THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT CRETE 19 



all far removed from each other and all to the south- 

 east of Europe, the reader would do well to glance at 

 a map of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. It is 

 quite clear that if, at the time of the Ice Age, the 

 eastern end of the Mediterranean had been dry land, 

 it would have been the most obvious and natural line 

 of retreat for the " refugees " from Europe. Now, 

 geologists have known for the last three decades that 

 at least a large part of this end of the Mediterranean 

 was dry land even at the close of the Ice Age. 

 Professor Suess shows, in his famous geological work 

 The Face of the Earth, that a very great deal of land 

 has foundered in the Eastern Mediterranean. 



Mr. Wells mentions in his History this swamping 

 of part of the Eastern Mediterranean, and thinks that 

 it was caused by the melting of the vast masses of ice 

 at the close of the Ice Age. The level of the Atlantic 

 Ocean would be considerably raised, he suggests, and 

 it would burst through the rocky barrier (now the 

 open Straits of Gibraltar) to the south of Spain and 

 greatly extend the Mediterranean Sea. I cannot 

 follow this speculation very confidently, but it is, at 

 all events, clear from the evidence*, in Professor 

 Suess's book that a great deal of land foundered in 

 the region of the Eastern Mediterranean after the 

 close of the Ice Age. Hence during the last and 

 most intense phase of the Ice Age there was much 

 more land in this region. After carefully studying 

 the geological indications of subsidence of land, I 

 should say that there was continuous land, from 

 Greece to Asia Minor and Palestine, if not to Egypt ; 

 and that probably a good deal of the Adriatic Sea 

 was dry land. 



It is hardly necessary to explain why we pay such 



