Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/187

 CHAP. v. 8. INTRODUCTION. 173 8. It is true that Pytheas of Marseilles affirms that the farthest country north of the British island* is Thule ; for which place he says the summer tropic and the arctic circle is all one. But he records no other particulars concerning it ; [he does not say] whether Thule is an island, or whether it continues habitable up to the point where the summer tropic becomes one with the arctic circle. 1 For myself, I fancy that the northern boundaries of the habitable earth are greatly south of this. Modern writers tell us of nothing be- yond lerne, which lies just north of Britain, where the peo- ple live miserably and like savages on account of the severity of the cold. It is here in my opinion the bounds of the ha- bitable earth ought to be fixed. If on the one hand the parallels of Byzantium and Mar- seilles are the same, as Hipparchus asserts on the faith of Pytheas, (for he 2 says that at Byzantium the gnomon in- dicates the same amount of shadow as Pytheas gives for Marseilles,) and at the same time the parallel of the Dnieper is distant from Byzantium about 3800 stadia, it follows, if we take into consideration the distance between Marseilles and Britain, that the circle which passes over the Dnieper traverses Britain as well. 3 But the truth is that Pytheas, who so frequently misleads people, deceives in this instance too. It is generally admitted that a line drawn from the Pillars of Hercules, and passing over the Strait [of Messina], Athens, and Rhodes, would lie under the same parallel of latitude. 4 It is likewise admitted, that the line in passing from the Pillars to the Strait of Sicily divides the Mediterranean through the 1 The tropic being placed at 24 from the equator by Strabo, and most probably by Pytheas also, the latitude of Thule, according to the observ- ation of this traveller, would be fixed at 66, which corresponds with the north of Iceland. 2 Hipparchus. 3 Hipparchus placed Marseilles and Byzantium 'at 30,142 stadia, or 43 3' 38" of latitude, and estimated the parallel for the centre of Britain at 33,942 stadia, or 48 29' 19". Whereas Strabo only allowed for this latter 32,700 stadia, or 46 42' 51". 4 Viz. the 36 of latitude. The actual latitudes are as follow : The Pillars of Hercules, or Strait of Gibraltar, 36. The Strait of Messina, 38 12'. Athens, 38<> 5'. The middle of the Isle of Rhodes, 36 18' ; and the city, 36o 28' 30".