PHYSICAL. CUNTEMPLATION OF THK UNIVERSE. 145 



the same direction of the course on which the early PhoEnician 

 navigators had adventured. 



Before the migrations of the Dorians and Cohans, the Bceo- 

 tian Orchomenus, near the eastern extremity of the Lake of 

 Copais, wsis already a rich commercial city of the Minyans. 

 The Argonautic expedition began at lolcus, the principal seat 

 of the Thessalian Minyans, on the Pagassean Gulf. The 

 locality of the myth, considered with respect to the aim of the 

 undertaking, after having been variously modified* at different 

 times, was finally associated with the mouth of the Phasis 

 (Rion), and with Colchis, a seat of ancient civilization, instead 

 of with the uncertain and remote land of ^a. The expedi- 

 tions of the Milesians and their numerous colonial cities on 

 the Euxine enabled them to obtain a more exact knowledge 

 of the eastern and northern limits of that sea, and thus gave 

 a more definite outline to the geographical portion of the myth. 

 A number of important new views was thus simultaneously 

 opened. The Caspian had long been known only on its west- 

 ern coast ; and even Hecatseus regarded this shore as the west- 

 ern boundary of the encircling Eastern Ocean. t The father 

 of history was the first who taught that the Caspian Sea was 

 a basin closed on all sides, a fact which, after him, was again 

 contested, for six centuries, until the time of Ptolemy. 



* Otfried Miiller, Minyer, s. 247, 254, nnd 274. Homer was nni ac- 

 quainted with the Phasis, or with Colchis, or with tlie Fuiars of Her- 

 cules ; but the Phasis is named by Hesiod. The mythical traditions con- 

 cerning the i-eturu of the Argonauts thx'ough the Phasis into the Eastern 

 Ocean, and across the " double" Triton Lake, formed either by the 

 conjectured bifurcation of the Ister, or by volcanic earthquakes {Asie 

 Centrale, t. i., p. 179 ; t. iii., p. 135-137 ; Otfr. Miiller, Minyer, s. 357), 

 are especially important in arriving at a knowledge of the earliest views 

 regarding the form of the continents. The geographical phantasies of 

 Peisandros, Timagetus, and Apollonius of Rhodes were continued until 

 late in the Middle Ages, and showed themselves sometimes as bewilder- 

 ing and deterring obstacles, and sometimes as stimulating incitements 

 to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity on later times, when 

 men suffered themselves to be led more by opinions than by actual ob- 

 servations, has not been hitherto sufficiently considered in the history 

 of geography. My object is not merely to present bibliographical 

 sources from the literature of different nations for the elucidation of the 

 facts advanced in the text, but also to introduce into these notes, which 

 permit of greater freedom, such abundant materials for reflection as I 

 have been able to derive from my own experience and from long-con- 

 tinued literary studies. 



t HecalfEi, Fragm., ed. Klausen, p. 39, 92, 98, and 119. See, also, 

 my investigations on the history of the geography of the Caspian Sea, 

 from Herodotus down to the Arabian El-Istachri, Edrisi, and Ibn-el« 

 Vardi, on the Sea of Aral, and on the bifurcation of the Oxus and the 

 Aiaxes, in my Asie Centrale. t. ii.. p. 1 62-2.^7 



Vol. II.— G 



