[454] “... Alpium vertices, longo tractu, nec breviore quinquaginta millibus passuum assurgere.” To avoid the apparent improbability of the author conceiving of the Alps as 50 miles high, the commentators have, according to their usual custom, exercised their ingenuity in altering the text. See Poinsinet, i. 206, 207, and Lemaire, i. 373. But the expression does not imply that he conceived them as 50 miles in perpendicular height, but that there is a continuous ascent of 50 miles to get to the summit. This explanation of the passage is adopted by Alexandre; Lemaire, _ut supra_. For what is known of Dicæarchus I may refer to Hardouin, Index Auctorum, in Lemaire, i. 181. [455] “coactam in verticem aquarum quoque figuram.” [456] “aquarum nempe convexitas.” Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 374. [457] “Quam quæ ad extremum mare a primis aquis.” I profess myself altogether unable to follow the author’s mode of reasoning in this paragraph, or to throw any light upon it. He would appear to be arguing in favour of the actual flatness of the surface of the ocean, whereas his previous remarks prove its convexity. [458] Alexandre remarks on this passage, “Nempe quod remotissimos etiam fontes alat oceanus. Sed omittit Plinius vaporationis intermedia ope hoc fieri.” Lemaire, i. 376. Aristotle has written at considerable length on the origin of springs, in his Meteor. i. 13. p. 543 _et seq._ He argues against the opinion of those who suppose that the water of springs is entirely derived from evaporation. Seneca’s account of the origin of springs is found in his Nat. Quæst. iii. 1. [459] The voyage which is here alluded to was probably that performed by Drusus; it is mentioned by Dio, lib. iv., Suetonius, Claud. § 1, Vel. Paterculus, ii. 106, and by Tacitus, Germ. § 34. [460] What is here spoken of we may presume to have been that part of the German Ocean which lies to the N.W. of Denmark; the term Scythian was applied by the ancients in so very general a way, as not to afford any indication of the exact district so designated. [461] “Sub eodem sidere;” “which lies under the same star.” [462] The ancients conceived the Caspian to be a gulf, connected with the northern ocean. Our author gives an account of it, vi. 15. [463] That is, of the Caspian Sea. [464] The remarks which our author makes upon the Palus Mæotis, in the different parts of his work, ii. 112 and vi. 7, appear so inconsistent with each other, that we must suppose he indiscriminately borrowed them from various writers, without comparing their accounts, or endeavouring to reconcile them to each other. Such inaccuracies may be thought almost to justify the censure of Alexandre, who styles our author, “indiligens plane veri et falsi compilator, et ubi dissentiunt auctores, nunquam aut raro sibi constans.” Lemaire, i. 378. [465] The son of Agrippa, whom Augustus adopted. Hardouin, in Lemaire, i. 378.