Anaximander

, a Milesian philosopher, the companion and disciple of Thales. He was the first who constructed spheres, a erted that the earth was of a cylindrical form, and taught that men were born of earth and water mixed together, and heated by the beams of the sun; that the earth moved, and that the moon received light from the sun, which he considered as a circle of fire like a wheel, about 28 times bigger than the earth. He made the first geographical maps and sun-dials. He died in the 64th year of his age, B.C. 547. Cicero , Academicæ Quæstiones , bk. 4 , ch. 37 .— Diogenes Laërtius , Lives of Eminent Philosophers .— Pliny , bk. 2 , ch. 70 .— Plutarch , Quæstiones Convivales . He had a son who bore his name. Strabo , bk. 1 .