Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/153

 i*4 THE HISTORY Book I. montory of the Cangani ; plainly winding along the deep bay which is formed by St, David's Head on one fide and by Brachy- pult Point on the other, and the whole extent of which is fre- quently denominated Cardigan Bay. So far we are abfblutely certain. The remarkable nature of the fhore precludes all po£- Ability of miftake. From Brachypult Point, in eighty miles more to the north, the Geographer goes an hundred and fifty to the eaft, as in twenty- five more he turns and goes ten to the* weft. In the hundred and fifty miles to the eaft, he clearly paffes through the ftrait of Menai to the bottom of the deep bay which is formed to the north and north-eaft of Brachypult Point. And in the ten miles afterwards to the weft he comes out of the bay. But here Jet us follow him gradually. la the firft twenty friiles to the north of Brachypult Point he goes forty to the eaft, to the river Toifobius. This appears at firft fight to be the river Conway. And as both Richard's and Antonirie's Itineraries place the town of Conovium hereabouts, and the former exprefsly calls the river by the two names of To- .fibus and Coriovius 5, it is undoubtedly that river. From the Toifobius, in forty miles to the north, Ptolemy pro- ceeds eighty to the eaft, to the aeftuary Seteia. This muft cer- tainly be the opening of the Dee, as that could not be milled by a perfon ranging up the coaft, and, if not miffed, muft come next in fucceflion. And Ptolemy's diftance of forty miles right north and fouth from the Toifobius to the Deva correfponds with great exa£hiefs to the more indirect diftance upon the road, at which the Itineraries of Richard and Antonine concur to fet the town of Deva from the town of Conovium ; the former fix- ing the one at fifty miles from the other, and the latter at fifty- one c. Both arguments together form an irrefragable proof, that the Seteia of the Geography cannot poffibly be any other aeftuary than the Deva of the Itineraries and the prefent Dee. And this is the more particularly infifted upon, as it is of importance in itfeif, and as it has been miftaken even by our learned colle&or from the antients From