Nov. 22, 1883] 



NATURE 



85 



South Wales, and lead from North Wales. There were, 

 near Winchester, several great ports for Continental trade, 

 viz. Magnns Portus (Portsmouth), Trisantonis and Clau- 

 sentum (Southampton). Winchester is near Beaulieu. 

 Below Beaulieu, six miles, is Stansoar (stone) Point, from 

 " stannum," tin. This is nearly opposite Gurnard's Bay 

 (Gubernators, across the Solent two miles), where there 

 are remains of Roman villas. Thence to Newport and 

 Brading, where the great Roman discoveries have been 

 recently made. Among the " Islands of Britain " Ptolemy 

 gives one as " Vectis,'' in Celtic Wyth. 



Now Vectis has been hitherto treated as if it were only 

 the name of an island, the Isle of Wight ; but vectis is 

 really the Latin term for a bolt, or security, and was 



probably applied to harbours, and is a translation of 

 " Gwyth." A lock means also a canal lock. 



If Prof. Rhys is right,' that "Ictis" and " Itius '' are 

 the same word, we may go further and say that the Portus 

 Itius, from which Csesar started from Britain, containing 

 his 800 ships, was merely a technical term for a vectis or 

 secure harbour attached to a town, such as that at the 

 mouth of the Liane (Boulogne). It is only a century and 

 a half since the natural basin of Boulogne has been 

 partly filled up by the sea sand, and there was an estuary 

 supplied by the Liane stream at the time of Csesar, not 

 unlike those drawn by me in shape, but without a through 

 passage. 



In fact, not only along the English coast, where 



THE NEAR ISLES OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 



WIGHT Vi?L*/-/fl«) -Th'an'eT - POrAaND -AND PART 'oF CORNWALL. 



'^ _PEmNSUlAS AT LOW. ISlAltDS ^-^ ""•" u/^rca 



Dungeness Beach has blocked up the Roman Port 

 Lymne, and the points where four islands have been 

 joined to the mainland, as shown in the drawings. Figs. 

 I, 2, 3, and 4, but on the French coast great changes 

 have been made by the same causes. At Sangatte and 

 Calais, Wissant, Ambleteuse, Boulogne, St. Michael's 

 Mount, and in fact at many places along the coast of the 

 Pays Bas, the same filling up can be observed. 



Caesar's port of embarkation, Portus Itius, may have 

 been named in the same sense as, according to Prof. 

 Rhys, the old Irish wrote of the English Channel, viz. as 

 Muir an Icht, which he renders the Sea of Icht, and 

 which, according to the view I suggested, would be the 

 sea of the passage, evidently a difterent meaning, although 

 from the same roots, to the name, which, with the addition 



of Portus, we find in Cssar. The term Portus Itius 

 evidently was applied by the Roman writers to the har- 

 bour of Boulogne, although the city itself was called 

 Gessoriacum. I think this philological explanation and 

 the fact of the distance from Portus Itius (given by 

 Strabo) thirty miles to Britain, removes every difficulty in 

 the way of settling the position of the port from which 

 CsEsar started. Of course the term Portus Itius might 

 also apply to St. Valery-sur-Somme, where a passage has 

 been partly closed, as at Marazion, in the historical 

 period, but the distance given by Strabo is against it. 

 Species of mollusks are found at both places, Marazion 

 and St. Valery, not now living on the coast, and probably 



' In a letter to A. Tylr.r, Noveratier 6, 1883. 



