[138:A] Voyage du Levant, vol. 2, page 336.
[147:A] See the Hist. of the Acad. 1708, page 32.
[148:A] See the Diss. de Solido intra Solidum, &c.
[151:A] See Acta erudit, Lepiss, Ann. 1691, page 100.
The surface of the Earth, like that of Jupiter, is not divided by bands alternative and parallel to the equator; on the contrary, it is divided from one pole to the other, by two bands of earth, and two of sea; the first and principal is the ancient continent, the greatest length of which is found to be in a line, beginning on the east point of the northern part of Tartary, and extending from thence to the land which borders on the gulph of Linchidolkin, where the Muscovites fish for whales; from thence to Tobolski, from Tobolski to the Caspian sea, from the Caspian sea to Mecca, and from Mecca to the western part of the country inhabited by the Galli, in Africa; afterwards to Monoemuci or Monomotapa, and at last to the Cape of Good Hope; this line, which is the greatest length of the old continent, is about 3600 leagues, Paris measure; it is only interrupted by the Caspian and Red seas, the breadths of which are not very considerable, and we must not pay any regard to these interruptions, when it is considered, the surface of the globe is divided only in four parts.
This greatest length is found by measuring the old continent diagonally; for if measured according to the meridians, we shall find that there are only 2500 leagues from the northernmost Cape of Lapland to the Cape of Good Hope; and that the Baltic and Mediterranean cause a much greater interruption than is met with in the other way. With respect to all the other distances that might be measured in the old continent under the same meridian, we shall find them to be much smaller than this; having, for example, only 1800 leagues from the most southern point of the island of Ceylon to the northernmost coast of Nova Zembla. Likewise, if we measure the continent parallel to the equator, we find that the greatest uninterrupted length is found from Trefna, on the western coast of Africa, to Ninpo, on the eastern coast of China, and that it is about 2800 leagues. Another course may be measured from the point of Brittany near Brest, extending to the Chinese Tartary; about 2300 leagues. From Bergen, in Norway, to the coast of Kamschatka, is no more than 1800 leagues. All these lines have much less length than the first, therefore the greatest extent of the old continent, is, in fact, from the eastern point of Tartary to the Cape of Good Hope, that is about 3600 leagues.