300 ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 
There seems, then, as little ground for sup- 
posing, that the Ictis of Diodorus is the small 
rocky island, from which St. Michael’s Mount 
rises, as that it is the Isle of Wight; and if the 
accuracy of the Greek historian’s description is 
to be tested, solely by the present outline of the 
Cornish coast, the attempt to reconcile that 
description with existing appearances must be 
abandoned as hopeless. But no one, who has 
visited Cornwall with the eye of a geologist, can 
be a stranger to the fact, that the sea, which 
washes its coast, presents, in various directions, 
evidences of recent changes, which have produced 
an amazing influence on its hydrographical char- 
acter: and who will venture dogmatically to 
assert, that, among these changes, none can be 
found, which shall tend to establish the credibility 
of Diodorus’s narrative? It has appeared to me, 
while engaged in considering this subject, that 
the difficulties, presented by the language of 
Diodorus, are not to be surmounted, by taking 
into consideration merely the present outlines of 
the Cornish coast; but by tracing back those 
changes, which history has recorded, or which 
present appearances render probable, or of which 
tradition at least has preserved some notice, among 
a population remarkably tenacious of the memory 
