If A Ship Has Not _Much Way_ Through The
Water, These Weeds Will Impede Her Course.
It has been very justly
remarked, that if the latitude where these weeds commence was accurately
determined, it would fix exactly the extent of the voyages of the
Carthaginians in this direction.
The weed alluded to is probably the fucus
natans, or gulf-weed.
Hitherto the knowledge that the ancients possessed of the habitable world,
had not been collected by any writer, and is to be gathered entirely from
short, vague, and evidently imperfect narrations, scattered throughout a
great number of authors. Herodotus has been celebrated as the father of
history; he may with equal justice be styled the father of geographical
knowledge: he flourished about 474 years before Christ. In dwelling upon
the advances to geographical knowledge which have been derived from him, it
will be proper and satisfactory, before we explain the extent and nature of
them, to give an account of the sources from which he derived his
information; those were his own travels, and the narrations or journals of
other travellers. A great portion of the vigour of his life seems to have
been spent in travelling; the oppressive tyranny of Lygdamis over
Halicarnassus, his native country, first induced or compelled him to
travel; whether he had not also imbibed a portion of the commercial
activity and enterprize which distinguished his countrymen, is not known,
but is highly probable. We are not informed whether his fortune were such
as to enable him, without entering into commercial speculations, to support
the expences of his travels; it is evident, however, from the extent of his
travels, as well as from the various, accurate, and, in many cases, most
important information, which he acquired, that these expences must have
been very considerable.
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