AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLE OF MAN. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Situation and Extent of the Isle of Man. Etymology of its Name. A Sketch of its Mineralogy. MAN is an island in the Irish Sea, distant from St. Bee's-head, in Cumberland, thirty nautical miles; from Burrow-head, in Scotland, sixteen miles; and from Strangford, in Ireland, twenty seven miles; the latitude of the middle of the island being fifty four degrees and sixteen minutes north. Its length rather exceeds thirty miles, and its mean breadth ten. Etymologists are not agreed respecting the derivation of its name. Bishop Wilson sup B posed it to be an abbreviation of Manning, its present Manks appellation, signifying, in that language, among; this isle being surrounded by other territories. Some suppose it to be derived from Mona, a word which they imagine, but without sufficient authority, to have been used by Cæsar to denote this island.* Mona and Monoida are classed by Ptolemy under the head of Irish islands: Pliny informs us that Mona and Monapia lie between Ireland and Britain: and the Mona of Tacitus is undoubtedly Anglesey; since he relates in his Annals the circumstance of the infantry of the army of Suetonius crossing from the main land in flatbottomed vessels; and of the horse partly fording the passage upon the shoals, and partly swimming over. And, again, we are informed, in the life of Agricola, that the army under the * Alterum (latus Britanniæ) vergit ad Hispaniam atque occidentem solem: qua ex parte est Hibernia, dimidio minor, ut æstimatur, quam Britannia: sed pari spatio transmissus, atque ex Gallia est in Britanniam. In hoc medio cursu est insula quæ appellatur Mona: complures præterea minores objectæ insulæ existimantur. Cæsar, de Bello Gallico, Lib. 5, Cap. 13. + Inter Hyberniam ac Britanniam, Mona, Monapia, Ricnea, Vectis, Silimnus, Andros. Plin. Lib. 4. Cap. 16. 2 |