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lay under one of the tropics, much lefs that it lay 
under both. 
Another fignification of the word tropic is, when 
it is ul'ed for that moment of time when the Sun, by 
his apparent motion, enters either of the folfticial 
points : But neither could Homer ufe the word here 
in this fenfe. For the folflice, according to this 
meaning of the word, is not only at the iiland Syria, 
but every- where elle ; and is only fooner or later, in 
time, as places lie to the eaftward or wcflward of 
each other. For if the time of the fummer folftice, 
this year, is at 1 2 o’clock at noon, as reckoned at 
Greenwich, it will only be 1 1 o'clock to places that 
lie in 1 5 0 of weftern longitude ; or 1 o’clock in the 
afternoon to fuch as lie in 1 f ealfern longitude from 
it. 
The only remaining fenfe, then, of which the 
words 7^o7nxi loio feem capable, is, as far as I can 
apprehend, by fuppofing that they mean fome inftru- 
ment or other, as a gnomon, or the like, eredted 
there ; which, by the increafing or decreafing lengths 
of its meridional fhadows, pointed out the days of the 
folliices : I fay the days ; becaufe, if thofe could be 
obtained, it was a degree of accuracy as great, I lup- 
pofe, as oblervations ef this fort could, in thofe times, 
pretend to. 
And that we are not much miftaken in apprehend- 
ing this to have been an inftrument of this fort, may 
be gathered, perhaps, from Diogenes Laertius. For, 
in his life of Pherecydes, who was a native, at leail 
an inhabitant, of this very iiland, he lays, Zo'^eica H 
xj rihtoTgoTriov ev r [v, vr.oo., fervatur hcltotro- 
pium in Syr a infula. 
Thefe 
