?4 an historical disquisition

SECT. the ancients had advanced by sea. Its latitude heII. calculates to be three degrees south of the line.Is, with M. D’Anville, we conclude the situationof Sin-hoa, in the western part of the kingdom ofCochin-China, to be the fame with Sinæ Metro-polis, Ptolemy has erred in fixing its position noless than fifty degrees of longitude, and twentydegrees of latitude 4t . *

These errors of Ptolemy concerning the remoteparts of Asia, have been rendered more conspicuousby a mistaken opinion of modern times ingraftedupon them. Sinæ, the most distant station men-tioned in his geography , has such a near resem-blance in sound to China, the name by whichthe greatest and most civilized empire in the Eastis known to Europeans , that upon their first ac-quaintance with it, they hastily concluded them tobe the same; and of consequence it was supposedthat China was known to the ancients, though nopoint seems to be more ascertained, than that theynever advanced by sea beyond that boundarywhich .1 have allotted to their navigation.

Having thus traced the discoveries of India whichthe ancients made by sea, I shall next examine wfiatadditional knowledge of that country they ac-quired from their progress by land. It appears (as1 have formerly related) that there was a trade

41 Ptolem. Geogr. lib. vii. c. j. D’Anville, Limites duMonde connu des Anciens au-dela du Gange. Mem. deLiterati xxxii. 604 , &c. Ant. de l’fiide, Supplem. i.161. &c. See NOTE XXXII.