TO BE NORWAY. 41 



by Pytheas was a perfectly truthful record of an actual 

 occurrence. 



A third difficulty is the assertion, that round the island of 

 Thule, Pytheas saw a substance which was neither earth, 

 air, nor water, but a substance resembling medusae or jelly 

 fishes (irvevfjiovi Oakacr&iq) eot/co?), which could neither be 

 passed on foot nor in ships. This passage, which has com- 

 pletely puzzled southern commentators, is regarded by Pro- 

 fessor Nilsson as a striking evidence of Pytheas' veracity. 

 When the sea in the north freezes, this does not happen 

 as in a pond or lake, but small separate plates of ice are 

 formed, and as soon as this process commences, the fisher- 

 men hurry to the shore, lest they should be caught in the 

 ice, which for some time is too thick to permit the passage 

 of a boat, yet too weak to support the weight of a man. A 

 very similar description is given by Captain Lyon. " We 

 came/' he says " amongst young ice, in that state called 

 sludge, which resembles in appearance and consistency a far 

 better thing lemon ice. From this we came to small round 

 plates, of about a foot in diameter, which have the appear- 

 ance of the scales of gigantic fishes/'* Richardson also 

 particularly mentions the "circular plates of ice, six or 

 eight inches in diameter/' t These discs of ice tossed about 

 by the waves suggested to Professor Nilsson himself, when 

 he first saw them, the idea of a crowd of medusae, and if we 

 imagine a southerner who had never before witnessed such 

 a phenomenon, and who on his return home wished to 

 describe it to his fellow-countrymen, it would have been 

 difficult to find an apter or more ingenious simile. It is, at 

 any rate, not more far-fetched or less appropriate than that 

 used by Herodotus, when, in order to describe a heavy snow- 

 storm, he compared it to a fall of feathers. 



" Fourthly," says Sir C. Lewis, " Pytheas affirmed that in 



* Lyon's Journal, p. 84. f Arctic Expedition, vol. ii. p. 97. 



