which it never previously possessed. The influence of environment
on the organism may not be quite so potent as it was once believed
to be, in the writings of Buckle, for instance,[1] and certainly man,
the ultimate term in the series, reacts upon and greatly modifies his
environment; yet the fact that environment does influence all
distributions is established beyond the possibility of doubt. In
this way also the position of geography, at the point where physical
science meets and mingles with mental science, is explained and
justified. The change which took place during the 19th century
in the substance and style of geography may be well seen by comparing
the eight volumes of Malte-Brun’s Géographie universelle
(Paris, 1812–1829) with the twenty-one volumes of Reclus’s
Géographie universelle (Paris, 1876–1895).
In estimating the influence of recent writers on geography it is usual to assign to Oscar Peschel (1826–1875) the credit of having corrected the preponderance which Ritter gave to the historical element, and of restoring physical geography to its old pre-eminence.[2] As a matter of fact, each of the leading modern exponents of theoretical geography—such as Ferdinand von Richthofen, Hermann Wagner, Friedrich Ratzel, William M. Davis, A. Penck, A. de Lapparent and Elisée Reclus—has his individual point of view, one devoting more attention to the results of geological processes, another to anthropological conditions, and the rest viewing the subject in various blendings of the extreme lights.
The two conceptions which may now be said to animate the theory of geography are the genetic, which depends upon processes of origin, and the morphological, which depends on facts of form and distribution.
Progress of Geographical Discovery
Exploration and geographical discovery must have started from more than one centre, and to deal justly with the matter one ought to treat of these separately in the early ages before the whole civilized world was bound together by the bonds of modern intercommunication. At the least there should be some consideration of four separate systems of discovery—the Eastern, in which Chinese and Japanese explorers acquired knowledge of the geography of Asia, and felt their way towards Europe and America; the Western, in which the dominant races of the Mexican and South American plateaus extended their knowledge of the American continent before Columbus; the Polynesian, in which the conquering races of the Pacific Islands found their way from group to group; and the Mediterranean. For some of these we have no certain information, and regarding others the tales narrated in the early records are so hard to reconcile with present knowledge that they are better fitted to be the battle-ground of scholars championing rival theories than the basis of definite history. So it has come about that the only practicable history of geographical exploration starts from the Mediterranean centre, the first home of that civilization which has come to be known as European, though its field of activity has long since overspread the habitable land of both temperate zones, eastern Asia alone in part excepted.
From all centres the leading motives of exploration were probably the same—commercial intercourse, warlike operations, whether resulting in conquest or in flight, religious zeal expressed in pilgrimages or missionary journeys, or, from the other side, the avoidance of persecution, and, more particularly in later years, the advancement of knowledge for its own sake. At different times one or the other motive predominated.
Before the 14th century B.C. the warrior kings of Egypt had carried the power of their arms southward from the delta of the Nile well-nigh to its source, and eastward to the confines of Assyria. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt and the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria are rich in records of the movements and achievements of armies, the conquest of towns and the subjugation of peoples; but though many of the recorded sites have been identified, their discovery by wandering armies was isolated from their subsequent history and need not concern us here.
The Phoenicians are the earliest Mediterranean people in the consecutive chain of geographical discovery which joins prehistoric time with the present. From Sidon, and later from its more famous rival Tyre, the merchant adventurers of Phoenicia explored and colonized the coasts of the Mediterranean The Phoenicians. and fared forth into the ocean beyond. They traded also on the Red sea, and opened up regular traffic with India as well as with the ports of the south and west, so that it was natural for Solomon to employ the merchant navies of Tyre in his oversea trade. The western emporium known in the scriptures as Tarshish was probably situated in the south of Spain, possibly at Cadiz, although some writers contend that it was Carthage in North Africa. Still more diversity of opinion prevails as to the southern gold-exporting port of Ophir, which some scholars place in Arabia, others at one or another point on the east coast of Africa. Whether associated with the exploitation of Ophir (q.v.) or not the first great voyage of African discovery appears to have been accomplished by the Phoenicians sailing the Red sea. Herodotus (himself a notable traveller in the 5th century B.C.) relates that the Egyptian king Necho of the XXVIth Dynasty (c. 600 B.C.) built a fleet on the Red Sea, and confided it to Phoenician sailors with the orders to sail southward and return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean sea. According to the tradition, which Herodotus quotes sceptically, this was accomplished; but the story is too vague to be accepted as more than a possibility.
The great Phoenician colony of Carthage, founded before 800 B.C., perpetuated the commercial enterprise of the parent state, and extended the sphere of practical trade to the ocean shores of Africa and Europe. The most celebrated voyage of antiquity undertaken for the express purpose of discovery was that fitted out by the senate of Carthage under the command of Hanno, with the intention of founding new colonies along the west coast of Africa. According to Pliny, the only authority on this point, the period of the voyage was that of the greatest prosperity of Carthage, which may be taken as somewhere between 570 and 480 B.C. The extent of this voyage is doubtful, but it seems probable that the farthest point reached was on the east-running coast which bounds the Gulf of Guinea on the north. Himilco, a contemporary of Hanno, was charged with an expedition along the west coast of Iberia northward, and as far as the uncertain references to this voyage can be understood, he seems to have passed the Bay of Biscay and possibly sighted the coast of England.
The sea power of the Greek communities on the coast of Asia Minor and in the Archipelago began to be a formidable rival to the Phoenician soon after the time of Hanno and Himilco, and peculiar interest attaches to the first recorded Greek voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Pytheas, The Greeks.a navigator of the Phocean colony of Massilia (Marseilles), determined the latitude of that port with considerable precision by the somewhat clumsy method of ascertaining the length of the longest day, and when, about 330 B.C., he set out on exploration to the northward in search of the lands whence came gold, tin and amber, he followed this system of ascertaining his position from time to time. If on each occasion he himself made the observations his voyage must have extended over six years; but it is not impossible that he ascertained the approximate length of the longest day in some cases by questioning the natives. Pytheas, whose own narrative is not preserved, coasted the Bay of Biscay, sailed up the English Channel and followed the coast of Britain to its most northerly point. Beyond this he spoke of a land called Thule, which, if his estimate of the length of the longest day is correct, may have been Shetland, but was possibly Iceland; and from some confused statements as to a sea which could not be sailed through, it has been assumed that Pytheas was the first of the Greeks to obtain direct knowledge of the Arctic regions. During this or a second voyage Pytheas entered the Baltic, discovered the coasts where amber is obtained and returned to the Mediterranean. It does not seem that any maritime trade followed these discoveries, and indeed it is doubtful whether his contemporaries accepted the truth of Pytheas’s narrative; Strabo four hundred years later certainly did not, but the critical studies of modern scholars have rehabilitated the Massilian explorer.
The Greco-Persian wars had made the remoter parts of Asia
Minor more than a name to the Greek geographers before the time
of Alexander the Great, but the campaigns of that conqueror
from 329 to 325 B.C. opened up the greater Asia
to the knowledge of Europe. His armies crossed the plains Alexander
the Great.
beyond the Caspian, penetrated the wild mountain passes north-west
of India, and did not turn back until they had entered on the
Indo-Gangetic plain. This was one of the few great epochs of
geographical discovery.
The world was henceforth viewed as a very large place stretching far on every side beyond the Midland or Mediterranean Sea, and the land journey of Alexander resulted in a voyage of discovery in the outer ocean from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Tigris, thus opening direct intercourse between Grecian and Hindu civilization. The Greeks who accompanied Alexander described with care the towns and villages, the products and the aspect of the country. The conqueror also intended to open up trade by sea between Europe and India, and the narrative of his general Nearchus records this famous voyage of discovery, the detailed accounts of the chief pilot Onesicritus being lost. At the beginning of October 326 B.C. Nearchus left the Indus with his fleet, and the anchorages sought for each night are carefully recorded. He entered the Persian Gulf, and rejoined Alexander at Susa, when he was ordered to prepare another expedition for the circumnavigation of Arabia. Alexander died at Babylon in 323 B.C., and the fleet was dispersed without making the voyage.
The dynasties founded by Alexander’s generals, Seleucus, Antiochus and Ptolemy, encouraged the same spirit of enterprise which their master had fostered, and extended geographical knowledge in several directions. Seleucus Nicator established the Greco-Bactrian empire and continued the intercourse with India. Authentic information respecting the great valley of the Ganges was supplied by Megasthenes, an ambassador sent by Seleucus, who reached the remote city of Patali-putra, the modern Patna.
The Ptolemies in Egypt showed equal anxiety to extend the bounds of geographical knowledge. Ptolemy Euergetes (247–222 B.C.)
