NOVEMBEK 14, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



683 



delphus and the pressure of eircumstanees, 

 until it embraced the whole field of knowl- 

 edge.'' Here almost all of the important 

 results of Greek science were obtained in a 

 period covering nine centuries. The 

 museum established by Ptolemy was an 

 extensive palace, housing the brilliant com- 

 pany of scholars and investigators gathered 

 together from all parts of Greece. As a 

 state institution, endowed with special 

 revenues, it was under the direction of the 

 government, which appointed its head. 

 This, in accordance with the traditions of 

 the day, was a priest, whose ecclesiastical 

 office, and even the name of the museum 

 itself, gave a kind of religious character to 

 the institution,^ though it subsequently be- 

 came purely secular. 



Ptolemy Philadelphus collected strange 

 animals from many lands, and sent Diony- 

 sius on exploring expeditions to the most 

 remote regions.' But while the investi- 

 gators of the museum doubtless profited by 

 these collections and explorations for their 

 studies in natural history and geography. 

 Matter finds no evidence that at this period 

 the museum possessed either a distinct 

 natural history collection or a zoological 

 park,^" though the study of medicine was 

 encouraged, and a great art collection was 

 developed. 



The rising tide of science soon brought 

 all the material requisites of research, sup- 

 plementing the great library of 700,000 

 volumes by the instruments, laboratories 

 and collections demanded by the astron- 

 omer, the physicist and the student of 

 biology. A botanical garden, a zoological 

 menagerie, an anatomical laboratory and 

 an astronomical observatory in the Square 



7 Matter, ' ' Histoire de 1 'Ecole d 'Alexandrie, ' ' 

 2d ed., Vol. II., Introduction, p. v. 

 s Op. cit., Vol. I., pp. 87 and 96. 

 ^lUd., p. 158. 

 io26i(?., p. 159. 



Porch, provided by Ptolemy Euergetes 

 with an equinoctial and a solstitial armil- 

 lary, stone quadrants, astrolabes and other 

 instruments, illustrate the nature of the 

 extensive equipment provided. The work 

 of the Alexandrian school thus continued 

 to grow, until it embraced all of natural 

 and physical science, medicine, mathe- 

 matics, astronomy and geography, history, 

 philosophy, religion, morals and polities. 

 It is significant that an institution which in 

 many respects would be regarded as a 

 model to be striven for to-day, should have 

 developed at so early a period in the history 

 of civilization.^^ 



To the Alexandrian school we owe the 

 "Geometry" of Euclid, and his treatises 

 on "Harmony," "Optics" and "Catop- 

 trics ' ' ; the hydraulic screw and some of the 

 mathematical and physical discoveries of 

 Archimedes of Syracuse, who spent part 

 of his time in Egypt; the mathematical, 

 astronomical, geographical and historical 

 investigations of Eratosthenes, who first 

 endeavored to determine the circumference 

 of the earth by measuring the difference of 

 latitude and the distance between Alexan- 

 dria and Syene, and wrote on such subjects 

 as the geological submersion of lands, the 

 elevation of ancient sea-beds, and the open- 

 ing of the Dardanelles and the Straits of 

 Gibraltar; the "Conic Sections" of Apol- 

 lonius; the mathematical and astronomical 

 researches of Hipparchus, whose discovery 

 of the precession of the equinoxes was 

 based on observations made five hundred 

 years previously by Timochares at Alexan- 

 dria ; and the great "Syntaxis" of Ptolemy, 

 translated as the "Almagest" by the 

 Arabians, which stood as a commanding 

 authority in Europe for nearly fifteen hun- 

 dred years. Founded on the geocentric 

 hypothesis, the "Almagest" is nevertheless 



11 Draper, ' ' Intellectual Development of Eu- 

 rope," Vol. I., p. 188. 



