22 GEOGRAPHY. 



were separated by the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian seas ; the 

 northern division included Europe with Northern Asia to the Phasis ; the 

 southern, the rest of Asia and that portion of it forming the peninsula of 

 Libya (/. e. Africa). In his works we first find the name Italia. The last 

 inhabited land of Europe, according to him, is Thrace. Scythia forms a 

 square, each side of which amounts to 4000 stadia ; to the north, next to 

 Scythia, dwell the Agathyrsoi, Androphagoi, «fcc., and the Sauromatoi, north 

 of the sea of Azof (Mseotis). Asia, separated from Europe by the Phasis, 

 and divided by the Halys into two principal portions, is as large as Africa. 

 Along the Mediterranean, inhabited by the Colchians, Saspeirians, Medes, 

 and Persians, are two great peninsulas, the one containing Asia Minor, the 

 other Persia, Syria, and Arabia. The latter is the most south-western land 

 in Asia ; India the most south-eastern land in the Avorld. Africa, or Libya, 

 was divided by Herodotus into three portions : the A^alley of the Nile or 

 Egypt, Libya in its restricted sense, and the land of Ethiopia, or the most 

 south-western inhabited region. (See the map of the world according to He- 

 rodotus, on pi. 8.) 



After Herodotus, the folloAving are the Greek authors who added to the 

 science of Geography : Ctesias of Cnidos, whose works are lost ; Thucydides, 

 in his history of the Peloponnesian war ; Xenophon, in the Anabasis and oth- 

 er works ; Theopompus ; Scylax, in his Periplus ; Pytheas ; Aristotle, who 

 asserted the sphericity of the earth from observations on lunar eclipses, and on 

 the general principles of Gravity ; Theophrastus, (fee. 



Geography was first placed on a systematic basis by Eratosthenes of Cyrene 

 (276-194 B. C.) ; he it was who wrote the first scientifically arranged work 

 on the subject. This, however, has entirely disappeared, excepting a few 

 fragments. He also constructed the first chart of the earth, accordino; to as- 

 tronomical and mathematical principles. He considered the northern half of 

 the earth to be alone inhabited, and supposed that the portion thus occupied 

 amounted to about one eighth of the whole surface. He found an ardent op- 

 ponent to many of his vicAVS in the great astronomer of antiquity, Hipparchus 

 of Nicaea. 



A new era in the history of Geography begins with Strabo {QQ B. C. to 24 

 A. D.). To him we owe the first extensive and complete work on the science 

 (in seventeen books), almost entirely extant at the present day. In its pre- 

 paration he passed many years in study and travel. In his view, the whole 

 earth is inclosed by a great Atlantic Ocean, which forms four large gulfs ; 

 the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Gulf, and the Mediterranean, 

 the largest of all. The great island of the earth he divided into a northern 

 and a southern half, assuming, however, for greater convenience, three grand 

 divisions, Europe, Asia, and Libya : the limits of those are the Straits of 

 Hercules (Gibraltar), the Arabian Gulf, and the Tanais (the Don). Iberia 

 or Spain lies furthest west. East of this is the land of the Celts or Gauls 

 (France), between the Pyrenees and the Rhine, parallel to these mountains. 

 Britain has the shape of a triangle, north of which is the island lerne 

 (Ireland), the most northern part of the inhabited earth. Germany is only 

 known at the mouth of the Albis or Elbe : further east, the entire northern 

 22 



