The Imperial Library of Petrograd possesses an Arabic globe, constructed in the year 1701.[69] It is described by Dorn as a fine example of the globe maker’s art, closely resembling, in its general features, the Arabic globe in the collection of the Royal Asiatic Society of London. It has a diameter of about 19 cm., rests upon an ornamental tripod base, and is adjusted to turn within a brass circle, which circle is fitted into a larger one, so marked and graduated as to represent four concentric circles. The first or inner circle, representing the horizon, is divided into thirty-six divisions of ten degrees each; on the second circle the degrees are indicated by letters; on the third circle appear the twelve signs of the zodiac and the four principal directions, east, west, north, south; the fourth circle is divided into thirty-six parts, formed by the extension of the lines which divide the first, or horizon circle, into thirty-six parts. On the last circle the names of one hundred and four cities and countries are given. Not far from the north pole is an inscription which gives us the name of the maker and the date of construction. Therein we read that it was completed in the year 1113 of the flight of the Prophet, or in the year 1701 of Christian reckoning, by Ridhwan, for Maulana Hassan Efendi, who, toward the end of the seventeenth century, was director of the astronomical observatory of Cairo, and gave substantial encouragement to makers of globes and of other instruments employed in astronomical studies. The equator, the ecliptic, and the parallels are represented, the first two by parallel circles which are crossed or joined by lines dividing them into seventy-two principal parts, each part being again subdivided into fifths. The close resemblance of this example to the earlier known Arabic globes suggests that there was little, if any, progress among those peoples in the art of globe construction since the eleventh century. [Illustration: Fig. 15a. Anonymous Arabic Globe, 1635.] NOTES [49] Delambre, J. B. J. Histoire de l’Astronomie ancienne. Paris, 1817. See Vol. I, pp. 372, 516, containing references to globes, celestial and terrestrial, constructed in India and in China about the years 450 and 724 A.D. [50] Peschel, O. Geschichte der Erdkunde bis auf C. Ritter und A. V. Humboldt. Berlin, 1877. See pp. 145-160, wherein reference is made to their lack of interest in descriptive geography; Beazley. Dawn of Modern Geography. Vol. I, chap. vii.