2-8 



GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 



in the Syriac translation. From the reign of Al-Mamoun the Arabs measured 

 an arc of the" meridian in order to calculate the size of the earth, and to rectify 

 the calculations of rtolemacus as to the measure of the degree of each of the 

 large circles which were supposed to intersect the earth at intervals of 66| 

 miles. The conquests of the Arabs, their trade by land and sea, and, above 

 all, their religious pilgrimages to Mecca, served at once to enrich their store 

 of knowledge both as to astronomical, physical, and political geography. 

 They brought from China the compass, with which the Chinese had been 

 acquainted from time immemorial, and the use of it at sea unquestionably 

 led to a total and almost immediate revolution in the science of geography. 

 The Arabs possessed in the tenth century two learned geographers, Ibn- 



Fig. 200. " How Alexander did battle with the Beast which is very formidable and has three 

 Horns." Miniature from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century (No. 11,040). In th; 

 Burgundy Library, Brussels. 



Haukal and Masoudi, both natives of Bagdad. The first wrote a geographical, 

 political, and statistical description of the Empire of the Caliphs, in the pre- 

 face to which he said, " I have collected all the information which has made 

 of geography a science interesting to men of all degree." Masoudi intro- 

 duced into a large encyclopaedic work entitled " Akhbar al Zeman " (the 

 News of the Time) all the documents which he had collected during twenty- 

 five years' travels through Asia and Africa ; but it would appear that this 

 work has been lost, and all that remains is an abridgment made by the 

 author himself under the title of " Golden Prairies," and which itself fills 



