Ancient people had little idea of the nature of the earth’s surface. But if they lived on the seashore, they knew that there was land and sea. People who lived near the sea noticed that there were two kinds of land. There were, first, little pieces of land surrounded by sea. One Latin word for “sea” is “salum”, which means “salt”. This is because sea water, unlike rain-water, contains salt—it is salty. So, a piece of land in the sea was “in salt” in Latin, and this became isle in English. Then there was another kind of land that went on and on. It was “continuous” land, and so became known as continent in English from the Latin “continens” meaning continuous. In English, we also speak of a continent as the mainland (“main” comes from the Latin “magnus” meaning “great”), as opposed to island (isle-land). To the ancient Greek, there seemed to be three continents separated by sea. The Mediterranean Sea, in fact, gets its name from the Latin “medius” (middle) and “terra” (land). It was a sea that lay in the middle, with three bodies of land it. The three continents—Asia, Europe and Africa—are actually connected by land. Africa and Asia are connected by only the small Sinai Isthmus, from the Greek “isthnus” meaning “a narrow passage”, but Europe and Asia are connected by land for a thousand miles or more and it is customary to speak of Europe as a continent. Many geographers speak of the landmass of Asia plus Europe as Eurasia, and Eurasia plus Africa is sometimes called the World Island. The three together are surrounded by sea, so they from a large island, and they contain about 85% of the earth’s population. (290 words)