noticed that he was probably acquainted with the south of Sweden, and his
four Scandinavian islands are evidently Zealand, Funen, Laland, and
Falster. It is remarkable that his geography is more accurate almost in
proportion as it recedes from the Mediterranean. The form which he assigns
to Italy is much farther removed from the truth than the form of most of
the other European countries which he describes. His fundamental error in
longitude led him to give to the Mediterranean Sea a much greater extent
than it actually possesses. According to him, it occupies nearly sixty-five
degrees; and it is a singular circumstance, as well as a decisive proof of
the influence of his authority, as well of the slow progress of accurate
and experimental geography, that his mensuration of this sea was reputed as
exact till the reign of Louis XIV., when it was curtailed of nearly
twenty-five degrees by observation.

The principal points in the geography of Asia, as given by Ptolemy, respect
the coasts of India, the route to the Seres, and the Caspian sea. His
delineation of India is equally erroneous with his delineation of the
British Isles: according to him, it stretches in a right line from west to
east, a little to the south of a line drawn between the Ganges and the
Indus. He possessed, however, information respecting places in the farther
peninsula of India, the locality of several of which, by comparing his
names with the Sanscrit, may be traced with considerable certainty. He
assigns to the island of Ceylon a very erroneous locality, arising from his
error respecting the form of India, and likewise an extent far exceeding
the truth. He is the first author, however, who mentions the seven mouths
of the Ganges. The route to the Seres, which he describes, has been already
noticed: it is remarkable that the latitude which he assigns to his Sera
metropolis, is within little more than a degree of the latitude of Pekin,
which, in the opinion of Dr. Vincent, is one of the most illustrious
approximations to truth that ancient geography affords. His description of
Arabia is, on the whole, accurate; he has, however, greatly diminished the
extent of the Arabian Gulf, and by at the same time increasing the size of
the Persian, he has necessarily given an erroneous form to this part of
Asia. The ancient opinion of Herodotus, that the Caspian was a sea by
itself, unconnected with any other, which was overlooked or disbelieved by
Strabo, Arria