VOYAGE TO ATHENS. 191 
was conducted by Minerva. On the shore was CHAP. 
J in. 
an altar. A strange notion seems to have been * * 
/. , i n i Doubtful 
founded upon a passage m Pausajuas; namely, story of 
that a part of the colossal statue of Minerva in 
the Acropolis of Athens was visible from the 
Sunian Promontory. After the repeated proofs 
which have occurred of late years, confirming 
the truth of antient geographers and historians 
upon many points before doubted, one would 
not hastily conclude that a thing positively 
asserted is untrue, because it has not remained 
to undergo the test of our experience. The 
distance is forty-two miles, and we barely 
discerned the Parthenon at fifteen; but the 
representation of this statue, as it appears 
upon an antient medal of Athens*, proves that it 
was much higher than the Parthenon; and there 
is no saying what the effect might be, of light 
reflected from a statue of polished or gilded 
brass in such an atmosphere, even at the extraor- 
dinary distance from which the point of the spear 
and crest of the helmet are said to have been 
visible. This gulph has never been accurately 
surveyed ; and the relative situation of the 
different parts of it appeared to us to be 
(3) See "Voyage du Jeuru Jnacharsis." Tab. XXVII. Fig. 1. 
Paris, 1790. 
