BY J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, AND O. J. R. HOWARTH, M.A., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE [ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED] London : WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1913...

This is not a history of geographical exploration, though the leading episodes in the advance of our knowledge of the face of the Earth are necessarily referred to in tracing the evolution of geography as a department of science. That is the object of this volume as one of a series dealing succinctly with the history of the various sciences. We are not concerned to discuss whether Geography is entitled to be considered as a science or not. It is hoped that in the attempt to tell the story of its

We need not attempt any elaborate definition of Geography at this stage; it is hoped that a fairly clear idea of its field and functions may arise during the following brief summary of its history and evolution. The old-fashioned definition, “A description of the earth,” is serviceable enough if accepted in its widest sense. Geography may be regarded as the mother of the sciences. Whatever was the origin of man, whether single or multiple, and wherever he emerged into manhood, he was a wanderer,

The birthplace of Greek geographical theory is to be found, not in Greece proper, but in Asia Minor. Miletus, a seaport of Ionia, near the mouth of the Mæander, became the leading Greek city during the seventh to the sixth centuries B.C. , trading as far as Egypt and throwing off colonies especially towards the north, on the shores of the Hellespont and the Euxine. It was thus an obvious repository for geographical knowledge, besides being a famous centre of learning in a wider sense. Thales of

From this point it becomes necessary to vary the treatment of our subject hitherto followed. With the breakup of the Roman Empire and the establishment of Christianity the old learning was obliterated. Religion became the central fact of intellectual exercise, and, except in so far as Christian doctrine and Holy Scripture involved reference to natural phenomena, every branch of natural science was withered by the breath of theology. The first serious assaults of the barbarian invader were made o

It was, in fact, a desire to extend both commerce and Christian religion into the far eastern lands which led to the rescue of geographical study from the evil state into which it had fallen. The Crusades form a group of incidents of no less geographical than of historical importance. Apart from their religious significance, they were undertaken with the object of discovering new routes by which the wealth of the east could be brought into commercial exchange with that of the west; and in connec

There were obvious geographical and historical reasons why the kingdom of Portugal should furnish the important series of incidents in the expansion of geographical knowledge which now claims attention. The Arab power in the Iberian peninsula had been broken, and the Portuguese monarchy had established itself during the twelfth century. The Arab mantle of the explorer descended upon Portuguese shoulders. The small kingdom has a large extent of coastline; and not only is communication with Europe

The period which witnessed, among other great achievements, the discovery of a new hemisphere, and included the voyages of Columbus, Gama, and Magellan, besides many of an importance only secondary to these, has been called the most brilliant in human history. The exaggeration, if such it be, is excusable; certainly in the department of geographical history no other period shares the peculiar lustre of this. Christopher Columbus (1446–1506) was born of humble parentage at Genoa. He went early to

In the meantime the Portuguese had at last won the sea route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, through the agency of Vasco da Gama (1464–1524), a native of Sines. He started from Lisbon in July, 1497. He was accompanied by a pilot who had been with Diaz, and he had a map on which the Portuguese discoveries on the African coast were shown so far as they extended. On November 22 he sailed round the Cape of Good Hope; by Christmas he reached a point beyond the furthest limit of Diaz, and na

Although polar exploration is not very directly associated with geographical theory at large, it has been associated with certain individual geographical theories which occupy important positions in our history as having held the minds of men for long periods, and as owing their proof or disproof to some of the most noteworthy exploits in the story of exploration. There is sometimes a tendency to suppose that polar, or at any rate arctic, exploration has always been concerned mainly with the att

The leading interest of arctic exploration thus far, in connection with our present study, has been seen to be concerned with the opening of sea routes, by north-west and north-east, from Europe to Asia. The story of antarctic discovery, on the other hand, brings into prominence a problem of far different character which we have already had occasion to notice incidentally. It might be labelled as the problem of the Fifth Continent, though its origin dates from a period long before the discovery

The name of Captain James Cook stands above those of all others who voyaged in the southern half of the globe, for he finally laid to rest the myth of the southern continent, and brought the first definite news to the world of the great island of Australia and of New Zealand. His first voyage was undertaken under the auspices of the Government in 1768 with the object of observing under the most favourable circumstances the transit of Venus, and was thus not primarily one of exploration. An immen

It is characteristic of our history that a gap, almost entirely unbridged, exists between the early period and the sixteenth century in the story of the development of methods of precision in determining geographical position. We have already referred to early efforts to estimate the size of the earth, and in this connection have mentioned that simple instrument of unknown origin, the gnomon. Aristarchus improved upon the mere upright rod whose shadow was measured, by setting one upright in a bo

Since the later years of the eighteenth century geographical knowledge has been extended in the manner of a great railway system. The main lines of exploration will provide the subject of this and following chapters; with the ramification of branch lines we can hardly concern ourselves here. Taking one consideration with another, Africa may be termed the most important area of geographical conquest during this latest period of our history. The opening of the interior of that continent was long d

The beginning of the nineteenth century was signalized by the initiation of the great trigonometrical survey of India, and the first half-century was a period of much important geographical and anthropological work within that empire, but to no great extent beyond its boundaries, though in 1808 a mission penetrated to the sources of the Ganges, and Baluchistan and Afghanistan were in some part explored by officials of the East India Company. But the physical problems of the heart of the continen

Following the new enthusiasm for Arctic exploration undertaken for purely scientific purposes, the British Government despatched three expeditions between 1773 and 1779. The first, under Captain Phipps, was stopped by ice off the north-west of Spitsbergen; the second, that of James Cook with the vessels Discovery and Resolution , sent to search for either a north-west or a north-east passage by the Bering Sea route, met, as has been seen (Chapter VIII.), with a measure of the success characteris

In the Antarctic an important voyage, which supplemented Cook’s work, was undertaken in 1819 by Fabian von Bellingshausen. He succeeded in sailing half round the Antarctic circle, keeping to high southern latitudes all the way, and voyaging within the circle for considerable distances. He found the first land seen within the Antarctic circle, Peter Island, and, later, Alexander Island; he discovered the Traverse Islands, and on his return in 1821 touched at the South Shetland Islands, and met th

As during a long period in the history of geography it was usual to limit the connotation of the term, so, when a wider connotation came to be recognized, there naturally followed the creation of certain clearly-defined departments of study under distinguishing titles. The whole structure of geography rests upon two great pillars—upon exploration and upon measurement. With the main lines of exploration we have dealt in preceding chapters, and we have carried that part of our history which deals

A general history of geography (mainly, however, concerned with exploration and mapping) is Vivien de Saint-Martin’s Histoire de la Géographie (Paris, 1873); a short historical review dealing more especially with geographical theory will be found in H. Wagner’s Lehrbuch der Geographie (Leipzig, 1900). No English parallels to these works are to be cited, but reference may be made to H. R. Mill’s International Geography (1897) and his article on “Geography” and E. G. Ravenstein’s on “Map” in the E