The mathematician Eratosthenes, alluded to above, was a native of Cyrene, and pronounced the most celebrated of the Alexandrian librarians. He is reported to have made the earliest attempt at measurement of an arc of the meridian. The next measurement of record is that of the astronomers of Almamon in the plains of Mesopotamia (“Encycl. Brit.,” ninth edition, Edinburgh, 1876, Vol. X. p. 177). The first arc of the meridian measured in modern times with an accuracy any way corresponding to the difficulty of the problem was by Snellius, who has given an account of it in his most remarkable work called “Eratosthenes Batavus,” published at Leyden in 1617 (“Ency. Brit.,” ninth edition, Vol. VII. pp. 597, 606, also eighth edition, Vol. I. pp. 617–618; “Cosmos,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 544, and Chasles, “Recherches sur l’astronomie ...” in the Comptes Rendus, Vol. XXIII, 1846, p. 851). The biographers of Snellius—Snell van Roijen (Willebrood)—state that he was a very celebrated Dutch astronomer (1591–1626), the discoverer of the law of refraction generally attributed to Descartes (Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 699), the author of a treatise on navigation (“Tiphys Batavus,” Leyde, 1624) after the plan of Edward Wright, and that the method he employed (with imperfect instruments), for measuring an arc of the meridian has since been followed by all scientists (“La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XXX. p. 115; “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” de Hœfer, Vol. XLIV. p. 83; Montucla, “Hist. des Mathém.,” Vol. II; Larousse, “Dist. Univ.,” Vol. XVI. p. 795; Delambre, “Hist. de l’astronomie moderne,” Vol. II. pp. 92–119; “Ency. Brit.,” Akron, Ohio, 1905, Vol. XXII. p. 211).
References.—Theodor Gomperz, “Greek Thinkers,” translation of L. Magnus, London, 1901, p. 544; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. I. part i. pp. 413–414, and Vol. II. p. 164; “Geographical Journal” for October 1904, p. 411; Wm. Whewell, “Hist. of the Ind. Sc.,” New York, 1858, Vol. I. pp. 145–156; “Journal des Savants” for 1828, 1831, 1843; Alex. Chalmers, “Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1814, Vol. XVII. pp. 505–506.
Hues—Hood—Robert (1553(?)-1632), another of the English sea voyagers named by Gilbert at the end of his first book, was a mathematician and geographer who sailed around the world with Thomas Cavendish and is the author of “Tractatus de Globis ... et eorum usu,” 1593, 1594, 1627, which was written for the especial purpose of being used in connection with a set of globes by Emery Molyneux. This work was shortly afterwards followed by another in the same line entitled “Breviarum totius orbis”—“Breviarum orbis terrarum” (“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” Vol. XXVIII. p. 156).
Kendall—Kendel—Abram, who has already been mentioned (Gama, A.D. 1497; Norman, A.D. 1576), is called by Gilbert “the expert English navigator.” He was sailing master of the “Bear,” a ship belonging to Sir Robert Dudley (1573–1649), on the voyage which is referred to in Vol. IV of Hakluyt’s “Collection of the early voyages, travels and discoveries,” London, 1811. Therein, at pp. 57 and 58, mention is made of Kendall, who is also favourably alluded to in the very attractive and justly prominent work of Sir Robt. Dudley, published in three volumes at Florence, 1646–1647, 1661, and entitled “Dell Arcano del Mare di Roberto Dudleio, Duca di Nortumbria e Conte di Warwick.”
References.—“Dict. of Nat. Biogr.,” Vol. XVI. p. 125; also Libri’s “Catalogues,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 160, and 1861, Vol. I. p. 268; Vol. II. p. 573, wherein it is said that amongst the Portulani are those of Abraham Kendall and John Diez for the coasts of America and the West Indies.
Kendall is said to have joined, during the year 1595, the last expedition of Francis Drake and to have died the year following. Drake is alluded to in the address by Edward Wright in connection with Thomas Candish (Cavendish), and they are both also mentioned together (De Magnete, Book III. chap. i.), where Gilbert calls Drake “our most illustrious Neptune,” and Cavendish “that other world-explorer.”
References.—David Hume, “History of England,” London, 1822, Vol. V; “Lives of Drake, Candish and Dampier,” Edin., 1831; “Collection of Voyages and Discoveries,” Glasgow, 1792; “English Seamen of the Sixteenth Century,” by James Anthony Froude, New York, 1896, pp. 75–103, detailing Drake’s voyage around the world; “Life of Sir Francis Drake and Account of his Family,” reprinted from the “Biog. Britannica,” 1828; “The Works of John Locke,” London, 1812, Vol. X. pp. 359–512, for the “History of Navigation from its Origin to this Time” (1704), prefixed to “Churchill’s Collection of Voyages,” and embracing the voyages of Stephen Burrough, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Thos. Candish, Christopher Columbus, Sir Francis Drake and Vasco da Gama, as well as the discoveries attributed to Gioia and others; making, for the polarity of needle, special mention of Bochart’s “Geog. Sacra,” p. 716, Purchas’ “Pilgrims,” p. 26 and Fuller’s “Miscellanies,” lib. iv. cap. 19; Franciscus Drakus, 1581, is Epig. 39, Liber Secundus, p. 28 of 1747, Amsterodami ed. of “Epigrammatum Ioan Oweni” (John Owen, 1560–1622, “Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” Vol. XLII. pp. 420–421). At pp. 437 and 444, Vol. I. of “The History of No’ America,” by Alfred Brittain, Philadelphia, 1903, will be found a plate portrait of Sir Francis Drake and the reproduction of a page from “Sir Francis Drake Revived,” originally published in 1626. The latter is “a true relation of foure severall voyages ... collected out of the notes of Sir Francis Drake, Philip Nichols and Francis Fletcher ...”; “The Voyages of the Cabots,” in “Narrative and Critical History of America,” by Justin Winsor, Boston, 1889, Vol. III. pp. 1–59–84 for Drake, Hawkins and Cavendish. “Life of Sir Rob. Dudley ...” by John Temple Leader, Florence, 1895. For Sir Francis Drake and Thos. Candish, consult also Vols. XV and XVI, as per Index, p. 412 of Richard Hakluyt, “The Principal Navigations ...” Edinburgh, 1889; “General Biog. Dict.,” Alex. Chalmers, London, 1813, Vol. XII. p. 305 for Sir Francis Drake and pp. 414–418 for Sir Rob. Dudley.
Lactantius—Lucius Cœlius Firmianus—celebrated orator of Italian descent, called “the Christian Cicero,” died about 325–326 A.D. He was a teacher of rhetoric in Nicomedia, Bithynia, was entrusted by Constantine the Great with the education of his son Crispus Cæsar (“History of Christianity,” Rev. Hy. Hart Milman, London, 1840, Vol. II. p. 384), and became a very extensive writer. Dufresnoy enumerates as many as eighty-six editions of his entire works, besides separate publications of his different treatises, appearing between the years 1461–1465 and 1739; the best editions being given in Vols. X-XI of the “Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum ...” by Gersdorf (Ephraim Gotthelf), Leipzig, 1842–1844 and in Migne (Jacques Paul) “Patrologiæ,” Vols. VI-VII, 1844. His principal work is the “Divinarum Institutionum,” the third book of which (“De falsa sapientia”) is referred to by Gilbert (De Magnete, Chap. III), when he says that Lactantius, like the most unlearned of the vulgar, or like an uncultured bumpkin, treats with ridicule the mention of antipodes and of a round globe of earth.
Geo. Hakewill, who has already appeared in this “Bibliographical History,” at A.D. 1627, alludes to the above (“Apologie,” Oxford, 1635, lib. iii. p. 281), in manner following: “Yet that which to me seemeth more strange is that those two learned Clearkes, Lactantius (Divin. Inst., lib. iii. cap. 24), and Augustine (De Civitate Dei, I. lib. xvi. cap. 9), should with that earnestnesse deny the being of any antipodes.... Zachary, Bishop of Rome, and Boniface, Bishop of Mentz, led (as it seems), by the authority of these Fathers, went farther herein, condemning one Vergilius, a Bishop of Saltzburg, as an heretique, only for holding that there were antipodes.” Madame Blavatsky (“Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I. p. 526) says: “In 317 A.D. we find Lactantius teaching his pupil Crispus Cæsar, that the earth is a plane surrounded by the sky, which is composed of fire and water, and warning him against the heretical doctrine of the earth’s globular form!”
The following notes concerning the antipodes are likely to prove interesting: