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An Historical Disquisition Concerning The Knowledge which the Ancients had of India : And The Progress of Trade with that Country prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape Of Good Hope / By William Robertson, D.D.F.R.S. Ed. Principal Of The University, And Historiographer To His Majesty For Scotland : With an Appendix, Containing Observations on the Civil Policy - the Laws and Judicial Proceedings - the Arts - the Sciences - and Religious Institutions, of the Indians
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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 2I i

Pliny likewife gives a fimilar defcription of it, Nat. Hid.lib. vi. c. 15. In the age of Juftinian, this opinion con,cerning the communication of the Cafpian Sea with theocean, was ftill prevalent; Cofm. Indicopl. Topog. Chrift.lih. ii. p. 138. C. 2. Some early writers , by a miftakeftill more fingular, have fuppofed the Cafpian Sea to beconneded with the Euxine . Quintus Curtius , whofe igno-rance of geography is notorious, has adopted this error,lib. vii. c. 7. ?■ Arrian , though a much more ju-

dicious writer, and who by refiding for fome time in theRoman province of Cappadocia , of which he was go-vernor , might have obtained more accurate information ,declares in one place, the origin of the Cafpian Sea to beftill unknown, and is doubtful 'whether it was connectedwith the Euxine , or with the great Eaftern ocean whichfurrounds India ; lib. vii. c. 16. In another place he af-ferts, that there was a communication between the Cafpianand the Eaftern ocean; lib. v. c. 26. Thefe errors appearmore extraordinary, as a juft defcription had been givenof the Cafpian by Herodotus , near five hundred years beforethe age of Strabo . “ The Cafpian, ” fays he, “isafeabyitfelf, unconnected with any other. Its length is as muchas a veffel with oars can fail in fifteen days, its greateftbreadth as much as it can fail in eight days; ” lib. i. c. 203*-Ariftotle defcribes it in the fame manner , and with hisufual precifion contends that it ought to be called a greatlake not a fea; Meteorolog. lib. ii. Diodorus Siculus concurs with them in opinion, vol. ii. lib. xviii. p. 261.None of thofe authors determine whether the greateft lengthof the Cafpian was from North to South, or from Eaft toWeft. In the ancient maps which illuftrate the geographyof Ptolemy , it is delineated, as if its greateft lengthextended from Eaft to Weft. In modern times the firftinformation concerning the true form of the Cafpian whichthe people of Europe received, was given by AnthonyJenkinfon, an Englifh merchant, who with a caravan fromKudia travelled along a confiderable part of its coaft in theyear 1538; Hakluyt Colled, vol. i. p. 334. The accuracy

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