The court of Palermo for more than a century was no less distinguished for the literary acquirements of those who, attracted by its reputation and the character of its society, took up their abode in its precincts, than for the scientific studies pursued with such ardor under the patronage of its sovereigns. During the Saracen rule, translations of those classical authors who wrote on philosophy and natural history were made; the perusal of the works of Aristotle, for whose doctrines the Moslems of the Middle Ages evinced such a remarkable predilection, was one of the favorite diversions of the learned; and the poems of Pagan Arabia were recited in the elegant idiom of the Desert, amidst the applause of believer and infidel alike, almost within hearing of the metropolis of Christendom. The prodigious stores of learning accumulated by the philosophers of the Alexandrian school, through the boundless munificence of the Greek dynasty of Egypt, enriched the libraries and cultivated the understanding of the scholars of Sicily. The writings of Hero, of Eratosthenes, of Euclid, and of Ptolemy were familiar to the students in attendance upon the academies and colleges of Palermo and Messina. The Syntaxis, the Geography, and the Optics of the latter have survived, mainly through the instrumentality of the Moors, the indiscriminate destructiveness of the barbarians and the calculating malice of the clergy, to convey to subsequent generations instructive and significant ideas of the philosophical attainments and mathematical knowledge of one of the most accomplished scholars of antiquity. The great work of Edrisi was compiled under the auspices of Roger II. The Arab was peculiarly fitted for the treatment of the comprehensive science of physical and descriptive geography. His information had been largely obtained by practical experience. He had served in campaigns conducted on the frontiers of civilization; in the capacity of a merchant he had traversed with the plodding caravan vast regions diversified with illimitable plains, lofty mountains, noble rivers; as a pilgrim he had performed his devotions at the cradle of the Moslem faith; in the tireless pursuit of learning he had prosecuted his researches over strange countries and among strange peoples; his features and his costume were familiar to the residents of the great European and Asiatic capitals; his peregrinations had extended from the Douro to the Indus, from the shores of the Baltic to the sources of the Nile. Thus endowed with especial qualifications, the Arab geographer was equally at home, whether recounting to a delighted audience the experiences of an extended journey or explaining to an assemblage of students the physical features of the earth and the relative distribution of land and water as depicted on the surface of a terrestrial globe. The work of Edrisi is an imperishable monument to the intelligence, the industry, the criticism, of the compiler, whose