GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY OF. The study of geography, as far as it was connected with or depended upon astronomy, in all probabili ty began and kept pace with it Thales, the Grecian astronomer, constructed a globe, re presenting the land and sea upon a table, which art he derived from the Egyptians, among whom maps were in use even as early as the days of Sesostris. This conqueror is said to have represented in this manner the conquests he made, and the countries he marched through. That the Israelites practised the art of geogra phy at an early period, is clear from the ac count we have in Scripture of Joshua having sent men to walk though the land of Canaan, sr:deb they described in seven parts, in a book. The first map among the Greeks on record is that of Anasiinander, which is pro bably referred to by Hipparchus, under the designation of the ancient map. Geographi cal descriptions were, however, prior to this, for the works of Homer abound with the names of places, and an account of several particulars respecting them. The first professed writer on the subject of geography was Scylax, if the author pf the Penplus now extant be the same as the philosopher of that name mentioned by Herodottio. Herodotus, the historian, has in terspersed his work with a minute geographi cal description of the places which occur in the course of his narrative ; and geographical notices are also to be found scattered in the writings of T hecydides and Xenophon. The conquests of Alexander doubtless increased the desire to know more of the habitable world, which that prince encouraged by sending Nearchos on a voyage of discovery m the Red Sea, a description of which is still extant. About the same time flourished the geographer Dicearchus, of whose works some fragments remain.
Eratosthenes is said to have been the first who attempted to reduce the science of geogra phy to a system, by the application of astro nomical principles. He introduced a regular parallel of latitude, which began at the Straits of Gibraltar, and proceeded through the isle of Rhodes to the mountains of India, noting all the places it passed through. He drew this parallel not by the sameness of the lati tude, but by observing where the longest day was fourteen hours and a hal4 which ehus afterwards found to be thirty-six. Era tosthenes also drew maps of the countries then known, with as much accuracy as his scanty information would enable him, but they contained little more than an imperfect representation of the states of Greece and the dominions of Alexander's successors. He was ignorant, as Strabo informs us, of Gaul, Spain, Germany, Britain, Italy, and the coast of the Adriatic, and had only a faint idea of the western parts of Europe. Hipparchus he proved upon the labours of Eratesthenes, and determined both the latitudes and longitudes from celestial observations.
Under the Roman emperors geography ac quired an increasing interest, from the per petual accessions which were made by con quest to the empire. Accordingly, we find the number of geographical writers to be great ly increased, and their writings to be more correct and particular. Besides Pomponius Mela, who, in his Cosmographia, has given a neat and comprehensive account of the known world, and Dknysius Perigees, who has written a system of geography in verse, Stm t.:, has left a work on this subject, which, in point of methodical arrangement and extent of information, exceeded any thing that had been hitherto puolished. This was followed, after the interval of more than a century, by the great work of Ptolemy on this subject, in the execution of which he took astronomy to his aid for determining the situation of places. He fixed the latitudes and longitudes of all the principal places in the known world, and ex pressed them in degrees, after the manner of Hipparchus, making his calculations from the proportions of the gnomon to its shadow, as observed by different astronomers at the time of the equinoxes and solstices, and deduced from these the length of the longest days. He also measured and computed the distances of the principal roads mentioned in the different surveys and itineraries which had been made at different times by order of the emperors, and compared them with suchas he could gather from travellers. did Ptolemy execute his system of geography, which, as a work of science, has deservedly held the first rank among the works of the an cients, and, considered as the labour of one man, was never surpassed, and scarcely ever equalled." With the exception of the Geographical Dictionary of Stephanus Byzantinus, in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the scattered geographical notices interspersed in the works of the Byzantine historians, the subject of geography was neglected until the thirteenth century, when John Sacro de Bosco publish ed his treatise on the sphere, which contained an account of the earth as far as it was con nected with the doctrine of the sphere. No thing farther was done towards the advance ment of this science until the discovery of the New World, when geographical knowledge received continual accessions by new discove ries, and the spirit of investigation and re search which they awakened. Since that time the writers on geography have been ex ceedingly numerous. Among those who have treated it in immediate connexion with astronomy and the other sciences, may be reckoned Piccioli, in his Geographia et Hy. drographia Reformats ; Deschales, in his Mundus Mathernaticus ; and Wolfins, in his Elements Matheseos. Among those who have written on ancient and modern geography, Cellarius, Cluverius, and Baudrand are the most distinguished: the most esteemed mo dern works on this subject are the systems of Beaching, Salmon, Guthrie, Pilkington, Play fair, Myer, Morse, Mahe-Brun, &c. GEOLOGY. The science which treats of the structure of the earth, or of the different minerals, stones, earths, &c. which enter into its composition, and the manner in which they are disposed in regard to each other. This science has of late attracted particular notice, and from the important facts which have thus been brought to light, the subject has justly awakened a considerable interest.
Geology may be considered under two heads, namely, first, as regards those bodies which naturally form constituent parts of this globe ; and, secondly, as regards those foreign bo dies which have been buried in the earth and partly amalgamated with it. These are now distinguished by the name of fossil or organic remains. In the consideration of these two branches of the science of geology, it will ap pear that the earth has undergone such changes, since its original formation, as nothing but a universal deluge could have produced, and in this point of view it furnishes to the believer a wonderful and gratifying confirma tion of the Scripture account of that great and miraculous convulsion, The study of geology having been most ef fectually pursued by inquiring into the struc ture of mountains, It has been on that account likewise designated by the name of orychthio logy. Mountains have been found by geolo gists to consist, at a considerable depth, of strata regularly disposed, which have been classed under the heads of granite, gneiss, mica slate, clay slate, primitive limestone, pri mitive trap, serpentine porphyry, syenite to paz, quartz rock, primitive flinty slate, primi tive gypsum. These are altogether denomi nated primitive rocks, which have no organic remains, and appear to have been undisturbed. But in the strata above these there are evi dent signs of violent fractures caused by the action of waters. In this manner valleys have been excavated, and a separation thus occasioned in strata that once evidently form ed one continuous range. Such water-worn fragments have, from the cause of their exist ence, been denominated diluvium, to-distin guish them from other debris produced by causes still in operation, such as the alluvium or the accession to lands by inundations, tor rents, and the like, as also the volcanic rocks formed by the eruptions of mountains. Be sides the rocky fragments and insulated hills above mentioned, the strata above these primi tive rocks contain also organic remains. In those immediately above, called transition rocks, fossil remains of corals and shells are found in small quantities, as also in the car boniferous limestone 'that lies next to these rocks. The coal strata, which follow, abound with vegetable remains of ferns, flags, reeds of unknown species, and large trunks of suc culent plants, which are altogether unknown either in description or in nature, Above the coals are beds containing corals and shells, which, like those in the strata below, are cha racterized by this peculiarity, that in some places they are to be found in families, and that in other places there will be found beds of marine shells in one layer, and those pecu liar to fresh Water in another layer, resting one over the other in alternate succession. In the highest of the regular strata, called the crag, will be found the shells• at present exist ing in the earns coast, and, lastly, over all these strata is a covering of gravel, which is remarkable for containing the remains of nu merous quadrupeds, as the bones, horns, teeth, shells, scales, t.ix. These animals are for the most part either foreign to the climates where their remains are found, or they are of a larger size than any now known, or they are altogether different from any species of animal hitherto known or mentioned. • Among those animals whose remains have been found in countries far distant from the places which they inhabit, are the elephant and the rhinoce ros, numerous remains of which have been found in England,France, Germany, Italy, and other parts of Europe, but still more in Sibe ria, where, throughout the whole extent of that country, there is scarcely a river or a shore in which have not been found the bones of ele phants and other animals. Near the river Willioni, in the eastern part of Siberia, has been dug up a rhinoceros still possessing the skin, fat, and muscles ; and fossil ivory has been procured in immense quantities in the countries nearest to the arctic circle. So nu merous are the remains that have already been dug up, as to form immense collections in the cabinets of the great, particularly in that of the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt and the Elector of Manheim. Naturalists have also been enabled, in part, to ascertain the species of these animals, at least as far as regards the rhinoceros, which is of the double horned kind; but in regard to the elphantine remains, although very numerous, it is not so certain whether they are of any known species or otherwise. As to the animals differing in size from _those of their own species at present, Ireland furnishes specimens of deer that have been dug up of an extraordinary magnitude; and in Scotland, a kind of oxen has been found bigger than the largest species existing at present. Of animals altogether unknown, both North and South America, and other parts, furnish several examples, as the mam moth, the mastodon, and other nameless ani. male of a prodigious size.
This remarkable fact, of the fossil remains of animals, did not escape the notice of the ancients, for Xenophanes, above four hundred years before the Christian era, is said to have discovered the remains of some marine ani mals imbedded in rocks, from which he ab surdly inferred the eternity of the world. Heredotus also ascertained the existence of fossil shells, from which, with much greater reason, he was led to conclude that the sea had once occupied those parts. Also in the pyra mids, the stones were found to contain the re mains of animals, of which there existed in his time no corresponding species. Strabo, who saw these fragments of about the pramids, took them to be petrihed lentils, that had been used by the workmen ; at the same time this writer, as well as Pliny and ofirrs. attest the existence of such animal re mains, and in a high state of perfection. In the Natural History of Pliny many fossil IV ragas are spoken .4 as the bucardia, resem Wrig an ex's heart; the gliesopetra, having the form of a tongue ; the horns of ammon, resembling -a ram's born; the lepidotes, like the acmes of fishes, etc.