DIVISION INTO CONTINENTS. 
5 
began in the islands called Cjclades, the earliest 
seat of Grecian science. There it was adopted, 
in order to discriminate between the opposite 
shores of Greece and of Caria. It appears from 
Homer, that the latter actually contained a small 
district called Asia, which, from this singular ac- 
cident of its position, has given its name to a 
third part of the habitable globe. As knowledge 
extended, the name of Asia soon spread over the 
whole peninsula, of which Caria formed the wes- 
tern extremity. It gradually took a far w^der 
range ; yet this peninsula continued to be called 
Asia Proper, or Asia Minor, which last name it 
retains to this day. In the same manner, the 
coast of Libya naturally formed a third continent, 
which was called Africa, or Southland, expressive 
of its relative position to Greece. Accordingly, 
we find here a district, which, down to the twelfth 
century, was called Africa Proper, and sometimes 
Africa Minor ; to which we may add, that Libya, 
the native name of this region, is, by the most 
ancient writers, generally extended to the whole 
continent. From these three positions, the pro- 
gress of discovery spread in every direction ; and 
each newly explored region was added to the 
quarter from which the discoverer had taken his 
departure. At length the adventurers from dif- 
ferent sides met ; and at that point, the boundary 
line of two continents was fixed. The meeting of 
