494 cosmos. 



on the Baltic, owed its origin to the during per- 

 s nerance of Phoenician coasting traders. Its subsequent 

 extension affords a remarkable example in the history of the 

 contemplation, of the universe, of the influence which may be 

 exercised on the establishment of international intercourse. 

 and on the extension of the knowiedge of large tracts of land, 

 by a predilection for even a single product. In the same 

 manner as the Phoca3an Massillians conveyed British tin 

 through the whole extent of Gaul to the shores of the Rhone, 

 amber passed from people to people through Germany and 

 the territory of the Celts, on both sides of the Alps, to the 

 Padus, and through Pannonia to the Borysthenes. This in- 



trade along the whole coast of Skage, as far as the Netherlands, Wer- 

 lauff, Bidrag til den nordiske Ravhandels Historic (Kopenh. 1835). In 

 Tacitus, and not in Pliny, we find the first acquaintance with the gles- 

 surn of the shores of the Baltic, in the land of the ^Estui (jEstuorum 

 gentium), and of the Venedi, concerning whom the great philologist Shaf- 

 farik (Slawische Aiterthilmer, th. i. s. 151-165), is uncertain whether 

 they were Slaves or Germani. The more active direct connection with 

 the Samland coast of the Baltic, and with the Esthonians, by means of the 

 overland route through Pannonia, by Carnuntum, which was first fol- 

 lowed by a Roman knight under Nero, appears to me to have belonged 

 to the later times of the Roman Caesars (Voigt, Oesch. Preussen's, bd. i. 

 s. 86'). The relations between the Prussian coasts and the Greek colo- 

 nies on the Black Sea are proved by fine coins, struck probably before the 

 eighty-fifth Olympiad, which have been recently found in the Netz dis- 

 trict (Lewezow, in the Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. der Wiss. aus dem 

 Jain 1833, s. 181-224). The electron, the sun-stone of the very 

 ancient my i/bus of the Eridanus (Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2), the amber stranded 

 or buried on the coast, was, no doubt, frequently brought to the south, 

 both by land and by sea, from very different disti lets. The " amber 

 which was found buried at two places in Scythia was, in part, very dark- 

 coloured." Amber is still collected near Kaltschedansk, not far from 

 Kamensk, on the Ural; and we have obtained, at Katharinenburg, 

 fragments imbedded in lignite. See G. Rose, Reise nttc/t dem, Ural, 

 bd. i. s. 481 ; and Sir Roderick Murchison, in the Geology of Russia, 

 vol. i. p. 366. The petrified wood which frequently surrounds the amber 

 had early attracted the attention o the ancients. This resin, which was, 

 at that time, regarded as so precious a product, was ascribed either to 

 the black poplar (according to the Chian Scyinnus, v. 396, p. 367, 

 Letronne), or to a tree of the cedar or pine genus (according to Mithri- 

 dates, in Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2 and 3). The recent admirable investiga- 

 tions of Prof. Goppert, at Breslau, have shown that the conjecture of the 

 Rouian collector was the more correct. Respecting tie petrified amber 

 tree (Pinitessuccinifer) belonging to an extinct vegetation, see Berondt 

 isrganische i^te im Bernstein, bd. i. abth. 3, IS 45, s. 89. 



