on,
as to have cultivated any species of grain.

Till the age of Herodotus the light of history is comparatively feeble and
broken; and where it does shine with more steadiness and brilliancy, its
rays are directed almost exclusively on the warlike operations of mankind.
Occasionally, indeed, we incidentally learn some new particulars respecting
the knowledge of the ancients in geography: but these particulars, as must
be obvious from the preceding part of this volume, are ascertained only
after considerable difficulty; and when ascertained, are for the most part
meagre, if not obscure. In the history of Herodotus, we, for the first
time, are able to trace the exact state and progress of geographical
knowledge; and from his time, our means of tracing it become more
accessible, as well as productive of more satisfactory results. Within one
hundred years after this historian flourished, geography derived great
advantages and improvement from a circumstance which, at first view, would
have been deemed adverse to the extension of any branch of science: we
allude to the conquests of Alexander the Great. This monarch seems to have
been actuated by a desire to be honoured as the patron of science, nearly
as strong as the desire to be known to posterity as the conquerer of the
world: the facilities he afforded to Aristotle in drawing up his natural
history, by sending him all the uncommon animals with which his travels and
his conquests supplied him, is a striking proof of this. With respect to
his endeavours to extend geographical knowledge,--this was so intimately
connected with his plans of conquest, that it may appear to be ascribing to
him a more honourable motive than influenced him, if we consider the
improvement that geography received through his means as wholly unconnected
with his character as a conquerer: that it was so, in some measure, however
is certain; for along with him he took several geographers, who were
directed and enabled to make observations both on the coasts and the
interior of the countries through which they passed; and from their
observations and discoveries, a new and improved geography of Asia was
framed. Besides, the books that till his time were shut up in the archives
of Babylon and Tyre were transferred to Alexandria; and thus the
astronomical and hydrographical observations of the Phoenicians and
Chaldeans, becoming accessible to the Greek philosophers, supplied them
with the means of foundin