Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/696

 684 GEOGRAPHY Hipparchus, Strabo, a Greek of Pontus and a great traveller, wrote a geography which em- bodies all that was known of the science at the beginning of the Christian era. The countries immediately around the Mediterranean were known with tolerable accuracy; but the At- lantic shores of Europe were very erroneous- ly comprehended, while of the northern and eastern portions only the vaguest ideas were entertained. Nothing whatever was positively known of Scandinavia, Russia, or northern Germany. The extent of Europe to the east and northeast was greatly exaggerated, while that of Asia was proportionally underrated. Nothing was known of Siberia, Tartary, China, Japan, or the great Asiatic archipelago. The Ganges was thought to have throughout an easterly course, and to flow into the eastern ocean. The Caspian was supposed to be the limit of the earth to the north, and to be con- nected with the eastern ocean by a sea oc- cupying the space now known to be covered by Siberia and Tartary. Of Africa only the northern part was known, south of which was thought to be an uninhabited and unin- habitable torrid zone. The belief in the prob- ability of circumnavigating Africa, which had existed in previous ages, was rejected by Strabo, though he held to the theory of an encircling ocean. The earliest Roman geographer was Pomponius Mela, who wrote about the time of the emperor Claudius. In his treatise De Situ Orbis he explains the division of the world into two hemispheres : the northern that part of the earth which is known, the southern that which is unknown. The former is divided into three great divisions, Europe including all N. of the Mediterranean and "W. of the Tanais, Africa all S. of the Mediterranean and W. of the Nile, and Asia all the remainder. A still more famous geographer was Ptolemy, who lived at Alexandria about the middle of the 2d century after Christ. At this period the Roman empire had reached its greatest extent, and all its provinces had been surveyed and were well known. Large advances had been made in the knowledge of the countries out- side of the empire. The notion of a circum- ambient ocean had been given up, and an in- definite expanse of terra incognita substitu- ted as the supposed boundary of the world. Africa was represented as stretching indefi- nitely south, and it was even carried round to join the east of Asia, so that the Indian ocean was enclosed like the Mediterranean. In Europe, Spain and Gaul were for the first time correctly delineated, together with the southern part of Britain. The outline of Scot- land and the relative position of Ireland are very incorrectly given. Thule is laid down as an island upward of 100 m. long. From its position it is probable that some part of Norway was meant. Northern Germany and the southern line of the Baltic coast were tolerably well known, as was also some portion of Russia in the neighborhood of the Baltic and the southern part of Russia in Europe. In Asia, great regions had become known sufficiently to make it certain that they were inhabited by nomad tribes called Scythians, while from the far east some vague report of China and of the regions now known as Chin-India had reached the geographer. From the time of Ptolemy till the revival of letters in Europe little progress was made in geographical knowledge. In the 9th century, however, the Northmen discovered Greenland, and in the 10th, according to their sagas, visit- ed the North American continent. In the 13th century missions were sent by the popes into remote parts of Asia. Father John de Piano Carpini, with some Franciscan monks, was sent in 1246 by Innocent IV. to Kayuk Khan, the Tartar emperor, and penetrated as far as Thi- bet. In 1253 Rubruquis, another Franciscan, was sent by Louis IX. of France in search of Prester John, and penetrated further into Asia than any European ever had before. But the greatest discoveries in this quarter were made by Marco Polo, a Venetian, who in 1271 set out with his father and uncle on a journey to the court of Kublai Khan, the Tartar con- queror of China. After travelling for more than three years they reached Yehking, near where Peking now stands. Marco Polo re- sided 24 years in the East, and on his return gave an account of his travels, which first made known to Europe the existence of Ja- pan and many of the East Indian islands and countries. In the 15th century the spirit of enterprise and geographical exploration was strongly aroused in Europe. Portugal took the lead, and made great and systematic ef- forts to explore the unknown countries on the W. coast of Africa. In the year 1412 Cape Nun was doubled, and soon afterward the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira were dis- covered. In 1484 Benin and Congo were dis- covered, and the coast explored for 1,500 m. S. of the equator. In 1486 the cape of Good Hope was reached, and 11 years later doubled by Vasco da Gama. But the greatest of all geographical discoveries was that of the new world by Christopher Columbus in 1492. From this time forward the progress of geo- graphical exploration was exceedingly rapid. Within 30 years from the date of the first voy- age of Columbus the whole E. coast of Amer- ica from Greenland to Cape Horn had been explored, and Spanish keels were floating on the Pacific ocean. In 1520 Magalhaens passed the strait which bears his name, crossed the Pacific, and although he was killed in the Philippine islands, his vessel, crossing the In- dian ocean, returned to Europe by way of the cape of Good Hope, having been the first to circumnavigate the globe. The W. coast of America, with the exception of that portion N. of the bay of San Francisco, was explored before the middle of the 16th century, while considerable progress was made by the Span- iards in acquiring a knowledge of the interior of