252 SEE— TEMPERATURE, SECULAR COOLING [April 20, 



with fossil shells, as if this whole district had formerly been under water, 

 and as if the whole region about Casium and Gerrha had been shallo\vs reach- 

 ing to the Arabian Gulf. The sea afterwards receding left the land un- 

 covered, and the Lake Sirbonis remained, which having afterwards forced 

 itself a passage, became a marsh. In like manner the borders of the Lake 

 Maris resemble a sea-beach rather than the banks of a river. Every one 

 will admit that formerly at various periods a great portion of the mainland 

 has been covered and again left bare by the sea. Likewise that the land now 

 covered by the sea is not all on the same level, any more than that whereon 

 we dwell, which is now uncovered and has experienced so many changes, as 

 Eratosthenes has observed. Consequently in the reasoning of Xanthus there 

 does not appear to be anything out of place. 



" In regard to Strato, however, we must remark that, leaving out of the 

 question the many arguments he has properly stated, some of those which 

 he has brought forward are quite inadmissible. For first he is inaccurate 

 in stating that the beds of the interior and the exterior seas have not the same 

 level, and that the depth of the two seas is different; whereas the cause why 

 the sea is at one time raised, at another depressed, that it inundates certain 

 places and again retreats, is not that the beds have different levels, some 

 higher and some lower, but simply this, that the same beds are at one time 

 raised, at another depressed, causing the sea to rise or subside with them; 

 for having risen they cause an inundation, and when they subside the waters 

 return to their former places. For if it is so, an inundation will of course 

 accompany every sudden increase of the waters of the sea, (as in the spring 

 tides) or the periodical swelling of rivers, in the one instance the waters 

 being brought together from distant parts of the ocean, in the other, their 

 volume being increased. But the rising of the rivers are not violent and 

 sudden, nor do the tides continue any length of time, nor occur irregularly; 

 nor yet along the coast of our sea do they cause inundations nor anywhere 

 else. Consequently we must seek for an explanation of the cause either 

 in the stratum composing the bed of the sea, or in that which is overflowed; 

 we prefer to look for it in the former, since by reason of its humidity it is 

 more liable to shiftings and sudden changes of position, and we shall find 

 that in these matters the wind is the great agent after all. But, I repeat it, 

 the immediate cause of these phenomena, is not in the fact of one part of 

 the bed of the ocean being higher or lower than another, but in the upheaving 

 or depression of the strata on which the waters rest. Strato's hypothesis 

 evidently originated in the belief that that which occurs in rivers is also the 

 case in regard to the sea ; viz. that there is a flow of water from the 

 higher places." 



Again in Chap. III., section 10 : 



" Some, however, may be disinclined to admit this explanation, and 

 would rather have proof from things more manifest to the senses, and which 

 seem to meet us at every turn. Now deluges, earthquakes, eruptions of wind, 

 and risings in the bed of the sea, these things cause the rising of the ocean, 

 as sinking of the bottom causes it to become lower. It is not the case that 

 small volcanic or other islands can be raised up from the sea, and not large 



