Among these last-named countries, Cyrenaica, Marmarica, and particularly Lower Ægypt, are chiefly influenced by Gemini and Mercury: the natives are therefore highly intellectual and sensible, and gifted with capacity for every undertaking; above all, for the attainment of wisdom, and an insight into divine mysteries. They are also magicians, performing secret rites and ceremonies, and are in every respect calculated for the prosecution of all scientific inquiry.[81] The inhabitants of Thebais, Oasis, and Troglodytica, are connected with Libra and Venus; they are of warmer constitution, and more hasty disposition, and enjoy life in all its plentitude and abundance. The natives of Arabia, Azania, and Middle Æthiopia, have familiarity with Aquarius and Saturn; they consequently feed on flesh and fish indiscriminately, and live in a state of dispersion like wild beasts; they never unite in society, but lead a wandering and savage life. [81] History warrants the high enconium here given to the natives of these countries. Ægypt was the acknowledged mother of the arts and sciences, and at one time the great depot of all the learning of the world: her school of astronomy (a science which our author may be supposed to have placed in the first rank), founded at Alexandria by Ptol. Philadelphus, maintained its superior reputation for a thousand years. Cyrenaica gave birth to many illustrious philosophers, and, among them, to Eratosthenes, who is said to have invented the armillary sphere. This great man measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, and, though he erroneously reckoned it at only 20½ degrees, it should be recollected that he lived 200 years before the Christian æra. He also measured a degree of the meridian, and determined the extent of the earth, by means similar to those adopted by the moderns. TABLE SHOWING ALL THE COUNTRIES BELONGING TO EACH SIGN RESPECTIVELY