GEOGRAPHICAL LATITUDE, 753 



Aristotle,^ and accepted by Strabo, although the hitter expressly says, 

 the whole of the " biinied" (torrid) zone is not rendered uninhabitable 

 by excessive heat, " as we conclude from the Ethiopians abov^e 

 Egypt." ^ At the same time the theoretical division of circles into 

 equal parts was not lost sight of. From Babylon the Greeks received 

 the duodecimal division of the Ecliptic, from which was developed the 

 present custom of dividing a circle into 300 degrees. The latter was 

 also borrowed from Babylon,^ or first proposed by Hipparchus;^ but 

 for a long time gave way to the Eratostheniau division into GO degrees,^ 

 until revived and made popular by the authority of Ptolemy. Cleom- 

 edes proposed a division into 48 degrees, allowing 4 to each sign of the 

 zodiac,*^ but seems to have had no following. 



Methods and instruments. — In these days of exact scientific research 

 one can scarcely realize the crudity of method and the indifference to 

 exactness wbich characterize the work of many of the scholars of 

 antiquity, and this is particularly striking in their geographical in- 

 vestigations.^ Not only did they accept the tales of sailors as facts, 

 and found theories thereon,^ but they were so easygoing as not to 

 hesitate to change the result of their most careful calculations in order 

 to have round numbers to work with.'' That the sun changes its posi- 

 tion in the heavens at the different seasons of the year and that the 

 length of shadows varies accordingly, were matters of early obser- 

 vation ; also that the duration of the longest day is different according 

 to position north or south. These facts combined furnished the earliest 

 basis for determining latitude. The known account of the well at 

 Syene, directly over which the sun stood at noon at the summer 

 solstice, whether true or not,^° gives an idea of the rude method of 

 determining astronomical, or in this case also geographical [)oints, 



'Manucit, i. 100. 



- Grosskurd's Strabo, lib. ii. Abt. ii. \n 1. Vol. i. pp. 154-5. Sprenger, Ausland, 1HG7, 

 p. 1043. 



"Peschel, Gesch, d. Erdkunde, 43. 



' Berger, Fraguienta d, Hipparch., 44. 



''D'Avezac, Coup d'ceil etc. pp. 271-2. Peschel, Gescb. d. Erdkunde, 43. An. 2. 

 Grosskurd's Strabo, lib. ii. Abt. iv. § 7. Vol. i. p. 18(5. Giluther, Die Erdinossung d. 

 Eratostlienes, Kiindschau fur Geog. uud Statistik, in. Jahrg. p. 327. Bailly, 179, 

 says tbis was the general division and in use among the Indians, Chaldeans, Per- 

 sians, and Egyptians. 



t^Delambre, Astron. ancienne, i, 220. 



'Sprenger, Auslaud, l'S67, p. 1065. Miidler, Gesch. d. Erdkunde, i, 70. Woe Ber- 

 ger, Frag. d. ilipparcli., 30, 31. 



sPorbiger's Strabo, lib. ii. cap. i. v^ 11. 



'^Sprenger, Auslaud, 1667, p. 1045. Lclewel, Gdog. du uioyeii-age, vii. D'Avezac, 

 Coup d'tcil, etc., 271, n. 5. 



'""Ein solches Werk zur Coustatirung einer astronoraischea Thatsaclie ist ganz 

 iin Geiste der Erbauor der Pyramiden. Wir konuen sicher sein, es ist von den 

 Pharaonen ausgefiilirt worden, undzwar etwa 700 Jahre v. Chr." (Unfortunately I 

 have forgotten to note from whom I extracted this remark.) 



H. Mis. 224 48 



