the Land upon the Sea at the Head of the Persian Gulf, 405 



had it been by denying the authority of the passage in ques- 

 tion, or by doubting the correctness of the information com- 

 municated by Nearchus, — would have been far better than the 

 one adopted by the learned translator, which has the effect of 

 altogether invalidating the previous conclusion (so positively 

 expressed,) of D'Anville and himself. And, in fact, Dr. Vin- 

 cent appears to have entertained a feeling of this kind, when 

 in another place he says, " I object to all measures of this sta- 

 dium taken where Nearchus himself did not navigate, and I he- 

 sitate about the measure of 3300 stadia from the mouth of the 

 Euphrates to Babylon, stated as the assertion of Nearchus* " 



These objections, although in reality they cannot be main- 

 tained, are in themselves not unreasonaljle : let us see how they 

 are to be met. We fortunately possess an authority, indepen- 

 dent of Arrian, who establishes that historian's correctness, 

 upon this subject, in all points. This authority is Pliny — or 

 rather Juba as cited by Pliny, — who states " Euphrate navi- 

 gari Babylonem e Persico mari ccccxii. mill, passuum tradunt 

 Nearchus et Onesicritusf." 



This passage from Pliny is, indeed, adduced by Mr. Carter 

 as an authority against me, in as much as he says that Pliny 

 " must have understood Nearchus's terms of distance better 

 than we can." But the geographers to whom I have already 

 referred have determined that a very different conclusion is 

 to be drawn from Pliny's statement; it being remarked by 

 Dr. Vincent that " M. D'Anville has shewn, that in the gulf 

 of Persia Pliny read the same number of stadia as Arrian 

 found in Nearchus ; and that, by estimating these at eight to 

 a mile, he makes the distance nearly double what it is in re- 

 alityX'^ It is evident, therefore, that Pliny's error is solely in 

 the reduction of the stadia into Roman miles ; and the pur- 

 port of the passage in question has consequently to be thus 

 given : " Nearchus and Onesicritus state the distance from the 

 Persian Gulf z/p the course of the river (Euphrate navigari) to 

 Babylon to be 3300 stadia." 



Since then — upon the assumption, always, that D'Anville 

 and Vincent are correct in their conclusion as to the length 

 of the particular stadium employed by Nearchus, — the distance 

 from Babylon to the sea by following the course of the Eu- 

 phrates, in that navigator's time (B. C. 325), was only two hun- 

 dred and six miles and a half, whilst in the present day it is as 

 great as about 400 miles, it seems to me that we have no al- 



* Cotmn. and Navig. of the Ancients, vol. i. p. 55. 



t Hist. Nat.y lib. vi. cap. xxvi. 



X Comm. and Navig. of (he AnciientSy vol. i. p. 65. 



