orical Deduction of the Progress of Navigation Discovery and
Commerce by sea and land, from the earliest times to the present
period_.

In the deliberate construction of this systematic plan, it has been a
leading object of anxious consideration, to reduce the extensive and
interesting materials of which the work is composed under a clear,
intelligible, and comprehensive arrangement, so combined in a geographical
and chronological series, that each successive division and subdivision,
throughout the whole work, may prepare the mind of the reader for that
which is to follow, and may assist the memory in the recollection of what
has gone before. By these means, an attentive perusal of this work must
necessarily be of material usefulness, in fixing distinct and just ideas of
geography, history, and chronology in the minds of its readers; besides the
important information and rational amusement which it will afford, by the
frequent description of manners, customs, laws, governments, and many other
circumstances, of all the countries and nations of the world.

In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, the Editor
was naturally led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of
Iceland by the Norwegians in the _ninth_ century, as coincident with
the reign of the great ALFRED, who ascended the throne of England in 872,
to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the
commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a
British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of
any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true
that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in
861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the
actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878,
the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the
actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as
coinciding with his era.

From that time, till the year 1412, when Don Henry, Prince of Portugal,
first began to prosecute a consecutive series of maritime discoveries along
the western coast of Africa, during which a long inactive period of 551
years had elapsed, the only maritime incident connected with our subject,
was the accidental re-discovery of the Canary or Fortunate Islands, by a
nameless Frenchman, about the year 13