The Honourable NICHOLAS WITSEN late Ambassadour into England, and now one of the Principal Burgomasters of Amsterdam, having sent several of his New Maps of Tartary to the Fellows of the Royal Society, the Honourable their President was pleased to write unto him as followeth SIR,

I HaveI have lately had a great Effect of your Bounty in the Maps of Tartary. This is Columbus like, the Discovery of a New World; at least Tydings of those Parts, which from the beginning have layn in the Dark. But the Enterprise being so vast, and the success so unexpected; the Publick are very impatient to be told by what Magick you have been able to master this Work. For it looks in one Part no less difficult then a Geographical Description of the Bottom of the Sea; I mean as to those impenetrable Desarts, the endless Boggs and Marshes, the inaccessable Mountains and those mighty Tracts, which by their Climate are rendered uninhabitable; since all these seem by Nature to have been condemned to an everlasting Solitude.

(493)

Now for the rest, when I consider that the Caravans passing between Muscovy and China are not frequent; that they are confin’d to certain Paths and Lines of Trade; That the Merchants and common Travellers mind nothing but the Security and Certainty of the Journey, and the Profit that ensues; And that those who should inform them of Extents and Boundaries, are a Rambling and uncultivated Generation, and of various Languages. If after all these Impediments, you shall yet be able to shew the Credibility of your Survey, you need think no more of Fame, but only pray for Humility.

TaTo which Mr. Witsen was pleased to Answer to the Effect following. SIR,

’TIS’Tis almost 28 years since I travelled into Russia, and being there merely for my own Satisfaction, I not only Conversed with the Inhabitants of those Countreys, but with Tartars of all sorts. There I grew first informed not only in the Situation of those Parts, but of such Countries as lay very remote. I have not ceased from that time, by various Methods I have found, to send Letters unto, and receive Answers from the most Northern, and North-East parts of the World. For I have maintain’d a constant Correspondence in Mosco, Astracan, Georgia, Ispahan, Polonia, and Constantinople, I have had Letters every year from Pekin, the chief City of China. I have gathered Volumes of Journals and Registers, which set forth the Names of Mountains, Rivers, Cities and Towns, together with a vast number of Drafts made by my own Order, which describe the Territories that I have mentioned.

’Tis from this Fund, which has been gathering for so many years, and by comparing and adjusting all these Materials, and by preserving without intermission therein, that the Map is made up.

(494)

After all, I am far from thinking it has no faults, ‘tis very well if such as are found, be not many, or very gross, I confess my own greatest doubts are about the stretching of the Sea-Coasts. And ‘tis therefore that I express them in a faint and pale Colour, to signify the uncertainty thereof. But as to the Latitudes, I have more assurance of their being well noted, and suspect but little mistakes, if there be any therein.

I am yet in suspence whether the North-East Point which you see bearing off in the Map, may run quite on to America; or how far thither-ward it may reach.

I formerly thought Nova Zembla had been a Continent, and when I wrote my Opinion herein to Mr. Oldenbourg, he put it into one of his Transactions. But I have since been better informed, and retracted that Error. And whereas the late Monsieur Vossius would needs persuade himself, as well as he did others to their Ruin, that there was a passage to Japan by the North, and that the Tartarian Countreys behind Nova Zembla did immediately decline towards the South; I did always oppose it, and think I can even demonstrate the Impossibility thereof. So that what he wrote to encourage Mariners to that attempt, was even directing them to the point of Death, as it afterwards ensu’d.

My intention is, if I live, and may have leisure for it, to make several particular Maps of the sundry Countries contained in this General One, and to give the Descriptions which appertain to each.

V. The Descriptions of certain Shells found in the East Indies, Communicated by Mr. Witzen to Dr. Lister, and by him to the Publisher, with some Remarks of his own.

SIR, I HereI here sent you inclosed an Account of certain Shells and their Figures, which I received from Mr. Witzen, formerly Ambassadour here from the States of Holland, (871) and also well known to the Learned World by his excellent Map of Tartary.

Translated from the French. He Writes thus:

There are found on the Coasts of Malabar and Ceylon, certain Cockles or Shells in Dutch called Kouk-horens. These Shells contain a Fish that lives in the bottom of the Sea, fixt to the Body of the Shell, and at a certain Season of the Year, they cast their Seed which produces a sort of Matrix of the size of the FigureVid. Fig. 4.*; this long Body which is wrinckled like an Andouille or Sausage is filled with a great number of round Celles, which are so many Matrices, each producing its little shell-fish; which quit not their cells till they are grown to such a bigness and maturity, as their weight breaks them off and loosens them from their cells, and so from their common Matrix, which remains fastned to the bottom of the Sea by the great end, the other end moving about freely in the water, which is flexible every way like an Andouille. This Matrix the Hollanders call Swambalk.

It is observable that this Matrix has a kind of back-part and Belly, the Back is something like that of a Sckelvis and of a greyish colour, the Belly is whiter, and is that part which is filled with the cells from one end to the other: the Skin which covers it is very like that of Stock-fish or other dryed Fish.

Figure the 5th, Is a shell found in the River of Goa, which holds a sort of Oyster. It is very scarce and in the Indies as well as here the shell powdered is esteemed a good Medicine.