The international geography . Marseilles, sailed out into the ocean, and explored its shorenorthward, discovering the British Islands. About the same time thearmies of Alexander the Great extended the knowledge of the Greeks eastward as far as India; and the spherical form of theEarth, early suspected byGreek philosophers, was forthe first time clearly provedby Aristotle. The attempt tofit the oecumene or knownworld to the sphere revealedthe immensity of the unknownsurface of the Earth, and gaveopportunity for speculationsas to the existence of inhabi-tants beyond the zone of kill-ing heat to
The international geography . Marseilles, sailed out into the ocean, and explored its shorenorthward, discovering the British Islands. About the same time thearmies of Alexander the Great extended the knowledge of the Greeks eastward as far as India; and the spherical form of theEarth, early suspected byGreek philosophers, was forthe first time clearly provedby Aristotle. The attempt tofit the oecumene or knownworld to the sphere revealedthe immensity of the unknownsurface of the Earth, and gaveopportunity for speculationsas to the existence of inhabi-tants beyond the zone of kill-ing heat to the south andnear the region of fatal coldand darkness to the north(Fig. 4). It was easier fromthe development of mathe-matical astronomy to estimate the size of the globe than to measure the extent of the known lands, foralthough distances north and south were early found by astronomicalobservations, distances east and west could only be guessed at by estimatesof the length of marches. Hence it happened that when Ptolemy of. Fig. 4.—The World according to PomponiusMela, 47. Geography : Principles and Progress 9 Alexandria produced his great work on geogfraphy in 150, he believedthat the known land extended from west to east half way round the globe,/. e., for 180° instead of 130°, as is the case. As he also adopted 21,000 milesas the value of the equatorial circumference of the Earth instead of nearly25,000, he made out that the east coast of Asia was only about 9,000 mileswest of the west coast of Europe. As he estimated the extent of the knownland from north to south at only 80*, it was natural for him to use a wordcorresponding to breadth for this direction, and one corresponding to lengthfor extension from west to east, and thus our words latitude and longitudehad their origin. The most curious feature on Ptolemys map (Fig. 5) is thegreat eastward extension of South Africa, which he believed to enclose theIndian Ocean on the south; this belief in a closed oce
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectgeography, bookyear19
