756 GEOGRAPHICAL LATITUDE. 



and investigators before a science is matured ready for prosaic, worldly 

 application. So for example were the calculations (though erroneous) 

 of the old Greeks one day to bear practical fruit by encouraging Co- 

 lumbus to make the famous voyage which resulted in the discovery of 

 America. 



These humble beginnings and the men who made them are then not 

 to be despised because no more was effected, but much rather, to be 

 honored that under the circumstances so much was accomplished. 

 They might perhaps have made more progress, had they theorized less 

 as to how far north and south the earth is inhabitable,^ a matter neces- 

 sarily beyond their power of determination, and instead of that have 

 spent their energies in more accurately investigating that which lay at 

 hand. There is however a strong temptation in all men to strive for 

 the attainment of the unknowable; and, whether this tendency leads 

 to religious enthusiasm, spiritualism, or philosophical dreaming, it is but 

 taking on different forms of expression of the same factor in human nat- 

 ure. Accordingly we must not blame the early geographers even if 

 the number of places where the altitude of the pole was actually ob- 

 served does not exceed half a dozen.^ There were very few specialists, 

 and they without co-operation; travelling was difficult and expensive, 

 and general interest in geographical theory practically null. Further-' 

 more, they knew their observations did not give perfectly exact results f 

 but thought that lay in the nature of the work to be done, and not in 

 defects of their theories or instruments. 



Their base line was the parallel of Syene, which they reckoned in 

 round numbers to be in latitude 24° N., instead of the true latitude of 

 24° 5' 23." But they made a still greater mistake in accepting the 

 same parallel as the Tropic of Cancer;* although Eratosthenes's calcu- 

 lation is supposed to have given 23° 51' 19".5 for that line, and Ptole- 

 mteus quotes Hipparehus as employing 23^1 51' 20." '^ After the twenty- 

 fourth parallel, the one most frequently referred to was probably that 

 of Alexandria, the great commercial center of the age, from which voy- 

 agers toward ail directions calculated distances, which calculations were 

 much relied upon for fixing latitude. It was accordingly recognized as 

 of prime importance to determine its true latitude, the result showing 

 30° 58"^ instead of 31° 11,'^ according to recent observations. Rhodes, 

 through which the "Diaphragm" passed, was said to be on the thirty- 



'See Grosskurd's Strabo, pp. 117 and 118. 



^Pescbel, Gesch. d. Erdkunde, 44. Maunert, i. 95, seems to be of another opinio u 

 wben lie says: " Hipparehus bat das wichtige Verdienst welt mebreren Orteu ihie 

 wirkliche Lags der Polhohenach anzuweiseu, als cs Eratosthenes bei wenigeren Er- 

 fahruugen thun konute.'' 



3 Sprenger, Aushiud 1867, p. 1066. 



*Mannert, i, 102. 



^Delainbre, i,87. 



^Berger, Frag. d. Hipparcli., 48. 



"Peschel, Gesch. d. Erdkuude_, 46, n. 4, 



