Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal SocietyRoyal Society (Great Britain)
History
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society
Royal Society (Great Britain)
Natural history; Science -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
for the place where he first Landed the year before.
7. Justly to determine which the _Portus Icius_ was I find no
where sufficient grounds; only _Ptolemy_ calls the Promontory of
_Calais-Cliffs_ by the name of Ἴκιον ἄκρον, whence there is reason to
conjecture, that the _Portus Icius_ was very near thereto, and that
it was either _Ambletuse_ on one side, or _Calais_ on the other. The
same _Ptolemy_ places Γισοῤῥίακον ἐπίνειον in the same Latitude with
the ἴκιον ἄκρον, but something more to the East, which seems to refute
those that have supposed the Ancient Port of _Gessoriacum_ to have
been _Boulogne_, whereas by _Ptolemy_'s position, it must be either
_Dunkirk_ or _Graveling_, but the former most likely, both by the
distance from the Ἴκιον ἄκρον, being about 20 Miles or half a degree
of Longitude to the East, or ⅔ of the whole Coast of _Flanders_,
which he makes but a degree and quarter from the _Acron Icion_ to the
mouth of the _Scheld_ which he calls _Ostia Tabudæ_: As also for that
_Pliny_ l. 4. c. 16. speaking of _Gessoriacum_, says the _Proximus
Trajectus_ into _Britain_ from thence is 50 Miles, which is too much
unless _Gessoriacum_ were something more Easterly than _Calais_. _Dion
Cassius_ makes the distance between _France_ and _Britain_ 450 _stadia_
or 56 Miles, and says likewise 'tis the nearest, τὸ Συντομώτατον. But
this is in part amended by the explication given in the _Itinerary_
of _Antoninus_, where the space between _Gessacorum_ and _Rutupium_
is said to be 450 _stadia_ (for this was the ordinary passage of
the _Romans_ into _Britain_,) _Rutupium_ being more Northerly and
_Gessoriacum_ more Easterly than the _termini_ of _Cæsars_ Voyage,
and consequently the distance greater than 30 Miles which _Cæsar_ had
observ'd; and now lately an accurate Survey has proved the distance
between Land and Land to be 26 _English Miles_ or 28½ _Roman Miles_,
which shews how near _Cæsars_ estimate was to the Truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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