an ancient city of Egypt, situated, according to Mr Bruce, in north latitude 24° 45". Pliny and Strabo both say that it lay directly under the tropic of Cancer. Whether Mr Bruce's authority be sufficient to overturn the evidence of Pliny and Strabo, we shall leave to others to determine.

Syene is remarkable for being the place where the first attempt was made to measure the circumference of the earth. This was done by Eratosthenes, whom Ptolemy Euergetes had invited from Athens to Alexandria. In this attempt two positions were assumed, viz. that Alexandria and Syene were exactly 5000 stadia distant from each other, and that they were precisely under the same meridian; but both these are denied by Mr Bruce, who has made many observations on the subject, which our limits will not allow us to take notice of at present. He tells us, that there is at Aswan an obelisk erected by Ptolemy Euergetes, the patron of Eratosthenes, without hieroglyphics, directly facing the south, with its top first cut into a narrow neck, then spread out like a fan into a semicircular form, with pavements curiously levelled to receive the shade, and make the separation of the true shadow from the penumbra as distinct as possible. This is supposed by Mr Bruce to have been constructed with a design to vary the experiment of Eratosthenes with a larger radius; and the inquiry concerning the dimensions of the earth, in our author's opinion, was the occasion of many obelisks being erected in this kingdom; a demonstration of which is, that the figure of the top is varied; being sometimes very sharp, and sometimes a portion of a circle, in order to get rid of the great impediment arising from the penumbra, which makes it difficult to determine the length of the shadow with precision. It is now called Aswan.