Alexander, A. M. 3070. shish and Ophir. This navigator departed from Marseilles, coasted Spain, France, and the East side of Britain, to its northern extremity, from whence, still continuing his course to the North, after six days navigation he arrived at a land called Thule, the situation of which has been the object of discussion amongst both antient and modern geographers, and which has terminated in the probable conjecture that it is a part of the coast of Jutland on the British sea. (a) As in human affairs there is no evil without its compensation, so the wild ambition of conquerors while it desolates for a moment the countries it visits, procures to them the lasting benefit of social and peaceful intercourse, which invariably succeeds Expedition of to the devastations of war. Thus the expedition of Alexander added greatly to the knowledge of the earth; in the suite of the conqueror were several geographers charged to make observations both on the coasts and the interior of the countries they passed through, and their journals formed the ground work of a new geography of Asia. Moreover, the books till now buried in the archives of Babylon and Tyre were, by the order of Alexander, transferred to the city to which he his name, and thus the astronomical and hydrographical observations of the Phenicians and Chaldeans becoming more accessible to the Greeks, furnished them with a mathematical basis of which their geography was hitherto destitute. Commercial Voyages of the Greeks, A. M. 37003500. B. C. S00-200. gave In the century after Alexander, the spirit of commercial enterprise became predominant among the the Greeks, and each determined to brave the perils of the ocean in search of riches. The Marsellais following the route of Pytheas, visited the North, and Euthymenes in a voyage along the West coast of Africa, arrived at a large river similar to the Nile, which was probably the Senegal. The Greek Kings of Egypt, at the same period, caused a direct trade to be opened with India from the ports of Berenice and Myoshormos* on the Red Sea. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the founder of this commerce, also sent geographers into Asia; and in the same reign, Timosthenes published a description of the known sea ports, and a work on the measure of the earth. The nature of the monsoons, being, however, still unknown to the Greeks, the navigation of the Indian sea remained imperfect and their fleets on their voyages to India continued to creep along the shores as far as the Indus; but their principal commerce was on the coasts of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. A. M. 3812. Hipparchus, the astronomer, seems to have first Hipparchus, conceived the idea of a southern continent uniting Africa and India. On the East coast of the former, however, Cape Guardafui was the limit of the discovery of his time, but it appears that he had some notions of India beyond the Ganges. He also attempted to reduce geography to astronomical bases, but having few celestial observations, * Berenice, supposed to be on the Sinus Immundus, but there is no vestige of the ancient city. Myoshormos (the port of the Mouse) is thought to be Old Cosseir. Polybius, B. C. 154. and rejecting every other data, his map of the world is filled with hypotheses as erroneous as those of his predecessors. Though the Romans had rapidly increased their naval power between the first and second punic wars, their fleets were little occupied in the peaceful navigation of commerce or discovery, and hence the additions they made to maritime geography were of little consequence. From their A. M. 3350. Voyages, however, Polybius collected more cor rect information respecting the western coasts of Europe, and the same writer himself visited the coast of Africa to Mount Atlas, and was the first who ventured to think the torrid zone might probably be habitable. About the same time Eudoxus of Cyzicus was led to conceive the possibi lity of navigating round Africa, as is related by Strabo from Possidonius. "In returning towards the Arabian gulf from India, Eudoxus was forced by contrary winds on the coast of Ethiopia, where he landed and was well treated by the natives, and where he saw a piece of wood on which was sculptured the figure of a horse, and which he knew to be a part of the prow of a ship. As the natives informed him that this fragment had belonged to a vessel that had come from the west, he took it with him and returned to Egypt. On his arrival there he caused it to be examined by pilots, who declared it to belong to the prow of a small kind of vessel, used by the inhabitants of Gadez to fish on the coast of Mauritania as far as the river Lixius, and even some Eudoxus, B. C. 114. some of them recognised it as having belonged to a particular vessel of that kind, who with several others had attempted to advance beyond the Lixius, but had never been afterwards heard of. Hence Eudoxus conceived it possible to sail round Voyage of Africa, and determined to make the attempt. He accordingly sailed from Gadez, and arrived at a part of Ethiopia, the natives of which spoke the same language as those amongst whom he had been formerly driven; here he relinquished his intention of prosecuting the voyage at this time and returned to Egypt, the king of which he advised to send a fleet to the country he had visited; but this was at first opposed, and Eudoxus afterwards learning that, under the pretence of sending him to execute this project, his enemies determined to abandon him on some desert isle, he fled into Iberia, from whence he again set sail to attempt the navigation round Africa." Here the adventures of Eudoxus finish, and we have no account of the result of his enterprise. Strabe. Strabo has also left us a complete system of Geography of the geography of this age, that is at the commencement of our era. Iberia (Spain) is the first country he describes, and with its coasts he seems to have been tolerably acquainted. Near these coasts he places the isles Cassiterides or of Tin, situated according to one passage north of the port of Artabres, (Corunna) though in another he describes them as laying parallel with Britain. This apparent difference is, however, reconciled, when we recollect that the geographers of this period made Britain a triangular island, of which the southern point was but little distant from the northern coast of Spain. The Cassiterides were therefore evidently the Scilly islands, which served as an intermediate station or entrepôt to the Carthaginians, who visited the western part of Britain for tin. With the coast of Gaul, Strabo was not so well acquainted, and his knowledge of Albion and Ierne was still more limited: the latter island he says is reported to be sterile and inhabited by Anthropophagi, strangers to every species of civilization. Ierne is the last country he admits towards the north, and on the continent his knowledge terminated at the Elbe, for he disbelieved the voyage of Pytheas. Strabo seems to have been also imperfectly ac quainted with the north coast of Africa in detail, for he makes the distance between Sicily and the Pillars of Hercules only 13,000 stades. On the west coast his geography is limited to about Cape Roxo, for he seems to have been unacquainted with the voyage of Hanno, and on the east coast his knowledge did not extend beyond a promontory, named Noti Cornu (the southern horn), probably Cape Bandellans. Thus the coasts of Africa were unknown beyond the latitude of 1210 N. At the S.W. extremity, Strabo places the Ethiopes Etherii, and at the S.E. the region of Cinnamon. Between these two extremes he admits but a small space which the great heat had prevented being visited, and this extremity of Africa he sup, poses |