3" On Terrestrial or Epigeic Deposits 



effect produced not by a single movement, but by successive 

 upraisings, and, in short, the present epoch.* 



Before entering upon this new series of facts, we shall take 

 a glance at the aspect presented by Greece at the moment when 

 the deposition of our tertiary formations was suspended. 



The Peloponnesus, then, formed an island not so elevated as 

 at present, of which, a horizontal curve traced between 300 and 

 400 metres above the level of the sea, might almost represent an 

 outline. Abrupt mountains descended every where into the sea, 

 like the rocks on the eastern coasts of Laconia and a part of 

 Argolis, without the existence of any intermediate plain or shore. 



It varied only in a few localities of minor extent, such as the 

 bottom of the gulf occupied at present by the Elis, where the 

 ancient tertiary formation (the gompholites) already raised up, 

 formed the high table-land of Mount Pholoe, and bordered the 

 base of the mountains. Almost the whole of the Elis was under 

 water. Messenia was in the same state, the gulf of which ex- 

 tended to the base of Mount Lycacus, between the chain of the 

 Taygetus and an archipelago, of which the mountains of Mali, 

 between Arcadia and Messenia, those of Lycodimo or Tima- 

 thias, and the summits of Cape Gallo, formed the three princi- 

 pal islands. 



The Gulf of Laconia extended between two long narrow 

 chains, as far as the sources of the Eurotas, and was united to- 

 wards the north by a succession of lakes or depressions. In 

 fact, those which we see at present (the basins of Tripolitzo, 

 Orchomenus, and Phonia), chiefly formed by the crossing of 

 the Pindk and Achaic, upraisings anterior to the sub-appenine 

 deposit, ought to exist since that time in shapes but little altered. 



The Gulf of Lepanto, bounded by two high chains flanked 

 to the extent of 1800 metres by dislocated strata of gompho- 

 lite, already separated Hellas from the Morea, and joined the 

 Egean Sea by two outlets, north and south of the mountains of 

 Megaris. 



At that time the Archipelago was studded with almost all its 

 islands ; some of them, however, like the low isles adjoining the 



• The present epoch is with us the periode jovieniie of M. Brongniart, ex- 

 cept that we do not assign fixed limits to it. It commences at the variable 

 period, when the surface and lineaments of a country obtained the form and. 

 figure which we at present observe. 



