WATER AND THE OCEAN 



19 



it 



ronymus thirty ells thick, not including twenty ells of fnow 



which was lying on the 



This fad, continues M. de Buffc 



a 



<( 



feems to be exaggerated, but it is true however, that it freezes 

 almoft every winter^ whilft the high feas which are looo 



g 



/ 



towards the pole do not freeze, whicl 



1 



h 



ave 



*' no other caufe than the diiference in faltnefs and the little quan- 

 '' ti ty of ice carried out by, rivers, if compared to the enormous 



h 



*' quantity of ice which the rivers convey into the Black Sea." 

 Mr. de Buffon is not • miilaken when he , mentions that ' the Black; 

 Sea frequently freezes. . Strabo * informs, us, that the people near, 

 the Bofporus Cimmerius pafs this fea in. carts from Panticapsuni: 

 to ■ Phanagorea, and that Neoptoldmus, ,a General of Mithridates 

 Eupator, wona battle with his cavalry on the ice, on the very fpot 

 v/here he gained a naval vicftory in the fummer. , Marcellinus 



L 



Comes -f- relates, that in the XIV Indidion, under the Confulfliip. 

 of Vincentius and Fravita, in the year 401 after Chrift, the whole 

 furface of the Pontus was covered with ice, and that the ice in: 

 fpring was carried through the Propontis, during thirty days,, like 



mountains 



ZoNARAs J mentions the fea between Conftanti 



1 



nopia 



^'Strabo. Geogr. Lib. vii. p, m. -212.- 



f Marcellinus Comes in Scaligen edit. Eufeb.p. 37^- 



X Zonaras in Conilantinp Copronymo and Nlcephorus Patr. p. 43, 44. as well as Theo-. 

 phaiies^^p. 365, 366. mention, that in the winter 76^ almoft during five months the Black. 

 Sea was covered from Zlchia, (the country between the Kuban and Av.'chas) to Cuazaria 



(the Crimea) and even to Bulguria with ice thirty ells thick. 



ICE, 



N. 





