Note 1 — Chapter I
Reading edition
: Pliny alludes to a lake in Ceylon of vast dimensions, but it is clear that his informants must have spoken of one of the huge tanks for the purpose of irrigation. Some of the Mappe-mondes of the Middle Ages place a lake in the middle of the island, with a city inhabited by astrologers; but they have merely reproduced the error of earlier geographers. (SANTAREM, Cosmog. tom. iii. p. 336.)