In the century and a half after the discovery of America important theoretical work was done by Peter Apian, Sebastian Münster, Philip Cluwer, Nathanael Carpenter and Bernhard Varenius, for which see the biographical articles. The next century (1650–1760) saw little worth mentioning in geographical theory or method. Then, with the sudden burst of activity that so often follows scientific hibernation, came the important work of Torbern Bergman, a Swedish chemist and a pupil of the great botanist Linnaeus, and the lectures delivered at Königsberg after 1765 by the German philosopher Kant. They both put new stress on physical geography—see the articles on Bergman (Vol. 3, p. 774) and Kant (Vol. 15, p. 662). Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Ritter (see the articles on both) in the first half of the 19th century supported, the one the unity of nature, and the other the comparative method, thus preparing the way for Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which “has become the unifying principle in geography.” Since the adoption of this theory, some of the more important names in geographical theory—each the subject of an article in the Britannica which the student should read—are: Baron von Richthofen, Hermann Wagner, Elisée Reclus and A. de Lapparent.
Geographical Discovery
Early travel and exploration is a story of varied interest even when we approach it from the only side on which we have material—that is to say “geographical exploration from the Mediterranean centre.”
Early conquest of outlying peoples by the warlike kings of Egypt and Assyria may have momentarily increased geographical knowledge, but it is unimportant in the large story. The first great explorers were the earliest traders, the Phoenicians and their African colonists, the Carthaginians, who traded throughout the Mediterranean, possibly on the east coast of Africa and in the northern seas, and almost certainly on the west coast of Africa. For details supplementing the outline in the article Geography (p. 623, Vol. 11), see the articles Phoenicia (Vol. 21, pp. 454–455), Sidon, Tyre, Ophir, Carthage, and Hanno, the African explorer. On the only Greek explorer of eminence see the article on Pytheas of Marseilles (Vol. 22, p. 703), who, about 330 B.C., explored the British coast and the Baltic, and may have gone as far north as Iceland. Alexander the Great (see the biographical article) and his successors explored the East, “thus opening direct intercourse between Grecian and Hindu civilization.”
The Romans were poor seamen and accomplished little as explorers. It has often been pointed out that the Greeks spoke of the “watery ways” of the sea, considering it a highway, but that the Romans, centuries later too, called the sea “dissociable,” that is “preventing and hindering intercourse.”
The Arabs and Northmen
The Arabs were the leading geographers of the Middle Ages, and among their great travelers on whom there are separate articles in the Britannica are Masudi, Ibn Haukal, Idrisi, and in the 14th century Ibn Batuta. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Norseman Ohthere rounded the North Cape and saw the midnight sun; Iceland was colonized from Norway; Eric the Red discovered Greenland; and his son Leif Ericsson sailed along a part of the North American coast: see the articles Iceland, Greenland, Vinland, Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlsefni.
The crusades made Europe a little more familiar with the East and opened the way for travel and pilgrimage. In general see the summary Results of the Crusades (p. 546, Vol. 7) at the close of the article Crusades; and particularly see Benjamin of Tudela (Vol. 3, p. 739) for a Jewish traveler of the 12th century who went as far east as the frontiers of China.
13th Century
Before the new age of real exploration began, in the 15th century, there was an age of travel, especially in Asia during the 13th century, which did much to rouse popular curiosity about the ends of the earth. Though these travelers were not scientifically trained, modern research shows a remarkable proportion of fact in their stories. The great names of this era: Joannes de Plano Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi and head of a Catholic mission to Mongolia; William of Rubruquis, a Fleming who went to Tartary under orders from Louis IX of France; Hayton, King of Armenia, who traveled in Mongolia about the middle of the century; Odoric, a Catholic friar of the 14th century; and Marco Polo,