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and feveral others I stand obliged. And as much is expressed in the late £-•dision of Ptolemy by Bertis compared and corrected by Sylburgius , with aManuscript out of the Palatine Libra iWherefore it cannot be doubted,having siich a Cloud of Witnesses, but that Ptolemy asligncd to Byzantium,a$ our best Modern Geographen have done, the Latitude of 430 st, And thiswill farther appear, not only out of his Geography, where it is often expressed,but also out of his Mtyayv Zufag/s, or Almagest as the Arabiam terms ir,where desoribing the Parallel palling <h<£ he afligns to it 430 5^.

What was the Opinion conceming Byzantium of Strabo preceeding Ptolemy ,or of Hipparchus preceeding Strabo, or of Eratostbenes Ancienter and it Maybc Accurater than all of them, ( for Strabo (Lib. 2..) calls bim TcKivrcstovrrf&ypiMvoÜAtvtv mst -? y>oy?a.i'nt) though T ully (Lib. Ep. tut Att .)makes Hipparchus often reprehend Eratostbenes, as Ptolemy afrer him dotb Ma-rinus, their Writings not being now extanr, ( unless thofe of Strato ) cannoibe determincd by us. But as lor Strabo, in our Inquiry we can expeib littleSatisfaction j for his Description of Places, having niore of the Hißorian and'Philoßpher, ( both which he hath performed with singular Gravity and Judg-ment ) than the Exactnefs of a Mathematician , who strictly refpects the Po-sition of Places, without Inquisition after their Nature, Qjiaüties,- and Inhabi-tants, (though the best Geography would be a Mixture of them all, as Abul-feda, an Arabian Prince in nis PeRification of Countries above Y ear sincehath done ;) I fäy for these Reasons we can expect little Satisfaction fromStrabo, and lels may we hope for from Dionysius Äser, Arrianus , Stcpleanus By?

% sntinus , and others. Wherefore next having recourse to the Arabiam, whoin Geography descrve the second Place after the Gnecians, I find in Nastir Eddinthe Latitude of Buxantium, which he terms Bu\antiya, and Constantiniya, to be45 0 , and in Vleg Begs Astronomical Tables the fame to be exprefled. Abul-feda chicfly follows four Principal Authors as his Guides, in the compiling ofhis Geographical Tables , thofe are, Alfaras, Albiruny, Hon Saijd Almagraby,lastly Ptolemy, whose Geography he terms a Description of the Quadrant, ( orthe fourth Part of the Earth j Inhabited j and all thefe, according to his Asisertion, place Byzantium in 45 0 of Latitude. And here it may justly be won-dred, how this Difference Ihould arife between the Grcek, Copies of Ptolemy ,and thoso tranflated into Arabicis by the Command of Almamon, the Learned -Calife of Babylon j for Abulfeda expresly relates, that Ptolemy was first interpre-ted in his Time, that is, in the (Komputation of Almecims in Erpeniuss Edi-tion, and of Emir Cond a Persian Historiographer , more than 800 Years since:Concerning which Abulfeda writes thus, Tbis Book, ( difcoursing of Ptole-my s Geography ) xoas tranflated out of the Grecian Language into the Arabicl^forAlmamon And in this I find, ( by three fair MSS of Abulfeda ) Byzantiumto be constantly Placed in 45 0 . and as constantly in the Greel^.Copiesin 43» st.But in the &vor*s of Chryficocca, out of the Persian Tables, made

about the Year 1346, in Scaligefs Calculation ) it is Placed in 45° To re-Concile the Difference between the Greckj and Arabians may feem impossible,fot the cotnmon Refuge of flying to the Corruption of Numbers by Tran-faibers, and Jaying the fäult on them which sometimes is the Author’s, will

not'