Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/111

 ON

OF

THE EUXINE SEA

HE firt ea-voyage of which we read in profane hitory was performed on the Euxine ea. The Argonauts, etting out from the port of Iolchos, or Pagaæae, in Thealy, failed to Colchis, at the eatern extremity of this ea, and, as it appears, Viited many other places in that now unfrequented neighbourhood. This voyage is remarkable for its length, as well as for its antiquity, comprehending in extent the length of 14½ degrees upon the equator, or more than 1000 Englih miles.

The profeed object of this expedition was the puruit of gold; abd perhaps the accounts given by Strabo and Appian may be the moit probable of any, which Rate it, to be a practice-of the Colchians to extend fleeces of wool acros the beds of the torrents that fall from mount Gaucaus, and by means of thee to entangle the particles of gold, which were wahed down by the tream.

This mode of collecting this metal, which is much the ame with the one practied now on the coat of Guinea, and other rivers