To a certain extent, the natural form of the hides of animals affords an indication; they were worn as cloaks coming down to the heels, and they would properly cut into the oblong form[639]. Again, in the expression σάκος σακέϊ προθελύμνῳ[640], I understand the epithet to mean that the shields were rested on the ground in front of the bearers of them. The meaning common to it, in the three places where Homer uses it, seems to be ‘from the ground,’ or ‘from the base.’ [639] Il. x. 24, 178. [640] Il. xiii. 130. ix. 537. x. 15. It would not be satisfactory to assume that the two forms prevailed, but that they had, though different, been confounded by Homer; and on the whole we shall perhaps do best to consider the σάκος as an oval. It follows that such was, in Homer’s estimation, the form of the world. And this interpretation agrees with the other Homeric indications on the subject. We must, I think, take Homer to have supposed something like an equal extension of the earth northward and southward from Greece. But, whether we judge from the Tours of the Odyssey or from the general indications of the poems, we have, I think, no sign of an extension correspondingly great either eastward or westward. The flights of migratory birds, and the prevailing winds, are both evidently from the poles or from the quarters near them. The only great positive developments of distance in the Odyssey are those towards Læstrygonia and Ogygia, both of which lie in the north; the latter, as an ὄμφαλος, with a sea stretching far beyond it. All appearances, too, go to show that the Eastern Ocean was in Homer’s view at no great distance; and I apprehend we should consider the Western one as being on his map about equally remote from Greece. Now the oval figure will give us what we thus appear to want, namely a shorter diameter of the earth from east to west, than the diameter from north to south. Some other particulars of evidence will appear as we proceed. ~_Points of contact with Oceanus._~ In conformity with his declaration, that the Ocean-River surrounds the earth, he as it were realizes his belief in it, by giving us instances of actual contact with it at very many points of the compass. Thus the Pigmies in the South are visited by the cranes, on their way to the Ocean in the South[641]. The gods feast with the Ethiopians by the Ocean, and this must be in the S. E., as Neptune takes the Solyman mountains (which are in immediate association with Lycia, a point of the inner world) on his way back to the _Thalassa_[642]. Ulysses visits Ocean, as we have seen, in the East. The Great Bear escapes dipping into its waters in the North[643]. Menelaus is destined to the Elysian plain beside the Ocean, at the point from which Zephyr blows, therefore between West and North[644]. [641] Il. iii. 5. [642] Il. xxiii. 205. i. 423. Od. v. 282, 3. [643] Od. v. 275. Il. xviii. 489. [644] Od. iv. 561-9. ~_The Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf._~