But as Geographers use to place Seas upon that place of the Globe which they know not: so chronologers, who are near of kin to them, use to blot out ages past, which they know not. They drown those Countries which they know not: These with cruel pen kill the times they heard not of, and deny which they know not.

[Eratosthenes] ... is a mathematician among geographers, and yet a geographer among mathematicians; and consequently on both sides he offers his opponents occasions for contradiction.