ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 279 



natiirlichen Veranderungen der Erdoberflache, th. i. 1822, s. 105- 

 162; and in Creuzer's Symbolik, 2te Aufl. th. ii. s. 285, 318, 

 and 361. A reflex, as it were, of the traditions of Samothrace 

 appears in the " Sluice theory" of Strato of Lampsacus, according 

 to which the swelling of the waters of the Euxine first opened 

 the passage of the Dardanelles, and afterwards caused the outlet 

 through the pillars of Hercules. Strabo has preserved to us, in the 

 first book of his G-eography, among critical extracts from the works 

 of Eratosthenes, a remarkable fragment of the lost writings of 

 Strato, presenting views which extend to almost the entire circum- 

 ference of the Mediterranean. 



" Strato of Lampsacus," says Strabo (lib. i. pp. 49 and 50, 

 Casaub.), "is even more disposed than the Lydian Xanthus" (who 

 had described impressions of shells at a distance from the sea) " to 

 expound the causes of the things which we see. He asserts that 

 the Euxine had formerly no outlet at Byzantium ; but the sea, be- 

 coming swollen by the rivers which ran into it, had by its pressure 

 opened the passage through which the waters flow into the Propontis 

 and the Hellespont. He also says that the same thing has happened 

 to our Sea (the Mediterranean);" " for here, too, when the sea had 

 become swollen by the rivers (which in flowing into it had left dry 

 their marshy banks), it forced for itself a passage through the isth- 

 mus of land connecting the Pillars. The proofs which Strato gives 

 of this are, first, that there is still a bank under water running from 

 Europe to Libya, showing that the outer and inner seas were for- 

 merly divided; and next that the Euxine is the shallowest, the 

 Cretan, Sicilian, and Sardoic Seas being on the contrary very deep ; 

 the reason being that the Euxine has been filled with mud by the 

 many and large rivers flowing into it from the north, while the other 

 seas continued deep. The Euxine is also the freshest, and the waters 

 flow towards the parts where the bottom of the sea is lowest. Hence 

 he inferred that the whole of the Euxine would finally be choked 

 with mud if the rivers were to continue to flow into it: and this is 

 already in some degree the case on the west side of the Euxine to- 

 wards Salmydessus (the Thraciaa Apollonia), and at what are called 

 by mariners the " Breasts" off the mouth of the Ister and along the 

 shore of the Scythian Desert. Perhaps the Temple of Ammon (in 



