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[Page 3]
highly valuable. should be Climate or accidents disable you from further pursuits If one is to form a guess I should think the Molucca Islands served as the links of a Chain between the Eastern Continent & new Holland, & why may we not suppose another Continent beyond that, for if I mistake not Van Diemen proved that vast track of land to be an Island. But to wave more impertinent conjectures; I will conclude this head of Geography. The knowledge of Climates will come next, & I leave it to you to refer mine if the memoir of Petersburg would not be usefull to compare the degrees of cold in opposite parallels.
The saltness of Water is another object in wch many authors differ, & must differ till more experiments are made. Would it not be easy to evaporate a certain quantity in our seas, & about two times more before you reached the line, & proceed in the same degrees as near as possible beyond the line. It is an established opinion that the water grows more salt as you approach the equator. This may be true, but whether the saltness decreases in an equal proportion, as in our Seas, is yet unknown. This discovery would account for some fish being seen in particular latitudes & not in others, & when compared with the state of the air may illustrate each other. I need not say the surest criterion of the quantity of water will be the weight, as you must measure the residuum by that standard. As for the proper objects of natural history, I have very little to say, but hope you will have some one that understands chymistry, [chemistry] as mineralogy is but a dead unprofitable science without chymistry. On this subject I beg leave to mention mineral waters, which are certainly a part (& a very usefull one too.) of natural history. Not that I limit enquiry to waters with a sensible, impregnation, but tis certainly of great consequence to a Ships crew