110 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book VI. 



two hundred and fifty miles. 78 Eut, as Agrippa, including its 

 deserts, makes it from Cyrenaica, a part of it, to the country of 

 the Garamantes, so far as was then known, a further distance of 

 nine hundred and ten miles, the entire length, added together, 

 will make a distance of four thousand six hundred and eight 

 miles. The length of Asia is generaUy admitted 79 to be six 

 thousand three hundred and seventy-five miles, and the breadth, 

 which ought, properly, to be reckoned from the ^Ethiopian Sea 

 to Alexandria, 80 near the river Nile, so as to run through Meroe 

 and Syene, is eighteen hundred and seventy -five. It appears 

 then that Europe is greater than Asia, by a little less than one 

 half of Asia, and greater than Africa by as much again of Africa 

 and one- sixth. If all these sums are added together, it will 

 be clearly seen that Europe is one- third, and a little more than 

 one-eighth part of one- third, Asia one -fourth and one-four- 

 teenth part of one-fourth, and Africa, one-fifth and one-sixtieth 

 part of one-fifth of the whole earth. 81 



CHAP. 39. DIVISION OF THE EARTH INTO PARALLELS AND 

 SHADOWS OP EQUAL LENGTH. 



To the above we shall add even another instance of ingenious 

 discovery by the Greeks, and indeed of the most minute skil- 

 fulness ; that so nothing may be wanting to our investigation of 

 the geographical divisions of the earth, and the various countries 

 thereof which have been pointed out ; that it may be the 

 better understood, too, what affinity, or relationship as it were, 

 exists between one region and another, in respect to the length 

 of their days and nights, and in which of them the shadows 

 are of equal length, and the distance from the pole is the same. 

 I shall therefore give these particulars as well, and shall 

 state the divisions of the whole earth in accordance with the 

 various sections of the heavens. The lines or segments which 



78 He means to say that the interior is not inhabited beyond a distance 

 of 250 miles from the sea-coast. 79 See B. v. c. 9. 



30 He is probably speaking only of that part of Asia which included 

 Egypt, on the eastern side of the river Nile, according to ancient geography. 

 His mode, however, of reckoning the breadth of Asia, i.e. from south to 

 north, is singular. See p. 104. 



81 On a rough calculation, these aliquot parts in all would make 1 2 9 o o 

 parts of the unit. It is not improbable that the figures given above as the 

 dimensions are incorrect, as they do not agree with the fractional results 

 here given by Pliny, 



