to have come.

[2] One of the most celebrated gods of the Phoenicians was Melcartus. He is
represented as a great navigator, and as the first that brought tin
from the Cassiterides. His image was usually affixed to the stern of
their vessels.

[3] In the time of Solomon, about two hundred years after the period when
it is supposed the Phoenicians began to direct their course by the
Lesser Bear,--it was 17 1/2 degrees from the North Pole: in the time
of Ptolemy, about one hundred and fifty years after Christ, its
distance had decreased to 12 degrees.




CHAPTER II.


HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRIZE,
FROM THE AGE OF HERODOTUS TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, B.C. 324.

From the scanty materials respecting the Phoenicians, with which we are
supplied by ancient history, it is evident that they founded several
colonies, either for the purpose of commerce, or, induced by other motives,
in different parts of Africa. Of these colonies, the most celebrated was
that of Carthage: a state which maintained an arduous contest with Rome,
during the period when the martial ardour and enterprize of that city was
most strenuously supported by the stern purity of republican virtue, which
more than once drove it to the brink of ruin, and which ultimately fell,