34i2 plint's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book IV. 



sea, the word ' Amalchian' signifying'iii the language of these 

 races, frozen. Philemon again sa^s that it is called Morima- 

 rusa or the " Dead Sea" by the Cunbri, as far as the Promon- 

 tory of Rubeas, beyond which it has the name of the Cro- 

 nian^ Sea. Xenophon of Lampsacus tells us that at a distance 

 of three days' sail from the shores of Scythia, there is an 

 island of immense size called Baltia'^, which by Pytheas is 

 called Basilia^. Some islands "* called Oonse are said to be 



1 With reference to these divisions of land and sea, a subject which is 

 involved in the greatest obscurity, Parisot states it as his opinion that 

 the Amalchian or Icy Sea is that portion of the ^altic which extends 

 from Cape Rutt to Cape Grinea, while on the other hand the Cronian 

 Sea comprehends all the gulfs which lie to the east of Cape Rutt, such 

 as the llaff, the gidfs of Stettin and Danzic, the Frisch-Hatt', and the Ku- 

 risch-Haft'. He dso thinks that the name of 'Cronian' originally belonged 

 only to tliat portion of the Baltic which washes the coast of Covu-lauad, 

 but that travellers gradually apphed the term to the whole of the sea. 

 He is also of opinion that the word " Cronium" owes its origin to the 

 Teutonic and Danish adjective groen or " green." The extreme verdure 

 which characterizes the islands of the Danish archipelago has given to 

 the piece of water which separates the islands of FaLst<?r and Moen the 

 name of Groensund, and it is far from improbable that the same epithet 

 was given to the Pomeranian and Prussian Seas, which the Romans would 

 be not vmUkely to call 'Gronium' or 'Cronium fretum,' or 'Cronium 

 mare.' In the name 'Parapamsus' he also discovers a resemblance to that 

 of modem Pomerania. 



2 Upon this Parisot remarks that on leaving Cape Rutt, at a distance 

 of about twenty -five leagues in a straight line, we come to the island of 

 Funen or Fyen, commonly called Fionia, the most considerable of the 

 Danish archipelago next to Zealand, and which lying between the two 

 Belts, tlie Greater and the Smaller, may very probably from that cir- 

 cumstance have obtained the name of Baltia. Brotier takes Baltia to 

 be no other than Nova Zembla — so conflicting are the opinions of com- 

 mentators ! 



3 Parisot suggests that under this name may possibly lie concealed 

 that of the modem island of Zealand or Seeland, and that it may have 

 borne on the side of it next to the Belt the name of Baltseeland, easily 

 corrupted by the Greeks into Basilia. 



■* Brotier takes these to be the islands of Aloo, and Bieloi or Ostrow, 

 at the mouth of the river Paropanisus, which he considers to be the same 

 as the Obi. Parisot on the other hand is of opinion that islands of the 

 Baltic are here referred to ; that from the resemblance of the name Oonse 

 to the Greek woV, "an egg," the story that the natives subsisted on the 

 eggs of birds was formed ; that not improbably the group of the Hippo- 

 podes resembled the shape of a horse- shoe, from which the story men- 

 tioned by Pliny took its rise j and that the Fanesii (or, as the reading here 



