[116] Alfraganius or Al Fergani, an Arabian astronomer, lived in the earlier part of the ninth century. [117] Medea, act. ii. Lucius Annæus Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and tragic poet, was born at Corduba, Spain, about 5 B.C., and died 65 A.D. Tiphys was the name of the pilot of the ship of the Argonauts. Thule, an island in the extreme part of Northern Europe, as known in the time of Ptolemy. The island is supposed by some to have been the Shetland Islands, by others the Faroe group, and by others Iceland. [118] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. vi, vii. [119] Porto Santo, a small island northeast of the island of Madeira. [120] The island of Madeira (Wood) lies off the west coast of Africa, between 32° 37´ and 32° 52´ north latitude and 16° 38´ and 17° 16´ west longitude. It is thirty-four miles long. The island of Porto Santo is twenty-five miles northeast of it. [121] Various fictions were current in the middle ages respecting the situation of the island of the Seven Cities, and a number of expeditions went in search of it with unsuccessful results. Mercator, Ortelius, and Locke place the island in 28° north latitude. [122] Thucydides, a Greek historian, born B.C. 471. [123] Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, cap. ix, x. [124] “Paolo Toscanelli was so greatly distinguished as an astronomer that Behaim’s teacher, Regiomontanus, dedicated to him, in 1463, his work, _De Quadratura Circuli_, directed against the Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa. He constructed the great gnomon in the church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, and died in 1482, at the age of eighty-five, without having lived long enough to enjoy the pleasure of learning the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, and of the tropical part of the new continent by Columbus.”—Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 644. Note. [125] Zacton, in China, is now called Tsiuenchau. “At this city” says Marco Polo, “is the haven of Zayton, frequented by all of the ships from India, ... and by all the merchants of Manzi, for hither is imported the most astonishing quantity of goods and of precious stones and pearls.... For it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.”—Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 186. On Ruysch’s map of 1508, Zaiton is placed on the east coast of China, west of the island of Cuba. _Vide_ map. [126] The city is now called Hangchau, and is in the province of Chehkiang. As described by Marco Polo, the city was “the finest and the noblest in the world.”—Ser Marco Polo. Yule. Second ed. vol. ii. p. 145. Quinsai on Ruysch’s map of 1508, is northwest of Zaiton.