was acquired more by land than by fea d); and the Romans, from their peculiar disinclination to naval affairs, may be faid to have neglected totally the latter, though a more easy and expeditious method of discovery. The progress, howewer, of their victorious armies contributed greatly to extend discovery by land, and even opened the navigation of new and unknown feas. Previous to the Roman conquefts, the civilized nations of antiquity had no communication with thofe countries in Europe, which now form its moft opulent and powerful kingdoms. The interior parts of Spain and Gaul were little known. Britain, feparated from the rest of the world, had never been vifited, except by its neighbours the Gauls, and by a few Carthaginian merchants. The name of Germany had scarcely been heard of. Into all these countries the arms of the Romans penetrated. They entirely fubdued Spain and Gaul; the conquered the greatest and most fertile part of Britain; they advanced into Germany, as far as the banks of the river Elbe. In Africa, they acquired a confiderable knowledge of the provinces, which ftretch along the Mediterranean fea, from Egypt weftward to the ftreights of Gades. In Afia, they not only fubjected to their power moft of the provinces which composed the Perfian and Macedonian empires, but, after their vi Stories over Mithridates and Tigranes, they 4) See NOTE, VII.

feem to have made a more accurate furvey of the countries contiguous to the Euxine and Cafpian feas, and to have carried on a more extenfive trade than that of the Greeks with the opulent and commercial nations, then feated around the Euxine fea.

Imperfection of geographical knowledge among the ancients

From this fuccinct furvey of discovery and navigation, which I have traced from the earlieft dawn of hiftorical knowledge to the full establishment of the Roman dominion, their progrefs appears to have been wonderfully flow. It seems neither adequate to what we might have expected from the activity and enterprise of the human mind, nor to what might have been performed by the power of the great empires which fucceffively governed the world. If we reject accounts that are fabulous and obfcure; if we adhere fteadily to the light and information of authentic hiftory, withhout fubftituting in its place the conjectures of fancy, or the dreams of etymologifts, we must conclude that the knowledge which the ancients had acquired of the habitable globe was extremely confined. In Europe, the extenfive provinces in the eastern part of Germany were little known to them. They were almost totally unacquainted with the vaft countries which are now fubject to the kings of DenSweden, Pruffia Poland, and the

mark,

that

Ruffian empire, The more barren regions, ftretch within the arctic circle, were quite unexplored. In Africa, their researches did not extend far beyond the provinces which border on the Mediterranean, and those fituated on the western shore of the Arabian Gulf. In Afia, they were unacquainted, as I formerly obferved, with all the fertile and opulent countries beyond the Ganges, which furnish the moft valuable commodities that in modern times, have been the great object of the Eurepean commerce with India; nor do they seem to have ever penetrated into thofe immense regions occupied by the wandering tribes, which they called by the general name of Sarmatians or Scythians, and now poffeffed by Tartars of various denominations, and by the Afiatic fubjects of Ruffia.

A remarkable proof of this.

But there is one opinion, that univerfally prevailed among the ancients, which conveys a more ftriking idea of the small progrefs they had made in the knowledge of the habitable globe, than can be derived from any detail of their discoveries, They fuppofed the earth to be divided into five regions, which they diftinguifhed by the name of zones. Two of thefe, which were neareft the poles, they termed the frigid zones, and believed that the extreme cold which reigned perpetually there, rendered them

uninhabitable. Another, feated under the line, and extending on either fide towards the tropics, they called the torrid zone, and imagined it to be fo burnt up with unremitting heat, as to be equally deftitute of inhabitants. On the two other zones, which occupied the remainder of the earth, they beftowed the appellation of temperate, and taught that thefe, being the only regions in which life could fubfift, were allotted to man for his habitation. This wild opinion was not a conceit of the uninformed vulgar, or a fanciful fiction of the poets, but a fiftem adopted by the most enlightened philofophers, the most accurate hiftorians and geographers in Greece and Rome. According to this theory, a vaft portion of the habitable earth was pronounced to be unfit for fuftaining the human fpecies. Thofe fertile and populous regions within the torrid zone, which are now known not only to yield their own inhabitants the neceffaries and comforts of life, with moft luxuriant profufion, but to communicate their fuperfluous ftores to the reft of the world, were fuppofed to be the manfion of perpetual fterility and defolation. As all the parts of the globe, which the ancients had difcovered, lay within the northern temperate zone, their opinion that the other temperate zone was filled with inhabitants, was founded on reasoning and conjecture, not on discovery. They even believed that, by the intolerable heat of the torrid zone, fuch an

infuperable barrier was placed between the two temperate region of the earth, as would prevent for ever any intercourse between their respective inhabitants. Thus this extravagant theory not only proves that the ancients were unacquainted with the true state of the globe, but it tended to render their ignorance perpetual, by reprefenting all attempts towards opening a communication with the remote regions of the earth, as utterly impracticable e).

As

But, however imperfect or inaccurate the geographical knowledge which the Greeks and Romans had acquired may appear, in respect of the prefent improved ftate of that science, their progrefs in dfcovery will feem confiderable, and the extent to which they carried navigation and commerce must be reckoned great, when compared with the ignorance of early times. long as the Roman empire retained fuch vigour as to preserve its authority over the conquered nations, and to keep them united, it was an object of public police, as well as of private curiofity, to examine and defcribe the countries which compofed this great body. Even when the other sciences began to decline, geography, enriched with new obfervations, and receiving fome acceffion from the experience of every age, and the reports of every traveller, con tinued to improve.

e) See NOTE VIII,