NATURAL SCIENCES. 



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mercial, or what not, which were undertaken in Asia and Africa. The 

 Mendicant Orders, Franciscans and Grey Friars, Dominicans and Preaching 

 Brothers, whom the Church sent forth as her representatives, contributed in 

 no small degree to these triumphs of natural history (Fig. 84). A Grey 

 Friar, John de Piano Carpini, sent by the Pope upon a mission to a Tartar 



Fig. 84. St. Francis of Assisi talking to the Birds. Miniature from a Psalter of the Thirteenth 

 Century. In the Library of M. Ambroise Finnin-Didot, Paris. 



chief (1246), was the first Christian who penetrated into the savage regions 

 beyond the Caspian Sea; another Grey Friar, Guillaume Picard, sent by 

 St. Louis to the residence of another Asiatic chief, wrote a detailed account 

 of his voyage (1253) ; Pierre Ascelin, sent by the Pope into Mongolia, and 

 Guillaume de Rubruquis, also sent by St. Louis into the depths of Tartary 

 (1253), were alike monks of the Franciscan Order. These travellers, in 



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