Chap. 27.] ACCOITNT OF COTTNTRIES, ETC. 341 number of islands^ are said to exist that have no name ; among which there is one Avhich lies opposite to Scythia, mentioned under the name of Eaunonia'-, and said to be at a distance of the day's sail from the mainland ; and upon which, accord- ing to Timaeus, amber is thrown up by the waves in the spring season. As to the remaining parts of these shores, they are only known from reports of doubtful authority. "With refer- ence to the SeptentrionaP or Northern Ocean; Hecataeus calls it, after we have passed the mouth of the river Parapa- nisus, where it washes the Scythian shores, the Amalchian jectures, from confounding it with the Southern Tanais which falls into the Sea of Azof, is evidently the same as the Dw-ina or Western Dmia. Tliis is estabhshed incontrovertibly both by its geographical position (the mouth of the Dwina being only fifty leagues to the east of Domess-Ness) and the identity evidently of the names Dwma and Tanais. Long since, Leibnitz was the first to remark the presence of the radical T. «, or D. w, either with or without a vowel, in the names of the great rivers of Eastern Europe ; Danapris or Dnieper,' Danaster or Dniester, Danube (in Grer- man Donau, in Hungarian Duna), Tanais or Don, for example; all which rivers however discharge themselves into the Black Sea. There can be httle doubt then of the identity of the Duna with the Tanais, it being the only body of water in these vast comitries which bears a name resembhng the initial Tan, or Tn, and at the same time belongs to the basm of the Baltic. We are aware, it is true, that the AMiite Sea re- ceives a river Dwina, which is commonly called the Northern Dwina, but there can be no real necessity to be at the trouble of combating the opinion that this river is identical with the Northern Tanais. As the result then of our investigations, it is at the eastern extremity of the Frisch-Haff and near the mouth of the Pregel, that we would place the point at which Phny sets out. As for the Riphacan mountains, they have never existed anywhere but in the head of the geographers from whom our author drew his materials. From the momitains of Ural and Poias, which Pliny could not possibly have in view, seeing that they lie in a meridian as eastern as the Caspian Sea, the traveller has to proceed 600 leagues to the south-west without meeting with any chains of mountains or indeed considerable elevations." ^ It is pretty clear that he refers to the numerous islands scattered over the face of the Baltic Sea, such as Dago, Oesel, GolhlantI, and Aland. 2 The old reading here was Bannomanna, which Dupinet woukl trans- late by the modem Bomholm. Parisot considers that the modern Runa, a calcareous rock covered with vegetable earth, in the vicinity of Domess- Ness, is the place indicated. 3 It has been suggested by Broticr that Pliny here refers to the Icy Sea, but it is more probable that he refers to the north-eastern part of the Baltic, which was looked upon by the ancients as fonuiug part of the open sea.
