Isle of Wight over the sands which were left dry at low water, as Diodorus says was the case. There canbe no doubt whatever that Ictis was one of the Scilly Isles, between which group and the extremity of Cornwall a long reef of rock still extends, part of which appears, from ancient documents, to have formed part of the main land at a comparatively recent date, and which there is no improbability in supposing may have afforded a dry passage the whole way in the times of which Diodorus writes. The encroachments of the sea have unquestionably effected extensive changes in that part of the British coast; and at a very remote period it is evident from present appearances, as well as from facts well attested by records and tradition, that the distance between the Scilly Isles and the main land must have been very much less than it now is. "It doth appear yet by good record," says a writer of the latter part of the sixteenth century, "that, whereas now there is a great distance between the Scyllan Isles and point of the Land's End, there was of late years to speak of scarcely a brook or drain of one fathom water between them, if so much, as by those evidences appeareth that are yet to be seen in the hands of the lord and chief owner of those isles."[1] Some of the islands may even have been submerged in the long course of years that has elapsed since the Ictis was the mart of the tin trade ; and the numerous group of islets which we now see may very possibly be only the relics left above water of the much smaller number of a considerable size, which are described as forming the ancient Cassiterides. It may be added that, if the south-west coast of Brittany, where the maritime nation of the Veneti dwelt, was, as seems most probable, the part of the continent from which the tin ships sailed, the Isle of Wight was as much out of their way as of that of the people of Bolerium. The shortest and most direct voyage for the merchants of Vannes was right across to the very point of the British coast where the tin mines were. It appears to us to admit of little doubt
- ↑ Harrison's Description of England. b. iii. c. 7.
