They have all
perished,--like ninety-nine hundredths of the labours of that great
literary age; and perhaps the world is no poorer for the loss. But one
thing, which he attempted on a sound and practical philosophic method,
stands, and will stand for ever. And after all, is not that enough to
have lived for? to have found out one true thing, and, therefore, one
imperishable thing, in one's life? If each one of us could but say when
he died: "This one thing I have found out; this one thing I have proved
to be possible; this one eternal fact I have rescued from Hela, the
realm of the formless and unknown," how rich one such generation might
make the world for ever!
But such is not the appointed method. The finders are few and far
between, because the true seekers are few and far between; and a whole
generation has often nothing to show for its existence but one solitary
gem which some one man--often unnoticed in his time--has picked up for
them, and so given them "a local habitation and a name."
Eratosthenes had heard that in Syene, in Upper Egypt, deep wells were
enlightened to the bottom on the day of the summer solstice, and that
vertical objects cast no shadows.
He had before suggested, as is supposed, to Ptolemy Euergetes, to make
him the two great copper armillae, or circles for determining the
equinox, which stood for centuries in "that which is called the Square
Porch"--probably somewhere in the Museum.
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