160 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



This obfervation furely therefore is not worth record- 

 ing, unlefs to lliew the infufficiency or imperfection of the 

 method ; it cannot dcferve the encomiums * that have been 

 bellowed upon it, if juftice has been done to Eratoflhenes' 

 geodefique meamres, which I do not, by any manner of 

 means, warrant to be the cafe, becaufe the meafure of 

 his arch of the meridian feems to have been conducted 

 with a much greater degree of fuccefs and precifion than 

 that of his bafe. 



On the 2 2d, 23d, and 24th of January, being at Syene, in a 

 houfe immediately eaft of the fmall ifland in the Nile (where 

 the temple of Cnuphis is Hill Handing, very little injured, and 

 which fStrabo, who was himfelf there, fays was in the an- 

 cient town, and near the well built for the obfervation of 

 the folftice) with a three-foot brafs quadrant, made by Lang- 

 lois, and defcribed by % Monfieur de la Lande, by a mean of 

 three obfervations of the fun in the meridian, I concluded 

 the latitude of Syene to be 24 o' 45" north. 



And, as the latitude of Alexandria, by a medium of many 

 obfervations made by the French academicians, and more 

 recently by Mr Niebuhr and myfelf, is beyond poffibility 

 of contradiction 31 n ; 33", the arch of the meridian con- 

 tained between Syene and Alexandria, muft be 7 io^S", or 

 1 ' 12" lcfs than Eratoilhenes made it. And this is a wonder- 

 ful precifion, if we confider the imperfeclion of his inftru- 

 ment, in the probable fhortnefs of his radius, and difficulty 



(almoil 



* Spe&acle de la Nature, 

 f Strabo, lib. 1 7. p. 944. t L'hifloire d'aftronomie, de M. de la Lande, vol. i. lib, 2. 



