[35] It has been alleged as a proof that the Phœnicians really knew of the Sargasso Sea that Sargasso weed is mentioned by Theophrastus [“Historia Plantarum,” iv. 6, 4], but I have not been able to find anything of the sort in this author; nor can I find any statement in Aristotle [Miral. Auscult.] which can be thus interpreted, as some have thought.
[36] Lycaon was the father of Callisto, and the latter became a she-bear and was placed among the stars as the constellation of the Great Bear. At the axis of Lycaon means, therefore, in the north.
[37] As to Pytheas, see in particular: Müllenhoff, 1870, pp. 211 f.; Berger, iii., 1891, pp. 1 f.; Hergt, 1893; Markham, 1893; Ahlenius, 1894; Matthias, 1901; Kähler, 1903; Detlefsen, 1904; Callegari, 1904; Mair, 1906.
[38] The principal authorities on Pytheas are: Strabo (1st century A.D.), who did not know his original works, but quotes for the most part from Polybius (2nd century B.C.), who was very hostile to Pytheas, and from Erastosthenes, Hipparchus, and Timæus. Pliny has derived much information from Pytheas, though he does not know him directly, but chiefly through Timæus, Isidorus of Charax, who again knew him through Erastosthenes, &c. Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.) knows him chiefly through Timæus. Geminus of Rhodes (1st century B.C.), who has a quotation from him, possibly knew his original work, “On the Ocean,” but he may have quoted from Crates of Mallus. Solinus (3rd century A.D.), who has much information about Pytheas, knows him chiefly through Pliny and Timæus. Further second-hand quotations and pieces of information derived from Pytheas occur in Pomponius Mela (1st century A.D.), Cleomedes (2nd century A.D.), Ptolemy (3rd century A.D.), Agathemerus (3rd century A.D.), scholiasts on Apollonius of Rhodes, Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century A.D.), Orosius (5th century A.D.), Isidorus Hispaliensis (7th century A.D.), and others.
[39] A “gnomon” was the pillar or projection which cast the shadow on the various Greek forms of sun-dial. In the case mentioned above the gnomon was a vertical column raised on a plane. By measuring the length of the shadow at the solstice, Pytheas found that it was 41⅘ : 120 or 209⁄600 the height of the column. According to that the altitude of the sun was 70° 47′ 50″. From this must be deducted the obliquity of the ecliptic, which was at that time 23° 44′ 40″, and the semi-diameter of the sun (16′), as the shadow is not determined by the sun’s centre but by its upper edge, besides the refraction, which however is unimportant. When the equatorial altitude thus arrived at is deducted from 90°, we get the latitude of Massalia as 43° 13′ N. The new observatory of Marseilles is at 43° 18′ 19″; but it lies some distance to the north of the ancient city, where Pytheas’s gnomon probably stood in the market-place. It will be seen that this is an accuracy of measurement which was not surpassed until very much later times.
[40] It has been supposed that these three stars were β of the Little Bear, α and κ of Draco. The pole was at that time far from the present pole-star, and nearer to β of the Little Bear.
[41] Both “gnomon” and “polus” are mentioned as early as Herodotus; and Athenæus [v. 42] describes the polus in the library on board the ship “Hiero” which was built by Archimedes.
[42] It is not probable that Pytheas divided the earth’s circumference into degrees. Even Eratosthenes (275-194 B.C.) still divided the circumference of the earth into sixty parts, each equal to 4200 stadia, and the division into degrees was first universally employed by Hipparchus. But Aristarchus of Samos, and perhaps even Thales, had already learnt that the sun’s diameter was 2 × 360 or 720 times contained in the circle described by them. It is possible that they originally had this from the Chaldæans.
[43] When it is brought forward as a proof of Pytheas having made such angle-measurements [cf. Mair, 1906, p. 28], that Hipparchus is said to have given the sun’s height (in cubits) above the horizon at the winter solstice for three different places in north-west Europe [cf. Strabo, ii. 75], it must be remembered that if these altitudes were direct measurements by Pytheas himself, he must have been at each of these three places at the winter solstice, that is to say, in three different winters, where he found that in one place the sun stood six cubits, in another four cubits, and in the third less than three cubits above the horizon. This is improbable, and it is more reasonable to suppose that these altitudes are the result of calculations either by Pytheas himself or by Hipparchus from his data.
[44] In Diodorus it is called Orkan, but this may be the accusative of Orkas, as in later writers, also in Ptolemy (Müllenhoff, 1870, p. 377, thinks that Orkan is the real form), and from which the name Orcades has been formed for the group of islands immediately to the north. Orkneyar or Orkneys certainly comes from the same word, which must presumably be of Celtic origin. P. A. Munch [1852, pp. 44-46] thought that the name came from the Gaelic word “orc” for the grampus (the specific name of which in Latin was therefore “Delphinus orca,” now called “Orca gladiator”). This species of whale is common on the coasts of Norway, the Shetlands and Orkneys, the Færoes and farther west. It usually swims in schools, and is the great whale’s deadliest enemy, attacking it in numbers and cutting blubber out of its sides. The Eskimo in Greenland assert that it is sometimes dangerous to kayaks; I myself have only once seen a grampus attack a boat; but in any case it is a species which easily draws attention to itself wherever it appears.