Note 2483 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

This is a mistake. It is only forty miles in length. From Lieut. Smith (Journal of Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. vii. p. 65) we learn that its average breadth is about four miles; consequently Pliny’s statement as to its circumference must be greatly exaggerated. Juvenal, Sat. x. l. 174, mentions the story of the canal as a specimen of Greek falsehood; but distinct traces have survived, to be seen by modern travellers, all the way from the Gulf of Monte Santo to the Bay of Erso in the Gulf of Contessa, except about 200 yards in the middle, which has been probably filled up.