260 JOURNEY FROM coasting navigation for the lengths of the coasts of Persia and Caramania*.”

In fact it was not till the time of Ptolemy that geography began to be placed upon that solid basis on which it now stands so conspicuously ; and it certainly appears somewhat singular, that the writers on this subject who flourished between the time of Hipparchus and that of the Alexandrian geographer (among whom were Strabo and Pliny,) should not have availed themselves of the discoveries of the former to check the measurements which appear in their works f.

Various errors have been pointed out in the geography of Ptolemy ; but as it can scarcely be supposed that he had sufficient observations to regulate the position of all the places which he has laid down, we ought not to be surprized at this circumstance. His outline of the Gulf of Syrtis, though it cannot be called correct, is notwithstanding more so than those which have since been given of it ; and the prolongation of the gulf at its southern extremity, so erroneously marked « * “ Variations ever did and ever will exist (continues the Major) on computed distances ; instances of whicli existed on our own public roads previous to their improvement, and which do yet exist on many of the ci’oss-roads.” “ It is probable,” he adds, “.that Hei’odotus, Xenophon, Nearchus, Strabo, &c., all intended the same stade, but may have given occasion to different results, by reporting the numbers on the judgment of different persons.”

t Hipparchus of Nicsea (“ who can never,” says Pliny, “ be sufficiently commended,”) appeal's to have been the first who united geography with astronomy, by determining the position of some of the places which he described, according to their latitude and longitude. He died about one hundred and twenty-five years before Christ, and his important discoveries remained neglected, or at least unapplied, for nearly three hundred years, till they were adopted by Ptolemy in his Geographical Treatise.

® See Ptolemy, Geos:, lib. i. c. 4, and Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. ii. c. 12 — 26.