292 ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 
neighbouring islands, which lie between Europe 
and Britain,” and says that ‘ at high water, the 
intermediate space being filled up, they appear is- 
lands, but at low water, the sea retiring, and leav- 
ing a large extent of dry ground, they are seen to 
be, peninsulas ;”—a description which can be ap- 
plied, in no sense whatever, to the Isle of Wight. 
Again, Diodorus not only says that the space 
between the main land and the island of Ictis was 
dry at low water, but that the natives ‘‘ conveyed 
to it in wagons large quantities of tin.” ‘This, 
on the supposition that Jctis is the Isle of Wight, 
is a statement obviously at variance with all pro- 
bability. Cornwall, in which the tin was raised, 
is a long and narrow district; and there is 
scarcely a spot in the whole county, which is more 
than fifteen miles distant from some convenient 
point on the coast, from which the tin might have 
been shipped. Is it credible, then, that this 
metal, cast into ingots, should have been carried 
in wagons through the whole length of Cornwall, 
Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and a considerable part 
of Hampshire, much of which must then have 
been thickly wooded, and the whole destitute of 
those facilities for transit which exist in our own 
times ; when it might have been conveyed to the 
