404 Mr. Beke ow the Historical Evidence of the Advance of 



and after an elaborate investigation of the subject he thus re- 

 cords his own opinion : " I have no hesitation in subscribing 

 to the stadium of 51 toises assigned to the journal by D'Anville, 

 whether it be considered as a Greek or Indian standard * ; " 

 to which he subsequently adds, " I am convinced that no 

 other stadium known in Greece will apply to the journal of 

 Nearchus ; and if it be not a Greek stadium, I know not what 

 measure it can be, unless it be derived from India or Arabiaf." 



Upon the united authority, then, of D'Anville and Vincent, 

 the stadium of Nearchus is to be taken as one of sixteen to a 

 mile English ; whence it results that the 3300 stadia which 

 Babylon, in that navigator's time, was distant from the sea, 

 must be equal to two hundred and six miles and a half. 



Strange to say, however. Dr. Vincent, in a note upon the 

 passage trom Arrian in his Voyage of Nearchus (p. Q5\ after 

 remarking that " 3300 stadia make little more than 200 

 miles English, [whilst] the real distance by the river is more 

 than 400," actually offers the conjecture, in direct opposition 

 to his own conclusion, " May not Nearchus calculate this di- 

 stance by stadia o^ eight to a mile J ?" Now, it appears to me 

 that any mode of getting over the apparent difficulty, — even 



* Comni. and Navig. of the Ancients^ vol. i. p. 66. ^ Ibid., p. 67. 



% In my Origines Biblica (p. 20, note,) I cite this note of Dr. Vincent's, 

 and comment upon it; upon which the writer of the criticism in the 

 Quarterly Review remarks (p. 505), " On this doubt of a most erudite geo- 

 grapher, so fatal to his theory, Mr. Beke cbserve8,*that * the accuracy of the 

 mode thus adopted by the learned translator, and by geographers generally, 

 of reconciling apparent discrepancies in the works of ancient writers, by 

 varying the standard of measurement, may legitimately be questioned.' Is, 

 then, Mr. Beke prepared to show that one uniform standard was adopted 

 by ancient writers? or to solve upon any other hypothesis the countless 

 contradictions which are found in the writings not merely of the Greek 

 and Roman historians, but of the geographers themselves, and which have 

 perplexed and often baffled the D'Anvilles, the Gosselins, the Rennells, and 

 the Mannerts of modern days?" Had the reviewer understood the ground 

 of my objection to Dr. Vincent's conjecture, he would have spared himself 

 the trouble of these remarks; and had he but quoted correctly my cita- 

 tion of Dr. Vincent's note, he would not have misled such of his readers 

 as are not conversant with the subject, by giving them reason to imagine 

 that there were any grounds whatever for his animadversions. I wrote, 

 " Dr. Vincent. ..says 3300 stadia [of sixteen to a mile: see his Preface, 

 p. xi.] make little more than 200 miles," &c., which passage the reviewer 

 thus varies : " 3300 stadia (of 16 to a mile) make," &c., altogether sup- 

 pressing the reference made by me to Dr. Vincent's Preface, by which the 

 inconsistency of his doubt is made apparent. Far be from me the assump- 

 tion of even attempting to solve the countless contradictions to which 

 the reviewer alludes; but yet I will venture to assert that very many of 

 those contradictions do not exist in the text of the Greek and Latin writers 

 themselves, but have arisen solely from the erroneous construction put 

 upon that text by the commentators. 



