sleeping place of the Sun," meaning the Arctic Circle. "It was 

 found in those regions that the night was very short lasting, in 

 some places two hours, in others three." A Midsummer Day of 

 twenty-one or twenty-two hours would indicate latitudes between 

 63°N. and 65 °N. It is not difficult to see in Strabo's account what 

 is probably the first description of the edge of the Arctic pack, and 

 it is reasonable to conclude that Pytheas probably saw it himself a 

 day's journey north of Iceland. We could continue to speculate 

 indefinitely, as many geographers have, but we would be Little the 

 wiser for it. At this stage we should mention the other, and equally 

 frustrating, part of his travels. 



This one is no easier to follow than his circumnavigation of 

 Britain, and possibly it was part of a separate voyage. According 

 to Strabo, "Pytheas states that having returned thence [from Thule] 

 he visited the whole of the ocean coasts of Europe from Gadina to 

 Tanais [the Don]." This is bound to be a rather fanciful statement, 

 for the Don was generally regarded as being the border of Asia. 



We do know, however, that Pytheas voyaged beyond the Rhine 

 and came to an island where amber was to be found. Although this 

 particular island has never been definitely identified, it could have 

 been either Helgoland or one of the islands off the coast of Schles- 

 wig, a borderland between Germany and Denmark. Nonetheless, 

 this was an important report in its time, for amber was prized by 

 the Greeks. Pliny, again referring to earlier reports, described how 

 Pytheas had encountered the Teutones, a Germanic people, and he 

 referred to amber being washed up by the waves, the belief then 

 being that amber was solidified sea water. 



Unfortunately, there was no way to confirm Pytheas' voyages, 

 even while his records were still available. The Phoenician blockade 

 apparently tightened and there are no further reports of Greek 

 voyages either to Britain or Thule, or to the north at all. We have 

 few figures in history whose claim to fame rests on such scanty 

 records, yet we must regard Pytheas as one of the early explorers 

 whose discoveries and scientific observations added significantly to 

 man's knowledge of the Habitable World. 



Pytheas probably visited this region of 

 north Prussia, ' Samland" where men gathered 

 amber from the sea. It was so plentiful 

 along the shore that it was used as fuel. 



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