Note 81 — Chapter III · THE FAMILIARITY OF THE REGIONS OF THE EARTH WITH THE TRIPLICITIES AND THE PLANETS

History warrants the high enconium here given to the natives of these countries. Ægypt was the acknowledged mother of the arts and sciences, and at one time the great depot of all the learning of the world: her school of astronomy (a science which our author may be supposed to have placed in the first rank), founded at Alexandria by Ptol. Philadelphus, maintained its superior reputation for a thousand years. Cyrenaica gave birth to many illustrious philosophers, and, among them, to Eratosthenes, who is said to have invented the armillary sphere. This great man measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, and, though he erroneously reckoned it at only 20½ degrees, it should be recollected that he lived 200 years before the Christian æra. He also measured a degree of the meridian, and determined the extent of the earth, by means similar to those adopted by the moderns.