in Reply to Mr. Beke. 197 



that historian's correctness upon this subject in nil points. 

 This authority is Pliny, or rather Juba as cited by Pliny, who 

 states, ' Euphrate navigari Babylonem e Persico mari 412 mill, 

 pass, tradunt Nearchus et Onesicritus. ,,, Who could suppose 

 there was such a sequel? Yet this insulated notice, labouring 

 under all the uncertainty as to Nearchus's correctness and 

 Pliny's alleged error and avowed difficulty, with his account 

 of discordant measurements in the first part of the same river 

 voyage, as far as Charax, are the important points in support 

 of the theory; the main difference between the whole and the 

 part appearing to be, that the number of miles in the one 

 is from the higher to the lower, in the other from the lower to 

 the higher; but as both seem to give them in the order of 

 time in which they were taken, it is unaccountable that Pliny 

 should hence have inferred, as he seems to have done, that 

 the differences in the first part of the voyage, — differences, too, 

 not corresponding with those of the whole distance, and from 

 which the confusion he complains of had chiefly arisen, — 

 should lead him to reconcile the former only by the notion 

 that a large increase had therefore been made to the land ; 

 and certainly serious doubts may thus well arise of the authen- 

 ticity of the latter passage. 



The reply, to remove a difficulty about the distance of 

 Charax from the sea, would suppose " the more correct con- 

 struction" to be, that this city was built by Alexander 50 miles 

 inland, Pliny having stated it in his time to be 120, thus ma- 

 king the whole advance of the delta, from Alexander to Pliny, 

 70 miles only. And we have seen, that long before the latter, the 

 two rivers met and passed in one channel to the sea. Now, we 

 shall not, I presume, be required to believe, that not only an 

 addition of some 200 miles of land has been made to this delta 

 since Pliny wrote, but also that the rivers have separated, 

 formed each a channel over it, and then again formed a junc- 

 tion and another joint channel, in due correspondence with 



pressly says,"Priusquamhaecgeneratim persequamur indicare convenit quae 

 prodit Onesicritus classe Alexandri circumvectus in Mediterranea Persedis 

 ex India narrata proxime a Juba .;" and he tells us, " Onesicriti et Nearchi 

 navigatio nee nomina habet mansionum nee spatia." Yet, as Salmasius 

 observes (830), Nearchus's account relates both very fully, and " Plinius ex 

 auctore Onesicriti eamdem retulit mirum quanta diversitate." Had Pliny 

 or Juba known much of Arrian's Nearchus, would they have followed the 

 loose story of Onesicritus? There is an authority, however, for about 3000 

 stadia, and it is Strabo; but we know that Strabo's rule was the stadium of 

 8 to a mile. He makes the distance from Thapsacus (El Deir) to Babylon 

 4800 stadia; adding the 3300 thence to the sea, we get 8100, which, at 8 

 to a mile, is 1012 miles: Col. Chesney makes it 1025 miles (Strabo, xv. 

 146. Report, &c), a difference between the ancient and modern admea- 

 surements of 13 miles only. If measurements are to decide on the growth 

 of the delta, what has been offered so conclusive as this? 



