112 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



as a very high mountain situated on the western limits of the 

 earth, must be sought on the western coast of Africa. This 

 too was the locality assigned to it by their later geographers 

 Strabo, Ptolemy, and others. As however no mountain of any 

 great elevation was to be met with in the north-west of Africa, 

 much perplexity was entertained regarding the actual position 

 of Mount Atlas, which was sought sometimes on the coast, 

 sometimes in the interior of the country, and sometimes in the 

 vicinity of the Mediterranean, or further southward. In the 

 first century of the Christian era, when the armies of Rome 

 had penetrated to the interior of Mauritania and Numidia, it 

 was usual to give the name of Atlas to the mountain chain 

 which traverses Africa from west to east in a parallel direction 

 with the Mediterranean. Pliny and Solinus were both, how- 

 ever, fully aware that the description of Atlas given by the 

 Greek and Roman poets did not apply to this mountain range, 

 and they therefore deemed it expedient to transfer the site of 

 Mount Atlas, which they described in picturesque terms, in 

 accordance with poetic legends, to the terra incognita of Cen- 

 tral Africa. The Atlas of Homer and Hesiod can, therefore, 

 be none other than the Peak of Teneriffe, while the Atlas 

 of Greek and Roman geographers must be sought in the north 

 of Africa." 



I will only venture to add the following remarks to the 

 learned explanations of Professor Ideler. According to Pliny 

 and Solinus, Atlas rises from the midst of a sandy plain 

 (e mcdio arenarum), and its declivity affords pasture to ele- 

 phants, which have undoubtedly never been known in Tene- 

 riffe. That which we now term Atlas is a long mountain 

 ridge. How could the Romans have recognised one isolated 

 conical elevation in this mountain range of Herodotus ? May 

 the cause not be ascribed to the optical illusion by which, 

 every mountain chain, when seen laterally from an oblique 

 point of view, appears to be of a narrow and conical form ? I 

 have often, when at sea, mistaken long mountain ranges for 

 isolated mountains. According to Host, Mount Atlas is 

 covered with perpetual snow near Morocco. Its elevation 

 must therefore be upwards of 11,500 feet at that particular 

 spot. It seems to me very remarkable that the barbarians, 

 the ancient Mauritanians, if we are to believe the testimony 

 of Pliny, called Mount Atlas Dyris. This mountain chain 



