Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/20

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The position to which I have been called has compelled me to become a student. Since my election I have been trying to learn the meaning of the word "geography," and something of the history of the science to which it relates. The Greek origin of the word (γη, the earth, and γραφη, description) betrays the source from which we derived the science, and shows that it relates to a description of the earth. But the "earth" known to the Greeks was a very different thing from the earth with which we are acquainted.

To the ancient Greek it meant land—not all land, but only a limited territory, in the centre of which he lived. His earth comprised simply the Persian Empire, Italy, Egypt and the borders of the Black and Mediterranean seas, besides his own country. Beyond these limits, the land extended indefinitely to an unknown distance—till it reached the borders of the great ocean which completely surrounded it.

To the members of this society the word "earth" suggests a very different idea. The term arouses in our minds the conception of an enormous globe suspended in empty space, one side in shadow and the other bathed in the rays of the sun. The outer surface of this globe consists of a uniform, unbroken ocean of air, enclosing another more solid surface (composed partly of land and partly of water), which teems with countless forms of animal and vegetable life. This is the earth of which geography gives us a description.

To the ancients the earth was a flat plain, solid and immovable, and surrounded by water, out of which the sun rose in the east and into which it set in the west. To them "Geography" meant simply a description of the lands with which they were acquainted.

Herodotus, who lived about the year 450 B.   C., transmitted to posterity an account of the world as it was known in his day. We look upon him as the father of geography as well as of history. He visited the known regions of the earth, and described accurately what he saw, thus laying the foundations of comparative geography.

About 300 years B.   C., Alexander the Great penetrated into hitherto unknown regions, conquered India and Russia, and founded the Macedonian Empire. He sent a naval expedition to explore the coasts of India, accompanied by philosophers or learned men, who described the new countries discovered and