A visit to Madeira in the winter 1880-81: two lectures delivered before the members of the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 17th and 19th of October, 1881 / by Dennis Embleton.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A visit to Madeira in the winter 1880-81: two lectures delivered before the members of the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 17th and 19th of October, 1881 / by Dennis Embleton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    15/100 page 11
    e Insulae urpurariae. Africa, along which the ancient mariners crept cautiously, hugging the shore from a superstitious dread of the, to them, unknown and illimitable Atlantic. The description of the Insulae Fortunatae by Plutarch, in his “Life of Sertorius,” suits the Canaries, but does not apply to Madeira. He says, “ Rain seldom falls there, and when it does it falls moderately, but they have soft breezes which scatter such rich dews that the soil is not only good for sowing and planting, but spontaneously produces the most excellent fruits, and those in such abundance that the inhabitants have nothing more to do than to indulge themselves in the enjoyment of ease.” Now, during last winter, no rain had fallen in the Canaries for five or six months, and water had become so scarce that the inhabitants were compelled to import it in ships to keep themselves and their cattle alive. This fact seems to corroborate the account of Plutarch as regards the paucity of rain-fall, and it is known that at the present day, the climate of the Canaries is a dry one generally. Again, the Fortunate Islands, when known to the dwellers around the Mediterranean, were inhabited by the Guanches, and were cultivated and productive. When Madeira was first discovered there were found no traces of any former occupation by man, the whole island was covered with very ancient forest down to the sea and uncultivated, and there has been no report of the golden apples having been found there. Owing to its being a lofty, mountainous, forest-covered island, rains would be much more copious in ancient times than they are at the present day when the forest is comparatively trifling. At present there are rather over 30 inches of rain annually. Madeira could never have been dry at the beginning of the Christian era, like the Canaries. That Madeira and Porto Sancto were the Insulae Purpurariae, in which Juba, king of Mauritania, established dye-works of Getulian purple, is extremely doubtful, though this is asserted by the celebrated geographer Cellarius. Alexander Von Humboldt is of the same opinion, as appears from the following passage in his Cosmos:—“ As Plutarch says that Sertorius, when driven away from Spain, wished to save himself and his 1
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3