Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/57

 IMAUS. Nevada, in Granada and California), and sun'ives ill the modern Jlivnclai/a. From very early times the Greeks ivere aware of a great line of mountains running throughout Central Asia, nearly E. and W., between the 36th and 37th degrees of latitude, and which was known by the name of the diaphragm of Dicaearchus, or the parallel of Rhodes. The Macedonian expeditions of Alexander and Seleucus Nicator opened up Asia as far as the sources of the Ganges, but not ftirther. But the knowledge which the Greeks thus obtained of Asia was much riilarged by intercourse with other Eastern nations. The indications given by Strabo and Ptolemy {I.e.), when compared with the orographic configura- tion of the Asiatic continent, recognise in a very remarkable manner the principal features of the mountain chain of Central Asia, which extends from the Chinese province of llou-pe, S. of the gulf of Petcheli, along the line of the Kuen-liin (not, as has generally been supposed, the Uimalaija), continuing from the Hindu- Kmh along the S. shores of the Caspian through Mdzanderan, and rising in the crater-shaped summit of JJamdvend, through the piiss of Elburz and GhiUm, until it terminates in the 'I'aurus in the SV. corner of Asia Elinor. It is true that there is a break between Taurus and the W. continuation of the IJindu-Kmh, but the cold '• plateaux " of Azerbijan and Kurdistan, and the isolated summit of Ararat, might easily give rise to the supposed continuity both of Taurus and Anti- Taurus from Karamania and Argaeus up to the high chain of Elburz, which separates the damp, wooded, and unhealthy plains of Miizandenin from the arid " plateaux " of Irak and Khorasan. The name of Imaus was, as has been seen, in the first instance, applied by the Greek geographers to the Hindii-Kush and to the chain parallel to the equator to which the name of Ilimahnja is usually given in the present day. Gradually the name was transferred to the colossal intersection running N. and S., — the meridian axis of Central Asia, or the Bolor range. The division of Asia into " intra et extra Imaum " was unknown to Strabo and Pliny, tlidugh the latter describes the knot of mountains formed by the intersections of the Himalaya, the Jliiulu-Kusk, and Bolor, by the expression '' quorum (Ahrates Emodi) promontorium Imaus vocatm- " (vi. 17). The Bolor chain has been for ages, with one or two exceptions, the boundary between the empires o{ China and Turke.itan ; but the ethnographical distinction between " Scythia intra et extra Imaum " was probably suggested by the division of India into " intra et extra Gangem," and of the whole con- tinent into " intra et extra Taurum." In Ptolemy, or rather in the maps appended to all the editions, and attributed to Agathodaemon, the meridian chain of Imaus is prolonged up to the most northerly plains of the Irtych and Obi. The positive notions of the ancients upon the route of commerce from the Euphrates to the Seres, forbid the opinion, that the idea of an Imaus running from N. to S., and N. of the Himalaya, dividing Upper Asia into two equal parts, was a mere geographic dream. The expres- sions of Ptolemy are so precise, that there can be little doubt but that he was aware of the existence of the Bolor range. In the special description of Central Asia, he speaks twice of Imaus running from S. to N., and, indeed, clearly calls it a meridian chain (/cori ij.iarjiJ.€pivi]v Trojj ypafxixiiv, Ptol. vi. 14. § I : comp. vi. 13. § 1), and places at the foot IMBEDS. 41 of Imaus the Byltak (BDa.toi, vi. 13. § 3), in the country of Little Thibet, which still bears the in- digenous name of Baltistan. At the sources of the Indus are the Daradrae (viii. 1. § 42), the Dardars or Derders mentioned in the poem of the Mahdbhdrata and in the fragments of Megasthenes, through whom the Greeks received accounts of the region of auriferous sand, and who occupied the S. slopes of the Indian Caucasus, a little to the W. of Kaschmir. It is to be remarked that Ptolemy does not attach Imaus to the Comedoruji Montes (J.oundouz), but places the Imaus too far to the E., 8° further than the meridian of the principal source of the Ganges (^Gnngotri). The cause of this mis- take, in placing Imaus so far further towards the E. than the Bolor range, no doubt arose from the data upon which Ptolemy came to his conclusion being selected from two different .sources. The Greeks first became acquainted with the Comedorum Moutes when they passed the Indian Caucasus be- tween Cabul and Balkh, and advanced over the " plateau " ai Bamian along the W. slopes of Bolor, where Alexander found, in the tribe of the Sibae, the descendants of Heracles (Strab. xvi. p. 688), just .as Marco Polo and Burnes (^Ti-avels in Bokhara, vol. ii. !>. 214) met with people who boasted that they had sprung from the Maced<ini.in conquerors. The N. of Bolor was known from the route of the traffic of the Seres, as described by JIarinus of Tyre and Ptolemy (i. 12). The combination of notions obtained from such diflTerent sources was imperfectly made, and hence the error in longi- tude. These obscure orngraphical relations have been illustrated by Humboldt ujion the most logical prin- ciples, and the result of many apparently contra- dictory accounts is so presented as to form one connected whole. (^Asie Centrale, vol. i. pp. 100 — 164, vol. ii. pp. 365— 440.) The Bolor range is one link of a long series of elevated ranges running, as it were, from S. to N., which, with axes parallel to each other, but alter- nating in their localities, extend from Cape Comorin to the Icy Sea, between the 64th and 75tli degrees of longitude, keeping a mean direction of SSE. and NNW. Lassen {IndischeAlterthumskvnde} coincides with the results obtained by Humboldt. [E. B. J.] I'ilBRASUS ('iMSpaflros), one of the three small rivers flowing down from Mount Ampelus in the island of Samos. (Strab. xiv. p. 637 ; Plin. v. 37.) According to a fragment from Callimachus (213; comp. Schol. ad ApolloJi. Bhod. i. 187, ii. 868), this river, once called Parthenius, flowed in front of the ancient sanctuary of Hera, outside the town of Samos, and the goddess derived from it the surname of Imbrasia. [L. S.j LMBRINIUM. [SAarNiUM.] IMBROS (''I^§pos: £tk. 'I^gpios), an island in the Aegaean sea, off the SV. coast of the Thraeian Chersonesus, and near the islands of Samothrace and Lernnos. According to Pliny (iv. 12. s. 23), Im- bros is 62 miles in circumference ; but this is nearly double its real size. It is mountainous and well wooded, and its highest summit is 1845 feet above the level of the sea. It contains, however, several fertile valleys, and a river named llissus in antiquity. (Plin. I. c.) Its town on the northeni side was called by the same name, and there are still some ruins of it remaining. Imbros was inhabited in early times by the Pelasgians, and was, like the neighbouring island of Samothrace, celebrated for its