These and other preceding observations are not intended to support an opinion that the distances reported in ancient history are generally unworthy of the notice of the investigator of ancient geography. On the contrary, they furnish some of his most valuable materials: always, however, to be examined with suspicious criticism, and to be corroborated, if possible, by other testimony, but not to be adjusted by a varying scale of stades derived from a supposed measurement of the globe by some unknown ancient people: for if geology agrees with sacred history in showing that man has not long been an inhabitant of this planet, geographical inquiry tends equally to the persuasion that his goodly freehold has never yet been surveyed; though the present age has made great advances in this useful undertaking.