scription of it, pages 307, 308. He reckons it 1,000 stadia in length, which is much too long: but he seems very exact in representing it to be only two stadia in breadth, at the widest part; and to extend from east to west. How this remarkable tract came to be named from Achilles, is not told 3.

Baron Tott passed near, if not through, a part of it, in his way from Otchakow to Perekop, at the time when he describes the naked plains, little elevated above the margin of the sea. By appearances,

it has been in part formed of alluvions of the Borysthenes and its branches; of which the Hypacyris, which bounded it on the east, was probably one.

II. The Scythian HUSBANDMEN, or PLOUGHING Scythians; (called also Borysthenitæ, and Olbiopolitæ ;) were situated adjacent to the Borysthenes ; Melpom. 18, 53, 54. They extended from eleven to twelve journeys up the river, from Hylæa; particularly on the east side and to the distance of three journies eastward from the river; where they were bounded by the Panticapes. This last river, however, cannot be recognized in modern geography, since no river is known to pass through the site of Hylæa, in its way to the Borysthenes, as described in Melpom. 54. We have already hazarded a con

3 From these descriptions one may collect, that they had seen a delineation of the ground: and indeed many ancient notices plainly shew that the ancients were in the habit of making maps and plans; although these have not, like their books, generally reached us; which may be owing in part, to there having been fewer copies made, and that they were, perhaps, more subject to accident, than books.

jecture, that this, as well as the other rivers of this quarter, were branches of the Borysthenes: some of which, probably, have been since filled up by the depositions of its waters.

It would appear from Melpom. 53, that the Borysthenitæ dwelt also on the west side of the Borysthenes, near its mouth, as far as the influx of the Hypanis (Bog).

III. The SCYTHIAN NOMADES; Melp. 19, 55, 56. These lived to the eastward of the Husbandmen, and beyond the river Panticapes, said above to pass at the distance of three journies to the eastward of the Borysthenes. These Nomades are said to inhabit a district of 14 journies towards the east, and as far as the river Gerrhus; but the number 14 is an error, at all events: first, because the Royal Scythians, who are divided from the former by the river Gerrhus, join southward to the district of Taurica (Krimea); Melpom. 20; which begins at the Gulf of Carcinitis, Pliny, lib. iv. c. 12; and therefore cannot be many journies removed from the Borysthenes. Secondly, because the Hypacyris, which bounds Hylæa on the east, passed through the midst of the Nomades, in its way to Carcinitis; Melpom. 55. Neither of these circumstances could have taken

4

Pliny, lib. iv. c. 12, agrees with Herodotus, that the Panticapes divides the Nomades, from the Husbandmen, Scythians. Ptolemy's Hypanis, Europa, viii. on the east of the Borysthenes, appears to occupy the place of this Panticapes.

It is difficult to judge what the course of the Panticapes was, and where it joined the Borysthenes, but there can be little doubt, as has been said, that it was one of its branches.

place, had the Nomades extended 14 journies to the eastward of the Husbandmen; that is, 17 to the east of the Borysthenes. Moreover, it would not have left room for the Royal Scythians, who are said to be the most numerous tribe of Scythians; Melp. 205.

Whether it be that Herodotus was not correctly informed, or that the rivers have undergone a change in their courses, during the long interval of near 23 centuries, it is certain that the modern geography of the country, set forth by its present possessors, the Russians, does not present any such series of rivers as the Panticapes, the Hypacyris, and the Gerrhus, in the like positions, and under the like circumstances. But it is very true, that the maps which enter most into the detail of this country, represent the tract in which we should look for

5

Pliny has a river Pacyris, which must be taken for the Hypacyris, as he conducts it into the Gulf of Carcinitis; lib. iv. c. 12. Ptolemy, Europ. viii. names the river, as well as the gulf which receives it, Carcinitis: but places the town Pasiris on its banks.

Pliny, moreover, speaks in the same place of a river Hypanis, which passes between Hylaa and the Nomadic Scythians, and afterwards discharges itself into Coretus, a gulf of the Palus Mæotis: probably intended for the NW bay of it, as the lake of Buges is said to join it: for this lake appears in Ptolemy to answer to the Muddy Lake, or Siwasch, which shuts up the Krimea towards the north. We conceive there is an error in Pliny respecting this Hypanis, and its connection with the Coretus: and that, as it passes between the Hylæans and Nomades, that the Hypacyris is really intended. So that he had probably confounded Hypanis, Hypacyris, and Pacyris together, as well as Carcinitis and Coretus.

these rivers to be full of stagnant lakes and pools, in which the courses of creeks terminate from the north; so that it may be suspected that the Borysthenes, and its branches, have wandered through this space in different ages of the world; and, in consequence, may have at times gained the sea by different mouths, and occasionally by more than one at the same period of time. There is a very strong circumstance mentioned by Pliny, lib. iv. c. 12, where, after saying that the Taurican Chersonesus begins at Carcinus, he proceeds to say, that "it was anciently environed by the sea, in the part where the ground is flat," which flat country seems evidently to be the tract above mentioned, on the north of, and adjacent to, the Krimea. And indeed, reasoning from analogy, nothing is more likely than that a great change should have taken place in the course of so vast and so rapid a river as the Borysthenes, and which also flows through a deep alluvial country. It may be observed on the Map, what a vast elbow it makes to the east, in the lower part of its course. Hence, considering other circumstances, it is probable that at some former period it ran straight from the Cataracts into the western part of the Mæotis; and that, having in a course of ages raised the ground too high to make its way through, it sought a lower bed in the west, but left a branch in the former one (which it might do, although its bed would not contain the whole river); and this branch may have been the Gerrhus, which, Herodotus says, was really an emanation of the Borysthenes. Melpom. 56. Instances of such changes

are by no means unfrequent in other places; and it is pretty certain that the Deltas of all rivers are formed in this way".

It may be added, that the reports of those who have visited that country in latter times, confirm in the strongest manner, the idea, not only of a change of course of the Borysthenes and Dneister, but of a still greater change in the face of the country between the Borysthenes and the sea; in effect, giving strength to an opinion that the Peninsula of the Krimea from the original state of an island, has been joined to the main land, either by a general subsidence of the level of the Euxine, or by the depositions of the Borysthenes; or possibly, by both these causes combined".

Much light is thrown on these subjects in a series of Maps of the Rhine, by M. Wiebeking of Darmstadt; a part of which were published in 1796, and seem to be the most useful of the kind that have appeared. In these, the changes in the course of the river are traced with precision, and the dates marked; and the works erected in certain parts, to prevent the destructive effects of the stream, are described. They cannot but be highly useful to those whose business requires that they should be well versed in the nature of river currents and alluvions.

In the Appendix to the Memoir of the Map of Hindoostan, 1793, there will also be found, under article Ganges, many remarks of the above kind, all tending to prove the vast and rapid changes that take place in the beds of rivers, as well as the rapid increase of alluvions.

It has so often happened that islands have been joined to the sea by alluvions, as well of the sea, as of rivers, that the former cause alone is sufficient to produce the effect. Herodotus himself gives one instance in the junction of one half of the Echi