Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/384

 850 PIIKT's NATTTEAL HISTOET. [Book IV. into which the Ehine divides itself, discharging its waters on the north into the lakes there, and on the west into the river Mosa. At the middle mouth which lies between these two, the river, having but a very small channel, preserves its own name. CHAP. 30. (16,) — BEITAKNIA. Opposite to this coast is the island called Britannia, so celebrated in the records of Gi-reece^ and of our own country. It is situate to the north-west, and, with a large tract of intervening sea, lies opposite to Grermany, Gaul, and Spain, by far the greater part of Europe. Its former name was Albion^ ; but at a later period, all the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make mention, Avere included under the name of " Britannise." This island is distant from Gesoriacum, on the coast of the nation of the Morini^, at the spot where the passage across is the shortest, fifty miles. Pytheas and Isidorus say that its circumference is 4875 miles. It is barely thirty years since any extensive knowledge of it was gained by the successes of the E-oman arms, and even as yet they have not penetrated beyond the vicinity of the Caledo- nian^ forest. Agrippa believes its length to be 800 miles, and the territory of the Batavi, of which the one on the east continued to bear the name of Rhenus, while that on the west into which the Masa, Maas or Meuse, flowed, was called Vahalis or Waal. After Drusus, B.C. 12, had connected the Flevo Lacus or Zuyder-Zee with the Rhine hy means of a canal, m forming which he probably made use of the bed of the Yssel, we find mention made of three mouths of the Rhine. Of these the names, as given by Phny, are, on the west, HeUum (the Vahahs of other writers), in the centre Rhenus, and at the north Flevum ; but at a later period we again find mention made of only two mouths. 1 Britain was spoken of by some of the Grreek writers as superior to all other islands in the world. Pionysius, in his Periegesis, says, " that no other islands whatsoever can claim equahty with those of Britain." 2 Said to have been so called from the whiteness of its cliffs opposite the coast of Gaul. 3 Afterwards called Bononia, the modem Boulogne. As D'AnviUe remarks, the distance here given by PUny is far too great, whether we measure to Dover or to Hythe ; our author's measurement however is probably made to Rutupise (the modem Richborough), near Sandwich, where tlie Romans had a fortified post, which was their landing-place when crossing over from Graul. This would make the distance given by Phny nearer the truth, though still too much.
 * Probably the Grrampian range is here referred to.