this once mighty empire.[7] In after ages we are told, that some
Phoenician