tee BAM er) PE Gy 
turalift, I muft mention, that when Linnzus {peaks of the Mare Occidentale, he 
intends the Kattegatte. Its greateft depth is thirty-five fathoms. It decreafes as 
it approaches the Sound ; which begins with fixteen fathoms, and near Copenhagen 
fhallows to even four. 
The Roman fleet, under the command of Germanicus, failed, according to Pliny, 
round Germany, and even doubled the Cimbricum Promontorium, and arrived at the 
iflands which fill the bottom of the Kattegatte *: either by obfervation or infor- 
mation, the Romans were acquainted with twenty-three. One they called Gleffaria, 
from its amber, a foffil abundant to this day on part of: the fouth fide of the 
Baltic. A Roman knight was employed by Nero’s matter of the gladiators, to col- 
lect, in thefe parts, that precious production, by which he came perfeétly ac- 
quainted with this country+. I cannot fuppofe that the Romans ever fettled in 
any part of the neighborhood, yet there was fome commerce between them, either 
direct, or by the intervention of merchants. Many filver coins have been found 
at Kivikke, in Schonen in Sweden, of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Commodus, and 
Albinus t. Among the iflands, Pliny makes Norway one, under the name of 
Scandinavia incomperte magnitudinis, and Baltia another, immenfe magnitudinis, 
probably part of the fame, and which might give name to the Sounds called the 
Belts, and to the Baltic itfelf. The geographer Mela had the jufteft information of 
this great water, which he defcribes with great elegance, ¢ Hac re mare (Copanus 
© sinus) quod gremio littorum accipitur, nunquam laté patet, nec USQUAM MARI SI- 
‘ MILE verum aquis paffim interfluentibus ac fepe tranfgreffis vagum atque diffufum 
* facie amnium fpargitur, qua littora attingit, ripis contentum infularum non longe dif- 
© tantibus, et ubique pane tantundem, it angufium et par FRETO curvan(que fe fubinde, 
© longo fupercilio inflexum eft.’ ‘The different nations which inhabited its coafts 
fhall hereafter be mentioned. 
I would, like AZ#/a, prefer giving to the Ba/tic the name of a gulph rather than 
a fea; for it wants many requifites to merit that title. It wants depth, having in 
no one place more than a hundred and ten fathoms. From the eaftern mouth of 
the Sound to the ifle of Bornbolm it has from nine to thirty: from thence to 
Stockholm, from fifteen to fifty: and a little fouth of Lindo, fixty. It has in this 
courfe many fand-banks, but all in great depths of water. Between Alands Haff, 
amidft the great archipelago, the Aland ifles, and the ifle of O/e/ in the gulph of 
Riga, the depths are various, from fixty to a hundred and ten ||. Many frefh-water 
lakes exceed it in that refpect. ; 
* Plin, lib. ii. c, 67, lib. iv. c. 136 + Lib. xxxvii. c. 3. $ Forffenius de Monum. 
Kivikenfe, p. 27. || Rugian and other charts. 
h 2 It 
Lix 
VoyvaceE OF THE 
ROMAN FLEET. 
Tue Bartica 
GULPH. 
Deprun, 
