244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



distance between tlie straits and Rhodes. Since the length of the 

 Macedonian coast was placed within its proper limits, no way re- 

 mained to adjust the distances but to prolong the Thermaic Gulf to 

 the westward, and make of Greece a long peninsula stretching from 

 west to east. The Caspian Sea, owing to reports that had been brought 

 by certain followers of Alexander, appears as an arm of the Northern 

 Ocean. The most striking feature, however, is the representation of 

 India as extending east instead of south, with the Ganges flowing into 

 the Eastern Ocean. This would seem to have arisen in this way : The 

 mouth of the Indus had been reported by Alexander's officers too far 

 south. It was also well known that from the Indus to the island 

 known as Taprobane (Ceylon) there was a long stretch of coast such 

 as is given in the map. But, if this extended southward, it would 

 carry India below what was considered to be the limit of the habitable 

 world, seen in the map at latitude 11° 51' 26". So it was turned away 

 to the eastward. The distance from the Indus to the mouth of the 

 Ganges had been learned through the mission sent to India by Seleu- 

 cus ; and, since the latter river did not enter the sea on the southern 

 coast, it must have an eastern embouchure. But as the traditional limit 

 of the earth — a length twice its breadth — was now reached, it only 

 remained to extend the coast-line to the northward to complete the 

 map. 



In accordance wnth the principles upon which his map was con- 

 structed, Eratosthenes said that India could be reached by sailing west- 

 ward from Spain — a suggestion by which Columbus is said to have 

 been influenced. Before leaving Eratosthenes it may be mentioned 

 that Gosselin contends that this ancient geographer had been preceded 

 by geographers far better informed and more skillful than himself, 

 and that all the best features of his map are due to them. Indeed, he 

 claims that there was a period long before Eratosthenes, when the 

 geography of Europe was as well known as in his (Gosselin's) day, 

 and he even intimates that projected maps, similar to our modern ones, 

 had then been used. His arguments in support of this, however, will 

 not bear scrutiny. 



Ptolemy, we have said, prepared the science for the ages of dark- 

 ness on which the world was soon to enter. In a sense, the first 

 shadows of that darkness had already fallen. The science had gone 

 backward perceptibly since the days of Eratosthenes. True, there was 

 a larger fund of information in regard to the countries of the Roman 

 Empire ; but, as we see in Strabo, there was no scientific grasp of the 

 world as a whole. Ptolemy was therefore almost as much of an excep- 

 tion to his age as Hipparchus had been to his. Still he had helps which 

 none of his predecessors had had, such as the works of Strabo and 

 Pliny, and Marin of Tyre, for statements of facts, and those of Era- 

 tosthenes, and, above all, Hipparchus for scientific statement. The 

 work which he composed with these helps was to be the standard and 



