One of the most celebrated geographers among the ancients, flourished during the reign of Augustus;--we allude to Strabo: his fundamental principles are, the globosity of the earth, and its centripetal force; he also lays down rules for constructing globes, but he seems ignorant of the mode of fixing the position of places by their latitude or longitude, or, at least, he neglects it. In order to render his geographical knowledge more accurate and complete, he travelled over most of the countries between Armenia on the east and Etruria on the west, and from his native country, on the borders of the Euxine sea, to the borders of Ethiopia. The portion of the globe which he describes, is bounded on the north by the Baltic, on the east by the Ganges, on the south by the mouth of the river Senegal, and on the west by Spain. In describing the countries which he himself had visited, he is generally very accurate, but his accounts of those he had not visited, are frequently erroneous or very incomplete. His information respecting Ceylon and the countries of the Ganges, seems to have been derived entirely from the statements brought to Europe by the generals of Alexander. In the reign of Claudius, the knowledge of the Romans respecting the interior of Africa, was slightly extended by the expedition of Suetonius Paulinus; he was the first Roman who crossed Mount Atlas, and during the winter penetrated through the deserts, which are described as formed of black dust, till he reached a river called the Niger. Paulinus wrote an account of this expedition, which, however, is not extant: Pliny quotes it. In the reign of Claudius, also, the island of Ceylon became better known, in consequence of an accident which happened to the freedman of a Roman, who farmed the customs in the Red Sea. This man, in the execution of his duty, was blown off the coast of Arabia, across the ocean to Taprobane, or Ceylon; here he was hospitably received by the king, and after a residence of six months was sent back, along with ambassadors, to Claudius. They informed the emperor that their country was very extensive, populous, and opulent, abounding in gold, silver, and pearls. It seems probable that the circumstance of the freedman having been carried to Ceylon by a steady and regular wind, and this man and the ambassadors having returned by a wind directly opposite, but as steady and regular, had some influence in the discovery of the monsoon. As this discovery led necessarily to a direct communication between Africa and India, and grea'ly enlarged the knowledge of the Romans respecting the latter country, as well as their commercial connections with it, it will be proper to notice it in a particular manner.