Chap. 27.] AOCOUTTT OP COTJNTEIES, ETC. 841 



number of islands^ are said to exist that have no name ; among 

 which there is one which lies opposite to Scythia, mentioned 

 under the name of Raunonia^, and said to be at a distance 

 of the day's sail from the mainland ; and upon which, accord- 

 ing to TimaBus, amber is thrown up by the waves in the spring 

 season. As to the remaining parts of these shores, they are 

 only knowTi from reports of doubtful authority. "With refer- 

 ence to the SeptentrionaP or Northern Ocean; Hecataeus 

 calls it, after we have passed the mouth of the river Parapa- 

 nisus, where it washes the Scythian shores, the Amalchian 



jectures, from confounding it with the Southern Tanais which fells into 

 the Sea of Azof, is evidently the same as the Dwina or Western Dima. 

 This is estabHshed incontrovertibly both by its geographical position (the 

 mouth of the Dwina being only fifty leagues to the east of Domess-Ness) 

 and the identity evidently of the names Dwina and Tanais. Long since, 

 Leibnitz was the first to remark the presence of the radical T. n, or D. n, 

 either with or without a vowel, in the names of the great rivers of Eastern 

 Europe ; Danapris or Dnieper, Danaster or Dniester, Danube (in Ger- 

 man Donau, in Hungarian Duna), Tanais or Don, for example; all 

 which rivers however discharge themselves into the Black Sea. There 

 can be httle doubt then of the identity of the Duna with tlie Tanais, it 

 being the only body of water in these vast countries which bears a name 

 resembhng the initial Tan, or Tn, and at the same time belongs to the 

 basin of the Baltic. We are aware, it is true, that the White Sea re- 

 ceives a river Dwina, which is commonly called the Northern Dwina, 

 but there can be no real necessity to be at the trouble of combatmg the 

 opinion that this river is identical with the Northern Tanais. As the 

 result then of our investigations, it is at the eastern extremity of the 

 Frisch-Haff and near the mouth of the Pregel, that we would place the 

 point at which Pliny sets out. As for the Riphsean moimtains, they have 

 never existed anywhere but in the head of the geographers from whom 

 our author drew his materials. From the mountains of Ural and Poiaa, 

 which Pliny could not possibly have in view, seeing that they he in a 

 meridian as eastern as the Caspian Sea, the traveller has to proceed 600 

 leagues to the south-west without meeting with any chains of moimtains 

 or indeed considerable elevations." 



^ It is pretty clear that he refers to the numerous islands scattered over 

 the face of the Baltic Sea, such as Dago, Oesel, Gothland, and Aland. 



2 The old reading here was Bannomanna, which Dupinet would trans- 

 late by the modern Bomholm. Parisot considers that the modem Runa, 

 a calcareous rock covered with vegetable earth, in the vicinity of Domess- 

 Ness, is the place mdicated. 



* It has been suggested by Brotier that Phny here refers to the Icy- 

 Sea, but it is more probable that he refers to the north-eastern part of 

 the Baltic, which was looked upon by the ancients as forming part of 

 the open sea. 



