XXVU1 TTOTES. 



his Handbuch der Chronologic, Bd. i. S. 207 ; the Abhandlungen der Ber- 

 liiier Akad. auf das J. 1814, S. 217 ; and Bockh, metrol. Untersuohungen 

 iiber die Masse des Alterthnms, 1838, S. 36. It is a question still wrapped 

 in obscurity, whether there is historic ground in India earlier than 1200 

 B. c., according to the Chronicles of Kashmeer (Radjatarangini, trad, par 

 Troyer), while Megasthenes (Indica, ed. Schwanbeck, 1846, p. 50) reckons 

 from 60 to 64 centuries from Manu to Chandragupta, for 153 kings of the 

 dynasty of Magadha ; and the astronomer Aryabhatta places the beginning of 

 his Chronology 3102 B. c. (Lasseu, ind. Alterthumsk. Bd. i. S. 473, 505, 

 507, and 510). For the purpose of rendering the numbers contained in this 

 note more significant in respect to the history of civilization, it may not be 

 superfluous to recal, that the destruction of Troy is placed 1184 Homer 

 1000 or 950 and Cadmus the Milesian, the first historical writer among the 

 Greeks, 524 years before our era. This comparison of epochs shews how 

 unequally the desire for an exact record of events and enterprises made itself 

 felt among the nations most highly susceptible of culture : it reminds us in- 

 voluntarily of the sentence which Plato, in the Timseus, places in the mouth 

 of the priests of Sais : " Solon, Solon ! you Greeks still remain ever chil* 

 dren ; nowhere in Hellas is there an aged man. Your souls are ever youth- 

 ful ; you have in them no knowledge of antiquity, no ancient faith, no wisdom 

 grown hoar by age." 



C 47 ) p. 112. Compare Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 92 and 160 (Engl. ed. Vol. i. 

 p. 79 and 144). 



( 148 ) p. 112. Wilhelm von Humboldt iiber eine Episode des Maha-Bha- 

 rata, in his Gesammelten Werken, Bd. i. S. 73. 



O p. 116. Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 309 and 351 (Eng. ed. Vol. i. p. 283 and 

 822) ; Asie centrale, T. iii. p. 24 and 143. 



( 15 ) p. 117. Plato, Pheedo, pag. 109, B. (compare Herod, ii. 21). Cleo- 

 medes also depressed the surface of the earth in the middle to receive the 

 Mediterranean (Voss, krit. Blatter, Bd. ii. 1828, S. 144 and 150). 



( 151 ) p. 117. I first developed this idea in my Rel. hist, du voyage aux 

 regions equinoxiales, T. iii. p. 236 ; and in the Examen crit. de 1'hist. de la 

 geogr. an 15eme siecle, T. i. p. 3638. Compare also Otfried Miiller, in 

 the Gottingischen gelehrten Anzeigen, 1838, Bd. i. S. 375. The western- 

 most basin, to which I apply the general name of Tyrrhenian, includes, ac- 

 cording to Strabo, the Iberian, Ligurian, and Sardinian seas. The Syrtic 

 basin, east of Sicily, includes the Ausonian or Siculian, the Lybian, and the 

 Ionian seas. The southern and south-western part of the ./Egean sea was 



