NOTES. 



appears to know nothing of Khobbet Irin (Cancadora, more properly Kank. 

 der). Sedillot ftls (in the Memoire sur les Systemes geographiques des Grecs 

 It des Arabes, 1842, p. 2025) places the meridian of Arin in the group of 

 the Azores ; whereas the learned commentator of Abulfeda, Reinaud (Me'- 

 moire sur 1'Inde anterieurement au lleme Siecle de 1'Ere chretienne, d'apres 

 les Ecrivains arabes et persans, p. 2024), assumes "Arin to have been a 

 name originating by confusion with Azyn, Oxein, and Odjein, an old 

 seat of cultivation : according to Burnouf, Udjijayani in Malwa O$VTJ 

 of Ptolemy ; and that this Ozene is in the meridian of Lanka, and that in 

 later times Arin was believed to be an island on the coast of Zanguebar, per- 

 haps Effcrvvov of Ptolemy." Compare also Am. Sedillot, Mein. sur les Instr. 

 astrou. des Arabes, 1841, p. 75. 



C" 88 ) p. 218. The Caliph Al-Mamun caused many valuable Greek manu- 

 scripts to be purchased in Constantinople, Armenia, Syria, and Egj r pt, and to 

 be translated direct from Greek into Arabic, the earlier Arabic versions 

 having long been founded on Syrian translations (Jourdaiu, Recherches crit. 

 sur 1'Age et sur I'Origine des Traductions latines d'Aristote, 1819, p. 85, 88, 

 and 226). Al-Mamun's exertions have rescued much which, without the 

 Arabians, would have been lost to us. A similar service has been rendered by 

 Armenian translations, as Neumann of Munich has first shewn. Unhappih 

 a notice by the historian Geuzi of Bagdad, preserved to us by the celebrated 

 geographer Leo Africanus, in a memoir entitled " De Viris inter Arabea 

 illustribus," gives reason to believe, that at Bagdad itself many Greek 

 originals, supposed to be useless, were burnt ; but no doubt this passage does 

 not relate to important manuscripts already translated. It is capable of more 

 interpretations than one, as has been shewn by Bernhardy (Grundriss der 

 griechen Litteratur, Th. i. S. 489), in opposition to Heeren's Geschichte der 

 elassischen Litteratur, Bd. i. S. 135. The Arabic translations of Aristotle 

 have often been made useful in executing Latin ones (e. g. the eight books cf 

 Physics, and the History of Animals) ; but the larger and better part of the 

 Latin translations have been made direct from the Greek (Jourdain, Recb, 

 crit. sur 1'Age des Traductions d'Aristote, p. 230 236). We may recognise 

 an allusion to the same twofold source in the memorable letter which the 

 Emperor Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen sent with translations of Aristotle 

 to his universities, and especially to that of Bologuainl232. This letter coutaiiii 

 the expression of noble sentiments, and shews that it was not only the love 

 of natural history which taught Frederick II. to appreciate the philosophical 

 value of the " Compilationes varias quse ab Aristotele aliisque philosophii 



