at. Deor. lib. i. cap. 10; Justin Mart. orat.
ad gent. p. 20.

[14] Mosheim in Cudw. lib. i. cap. 4; Tim. de anim. mund. ap. Plat.
lib. iii.; Mem. de l'Acad. des Belles-Lettr. t. xxxii. p. 19.

[15] Book i. ch. 5.

[16] Holwell, Gent. Philosophy.

[17] Johannes Megapolensis. Jun. Account of Maquaas or Mohawk Indians.

[18] Drw. Bot. Garden, part i. cant. i. 1. 105.

CHAPTER III.

Noah, who is the first seafaring man we read of, begat three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japhet. Authors, it is true, are not wanting who affirm that the
patriarch had a number of other children. Thus Berosus makes him father of
the gigantic Titans; Methodius gives him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus
(who was the first inventor of Johnny cakes); and others have mentioned a
son, named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or, in
other words, the Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will not permit me to
gratify the laudable curiosity of my readers, by investigating minutely
the history of the great Noah. Indeed, such an undertaking would be
attended with more trouble than many people would imagine; for the good
old patriarch seems to have been a great traveler in his day, and to have
passed under a different name in every country that he visited. The
Chaldeans, for instance, give us his story, merely altering his name into
Xisuthrus--a trivial alteration, which to an historian skilled in
etymologies will appear wholly unimportant. It appears, likewise, that he
had exchanged his tarpaulin and quadrant among the Chaldeans for the
gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals.
The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as Menu;
the Greek and Roman writers confound him with Ogyges; and the Theban with
Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese, who deservedly rank among the most
extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have known the world
much longer than any one else, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi;
and what gives this assertion some air of credibility is that it is a
fact, admitted by the most enlightened _literati_, that Noah traveled into
China, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel (probably to
improve himself in the study of languages), and the learned Dr. Shuckford
gives us the additional information that the ark rested on a mountain on
the frontiers of China.

From this mass of r