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Earth groans to her centre-thunder and storm rage along their courses-earthquakes and volcanoes roar from the tops of the mountains-the ocean boils like a pot, and spouts from the depths beneath, pyramids of fire. The portentous comet rolls athwart the great expanse, and with his twilight gloom, spreads a disastrous shade o'er half the nations: these are the ministers of his wrath.

The infinite variety of creatures that inhabit the earth, the ocean, and the air, show his amazing skill; the teeming shower, the sunshine and the yellow sheaf, show his bounteous goodness. The contemplation of a Divine Providence is consoling and pro fitable; we feel ourselves drawn from the creature to the Creator. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice! the reigns of government are in the hands of him who needs no counsellor. Though the fool has said in his heart there is no God, yet both His word and providence declare to the ends of the earth, saying, verily there is a God, who hath set his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom reigneth over all. Shall we not say providence is God in motion, is God teaching by facts, is God fulfilling and explaining his word in his own way however inscrutable to the ken of men or angels?

Though clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the habitations of his throne.

No pains have been spared in the comiplation of this book, to collect from rare and valuable publications, both of Europe and America, which are but little known by reason of their magnitude and scarcity,) such accounts as show the way of the Lord in his works and providence. There can be no doubt, that to be indifferent to these, whether it be a nation or an individual, is highly sinful.

The eyes of all ought to wait upon him, whose wonders fill heaven, earth and hell. How vast the amplitude of his power! the ocean of illimitable space is the field of his operations.

The accounts given respecting the Roman Catholic hierarehy, are a record of facts which show that a spirit of persecution was not only an ancient mark of that overgrown superstition, but that it retains all its virulence to the present day.

It affords much pleasure to reflect, that so large a work is now presented to its thousands of patrons, for so small a price, gathered from those who have recorded, from age to age, the wonderful works and providences of the Most High; for which, to Him, and my generous patrons I give thanks. JOSIAH PRIEST.

Albany, August 17, 1825.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE,

Of Dragons, Sea Serpents, and Flying Serpents,

The Horn Nosed Snake,

The Anaconda of the East-Indies,

The Halcydrus a monstrous serpent of the ocean,

History of the Scorpion,

Account of a monstrous reptile,

Accounts of Apparitions and Dreams,

Accounts of Supernatural Phenomena,

An account of the Polypus,

Accounts of the skeletons of large persons,
Wonderful conversion of a wicked sea captain,
Of the fiery Simoon of Arabia,

Travels and Adventures in the southern hemisphere
Accounts of poisonous Serpents and other Reptiles,
History of the Salamander and water Salamander,
An account of the bite of the Tarantula,
Of the Coya a poisonous insect,
An account of the fossil Asbestos,

Singular adventure of a Stork,

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Of the Phenomena of Meteors and other Fires,

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Of the Phenomena of the Ignus Fatuus,

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Of the Phenomena of Whirl-winds, and Water Spouts,

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Memoirs of the martyr Polycarp,

Suicide prevented by a wonderful providence,

The Deist confuted,

Prisoner among the Indians,

Awful fulfilment of an awful prophecy,

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Accounts of bodies found in the earth centuries after their

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A copious account of the lives and deaths of Infidels,

Account of the inquisition at Goa,

Of the inquisition at Spain,

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A copious account of the phenomena of fire and earth

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A grand supernatural phenomenon,
Account of a monstrous kind of Eagle,
Astronomical observations on comets,
A wonderful supernatural phenomenon,
The phenomenon of light.

The sufferings of Thecla,

Of the diamond mines in the East-Indies,
A wonderful providence,

Hogarth's last painting,

Narrative of two Lovers,

Locality of the Garden of Eden,
Amusement for the Philosopher,

Cure of a man possessed of the Devil,
Narrative of Aleander and Septimus,

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