And on the Trojan Plain. 183 
that of its discharge at Rheteum is almost 
wholly irreconcilable with those details. 
To our first statement we apprehend little 
objection. With respect to our second, in 
rivers such as we have been describing, which 
during floods bring down great quantities of 
alluvial matter, and still more in the case of 
a river like the Mender, whose current, even 
in dry seasons, is composed of almost as much 
sand as water, the mouth obtrudes itself into 
the sea, and this sometimes to a very great 
distance beyond the natural line of coast in 
its vicinity. ‘The Missisippi is an extraordi- 
nary instance of this, and perhaps the Sca- 
mander little less so, for it has thrown up a 
neck of firm, solid, sand nearly a mile in 
length in the direction. of its course, that is 
from Sigeum into the Hellespont. At the 
extreme point of this projecting land is built 
the Turkish fort of Koumkala. The for- 
mation of this land, we conceive, can be 
accounted for only on the supposition, that the 
Scamander has flowed out there for a very 
long period. 
Perhaps, indeed, two thousand years may 
have been sufficient to produce this effect ; 
but if it be allowed that the embouchure of 
the river has not changed its place since the 
time of Strabo, there is no reason for main- 
