836 PLrNX's NATUHAL HISTOET. [Book IV. 



the MaeotaB, from whom the lake derives its name, and the 

 last of all, in the rear of them, the Arimaspi. We then 

 come to the Riphaean* mountains, and the region known by 

 the name of Pterophoros^, because of the perpetual fall of 

 snow there, the flakes of which resemble feathers ; a part of 

 the world which has been condemned by the decree of 

 nature to lie immersed in thick darkness ; suited for nothing 

 but the generation of cold, and to be the asylum of the 

 chilling blasts of the northern winds. 



Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the 

 northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a 

 happy race, known as the Hyperborei', a race that lives to an 

 extreme old age, and which has been the subject of many mar- 

 vellous stories^. At this spot are supposed to be the hinges 

 upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the 

 revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months 

 together, given by the sun in one continuous day, who does 

 not, however, as some ignorant persons have asserted, conceal 

 himself from the vernal equinox^ to autumn. On the contrary, 

 to these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, 

 and that at the summer solstice, and but one setting, at the 

 winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the 

 sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from 



* Most probably these mountains were a western branch of the TJra- 

 lian cliain. 



3 From the Greek irTepotpopoi, "wing-bearing" or "feather-bearing." 

 3 This legendary race was said to dwell in tlie regions beyond Boreas, 

 or the northern wind, which issued fix)m the Riphsean mountains, the 

 name ofwliichwas derived from pnrai or "hurricunea" issuing from 

 a carem, and which these heights warded off from the Hyperboreans and 

 sent to more southern nations. Hence they never felt the northern 

 blasts, and enjoyed a life of supreme happiness and vuidisturbed repose. 

 " Here," says Humboldt, " are the first views of a natural science which 

 explains the distribution of heat and the difference of climates by local 

 causes — by the direction of the winds — the proximity of the sun, and the 

 action of a moist or saline principle." — A^ Centtale, vol. i. 



< Pindar says, in the " Pytliia," x. 56, " The Muse is no stranger to 

 their manners. The dances of girls and the sweet melody of the lyre 

 and pipe resoimd on every side, and vrreathing their locks vnth the 

 glistening bay, they feast joyously. For this sacred race there is no doom 

 of sickness or of disease ; but they live apart from toil and battles, undis- 

 turbed by the exacting Nemesis." 



* Hardouin remarks that Pomponius Mela, who asserts that the 

 sun rises here at the vernal and sets at the autumnal equinox, is right in 



