The Additions, However, Which He Made To Geography As A Science,
Or To The Sciences Intimately Connected With It, Are More Palpable And
Undisputed, Than The Extent And Discoveries Of His Voyages.
He was the first who established a distinction of climate by the length of
days and nights:
And he is said to have discovered the dependence of the
tides upon the position of the moon, affirming that the flood-tide depended
on the increase of the moon, and the ebb on its decrease. By means of a
gnomon he observed, at the summer solstice at Marseilles, that the length
of the shadow was to the height of the gnomon as 120 to 41-1/5; or, in
other words, that the obliquity of the ecliptic was 23:50. He relates, that
in the country which he reached in his voyage to the north, the sun, at the
time of the summer solstice, touched the northern part of the horizon: he
pointed out three stars near the pole, with which the north star formed a
square; and within this square, he fixed the true place of the pole.
According to Strabo, he considered the island of Thule as the most western
part of the then known world, and reckoned his longitude from thence.
With respect to the extent and discoveries of his voyage to the north,
there is great difference of opinion. The veracity of Pytheas is utterly
denied by Strabo and Polybius, and is strongly suspected by Dr. Vincent:
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