Newton's
'Principia Mathematica Philosophie Naturalis' were not communicated in
manuscript to the Royal Society until April, 1686. Much uncertainty seems
to prevail regarding the birth-place of Varenius. Jaecher says it was
England, while, according to 'La Biographie Universelle' (b.xlvii., p. 495),
he is stated to have been born at Amsterdam; but it would appear, from the
dedicatory address to the burgomaster of that city (see his 'Geographia
Comparativa', that both suppositions are false. Varenius expressly says
that he had sought refuge in Amsterdam, "because his native city had been
burned and completely destroyed during a long war," words which appear to
apply to the north of Germany, and to the devastations of the Thirty Years'
War. In his dedication of another work, 'Descriptio regni Japoniae' (Amst.,
1649), to the Senate of Hamburgh, Varenius says that he prosecuted his
elementary mathematical studies in the gymnasium of that city. There is,
therefore, every reason to believe that this admirable geographer was a
native of Germany, and was probably born at Luneburg ('Witten. Mem. Theol.',
1685, p. 2142; Zedler, 'Universal Lexicon', vol. xlvi., 1745, p. 187).
p 67
He was the first to distinguish between 'general and special geography', the
former of which he subdivides into an 'absolute', or, properly speaking,
'terrestrial' part, and a 'relative or planetary' portion, according to the
mode of considering our planet either with reference to its surface in its
different zones, or to its relations to the sun and moon.
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