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PREFACE. xv
nor can any Thing be offered to juftify his Ignorance or Negligence as to the Longitude of St. John if Acre, or Ptokma~ is y which he writes to be in either 56, 57, 58, or 70 Degrees. When he gives you but one Number, it is becaufe he found no other in the Books he tranfcribed,[1] but it is never the furer for that ; he himfelf does
- ↑ the chief ofthefe Differences muff arifefrcm a dif-
ference of Meridians ; for Mr. Renaudot after all he,in the
Body of the Book y fays in their behalf as careful Observers
and intelligent Mathematicians , muff be inccnfifient with
himfelf to fuppofe thefe Numbers are mere Blunders
and Inaccuracies. Abulfeda feems to be no more than a.
ColleBor, as may be clearly gathered from that Prince's
own Preface, and from what Mr. Renaudot here ac-
knowledges. Uhat thefe various Longitudes are perplexing,
every Body mujl allow , it being hard to determin which
is to be preferred, as it is impoffible to find out the exact
Meridian of each ; but that they are flips of Ignorance or
Negligence cannot well be fuppofed. Befides, it is well
known, '[that were any Man, like Abulfeda, to collef£
from our own befi Geographers, or rather Hydrographers,
for what concerns the Sea-Coafi in particular, tho* fo
well known to mofi of the European Navigators, they
would be often found to vary a number of Degrees from
each other ; we need only inftance in the Coafi of France,
next to us, and the Coafi of Brafil in America, which
now are thought to be rectified, as they doubtlefs are :
But theft Variations did not arife from the want of a
fixed Meridian, but purely from a mifiaken Reckoning
or Computation. If fome of our befi Geographers then
have till very lately abounded with Errors of this kind, it
is fomewhat unreafonable to expeB the Orientals to be
quite free from them ; and as they fay, The Know-
ledge of a Part, is to be preferred to an Ignorance
of the Whole ; fo if we can to a Degree or two fettle
upon the Longitude of mop of the noted Cities in the
- uafi extent of Afia, which might perhaps be done, it
not
