Ke'.i> Vahricaiioni. »6^ 



fcenes of the mofl: remarkable events of antient hiftory, 

 brings us to a knowledge of many circumflances of thofe 

 events which we (hould not have been otherwife able to dlf- 

 cover. Fa6l3 the mod important in the phyfical hiftory of 

 the globe are to be learned by acomparifon, which without 

 fome flcill in antient geography would be impoffible, of the 

 antient with the modern appearance of all that is moft 

 l^rlking on its farface. Dates of time are not to be under- 

 ftood unlefs they be conne6led with thofe of place, which, 

 it is the objeft of geography to afcertain. Altronomy, na- 

 tural hiftory, natural philofophy, geometry, navigation, and 

 all the principal arts of civil life, are, in truth, intimately 

 related to the fcience of geography, either as fupplying its 

 fa61:s and principles, or as deriving their bcft lights from it. 

 A certain difcovery of the fcenes of ancient hiftory may even 

 feem, to a keen and perfpicacious mind, to annihilate the ages 

 that have intervened, and to give us all the privileges of con- 

 temporaries of thofe earlier races of men whofe progrefs in 

 civility we delight to contemplate. But for a knowledge of 

 their geography, more than half the information which we 

 find in the writings of the antients would be loft to us. 



Yet there is nothing more diflicult in fcicuce or erudillon 

 than to acquire a thorough knowledge of the fails of antient, 

 in clear {l:ttisfa6lory comparifon with thofe of nindern, geo- 

 graphy. The notions of the antients refpccling the figure of 

 the earth, and it« relations to the heavenly bodies, were not, 

 even after the time of Ilipparchus, fach as to atTord that 

 accuracy in the divifions of latitude and longitude without 

 which local diftances can never be very diftin6lly recorded. 

 Their meafares of diftance were various and unfixed; and 

 they trufted often, without actual meafurement, to uncertain 

 computation. The names which they apply to places vary 

 or agree in different writings, with a very troublcfome irre- 

 gularity. And the changes which have taken place on tiie 

 face of the globe fince our favourite antients wrote, have been 

 fo very confiderable, that thefe, above every thing elfc, render 

 all the parts of antient geography in the utmoit degree diffi- 

 cult and obfcure. 



We have accullomed ouifelvcs, therefore, to refpecl thft. 



labours 



