Book 9780371932971

A Compleat System Of General Geography: Explaining The Nature And Properties Of The Earth, Viz. It's Figure, Magnitude, Motions, Situation, Contents, And Division Into Land And Water, Mountains, Woods, Desarts, Lakes, Rivers, &C by Bernhardus Varenius. The excerpt presents an early modern, comprehensive geography that treats the Earth through a systematic, mathematical lens and offers practical guidance for students, travelers, and sailors. It divides knowledge into Universal Geography (absolute), Relative Geography, and the Comparative Part, with this selection centering on the Absolute Part and its preliminaries. Core definitions describe geography as the mixed mathematics of the Earth—its figure, place, magnitude, motion, and celestial appearances—distinguishing universal from particular places and chorographical/topographical forms. Three modes of reasoning are outlined: geometrical/arithmetic/trigonometric propositions, astronomical precepts, and empirical experience, with an emphasis on geometry and measurement and numerous demonstrations. The text defends a spherical Earth, surveys historic measurement methods, and provides a geometry/trigonometry primer for navigation. Editorial notes announce Copernican updates and modernized indices, and the work is pitched to university readers as well as seamen and travelers.