Re: The Origins of Continents

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

am I right to say that the division between Europe and Asia (which aren't separate continents, strictly speaking) simply reflects the "us" vs. "them" attitudes of the ancient Greeks?
Jim Devine 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Shane Mage [mailto:shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
	Sent: Tue 5/25/2004 9:23 PM 
	To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Origins of Continents
	
	

	Jayson Funke asks:
	
	"Can anyone tell me of [the] origin of the term continents?"
	
	The term is of Greek origin, *epeiros*.  It seems to have been first
	used in the sense of "continent" by Herodotos.  Plato, at Timaios 25A,
	speaks of the American  continent:  "...all that we have
	here, lying within the Pillars of Herakles, is evidently a bay with
	a narrow entrance [in Phaedo he compares the Mediterranean  to a frog
	pond] but that yonder [the Atlantic] is a real ocean, and the land
	surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest
	sense, a continent."
	
	Shane Mage
	
	"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
	things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even
	downright silly.
	
	When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
	things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true."  (N.
	Weiner)