198 Mr. Carter on the Delta of the Persian Gnlf, 



his account of them. This surely will not be supposed. But 

 unless it be, what becomes of all that is said there, and before 

 and after this, in the next sentence, is repeated, about Pliny's 

 error? The 3300 stadia which Alexander's officers had 

 reckoned it from the sea to Babylon, here at least, could not 

 possibly have been the stadia of 16 to a mile, or 206J miles 

 only. If the distance of Charax, the port, had increased but 

 70, the whole distance to Babylon could have increased but 

 70 ; and then " it is yet further to be considered " whether 

 even this 70 is not to be reduced, in fact, to 35 only ; so that 

 without the above extravagant hypothesis, the great point of 

 24?5 miles more of delta since the voyage of Nearchus (b.c. 325) 

 is thus at once disposed of*. 



It is due to Dean Vincent (whom the reply unceremoniously 

 throws overboard f) to say, that no one felt the difficulty of 

 adapting a fixed standard of ancient measurement to his sub- 

 ject more than he did. In employing, with M. D'Anville, the 

 so-called stadium of Aristotle, he admitted that it is not to be 

 found in Aristotle; that it is not, " perhaps, possible to measure 

 500 stadia in any detached portion of the [Nearchus's] course 

 with satisfaction;" that the stadium of the generality of ancient 

 writers is eight to a Roman mile; and that D'Anville's mea- 

 sures "still leave some obscurity behind J." Major Rennell 

 insists on a much longer one than Aristotle's^. Pliny j| and 

 Strabof , who both mention Nearchus's voyage and the distance 

 to Babylon, both notice the stadium as being that of eight 

 to a mile, and Dr. Falconer, after a learned investigation, 

 concludes this to be the stadium of Arrian and the other ear- 

 lier writers. Surely the length of the stadium offers no sound 

 basis for a theory **. 



But Mr. Beke says I have not touched upon the geological 



* And without supposing all this, even the increase of 35 is annihilated 

 by the plain fact, that it is now but 62 miles even to Bosra. The junction 

 of the Susian river is about 20 miles lower down (see Col. Chesney's 

 map in Report). We are to place Charax 5 miles still lower, and even 

 halving the 120 of the merchants and Arabs, (on which the inference is 

 made to rest,) we have then 60 to the sea, while at the present moment, 

 from the same spot, it is thus but about 35 miles only. 



f Malte-Brun seems to have been quite as nearsighted on the general 

 topic as the learned Dean, for he observes of the mighty Indus and its far- 

 spreading tributaries, " From the voyage of Nearchus we should learn, 

 that notwithstanding the immense tides, the coasts, at the mouth of the 

 Indus, have not been sensibly changed since the time of Alexander." 

 (Universal Geography, vol.i. book 18.) 



X Vincent's Commerce, &c, Prelim. Dissert., 9. 



§ Geography of Herodotus, sect. 2. 



|| Pliny, Hist. Nat., 1. ii. c. 23. 



t Strabo, 1. vii. 322. 



** Dr. Falconer's Arrian's Voyage, Discourses, &c, p. 184. 



