The only thing relative to the life of this eminent author which remains even a subject of controversy, is the period of its termination. Bochart has fixed it in the year 1122 ; but this date clearly proves that he had some quite differentper in view ; since it appears, by the preface to Edrii's own work, that its completion took place in the year 1153. No other notice, or even conjecture, relative to the time or manner of his death, is to be found in any author.
From these meagre notices respecting the life of Edrisi, we shall proceed to give some account of his work. It has appeared under various titles. The first and fullest appears to have been, The going out of a Curious Man to explore the Regions of the Globe, its Provinces, Islands, Cities, and their Di mensions and Situation. This is sometimes abbrevi ated into The going out of a Curious man to explore the Regions V the Globe; and sometimes merely The gaging out of a Curious Man. Sionita published it under the name of Relaxation of the Curious Mind; but the title of Nubian Geography, which he and his companion imposed upon it, though it has become general in Europe, is, as is already observed, alto gether arbitrary.
The work contains a full description of the whole world, so far as known to the author, with its coun tries, cities, and all its features, physical and politi cal. These are arranged, not according to any of the methods to which we are accustomed, but in a manner peculiar to itself. The world is divided into seven climates, commencing at the equinoctial line, and extending northwards to the limit at which the earth is supped to be rendered uninhabitable • by cold. Each climate is then divided, by lar lines, into eleven equal parts, beginning with the western coast of Africa, and ending with the eastern coast of Asia. The whole world is thus formed into seventy-seven equal square compartments, re sembling those upon a chess-board, or those formed upon a plane map, by the intersecting lines of lati tude and longitude. The geographer begins with the first part of the first climate, including the west ern part of central Africa, and proceeds eastward through the different divisions of this climate, till he finds its termination in the sea of China. He then returns to the first part of the second climate, and so proceeds till he reaches the eleventh part of the se venth climate, which terminates in the north-eastern extremity of hale. The inconveniences of such an
arrangement must be abundantly obvious. Instead of each country, or at least each region of similar physical character, being described by itself, it is se vered, by these mechanical sections, into fragments, which are described in different and distant parts of the work; and no connected view is given of any great coupIn drawing the general outlines of cosmography, Edrisi describes the earth as globular ; that figure being only interrupted by the varieties of mountains and valleys on its surface.• He adheres to the doc trine of those ancient *schools, which supposed an, uninhabited torrid zone; but, as his knowledge extended to populous countries south of the tropic, he placed the commencement of this cone, with very little propriety, at the equinoctial line : beyond this he says there are neither plants nor animals, all be ing uninhabitable on account of the heat. Again, the habitable world extends only to the 64th degree of north latitude, beyond which all is frozen with ice and perpetual winter. The circumference of the earth he estimates at 132,000,000 cubits, or 11,000 leagues. He mentions also a measurement by Hermes, which made it 36,000 miles. He di vides the whole, according to the established system, into 860 degrees ; observing, however, that in con sequence of the impossibility of passing the equi noctial line, the known world consists only of one hemisphere : of this one half is land, and the other sea, which last consists chiefly of the great ambient sea, surrounding the earth in a continued circuit, hie a zone, and in which " the earth floats like an egg in a basin of water." The only portion of it concerning which much was known was the Atlantic Ocean, called the " Sea of Darkness ;" the mind, by a natural process, transferring the obscurity of its • own ideas to the on which they-were exer cised. That still less known part which rolled along the north eastern extremity of Asia was, from the same principle, called the " Sea of Pitchy Dark nese." Besides this great sea, Edrisi reckons seven smaller ones,—the Indian Sea; the Red Sea, or Ara bian Gulf; the Green Sea, or the Persian Gulf; the Sea of Damascus, or the Mediterranean ; the Sea of the Venetians, or the Adriatic ; the Sea of Pontus, or the Black Sea; the Sea of Georgian, or Dailem, by which he means the Caspian.