DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26300#0054
PART I.
iEGYPTIACA.
23
jedt, without hating one circumdance, which to me ap-
pears in the highed degree extraordinary. Our learned
countryman John Greaves, who was eminent for
his fkill in the Greek, Perdan, and Arabic languages,
as well as for his profound and extendve knowledge
of mathematical fubjedts, travelled into Egypt in the
year 1638, and, during his hay in that country, redded
fix months at Alexandriap. One objedt, which this mod
ingenious and accurate traveller had particularly in view,
was, as he himfelf informs us, to determine “ how the
“ originals and dandards of weights and meafures, not-
“ withdanding the revolutions and viciditudes of em-
“ pires, might be perpetuated to poderity. Amongd
“ feveral ways,” continues he, “ of which I thought, I
“ know none more certain and unquedionable, than to
“ compare them with fome remarkable and lading mo-
“ numents in remote countries, that have dood unim-
“ paired for many hundred years, and are likely to con-
“ tinue as many more. In which kind I made choice
“ of the fird and mod eaderly of the three great Pyra-
44 mids in Egypt, and of the hajis of that admirable Ca-
“ rinthian Pillar, eredted, as I fuppofe, by one of the
“ Ptolemies, a quarter of a mile didant to the fouth
“ from Alexandria, &c. &c.” Yol. i. p. 345.
p “ Sex continuos menfes Alexandriae hsefi.” Mifcellaneous works of Mr_
John Greaves. Void. p. 454^
iEGYPTIACA.
23
jedt, without hating one circumdance, which to me ap-
pears in the highed degree extraordinary. Our learned
countryman John Greaves, who was eminent for
his fkill in the Greek, Perdan, and Arabic languages,
as well as for his profound and extendve knowledge
of mathematical fubjedts, travelled into Egypt in the
year 1638, and, during his hay in that country, redded
fix months at Alexandriap. One objedt, which this mod
ingenious and accurate traveller had particularly in view,
was, as he himfelf informs us, to determine “ how the
“ originals and dandards of weights and meafures, not-
“ withdanding the revolutions and viciditudes of em-
“ pires, might be perpetuated to poderity. Amongd
“ feveral ways,” continues he, “ of which I thought, I
“ know none more certain and unquedionable, than to
“ compare them with fome remarkable and lading mo-
“ numents in remote countries, that have dood unim-
“ paired for many hundred years, and are likely to con-
“ tinue as many more. In which kind I made choice
“ of the fird and mod eaderly of the three great Pyra-
44 mids in Egypt, and of the hajis of that admirable Ca-
“ rinthian Pillar, eredted, as I fuppofe, by one of the
“ Ptolemies, a quarter of a mile didant to the fouth
“ from Alexandria, &c. &c.” Yol. i. p. 345.
p “ Sex continuos menfes Alexandriae hsefi.” Mifcellaneous works of Mr_
John Greaves. Void. p. 454^