280 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



Lybia) may once have stood on the sea-shore, and causes such as 

 these may explain why it is now far inland. This, Strato thought, 

 might account for the celebrity of the Oracle, which would be less 

 surprising if it had been on the sea-shore; whereas its great distance 

 from the coast made its present renown inexplicable. Egypt, too, 

 had been formerly overflowed by the sea as far as the marshes of 

 Pelusium, Mount Casius, and Lake Serbonis; for, on digging be- 

 neath the surface, beds of sea-sand and shells are found; showing 

 that the country was formerly overflowed, and the whole district 

 round Mount Casius and Gerrha was a marshy sea which joined the 

 gulf of the Red Sea. When our Sea (the Mediterranean) retreated, 

 the land was uncovered ; still, however, leaving the Lake of Serbo- 

 nis : subsequently, this lake also broke through its bounds and the 

 water flowed off, so that the lake became a swamp. The banks of 

 Lake Moeris are also more like sea than river banks." An erro- 

 neously corrected reading introduced by Grosskurd on account of a 

 passage in Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 809, Cas., gives instead of Moeris 

 " the Lake Halmyris :" but this latter lake was situated not far from 

 the mouth of the Danube. 



The sluice- theory of Strato led Eratosthenes of Cyrene (the most 

 celebrated of the series of librarians of Alexandria, but less happy 

 than Archimedes in writing on floating bodies) to examine the pro- 

 blem of the equality of level of all external seas, i. e. seas sur- 

 rounding the Continents. (Strabo, lib. i. pp. 5156 ; lib. ii. p. 104, 

 Casaub.) The varied outlines of the northern shores of the Medi- 

 terranean, and the articulated form of the peninsulas and islands, 

 had given occasion to the geognostical myth of the ancient land of 

 Lyctonia. The supposed mode of origin of the smaller Syrtis and 

 of the Triton Lake (Diod. iii. 53-55), as well as that of the whole 

 Western Atlas (Maximus Tyrius, viii. 7), was drawn in to form part 

 of an imaginary scheme of igneous eruptions and earthquakes. (See 

 my Examen crit. de Phist. de la Geographic, vol. i. p. 179 j t. iii. 

 p. 136.) I have recently touched .more in detail on this subject 

 (Cosmos, bd. ii. s. 153; Engl. ed. pp. 118-119) in a passage which 

 I permit myself to subjoin : 



"A more richly varied and broken outline gives to the northern 

 shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over the southern or Ly- 



