182 COSMOS. 



only the greatest diversities in the form of the ground, in 

 organic products and physical phenomena, but it also ex- 

 hibited mankind in all the various gradations from civiliz* 

 tion to barbarism, and in the possession of ancient knowledge 

 and long-practiced arts, no less than in the imperfectly-lighted 

 dawn of intellectual awakening. Distant expeditions were 

 prosecuted with various success to the north and south, to the 

 amber lands, and under ^Elius Gallus and Balbus, to Arabia, 

 and to the territory of the Gararnantes. Measurements of 

 the whole empire were begun even under Augustus, by the 

 Greek geometricians Zenodoxus and Polycletus, while itinera- 

 ries and special topographies were prepared for the purpose of 

 being distributed among the different governors of the prov- 

 inces, as had already been done several hundred years before 

 in the Chinese empire.* These were the first statistical la- 

 bors instituted in Europe. Many of the prefectures were trav- 

 ersed by Roman roads, divided into miles, and Adrian even 

 visited his extensive dominions from the Iberian Peninsula to 

 Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania, in an eleven years' journey, 

 which was not, however, prosecuted without frequent inter- 

 ruptions. Thus the large portion of the earth's surface, which 

 was subject to the dominion of the Romans, was opened and 

 rendered accessible, realizing the idea of the pervius orbis with 

 more truth than we can attach to the prophecy in the chorus 

 of the Medea as regards the whole earth. t 



The enjoyment of a long peace might certainly have led us 

 to expect that the union under one empire of extensive coun- 

 tries having the most varied climates, and the facility with 

 which the officers of state, often accompanied by a numerous 

 train of learned men, were able to traverse the provinces, 

 would have been attended, to a remarkable extent, by an ad- 

 vance not only in geography, but in all branches of natural 

 science, and by the acquisition of a more correct knowledge of 

 the connection existing among the phenomena of nature : yet 

 such high expectations were not fulfilled. In this long period 

 of undivided Roman empire, embracing a term of almost four 

 centuries, the names of Dioscorides the Cilician and Galen of 

 Pergamus have alone been transmitted to us as those of ob- 

 servers of nature. The first of these, who increased so con- 

 siderably the number of the described species of plants, is far 



* Veget., De Re Mil., in., 6. 



t Act ii., v. 371, in the celebrated prophecy which, from the time of 

 the son of Columbus, was interpreted to relate to the discovery of 

 America. 



