THE 
EDINBURGH JOURNAL 
OF 
NATURAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 
NOVEMBER, 1829. 

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
ART. I. Remarks on the Errors of the Oriental Tables, and 
the Effects which these have produced on Modern Geographers, 
in their Maps of Oriental Regions. By James Bru, Esa. 
In our abridged account of the origin, progress, and present state 
of geographical science, as given in our edition of Rollin’s History 
of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients, (566-617,) we exhibited 
a short and compendious view of the oriental geographers, from Al- 
Fargani down to Ulugh Beigh, and shewed, that they all followed 
Ptolemy’s system, both in astronomy and geography, and, that in the 
latter, they made no improvement in the method of ascertaining lon- 
gitudes and taking latitudes. It was mentioned likewise, that they 
had made us in some degree better acquainted with the geography of 
the regions beyond the Tigris, and south of the Jaxartes, and fur- 
nished us with some caravan-routes through these countries, and from 
thence to China. It was remarked, that their astronomical observa- 
tions were few and inaccurate, and by no means entitled to the confi- 
dence which has been placed in them by modern geographers, as 
De Lisle, Strahlenberg, D’Anville, and Rennell, not to mention 
more which might be named. Their geographical knowledge was 
almost entirely confined to those regions where the faith of the 
Arabian prophet was professed and established. They thought it 
profane to study the language and history of the Djours or Infidels, 
and equally so to exalt them by describing the regions where they 
dwelt. Their geographical tables were almost wholly like those of 
Ptolemy, and wholly founded on the basis of itineraries, and are 
only of use where better materials cannot be had. We shewed from 
Abulfeda, how little dependence was to be placed on oriental geo- 
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