Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Asia

ASIA. Under this head in the Encyclopædia, there is a general survey of Asia and its Divisions, and of the prevailing manners, religions, and institutions of its chief Communities. We have, in this volume, already treated in a general way of those grand Divisions of our Globe, Africa and America, and notwithstanding the extent of the space devoted to Asia in the body of the work, the recent acquisitions to our knowledge of that Continent might also, without impropriety, have been made the subject of a supplemental article in this place; but as these additions are more susceptible, than in the case either of Africa or America, of being separately introduced under the names of particular Countries and Islands, we shall, in order to save room for other matters, adopt that course in regard to the recent improvements in Asiatic geography.

 

it is proper to mention, that the best of the later Geographers have separated a vast number of Islands formerly described as Asiatic Islands, from that Continent, and arranged them with a multitude of other Countries and Islands to the south of Asia, and in the Pacific Ocean, under the two new divisions of Australasia and Polynesia. The grounds of this arrangement, which was first suggested by the learned President des Brosses, are stated with sufficient clearness by Mr Pinkerton, in his introductory observations on the Asiatic Islands; and the reader of this work will also find them explained under our articles on Australasia and Polynesia.

 

We may here observe generally, that a great deal yet remains to be done in order to complete the geography of Asia. Its central mountains, perhaps the most stupendous masses on the Globe, present a wholly unexplored field of inquiry; the origin, the course, and progressive increase of some of its greatest rivers, remain still to be ascertained; and scarce any of its internal seas, except the Caspian, has been the subject of actual survey. The interior regions of Siberia require much illustration. The same may be said, and perhaps in a still stronger degree, of the central parts of Tartary, of the northern parts of China, and of those of India. As to the probable population of this Continent, it is enough to say, that differences of a hundred millions exist in regard to that of China alone. From all this it appears how very defective our knowledge is of this important Division of the Globe, and what a vast and varied field it still presents to incite the inquiries, and reward the enterprise of future Explorers.