ILLUSTRATIONS (8). SAMOTHRACTAN TRADITIONS. 265 



bodies.* The articulation of the northern coasts of the Me- 

 diterranean as well as the form of its peninsulas and islands 

 had given origin to the geognostic myth of the ancient land 

 of Lyctonia. The origin of the lesser Syrtis, of the Triton 

 Lake*,f and of the whole of Western Atlas, ;[ had been em- 

 bodied in an imaginary scheme of fire-eruptions and earth- 

 quakes^ I have recently entered more fully into this ques- 

 tion. || in a passage with which I would be allowed to close 

 this note : 



"The northern shore of the Mediterranean possesses the 

 advantage of being more richly and variously articulated 

 than the southern or Lybian shore, and this was, according 

 to Strabo, already noticed by Eratosthenes. Here we find 

 three peninsulas, the Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, 

 which, owing to their various and deeply indented contour, 

 form, together with the neighbouring islands and the oppo- 

 site coasts, many straits and isthmuses. Such a configuration 

 of continents and of islands that have been partly severed 

 and partly upheaved by volcanic agency in rows, as if over far- 

 extending fissures, early led to geognostic views regard- 

 ing eruptions, terrestrial revolutions, and outpourings of the 

 swollen higher seas into those below them. The Euxine, 

 the Dardanelles, the Straits of Gades, and the Mediterranean 

 with its numerous islands, were well fitted to originate 

 such a system of sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who pro- 

 bably lived in the Christian era, has interwoven old mythical 

 narrations in his composition. He sings of the division of 

 the ancient Lyctonia into separate islands, ' when the dark- 

 haired Poseidon in anger with Father Kronion struck Lyctonia 

 with the golden trident.' Similar fancies, which may often 

 certainly have sprung from an imperfect knowledge of geo- 

 graphical relations, were frequently elaborated in the erudite 

 Alexandrian school, which was so devoted to everything con- 

 nected with antiquity. Whether the myth of the breaking 

 up of Atlantis be a vague and western reflection of that of 



* Strabo, lib. i. p. 51 — 56, lib. ii. p. 104. Casaub. 

 f Diod. iii. 53— 55. 

 J Maximus Tyrius, viii. 7. 



§ Compare my Examen critique de I'hist. de la Geograplue, t. i. 

 p. 179, t. iii. p. 136. 



|| Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 481. (Bohn's edition). 



