A COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. G Of GREAT BRITAIN in general. REAT BRITAIN, the largest island in Europe, comprehends the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, with the principality of Wales. Its latitude, at the Lizard Point in Cornwall, according to Moll, is 50° north, and at the head-land at Caithness in Scotland, 58° 30'; fo that, according to the geometrical measure of English ftatute miles, which is 69 miles and 864 feet to a degree, the length of the island, measured in a direct line, without attending to the hills and winding of the roads, is 587 miles. Its longitude, Teneriffe being the firit meridian, is 9° 45′ at the Land's-End in Cornwall, and at the South Foreland in Kent, 17° 15. Now every degree of longitude in this latitude being about 38 ftatute miles, the breadth therefore between thefe two extremities will be 285 miles. As an ifland, this country has fome peculiar natural advantages and difadvantages: it is fubject to perpetual varieties of heat and cold, wet and dry; but the heats in fummer, and the colds in winter, are more temperate than in any part of the Continent that lies in the fame latitude: the harbours in Holland, Germany, and Denmark, are blocked up VOL. VII. B with |