836 
pliny's natijeal histoet. 
[Book lY. 
tlie Mseotse, from wlioni tlie lake derives its name, and the 
last of all, in the rear of them, the Arimaspi. We then 
come to the Eiphsean^ m^ountains, and the region known by 
the name of Pterophoros^, because of the perpetual fall of 
snow there, the flakes of which resemble feathers ; a part of 
the world which has been condemned by the decree of 
nature to lie immersed in thick darkness ; suited for nothing 
but the generation of cold, and to be the asylum of the 
chilling blasts of the northern winds. 
Behind these mountains, and beyond the region of the 
northern winds, there dwells, if we choose to believe it, a 
happy race, known as the Hyperborei^, a race that lives to an 
extreme old age, and which has been the subject of many mar- 
vellous stories^. At this spot are supposed to be the hinges 
upon which the world revolves, and the extreme limits of the 
revolutions of the stars. Here we find light for six months 
together, given by the sun in one continuous day, who does 
not, however, as some ignorant persons have asserted, conceal 
himself from the vernal equinox^ to autumn. On the contrary, 
to these people there is but one rising of the sun for the year, 
and that at the summer solstice, and but one setting, at the 
winter solstice. This region, warmed by the rays of the 
sun, is of a most delightful temperature, and exempt from 
1 Most probably these mountains were a western branch of the Ura- 
lian chain. 
2 From the Grreek Trrepocpopo^, "wing-bearing" or "feather-bearing." 
3 This legendary race was said to dwell in tlie regions beyond Boreas, 
or the northern wind, which issued from the Riphsean mountains, the 
name of which was derived from pirrai or "hurricanes" issuing from 
a cayern, and which these heights warded off from the Hyperboreans and 
sent to more southern nations. Hence they never felt the northern 
blasts, and enjoyed a life of supreme happiness and undisturbed repose. 
" Here," says Humboldt, " are the first views of a natm^al science which 
explains the distribution of heat and the difference of chmates by local 
causes — by the direction of the winds — the proximity of the sun, and the 
action of a moist or sahne principle." — Asie Centrale, vol. i. 
^ Pindar says, in the " Pythia," x. 56, " The Muse is no stranger to 
their manners. The dances of girls and the sweet melody of the lyre 
and pipe resound on every side, and wreathing their locks with the 
glistening bay, they feast joyously. For this sacred race there is no doom 
of sickness or of disease ; b^it they hve apart from toil and battles, undis- 
turbed by the exacting Nemesis." 
^ Hardouin remarks that Pomponius Mela, who asserts that the 
sun rises here at the vernal and sets at the autumnal equinox^ is right in 
