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NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



j;2nd s. NO 98., Nov. 14. '57. 



Gulliver. Such were, for example, Phasacia, the 

 land of the Lotophagi, of the Cyclopes, of the 

 Lfestrygones, and of the Cimmerii, the rocks of 

 Scylla and Charybdis, and other places named in 

 the Odyssey ; such, too, were the island of Ery- 

 thea, the river Eridanus, the country of the Hy- 

 perboreans. But as geographical discovery ad- 

 vanced, and the dim distance became filled with 

 known objects, the old fabulous names began to 

 be identified with real places; and hence Corcyra 

 was called Phasacia, the Lotophagi were placed on 

 the coast of Africa, the Cyclopes found a dwelling 

 in Sicily, the Laestrygones in Sicily or Italy, 

 Scylla and Charybdis were localised in the Straits 

 of Messina, Erythea was identified with Cadiz, 

 and the Eridanus with the Po. 



Now the island of Thule does not belong to this 

 class of names. It has no place in Greek mytho- 

 logy ; it was unknown to Homer and Hesiod, to 

 Hecatseus and the other logographers, to Stesi- 

 chorus, Pindar, and JEschylus. Its existence was 

 first announced to the Greeks by the navigator 

 Pytheas of Massilia, who lived about the time of 

 Alexander the Great, and published an account of 

 a voyage of discovery made by himself in the 

 north-western seas of Europe. 



Pytheas had doubtless sailed along parts of 

 the coasts of Iberia, Gaul, and Britain; but in 

 relating what he professed to have seen and dis- 

 covered, he, in common with other early navi- 

 gators, thought himself privileged to magnify his 

 own exploits b3' recounting as facts marvellous 

 stories invented by himself, or collected from 

 common rumour in remote places which he had 

 visited. Both Polybius and Strabo treat him as 

 a mere impostor, whose reports are wholly unde- 

 serving of belief. Polybius not only argued in 

 detail against the reality of his supposed disco- 

 veries, as we learn from the citation of Strabo 

 (ii. 4. 1 .) ; but in an extant passage of his History 

 states broadly that the whole of Northern Europe, 

 from Narbo in Gaul to the Tanais in Scythia, was 

 unknown in his time ; and that those who pre- 

 tended to speak or write on the subject were mere 

 inventors of fables (iii. 38.). Strabo declares 

 that the account which Pytheas had given of 

 Thule and other places to the north of the British 

 Isles was manifestly a mere fabrication : "his de- 

 scriptions (Strabo adds) of countries within our 

 knowledge are for the most part fictitious, and we 

 need not doubt that his descriptions of remote 

 countries are even less trustworthy." (iv. 5. 5.) 

 One of these fabulous stories respecting countries 

 lying within the horizon of Greek knowledge has 

 been accidentally preserved. Pytheas, it seems, 

 stated that if any person placed iron in a rude 

 state at the mouth of the volcano in the island of 

 Lipari, together with some money, he found on 

 the morrow a sword, or any other article which he 

 wanted, in its place. This fable was founded on 



the Greek idea that iEtna and the neighbouring 

 volcanoes were the workshop of Vulcan. He 

 likewise stated that the surrounding sea was in a 

 boiling state. (Schol. Apollon. Ehod., iv. 761.) A 

 navigator who could venture to recount as true 

 such marvels respecting an island close to Italy 

 and Sicily, was not likely to be very veracious in 

 his relations of his own discoveries in the far 

 north. In another place, Strabo states that Py- 

 theas the navigator has .been convicted of extreme 

 mendacity ; and that those who have seen Britain 

 and Ireland say nothing of Thule, reporting only 

 the existence of small islands near Britain, (t. 4. 

 2.) Strabo is not quite consistent in his views 

 respecting Thule ; in the latter words he appears 

 to treat its existence as a mere fiction ; but in the 

 chapter before quoted, he regards it as a real 

 place, indistinctly known on account of its re- 

 moteness ; he proposes to apply to it, by conjec- 

 ture, the characteristics of cold northern climates 

 known to the Greeks by authentic observation. 



The tendency of the ancient geographers to in- 

 vent fables respecting remote countries is else- 

 where enlarged upon by Polybius (iii. 58.) ; and 

 it is satirised by Lucian in the introduction to his 

 Ve7'a Historia ; where he says of Ctesias, that the 

 things which this historian relates of India are 

 such as he had not seen himself, nor heard from 

 the testimony of others. 



The account of Thule given by Pytheas was, 

 that it was an island six days' sail to the north of 

 Britain, near the frozen sea ; in which there was 

 neither earth, air, nor water in a separate state, 

 but a substance compounded of the three, like the 

 pulmo marinus ; that it served, as it were, as a 

 bond of all things ; and could be crossed neither 

 on foot nor in ships. He had seen the substance 

 like the pulmo marinus, but related the rest on 

 hearsay report. (Strab. i. 4.2. ; ii. 4. 1. ; Plin., N. 

 H., II. 77.) He also aflirmed that six months of the 

 year were light, and six months were dark, with- 

 out distinction of day and night. (Plin., Ih.) 

 From this account it would appear that Pytheas 

 did not represent himself as having visited the 

 island of Thule. The specimen of its soil, re- 

 sembling the pulmo marinus, might have been 

 shown him elsewhere. The TTMifKav eaxdmos, or 

 pulmo marinus — still called polmone marino in 

 Italian — is a mollusca which appears to abound 

 in the Mediterranean. It is mentioned by Lord 

 Bacon in the Novum Organum (ii. 12.) as being 

 luminous at night. Compare Pliny, N. H. xviii. 

 65. 



The account of Tacitus is that the Roman fleet 

 first circumnavigated Scotland in the time of Agri- 

 cola ; and that it discovered and subdued the Or- 

 cades, islands hitherto unknown. Thule was only 

 just distinguished; for the fleet was ordered not 

 to go further, and winter was approaching ; but 

 the sea was sluggish, and offered resistance to 



