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A Source Book in Geography

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A Source Book in Geography A Source Book in Geography Edited by GEORGE KISH HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 1978 Contents The Beginnings 1 1. The Lord speaks to Job on man and his world 1 2. Ezekiel describes the commerce of Tyre 3 3. Hesiod on the seasons 5 4. Hesiod on the winds 8 Early Greek Geography 9 5. Thales' views of a floating earth 9 6. Anaximander considers the earth; he offers an explanation for wind and rain, thunder and lightning 11 7. Anaxagoras on the shape of the earth, eclipses, and atmo- spheric phenomena 16 8. The Pythagoreans: Philolaus and Parmenides 17 9. Xenophanes on the origin of fossils 20 Periplus and Periegesis: Greek Maritime Writings 21 10. Hanno reports on West Africa, Himilco on the Atlantic 21 11. A periplus of the Mediterranean: Greek sailing directions 24 12. A periegesis: Dionysius on Mediterranean 26 From the Geographical Writings of Plato and Aristotle 29 13. Socrates explains the nature of the earth 29 14. Plato on the fate of Atlantis 30 15. Aristotle on the cosmos and the oikumene 31 16. Aristotle considers the city-state 37 17. Aristotle discusses water and dry land, world views and maps, earthquakes and their causes 38 Hippocrates of Cos: An Early Environmentalist 45 18. Hippocrates on the effects of the environment 45 Greek Heliocentric Theory 51 19. Aristarchus of Samos: the first heliocentric theory 51 Greek Travelers' Reports 55 20. Herodotus describes the Royal Road of Persia, the Caspian Sea, Egypt, Libya, and the land of the Scythians 55 21. Xenophon on western Asia 63 22. An early description of southernmost Persia 65 23. Pytheas of Marseille on northern Europe 67 24. Megasthenes describes India 71 Geography in the Hellenistic Age 73 25. Eratosthenes measures the earth 73 26. From the writings of Hipparchus 78 27. Posidonius on the size of the earth and on zones 80 28. Polybius describes the Black Sea and Italy 82 29. Strabo: the summing up of Greek geography 85 30. Ptolemy on the field of geography and on divisions of the earth 105 Latin Encyclopedists 117 31. Pliny: from the Natural History 117 32. Varro on soils 127 33. Pomponius Mela on the earth, on Europe, and on Africa 128 34. Solinus describes Italy, Thrace, the Hyperboreans; the crocodile, China, and India 131 35. Macrobius: a late Roman geographer 135 Landscape in Latin Prose and Poetry 143 36. A victorious general reports: Caesar on Gaul, Britain, and Germany 143 Contents xiii 37. Vergil on the Creation, on zones of the earth, and on winds 148 38. Horace describes the Italian landscape 150 39. Tacitus on Germany, Britain, and Judaea 152 Christian Geography 156 40. The Bordeaux Itinerary: a pilgrim's guide to the Holy Land 156 41. Bishop Eucherius on the holy places 159 42. The Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes 161 43. The Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville: an early Christian encyclopedia 163 44. Britain in the eighth century: the Venerable Bede on the situation of Britain and Ireland 167 45. From Dicuil's De mensura orbis terrae 170 46. Ohthere's report on northernmost Europe 172 Geography in the Byzantine Empire 175 47. Procopius describes Byzantium and the waterway leading to it 175 48. Constantine VII describes the great water road of Russia, the trade routes of the Byzantine Empire, and the city of Venice 177 The Norse Contribution 184 49. An Arab ambassador among the Norsemen: the report of Ibn Fadhlan 184 50. Adam of Bremen on "the northern islands" 187 51. The sagas: Norse discoveries in North America 189 52. The King's Mirror: a medieval handbook on the northern lands 193 Moslem Geography 199 53. Al-Muqaddasi: a geographer's experiences in pursuit of knowledge 200 54. Ibn Hauqal on the world of Islam and the lands beyond it 202 55. Ibn Hauqal on Spain, the Byzantine lands, and Sicily 205 56. Al-Masudi on the earth and its inhabitable portion; on Syria, Egypt, and Iraq 207 57. Al-Biruni on the determination of longitude 211 58. Al-Biruni reflects on the geography of earlier times 213 xiv Contents 59. Ibn Khordadbeh describes Byzantium, some trade routes, and the divisions of the inhabitable world 216 60. Al-Muqaddasi on Tiberias, Iraq, and Kairouan 218 61. Idrisi on the cities and countries of the Christian and Moslem worlds 221 62. Al-Dimashqi on the divisions of the world and on the stone called emery 223 63. Ibn Battuta: his travels 225 64. Ibn Khaldun on geography 229 Revival of Geography in the West 236 65. Robert Grosseteste on the heat of the sun 236 66. John of Holywood (Sacrobosco) on the sphere 240 Enlarging Horizons by Travel 249 67. Directions to cross the sea 249 68. Marco Polo on Asia and its marvels 250 69. John of Piano Carpini: a Franciscan papal ambassador journeys to the Mongol court 257 70. William of Rubruck, ambassador of the King of France, on Mongolia 259 71. John of Monte Corvino, first archbishop of Peking, on the Nestorian Christians and the Tartar Empire 262 72. Pegolotti's advice to merchants traveling to Asia 266 73. Nicolo.Conti on India in the early 1400s 269 74. Mandeville's Travels: notes of an armchair geographer 271 Physical Geography in the Later Middle Ages 275 75. Giraldus Cambrensis on Ireland and Wales 275 76. Roger Bacon on the shape of the universe and the size of the earth; on the Nile and on China 278 77. Albert the Great on the nature of places 283 Geographical Writings of the Age of Discovery 289 78. Waldseemiiller's Cosmography: the state of the art in 1507 290 79. Zurara on the early Portuguese voyages to western Africa 293 80. Camoens' poetic description of da Gama's voyage to India 297 81. Toscanelli on sailing westward to the Indies 305 82. Columbus describes the first glimpse of the West Indies 307 Contents xv 83. Columbus describes his first voyage to America: the formal report to Ferdinand and Isabella 311 84. Waldseemiiller names the New World "America" 318 85. Pigafetta on the first circumnavigation of the earth 319 86. Roger Barlow, first Englishman to sail to South America, reports on the New World 323 87. From Hakluyt's Voyages 327 88. William Bourne presents the basic rules of navigation to his fellow seamen 333 89. Captain James Cook: secret orders from the Admiralty and his description of New South Wales 341 German Geographers of the Sixteenth Century 348 90. Barthel Stein gives an inaugural lecture on geography 348 91. Gemma Frisius describes a new method to determine longitude 349 92. Peter Apianus on Asia and America 350 93. From the Cosmography of Sebastian Miinster 353 94. Josias Simler describes glaciers and avalanches 360 95. Leonhart Rauwolf on the lands, peoples, and plants of the Near East 361 The Beginnings of Modern Geography: The Seventeenth Century 364 96. A geography textbook by Cluverius 364 97. Conrad Gessner contemplates the Alps 366 98. From the Ceographia Generalis of Bernardus Varenius 370 Eighteenth Century Concepts of Geography 378 99. Buffon on the history of the earth, on earthquakes, and on the different races 378 100. The Lapland journey of Linnaeus 382 101. Buache's "Framework of the Earth" 386 102. Polycarp Leyser on geography and history 388 103. Johann Michael Franz defines the state geographer 389 104. Johann Gottfried von Herder on the charm and necessity of the study of geography 390 105. Anton Friedrich Biisching on geography 391 106. Albrecht von Haller on the vertical zoning of vegetation 392 xvi Contents Measuring the Earth 394 107. Maupertuis on the dimensions of the earth 395 Immanuel Kant, Geographer 397 108. From the geographical writings of Kant 397 The Founders of Modern Geography: Humboldt and Ritter 402 109. Humboldt on "geognosy" 403 110. From Humboldt's "Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America" 404 111. Jefferson asks for Humboldt's views on the American West 407 112. From Humboldt's Kosmos 408 113. From Humboldt's Aspects of Nature 415 114. Ritter's method of organization in geography 419 115. Ritter on the contrasts between the land and water hemi- spheres 420 116. From Ritter's introduction to general comparative geography 421 117. From Ritter's Earth Science 422 118. Ritter's "Remarks on Form and Numbers as Auxiliary in Representing the Relations of Geographical Spaces" 426 119. Robert Dickinson on Ritter's main geographical concepts 428 Chinese Geographical Writings 431 120. From The Tribuh of Yu: an early Chinese work on geography 431 121. Fa'Hsien, a Chinese Buddhist, travels to the land of the Buddha 436 122. Hsiian-Chang, a Chinese pilgrim, on Indian cosmography and on the lands and people of southern Asia 440 123. Chau Ju-Kua on Chinese overseas trade 444 Index 451.
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