54fi GEOGRAPHY. 
their place in all maps whatever, by a fort of unquef- 
tionccl prefer!ption, down even to the beginning of the 
eighteentli century. 
Neither were thefe errors fiich as-were introduced in 
the more diftant regions of his maps, which are generally 
lefs vifited and more uncertain ; but they were in the 
very centre of that part of the world which was the beft 
known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, For who¬ 
ever is the lead converfant in tlieir hiftory, mull know 
that the coafts of tiie Mediterranean were the claflic 
ground of all antiquity ; war and commerce occafioned 
Its being inceffantly traverfed by the fhips of all the 
contiguous nations; feveral great empires had their ca¬ 
pitals upon its (hores, or at a few miles diftance ; and 
almoft all the ancient pratlical aftronomers made their 
obfervations in its neighbourhood. Yet it appears, from 
major Rennell’s Analyfis of the Geography of Herodotus, 
that thougli the Mediterranean fea, and its European 
coafls, were evidently well known to that hillorian ; it is 
nevCrthelefs certain that he knew but little of its weft- 
ern fliores and boundaries. With the extent and fubdivi- 
fions of tlte fouthern countries on the Danube, however, 
he appears to liave been well acquainted. His Scythia 
is the Weftern Sarmatia of fome later writers among the 
ancients, and the Ukraine of modern geography. But his 
notion of the form of this country was incorrefl, as he 
fuppofed it to be one-half lefs than it really is. This in¬ 
genious author alfo pnrfues his examination through the 
countries which Herodotus has deferibed as bordering 
on Wedern Scythia; remarks, after Gibbon, that the 
Genoefe conftrutled thole fortifications of the Crimea, 
whofe origin has been by foine referred to earlier times ; 
traces the courfe of the famous expedition of Darius 
into Wefiern Scythia ; attends Herodotus into the-coun- 
tries beyond the Euxine fea; deferibes the Hyperboreans 
of the Romans as being the fame with the Gog and 
Magog of the Scriptures, or the Juje Majuje of the pre- 
fent Orientals. 
Tlie Afia of Herodotus he next defines. Its wed and 
fouth-wed boundaries were the diores of the Arabian 
gulph, and of the Mediterranean and Euxine feas: its 
eadern limits were the country of the Oigurs, the defert 
of Robi, and India taken inclulively : on the fouth its 
only boundary known to Herodotus was the Erythrean 
fea. The north of Afia was to him unkno>vn ; and he 
had but little knowledge of India. The length of Afia 
eadward was lefs known to Herodotus, than to fome 
later geograpliers among the ancients. With the bounds 
and extent of the Cafpian fea, he was better acquainted 
than the followers of Alexander. He knew it to be a 
lake; they fuppofed it to communicate with the great 
northern ocean. Clfina, Chinefe and Wedern Tartary, 
Thibet, the peninfula beyond the Ganges, and the greater 
part of Siberia, were entirely unknown to Herodotus. 
To him and the other Greeks of his time Eadern Scythia 
was alfo little known. The Malfagetsc, the Sac:c, and 
the Dah;e, were the great Scythian tribes. He has de¬ 
feribed the geography of the Perfian empire as divided 
into twenty governments. Tlte maritime drength of the 
PJicenicians under the Perfian power, is well marked by 
the fadt which Mr. Rennell here notices, that they fur- 
nidied to the fleet of Xerxes 450 triremes, of which 150 
were derived from their edablifhincnt in the illand of 
Cyprus. Of the Ganges it appears that Herodotus had 
never even ireard. 
Africa was bed known to Herodotus where it is adja¬ 
cent to the middle and eadern limits of the Mediterra¬ 
nean fea. Of its great rivers, he knew only tlie Niger 
and the Nile, as‘'recently traced to their fources by 
Bruce and Park. He knew thofe oajes, or infulated fpots 
in the i'andy defert, which have been lately re-difeovered 
by Brown. He knew that-Africa had been circumnavi¬ 
gated. T he voyage was performed at the rate of thirty- 
two geograpliical iuiles a day, and finidied in the fpace 
of two years. The whole tract of tlie earth known to 
Herodotus might be meal'ured by a radius of onq^thoiu 
•fand Britifli miles, moving from the eentre of Halicar. 
nalfiis. The Seewa of Brown, the traveller in Africa, 
is the Oafis of Ammon of Herodotus. 
It appears that little was done in geography from the 
days of Ptolemy, above-mentioned, to the redoration of 
learning in Europe; during which time the Arabian 
geographers copied and retailed all his principal errors. 
They obferved indeed under their caliph Almamon, in 
the beginning of the ninth century, a degree of latitude 
on the plains of Sinjair, or Shinar, near Babylon, and 
found it to meafure Arabian miles, each of which 
confided of 4000 cubits, or 6000 feet, from which they 
determined the circumference of the earth. 
When fcience began to be revived in Europe, it was 
fome time before the adronomers of that age were able 
to obtain copies of Ptolemy’s Geography ; and even 
then it was with difficulty they could read and clear 
the manuferipts of fome of their groffed errors; for 
wherever numbers were inferted in any author, and 
made the bulk of the compofition, the midakes were 
generally multiplied more abundantly in the tranferib- 
ing; becaufe the fenfe did not there, as in mod other 
books, by' a kind of felf-evidence, affid the copier in 
preferving the authenticity of the original. It required 
likev/ife fome longer fpace of time before the adronomers 
condriffited proper indruments in order to try whether 
thefe latitudes fo recorded, correfponded with the fitua- 
tions as they really dood in nature. But when they' 
came actually to obferve them, they difeovered the la¬ 
titude of many places materially different from what 
liad been fet down by Ptolemy; and finding this varia¬ 
tion in fome of them to be nearly of the fame quantity , 
indead or accounting for this difference from the impe'r- 
fedfion of indruments, the inaccuracy of obfervers, and 
the metliod of Ptolemy’s Converfions, they liadily con. 
eluded that the axis of the earth liad drifted its polition, 
by wliich the latitudes of all the places in Europe had 
been increafed. This was the idea of Dominicus Maria 
of Ferrara, about the year 1489, who fancied that the 
variation was at the rate of one degree in 1050 years; 
fo that after a long revolution of ages, it would happen 
that the countries now under the frigid zone fliould be 
found under the torrid; and that in like manner thofe 
regions which fufter from the violence of the heat fliould 
gradually pafs into the temperate and frigid zones. Men 
of warm imaginations might.eafily work up this dream 
of geographers into a beautiful and an equitable difpo- 
fition of nature. 
This fanciful hypothefis was again adopted by Magi- 
nus of Bologna, about a hundred years after, towards 
the clofe of the fixteenth century, in which he had the 
concurrence of feveral of the Italian aflronomers. And 
their authority made fuch an imprelfion upon,Tycho 
Brahe, that being defirous of clearing up a doubt which 
he tliought had fome foundation, he applied to the re¬ 
public of Venice to fend fome good obfervers into 
Egypt, to verify whether the height of the pole was 
ftill the fame at Alexandria as it had been found by 
Ptolemy. For as that city had been formerly as it were 
the metropolis of aflronoiny, there could be no doubt 
but that the height of tlie pole there niufl; have been 
accurately obferved for a long feries of years by their 
ablefl; aftronomers, and that Ptolemy miifl have exa¬ 
mined it himfelf witli his iitmoft: attention before he had 
made iil'e of it in his aftronomical calculations. But 
Tycho’s requelt was not tnen complied with. How¬ 
ever, when the obferv.ition was made, it did not fuffi- 
ciently fupport their hypothefis; for Ptolemy having 
found Alexandria to be 30° 58' according to his Alnia- 
ge(t, or 31° according to his Geography; the obl'erva- 
tions made flnee by Mr, Greaves in 1638, made it amount 
to 31° 10', and thofe by M. Chazelles in 1694, and by 
M. Condamine in 1731, fix it at 31° ii'; which though 
a variation of eleven or thirteen minutes, may be charged, 
as in many otlier limilar cafes, upon the errors of inltru- 
nieiits and obfervers. 
Peter 
