, but in all
probability actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where
he imagines the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there,
he says, they must have very thick skins to defend them from the
rigor of the climate, and they are probably of a white color. The
intensity of cold is, {316} however, tempered by the action of the
sea. He describes the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and
divides the climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a
scholar's freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that
persons living at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an
opinion that can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, _'for when
we speak of the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as
relatively to ourselves.'_

"It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to the writers of
his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the astonishing
ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is truly
admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain chains of
Europe, with the rivers which take their source in each; remarking
on portions of coast which have in later times been submerged by the
ocean, and islands which have been raised by volcanic action above
the level of the sea; noticing the modification of climate caused by
mountains, seas and forests, and the division of the human race,
whose differences he ascribes to the effect upon them of the
countries they inhabit. In speaking of the British Isles, he alludes
to the commonly-received idea that another distant island called
Thile, or Thule, existed far in the Western Ocean, uninhabitable by
reason of its frightful climate, but which, he says, has perhaps not
yet been visited by man."

In only needs to be said in addition to this, that Albert had more
than a vague hint of the possible existence of land on the other side
of the globe. He gives an elaborate demonstration of the sphericity of
the earth, and it has been suggested by more than one scholar that his
views on this subject led eventually to the discovery of America.

Humboldt, the distinguished German natural philosopher of the
beginning of the nineteenth century, who was undoubtedly the most
important figure in scientific thought in his own time, and whose own
work was great enough to have an enduring influence even down to our
{317} day, in spite of the immense progress made during th