10 



HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. 



field, till the largest portion of the three divisions of the 

 Eastern Continent was generally known. Pliny, the 

 most learned of the Roman writers, gives us a great varie- 

 ty of accurate details, amid a multitude of errors. Ptole- 

 my, the last and greatest of ancient geographers, attempt- 

 ed a complete reform of the science, and showed an 

 immense advance in knowledge, over his predecessors. 



In the Middle Ages the Arabs were the most learned of 

 nations. Geography, among tliem, was studied with great 

 ardor, and employed the pens of some of their ablest wi it- 

 ers. Astronomy was among the favorite pursuits of tlie 

 Court of Bagdad, under the Caliphs, and the knowledge 

 then acquired was applied with some care and success to 

 the improvement of geography. 



In the Dark Ages there was little progress in geographi- 

 cal science. As yet the boundaries of even the Eastern 

 Continent had not been defined ; large portions of the in- 

 terior had not been explored ; vast seas and rivers were 

 but partially known ; the shape of the eartli had not been 

 ascertained; the continent of America and the Oceanic 

 islands, were as yet undiscovered. But a new era was 

 approacliing. The Republics of Italy, and especially that 

 of Venice, are the states in which a spirit of commerce 

 and inquiry had arisen, and rapid advances were made in 

 geographical knowledge. About this time Marco Polo, a 

 noble Venetian, spent twenty-five years in traversing the 

 remote parts of Asia. His narrative was soon translated 

 into various languages, and spread over Europe. The dis- 

 covery of America, by Columbus, soon followed. The prog- 

 ress of discovery over the globe, when the first steps had 

 been taken, was astonishingly rapid ; no cost, no peril, de- 

 terred even private adventurers from equipping fleets, cross- 

 ing the oceans, and facing the rage of savage nations in 

 the remotest extremities of the earth. Before Columbus 

 had seen the American continent, and the mouth of the 

 Orinoco, Cabot, of Venetian descent, but sailing under 

 English auspices, discovered Newf )undhind, and coasted 

 along the present territory of the United States, probably 

 as far as Virginia. In the next two or three years, the 

 Cortereals, a daring family of Portuguese navigators, be- 

 gan the long and vain search of a passage round the north 

 of America ; they sailed along the coast of Labrador, and 

 entered the spacious inlet of Hudson's Bay, which they 

 seem to have mistaken for the sea between Africa and 

 America ; but two of them unhappily perished. In 1501, 

 Cabral, destined for India, struck unexpectedly on the coast 

 of Brazil, which he claimed for Portugal. Amerigo Vespucci 

 had sailed along a great part of Terra Firma and Guiana, 

 and he now made two extensive voyages along the coast 

 of Brazil; services which obtained for him the high honor 

 of giving his name to tlie whole continent. Giijalva and 

 Ojeda went round a great part of the circuit of the coasts 

 of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1513, Nunez Balboa, crossing the 

 narrow isthmus of Panama, beheld the boundless expanse 

 of the Pacific Ocean. These discoveries affirded the im- 

 pulse which prompted Cortez and Pizarro to engage in their 

 adventurous and sanguinary career; in which, with a hand- 

 ful of daring followers, they subverted the extensive and 

 populous empires of Mexico and Pern. Expeditions were 

 soon pushed forward on one side to Chili, and on the other 

 to California, and the regions to the north. Neatly a full 

 view was thus obtained, both of the great interior breadth 

 of America, and of that amazing range of coast which it 

 presents to the southern ocean. 



In the Eastern world, the domain which the papal grant 

 had assigned to Portugal, discovery was alike rapid. 

 Twenty years had not elapsed from the landing of Vasco 

 da Gama, when Albuquerque, Almeida, Castro, Sequeira, 

 Perez, and many others, as navigators or as conquerors, had 

 explored all the coasts of Hindostan, those of Eastern Af 

 rica, of Arabia, of Persia; had penetrated to Malacca and 

 the Spice Islands ; learned the existence of Siam and Pe- 

 gu ; and even attempted to enter the ports of Chma. But 

 the characteristic jealousy of that power was soon awaken- 

 ed ; the Portuguese embassy was not admitted into the 

 presence of the emperor; and a mandate was issued, that 

 none of the men with long beards and large eyes should 

 enter the havens of the celestial empire. After all these 

 disco veri,,-s, il:? irrand achievement yet remained, of 

 connecting together L'r;e ranges of eastern and u'estern 



discovery ; and of laying open to the wondering eyes of 

 mankind, that structure of the globe, which, though de- 

 monstrated by the astronomer, seemed to the generality of 

 mankind contrary to the testimony of their senses. 



Magellan, in 1520, undertook, by circumnavigating the 

 earth, to solve this mighty problem ; he passed through 

 the straits which bear his name, and crossed the entiie 

 breadth of the Pacific. He himself was unhappily killed 

 at the Philippine Islands, but his companions sailed on, 

 and presented themselves to the astonished eyes of the 

 Portuguese at t)ie Moluccas. They arrived in Europe, 

 after a voyage of three years ; and it could no longer be 

 doubted, by the most skeptical, that the earth was a aplier- 

 ical body. 



We have seen how rapidly the Portuguese fleets explored 

 all the southern coasts and islands. The eastern shoies 

 beyond Japan, as they presented nothing tempting to com- 

 mercial avidity, were left to be examined by expeditions 

 having science and curiosity for their object. This tas'i 

 was effected by Cook, Perouse, Broughton, and Krusen- 

 stern. Jesso, which had figured as a large continental 

 tract, stretching between Asia and America, was reduced 

 by them to its insular form and dimensions, and its separa- 

 tion from Saghalien established. The range of the Kurile 

 islands was also traced; but some questions respecting 

 this very remote and irregular coast remain yet to be solv- 

 ed. Along its northern boundary, beset by the almost 

 perpetual ices of the polar sea, the progress of naviga- 

 tion was slow and laborious. The English and Dutch, 

 the chief maritime states, made extraordinary efforts, 

 and braved fearful disasters, in the hopeless attempt to ef- 

 fect, by this route, a nearer passage to India ; but though 

 they penetrated beyond Nova Zembla, they never could 

 pass the formidable promontory of Severovostochnoi, the 

 most northern point of the Asiatic continent. The Rus- 

 sians now claimed for themselves the task of advancing 

 further. They had most rapidly discovered, and conquer- 

 ed the whole south and centre of Siberia, and reached the 

 eastern ocean at Ochotzk ; but the frozen bounds of the 

 north for some time defied (heir investigation. Proceed- 

 ing in little barks, however, they worked their way from 

 promontory to promontory. Behring and Tchirikoff, early 

 in the last century, sailed through the Northern Pacific, 

 discovered the American coast, and the straits, bearing 

 the name of the former, which divide Asia from America. 

 Deschnew and Shalaurof, by rounding the Asiatic side of 

 this Cape, and discovering the coast stretching away to 

 the westward, were supposed to have established the fact 

 of the entire separation of the two continents. There still 

 remained a portion of coast on the side of Asia, which, it 

 was alleged, might, by an immense circuit, have connected 

 the two together ; but the late voyage of Baron Wrangle 

 seems to have removed every ground on which such con- 

 jecture could rest, and to have established beyond doubter 

 dispute, the existence of Asia and America as continents 

 altogether distinct. 



Respecting the interior of Asia, the British obtained 

 much additional information from India, after they became 

 undisputed masters of that region. This information was 

 in many respects only a revival of ancient knowledge. The 

 mountain boundary of India was traced, and found to rise 

 to a height before unsuspected. The sources and early 

 courses of the Ganges and the Indus, were found in quar- 

 ters quite different from those which modern geography 

 had long assigned to them. The mountain territories of 

 Cabul and Candahar, the vast sandy plains of Mekran, 

 were illustrated by the missions of Elphinstone and Pot- 

 tinger; while Turner and Moorcroft penetrated into ine 

 high inteiior table-land of Thibet. Recent and authentic 

 information has also been furnished by Burnes respecting 

 Bocharia and Samarcand, those celebrated capitals of the 

 early masters of Asia; but there remains still a great cen 

 tral Terra Incognita, respecting wliich our information 

 rests chiefly upon the desultory and somewhat clouded re- 

 ports of Marco Polo, and the meagre narrative of Goez ; 

 though some important and more precise information has 

 recently been afforded by the researches of Humboldt and 

 Klaproth. 



VVe can hardly trace the more modern advances in geo- 

 graphical knowledge, except so far as relates to Amer 



