EXTENT, BOUNDARIES, AND NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, OF THE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. CONTAINING Several thousand Places not to be met with in any fimilar Gazetteer. DARTON AND HARVEY, GRACECHURCH-STREET; H. D. SYMONDS, PATERNOSTER-ROW; VERNOR AND HOOD, PRE F A C E. THE ufe of an Univerfal Gazetteer, to those who feel any interest at all in what is going on in the world at large, is too obvious to need pointing out. It's name feems to imply, that it is the companion, or accompaniment of the newspaper, or gazette, which latter name was derived from the gazetta, a fmall coin of Venice, the original price of these periodical chronicles in that commercial republic. A work of this kind, neceffarily formed of materials brought from every quarter of the world, at uncertain and different periods, and, generally, by we know not whom, is peculiarly liable to errors, and the compiler muft confine himself within very narrow bounds, indeed, if he do not fubmit to thefe imperfections. In the compilation of this work, the latest and most authentic accounts have been confulted; from travelling, the author has been enabled to correct feveral errors, and from correfpondents he has received descriptions of fome places, which are certainly the best and moft accurate that have been yet offered to the public in this way. Towns and places of note are defcribed at length, or form diftinct paragraphs; the names of thefe are given in capitals. Thofe to which an afterifk, or ftar, is prefixed, are the poft-towns of Great Britain. and Ireland. Even villages, hamlets, and fingle houses, in these iflands, have been mentioned, and, in fome inftances, their fituations pretty precifely told; but these, as inferior articles, are given in a different character, or letter, and do not form different paragraphs, but are carried on in continuity, generally forming only distinct periods. The expreflions of inferior and confiderable, or of note, are meant not in reference to wealth but to population. If errors occur in the places of lefs note, which they probably may, or, indeed, neceffarily muft, (for, in attempting to make this the completeft geographical index extant, works of more dubious authority have alfo been confulted) it may be well enough to caution the reader to fufpend for awhile his fmiles and his fagacious remarks, and analogical conclufions, "that if a place, which he knows, be inaccurately defcribed, he may reafonably fuppofe that others are alfo incorrect, and that placesmore remote, or diftant, muit neceffarily be more falfe." will only, in fuch cafe, be the part of candour to confider, that fuch places are perhaps but little vifited by travellers, and fcarcely known beyond A 2 |