Ptolemy consulted and amended.
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It would be ridiculous so much as to dream, that the breadth of this land is every where the same: since the seas bounding on all sides, here the Mediterranean, there that of Sodom, the sea of Gennesaret, the sea of Samochonitis, and Jordan gliding between them, cannot but make the space very unequal by their various windings.
Take a proof of this from Ptolemy in the Mediterranean shore:--...
Thus the Latin version of him:
Caesarea Startonis 66.15. Joppa 65.40. The haven of the Jamnites 65. The haven of the Gazites 64.45. Gaza 65.26.
And more of the like variation.
Of the last, namely, of 'the haven of the Gazites,' and Gaza itself, we may justly be at some stand. In Ptolemy himself, as you see, 'the haven of the Gazites' is in 65.45. But the Latin interpreter hath 64.45:--nor indeed without reason, when Gaza itself is only in 65.26. But indeed, on the contrary, it is more probable that the haven of the Gazites should be placed in 65.26, and Gaza itself in 65.45; where, by the haven is by no means to be understood that place where ships put in and unladed, but the whole bay, comprehended within the promontories that thrust themselves out into the sea; the very last point of which thrusting forth you may conceive to be in degree 65 and 26: from the city 19 minutes.
If, therefore, you are minded to follow Ptolemy with this amendment, in measuring out the breadth of the land between Gaza and Asphaltites, take it thus. Let Gaza be in degree 65.45. And also the Latin version is, "The middle of Asphaltites contains degrees 66.50." From Gaza, therefore, to the middle of the Dead sea, will be a whole degree and [some] minutes; to which 65 miles, 5 minutes, do answer: whence if you withdraw the half of the Asphaltites, there will remain 65 miles, or thereabouts, from the shore of it to Gaza.