GEOGRAPHY 



145 



and also to the articles CHAHT and MAC. Here only 



.rence can be made to the program of correct 



n..'i..ns of the earth and, in connection therewith, of a 



^fin-rid knowledge of the extent and f<>nn <>f the earth's 



Art the earliest efforts, within the historical 



1, to extend a knowledge of the earth's surface 



n with the Mediterranean nations of antiquity, it is 



il and i i-lit to start there, although in one sense 



< \l>lration is coeval with humanity. 



The earliest definite idea formed of the earth by 

 nations emerging from a primeval condition seems 

 in have been that of a Hat circular disc, sur- 

 lounded on all sides by water, and covered by the 

 h.M\en- .IN \\ith a canopy, in the centre of which 

 their own land was supposed to lie situated. The 

 IMiienicians were the first people who communicated 

 to other nations a knowledge of distant lands ; and, 

 although little is known as to the exact period and 

 extent of their various discoveries, they had, before 

 ie a;." 1 of Homer, navigated all parts of the Euxine, 

 nd penetrated l>eyond the limits of the Mediter- 

 inean into the Western Ocean ; and they thus form 

 lie first link of the great chain of discovery which, 

 \ears after their foundation of the cities of 

 Tartessus and Utica, was carried by Columbus to 

 remote shores of America. Besides various 

 ittlements nearer home, these bold adventurers 

 founded colonies in Asia Minor about 1200 

 C. ; a century later they laid the foundation of 

 es, Utica, and several other cities, which was 

 Mowed in the course of the 9th century by that 

 Carthage, from whence new streams of colonisa- 

 >n continued for several centuries to flow to 

 ts of the world hitherto unknown. The 

 lenicians, although less highly gifted than the 

 , ptiaus, rank next to them in regard to the 

 uence which they exerted on the progress of 

 uman thought and civilisation. Their know- 

 ge of mechanics, their early use of weights and 

 -iires, and, what was of still greater importance, 

 their employment of an alphabetical form of writing 

 facilitated and confirmed commercial intercourse 

 ong their own numerous colonies, and formed 

 hond of union which speedily embraced all the 

 civilised nations of Semitic and Hellenic origin. So 

 rapid was the advance of geographical knowledge 

 between the age of the Homeric poems (which may 

 Ke regarded as representing the ideas entertained 

 at the commencement of the 9th century B.C. ) and 

 the time of Hesitxl (800 B.C.) that, while in the 

 former the earth is supposed to resemble a flat 

 circular shield, surrounded by a rim of water 

 .spoken of as the parent of all other streams, and 

 the names of Asia and Europe are applied only, the 

 former to the upper valley of the Cayster, and 

 the latter to Greece north of Peloponnesus, Hesiod 

 m entions parts of Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain, 

 id is acquainted with the Scythians and with the 

 Ethiopians of southern Africa. During the 7th 

 century i:.c. certain Phoenicians, under the natron- 

 age of Neku or Necho II., king of Egypt, undertook 

 ^ voyage of discovery, and are reported to have 

 circumnavigated Africa. This expedition is re- 

 corded by Herodotus, who relates that it entered 

 the Southern Ocean by way of the Red Sea, and 

 after three years' absence returned to Egypt by 

 the Pillars of Hercules. The fact of an actual cir- 

 cumnavigation of the African continent has been 

 doubted, but the most convincing proof of its prob- 

 ability is afforded by the observation which seemed 

 incredible to Herodotus viz. 'that the mariners 

 who .sailed round Libya (from east to west) had the 

 un on their right hand. 1 The 7th and 6th centuries 

 B.C. were memorable for the great advance made in 

 regard to the knowledge of the form and extent 

 of the earth. Thales, and his pupil Anaximander, 

 reputed to have l>een the first to draw maps, ex- 

 many errors, and paved the way by their 

 218 



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observations for the attainment of a sounder know- 

 ledge. The logograplicr- eontributed at thi* |>eriid 

 to the same end by Hie descriptions which they gave 

 of various part* of the earth ; of these ]>erhapH the 

 mo>t interesting to us ut the narrative of the Cartha- 

 ginian Himilco, who discovered the licit Mi Islands, 

 including the (Estrymnides, which he described at 

 being a four months' voyage from Tarte8iis. 



With Herodotus of Halicarnassus (born 484 B.C.), 

 who may be regarded as the father of geography 

 as well as of history, a new era began in regard 

 to geographical knowledge. Although his chief 

 object was to record the struggles of the Greeks 

 and Persians, he has so minutely described the 

 countries which he visited in his extensive travels 

 (which covered an area of more than 31 or 1700 

 miles from east to west, and 24 or 1660 miles 

 from north to south) that his History gives us a 

 complete representation of all that was known of 

 the earth's surface in his age. This knowledge 

 was extremely scanty. It was believed that tne 

 world was bounded to the south by the Red Sea or 

 Indian Ocean, and to the west by the Atlantic, 

 while its eastern boundaries, although admitted to 

 be undefined, were conjectured to be nearly identi- 

 cal with the limits of the Persian empire, and its 

 northern termination somewhere in the region of 

 the amber-lands of the Baltic, which had been 

 visited by Phoenician mariners, and with which the 

 people of Massilia (the modern Marseilles) kept up 

 constant intercourse by way of Gaul and Germany. 

 In the next century the achievements of Alexander 

 the Great tended materially to enlarge the bounds 

 of human knowledge, for while he carried his arms 

 to the banks of the Indus and Oxus, and extended 

 his conquests to northern and eastern Asia, he 

 at the same time promoted science, by sending 

 expeditions to explore and survey the various pro- 

 vinces which he subdued, and to make collections 

 of all that was curious in regard to the organic and 

 inorganic products of the newly-visited districts ; 

 and hence the victories of the Macedonian con- 

 queror formed a new era in physical inquiry gener- 

 ally, as well as in geographical discovery specially. 



While Alexander was opening the East to the 

 knowledge of western nations, Pytheas, an adven- 

 turous navigator of Massilia, conducted an expedi- 

 tion past Spain and Gaul, through the Channel, 

 and round the east of England into the Northern 

 Ocean. There, after six days' sailing, he, accord- 

 ing to some, reached Thule (conjectured to be 

 Iceland, although the actiial locality is very un- 

 certain), but according to the most competent in- 

 terpreters of the story only heard of it. Returning, 

 he passed into the Baltic, where he heard of the 

 Teutones and Goths. Discovery was thus being 

 extended both in the north and east into regions 

 whose very existence had never l>een suspected, or 

 which had hitherto been regarded as mere chaotic 

 wastes. An important advance in geography was 

 made by Eratosthenes (born 276 B.C.), who first 

 used parallels of longitude and latitude, and 

 constructed maps on mathematical principles. 

 His work on geography is lost, yet we learn 

 from Strabo that he considered the world to be 

 a sphere revolving with its surrounding atmo- 

 sphere on one and the same axis, and having one 

 centre ; although the belief in the spherical form of 

 the earth was at the time confined to the learned 

 few. He believed that only about one-eighth of 

 the earth's surface was inhabited, while the extreme 

 points of his habitable world were Thule in the 

 north, China in the east, the Cinnamon Coast of 

 Africa in the south, and the Prom. Sacrum ( Cape 

 St Vincent) in the west. During the interval be- 

 tween the ages of Eratosthenes and Strabo (born 

 66 B.C.) many voluminous works on geography were 

 compiled, which have been either wholly lost to us. 



