Hamilton. — On our Knoudedge of tJie Oceanic Areas. 171 



but even profane, as being contrary to Scripture and the 

 opinions of the Fathers. Yet at that time a breach had 

 already been made in the mediaBval theory by the progress 

 of maritime discovery : navigators had penetrated into the 

 torrid zone, and had reported it to be not impassable ; and 

 thus the very groundwork of the difficulty which the Fathers 

 had experienced had been removed. It may be a matter of 

 surprise that the Arabian system should have coexisted side 

 by side with the Latin and yet have exercised so little in- 

 fluence over it. The inhabitants of Western Europe came 

 into contact with the Arabs in Spain, in the Holy Land 

 during the period of the crusades, and more particularly in 

 Sicily, where one of the most illustrious of their geographers, 

 Edrisi, lived and worked, under the patronage of Eoger, Count 

 of Sicily, in the middle of the twelfth century. We do, indeed, 

 meet with occasional notices which show that the Arab sys- 

 tem was not wholly unknown. Roger Bacon, in his Opus 

 Majus,''- completed in 1267, speaks of Arym, the most im- 

 portant point in the construction of an Arab map, and he 

 shows himself acquainted with its position on the earth's 

 surface, and its use in the study of geography. He was also 

 familiar with the lines of latitude and longitude, and parti- 

 cularly notes that the Latins had not yet adopted the system. 

 The geographical work of Ptolemy had not yet been 

 rendered accessible to the general bodv of students bv being 

 translated into Latm. The European system was incom- 

 patible with scientific principles : nothing less than a revolu- 

 tion was required, and that revolution was effected, partly by 

 the revival of the study of Ptolemy — whose geographical 

 writings were translated mto Latin in 1405 — and partly by 

 the progress of maritime discovery. It may be of interest to 

 take a passing glance at a peculiar feature of mediaeval carto- 

 graphy, in which Jerusalem is represented as occupying the 

 central part of the habitable world. Whether the tenet w'as 

 originally based on the language of Scripture, or whether the 

 language of Scripture was applied in confirmation of a pre- 

 conceived opinion, I know not. At all events, it is not the 

 only instance in which men have conferred honour on their 

 holy places by regarding them as occupying the central boss 

 or umbilic of the habitable world. It was thus that the 

 Greeks regarded their Delphi — o/x<^aAos x^f" o's — t the Hindoos 

 their Merou, and the Persians then- Kangdiz. It was not 

 unnatural, tlierefore, that the Jews, and still more the Chris- 

 tians, should attribute the same property to Jerusalem, which 



* Jebbs, edition Venice, 1750, p. 134. 



t Piiid.,Pytli., vi., 3; cf. Soph., CEd. Tyr., 480; aud .'Escb,, Choepli., 

 10.34. 



