president's address — SECTION E. 127 



western coast of the Indian Continent. The Phoenicians 

 proved themselves more enterprising in commercial pursuits, 

 and extended their travels further, bringing to the Mediter- 

 ranean peoples a knowledge of the valuable commodities of 

 the East. Thus a desire to excel in nautical skill was 

 promoted, that the treasures of Cathay might be reached by 

 water instead of by the more tedious land travel. 



Maritime discovery, thus inaugurated, reached its zenith 

 in the epoch of Columbus, who may be regarded as the dis- 

 coverer, for practical purposes, of the Western Continent ; 

 for though the hardy Norseman had long before crossed to 

 Iceland and thence to the American mainland, he had not 

 widely published the fact to the world. To this period also 

 belong Fernando Magalhaens, or Magellan as he is com- 

 monly called, who followed down the east coast of South 

 America to reach India on the westerly track, and Vasco da 

 Gama who rounded Africa to the eastward with the same 

 object. 



Thus little by little, " here a little, and there a little," 

 islands and continents are added to the map of the world ; 

 while intrepid and determined spirits like Marco Polo under- 

 take perilous and fatiguing land journeys, opening up a 

 friendly intercourse with Asiatic tribes, and making acquaint- 

 ance with those varied scenes of nature, to which Alexander 

 von Bumboldt thus refers in his Cosmos : — 



" It may seem," he says, " a rash attempt to endeavour to 

 analyse into its separate elements the enchantment which the 

 great scenes of nature exert over our minds. The richest and 

 most diversified materials for such an analysis present them- 

 selves to the traveller in the landscape of Southern Asia and in 

 the great Indian Archipelago." Again, on the tropical 

 Andes, the mighty Cordillera of South America, Humboldt 

 reminds us that man is permitted to contemplate all the 

 families of plants, and all the stars of the firmament, at a 

 single glance ; to see the lofty feathei'ed palms, forests of bam- 

 boo, and, above these tropical forms, oaks and umbelliferous 

 plants, as in our European homes ; there, too, both the 

 celestial hemispheres are open to his view, and he may see 

 displayed together the constellations of the Southern Cross 

 and the Great Bear, each circling round its respective Pole. 



Whether in the torrid or the frigid zone the traveller is 

 charmed with varied nature and encouraged to advance 

 toward the completion of the survey. Such often has been 

 the experience of explorers in Australia, where but half 



