DISCOVERY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



83 



Europe, through the Pillars of Hercules, a learned geographer 

 and astronomer by the name of Pytheas. He started with a 

 single ship, the finances of the city not permitting a larger outlay 

 of means. 



He passed the Pillars on the sixteenth day from Massilia ; 

 and on the twentieth he arrived at the Sacred Promontory, the 

 extreme western point of Iberia or Spain. A temple to 

 Hercules had been erected at this spot. The inhabitants of the 

 promontory declared, during the time of Pytheas, and, indeed, 

 for two hundred years afterwards, that as the sun plunged at 

 evening into the sea, they heard a hissing like that of a red- 

 hot body suddenly dropped into water. 



Following the coasts of Iberia and of Celtica, he came to the 

 point of land now known as Finisterre, in France, and the 

 promontory Calbium. Turning to the east, he was surprised to 



PLAN OF PYTHEAS' VOYAGE. 



find himself in a wide gulf, with Celtica on his right, and an 

 immense island on his left. The gulf was the British Channel, 

 and the island the Al-Bion that Himilcon had vaguely dis- 

 cerned some centuries before. It was at this point that Pytheas 

 may be said to have begun his career ; and the discovery of 

 Great Britain may safely be attributed to him. 



He described the island as having the form of an isosceles 

 triangle, as may be seen upon the foregoing plan. Three pro- 

 montories formed the three angles,— Belerium being now Land's 



