IS THE WORLD FLAT?

Still, although the men of ancient time were learning fast about the land and sea, they were woefully ignorant. Hesiod, a Greek poet, who lived seven hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, declared that the world was flat, and the ocean stream or the "perfect river," as he called it, flowed round and round, encompassing all things.

Still, there was something beyond the water—something dim, mysterious, unknowable. It might be the "Islands of the Blest"; it might be the "sacred isle." One thing he asserted firmly: "Atlas upholds the broad Heaven ... standing on earth's verge with head and unwearied hands," while the clear-voiced Hesperides guarded their beautiful golden apples "beyond the waters of Ocean."

"Hesperus and his daughters three
That sung about the golden tree."

But who thinks now of the weary Titan doomed for ever to support the ancient world on his head and hands, when the atlas of to-day is brought forth for a lesson in geography?

About this time comes a story—it may be fact or it may be fiction—that the Phoenicians had sailed right round Africa. The voyage was arranged by Neco, an enterprising Egyptian king, who built his ships in the Red Sea in the year 613 B.C. The story is told by Herodotus, the Greek traveller, many years afterwards.

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, AS SHOWN IN A MEDIÆVAL MAP.
Higden's Map of the World, 1360 A.D.

"Libya," he says, "is known to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Neco, the Egyptian king, who sent a number of ships manned by Phoenicians with orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules (now known as the Straits of Gibraltar), and return to Egypt through them and by the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythræan Sea, and so sailed into the Southern Ocean. When autumn came (it is supposed they left the Red Sea in August) they went ashore, wherever that might happen to be, and, having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they set sail, and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules and made good their voyage home. On their return they declared (I, for my part, says Herodotus, do not believe them, but perhaps others may) that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered."