PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 4\*3 



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

 islands, Tylos and Aradus.) 



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

 west Cimbrian shores,f and subsequently to the land of the 



among the old Armaeic idioms in the Arabian word kasdir, may liarc 

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

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

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

 th, ii. s. 414; Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, 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 Rel. 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. tit. pp. 363-370. 



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

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

 1792, s. 51; Voss, Krit. Blatter, bd. ii. 8. 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 

 ihis subject is contained in Ukert's memoir Ueber das Electrum. in 

 Die ZeitscUrift fur Alterthumswissenschaft, Jahr. 1838, No. 52' 55, 

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

 Griechen 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 "VVeser 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 Gennanicus 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 -vh\ch the island of 

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

 froiTi an sestuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurish Nehrung; see aW, 

 on the voyage of Pytheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the auibo/ 



