BOOK 1 1 .] History of Nature. 107 



Spain and France. But the North Ocean was for the most 

 Part discovered, under the Conduct of Divus Augustus 

 Casar 1 , who, with a Fleet, compassed Germany, and as far 

 as to the Cape of the Cimbrians : and from thence having 

 viewed the vast Sea, or taken Knowledge thereof by Report, 

 he passed to the Scythian Climate and those cold Coasts 

 abounding with too much Moisture. For which Cause tKere 

 is no likelihood, that in those Parts the Seas are at an End, 

 where the Power of Moisture predominates. And near it, 

 from the East, out of the Indian Sea, that whole Part under 

 the same Clime which bendeth toward the Caspian Sea, was 

 sailed throughout by the Macedonian Armies, when Seleucus 

 and Antiochus reigned, who commanded that Seleucida 

 and Antiochida should bear their Names. About the Caspian 

 Sea, also, many Coasts of the Ocean have been discovered ; 

 and by Piecemeal, rather than all at once, the North of one 

 Side or other hath been sailed or rowed over. But to put 

 all out of Conjecture, there is a great Argument collected by 

 the Palus Maeotis, whether it be a Gulf of that Ocean (as 

 many have believed) or an overflowing of the same, divided 

 from it by a narrow Piece of the Continent. In another Side 

 of Gades, from the same, West, a great Part of the South 

 Gulf, round about Mauritania, is at this Day sailed. And, 

 indeed, the greater Part of it, as well as of the East, also the 

 Victories of Alexander the Great encompassed on every Side, 

 as far as to the Arabian Gulf. Wherein, when Cams Ccesar 

 the son of Augustus warred in those Parts, the Marks are 

 reported to have been seen remaining from the Spaniards' 

 Shipwreck. Hanno, likewise, in the Time that the Power of 

 Carthage flourished, sailed round from Gades to the utmost 

 Bounds of Arabia 2 , and set down that Voyage in Writing : 



1 This can only refer to an expedition, mentioned by Suetonius in his 

 life of the Emperor Claudius, of Drusus, the son of Livia ; who, while 

 commanding in the Rhetian and German wars, was the first of the Romans 

 that navigated the Northern Ocean. Wem. Club. 



2 The only fragment of the geographical knowledge of the Cartha- 

 ginians that has come down to our times is the " Periplus" of Hanno. It 

 is printed in Hudson's " Geographic Veteris Scriptores Graeciae," 4 vols. 



