Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/385

 Chap. 30,] ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 351 its breadth 300 ; he also thinks that the breadth of Hibernia is the same, but that its length is less by 200 miles. This last island is situate beyond Britannia, the passage across being the shortest from the territory of the Silures a distance of thirty miles. Of the remaining islands none is said to have a greater circumference than 125 miles. Among these there are the Orcades", forty in number, and situate within a short distance of each other, the seven islands called Ac- modce^, the HtTbudes, thirty in number, and, between Hi- bernia and Britannia, the islands of Mona'*,Monapia^,Eicina®, Vectis^ Limnus^, and Andros'. Below it are the islands called Samnis and Axantos'", and opposite, scattered in the German Sea, are those known as the Grlsesarise^^, but which ^ The people of South Wales. ' The Orkney islands Tvere included under this name. Pomponius Mela and Ptolemy make them but tliirty in number, while Sohnus Qxes their number at three only. 3 Also called ^modse or Hsemodse, most probably the islands now known as the Shetlands. Camden however and the older antiquarians refer the Hsemodse to the Baltic sea, considering them ditferent from the Acmoda; here mentioned, wliile Salmasius on the other hand considers the Acmodae or Hsemodse and the Hebrides as identical. Parisot remarks that off the West Cape of the Isle of Skye and the Isle of North Uist, the nearest of the Het rides to the Shetland islands, there is a vast gulf filled with islands, which still bears the name of Mamaddy or ISIaddy, from which the Grreeks may have easily derived the words At MaSdaly whence the Latin Hsemodse. ^ The Isle of Anglesea. ^ Most probably the Isle of Man. ^ Camden and Gosselin (JRecJi. stir la Geogr. des Anciens) consider that under this name is meant the island of Rackhn, situate near the north-eastern extremity of Ireland. A Ricina is spoken of by Ptolemy, but that island is one of the Hebrides. 7 This Vectis is considered by Gossehn to be the same as the small island of White-Horn, situate at the entrance of the Bay of Wigtown in Scotland. It must not be confounded with the more southern Vectis, or Isle of Wight. ^ According to Gosselin this is the island of Dalkey, at the entrance of Dubhn Bay. 3 Camden thinks that this is the same as Bardsey Island, at the south of the island of Anglesea, wlule Manncrt and Gosselin tliink that it is the island of Lambay. ^^ Accorchng to Brotier these islands belong to the coast of Britaimy, being the modem isles of Sian and Ushant. ^' As already mentioned, he probably sj^eaks of the islands of (Eland and Gothl md, and Amelund, called Au>teravia or Actania, in which glcBsum or amber was found by the liomun eoldiers. Sec ). i^k