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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6)

Note 2883 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

John Bostock translation

With reference to these divisions of land and sea, a subject which is involved in the greatest obscurity, Parisot states it as his opinion that the Amalchian or Icy Sea is that portion of the Baltic which extends from Cape Rutt to Cape Grinea, while on the other hand the Cronian Sea comprehends all the gulfs which lie to the east of Cape Rutt, such as the Haff, the gulfs of Stettin and Danzic, the Frisch-Haff, and the Kurisch-Haff. He also thinks that the name of ‘Cronian’ originally belonged only to that portion of the Baltic which washes the coast of Courland, but that travellers gradually applied the term to the whole of the sea. He is also of opinion that the word “Cronium” owes its origin to the Teutonic and Danish adjective groen or “green.” The extreme verdure which characterizes the islands of the Danish archipelago has given to the piece of water which separates the islands of Falster and Moen the name of Groensund, and it is far from improbable that the same epithet was given to the Pomeranian and Prussian Seas, which the Romans would be not unlikely to call ‘Gronium’ or ‘Cronium fretum,’ or ‘Cronium mare.’ In the name ‘Parapanisus’ he also discovers a resemblance to that of modern Pomerania.

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