310 ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 
laid down is no objection to Mictis being one of 
the Scilly isles, for when the ancients reckoned 
this place six days’ sail, they did not mean from 
the nearest part of Britain, but from the place 
most known, and frequented by them, (that is, 
by the Romans and Gauls,) which was that part 
of Britain nearest to, and in sight of Gaul, from 
which to the Scilly Islands the distance was 
indeed six days’ usual sail, in the early times of 
navigation ; therefore I am apt to think, that, by 
Mictis here, Pliny meant the largest of the Scilly 
isles, as I do not at all doubt but Diodorus Siculus 
did, in the passage mentioned above.’’* 
But wherever we may finally determine Ictis 
to have been, it is probable, from what has now 
been said, and from the additional fact, that 
Dionysius Periegetes, a writer, who flourished in 
the Augustan age, and wrote a geographical 
treatise in Greek hexameters, expressly distin- 
guishes the Cassiterides from the British Isles, 
that it formed no part of the present main land ; 
and that Diodorus was correct, in representing 
it as an island, at high water. Nor is it possible 
to reconcile what he says about its vicinity to the 
promontory called Beleriwm, with the supposition, 
* Observations on the Islands of Scilly, &c. pp. 77, 78. 
