Before Chrift 324. 75 



ceding Ibvereigns, in order to prevent the ai-rival of foreign veflels*. He 

 had two veflels of five tires of oars, three of four, twelve of three, and 

 thirty veflels of thirty oars each, built by the Phoenicians, and after- 

 wards taken afunder, carried over-land to Thapfacus on the Euphrates, 

 there fet up, launched on the river, and floated down to Babylon : and . 

 he built a fleet of veflels of the cyprefs wood of Babylonia, having pro- 

 cured carpenters, feafaring people, and people acquainted with the cap- 

 ture of the purple fliell-flfh, from Phoenicia and Syria. He alfo con- 

 flrud:ed a harbour, capable of containing a thoufand veflels, at the in- 

 land city of Babylon. He moreover ordered by his will, that harbours, 

 and yards for fliip-building, fliould be made in proper places through- 

 out his empire ; and that a great road fliould be extended along the 

 north fliore of Africa from Egypt to the Ocean, in which plan the con- 

 queft of the Carthaginian territories was to be included. 



Alexander's voyages, the menfuration of all his marches made by 

 the beft artifts he could procure, and the information obtained by the 

 men of fcience in his army, were the foundation of what knowlege the 

 Greeks had of the geography of Afia, and probably alfo of general geo- 

 graphy. His preceptor, Ariflotle, in his work upon the heavens, [L. ii, 

 c. 1 4] proves the earth, which we inhabit, to be a globe, the circumfer- 

 ence of which was reckoned by mathematicians 400,000 ftadia (about 

 40,000 miles). He alfo fays, there is nothing improbable ill the opi- 

 nion of thofe who believe, that there is only one ocean, and that the 

 Columns of Hercules (or the Straits of Gibraltar) are very near to India. 

 — Behold the earlieft dawn, at leaft the earlieft known to us, of that 

 geographical fcience which, after a lapfe of about eighteen centuries, 

 ftirred up in Chriftopher Colon the ambition of being the leader ot 

 European navigators to India by a weflern courfe f. 



In the important fcience of aftronomy Alexander poured a copious 

 flream of new light upon Greece by tranfmitting to Ariflotle an exadl 

 copy of the celeflial obfervations, which had been made at Babylon 

 during the courfe of above Jii?ieieen cetituries. 



From the knowlege conveyed to Europe by the hiflorians and artifts 

 in the fervice of himfelf and his fuccelfors, correded and afllfted by 

 fome very antient monuments of the literature and fcience of India, 

 which have lately been acquired, we are enabled to form lome idea of 

 the antient flate of that country. 



* Such is the motive afllgned for tlie obftnic- Terr.L-r, F. i, p. 227 — Voyages de Kiduhr, V. ii, 



tion of the llreams by the hillonaiis of Alexander, pp. 198, 307.] 



\_Arr\aii, L. vii — Slralo, L. xvi, p. 107S.] But, -f The pailage of Ariftotle here quoted, which 



as fucli obltruftions are ftill kept up on the Eu- fliows that fome others had alfo turned their at- 



phratcs and Ti>Tris for tiie purpofe of fprcading tention to fuch lubjecls, is affigned as one of the 



the water over the adjacent level country, it is rea- chief foundations ot Colon's belief of the pratiica- 



fonable to fuppofe, that the antient dikes were bility of a weftern voyage to India, in the feventh 



conllrufted for the fame ufeful piirpofe. [See Ta- chapter of his hiilory, written by his fon. 



K 2 



