GEOGRA PHICA L SCIE\< / 



2 77 



philosophy, and geography even became an essential part of politics, as is to 

 be learnt from the treatise composed by the Emperor Constantino Porphyro- 

 genetes for the education of his son, and which bore the title of " De 

 Administratione Imperil." This book, written in the middle of the tenth 

 century, is, in reality, a geographical work, containing a very complete 

 description of Eastern Europe and of a part of Asia. Many cosmographical 

 books, descriptions of travels or of embassies, were written in Greek during 

 the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, but they have not been published. 

 The numerous writers of the history of Byzantium describe the peoples and 



Figs. 198 and 199. Navigators who have mistaken a Whale's Back for an Island seating them- 

 selves upon it to cook their food. The Whale, feeling the fire, plunges to the bottom, and the 

 Vessel narrowly escapes being wrecked. Miniature from the "Bestiaire d' Amour," by Richard 

 Furnival. Manuscript of the Tenth Century. In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, 

 Paris. 



states in other parts of Europe with a degree of accuracy and detail which 

 testifies to their being well versed in geography. 



It was in Islam that the best geographers of that time were to be found. 

 The Mahometan mind had from the first taken to the study of geography, 

 which made immense progress after the eighth century in all the Arab schools. 

 The Caliph Al-Mamoun, son of Haroun Al-Raschid, was noted for his pre- 

 dilection in favour of this science, and he translated into Arabic the Geo- 

 graphy of PtolemaDus, adding to it illuminated maps, which latter fact showed 

 that Ptolemaeus's original maps had either been lost or were not reproduced 



