Ow a vecent bistt to the Dalwvattan Coast: 
with some remarks on the physical 
History of the sMedttervancan, 
By Horace T. Brown, F.R.S. 
Read before the Society, February 17th, 1893. 
[CONDENSED. ] 
HEN we have clearly before our minds the important 
fact that the recent history of the Mediterranean is in 
reality the history of civilization itself, it cannot cer- 
tainly be without interest to reflect upon the remote 
physical causes which have given rise to this great inland sea. 
The Mediterranean fills part of a great depression in the earth’s 
surface which runs almost in an east and west direction through 
sixty-five degrees of longitude, or nearly one-sixth of a great circle. 
This depression extends with varying width from some distance to 
the west of the Straits of Gibraltar nearly to the Mongolian fron- 
tier, a distance of over four thousand miles. A portion only of 
this depression is filled by the waters of the Mediterranean, its 
eastward prolongation including in its deepest parts the Caspian Sea, 
the Sea of Aral, and Lake Balkhash. This great natural depres- 
sion does not, it is almost needless to say, owe its origin to 
erosion, as do most of the smaller depressions or valleys on the 
earth’s surface, but is an expression of great earth movements 
which originated in very remote geological times. It is the trough 
or synclinal hollow of a gigantic fold in the earth’s surface, and 
Owes its origin, in part at least, to that constant attempt of the 
consolidated earth-crust to accommodate and adapt itself to the 
