8o Before Chrift 324. 



light on the early hiftory of Britifh commerce *. From the imperfed:, 

 difguifed, and mifreprefented, quotations of them to be found in feve- 

 ral antierit authors f , we learn, that he coafted along the whole of the 

 fhore of Britain, where he remarked the extraordinary rife of the flood 

 tides X- From Britain he pafled in fix days to Thule, which is evident- 

 ly Shetland ; and there he obierved the great length of the days in fum- 

 mer, when the fun rofe in three hours after his fetting, as he actually 

 does in the north part of Shetland §. He even penetrated into the Bal- 

 tic fea to the country of the Guttones, now called Guddai, and the 

 ifland called Abalus and Baltia, (apparently the peninfula now called 

 Samland) the fliores of which produced amber, an article of luxury 

 highly efteemed by the antients, among whom many fables were cur- 

 rent concerning the country where it was found, and the mode of ob- 

 taining it. He alfo defcribed the abundance of honey, for which that 

 country is ftill remarkable, and the pradice, ftill common in it, of 

 making drink from honey and from corn. He was the firft man of 

 Grecian origin who could nearly afcertain the place of the north pole 

 in the heavens : and fuch was his aftronomical accuracy, that his ob- 

 fervation of the latitude of Maflilia was proved, by that of the great 

 philofopher Gaflendl in 1636, to be ivithin one mile of the truth ; a differ- 

 ence which might be effeded by the change of the buildings of the city 

 in the courfe of ages. His theory of the tides, the very exiftence of 

 which was fcarcely known to any of the Greeks, appears, through the 



* Pytheas could not well lie later than he is fcntcd by antient ignorance in detracting from the 

 here placed, becaiife his work was quoted by Di- extent of it, and by modern ignorance in enlarging 

 ccarchus, who flourilhed about 310 years before it beyond the bounds of poiiibility. Beqaufe he 

 Chrift. [Ar^io, i. ii, />. 163.] He might be ear- faid that he failed in fix days from Britain to 

 Her, for the account of the Northern ocean by Tlude, it has been fuppofed in later times that 

 Hccatsens of Abdcra, a writer contemporary with Thule muft have been Iceland ; to which a mo- 

 Alexander, is probably copied from him. The dern navigator, furniflicd with a compafs and other 

 confiifed ftory of an ifland north of Gaul, not lifs inftrnments, and having a previous knowlegc of 

 ihan Sicily, (the greatcit of all tlie iilands known the cour'e and didance, may fail from the north 

 to the Greeks) might perhaps be an cmbellifh- pait of Britain in about fix days and nights. 

 meiit by HecatKUS of the account of Britain by Thofe critics did not confider, how many davs 

 Pytheas. [P/fn. /////. nut. L. iv, c. 13. — JEl'mni would be neceflary to creep through the utterly- 

 h'lft. antm. L. xi, c. I. — Diod. Skul. L. li.] See unknown and dangert-us channels of the Orkneys, 

 alfo Bougainville, [^Mem. de Ihleralure, V. xix, p. and from thence to Fare ifle and Shetland. Thev 

 148] who thinks he nuill have lived before Aril'- did not confider, that, though he could proceed 

 totlc. from MalTilia to the northern extremity of Shet- 



f EraloJIhenes, Pnlybiiis, Sirabo, Pliny, Plutarch, land with land contlantly in fight, ire could not 



Clcomedes, H'tpparchin ad Arnlum, yitheiiicus, Geml- polfibly go any farther. They were not aware, 



nils, /Ippollimil [choliajles, Arlemldorus, &c. tliat a voyage to Iceland, which is fcveral hun- 



\ Eighty cubits, as copied from Pytheas by drcds of miles from the nearell European land, 

 Pliny, according to the editions. \_Hlfl. mil. L. ii, was an ahfolute impojpbi/ily to a Mediterranean na- 

 c. 97.] This being evidently erroneous, Doclor vigator before the invention of the compafs. And, 

 For Iter, with great probability, fnppofes, that in- what was, if poffible, a greater negled than all 

 ftcad of ijf!o7eni.! cu'itis (tighty cubits), (he true thcfe, they did not attend to what is faid by Py- 

 reading ought to be oflo •vicfuis ctibilit (twenty- tlieas himfelf, who, in one of the plainefl quota- 

 eight cubits), or 42 feet, the height to which the lions given from him by Strabo, [L. ii, />. 175] 

 fpring tides aftually rife at Brillol. calls ' "Thuli the m'Jl northerly of the Britijlo i/lands.' 



§ The voyage of rylheas has been mifreprc- 



