A. D. i6t. 19 j 



iih iflands, with which he begins his geographical tables, and ni India. 

 In joining the ieveral Britifli iiirveys, which muft have been in a great 

 meafure, if not wholely, deftitute of celeilial obfervations, he has made 

 the north part of Britain projed: to the eaft, inftead of the north ; and 

 he has ranged the Weftern iilands eaft and weft, along the north fliore 

 of Ireland, inftead of north and fouth, along the weft coaft of the north 

 part. of Britain, the weft being the true north point in them, as the 

 eaft is in his north part of the main land. Inftead of delineating India 

 as a triangular figure, projeding from the mouths oi" the Indus and the 

 Ganges, he makes it almoft a right line, running from weft to eaft, and 

 but a little to the fouthward of a line drawn between thofe rivers. He 

 had fome information of the names of places beyond the Bay of Ben- 

 gal, but exceflively confufed and erroneous ; and be makes the Indian 

 ocean a vaft lake *, though he muft have poflefied the better informa- 

 tion of Herodotus and Megafthenes, fandioned by the corred judgement 

 of Eratofthenes f. The total ignorance of the antients refpeding the 

 northern parts of Europe, which no Grecian or Roman navigator, and 

 perhaps no one from any of the Phoenician ports had ever viiited, is al- 

 moft as little to be wondered at as their total ignorance of America:}:. 



The geographical knowlege of the Roman fubjeds in Egypt appears 

 to have advanced between the age of the author of the Periplus of the 

 Erythraean fea and that of Ptolemy. The later, I have juft obferved, 

 had obtained the names of fome places beyond India, and he had alfo 

 the names of fome of the Oriental iilands with their pofitions, though 

 exceffively erroneous. Marinus, a geographer of Tyre, who wrote a 

 little while before Ptolemy, and is frequently quoted by him, was ac- 

 quainted with at leaft the name of Prafuni, a place on the Atrican coaft 

 feveral degrees beyond Rhapta, the fartheft place known to the author 

 of the Periplus. Thefe circumftances give reafon to believe, that their 

 commerce was alfo increafing. 



It is due to the antient commercial pre-eminence of the city of Ara- 

 bia Felix, to obferve, that, though it was reduced to the condition of a 



* The notion of a vail continent, the fouthern Periplus of the ErythrKan fca, but that his age is 



bounddry of Ptolemy's great lake, was kept up, diiputcd. 



after voyages quite round the globe deftroyed the X Egypt, which in the reign of Sefoltris pro- 

 belief of the lake, every illand fecn in a fouthern duced the very tir.ft geograpliical maps known in 

 latitude being fuppofed a part of die Terra au/Iral- hirtory, alfo in after ages produced iour of the 

 if. Even in tlie eighteenth century, men of the greatcll geographers of antiquity, Agalharchides, 

 firft geographical abilities, maintained the />/'_[y;c«/ Eratofthenes, the author of the periplus of the 

 wtf^/)' of a correfponding niafs of earth near the Erytlnjean fca, and Ptolemy. But our vcncra- 

 fouth pole, to balance the gr>.at proportion of land tion for the wifdom of Egypt mull not make us 

 in the northern hemifphere. The fuppofed fouth- forget, that thefe great men were all Greeks, and 

 ern continent has been gradually abridged in its that Agatharchides, Eratoflh«nes, and Ptolemy, 

 extent by the difcoveries of modern navigators ; acquired the moll of their knowlege in the Ccie- 

 and, at length, it is totally annihilated by thofe brarcd academy of Alexandria, founded and fup- 

 of Captain Cook. piivud by the Giecian fov^reigiiS of Egypt. 



t To thefe might be added the author of the 



Vol. I. B b 



