The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.
Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance. He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original observer,--his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible; but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural History treats of everything in the natural world,--of the heavenly bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants, of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research; but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's masterpiece.