Geography As A Science, Therefore, Had Hitherto Made Little Advances; Indeed The Discovery And Example Of Hipparchus, Of Reducing It To Astronomical Basis, Seems To Have Been Forgotten Or Neglected Till The Middle Of The Second Century.

The first after him, who attempted to fix geography on the base of science was Marinus, of Tyre, who lived a short time before Ptolemy; of his work we have only extracts given by this geographer.

He divided the terms latitude and longitude, which, as we have already stated, were introduced by Artemidorus (A.C. 104) into degrees, and these degrees into their parts, though this improvement was not reduced generally to practice before Ptolemy, for we are informed by him, that Marinus had the latitude of some places and the longitude of others, but scarcely one position where he could ascertain both.

With regard to the extent of Marinus' geographical knowledge, or the accuracy of his details, we cannot form a fair judgment from the fragments of his works which remain. According to Ptolemy, he had examined the history of preceding ages, and all the information that had been collected in his own time, comparing and rectifying them as he proceeded in his own account.

It will be recollected that the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea did not trace the African coast lower down than Rhapta; but Marinus mentions Prasum, which, according to that hypothesis, which fixes it in the lowest southern latitude, must have been seven degrees to the south of Rhapta.

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