Page:Ancient India as described by Ptolemy - John Watson McCrindle.djvu/19

 is its real length. To this fundamental miscalculation may be referred not a few of the most serious errors to be found in his work. With regard to the question of the length and the breadth of the inhabited part of the earth, a question of first importance in those days, he estimated its length as measured along the parallel of Rhodes which divided the then known world into two nearly equal portions at 72,000 stadia, and its breadth at 40,000. The meridian in the west from which he calculated his longitudes was that which passed through the Islands of the Blest (🇬🇷) probably the Canary Islands, and his most