COSMOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY OF THE CHURCH.
After the writers mentioned in the last chapter a long interval elapsed
without any progress being made in the knowledge of the shape or
configuration of the earth. From the fall of the Roman Empire, whose
colonies themselves gave a certain knowledge of geography, down to the
fifteenth century, when the great impetus was given to discovery by the
adventurous voyagers of Spain and Portugal, there was nothing but
servile copying from ancient authors, who were even misrepresented when
they were not understood. Even the peninsula of India was only known by
the accounts of Orientals and the writings of the Ancients until the
beginning of the fifteenth century. Vague notions, too, were held as to
the limits of Africa, and even of Europe and Asia--while of course they
knew nothing of America, in spite of their marking on their maps an
antichthonal continent to the south.
Denys, the traveller, a Greek writer of the first century, and Priscian,
his Latin commentator of the fourth, still maintained the old errors
with regard to the earth. According to them the earth is not round, but
leaf-shaped; its boundaries are not so arranged as to form everywhere a
regular circle. Macrobius, in his system of the world, proves clearly
that he had no notion that Africa was continued to the south of
Ethiopia, that is of the tenth degree of N. latitude. He thought, like
Cleanthus and Crates and other ancient authors, that the regions that
lay nearest the tropics, and were burnt by the sun, could not be
inhabited; and that the equatorial regions were occupied by the ocean.
He divided the hemisphere into five zones, of which only two were
habitable. "One of them," he said, "is occupied by us, and the other by
men of whose nature we are ignorant."
Orosus, writing in the same century (fourth), and whose work exercised
so great an influence on the cosmographers of the middle ages and on
those who made the maps of the world during that long period, was
ignorant of the form or boundaries of Africa, and of the contours of the
peninsulas of Southern Asia. He made the heavens rest upon the earth.
S. Basil, also of the fourth century, placed the firmament on the earth,
and on this heaven a second, whose upper surface was flat,
notwithstanding that the inner surface which is turned towards us is in
the form of a vault; and he explains in this way how the waters can be
held there. S. Cyril shows how useful this reservoir of water is to the
life of men and of plants.
Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, in the same century, also divided the world
into two stages, and compared it to a tent. Severianus, Bishop of
Gabala, about the same time, compared the world to a house of which the
earth is the ground floor, the lower heavens the ceiling, and the upper,
or heaven of heavens, the roof. This double heaven was also admitted by
Eusebius of Caesaraea.
In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries science made no progress
whatever. It was still taught that there were limits to the ocean. Thus
Lactantius asserted that there could not be inhabitants beyond the line
of the tropics. This Father of the Church considered it a monstrous
opinion that the earth is round, that the heavens turn about it, and
that all parts of the earth are inhabited. "There are some people," he
says, "so extravagant as to persuade themselves that there are men who
have their heads downwards and their feet upwards; that all that lies
down here is hung up there; that the trees and herbs grow downwards; and
that the snow and hail fall upwards.... Those people who maintain such
opinions do so for no other purpose than to amuse themselves by
disputation, and to show their spirit; otherwise it would be easy to
prove by invincible argument that it is impossible for the heavens to
be underneath the earth." (Divine Institution). Saint Augustin also, in
his _City of God_, says: "There is no reason to believe in that fabulous
hypothesis of the antipodes, that is to say, of men who inhabit the
other side of the earth--where the sun rises when it sets with us, and
who have their feet opposed to ours." ... "But even if it were
demonstrated by any argument that the earth and world have a spherical
form, it would be too absurd to pretend that any hardy voyagers, after
having traversed the immensity of the ocean, had been able to reach that
part of the world and there implant a detached branch of the primaeval
human family."
In the same strain wrote S. Basil, S. Ambrose, S. Justin Martyr, S.
Chrysostom, Procopius of Gaza, Severianus, Diodorus Bishop of Tarsus,
and the greater number of the thinkers of that epoch.
Eusebius of Caesaraea was bold enough on one occasion to write in his
Commentaries on the Psalms, that, "according to the opinion of some the
earth is round;" but he draws back in another work from so rash an
assertion. Even in the fifteenth century the monks of Salamanca and
Alcala opposed the old arguments against the antipodes to all the
theories of Columbus.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--THE EARTH'S SHADOW.]
In the middle of the sixteenth century Gregory of Tours adopted also the
opinion that the intertropical zone was uninhabitable, and, like other
historians, he taught that the Nile came from the unknown land in the
east, descended to the south, crossed the ocean which separated the
antichthone from Africa, and then alone became: visible. The
geographical and cosmographical ideas that were then prevalent may also
be judged of by what S. Avitus, a Latin poet of the sixth century and
nephew of the Emperor Flavius Avitus, says in his poem on the Creation,
where he describes the terrestrial Paradise. "Beyond India," he writes,
"_where the world commences_, where the confines of heaven and earth are
joined, is an exalted asylum, inaccessible to mortals, and closed by
eternal barriers, since the first sin was committed."
In a treatise on astronomy, published a little after this in 1581, by
Apian and Gemma Frison, they very distinctly state their belief in a
round earth, though they do not go into details of its surface. The
argument is the old one from eclipses, but the figures they give in
illustration are very amusing, with three or four men of the size of the
moon disporting themselves on the earth's surface. As, however, they all
have their feet to the globe representing the earth, and consequently
have their feet in opposite directions at the antipodes, the idea is
very clearly shown.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.]
"If," they say, "the earth were square, its shadow on the
moon would be square also.
"If the earth were triangular, its shadow, during an eclipse of the
moon, would also be triangular.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.]
"If the earth had six sides, its shadow would have the same figure.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.]
"Since, then, the shadow of the earth is round, it is a proof that the
earth is round also."
This of course is one of the proofs that would be employed in the
present day for the same purpose.
The most remarkable of all the fantastical systems, however, the _chef
d'oeuvre_ of the cosmography of that age, was the famous system of the
square earth, with solid walls for supporting the heavens. Its author
was _Cosmas_, surnamed _Indicopleustes_ after his voyage to India and
Ethiopia. He was at first a merchant, and afterwards a monk. He died in
550. His manuscript was entitled "Christian Topography," and was written
in 535. It was with the object of refuting the opinions of those who
gave a spherical form to the earth that Cosmas composed his work after
the systems of the Church Fathers, and in opposition to the cosmography
of the Gentiles. He reduced to a systematic form the opinions of the
Fathers, and undertook to explain all the phenomena of the heavens in
accordance with the Scriptures. In his first book he refutes the opinion
of the sphericity of the earth, which he regarded as a heresy. In the
second he expounds his own system, and the fifth to the ninth he devotes
to the courses of the stars. This mongrel composition is a singular
mixture of the doctrines of the Indians, Chaldeans, Greeks, and
Christian Fathers.
With respect to his opponents he says, "There are on all sides vigorous
attacks against the Church," and accuses them of misunderstanding
Scripture, being misled by the eclipses of the sun and moon. He makes
great fun of the idea of rain falling upwards, and yet accuses his
opponents of making the earth at the same time the centre and the base
of the universe. The zeal with which these pretended refutations are
used proves, no doubt, that in the sixth century there were some men,
more sensible and better instructed than others, who preserved the
deposit of progress accomplished by the Grecian genius in the
Alexandrian school, and defended the labours of Hipparchus and Ptolemy;
while it is manifest that the greater number of their contemporaries
kept the old Indian and Homeric traditions, which were easier to
understand, and more accessible to the false witness of the senses, and
not improved by combination with texts of Scripture misinterpreted. In
fact, cosmographical science in the general opinion retrograded instead
of advancing.
According to Cosmas and his map of the world, the habitable earth is a
plane surface. But instead of being supposed, as in the time of Thales,
to be a disc, he represented it in the form of a parallelogram, whose
long sides are twice the shorter ones, so that man is on the earth like
a bird in a cage. This parallelogram is surrounded by the ocean, which
breaks in in four great gulfs, namely, the Mediterranean and Caspian
seas, and the Persian and Arabian gulfs.
Beyond the ocean in every direction there exists another continent which
cannot be reached by man, but of which one part was once inhabited by
him before the Deluge. To the east, just as in other maps of the world,
and in later systems, he placed the _Terrestrial Paradise_, and the
four rivers that watered Eden, which come by subterranean channels to
water the post-diluvian earth.
After the Fall, Adam was driven from Paradise; but he and his
descendants remained on its coasts until the Deluge carried the ark of
Noah to our present earth.
On the four outsides of the earth rise four perpendicular walls, which
surround it, and join together at the top in a vault, the heavens
forming the cupola of this singular edifice.
The world, according to Cosmas, was therefore a large oblong box, and it
was divided into two parts; the first, the abode of men, reaches from
the earth to the firmament, above which the stars accomplish their
revolutions; there dwell the angels, who cannot go any higher. The
second reaches upwards from the firmament to the upper vault, which
crowns and terminates the world. On this firmament rest the waters of
the heavens.
Cosmas justifies this system by declaring that, according to the
doctrine of the Fathers and the Commentators on the Bible, the earth has
the form of the Tabernacle that Moses erected in the desert; which was
like an oblong box, twice as long as broad. But we may find other
similarities,--for this land beyond the ocean recalls the Atlantic of
the ancients, and the Mahomedans, and Orientals in general, say that the
earth is surrounded by a high mountain, which is a similar idea to the
walls of Cosmas.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--THE COSMOGRAPHY OF COSMAS.]
"God," he says, "in creating the earth, rested it on nothing. The earth
is therefore sustained by the power of God, the Creator of all things,
supporting all things by the word of His power. If below the earth, or
outside of it, anything existed, it would fall of its own accord. So God
made the earth the base of the universe, and ordained that it should
sustain itself by its own proper gravity."
After having made a great square box of the universe, it remained for
him to explain the celestial phenomena, such as the succession of days
and nights and the vicissitudes of the seasons.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--THE SQUARE EARTH.]
This is the remarkable explanation he gives. He says that the earth,
that is, the oblong table circumscribed on all sides by high walls, is
divided into three parts; first the habitable earth, which occupies the
middle; secondly, the ocean which surrounds this on all sides; and
thirdly, another dry land which surrounds the ocean, terminated itself
by these high walls on which the firmament rests. According to him the
habitable earth is always higher as we go north, so that southern
countries are always much lower than northern. For this reason, he says,
the Tigris and Euphrates, which run towards the south, are much more
rapid than the Nile, which runs northwards. At the extreme north there
is a large conical mountain, behind which the sun, moon, planets, and
comets all set. These stars never pass below the earth, they only pass
behind this great mountain, which hides them for a longer or shorter
time from our observation. According as the sun departs from or
approaches the north, and consequently is lower or higher in the
heavens, he disappears at a point nearer to or further from the base of
the mountain, and so is behind it a longer or shorter time, whence the
inequality of the days and nights, the vicissitudes of the seasons,
eclipses, and other phenomena. This idea is not peculiar to Cosmas, for
according to the Indians, the mountain of Someirat is in the centre of
the earth, and when the sun appears to set, he is really only hiding
behind this mountain.
His idea, too, of the manner in which the motions are performed is
strange, but may be matched elsewhere. "All the stars are created," he
says, "to regulate the days and nights, the months and the years, and
they move, not at all by the motion of the heaven itself, but by the
action of certain divine Beings, or _lampadophores_. God made the angels
for His service, and He has charged some of them with the motion of the
air, others with that of the sun, or the moon, or the other stars, and
others again with the collecting of clouds and preparing the rain."
Similar to this were the ideas of other doctors of the
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--EXPLANATION OF SUNRISE.]
Church, such as S. Hilary and Theodorus, some of whom supposed that the
angels carried the stars on their shoulders like the _omophores_ of the
Manichees; others that they rolled them in front of them or drew them
behind; while the Jesuit Riccioli, who made astronomical observations,
remarks that each angel that pushes a star takes great care to observe
what the others are doing, so that the relative distances between the
stars may always remain what they ought to be. The Abbot Trithemus gives
the exact succession of the seven angels or spirits of the planets, who
take it in turns during a cycle of three hundred and fifty-four years to
govern the celestial motions from the creation to the year 1522. The
system thus introduced seems to have been spread abroad, and to have
lingered even into the nineteenth century among the Arabs. A guide of
that nationality hired at Cairo in 1830, remarked to two travellers how
the earth had been made square and covered with stones, but the stones
had been thrown into the four corners, now called France, Italy,
England, and Russia, while the centre, forming a circle round Mount
Sinai, had been given to the Arabians.
Alongside of this system of the square was another equally curious--that
of the egg. Its author was the famous Venerable Bede, one of the most
enlightened men of his time, who was educated at the University of
Armagh, which produced Alfred and Alcuin. He says: "The earth is an
element placed in the middle of the world, as the yolk is in the middle
of an egg; around it is the water, like the white surrounding the yolk;
outside that is the air, like the membrane of the egg; and round all is
the fire which closes it in as the shell does. The earth being thus in
the centre receives every weight upon itself, and though by its nature
it is cold and dry in its different parts, it acquires accidentally
different qualities; for the portion which is exposed to the torrid
action of the air is burnt by the sun, and is uninhabitable; its two
extremities are too cold to be inhabited, but the portion that lies in
the temperate region of the atmosphere is habitable. The ocean, which
surrounds it by its waves as far as the horizon, divides it into two
parts, the upper of which is inhabited by us, while the lower is
inhabited by our antipodes; although not one of them can come to us, nor
one of us to them."
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--THE EARTH AS AN EGG.]
This last sentence shows that however far he may have been from the
truth, he did not, like so many of his contemporaries, stumble over the
idea of up and down in the universe, and so consider the notion of
antipodes absurd.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--THE EARTH AS A FLOATING EGG.]
A great number of the maps of the world of the period followed this
idea, and drew the world in the shape of an egg at rest. It was
broached, however, in another form by Edrisi, an Arabian geographer of
the eleventh century, who, with many others, considered the earth to be
like an egg with one half plunged into the water. The regularity of the
surface is only interrupted by valleys and mountains. He adopted the
system of the ancients, who supposed that the torrid zone was
uninhabited. According to him the known world only forms a single half
of the egg, the greater part of the water belonging to the surrounding
ocean, in the midst of which earth floats like an egg in a basin.
Several artists and map-makers adopted this theory in the geographical
representations, and so, whether in this way or the last, the egg has
had the privilege of representing the form of the earth for nearly a
thousand years.
The celebrated Raban Maur, of Mayence, composed in the ninth century a
treatise, entitled _De Universo_, divided into twenty-two books. It is a
kind of encyclopaedia, in which he gives an abridged view of all the
sciences. According to his cosmographic system the earth is in the form
of a wheel, and is placed in the middle of the universe, being
surrounded by the ocean; on the north it is bounded by the Caucasus,
which he supposes to be mountains of gold, which no one can reach
because of dragons, and griffins, and men of monstrous shape that dwell
there. He also places Jerusalem in the centre of the earth.
The treatise of Honorus, entitled _Imago Mundi_, and many other authors
of the same kind, represent, 1st, the terrestrial paradise in the most
easterly portion of the world, in a locality inaccessible to man; 2nd,
the four rivers which had their sources in Paradise; 3rd, the torrid
zone, uninhabited; 4th, fantastic islands, transformed from the Atlantis
into _Antillia_.
[Illustration: FIG 44.--EIGHTH CENTURY MAP OF THE WORLD.]
In a manuscript commentary on the Apocalypse, which is in the library of
Turin, is a very curious chart, referred to the tenth, but belonging
possibly to the eighth century. It represents the earth as a circular
planisphere. The four sides of the earth are each accompanied by a
figure of a wind, as a horse on a bellows, from which air is poured out,
as well as from a shell in his mouth. Above, or to the east, are Adam,
and Eve with the serpent. To their right is Asia with two very elevated
mountains--Cappadocia and Caucasus. From thence comes the river
_Eusis_, and the sea into which it falls forms an arm of the ocean which
surrounds the earth. This arm joins the Mediterranean, and separates
Europe from Asia. Towards the middle is Jerusalem, with two curious arms
of the sea running past it; while to the south there is a long and
straight sea in an east and west direction. The various islands of the
Mediterranean are put in a square patch, and Rome, France, and Germany
are indicated, while Thula, Britannia, and Scotia are marked as islands
in the north-west of the ocean that surrounds the whole world.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--TENTH CENTURY MAPS.]
We figure below two very curious maps of the world of the tenth
century--one of which is round, the other square. The first is divided
into three triangles; that of the east, or Asia, is marked with the name
of _Shem_; that of the north, or Europe, with that of _Japhet_; that of
the south, or Africa, with that of _Cham_. The second is also divided
between the three sons of Noah; the ocean surrounds it, the
Mediterranean forms the upright portion of a cross of water which
divides the Adamic world.
Omons, the author of a geographical poem entitled _The Image of the
World_, composed in 1265, who was called the Lucretius of the thirteenth
century, was not more advanced than the cosmographers of the former
centuries of which we have hitherto spoken. The cosmographical part of
his poem is borrowed from the system of Pythagoras and the Venerable
Bede. He maintains that the earth is enveloped in the heavens, as the
yoke in the white of an egg, and that it is in the middle as the centre
is within the circle, and he speaks like Pythagoras of the harmony of
the celestial spheres.
Omons supposed also that in his time the terrestrial paradise was still
existing in the east, with its tree of life, its four rivers, and its
angel with a flaming sword. He appears to have confounded Hecla with the
purgatory of St. Patrick, and he places the latter in Iceland, saying
that it never ceases to burn. The volcanoes were only, according to him,
the breathing places or mouths of the infernal regions. The latter he
placed with other cosmographers in the centre of the earth.
Another author, Nicephorus Blemmyde, a monk who lived during the same
century, composed three cosmographical works, among them the following:
_On the Heavens and the Earth, On the Sun and Moon, the Stars, and Times
and Days_. According to his system the earth is flat, and he adopts the
Homeric theory of the ocean surrounding the world, and that of the seven
climates.
Nicolas of Oresmus, a celebrated cosmographer of the fourteenth century,
although his celebrity as a mathematician attracted the attention of
King John of France, who made him tutor to his son Charles V., was not
wiser than those we have enumerated above. He composed among other works
a _Treatise on the Sphere_. He rejected the theory of an antichthonal
continent as contrary to the faith. A map of the world, prepared by him
about the year 1377, represents the earth as round, with one hemisphere
only inhabited, the other, or lower one, being plunged in the water. He
seems to have been led by various borrowed ideas, as, for instance,
theological ones, such as the statement in the Psalms that God had
founded the earth upon the waters, and Grecian ones borrowed from the
school of Thales, and the theories of the Arabian geographers. In fact
we have seen that Edrisi thought that half of the earth was in the
water, and Aboulfeda thought the same. The earth was placed by Nicolas
in the centre of the universe, which he represented by painting the sky
blue, and dotting it over with stars in gold.
Leonardo Dati, who composed a geographical poem entitled _Della Spera_,
during this century, advanced no further. A coloured planisphere showed
the earth in the centre of the universe surrounded by the ocean, then
the air, then the circles of the planets after the Ptolemaic system, and
in another representation of the same kind he figures the infernal
regions in the centre of the earth, and gives its diameter as seven
thousand miles. He proves himself not to have known one half of the
globe by his statement of the shape of the earth--that it is like a T
inside an O. This is a comparison given in many maps of the world in the
middle ages, the mean parallel being about the 36th degree of north
latitude, that is to say at the Straits of Gibraltar; the Mediterranean
is thus placed so as to divide the earth into two equal parts.
John Beauvau, Bishop of Angiers under Louis XL, expresses his ideas as
follows:--
"The earth is situated and rests in the middle of the firmament, as the
centre or point is in the middle of a circle. Of the whole earth
mentioned above only one quarter is inhabited. The earth is divided into
four parts, as an apple is divided through the centre by cutting it
lengthways and across. If one part of such an apple is taken and peeled,
and the peel is spread out over anything flat, such as the palm of the
hand, then it resembles the habitable earth, one side of which is
called the east, and the other the west."
The Arabians adopted not only the ideas of the ancients, but also the
fundamental notions of the cosmographical system of the Greeks. Some of
them, as _Bakouy_, regarded the earth as a flat surface, like a table,
others as a ball, of which one half is cut off, others as a complete
revolving ball, and others that it was hollow within. Others again went
as far as to say that there were several suns and moons for the several
parts of the earth.
In a map, preserved in the library at Cambridge, by Henry, Canon of St.
Marie of Mayence, the form of the world is given after Herodotus. The
four cardinal points are indicated, and the orientation is that of
nearly all the cartographic monuments of the middle ages, namely, the
east at the top of the map. The four cardinal points are four angels,
one foot placed on the disc of the earth; the colours of their vestments
are symbolical. The angel placed at the Boreal extremity of the earth,
or to the north of the Scythians, points with his finger to people
enclosed in the ramparts of Gog and Magog, _gens immunda_ as the legend
says. In his left hand he holds a die to indicate, no doubt, that there
are shut up the Jews who cast lots for the clothes of Christ. His
vestments are green, his mantle and his wings are red. The angel placed
to the left of Paradise has a green mantle and wings, and red vestments.
In his left hand he holds a kind of palm, and by the right he seems to
mark the way to Paradise. The position of the other angels placed at the
west of the world is different. They seem occupied in stopping the
passage beyond the _Columns_ (that is, the entrance to the Atlantic
Ocean). All of them have golden aureolas. The surrounding ocean is
painted of a clear green.
Another remarkable map of the world is that of Andrea Bianco. In it we
see Eden at the top, which represents the east, and the four rivers are
running out of it. Much of Europe is indicated, including Spain, Paris,
Sweden, Norway, Ireland, which are named, England, Iceland, Spitzbergen,
&c., which are not named. The portion round the North Pole to the left
is indicated as "cold beneath the Pole star." In these maps the
systematic theories of the ancient geographers seem mixed with the
doctrines of the Fathers of the Church. They place generally in the Red
Sea some mark denoting the passage of the Hebrews, the terrestrial
paradise at the extreme east, and Jerusalem in the centre. The towns are
figured often by edifices, as in the list of Theodosius, but without any
regard to their respective positions. Each town is ordinarily
represented by two towers, but the principal ones are distinguished by a
little wall that appears between these two towers, on which are painted
several windows, or else they may be known by the size of the edifices.
St. James of Compostella in Gallicia and Rome are represented by
edifices of considerable size, as are Nazareth, Troy, Antioch, Damascus,
Babylon, and Nineveh.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--THE MAP OF ANDREA BIANCO.]
One of the most remarkable monuments of the geography of the last
centuries of the middle ages is the map in Hereford Cathedral, by
Richard of Haldingham, not only on account of its numerous legends, but
because of its large dimensions, being several square yards in area.
On the upper part of this map is represented the Last Judgment; Jesus
Christ, with raised arms, holding in His hands a scroll with these
words, _Ecce testimonium meum_. At His side two angels carry in their
hands the instruments of His passion. On the right hand stands an angel
with a trumpet to his mouth, out of which come these words, _Levez si
vendres vous par_. An angel brings forward a bishop by the hand, behind
whom is a king, followed by other personages; the angel introduces them
by a door formed of two columns, which seems to serve as an entrance to
an edifice.
The Virgin is kneeling at the feet, of her Son. Behind her is another
woman kneeling, who holds a crown, which she seems ready to place on the
head of the Mother of Christ, and by the side of the woman is a kneeling
angel, who appears to be supporting the maternal intercessor. The Virgin
uncovers her breast and pronounces the words of a scroll which is held
by an angel kneeling in front of her, _Vei i b' fiz mon piz de deuiz
lauele chare preistes--Eles mame lettes dont leit de Virgin qui
estes--Syes merci de tous si com nos mesmes deistes.--R ... em ... ont
servi kaut sauveresse me feistes_.
To the left another angel, also with a trumpet to his mouth, gives out
the following words, which are written on a scroll, _Leves si alles all
fu de enfer estable_. A gate, drawn like that of the entrance,
represents probably the passage by which those must go out who are
condemned to eternal pains. In fact the devil is seen dragging after him
a crowd of men, who are tied by a cord which he holds in his hand.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--FROM THE MAP IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.]
The map itself commences at its upper part, that is, the east, by the
terrestrial paradise. It is a circle, in the centre of which is
represented the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve are
there in company with the serpent that beguiled them. The four legendary
rivers come out of the base of the tree, and they are seen below
crossing the map. Outside Eden the flight of the first couple, and the
angel that drove them away, are represented. At this extreme eastern
portion is the region of giants with the heads of beasts. There, too,
is seen the first human habitation, or town, built by Enoch. Below
appears the Tower of Babel. Near this are two men seated on a hill close
to the river Jaxartes; one of them is eating a human leg and the other
an arm, which the legend explains thus:--"Here live the Essedons, whose
custom it is to sing at the funerals of their parents; they tear the
corpses with their teeth, and prepare their food with these fragments of
flesh, mixed with that of animals. In their opinion it is more
honourable to the dead to be enclosed in the bodies of their relations
than in those of worms."
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--FROM THE MAP IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.
Tower of Babel.
Essedons.
Dragons.
Pigmies.
The Monoceros.
The Mantichore.
A Sphinx.
The King of the Cyclops.
Blemmye.
Parasol lip.
Monocle.]
Below are seen dragons and pigmies, always to the east of Asia, and a
little further away in the midst of a strange country, _the King of the
Cyclops_.
This extraordinary geography shows us in India the "Mantichore, who has
a triple range of teeth, the face of a man, blue eyes, the red colour of
blood, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion; its voice is a
whistle."
On the north of the Ganges is represented a man with one leg, shading
his head with his foot, which is explained by the following legend:--"In
India dwell the Monocles, who have only one leg, but who nevertheless
move with surprising velocity; when they wish to protect themselves from
the heat of the sun they make a shadow with the sole of their foot,
which is very large."
The Blemmys have their mouth and eyes in their chest; others have their
mouths and eyes on their shoulders. The Parvini are Ethiopians that have
four eyes.
To the east of Syene is a man seated who is covering his head with his
lip, "people who with their prominent lip shade their faces from the
sun."
Above is drawn a little sun, with the word _sol_. Then comes an animal
of human form, having the feet of a horse and the head and beak of a
bird; he rests on a stick, and the legend tells us it is a satyr; the
fauns, half men and half horses; the cynocephales--men with the head of
a dog; and the cyanthropes--dogs with the heads of men. The sphinx has
the wings of a bird, the tail of a serpent, the head of a woman. It is
placed in the midst of the Cordilleras, which are joined to a great
chain of mountains. Here lastly is seen the _monoceros_, a terrible
animal; but here is the marvel: "When one shows to this _monoceros_ a
young girl, who, when the animal approaches, uncovers her breast, the
monster, forgetting his ferocity, lays his head there, and when he is
asleep may be taken defenceless."
Near to the lake Meotides is a man clothed in Oriental style, with a hat
that terminates in a point, and holding by the bridle a horse whose
harness is a human skin, and which is explained thus by the Latin
legend: "Here live the griffins, very wicked men, for among other crimes
they proceed so far as to make clothes for themselves and their horses
out of the skins of their enemies."
More to the south is a large bird, the ostrich; according to the legend,
"the ostrich has the head of a goose, the body of a crane, the feet of a
calf; it eats iron."
Not far from the Riphean Mountains two men with long tunics and round
bonnets are represented in the attitude of fighting; one brandishes a
sword, the other a kind of club, and the legend tells us, "The customs
of the people of the interior of Scythia are somewhat wild; they inhabit
caves; they drink the blood of the slain by sucking their wounds; they
pride themselves on the number of people they have slain--not to have
slain any one in combat is reckoned disgraceful."
Near the river that empties itself into the Caspian Sea it is written:
"This river comes from the infernal regions; it enters the sea after
having descended from mountains covered with wood, and it is there, they
say, that the mouth of hell opens."
To the south of this river, and to the north of Hyrcania, is represented
a monster having the body of a man, the head, tail, and feet of a bull:
this is the Minotaur. Further on are the mountains of Armenia, and the
ark of Noah on one of its plateaux. Here, too, is seen a large tiger,
and we read: "The tiger, when he sees that he has been deprived of his
young, pursues the ravisher precipitately; but the latter, hastening
away on his swift horse, throws a mirror to him and is safe."
Elsewhere appears Lot's wife changed into a pillar of salt; the lynx who
can see through a stone wall; the river Lethe; so called because all who
drink of it forget everything.
Numerous other details might be mentioned, but enough has been said to
show the curious nature and exceeding interest of this map, in which
matters of observation and imagination are strangely mixed. Another very
curious geographical document of that epoch is the map of the world of
the _Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis_. This belongs to the fourteenth
century. The capitals here too are represented by edifices. The
Mediterranean is a vertical canal, which goes from the Columns of
Hercules to Jerusalem. The Caspian Sea communicates with it to the
north, and the Red Sea to the south-east, by the Nile. It preserves the
same position for Paradise and for the land of Gog and Magog that we
have seen before. The geography of Europe is very defective. Britannia
and Anglia figure as two separate islands, being represented off the
west coast of Spain, with Allemania and Germania, also two distinct
countries, to the north. The ocean is represented as round the whole,
and the various points of the compass are represented by different kinds
of winds on the outside.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--COSMOGRAPHY OF ST. DENIS.]
This was the general style of the maps of the world at that period, as
we may perceive from the various illustrations we have been able to
give, and it curiously initiates us into the mediaeval ideas. Sometimes
they are surrounded by laughable figures of the winds with inflated
cheeks, sometimes there are drawn light children of Eolus seated on
leathern bottles, rotating the liquid within; at other times, saints,
angels, Adam and Eve, or other people, adorn the circumference of the
map. Within are shown a profusion of animals, trees, populations,
monuments, tents, draperies, and monarchs seated on their thrones--an
idea which was useful, no doubt, and which gave the reader some
knowledge of the local riches, the ethnography, the local forms of
government and of architecture in the various countries represented; but
the drawings were for the most part childish, and more fantastic than
real. The language, too, in which they were written was as mixed as the
drawings; no regularity was preserved in the orthography of a name,
which on the same map may be written in ten different ways, being
expressed in barbarous Latin, Roman, or Old French, Catalan, Italian,
Castilian, or Portuguese!
During the same epoch other forms of maps in less detail and of smaller
size show the characters that we have seen in the maps of earlier
centuries.
Marco Polo, the traveller, at the end of the fourteenth century, has
preserved in his writings all the ancient traditions, and united them in
a singular manner with the results of his own observations. He had not
seen Paradise, but he had seen the ark of Noah resting on the top of
Ararat. His map of the world, preserved in the library at Stockholm, is
oval, and represents two continents.
In that which we inhabit, the only seas indicated are the Mediterranean
and the Black Sea. Asia appears at the east, Europe to the north, and
Africa to the south. The other continent to the south of the equator,
which is not marked, is Antichthonia.
In a map of the world engraved on a medal of the fifteenth century
during the reign of Charles V. there is still a reminiscence of the
ideas of the concealed earth and Meropides, as described by Theopompus.
We see the winds as cherubim; Europe more accurately represented than
usual; but Africa still unknown, and a second continent, called Brumae,
instead of Antichthonia, with imaginary details upon it.
[Illustration: FIG. 50--THE MAP OF MARCO POLO.]
If such were the ideas entertained amongst the most enlightened nations,
what may we expect among those who were less advanced? It would take us
too long to describe all that more Eastern nations have done upon this
point since the commencement of our present era, but we may give an
example or two from the Arabians.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--MAP ON A MEDAL OF CHARLES V.]
In the ancient Arabian chronicle of Tabari is a system founded on the
earth being the solid foundation of all things; we read: "The prophet
says, the all-powerful and inimitable Deity has created the mountain of
Kaf round about the earth; it has been called the foundation pile of the
earth, as it is said in the Koran, 'The mountains are the piles.' This
world is in the midst of the mountain of Kaf, just as the finger is in
the midst of the ring. This mountain is emerald, and blue in colour; no
man can go to it, because he would have to pass four months in darkness
to do so. There is in that mountain neither sun, nor moon, nor stars;
it is so blue that the azure colour you see in the heavens comes from
the brilliancy of the mountain of Kaf, which is reflected in the sky. If
this were not so the sky would not be blue. All the mountains that you
see are supported by Kaf; if it did not exist, all the earth would be in
a continual tremble, and not a creature could live upon its surface. The
heavens rest upon it like a tent."
Another Arabian author, Benakaty, writing in 1317, says: "Know that the
earth has the form of a globe suspended in the centre of the heavens. It
is divided by the two great circles of the meridian and equator, which
cut each other at light angles, into four equal parts, namely, those of
the north-west, north-east, south-west, and south-east. The inhabited
portion of the earth is situated in the southern hemisphere, of which
one half is inhabited."
Ibn-Wardy, who lived in the same century, adopted the idea of the ocean
surrounding all the earth, and said we knew neither its depth nor its
extent.
This ocean was also acknowledged by the author of the Kaf mountain; he
says it lies between the earth and that mountain, and calls it
Bahr-al-Mohith.
The end of the fifteenth century saw the dawn of a new era in knowledge
and science. The discoveries of Columbus changed entirely the aspect of
matters, the imagination was excited to fresh enterprises, and the
hardihood of the adventurers through good or bad success was such as
want of liberty could not destroy.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, Columbus imagined the earth to have the
shape of a pear. Not that he obtained this idea from his own
observations, but rather retained it as a relic of past traditions. It
is probable that it really dates from the seventh century. We may read
in several cosmographical manuscripts of that epoch, that the earth has
the form of a cone or a top, its surface rising from south to north.
These ideas were considerably spread by the compilations of John of
Beauvais in 1479, from whom probably Columbus derived his notion.
Although Columbus is generally and rightly known as the discoverer of
the New World, a very curious suit was brought by Pinzon against his
heirs in 1514. Pinzon pretended that the discovery was due to him alone,
as Columbus had only followed his advice in making it. Pinzon told the
admiral himself that the required route was intimated by an inspiration,
or revelation. The truth was that this "revelation" was due to a flock
of parrots, flying in the evening towards the south-west, which Pinzon
concluded must be going in the direction of an invisible coast to pass
the night in the bushes. Certainly the consequences of Columbus
resisting the advice of Pinzon would have been most remarkable; for had
he continued to sail due west he would have been caught by the Gulf
Stream and carried to Florida, or possibly to Virginia, and in this
case the United States would have received a Spanish and Catholic
population, instead of an English and Protestant one.
The discoveries of those days were often commemorated by the formation
of heraldic devices for the authors of them, and we have in this way
some curious coats of arms on record. That, for instance, of Sebastian
Cano was a globe, with the legend, _Primus circumdedisti me_. The arms
given to Columbus in 1493 consisted of the first map of America, with a
range of islands in a gulf. Charles V. gave to Diego of Ordaz the figure
of the Peak of Orizaba as his arms, to commemorate his having ascended
it; and to the historian Oviedo, who passed thirty-four years without
interruption (1513-47) in tropical America, the four beautiful stars of
the Southern Cross.
We have arrived at the close of our history of the attempts that
preceded the actual discovery of the form and constitution of the globe;
since these were established our further progress has been in matters of
detail. There now remains briefly to notice the attempts at discovering
the size of the earth on the supposition, and afterwards certainty, of
its being a globe.
The earliest attempt at this was made by Eratosthenes, 246 years before
our era, and it was founded on the following reasoning. The sun
illuminates the bottom of pits at Syene at the summer solstice; on the
same day, instead of being vertical over the heads of the inhabitants
of Alexandria, it is 7-1/4 degrees from the zenith. Seven-and-a-quarter
degrees is the fiftieth part of an entire circumference; and the
distance between the two towns is five thousand stadia; hence the
circumference of the earth is fifty times this distance, or 250 thousand
stadia.
A century before our era Posidonius arrived at an analogous result by
remarking that the star Canopus touched the horizon at Rhodes when it
was 7 degrees 12 minutes above that of Alexandria.
These measurements, which, though rough, were ingenious, were, followed
in the eighth century by similar ones by the Arabian Caliph, Almamoun,
who did not greatly modify them.
The first men who actually went round the world were the crew of the
ship under Magellan, who started to the west in 1520; he was slain by
the Philippine islanders in 1521, but his ship, under his lieutenant,
Sebastian Cano, returned by the east in 1522. The first attempt at the
actual measurement of a part of the earth's surface along the meridian
was made by Fernel in 1528. His process was a singular, but simple one,
namely, by counting the number of the turns made by the wheels of his
carriage between Paris and Amiens. He made the number 57,020, and
accurate measurements of the distance many years after showed he had not
made an error of more than four turns.
The astronomer Picard attempted it again under Louis XIV. by
triangulation.
The French astronomers have always been forward in this inquiry, and to
them we owe the systematic attempts to arrive at a truer knowledge of
the length of an arc of the meridian which were made in 1735-45 in
Lapland and in Peru; and later under Mechain and Delambre, by order of
the National Assembly, for the basis of the metrical system.
Observations of this kind have also been made by the English, as at
Lough Foyle in Ireland, and in India.
The review which has here been made of the various ideas on what now
seems so simple a matter cannot but impress us with the vast contrast
there is between the wild attempts of the earlier philosophers and our
modern affirmations. What progress has been made in the last two
thousand years! And all of this is due to hard work. The true revelation
of nature is that which we form ourselves, by our persevering efforts.
We now know that the earth is approximately spherical, but flattened by
about 1/300 at the poles, is three-quarters covered with water, and
enveloped everywhere by a light atmospheric mantle. The distance from
the centre of the earth to its surface is 3,956 miles, its area is 197
million square miles, its volume is 256,000 millions of cubic miles, its
weight is six thousand trillion tons. So, thanks to the bold
measurements of its inhabitants, we know as much about it as we are
likely to know for a long time to come.