TO THE PASSAGE OF MOUNT H^MUS. 191 
thirty feet, made the whole mass seventy-five chap. 
feet in thickness: the sea, says Gyllius\ • 
resembled dry land, and was traversed by men 
and cattle all the way from Zicchia to the 
Danube, and along the rest of the coast as far as 
Mesemhria ; so that beasts of burthen, and oxen 
drawing laden waggons, passed the Thracian 
Bosporus. There were subsequent frosts, of 
which he was an eye-witness; when the hay of 
the Bosporus was so choked with ice, that the 
watermen could not row their boats to and fro, 
without previously breaking the ice with their 
oars'. Well may Ovid, therefore, be credited. 
(S) " Anno enini k Christo concepto eeptingentesimo, et quinqua- 
gesimo sexto, hyeras fuit perfrigida acerrimaque, et gelu maximum, 
ut PontiEuxini ora raaritima in latitudinem centum railliarium gla- 
cies rigore in lapidis duritiem conversa sit : glaciesque k summo mari 
ad profundum crassa extiterit triginta cubita. Praeter hcec cum ejus- 
modi glacies fuisset nive tecta, crevit viginti alia cubita Ua mare, ut 
eontinenti assimilaretur, et pedibus calcaretur hominum, caeterorumque 
animalium mansuetorum et aggreslium k Zicchia ad Danubium, et 
reliqua ora maritima usque ad Mesembriam ; ut liosporum Thracium 
ultro citroque transirent jumenta onusta, et boves plaustra onusta 
trahentes." Vide Gyllium, lib, i. cap. 4. de Bosph. Thrac. ap. Gronov. 
TJietaur. Grec. Antiq. vol. VI, p. 3115. L. Bat. I699. 
(3) " Equidem ipse unam, et alteram hyemem Byzantii frigidam 
«ensi; semelque et iterum vidi 2?05pon sint/nj, nomicatum Cornu, ab 
ottiis Jiuminum ad Galatatn ccnglaciasse, non quidein glacie quae 
sustineret homines, sed tamen tanta, ut scaphas ultro citroque com- 
meare iion possent, nisi reniis ante glacjes frangeretur." Jbid. 
p. 3116. 
