I shall now proceed to compare the dimensions of the various parts of the earth, however great the difficulties which may arise from the discrepancy of the accounts given by various authors: the most convenient method, however, will be that of adding the breadth to the length.[774] Following this mode of reckoning, the dimensions of Europe will be eight thousand two hundred and ninety-four miles; of Africa, to adopt a mean between all the various accounts given by authors, the length is three thousand seven hundred and ninety-four miles, while the breadth, so far as it is inhabited, in no part exceeds two hundred and fifty miles.[775] But, as Agrippa, including its deserts, makes it from Cyrenaica, a part of it, to the country of the Garamantes, so far as was then known, a further distance of nine hundred and ten miles, the entire length, added together, will make a distance of four thousand six hundred and eight miles. The length of Asia is generally admitted[776] to be six thousand three hundred and seventy-five miles, and the breadth, which ought, properly, to be reckoned from the Æthiopian Sea to Alexandria,[777] near the river Nile, so as to run through Meroë and Syene, is eighteen hundred and seventy-five. It appears then that Europe is greater than Asia, by a little less than one half of Asia, and greater than Africa by as much again of Africa and one-sixth. If all these sums are added together, it will be clearly seen that Europe is one-third, and a little more than one-eighth part of one-third, Asia one-fourth and one-fourteenth part of one-fourth, and Africa, one-fifth and one-sixtieth part of one-fifth of the whole earth.[778] CHAP. 39.—DIVISION OF THE EARTH INTO PARALLELS AND SHADOWS OF EQUAL LENGTH. To the above we shall add even another instance of ingenious discovery by the Greeks, and indeed of the most minute skilfulness; that so nothing may be wanting to our investigation of the geographical divisions of the earth, and the various countries thereof which have been pointed out; that it may be the better understood, too, what affinity, or relationship as it were, exists between one region and another, in respect to the length of their days and nights, and in which of them the shadows are of equal length, and the distance from the pole is the same. I shall therefore give these particulars as well, and shall state the divisions of the whole earth in accordance with the various sections of the heavens. The lines or segments which divide the world are many in number; by our people they are known as “circuli” or circles, by the Greeks they are called “paralleli” or parallels.