TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



certained by meafure, yet none of them have fettled that/ 

 only medium of. judging.. The Mikeas, or. pillar, is the fub« 

 jecl to be meafured, and they are not yet agreed within 

 2.0 feet of its extreme height, nor about the divifion of any 

 part of it. As this aceufation appears to be a ftrong one; 

 I mail fct down the proof for the reader's confideration, 

 that it may not be fuppofed I mean to criticife improperly^ 

 or to do any author injuftice,.. 



And firflofthe Mikeas. Mr Thomas Humes, a gentle-* 

 man quoted by * Dr Shaw, who had been a great many 

 years a factor at Cairo, fays, that the. Mikeas is 58. feet Eng-* 

 lifh in height. Now, there is really no reafon why fuch an- 

 enormous pillar fhould have been built, as the Nile would 

 drown all Cairo before it was to rife to this height ; accord-" 

 ingly, as we have feen, its height is not To much by near 22 

 feet. Dr Perry f next, who has wrote largely upon the fub- 

 ject, fays, the Mikeas, or column, is divided into 24 peeks, 

 and each peek or cubit is 24 inches nearly. Dr Pococke $j 

 who travelled at the fame time, agrees in the divifion of 24. 

 peeks, but fays that theie peeks are unequal.; The 16 low- 

 er he fuppofes are- 21. inches, the 4 next, 24 inches, and 

 the uppermoft, 22. So that one of thefe gentlemen makes 

 the Mikeas 43 feet, which is above fix feet more than the 

 truth, and the other 48, which is above 1 1 ; befides the fecond 

 error which Dr Pococke has committed, by faying the divi- 

 fions are of three different dimenfions, when they really are 



not 



* Shjuv's Travels, chap. ii. feft. 3. p. 3S2. f Defcript. of the Eaft, vol. I. p. 256. 



X A View of the Levant, p. zSz. 284. 286. 



