686 COSMOS. 



all the adherents of Islamism towards anatomical investigation^, 

 impeded their advance in zoology. They remained contented 

 with that which they were able to appropriate to themselves 

 from translations of the works of Aristotle and Galen ;* but, 



des Grecs et des Arabes, 1842, pp. 20-25,) places the meridian of 

 Arin in the group of the Azores ; whilst the learned commentator of 

 Abulfeda, Reinaud (Memoire sur I'Inde anterieurement au Xle 

 siede de I' ere chretienne d'apres les ecrivains Arabes et Per sans, 

 pp. 20--24), assumes that "the word Arin has originated by confusion from 

 Azyn, Ozein, and Odjein, an old seat of cultivation, (according to 

 Burnouf, Udjijayani in Malwa,) the 'O^rjvrj of Ptolemy. This Ozone was 

 supposed to be in the meridian of Lanka, and in later times Arin was 

 conjectured to be an island on the coast of Zanguebar, perhaps the 

 Evvwov of Ptolemy." Compare also Am. Sedillot, Mem. sur les Instr. 

 astron. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75. 



* The Caliph Al-Mamun caused many valuable Greek manuscripts 

 to be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, and to 

 be translated direct from Greek into Arabic, in consequence of the 

 earlier Arabic versions having long been founded on Syrian translations 

 (Jourdain, Recherches crit. sur I age et sur I'origine des traductions 

 latines d'Aristote, 1819, pp. 85, 88, and 226). Much has thus been 

 rescued by the exertions of Al-Mamun, which, without the Arabs, would 

 have been wholly lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by 

 Armenian translations, as Neumann of Munich was the first to show. 

 Unhappily, a notice by the historian Geuzi of Bagdad, which has been 

 preserved by the celebrated geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir 

 entitled De viris inter Arabes illustribus, leads to the conjecture, that 

 at Bagdad itself many Greek originals, which were believed to be use- 

 less, were burnt ; but this passage may not perhaps refer to important 

 manuscripts already translated. It is capable of several interpretations, 

 as has been shown by Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech. Litteratur t 

 th. i. s. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der classischen Lit- 

 teratur, bd. i. s. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle have often 

 been found serviceable in executing Latin versions of the original ; as, 

 for instance, the eight books of Physics, and the History of Animals ; 

 but the larger and better part of the Latin translations have been made 

 direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Rech. crit. sur I'dge des traductions 

 d'Aristote, pp. 230-236). An allusion to the same two-fold source may 

 be recognized in the memorable letter of the Emperor Frederic II. of 

 Hohenstaufen, in which he recommends the translations of Aristotle 

 which he presents, in 1232, to his universities, and especially to that of 

 Bologna. This letter expresses noble sentiments, and shows that it was 

 not only the love of natural history which taught Frederic II. to 

 appreciate the philosophical value of the " Compilations varias quze 

 ab Aristotele aliisque philosophis snb graecis arabicisque vocabulia 

 antiquitus editee sunt." He writes as follows : " We have from our 

 ttarliest youth driven to attain to a more intimate acquaintance with 



