The Architects of America: Freemasons and the Growth of the United States

The Sphere with the parts of the Earth delineated on
its Surface is called the Terrestrial Globe; and that with
the Constellations and other Heavenly bodies the Celestial
Globe Their principal use besides serving as Maps to
distinguish the outward parts of the Earth and the Situation
of the fixed Stars is to illustrate and explain the Phenomenon
arising from the Annual revolution and the diurnal rotation
of the Earth round it own Axis…but are also induced to apply
with more diligence and Attention to Astronomy, Geography,
Navigation and all sciences dependent on them which are
equally useful to Society.

—Fragment of (defunct) second degree lecture Masonic
Ritual from Redruth, Cornwall, 1815 describing the two
Globes that form part of the Ornamentation of a Masonic
Lodge.

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” observed Doctor Johnson, and with good reason. The City that had begun life as the Roman Londonium and seen out the Dark Ages as the Saxon Londonwic had by the year 1733, blossomed into a metropolis second to none. From here, a benign George II ruled an empire that already counted exotic places like Barbados, New York and Gibraltar amongst its dominions, and

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