FOOTNOTES:
[126] “Numberless passages of Greek and Latin authors prove that the ancients, when they lost sight of land, had no other guide than the stars.”—Pugens, Trésor des Origines, p. 190.
[127] “Had the Saracens known the compass, it was for them to have discovered America.”—Voltaire, Ep. sur les Mœurs, c. cxlix.
[128] The Phœnician name for the compass was interpreted by the Greeks “unknown gods.”
[129] This was written before the appearance of Mr. Smith’s interesting work on the “Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul.” He has vindicated ancient seamanship as to dimensions of vessels, length of voyage, working, &c. One deficiency in that work has been supplied by Humboldt in “Cosmos,” in reference to calculation of distances, or the “Log.”
[130] The original names of Greece and the Islands, of Asia Minor, the Black Sea, Spain, France, Italy, and England, are indelible monuments of the presence and wisdom of the Phœnicians. Plato refers reverentially to the men who gave the first names. Bochart, in the preface to “Pheleg,” enumerates about 400 names; for instance, Parnassus, Ithaca, Malaga, Samos, Marathon, which are without meaning in Greek. It is descriptive in Hebrew and Arabic,—that is, in Phœnician.
Τὸ πόρσω
Δ’ ἔσι σοφοῖς ἄβατον
κᾀσόφοις, οὺ μὴν διὠξω κενὸς εἴην.
Pind. Olymp. 3.
He is speaking of the region beyond the Pillars.