The history of the progress of geographical knowledge is calculated more than that of any other branch of learning to illustrate the progressive civilisation of mankind. It has for its object, in some measure, the diffusion of the species, but is more immediately connected with the advancement of navigation and commercial enterprise. Instead of confining the attention to the fortunes of a particular community, it carries the eye of the enquirer continually abroad, to survey all the nations of the earth, to mark the knowledge they obtained of one another, and the extent of their mutual acquaintance.

The principal charm of savage life arises from the unlimited range which it allows over the face of nature. Those who have once tasted the pleasure of roving at large through woods and mountains, can never afterwards feel happy under the restraints of society. Curiosity and the love of action, no less than their wants, must have continually urged the earliest inhabitants of the globe to explore all the varieties of its surface. Pastoral tribes feel an interest in learning the nature of the country in the vicinity of their encampments, the extent of its pastures, and the rivers which flow through and refresh it. But the observations of a rude age are seldom accumulated beyond the wants of the present moment. The movements by which those nomades acquire the knowledge along with the possession of new regions, generally lead to a total forgetfulness of their old habitations little correspondence is maintained by those who migrate with those who remain behind: so that in a short time the geographical knowledge of migratory nations is reduced to obscure and fading traditions.