HISTORY OF
 

CHAPTER III.
 

How that famous navigator, JVoah, was shame^
fully nick-named; and how he committed an un¬
pardonable oversight in not having four sons.
With the great trouble of philosophers, caused
thereby, and the discovery of America.
 

Noah, who is the first sea-faring man we read
of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Au¬
thors 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, and others have mentioned a son, nam¬
ed 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 his¬
tory of the great Noah. Indeed such an under¬
taking would be attended with more trouble than
many people would imagine; for the good old pa¬
triarch seems to have been a great traveller 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, ivhich.