FEBRUARY 7, I )07 | 
NATURE 343 
THE DAWN OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY.' 
R. C. R. BEAZLEY has now published the third 
s and concluding volume of his important work, 
‘* The Dawn of Modern Geography.”’ The third volume 
is ‘‘A History of Exploration and Geographical 
Science from the Middle of the Thirteenth to the Early 
Years of the Fifteenth Century (c. A.D, 1260-1420).”’ 
A summary of the further progress of geographical 
knowledge through the time of Prince Henry the 
Navigator until the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope 
by Bartholomeu Dias and the voyage of Vasco da 
Gama at the end of the fifteenth century is appended. 
Mr. Beazley’s work stops short, therefore, with the 
voyages of Prince Henry’s seamen, with which the 
dawn of modern geography may well be said to have 
ripened into full morning. He begins this volume 
Genoese Map of the Black Sea: A.D. 1300-5. 
with the Polos, and they and Friar Odoric are the 
central figures of the book. Naturally the narrative , 
tends to group itself around persons, and to become 
a mere summarised account of their doings; there is 
little scope for hypothesis or argument except in 
respect to disputed names and sites. The central facts 
of the period described are the sea voyages of the 
Italian sailors, Venetians and Genoese, and the Jand- | 
journeys of the merchants of the two great republics. 
Mr. Beazley shows how the sea-enterprise of the 
Spaniards and Portuguese was started and at first 
directed by Genoese shipmen, and how knowledge of 
the Further East was increased by the competition of 
the mercatori of the Ligurian Commonwealth and the. 
City of the Lagoons (which, by the way, he insists 
on spelling ‘“‘ Lagunes”’). 
1 ‘'The Dawn of Modern Geography.”’ Vol. iii. By C. Raymond 
Beazley, M.A,, F.R.G.S. Pp. xvi+638. (Oxford :,Clarendon Press, 1906.) 
Price 20s. net. 
NO. 1945, VOL. 75] 
Next in importance is the contribution of the Roman, 
Church. Mr. Beazley well emphasises the great im- 
portance of the Roman attempt to proselytise the East 
during the period of Moslem eclipse by the pagan 
Tartar power. Already, in the preceding period, of 
which Mr. Beazley’s second volume treated, the ten- 
dency towards an alliance of Christendom with 
Heathenesse against the Saracens had come into 
prominence. The idea of crushing the followers of 
the False Prophet between the hammer of the Hun 
and the Frankish anvil had seemed by no means an 
impossible one. Nor had it seemed unlikely that, with 
the help of the hordes of Gog and Magog which God 
had sent forth to do His will, the defeat of the Horns 
of Hattin might be avenged and the Holy Places re- 
stored to Christendom; and why should not the 
Tartars themselves enter the Christian fold? Soa 
fais peect (e crate et} 
From “* The Dawn of Modern Geography.” 
Rome sent forth missionaries to the lands of the 
Ilkhan, and Western bishoprics arose where hitherto. 
only the heretical Armenians, Jacobites, and Nes- 
torians had maintained a faith of doubtful authen- 
_ ticity amid Moslems and Heathen, and the Greek had 
not been seen for centuries. 
Yet of all this endeavour only one tangible result 
remained: the increased knowledge of the East which 
the missionaries transmitted to the West. Mutual 
doubt born of ignorance, mutual incompatibility, pre- 
vented Hun and Frank from understanding one 
another; the precariousness of the way from West to 
East made communication difficult, and the divisions 
of the Papacy led the Tartars to place little faith in 
the power of Christendom to strike anew from the 
West. Also, a new spirit had arisen in the world; 
the merchant had come to power side by side with 
king, knight, and priest. The ideals of the twelfth 
