out in what manner
Geography was at first fixed on the basis of science, and has subsequently,
at various periods, been extended and improved, in proportion as those
branches of physical knowledge which could lend it any assistance, have
advanced towards perfection. We shall thus, we trust, be enabled to place
before our readers a clear, but rapid view of the surface of the globe,
gradually exhibiting a larger portion of known regions, and explored seas,
till at last we introduce them to the full knowledge of the nineteenth
century. In the course of this part of our work, decisive and instructive
illustrations will frequently occur of the truth of these most important
facts,--that one branch of science can scarcely advance, without advancing
some other branches, which in their turn, repay the assistance they have
received; and that, generally speaking, the progress of intellect and
morals is powerfully impelled by every impulse given to physical science,
and can go on steadily and with full and permanent effect, only by the
intercourse of civilised nations with those that are ignorant and
barbarous.

But our work embraces another topic; the progress of commercial enterprise
from the earliest period to the present time. That an extensive and
interesting field is thus opened to us will be evident, when we contrast
the state of the wants and habits of the people of Britain, as they are
depicted by Caesar, with the wants and habits even of our lowest and poorest
classes. In Caesar's time, a very few of the comforts of life,--scarcely one
of its meanest luxuries,--derived from the neighbouring shore of Gaul, were
occasionally enjoyed by British Princes: in our time, the daily meal of the
pauper who obtains his precarious and scanty pittance by begging, is
supplied by a navigation of some thousand miles, from countries in opposite
parts of the globe; of whose existence Caesar had not even the remotest
idea. In the time of Caesar, there was perhaps no country, the commerce of
which was so confined:--in our time, the commerce of Britain lays the whole
world under contribution, and surpasses in extent and magnitude the
commerce of any other nation.

The progress of discovery and of commercial intercourse are intimately and
almost necessarily connected; where commerce does not in the first instance
prompt man to discover new countries, it is sure, if these countries are
not totally worthless, to lead him thoroughly to explore the