492 COSMOS. 



The share taken by the Phoenicians in increasing the fo- 

 ments of cosmical contemplation was not, however, limited 

 to the excitement of indirect inducements, for they widened 

 the domain of knowledge in several directions by independent 

 inventions of their own. A state of industrial prosperity, 

 based on an extensive maritime commerce, and on the enter- 

 prise manifested at Sidon in the manufacture of white and 

 coloured glass-wares, tissues and purple dyes, necessarily led 

 to advancement in mathematical and chemical knowledge, 

 and more particularly in the technical arts. " The Sidonians," 

 writes Strabo, " are described as industrious inquirers in 

 astronomy, as well as in the science of numbers, to which they 

 have been led by their skill in arithmetical calculation, and in 

 navigating their vessels by night, both of which are indispen- 

 sable to commerce and maritime intercourse."* In order tc 

 give some idea of the extent of the globe, opened by the navi- 

 gation and caravan trade of the Phosnicians, we will mention 

 the colonies in the Euxine, on the Bithynian shore (Pronectus 

 and Bithynium), which were probably settled at a very 

 early age ; the Cyclades and several islands of the Egean Sea, 

 first known at the time of the Homeric bard ; the south of 

 Spain rich in silver (Tartessus and Gades) ; the north of Africa 

 west of the Lesser Syrtis (Utica, Hadrumetum, and Car- 

 thage) ; the tin and amber lands of the north of Europe ;f and 



* Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 757. 



f The locality of the " land of tin" (Britain and the Scilly islands), ta 

 more easily determined than that of the " amber coast ;" for it appears 

 very improbable that the old Greek denomination KaaairtpoQ, which 

 was already in use in the Homeric times, is to be derived from a moun- 

 tain in the south-west of Spain, called Mount Cassius, celebrated for its 

 tin ore, and which Avienus, who was well acquainted with the country, 

 placed between Gaddir and the mouth of a small southern Iberus ( Ukcrt, 

 Geogr. der Orieclien und Romer, theil ii. abth. i. s. 479). Kassiteros 

 i.s the ancient Indian Sanscrit word kastira. Dan in Icelandic; zinn in 

 (erman; tin in English and Danish ; smdtenn in Swedish, are rendered, in 

 the Malay and Javanese language, by timah; a similarity of sound which 

 calls to mind that of the old German word glessum (the name applied 

 to transparent amber), with the modern German Glas, glass. The names 

 of wares and articles of commerce pass from one nation to another, and 

 into the most different families of languages. Through the intercourse 

 which the Phoenicians maintained with the eastern coast of India, by 

 means of their factories in the Persia:! Gulf, the Sanscrit word kastira, 

 vhich expressed so useful a product / farther India, and still 



