43S RC'Y A I. s; CI F-.T V OF (W NA DA 



was eminently i)rofoiin(l, is quite incommensurate. We take facts, not 

 names, as our Ixisis of reasoning, — and facts show that the river Tanais 

 was held hv the men of Calwt's day to he the lino of division between 

 Europe and Asia. Hence for them all of Asia was east of Tanais. 



Thirty years ago, we in Can'ada, called all the country from Lake 

 Superior to the Pacific Ocean, the Northwest, and very vague ideas 

 of its extent prevailed. In the same way a certain vagueness of con- 

 ception regarding the extent of Asia obtained in the Middle Ages, but 

 this no more argues the ignorance of the people, or the lack of interest 

 in geography in the one case than in the other. The study of 

 geography was never neglected. It was prosecuted in the schools of 

 Kome during t"lie Empire, when maps were' painted on the walls of 

 school rooms and corridors, on which could be seen amongst other 

 things " the rivers of Persia and the arid fields of Lybia, and tlie 

 united horn-like branches of the lihine, and the many mouths of the 

 Xile." So speaks Eumenius Rhetor when addressing the Prefect of 

 Gaul. There were portable maps, also, and in the reign of Valen- 

 tinian generals were to provide themselves with detailed maps of the 

 region in which war was to be carried on. The Church succeeded as 

 heir to the knowledge of the Roman schools, and we find Boethius, a 

 most learned mathematician and friend of St. Benedict, cultivating 

 the study of geography with assiduity. Cassiodorus, who founded a 

 monastery in Calabria, urged the monks under him to study geography 

 so that they might know where the places of which they read were 

 situated. He recommends the writings of Julius Orator and !Mar- 

 cellinus, and the table or map of Dionysius, so that "the eyes might see 

 what the eare had heard.'' Ptolemy is also recommended. 



We learn from Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne that, amongst the 

 "treasures of that Monarch were many books and four plates or maps, 

 three of silver, and one of gold. The most costly one had throe orbs 

 (presumably the three Continents) joined together, on which was a fine 

 and minute delineation of the whole world.'' 



In the annals of the Order of St. Dominic at Colmar, under the 

 year 1265, we read: — "I have depicted a map of the world {maixpam 

 viundi) on twelve sheets of parchment." 



There are many facts in Ecclesiastical History which prove that 

 the knowledge of geography was not so very vague. Not only through- 

 out Europe, but also throughout Asia and Northern Africa, the gospel 

 had been preached during the first few centuries of the Christian era. 

 Bishops were everywhere, and missionaries were going to and fro. Pro- 

 vincial, national and general councils were held. In these latter, 



