[s. E. DAWSON] THE LINES OF DEMARCATION B45 



APPENDIX E. 



The table on the next page has been drawn up on the universally accepted 

 basis, of the old navigators and geographers, viz., 8 stades equal to 1 Roman 

 mile, and 4 Roman miles equal to 1 Italian league. To attempt mathematical 

 exactness would fill it with confusing fractions and make it useless in reading 

 the old authors. As an illustration of the near approximation of these 

 equivalents let the last item be taken in the third column. If the 20,400 

 Italian miles be multiplied by 1,618 yards and. divided by 2,029 yards and 

 thus reduced into nautical miles, the result would be 16,268 nautical miles 

 against the 16,320 nautical miles of the reckoning in the table by means of 

 stades. The difference is thus only fifty-two miles in the whole circumfer- 

 ence of the earth. This will give the measure of the discrepancy or non- 

 equivalence of the quantities. 



NOTES TO APPENDIX E. 



a. Eratoathenes made the circumfereuce to be 250,000 stades, and added 2,000 stades for convenience of 



division by 360 into degrees without fractious. 

 6. Jaime Ferrer (see Appendix U) is reported, as the opinion is given in Navarrete, to have stated that 



a degree of the equator is 21f leagues ; but if the circumference of 7875 leagues, given also in 



the same opinion, be divided by 300, the result will be 21J leagues. There is, therefore, an 



error in the text or in Ferrer's arithmetic. 



c. Posidonius. — I have followed Mons. D'Avezac and Sir George Cornewall Lewis in giving 240,000 



stades as the measure of the earth's circumference fixed upon by Posidonius. In most books 

 it is given as 180,ooo, on the authority of Strabo. It is certain, however, that his first opinion 

 was in favour of 240,000 stades. This statement is made by his admirer Cleomenes, who 

 knew of no other figures. Historians reconcile the conflicting statements by assuming that 

 he changed his oi^inion in later life. 



d. Pytheas of Massilia was a navigator [explorer or merchant], who about the time of Alexander the 



Great visited the north of Europe. He passed outside the Pillars of Hercules, and sailed in 

 the British seas. Polybius and Strabo considered him to be an impostor, who palmed o& his 

 imaginary adventures for truth ; but the great Greek geographers accepted his statements so 

 far as to make up their maps on his information. Sir George Cornewall Lewis [Astronomy 

 of the Ancients, p. 467], following his naturally sceptical temperament, is inclined to reject 

 his voyages ; while, on the other hand, the uncritical optimism of Lelewel accepts them 

 fully. The truth lies, probably, between these extremes ; for certain it is that Pytheas was a 

 man of great enterprise and unusual powers of observation. He fixed the latitude of 

 Massilia, by means of a gnomon, at 43° 3' 58", and as it is in reality 43° XT 30", it is a very 

 remarkable observation to have been made 2240 years ago, and there are very few latitudes 

 so nearly correct in all the ancient authors. Hipparchus accepted the latitude of Massilia as 

 fixed by Pytheas ; but when he himself calculated by the gnomon the latitude of Byzantium 

 he fixed it to be the same as Massilia, two degrees out of the truth. The " impostor " had 

 made a more correct determination than the greatest of the Greek astronomers. Pytheas, 

 w^hen in the British seas, saw the tides which, on the west coast of Britain, are very high in 

 the estuaries of the rivers, and are phenomena most striking to one from the tideless shores 

 of the Mediterranean. He, moreover, correctly attributed them to the influence of the moon. 

 Tlie particular interest of Pytlieas, in relation to the subject of this paper, is the belief 

 of Lelewel that he estimated a degree to be UOU stades — almost the exact equivalent of 60 

 geographical miles. Pytheas does not, however, appear to have made any direct statement to 

 that effect. It is an inference from his estimation of the distance between Orcus in 61° and 

 Thule in 66°, which was also given as six daj's' sail directly north, or 3000 stades. The 

 figures are rounded out too much to be made the basis of serious calculation. 



«. Magellan gave this opinion to King Ferdinand just before sailing on his great voyage in A.D. 1518. 



/. Eneiso. — See ante, p. 511, for a discussion of Euciso's opinions. 



g. This was, in fact, the opinion of both Spanish and Portuguese navigators and diplomatists whenever 

 the leagues of the treaty of Tordesillas came up for discussion subsequent to the convention 

 at Badajoz. 



