484 COSMOS. 



into the peninsula of Asia Minor; the number of islands in the 

 Egean Sea, which have served as a means for facilitating the 

 spread of civilisation ; * and the fissure between Arabia, Egypt, 

 and Abyssinia, through which the great Indian Ocean pene- 

 trates under the name of the Arabian Gulf or the Red Sea, 

 and which is separated by a narrow isthmus from the Delta 

 of the Nile, and the south-eastern coasts of the Mediterra- 

 nean. By means of all these geographical relations, the influ- 

 ence cf the sea as a connecting element was speedily mani- 

 fested in the growing power of the Phoenicians, and subse- 

 quently in that of the Hellenic nations, and in the rapid 

 extension of the .sphere of general ideas. Civilisation in its 

 early seats in Egypt, on the Euphrates, and the Tigris, in 

 Indian Pentapotamia and China, had been limited to lands 

 rich in navigable rivers; the case was different, however, in 

 Phoenicia and Hellas. The active life of the Greeks, espe- 

 cially of the Ionian race, and their early predilection for 

 maritime expeditions, found a rich field for its development in 

 the remarkable configuration of the Mediterranean, and in its 

 relative position to the oceans situated to the south and west. 

 The existence of the Arabian Gulf as the result of the 

 irruption of the Indian Ocean through the straits of Bab-el- 

 Mandeb belongs to a series of great physical phenomena, 

 which could alone have been revealed to us by modern 

 geognosy. The European continent has its main axis directed 

 from north-east to south-west ; but almost at right angles to 

 this direction, there is a system of fissures, which have given 

 occasion partly to a penetration of sea- water, and partly to the 

 elevation of parallel mountain chains. This inverse line of 

 strike directed from the south-east to the north-west is discern- 

 ible from the Indian Ocean to the efflux of the Elb? in Northern 

 Germany; in the Red Sea, the southern part of which is in- 

 closed on both sides by volcanic rocks ; in the Persian Gulf, 

 with the deep valleys of the double streams of the Euphrates 

 and the Tigris ; in the Zagros chain in Luristan ; in the moun- 

 tain chains of Hellas and in the neighbouring islands of the 

 Archipelago, and, lastly, in the Adriatic Sea, and the Dalma- 

 tian calcareous Alps. The intersection f of these two systems 



* Naxos, by Ernst Curtius, 1846, s. 11; Droysen, Oescliichte der 

 Bildung des liellenistischen Staatensy stems, 1843, s. 4-9. 

 t Leopold von Buch, Ueber die geognostischen System 

 d,a. xi.; Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 284-286. 



