INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 559 



over mere itinerary measurements by land and sea, it 

 is, unfortunately, impossible to ascertain, amongst these un- 

 certain positions (upwards of 2500 of which are given), the 

 nature of the dta on which they are based, and the relative 

 probability which may be ascribed to them, from the itinera- 

 ries then in existence. 



The entire ignorance of the polarity of the magnetic needle, 

 and consequently of the use of the compass (which, twelve cen- 

 turies and a half before the time of Ptolemy, under the Chinese 

 Emperor Tsingwang, had been used, together with a way mea- 

 surer, in the construction of the magnetic cars), caused the 

 most perfect of the itineraries of the Greeks and Romans to be 

 extremely uncertain, owing to the deficiency of means for 

 learning with certainty the direction or the line which formed 

 the angle with the meridian.* 



In proportion as a better knowledge has been acquired, in 

 modern times, of the Indian and ancient Persian (or Zend) 

 languages, we are more and more astonished to find that a 

 great portion of the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy 

 may be regarded as an historical monument of the commercial 

 relations existing between the west and the remotest regions 

 of Southern and Central Asia.f We may reckon the know- 



* See a collection of the most striking instances of Greek and Roman 

 errors, regarding the directions of different mountain chains, in the 

 introduction to my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. xxxvii. xl. Most satisfac- 

 tory investigations, respecting the uncertainty of the numerical bases of 

 Ptolemy's positions, are to be found in a treatise of Ukert, in the 

 JKheinische Museum fur Philologie, Jahrg., vi. 1838, s. 31 4-324. 



f For examples of Zend and Sanscrit words, which have been pre- 

 served to us in Ptolemy's Geography, see Lassen, Diss. de Taprobane 

 insula, pp. 6, 9, and 17; Burnouf's Comment, sur le Yacna, t. i. pp. xciii. 

 cxx. and clxxxi. clxxxv.; and my Examen crit. de I' Hist, de la 

 Geogr., t. i. pp. 45--49. In a few cases Ptolemy gives both the Sanscrit 

 names and their significations, as for the island of Java " barley island," 

 'Ia(3a$iov, 6 ffrjpaivti Kpidfjc vrjffOQ, Ptol. vii. 2 (Wilhelm von Hum- 

 boldt, Uebcr die Kawi-Sprache, bd. i. s. 60-63). According to Busch- 

 mann, the two-stalked barley, Hordeum distichon, is still termed in the 

 principal Indian languages (as in Hindustanee, Bengalee, and Nepaulese, 

 and in the Mahratta, Guzerat, and Cingalese languages), as well as in 

 Persian and Malay, yava, dschav, or dschau, and in the language of 

 Orissa, yaa. (Compare the Indian translation of the Bible, in the pas- 

 sage Joh. vi. 9 and 13; and Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindoostan, 

 Madras, 1813, p. 217.) 



