Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/376

342 plint's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book IT. sea, the word ' Amalcliian' signifying in tlie language of these races, frozen, Philemon again says that it is called Morima- rusa or the " Dead Sea" by the Cimbri, as far as the Promon- tory of Eubeas, beyond which it has the name of the Cro- nian^ Sea. Xenophon of Lampsacus tells us that at a distance of three days' sail from the shores of Scythia, there is an island of immense size called Baltia^, which by Pytheas is called Basilia^. Some islands'* called Oonse are said to be 1 With reference to these divisions of land and sea, a subject which is involved in the greatest obscurity, Parisot states it as his opinion that the Amalchian or Icy Sea is that portion of the Baltic which extends from Cape Rutt to Cape Grinea, wliile on the other hand the Cronian Sea comprehends all the gulfs which lie to the east of Cape Rutt, such as the Ilaff, the gulfs of Stettin and Danzic, the Frisch-Hafi', and the Ku- risch-HafF. He also tliinks that the name of 'Cronian' oi'iginaUy belonged only to that portion of the Baltic which washes the coast of Courland, but that travellers gradually apphed the term to the whole of the sea. He is also of opinion that the word " Cronium" owes its origin to the Teutonic and Danish adjective groen or " green." The extreme verdure which characterizes the islands of the Danish archipelago has given to the piece of water which separates the islands of Falster and Moen the name of Grroensimd, and it is far from improbable that the same epithet was given to the Pomeranian and Prussian Seas, which the Romans wovdd be not unhkely to call 'Gronium' or 'Cronium fretum,' or 'Cronium mare.' In the name 'Parapanisus' he also discovers a resemblance to that of modern Pomerania. 2 Upon this Parisot remarks that on leaving Cape Rutt, at a distance of about twenty-five leagues in a straight hne, we come to the island of Funen or Fyen, commonly called Fionia, the most considerable of the Danish archipelago next to Zealand, and which lying between the two Belts, the Greater and the Smaller, may very probably from that cir- cumstance have obtained the name of Baltia. Brotier takes Baltia to be no other than Nova Zembla — so conflicting are the opinions of com- mentators ! 3 Parisot suggests that under tliis name may possibly He concealed that of the modern island of Zealand or Seeland, and that it may have borne on the side of it next to the Belt the name of Baltseeland, easily corrupted by the Greeks into Basiha. ^ Brotier takes these to be the islands of Aloo, and Bieloi or Ostrow, at the mouth of the river Paropanisus, which he considers to be the same as the Obi. Parisot on the other hand is of opinion that islands of the Baltic are here referred to ; that from the resemblance of the name Oonae to the Greek wor, "an egg," the story that the natives subsisted on the eggs of birds was formed ; that not improbably the group of the Hippo- podes resembled the shape of a horse- shoe, from which the story men- tioned by Pliny took its rise j and that the Fanesii (or, as the reading here