i. p. 13.

CHAPTER II.

Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him some
idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to know from
whence it came, and how it was created. And, indeed, the clearing up of
these points is absolutely essential to my history, inasmuch as if this
world had not been formed, it is more than probable that this renowned
island, on which is situated the city of New York, would never have had an
existence. The regular course of my history, therefore, requires that I
should proceed to notice the cosmogony or formation of this our globe.

And now I give my readers fair warning that I am about to plunge, for a
chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was
perplexed withal; therefore, I advise them to take fast hold of my skirts,
and keep close at my heels, venturing neither to the right hand nor to the
left, lest they get bemired in a slough of unintelligible learning, or
have their brains knocked out by some of those hard Greek names which will
be flying about in all directions. But should any of them be too indolent
or chicken-hearted to accompany me in this perilous undertaking, they had
better take a short cut round, and wait for me at the beginning of some
smoother chapter.

Of the creation of the world we have a thousand contradictory accounts;
and though a very satisfactory one is furnished us by divine revelation,
yet every philosopher feels himself in honor bound to furnish us with a
better. As an impartial historian, I consider it my duty to notice their
several theories, by which mankind have been so exceedingly edified and
instructed.

Thus it was the opinion of certain ancient sages, that the earth and the
whole system of the universe was the Deity himself;[10] a doctrine most
strenuously maintained by Zenophanes and the whole tribe of Eleatics, as
also by Strabo and the sect of peripatetic philosophers. Pythagoras
likewise inculcated the famous numerical system of the monad, dyad, and
triad; and by means of his sacred quaternary, elucidated the formation of
the world, the arcana of nature, and the principles both of music and
morals.[11] Other sages adhered to the mathematical system of squares and
triangles; the cube, the pyramid, and the sphere; the tetrahedron, the
octahedron, the icosahedron, and the dodecahedron.[12] While others
advocated the great elementary theory, which refers the construction of
our glob