77. Chap. 77. (75.)-Where The Days Are The Longest And Where The Shortest.

CHAP. 77. (75.)—WHERE THE DAYS ARE THE LONGEST AND WHERE THE SHORTEST.

Hence it follows, that in consequence of the daylight increasing in various degrees, in Meroë the longest day consists of twelve æquinoctial hours and eight parts of an hour[1], at Alexandria of fourteen hours, in Italy of fifteen, in Britain of seventeen; where the degree of light, which exists in the night, very clearly proves, what the reason of the thing also obliges us to believe, that, during the solstitial period, as the sun approaches to the pole of the world, and his orbit is contracted, the parts of the earth that lie below him have a day of six months long, and a night of equal length when he is removed to the south pole. Pytheas, of Marseilles[2], informs us, that this is the case in the island of Thule[3], which is six days' sail from the north of Britain. Some persons also affirm that this is the case in Mona, which is about 200 miles from Camelodunum[4], a town of Britain.

1. "Hora duodecim in partes, ut as in totidem uncias dividebatur. Octonas igitur partes horæ antiquæ, sive bessem, ut Martianus vocat, nobis probe repræsentant horarum nostratium 40 sexagesimæ, quas miuntas vocamus." Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 396.

2. For a notice of Pytheas see Lemaire, i. 210. He was a geographer and historian who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus; but his veracity does not appear to have been highly estimated by his contemporaries.

3. The Thule of Pliny has been generally supposed to be the Shetland Isles. What is here asserted respecting the length of the day, as well as its distance from Britain, would indeed apply much more correctly to Iceland than to Shetland; but we have no evidence that Iceland was known to the ancients. Our author refers to the length of the day in Thule in two subsequent parts of his work, iv. 30 and vi. 36.

4. Supposed to be Colchester in Essex; while the Mona of Pliny appears to have been Anglesea. It is not easy to conceive why the author measured the distance of Mona from Camelodunum.