Morning journal and courier., 1892-02-13
IN THE MECHANICS, COURSE.

IN THE MECHANICS, COURSE. Lecture by Professor Brewer to a Large and Interested Audience in North Sheffield Hall Last Evening" Photography When the World Was Flat''-Giv1ng Graphic Descriptions of the Conceptions of the Earth's Inhabitants Ages Ago.
 Professor Brewer lectured last evening to large and interested audience in North Sheffield hall. It was the first lecture of the mechanical course, and makes a most promising outlook for the remainder of ming.
 Professor Brewer is one of the most pop | ular professors in the Sheffield scientific l school, and is thoroughly conversant with the leading branches of scientific research. His subject was Geography When the Earth Was Flat" Illustrating the lecture as he proceeded with magic lantern views of old maps of the earth and grotesque and comical conceptions of it's inhabitants that some of those old travellers originated. He spoke somewhat as follows: "The world is round and like a ball, and swinging in the air; the sky extends around it all and stars are shining there. That was my very first lesson in book geography. It was taught me while was learning to read, from that most charming of elementary school books-Peter Parley's geography. Long before knew the simplest rudiments of the geography of any place beyond the hills in sight of my fathers and grand fathers doors, had already leaned this great truth in cosmography, that the earth is round, that it has neither ends nor corners, and that it is hung upon nothing with the stars and sky upon every side of it. And my experience was doubtless yours also. You were all doubtless taught that the world is round before you know what states or even what counties surround you. And that, too, was the experience of our parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents. It is one of the com honest items of Qpr stock of knowledge. This conception of the earth is so inter woven with our thought and our daily language that we cannot, even in our | imagination, put ourselves in the ignorant | position of the anoients who believed that l the earth was flat.
 The fact that the earth is round is now l impressed on the child's mind early, as an l 1 phenomena. He knows early that it is the | reason why he cannot see farther-a req son for day and night. But this, remem- beI, is modern knowledge.
 l For thousands of years the most learned 1 of philosophers did not get 80 far as that in the knowledge of nature. Plato, with all his learning, never got so far as that. 1 The world was flat to him. The solid mass of the earth was cube, evolved from pure reason. Plato was a philosophers man of science as science then was. His con- ception was far ahead of the Egyptian,
 which was half poetic, half ythologicsl
 pears two popular beliefs-one promul-
 gated by the Hebrew prophets that it was
 fiat, while on the other hand many of the
 Grecians believed that it was round. The
 Hebrew prophets speak of the Boomers
 and foundations" of the earth.
 From before the Christian era comes the
 popular belief that the world was flat
 But in the middle ages, perhaps earlier
 the two beliefs were made to agree in g
 measure. The priests made it both round
 and flat; round like wheel and the
 medivsel church saw in this symbol oi
 the Eucharist wafer.
 Geography is a description of the earth's
 surface, of the countries of the world and
 what is seen in them Every intelligen,
 man and woman has some definite knowl
 edge of the geography of his or her owr
 neighborhood. And if one's country ii
 small, it's geography is easily learned
 Consequently everybody has some loca
 knowledge of geography.
 Three things are necessary before there
 can be 8 science of geography or {
 knowledge of the geography of countries
 beyond our own.
 l 1st-Some person must travel and ses
 the countries.
 2d-The travellers must be able to writ,
 about and describe what they see.
 3rd-There must be come way of mak
 ing map of the country that is descrip
 tion other than writer's description.
 From the nature of the case; geographic
 al knowledge began very early, but th'
 growth Of the science was very slow. l took thousands of years to have any geo
 graphical science whatever. And the growtl
 was so slow that a century saw little gain The geographer of Ptolemy remained a l authority for over 1 200 years. He made map. But there was geography yer, much earlier than this. Herodotus, fou and half centuries before the Christia, era, wrote about and described the coun
 tries of the earth. He was great travel
 CT, too, but it is not easy now to say wha he wrote for actual truth and what iron the stories told him by other people He is called the father O geography, but I am not awar , that he made any maps , Little can be located from his descriptions The astronomer and geographer made dicearchus map about 300 B. 0. He frs
 used the north and south line or meridian
 of longitude, passing through Rhodes
 Hipparchus made a map 150 B. c. A cen l ha ,ha Ptolemy. His great work, 40 A. D., wa not so much of geography as an astrono
 my. It was thousand years after hi
 time before there was any material ad ) vance in our geographical knowledge
 Maps were published, but they were sat
 degenerations from his progressive method
 A series of the countries of the Roman
 Empire was made about 393. In the latte part of the next century-the eleventh continued for some two hundred years They put much life into the spirit of travel l | research and adventure.
 The limitations put OF modern belief b, t science did not then exist. There was tt , the majority of the people, and even tn,
 learned, no impronability in the wildes stories. They were simply matters o fact, disbelievers of which could give n' ! reason for their disbelief Good people leaders in religious thought, told about a l big stories as anyone else. The oldes l book in my library is the pilgrimage O St. Katherine te the holy grave, printed il 148S. She saw on her travels creature
 whether man or beast we cannot say, ant
 the dragon with his birbid tail Whe1
 holy saints saw such things what mus the less piously inclined travellers hay, } seen. And they did see wonderful things 7 One old traveller who went to sea il
 great ships and saw the wonders of tn, , | Lord tells us of the Island of Macumeral where the natives have the heads of dogs But there can be no civilization withou | l commerce. A single country may be abl to feed it's inhabitants and cloth them-s,
 far as the animal wants are concerned
 But any and every civilized country want 7 many things from beyond their owl , borders-foreign commerce-and tn, I knowledge that has planned pure commer , cial relations with other people has beer
 8 great civilizer. From remote periot
 there has been some trade between the na
 tions of Eastern and North Eastern Asi, 7 and Europe. There were caravan routes , 1 across overland and some products cam. by sea. There was early trade with Indii too and Friar Rubruguis penetrated Cen
 tral Asia long before Marco Polo.
 Sir John Vaudeville was one of the mos
 popular of early English travellers. Pre- { cisely when he travelled we cannot deter mine. During the period between thu
 travellers just mentioned and the time O.