MODERN GEOGRAPHY SIMPLIFIED: TO WHICH ARE APPENDED BRIEF NOTICES OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY, WITH SELECT SKETCHES OF THE RUINS OF ANCIENT CITIES. SECOND EDITION, REVISED. LONDON: SIMMS AND M'INTYRE, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND DONEGALL STREET, BELFAST. 1852. 201.9.29. PREFACE. THE Author of Modern Geography Simplified feels that some explanation is due with reference to the alterations made in the present edition. The First Course and the Second Course of lessons have been considerably extended, at the suggestion of experienced teachers; and the Third Course, as formerly published, embracing notices of European colonization, with moral and historical observations on the principal nations of the earth, is omitted. This omission has been made with the view of introducing more extended details on these important points in a forthcoming volume, which may be regarded as a Sequel to the present one. As stated in the Preface to the first edition, the entire work owes its existence to an earnest desire to see geography used as a vehicle for the diffusion of correct Christian sentiments on those causes which are most active in promoting or retarding the happiness of nations. But to do this in regular order, we must first go through the preliminary steps of introducing the young student to an intimate acquaintance with the numerous localities on the surface of the globe, including the political divisions and subdivisions of territories; and this is the province assigned to Modern Geography Simplified. Then must succeed the more expansive details of Physical Geography, in the course of which the distribution of man over the surface of the earth, and the causes which have most materially influenced his terrestrial happiness, are brought under review. These are treated of in the Sequel, which, under the title of Geography Amplified, is to follow the present volume. A FEW WORDS ON THE BEST MODE OF USING THIS GEOGRAPHY.— The Author would suggest that the pupil should be led two or three times over the First Course of lessons before the second be entered on; and, further, would recommend the plan, on first going over, of having the lesson which the class is to be questioned on to-morrow read for them to-day by a fluent reader, whilst an advanced pupil, or the teacher himself, in sight of the class, follows on the map from place to place as suggested by the lesson. The children will thus be not only assisted in learning the pronunciation of geographical names new to them, but be enabled at home with greater ease to find on the map those localities they are to be questioned on next day. The above remarks are the result of the intimate acquaintance and sympathy of a mother with the difficulties of little children, in their early efforts to acquire the rudiments of geographical knowledge. CONTENTS. PAGE Fifteen European Kingdoms: Sweden and Norway, Spain, Great Britain and Ireland, Prussia, Naples and Sicily, Por- tugal, Bavaria, Sardinian States, Denmark, Greece, Hanover, Holland, Belgium, Wurtemberg, and Saxony, with their Five European Republics: France, Switzerland, Ionian Islands, Comparative Importance of the Sovereign States of Europe European Ruins and Curiosities: Six Lessons Asia.-Its Area, Principal Physical Features, and Subdivisions: Africa.-Principal Physical Features and Local Divisions: Two |