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Show AN 'OTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. G7 rec. Bekkeri, p. 44, § 136.) The pseudo-Aristotle says, "Phrenician mariners, driven by the ea t wind, came in four days' sail from Gades to a part where they found the sea covered with reeds and sea-weed (~pvov xa.i.piixo~). The sea-weed is uncovered at ebb and covered at flood tide." Is he not here speaking of a shallow place between the 34:0 and 36° of latitude? Has a shoal disappeared in consequence of volcanic eruption ? Yo bonne speaks of rocks north of Madeira. (Compare also Edrisi, Geog. Nub., 1619, p. 157.) In Scylax, it is said, "The sea beyond Cerne is unnavigable on account of its great shallowness, its muddiness, and the great quantity of sea gras es. The sea grass lies a span thick, and is full of points at the top, so that it pricks." The sea-weed found between Cerne( the Phrenician station for laden vessels, Gaulea, or, according to Gosselin, the small island of Fedallah, on the north-western coast of 1\:Iauritania,)-and Cape de V enle, does not now by any means form a great sea meadow, or connected tract of fucus, a "mare herbidum," such as exists beyond the Azores. In the poetic description of the coast by Festus Avienus, (Ora Maritima, v. 109, 122, 388, and 408,) in the composition of which, as Avienus himself says (v. 412), he availed himself of the journals of Phrenician ship~, the obstacle presented by the sea-weed is referred to in a very circumstantial manner; but its site is placed much farther north, towards Ierne, the " Sacred Island." Sic nulla late fiabra propellunt ratem, Sic segnis humor requoris pigri stupeL Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites Exstare fucum, et srepe vurgulti vice Retinere puppim . . . . Hrec inter undas multa crespitem jacet, Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit. In remarking that the fucus and the mud or mire, (n11A.o~,) the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms, are always spoken of by the ancients as characteristics of the western ocean beyond the Pillars 0f Hercules, one is disposed, more particularly on account of the mention of the calms, to ascribe something to Punic artificeto the d€Sire of a great trading people to deter others, by the apprehension of dangers and difficulties, from entering into competition |
