[598] The text here is evidently corrupt.
[599] Gosselin makes some sensible remarks on this section; we have endeavoured to render it accurately, but much fear that the true meaning of Strabo is now obscured by corruptions in the text.
[600] Moadieh, the mouth of the river close to Aboukir.
[601] Certain little islets at the mouth of the canal of Constantinople, in the Black Sea. These islands want about a degree and a quarter of being under the same meridian as Moadieh.
[602] Gosselin remarks, that the defile intended by Strabo, was probably the valley of the river Kur, or the ancient Cyrus, in Georgia; and by Mount Caspius we are to understand the high mountains of Georgia, whence the waters, which fall on one side into the Black Sea, and on the other into the Caspian, take their rise.
[603] Gosselin also observes, that on our charts this distance is about 8100 stadia of 700 to a degree. Consequently the difference between the meridian of Thapsacus and that of Mount Caspius is as much as 4° 45′, in place of the 300 stadia, or from 25′ to 26′ supposed by Hipparchus.
[604] On the contrary, Mount Caspius is east of the meridian of Thapsacus by about 2500 stadia, of 700 to a degree.
[605] Now Iskouriah. Dioscurias, however, is 800 stadia from the Phasis, of 700 to a degree.
[606] According to our improved charts, the distance from the meridian of the Cyaneæ to that of the Phasis is 6800 stadia, of 700 to a degree; from the Cyaneæ to Mount Caspius, 8080.
[607] The meridian of Mount Caspius is about 2625 stadia nearer the Caspian Gates than that of Thapsacus.