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 Fig. 22.—Descartes' Theory of Vortices.
Such is the celebrated theory of vortices. The comparison of the rotation of the earth and
planets and their revolution round the sun to the turning of small portions of a rapid stream,
may contain an idea yet destined to be developed to account for these motions; but as used by
Descartes it is a mere playing upon words admirably adapted to secure the concurrence of all
parties; those who believed in the motion of the earth seeing that it did not interfere with their
ideas in the least, and those who believed in its stability being gratified to find some way by
which they might still cling to that belief and yet adopt the new ideas. This was its purpose, and
that purpose it well served; but as a philosophical speculation it was worthless. When former
astronomers declared that any planet moved, whether it were the earth or any other, they had
no idea of attraction, but supposed the planet fixed to a sphere; this sphere moving and
carrying the planet with it was what they meant by the planet moving: the theory of vortices
merely substituted a liquid for a solid sphere, with this disadvantage, that if the planet were
fixed to a solid moving sphere, it must move; if only placed in a liquid one, that liquid might
pass it if it did not have motion of its own.
 Fig. 23.—Vortices of the Stars.
A variation on Descartes' system of vortices was proposed in the eighteenth century, which
supposed that the sun, instead of being fixed in the centre of the system, itself circulated round
another centre, carrying Mercury with it. This motion of the sun was intented to explain the
changes of magnitude of its disc as seen from the earth, and the diurnal and annual variations
in its motion, without discarding its circular path.
 Fig. 24.—Variation of Descartes' Theory.
We have thus noticed all the chief astronomical systems that have at any time been
entertained by astronomers. They one and all have given way before the universally
acknowledged truth about which there is no longer any dispute. Systems are not now matters of
opinion or theory. We speak of facts as certain as any that can be ascertained in any branch of
knowledge. We have much to learn, but what we have settled as the basis of our knowledge will
never more be altered as far as we can see.
Of course there have been always fantastic fancies put forth about the solar system, but they
are more amusing than instructive. Some have said that there is no sun, moon, or stars, but
that they are reflections from an immense light under the earth. Some savage races say that the
moon when decreasing breaks up into stars, and is renewed each month by a creative act. The
Indians used to say that it was full of nectar which the gods ate up when it waned, and which
grew again when it waxed. The Brahmins placed the earth in the centre, and said that the stars
moved like fishes in a sea of liquid. They counted nine planets, of which two are invisible
dragons which cause eclipses; which, since they happen in various parts of the zodiac, show
that these dragons revolve like the rest. They said the sun was nearer than the moon, perhaps
because it is hotter and brighter. Berosus the Chaldean gave a very original explanation of the
phases and eclipses of the moon. He said it had one side bright, and the other side just the
colour of the sky, and in turning it represented the different colours to us.
Before concluding this chapter we may notice what information we possess as to the origin of
the names by which the planets are known. These names have not always been given to them,
and date only from the time when the poets began to associate the Grecian mythology with
astronomy. The earlier names had reference rather to their several characters, although there
appear to have been among every people two sets of names applied to them.
The earliest Greek names referred to their various degrees of brilliancy: thus Saturn, which is
not easily distinguished, was called Phenon, or that which appears; Jupiter was named Phaëton,
the brilliant; Mars was Pysoïs, or flame-coloured; Mercury, Stilbon, the sparkling; Venus,
Phosphorus; and Lucifer, the light-bearer. They called the latter also Calliste, the most beautiful.
It was also known then as now under the appellations of the morning star and evening star,
indicating its special position.
With the ancient Accadians, the planets had similar names, among others. Thus, "Mars was
sometimes called the vanishing star, in allusion to its recession from the earth, and Jupiter the
planet of the ecliptic, from its neighbourhood to the latter" (Sayce). The name of Mars raises the
interesting question as to whether they had noticed its phases as well as its movements—
especially when, with reference to Venus, it is recorded in the "Observations of Bel," that "it
rises, and in its orbit duly grows in size." They had also a rather confusing system of
nomenclature by naming each planet after the star that it happened to be the nearest to at any
point of its course round the ecliptic.
Among less cultivated nations also the same practice held, as with the natives of South
America, whose name for the sun is a word meaning it brings the day; for the moon, it brings
the night; and for Venus, it announces the day.
But even among the Eastern nations, from whom the Greeks and Romans borrowed their
astronomical systems, it soon became a practice to associate these planets with the names of
the several divinities they worshipped. This was perhaps natural from the adoration they paid to
the celestial luminaries themselves on account of their real or supposed influence on terrestrial
affairs; and, moreover, as time went on, and heroes had appeared, and they had to find them
dwelling-places in the heavens, they would naturally associate them with one or other of the
most brilliant and remarkable luminaries, to which they might suppose them translated. Beyond
these general remarks, only conjectures can be made why any particular divinity should among
the Greeks be connected with the several planets as we now know them. Such conjectures as
the following we may make. Thus Jupiter, the largest, would take first rank, and be called after
the name of the chief divinity. The soft and sympathising Venus—appearing at the twilight—
would well denote the evening star. Mars would receive its name from its red appearance,
naturally suggesting carnage and the god of war. Saturn, or Kronos, the god of time, is
personified by the slow and almost imperceptible motion of that remote planet. While Mercury,
the fiery and quick god of thieves and commerce, is well matched with the hide-and-seek planet
which so seldom can be seen, and moves so rapidly.
These were the only planets known to the ancients, and were indeed all that could be
discovered without a telescope. If the ancient Babylonians possessed telescopes, as has been
conjectured from their speaking, as we have noticed above, of the increase of the size of Venus,
and from the finding a crystal lens among the ruins of Nineveh, they did not use them for this
purpose.
The other planets now known have a far shorter history. Uranus was discovered by Sir William
Herschel on the 13th of March, 1781, and was at first taken for a comet. Herschel proposed to
call it Georgium Sidus, after King George III. Lalande suggested it should be named Herschel,
after its discoverer, and it bore this name for some time. Afterwards the names, Neptune,
Astrœa, Cybele, and Uranus were successively proposed, and the latter, the suggestion of Bode,
was ultimately adopted. It is the name of the most ancient of the gods, connected with the then
most modern of planets in point of discovery, though also most ancient in formation, if recent
theories be correct. Neptune, as everybody knows, was calculated into existence, if one may so
speak, by Adams and Leverrier independently, and was first seen, in the quarter indicated, by
Dr. Galle at Berlin, in September, 1846, and by universal consent it received the name it now
bears.
There are now also known a long series of what are called minor planets, all circulating
between Mars and Jupiter, with their irregular orbits inextricably mingled together. Their
discovery was led to in a remarkable manner. It was observed that the distances of the several
planets might approximately be expressed by the terms of a certain mathematical series, if one
term was supplied between Mars and Jupiter—a fact known by the name of Bode's law. When
the new planet, Uranus, was found to obey this law, the feeling was so strong that there must
be something to represent this missing term, that strong efforts were made to discover it, which
led to success, and several, whose names are derived from the minor gods and goddesses, are
now well known.

All these planets, like the signs of the zodiac, are indicated by astronomers by certain
symbols, which, as they derive their form from the names or nature of the planets, may
properly here be explained. The sign of Neptune is ♆, representing the trident of the sea; for
Uranus ♅, which is the first letter of Herschel with a little globe below; ♄ is the sickle of time, or
Saturn; ♃ is the representation of the first letter of Zeus or Jupiter; ♂ is the lance and buckler
of Mars; ♀ the mirror of Venus; ☿ the wand of Mercury; ☉ the sun's disc; and ☽ the crescent of
the moon.
 Plate IX.—The Solar System.
The more modern discoveries have, of course, been all made by means of the telescope, and
a few words on the history of its discovery may fitly close this chapter.
According to Olbers, a concave and convex lens were first used in combination, to render
objects less distant in appearance, in the year 1606. In that year the children of one Jean
Lippershey, an optician of Middelburg, in Zealand, were playing with his lenses, and happened
to hold one before the other to look at a distant clock. Their great surprise in seeing how near it
seemed attracted their father's attention, and he made several experiments with them, at last
fixing them as in the modern telescope—in draw tubes. On the 2nd of October, 1606, he made a
petition to the States-General of Holland for a patent. The aldermen, however, saw no
advantage in it, as you could only look with one eye instead of two. They refused the patent,
and though the discovery was soon found of value, Lippershey reaped no benefit.
Galileo was the first to apply the telescope to astronomical observations. He did not have it
made in Holland, but constructed it himself on Lippershey's principle. This was in 1609. Its
magnifying power was at first 4, and he afterwards increased it to 7, and then to 30. With this
he discovered the phases of Venus, the spots on the sun, the four satellites of Jupiter, and the
mountains of the moon.

Plate X.—The Discovery of the Telescope.

Kepler, in 1611, made the first astronomical telescope with two concave glasses.
Huyghens increased the magnifying power successively to 48, 50, and 92, and discovered
Saturn's ring and his satellite No. 4.
Cassini, the first director of the Paris Observatory, brought it to 150, aided by Auzout Campani
of Rome, and Rives of London. He observed the rotation of Jupiter (1665), that of Venus and
Mars (1666), the fifth and third satellites of Saturn (1671), and afterwards the two nearer ones
(1684); the other satellites of this planet were discovered, the sixth and seventh, by Sir William
Herschel (1789), and the eighth by Bond and Lasel (1848).
We may add here that the satellites of Uranus were discovered, six by Herschel from 1790 to
1794, and two by Lassel in 1851, the latter also discovering Neptune's satellite in 1847.
The rotation of Saturn was discovered by Herschel in 1789, and that of Mercury by Schrœter
in 1800.
The earliest telescopes which were reflectors were made by Gregory in 1663 and Newton in
1672. The greatest instruments of our century are that of Herschel, which magnifies 3,000
times, and Lord Rosse's, magnifying 6,000 times, the Foucault telescope at Marseilles, of 4,000,
the reflector at Melbourne, of 7,000, and the Newall refractor.

Plate XI.—The Foundation of Paris Observatory.

 The exact knowledge of the heavens, which makes so grand a feature in modern science, is
due, however, not only to the existence of instruments, but also to the establishment of
observatories especially devoted to their use. The first astronomical observatory that was
constructed was that at Paris. In 1667 Colbert submitted the designs of it to Louis XIV., and four
years afterwards it was completed. The Greenwich Observatory was established in 1676, that of
Berlin in 1710, and that of St. Petersburg in 1725. Since then numerous others have been
erected, private as well as public, in all parts of the world, and no night passes without
numerous observations being taken as part of the ordinary duty of the astronomers attached to
them.
 CHAPTER IX.

THE TERRESTRIAL WORLD OF THE ANCIENTS.—COSMOGRAPHY AND

GEOGRAPHY.

With respect to the shape and position of the earth itself in the material universe, and the
question of its motion or immobility, we cannot go so far back as in the case of the heavens,
since it obviously requires more observation, and is not so pressing for an answer.
Amongst the Greeks several authors appear to have undertaken the subject, but only one
complete work has come down to us which undertakes it directly. This is a work attributed to
Aristotle, De Mundo. It is addressed to Alexander, and by some is considered to be spurious,
because it lacks the majestic obscurity that in his acknowledged works repels the reader.
Although, however, it is not as obscure as it might be, for the writer, it is quite bad enough, and
its dryness and vagueness, its mixture of metaphysical and physical reasoning, logic and
observation, and the change that has naturally passed over the meanings of many common
words since they were written, render it very tedious and unpleasant reading.
Nevertheless, as presenting us with the first recorded ideas on these questions of the nature
and properties of the earth, it deserves attentive study. It is not a system of observations like
those of Ptolemy and the Alexandrian School, but an entirely theoretical work. It is founded
entirely on logic; but unfortunately, if the premisses are bad, the better the syllogism the more
erroneous will be the conclusion; and it is just this which we find here. Thus if he be asked
whether the earth turns or the heavens, he will reply that the earth is evidently in repose, and
that this is the case not only because we observe it to be so, but because it is a necessity that it
should be; because repose is natural to the earth, and it is naturally in equilibrium. This idea of
"natural" leads very often astray. He is guided to his idea of what is natural by seeing what is,
and then argues that what is, or appears to be, must be, because it is natural—thus arguing in a
circle. Another example may be given in his answer to the question, Why must the stars move
round the earth? He says it is natural, because a circle is a more perfect line, and must
therefore be described by the perfect stars, and a circle is perfect because it has no ends!
Unfortunately there are other curves that have no ends; but the circle was considered, without
more reason, the most perfect curve, and therefore the planets must move in circles—an idea
which had to wait till Kepler's time to be exploded. One more specimen of this style may be
quoted, namely, his proof that every part of heaven must be eternally moving, while the earth
must be in the centre and at rest. The proof is this. Everything which performs any act has been
made for the purpose of that act. Now the work of God is immortality, from which it follows that
all that is divine must have an eternal motion. But the heavens have a divine quality, and for this
reason they have a spherical shape and move eternally in a circle. Now when a body has a
circular motion, one part of it must remain at rest in its place, namely, that which is in the
centre; the earth is in the centre—therefore it is at rest.
Aristotle says in this work that there are two kinds of simple motion, that in a circle and that
in a straight line. The latter belongs to the elements, which either go up or down, and the
former to the celestial bodies, whose nature is more divine, and which have never been known
to change; and the earth and world must be the only bodies in existence, for if there were
another, it must be the contrary to this, and there is no contrary to a circle; and again, if there
were any other body, the earth would be attracted towards it, and move, which it does not.
Such is the style of argument which was in those days thought conclusive, and which with a
little development and inflation of language appeared intensely profound.
But what brings these speculations to the subject we have now in hand is this: that when
Aristotle thus proves the earth to be immovable in the centre of the universe, he is led on to
inquire how it is possible for it to remain in one fixed place. He observed that even a small
fragment of earth, when it is raised into the air and then let go, immediately falls without ever
stopping in one place—falling, as he supposed, all the quicker according to its weight; and he
was therefore puzzled to know why the whole mass of the earth, notwithstanding its weight,
could be kept from falling.
Aristotle examines one by one the answers that have been given to this question. Thus
Xenophanes gave to the earth infinitely extended roots, against which Empedocles uses such
arguments as we should use now. Thales of Miletus makes the earth rest upon water, without
finding anything on which the water itself can rest, or answering the question how it is that the
heavier earth can be supported on the lighter water. Anaxemenes, Anaxagoras, and Democritus,
who make the earth flat, consider it to be sustained by the air, which is accumulated below it,
and also presses down upon it like a great coverlet. Aristotle himself says that he agrees with
those philosophers who think that the earth is brought to the centre by the primitive rotation of
things, and that we may compare it, as Empedocles does, to the water in glasses which are
made to turn rapidly, and which does not fall out or move, even though upside down. He also
quotes with approval another opinion somewhat similar to this, namely, that of Anaximander,
which states that the earth is in repose, on account of its own equilibrium. Placed in the centre
and at an equal distance from its extremities, there is no reason why it should move in one
direction rather than the other, and rests immovable in the centre without being able to leave it.
The result of all is that Aristotle concludes that the earth is immovable, in the centre of the
universe, and that it is not a star circulating in space like other stars, and that it does not rotate
upon its axis; and he completes the system by stating that the earth is spherical, which is
proved by the different aspects of the heavens to a voyager to the north or to the south.
Such was the Aristotelian system, containing far more error than truth, which was the first of
any completeness. Scattered ideas, however, on the shape and method of support of the earth
and the cause of various phenomena, such as the circulation of the stars, are met with besides
in abundance.
The original ideas of the earth were naturally tinged by the prepossessions of each race,
every one thinking his own country to be situated in the centre. Thus among the Hindoos, who
lived near the equator, and among the Scandinavians, inhabiting regions nearer the pole, the
same meaning attaches to the words by which they express their own country, medpiama and
medgard, both meaning the central habitation. Olympus among the Greeks was made the
centre of the earth, and afterwards the temple of Delphi. For the Egyptians the central point
was Thebes; for the Assyrians it was Babylon; for the Indians it was the mountain Mero; for the
Hebrews Jerusalem. The Chinese always called their country the central empire. It was then the
custom to denote the world by a large disc, surrounded on all sides by a marvellous and
inaccessible ocean. At the extremities of the earth were placed imaginary regions and fortunate
isles, inhabited by giants or pigmies. The vault of the sky was supposed to be supported by
enormous mountains and mysterious columns.
 Numerous variations have been suggested on the earliest supposed form of the earth, which
was, as we have seen in a former chapter, originally supposed to be an immense flat of infinite
depth, and giving support to the heavens.
As travels extended and geography began to be a science, it was remarked that an immense
area of water circumscribed the solid earth by irregular boundaries—whence the idea of a
universal ocean.
When, however, it was perceived that the horizon at sea was always circular, it was supposed
that the ocean was bounded, and the whole earth came to be represented as contained in a
circle, beneath which were roots reaching downwards without end, but with no imagined
support.

Fig. 25.—The Earth Floating.

Fig. 26.—The Earth with Roots.

The Vedic priests asserted that the earth was supported on twelve columns, which they very
ingeniously turned to their own account by asserting that these columns were supported by
virtue of the sacrifices that were made to the gods, so that if these were not made the earth
would collapse.
 Fig. 27.—The Earth of the Vedic Priests.
These pillars were invented in order to account for the passing of the sun beneath the earth
after his setting, for which at first they were obliged to imagine a system of tunnels, which
gradually became enlarged to the intervals between the pillars.
The Hindoos made the hemispherical earth to be supported upon four elephants, and the four
elephants to stand on the back of an immense tortoise, which itself floated on the surface of a
universal ocean. We are not however to laugh at this as intended to be literal; the elephants
symbolised, it may be, the four elements, or the four directions of the compass, and the tortoise
was the symbol for strength and for eternity, which was also sometimes represented by a
serpent.

Fig. 28.—Hindoo Earth.

The floating of the earth on water or some other liquid long held ground. It was adopted by
Thales, and six centuries later Seneca adopts the same opinion, saying that the humid element
that supports the earth's disc like a vessel may be either the ocean or some liquid more simple
than water.
Diodorus tells us that the Chaldeans considered the earth hollow and boat-shaped—perhaps
turned upside down—and this doctrine was introduced into Greece by Heraclitus of Ephesus.

Fig. 29.—The Earth of Anaximander.

Anaximander represents the earth as a cylinder, the upper face of which alone is inhabited.
This cylinder, he states, is one-third as high as its diameter, and it floats freely in the centre of
the celestial vault, because there is no reason why it should move to one side rather than the
other. Leucippus, Democritus, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras all adopted this purely imaginary
form. Europe made the northern half, and Lybia (Africa) and Asia the southern, while Delphi was
in the centre.
Anaximenes, without giving a precise opinion as to the form of the earth, made it out to be
supported on compressed air, though he gave no idea as to how the air was to be compressed.
Plato thought to improve upon these ideas by making the earth cubical. The cube, which is
bound by six equal faces, appeared to him the most perfect of solids, and therefore most
suitable for the earth, which was to stand in the centre of the universe.

Fig. 30.—Plato's Cubical Earth.

Eudoxus, who in his long voyages throughout Greece and Egypt had seen new constellations
appear as he went south, while others to the north disappeared, deduced the sphericity of the
earth, in which opinion he was followed by Archimedes, and, as we have seen, by Aristotle.
 According to Achilles Tatius, Xenophanes gave to the earth the shape of an immense inclined
plane, which stretched out to infinity. He drew it in the form of a vast mountain. The summit
only was inhabited by men, and round it circulated the stars, and the base was at an infinite
depth. Hesiod had before this obscurely said: "The abyss is surrounded by a brazen barrier;
above it rest the roots of the earth." Epicurus and his school were well pleased with this
representation. If such were the foundations of the earth, then it was impossible that the sun,
and moon, and stars should complete their revolutions beneath it. A solid and indefinite support
being once admitted, the Epicurean ideas about the stars were a necessary consequence; the
stars must inevitably be put out each day in the west, since they are not seen to return to the
place whence they started, and they must be rekindled some hours afterwards in the east. In
the days of Augustus, Cleomedes still finds himself obliged to combat these Epicurean ideas
about the setting and rising of the sun and stars. "These stupid ideas," he says, "have no other
foundation than an old woman's story—that the Iberians hear each night the hissing noise made
by the burning sun as it is extinguished, like a hot iron in the waters of the ocean." Modern
travellers have shown us that similar ideas about the support of the earth have been entertained
by more remote people. Thus, in the opinion of the Greenlanders, handed down from antiquity
to our own days, the earth is supported on pillars, which are so consumed by time that they
often crack, and were it not that they are supported by the incantations of the magicians, they
would long since have broken down. This idea of the breaking of the pillars may possibly have
originated in the known sinking of the land beneath the sea, which is still going on even at the
present day.

Fig. 31.—Egyptian Representation of the Earth.

An ancient Egyptian papyrus in the library of Paris gives a very curious hieroglyphical
representation of the universe. The earth is here figured under the form of a reclining figure,
and is covered with leaves. The heavens are personified by a goddess, which forms the vault by
her star-bespangled body, which is elongated in a very peculiar manner. Two boats, carrying,
one the rising sun, and the other the setting sun, are represented as moving along the heavens
over the body of the goddess. In the centre of the picture is the god, Maon, a divine
intelligence, which presides over the equilibrium of the universe.
We will now pass on from the early ideas of the general shape and situation of the world to
inquire into the first outlines of geographical knowledge of details.
 Of all the ancient writings which deal with such questions, the Hebrew Scriptures have the
greatest antiquity, and in them are laid down many details of known countries, from which a fair
map of the world as known to them might be made out. The prophet Esdras believed that six-
sevenths of the earth was dry land—an idea which could not well be exploded till the great
oceans had been traversed and America discovered.
More interesting, as being more complete, and written to a certain extent for the very
purpose of relating what was known of the geography of the earth, are the writings of the
oldest Grecian poets. The first elements of Grecian geography are contained in the two national
and almost sacred poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. So important have these writings been
considered in regard to ancient geography, that for many centuries discussions have been
carried on with regard to the details, though evidently fictitious, of the voyage of Ulysses, and
twenty lines of the Iliad have furnished matter for a book of thirty volumes.
The shield of Achilles, forged by Vulcan and described in the eighteenth book of the Iliad,
gives us an authentic representation of the primitive cosmographical ideas of the age. The earth
is there figured as a disc, surrounded on all sides by the River Ocean. However strange it may
appear to us, to apply the term river to the ocean, it occurs too often in Homer and the other
ancient poets to admit of a doubt of its being literally understood by them. Hesiod even
describes the sources of the ocean at the western extremity of the world, and the
representation of these sources was preserved from age to age amongst authors posterior to
Homer by nearly a thousand years. Herodotus says plainly that the geographers of his time
drew their maps of the world according to the same ideas; the earth was figured with them as a
round disc, and the ocean as a river, which washed it on all sides.
The earth's disc, the orbis terrarum, was covered according to Homer by a solid vault or
firmament, beneath which the stars of the day and night were carried by chariots supported by
the clouds. In the morning the sun rose from the eastern ocean, and in the evening it declined
into the western; and a vessel of gold, the mysterious work of Vulcan, carried it quickly back by
the north, to the east again. Beneath the earth Homer places, not the habitation of the dead,
the caverns of Hades, but a vault called Tartarus, corresponding to the firmament. Here lived
the Titans, the enemies of the gods, and no breath of wind, no ray of light, ever penetrated to
this subterranean world. Writers subsequent to Homer by a century determined even the height
of the firmament and the depth of Tartarus. An anvil, they said, would take nine days to fall
from heaven to earth, and as many more to fall from earth to the bottom of Tartarus. This
estimate of the height of heaven was of course far too small. If a body were to fall for nine days
and nights, or 777,600 seconds under the attraction of the earth, it would only pass over
430,500 miles, that is not much more than half as far again as the moon. A ray of light would
only take two seconds to pass over that distance, whereas it takes eight minutes to reach us
from the sun, and four hours to come from Neptune—to say nothing of the distance of the
stars.
The limits of the world in the Homeric cosmography were surrounded by obscurity. The
columns of which Atlas was the guardian were supported on unknown foundations, and
disappeared in the systems subsequent to Homer. Beyond the mysterious boundary where the
earth ended and the heavens began an indefinite chaos spread out—a confused medley of life
and inanity, a gulf where all the elements of heaven, Tartarus, and earth and sea are mixed
together, a gulf of which the gods themselves are afraid.
Ideas such as these prevailed long after geometers and astronomers had proved the spherical
form of the globe, and they were revived by the early Christian geographers and have left their
trace even on the common language of to-day.

Fig. 32.—Homeric Cosmography.

The centre of the terrestrial disc was occupied by the continent and isles of Greece, which in
the time of Homer possessed no general name. The centre of Greece passed therefore for the
centre of the whole world; and in Homer's system it was reckoned to be Olympus in Thessaly,
but the priests of the celebrated Temple of Apollo at Delphi (known then under the name of
Python) gave out a tradition that that sacred place was the real centre of the habitable world.
The straits which separate Italy from Sicily were so to speak the vestibule of the fabulous
world of Homer. The threefold ebb and flow, the howling of the monster Scylla, the whirlpools of
Charybdis, the floating rocks—all tell us that we are quitting here the region of truth. Sicily itself,
although already known under the name of Trinacria, was filled with marvels; here the flocks of
the Sun wandered in a charming solitude under the guardianship of nymphs; here the Cyclops,
with one eye only, and the anthropophagous Lestrigons scared away the traveller from a land
that was otherwise fertile in corn and wine. Two historical races were placed by Homer in Sicily,
namely the Sicani, and the Siceli, or Siculi.
To the west of Sicily we find ourselves in the midst of a region of fables. The enchanted
islands of Circe and Calypso, and the floating island of Eolus can no longer be found, unless we
imagine them to have originated, like Graham's Island in this century, from volcanic eruptions or
elevations, and to have disappeared again by the action of the sea.
The Homeric map of the world terminated towards the west by two fabulous countries which
have given rise to many traditions among the ancients, and to many discussions among
moderns. Near to the entrance of the ocean, and not far from the sombre caverns where the
dead are congregated, Ulysses found the Cimmerians, "an unhappy people, who, constantly
surrounded by thick shadows, never enjoyed the rays of the sun, neither when it mounted the
skies, nor when it descended below the earth." Still farther away, and in the ocean itself, and
therefore beyond the limits of the earth, beyond the region of winds and seasons, the poet
paints for us a Fortunate Land, which he calls Elysium, a country where tempests and winter are
unknown, where a soft zephyr always blows, and where the elect of Jupiter, snatched from the
common lot of mortals, enjoy a perpetual felicity.
Whether these fictions had an allegory for their basis, or were founded on the mistaken
notions of voyagers—whether they arose in Greece, or, as the Hebrew etymology of the name
Cimmerian might seem to indicate, in the east, or in Phenicia, it is certain that the images they
present, transferred to the world of reality, and applied successively to various lands, and
confused by contradictory explanations, have singularly embarrassed the progress of geography
through many centuries. The Roman travellers thought they recognised the Fortunate Isles in a
group to the west of Africa, now known as the Canaries. The philosophical fictions of Plato and
Theopompus about Atlantes and Meropis have been long perpetuated in historical theories;
though of course it is possible that in the numerous changes that have taken place in the
surface of the earth, some ancient vast and populous island may have descended beneath the
level of the sea. On the other side, the poetic imagination created the Hyperboreans, beyond
the regions where the northern winds were generated, and according to a singular kind of
meteorology, they believed them for that reason to be protected from the cold winds. Herodotus
regrets that he has not been able to discover the least trace of them; he took the trouble to ask
for information about them from their neighbours, the Arimaspes, a very clear-sighted race,
though having but a single eye; but they could not inform him where the Hyperboreans dwelt.
The Enchanted Isles, where the Hesperides used to guard the golden fruit, and which the whole
of antiquity placed in the west, not far from the Fortunate Isles, are sometimes called
Hyperborean by authors well versed in the ancient traditions. It is also in this sense that
Sophocles speaks of the Garden of Phœbus, near the vault of heaven, and not far from the
sources of the night, i.e. of the setting of the sun.
Avienus explains the mild temperature of the Hyperborean country by the temporary
proximity of the sun, since, according to the Homeric ideas, it passes during the night by the
northern ocean to return to its palace in the east. This ancient tradition was not entirely
exploded in the time of Tacitus, who states that on the confines of Germany might be seen the
veritable setting of Apollo beyond the water, and he believes that as in the east the sun gives
rise to incense and balm by its great proximity to the earth, so in the regions where it sets it
makes the most precious of juices to transude from the earth and form amber. It is this idea
that is embedded in the fables of amber being the tears of gold that Apollo shed when he went
to the Hyperborean land to mourn the loss of his son Æsculapius, or by the sisters of Phaëton,
changed into poplars; and it is denoted by the Greek name for amber, electron—a sun-stone.
The Grecian sages, long before the time of Tacitus, said that this very precious material was an
exhalation from the earth that was produced and hardened by the rays of the sun, which they
thought came nearer to the earth in the west and in the north.
Florus, in relating the expedition of Decimus Brutus along the coast of Spain, gives great
effect to the Epicurean views about the sun, by declaring that Brutus only stopped his conquests
after having witnessed the actual descent of the sun into the ocean, and having heard with
horror the terrible noise occasioned by its extinction. The ancients also believed that the sun
and the other heavenly bodies were nourished by the waters—partly the fresh water of the
rivers, and partly the salt water of the sea. Cleanthes gave the reason for the sun returning
towards the equator on reaching the solstices, that it could not go too far away from the source
of its nourishment. Pytheas relates that in the Island of Thule, six days' journey north of Great
Britain, and in all that neighbourhood, there was no land nor sea nor air, but a compound of all
three, on which the earth and the sea were suspended, and which served to unite together all
the parts of the universe, though it was not possible to go into these places, neither on foot nor
in ships. Perhaps the ice floating in the frozen seas and the hazy northern atmosphere had been
seen by some navigator, and thus gave rise to this idea. As it stands, the history may be
perhaps matched by that of the amusing monk who said he had been to the end of the world
and had to stoop down, as there was not room to stand between heaven and earth at their
junction.
Homer lived in the tenth century before our era. Herodotus, who lived in the fifth, developed
the Homeric chart to three times its size. He remarks at the commencement of his book that for
several centuries the world has been divided into three parts—Europe, Asia, and Libya; the
names given to them being female. The exterior limits of these countries remained in obscurity
notwithstanding that those boundaries of them that lay nearest to Greece were clearly defined.
One of the greatest writers on ancient geography was Strabo, whose ideas we will now give
an account of. He seems to have been a disciple of Hipparchus in astronomy, though he
criticises and contradicts him several times in his geography. He had a just idea of the sphericity
of the earth; but considered it as the centre of the universe, and immovable. He takes pains to
prove that there is only one inhabited earth—not in this refuting the notion that the moon and
stars might have inhabitants, for these he considered to be insignificant meteors nourished by
the exhalations of the ocean; but he fought against the fact of there being on this globe any
other inhabited part than that known to the ancients.
It is remarkable to notice that the proofs then used by geographers of the sphericity of the
earth are just those which we should use now. Thus Strabo says, "The indirect proof is drawn
from the centripetal force in general, and the tendency that all bodies have in particular towards
a centre of gravity. The direct proof results from the phenomena observed on the sea and in the
sky. It is evident, for example, that it is the curvature of the earth that alone prevents the sailor
from seeing at a distance the lights that are placed at the ordinary height of the eye, and which
must be placed a little higher to become visible even at a greater distance; in the same way, if
the eye is a little raised it will see things which previously were hidden." Homer had already
made the same remark.
On this globe, representing the world, Strabo and the cosmographers of his time placed the
habitable world in a surface which he describes in the following way: "Suppose a great circle,
perpendicular to the equator, and passing through the poles to be described about the sphere.
It is plain that the surface will be divided by this circle, and by the equator into four equal parts.
The northern and southern hemispheres contain, each of them, two of these parts. Now on any
one of these quarters of the sphere let us trace a quadrilateral which shall have for its southern
boundary the half of the equator, for northern boundary a circle marking the commencement of
polar cold, and for the other sides two equal and opposite segments of the circle that passes
through the poles. It is on one such quadrilateral that the habitable world is placed." He figures
it as an island, because it is surrounded on all sides by the sea. It is plain that Strabo had a
good idea of the nature of gravity, because he does not distinguish in any way an upper or a
lower hemisphere, and declares that the quadrilateral on which the habitable world is situated
may be any one of the four formed in this way.
The form of the habitable world is that of a "chlamys," or cloak. This follows, he says, both
from geometry and the great spread of the sea, which, enveloping the land, covers it both to
the east and to the west and reduces it to a shortened and truncated form of such a figure that
its greatest breadth preserved has only a third of its length. As to the actual length and breadth,
he says, "it measures seventy thousand stadia in length, and is bounded by a sea whose
immensity and solitude renders it impassable; while the breadth is less than thirty thousand
stadia, and has for boundaries the double region where the excess of heat on one side and the
excess of cold on the other render it uninhabitable."
The habitable world was thus much longer from east to west than it was broad from north to
south; from whence come our terms longitude, whose degrees are counted in the former
direction, and latitude, reckoned in the latter direction.
Eratosthenes, and after him Hipparchus, while he gives larger numbers than the preceding for
the dimensions of the inhabited part of the earth, namely, thirty-eight thousand stadia of
breadth and eighty thousand of length, declares that physical laws accord with calculations to
prove that the length of the habitable earth must be taken from the rising to the setting of the
sun. This length extends from the extremity of India to that of Iberia, and the breadth from the
parallel of Ethiopia to that of Ierne.
That the earth is an island, Strabo considers to be proved by the testimony of our senses. For
wherever men have reached to the extremities of the earth they have found the sea, and for
regions where this has not been verified it is established by reasoning. Those who have retraced
their steps have not done so because their passage was barred by any continent, but because
their supplies have run short, and they were afraid of the solitude; the water always ran freely
in front of them.
It is extraordinary that Strabo and the astronomers of that age, who recognised so clearly the
sphericity of the earth and the real insignificance of mountains, should yet have supposed the
stars to have played so humble a part, but so it was; and we find Strabo arguing in what we
may call quite the contrary direction. He says, "the larger the mass of water that is spread
round the earth, so much more easy is it to conceive how the vapours arising from it are
sufficient to nourish the heavenly bodies."

Fig. 33.—The Earth of the Later Greeks.

Among the Latin cosmographers we may here cite one who flourished in the first century
after Christ, Pomponius Mela, who wrote a treatise, called De Situ Orbis. From whatever source,
whether traditional or otherwise, he arrived at the conclusion, he divided the earth into two
continents, our own and that of the Antichthones, which reached to our antipodes. This map