Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/724

 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

certained by meafure, yet none of them have fettled that/ only medium of. judging.. The Mikeas, or. pillar, is the fub« jecl to be meafured, and they are not yet agreed within 2.0 feet of its extreme height, nor about the divifion of any part of it. As this aceufation appears to be a ftrong one; I mail fct down the proof for the reader's confideration, that it may not be fuppofed I mean to criticife improperly^ or to do any author injuftice,..

And firflofthe Mikeas. Mr Thomas Humes, a gentle-* man quoted by * Dr Shaw, who had been a great many years a factor at Cairo, fays, that the. Mikeas is 58. feet Eng-* lifh in height. Now, there is really no reafon why fuch an- enormous pillar fhould have been built, as the Nile would drown all Cairo before it was to rife to this height ; accord-" ingly, as we have feen, its height is not To much by near 22 feet. Dr Perry f next, who has wrote largely upon the fub- ject, fays, the Mikeas, or column, is divided into 24 peeks, and each peek or cubit is 24 inches nearly. Dr Pococke $j who travelled at the fame time, agrees in the divifion of 24. peeks, but fays that theie peeks are unequal.; The 16 low- er he fuppofes are- 21. inches, the 4 next, 24 inches, and the uppermoft, 22. So that one of thefe gentlemen makes the Mikeas 43 feet, which is above fix feet more than the truth, and the other 48, which is above 1 1 ; befides the fecond error which Dr Pococke has committed, by faying the divi- fions are of three different dimenfions, when they really are

not


 * Shjuv's Travels, chap. ii. feft. 3. p. 3S2. f Defcript. of the Eaft, vol. I. p. 256.

X A View of the Levant, p. zSz. 284. 286.