Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/184

 170 STRABO. BOOK II. from the east or west, you may sail all round it. Certain intermediate spaces may have been left [unexplored], but these are as likely to be occupied by sea, as uninhabited lands. The object of the geographer is to describe known countries ; those which are unknown he passes over equally with those beyond the limits of the inhabited earth. It will therefore be sufficient for describing the contour of the island we have been speaking of, if we join by a right line the utmost points which, up to this time, have been explored by voyagers along the coast on either side. 6. Let it be supposed that this island is contained in one of the above quadrilaterals ; we must obtain its apparent mag- nitude by subtracting our hemisphere from the whole extent of the earth, from this take the half, and from this again the quadrilateral, in which we state our earth to be situated. We may judge also by analogy of the figure of the whole earth, by supposing that it accords with those parts with which we are acquainted. Now as the portion of the northern hemisphere, between the equator and the parallel next the [north] pole, re- sembles a vertebre or joint of the back-bone in shape, and as the circle which passes through the pole divides at the same time the hemisphere and the vertebre into two halves, thus forming the quadrilateral ; it is clear that this quadrilateral to which the Atlantic is adjacent, is but the half of the vertebre ; while at the same time the inhabited earth, which is an island in this, and shaped like a chlamys or soldiers cloak, occupies less than the half of the quadrilateral. This is evident from geometry, also 1 from the extent of the surrounding sea, which covers the extremities of the continents on either side, compressing them into a smaller figure, and thirdly, by the greatest length and breadth [of the earth itself]. The length being 70,000 stadia, enclosed almost entirely by a sea, impossible to navigate owing to its wildness and vast extent, and the breadth 30,000 stadia, bounded by regions rendered uninhabitable on account either of their intense heat or cold. That portion of the qua- drilateral which is unfitted for habitation on account of the heat, contains in breadth 8800 stadia, and in its greatest length 126,000 stadia, which is equal to one half of the equator, and 1 The whole of what follows to the end of the section is extremely em- barrassing in the original ; we must therefore claim the indulgence of the reader for any obscurity he may find in the translation.