PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 493 



two commercial factories in the Persian Gulf,* (the Baharian 

 islands, Tylos and Aradus.) 



The amber trade, which was probably directed, first to the 

 xvest Cimbrian shores,! and subsequently to the land of the 



among the old Armseic idioms in the Arabian word Jcasdir, may have 

 become known to the Greeks even before Albion and the British Cassi- 

 terides had been visited (Aug. Wilh. v. Schlegel, in the Indische Biblio- 

 thek, bd. ii. s. 393; Benfey, Indien, s. 307; Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, 

 th, ii. s. 414; Lassen, Indische AlterthumsJcun.de, bd. i. s. 239). A name 

 often becomes a historical monument, and the etymological analysis of 

 languages, however it may be derided, is attended by valuable results. 

 The ancients were also acquainted with the existence of tin one of the 

 rarest metals in the country of the Artabri and the Callaici, in the 

 north-west part of the Iberian continent (Strabo, lib. iii. p. 147; Plin., 

 xxxiv. c. 16); which was nearer of access, than the Cassiterides ((Es- 

 trymnides of Avienus), from the Mediterranean. When, before embark- 

 ing for the Canaries, I was in Galicia, in 1799, mining operations, 

 although of very inferior nature, were still carried on, in the granitic 

 mountains (see my Eel. hist., t. i. pp. 51 and 53). The occurrence of tin 

 is of some geognostic importance, on account of the former connection 

 of Galicia, the peninsula of Brittany, and Cornwall. 



* Etienne Quatremere, op. cit. pp. 363-370. 



f The opinion early expressed (see Heinzen's Neue Kielislies Maga- 

 zin, th. ii. 1787, s. 339; Sprengel, Gesch. der geogr. Entdeckunge.n, 

 1792, s. 51; Voss, Krit. Blatter, bd. ii. s. 392-403), that amber 

 was brought by sea, at first only from the west Cimbrian coast, and 

 that it reached the Mediterranean chiefly by land, being brought 

 across the intervening countries by means of inland barter, continues 

 to gain in validity. The most thorough and acute investigation of 

 this subject is contained in Ukert's memoir Ueber das Electrum, in 

 Die Zeitschrift fur Alterthumsivissenschaft, Jahr. 1838, No. 52-55, 

 s. 425-452. (Compare with it the same author's Geographie der 

 Ginechen und Romer, th. ii. abth. 2, 1832, s. 26-36; th. iii. i. 1843, 

 s. 86, 175, 182, 320, and 349.) The Massilians, who, under Pjtheas, 

 advanced, according to Heeren, after the Phoenicians, as far as the 

 Baltic, hardly penetrated beyond the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. 

 Pliny (iv. 16), placed the amber islands (Glessaria, also called Aus- 

 trania), decidedly west of the Cimbrian promontory, in the German 

 Sea; and the connection with the expedition of Germanicus suffici- 

 ently teaches us that the island signified is not in the Baltic. The 

 great effect of the ebb and flood tides in the estuaries which throw up 

 amber, where, according to the expression of Servius, " mare vicissim 

 turn accedit, turn recedit," applies to the coasts between the Helder and 

 the Cimbrian Peninsula but not to the Baltic, in which the island of 

 Baltia is placed by Timeeus (Plin. xxxvii. 2). Abalus, a day's journey 

 from an asstuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurish Nehrung ; see also, 

 on the voyage of Pytheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the amber 



