The Proof Of This, Indeed, Rests Entirely On An
Inscription Found At Aduli, Which There Can Be No Doubt Is The Harbour And
Bay Of Masuah; The Only Proper Entrance, According To Bruce, Into
Abyssinia.
The inscription to which we have alluded was extant in the time
of Cosmas (A.D. 545), by whom it was seen.
From it, Ptolemy appears to have
passed to the Tacazze, which he calls the Nile, and to have penetrated into
Gojam, in which province the fountains of the Nile are found. He made
roads, opened a communication between this country and Egypt, and during
this expedition obliged the Arabians to pay tribute, and to maintain the
roads free from robbers and the sea from pirates; subduing the whole coast
from [Leucke->Leuke] Come to Sabea. The inscription adds: "In the
accomplishment of this business I had no example to follow, either of the
ancient kings of Egypt, or of my own family; but was the first to conceive
the design, and to carry it into execution. Thus, having reduced the whole
world to peace under my own authority, I came down to Aduli, and sacrificed
to Jupiter, to Mars, and to Neptune, imploring his protection for all who
navigate these seas."
Ptolemy Euergetes was particularly attentive to the interests of the
library at Alexandria. The first librarian appointed by Ptolemy the
successor of Alexander, was Zenodotus; on his death, Ptolemy Euergetes
invited from Athens Eratosthenes, a citizen of Cyrene, and entrusted to him
the care of the library: it has been supposed that he was the second of
that name, or of an inferior rank in learning and science, because he is
sometimes called Beta; but by this appellation nothing else was meant, but
that he was the second librarian of the royal library at Alexandria. He
died at the age of 81, A.C. 194. He has been called a second Plato, the
cosmographer and the geometer of the world: he is rather an astronomer and
mathematician than a geographer, though geography is indebted to him for
some improvements in its details, and more especially for helping to raise
it to the accuracy and dignity of a science. By means of instruments, which
Ptolemy erected in the museum at Alexandria, he ascertained the obliquity
of the ecliptic to be 23 deg. 51' 20". He is, however, principally celebrated
as the first astronomer who measured a degree of a great circle, and thus
approximated towards the real diameter of the earth.
The importance of this discovery will justify us in entering on some
details respecting the means which this philosopher employed, and the
result which he obtained.
It is uncertain whether the well at Syene, in Upper Egypt, which he used
for this purpose, was dug by his directions, or existed previously. Pliny
seems to be of the former opinion; but there is reason to believe that it
had a much higher antiquity. The following observations on its structure by
Dr. Horsley, Bishop of Rochester, are ingenious and important.
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